Early Days With Your Baby
Congratulations, your baby is here and you are a parent!

You are probably learning fast that this beautiful new creature doesn’t come with any instructions and you may be feeling more than a little lost.

There are no easy solutions but it can be helpful to:

• Trust your instincts - cuddle, feed and carry your new baby to soothe and comfort. You will not be spoiling him, you will not be making a rod for your own back - you will be providing love, comfort and security.
• Give yourself time to get to know your baby and time to adjust to your new life. You both need time to get to know each other, so you can get used to how your baby is communicating with you through sounds, cries, movement and behaviour.
• Accept or ask for help - you do not need to be superwoman and feel that you need to do it all. If you need help or if you feel that you need a break for an hour or so – ask! You have not failed just because you need a hand.
• Support each other, if you part of a couple - when you are both tired, it is easy to squabble and to compare how tired you are or how much work each other has to do. Communicate and talk and give yourself some time – your new baby means you are adapting to life as a family, or as a growing family if this isn’t your first baby.
• Try to get out of the house most days, even just for a little while. Enjoy a change of scene – even just going for a walk will give you some fresh air and some exercise will can help to enhance feelings of wellbeing. It can also be helpful to seek out other mothers as well for support, shared experiences and some chat.
• Try to go with the flow. You are probably used to being in control of your day and a baby well and truly turns this upside down. On a great day you might feel like superwoman - you have met all your babies needs, you are dressed, you are also fed, you have cooked dinner and maybe done the washing and also fitted in a baby group too.On a-not-so-good day you might have a grumpy baby, who is hard to settle. You may have snacked on junk, couldn’t face the baby group, you could still be in your pj’s at 5pm and there’s no dinner planned or made. This is ok! Enjoy the good days and accept the not-so-good ones.
  Don’t forget you have just given birth – chances are your hormones are all over the place, so you may be feeling emotional, you may be sore and you are trying to get to grips with meeting the needs of a new human being.
  
  In those early few weeks, it may feel like you are doing very little but don’t underestimate how much effort it takes to look after a baby, especially on very little sleep. You are providing your baby with food, comfort, love and security to allow your baby to grow and develop. Ok, so maybe you don’t feel like you take on the world, let alone keep on top of the housework, cook and eat a meal but you are a mum and mum’s rock!
  

New babies and sleep
New and young babies rarely sleep in one big stretch – they need human touch, interaction and food to grow, develop and to feel secure.

Rarely before 6 months can a baby sleep more than a handful of hours in one stretch but how many times your baby wakes up will vary depending on their need for food, comfort and security.

In the early weeks, your baby may have his days and nights reversed – it might feel like your baby settles and sleeps well during the day but wakes more and need you during the night. New babies are not used to a quiet environment – it’s very noisy in the womb – they feel secure when there is noise during the day and they may need you to make them feel secure at night when it is quiet.

There isn’t a great deal you can do about this but wait and ride it out. Although difference ways of interacting with your baby can help to reinforce the differences between night and day:

During the night
Offer reassurance, eye contact and a soothing voice to help baby feel safe and secure, while keeping the room dark, quiet and calm. Keep playing or excessive noise to a minimum and try to be relaxed rather than irritated or cross because babies pick up on this and it can make them even harder to settle.

During the day
You can interact with your baby as normal with noise, games, play, going out to different place and having fun in daylight.

As your baby grows, this can also help your baby to settle back to sleep again after a feed and a cuddle in the night.



Crying & soothing
New and young babies are crying for your help – they have a need and crying is their only way of telling you.Your baby’s cry will raise your stress levels, that’s how they get a response and that is how they survive.

Everyone has an opinion about how to respond to a crying baby but you can’t go far wrong by listening to your baby, your instincts and a little bit of what the research tells you - if you respond to your baby and soothe him and pick him up when he needs comforting, you are not creating a clingy or spoilt child. Studies show that crying babies who are responded to cry much less when they are one.

Remember one thing –your young baby will not be manipulating you – they have needs, not wants and the only way to communicate is by crying.

Some babies cry more than others, 1in5 babies are highly sensitive and they are difficult to settle for the first few weeks. If you baby does have periods of being difficult to settle, this may cause a huge range of emotions, and few are positive:

Despair
Confusion
Rejection
Anger
Sadness

If you are finding it difficult, it can be useful to get out and about to meet up with other mums and to talk about it because, the truth is that, babies are immature, they can’t be reasoned with and they can test your patience to its limit.



What does your baby need?
The obvious things are food, warmth and to be clean and comfortable. And these things are important but so are human touch, love, security and reassurance. If your baby seems ‘clingy’ chances are they may feel scared or unsure and, as such, they are clinging to you to reduce their stress levels and to help them feel more secure.

It’s easier said that done sometimes but your baby needs you to be calm and interactive with them.

What do you need?
To look after yourself! It may not be possible all the time but as much as you can:

• eat well
• sleep/rest when you can
• get out of the house
• meet up with other mums
• take a break
• ask for help if you need it
• don’t be too hard on yourself
• prioritise your workload

One of the main issues I hear about from new mums, as they get to grips with their new responsibilities and the changes this brings to their life, is that they don’t feel like they are doing anything worthwhile.

As a new mum you might feel that ‘all’ you are doing in a week is changing nappies, mopping up sick, feeding your baby, helping your baby get to sleep, pushing the pram…

And it’s easy to underestimate what exactly you are doing but you are loving, caring, nurturing, comforting, teaching, providing safety and security and the environment for your baby to grow, learn and development. You are doing an amazing job and that’s why mum’s rock!