Top Tips before you become a parent. How to not freak out. Maybe.

Before I had my first baby I was FREAKING OUT. I am the opposite of the laid back type – I have a level of obsessive, spreadsheeting, Boy Scout type of preparedness that makes people nervous. Put it this way – I have a document that shows what I have bought every extended family member for Christmas and birthday since 2004. I have bought and wrapped all my Christmas presents for this year. I have to hide them from visitors so they don’t back out of our house in fear. Anyway, as you can imagine, the thought of motherhood led to a whole other level of groundwork – I wanted to be ready for every possible issue and situation. Yes, I am well aware of the ridiculousness of that – I even knew it at the time but COULD NOT STOP. So I asked all my far more experienced and knowledgeable friends to answer a few questions for me. Some of them were helpful, some of them made me want to cry. If I was looking for the definitive list of answers to parenting, all the questions showed was that for as many mothers I knew, there were as many opinions. For better or worse, here is part 1 of the results. Part 2 and 3 later in the week and sometime in the near future I will post THE baby buying spreadsheet – hold on to your hats.

What was the best thing you did in the early days?

Some went with relaxed:

• The best piece of advice I tried to take was to enjoy myself.
• Talked to people, asked questions and shared experiences – someone else was sure to be feeling just the same and had some advice I hadn’t heard yet!
• RELAXED! Put the books away and got to know my baby, trusting my gut instinct. And remembered I was the boss, not baby!
• Forgot all the advice, went with my instincts and lived day to day – it is so different for everyone.
• I think the best thing I did was learn to read my baby…learnt to pick up on baby’s first signs of being tired and put her straight to bed, even if they she had only been up for a short time.
• Not having a plan allowed me to take one day at a time.
• Went with my instinct and tried to not get too worried about routines etc.  I did read all of the books, but she never really got into a routine until she starting eating solids, yet that time was happy and relaxed for both of us.  Now we have a great routine in place and we’re still really happy!

And some went with the opposite:

• Weirdly, I think having a routine from very early on gave us lots more freedom sooner.
• Followed a routine and stuck to it even when challenged by others—it worked for us!
• Started a strict routine after about three weeks when it became apparent I had given birth to the devil’s sprog. The change within the week was amazing.
• Followed a routine TO THE LETTER. It meant I was confined to the house maybe more than others for a few months, but I did get out every day and eventually I think it made my life easier knowing exactly what time we would be doing everything.

Some had more specific tips:

• Stopped giving the ‘roll-over’ feed early enough for her to not make it a pattern. I stopped doing it at around 8-10 weeks and it wasn’t long after she started sleeping through the night without it, close to 12 hours straight!
• Learnt to pick up on baby’s signs of needing another burp – if he wasn’t settling I tried more burping before feeding again.
• Got out of the house EVERY SINGLE DAY. I didn’t do this first time round and it was a big mistake – getting some fresh air, even some exercise was the best thing I did the second time round.
• Gave her a bottle of expressed milk within the first month and kept it up regularly, so she always took bottles well.  Meant I could leave her for more than a couple of hours with someone else.
• Really made an effort to hang out with my mother’s group. They didn’t seem like my cup of tea at all at first, but it was SO good being able to obsess about babies with a group of people going through it at exactly the same time, and so nice to have them all in the neighbourhood. We are still in touch 2 years later.
• Everyone said to sleep when they did. I wasn’t very good at that, but found at least having a rest at lunch every day made an enormous difference to my milk supply in the evening. Which made a difference to sleep/grouch time in the evening. Which made a difference to sleep patterns overnight. Which made….you get the picture!

And some went with the experts:

• Took bubs to a cranial osteopath when she had colic – it really improved things.
•  Got the local baby whisperer to come to house when she was 6 weeks and she diagnosed her with extreme colic. I cried from relief knowing I wasn’t going mad and started sending off for drops to cure it.
• Taught him to go to sleep in his own cot, on his own (care of the Baby Whisperer). 
• Bought The Contented Little Baby (Gina Ford), which reintroduced the concept of sleep into our household. Bliss.

More tips from the experts can be found here, here and here.

photo credit: Rennett Stowe