Navigating the Newborn Phase
Updated: 1 day ago
I'm expanding on my newborn series where I'm giving real advice for real life. My baby girl recently turned 1 and I've been reflecting on what my life looked like this time last year as a first time mom with a newborn. As an Amazon assoiciate, I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases.
Part 1 - Before baby comes
Let’s start with before baby is even here. You need to spend more time than you think learning about what to expect when you bring baby home and postpartum. My advice is to find a good book or books and read them while you're still pregnant. Of course you should prepare for pregnancy and labor and delivery but you really need to focus on what's going on after you bring baby home. I personally really like Emily Oster's Expecting Better for pregnancy and Cribsheet for the first few years of baby's life. Cribsheet starts in the hospital with your baby and goes through year 2 or so. It's organzied very well so you can stop if you're getting too far past the newborn phase and that's too much info at once! Now these books are all about breaking down the research and data so if that's not your style you might prefer something like What to Expect When You're Expecting and the follow up What to Expect The First Year. Remember, you will have a team of medical professionals to help you through pregnancy, labor and delivery. When you come home from the hospital, those pediatrician appointments are few and far between in comparison to the care you receive while pregnant.
Part 2 - In the hospital
Now the books I mentioned above will walk you through, in detail, what happens in the hospital after you have your baby. But I have some advice to make the most out of your stay. You are there for a least 24 hours because there are newborn tests that happen at 24 hours after birth. There are 2 things to focus on during this time, resting and bonding with your baby! If you need to and your hospital allows it, ask the nurses to take the baby for a little while so you can get some rest! My nurses were all angels on earth and my nurse for night one was so great and offered to take the baby and comforted me for feeling terrible for needing the break after I had slept for 2 hours in the past 48 hours. You should not feel bad if you need the help! We were not meant to raise and care for babies all on our own and anyone that makes you feel shame for needing help is an asshole. Now for bonding with your baby, ask the nurses and pediatrician all your questions, there are no dumb questions and they are wealths of knowledge! The biggest thing will probably be feeding your newborn, if you are breastfeeding as for a lactation consultant to come visit you. Don’t be afraid to supplement with some formula if you need to, it’s not all or nothing. Let’s talk a little bit more about feeding a newborn in part 3 because there’s a lot to it!
Part 3 - Feeding a Newborn
Let’s just set the record straight, feeding a newborn is HARD. It does not matter if you’re breastfeeding or using formula (or doing both). Your worth as a mother is not related to how you feed your baby. And anyone that makes you feel bad one way or another SUCKS. Okay so Breastfeeding - it’s hard, it hurts, you don’t know if your baby is eating enough, and no one else can do it. It can get better and I actually loved it eventually, but it took us a month to get to that point. It doesn’t take everyone that long, but I only know one person that breastfed with no pain ever. Now formula - formula is not bad, there is nothing wrong with it and you’ll probably know that and still feel like crap if you use it at some point. The research does not show that breastmilk is this magical thing the solves all problems and it does not show that formula is straight poison like some people try to claim. Nothing is ever that dramatic. So the real “hack” - do whatever works for you. My baby was supplemented with formula for the first few days before my milk came in and then exclusively breastfed until around 5 months. Now looking back, I probably could have extended breastfeeding if I had understood more about combo feeding. I could have started sending formula to daycare so I could stop stressing so bad about pumping and nurse her in the morning and evening. You can do a combo of whatever works for you. There are not hard and fast rules other than you have to feed your baby. So truly fed is best and breastmilk is only marginally better (maybe).
Part 4 - Bringing Baby Home
Newborns probably aren’t going to want to be laid down to sleep, like ever. So, I recommend taking shifts with your partner. And it doesn’t matter if one of you is on leave and the other isn’t. You take shifts. Now there is technically a risk to your milk supply if you’re breastfeeding in this scenario. I decided to accept that risk in order to get a stretch of sleep. We actually used our stroller with the bassinet attachment in the house for the first few weeks to months. We could rock it back and forth and get our baby to sleep in it without holding her and then trying to lay her down. We have the uppababy cruz and their bassinet is rated safe for sleep, not all stroller bassinets are. So how did we schedule our shifts? Babies tend to cluster feed in the evenings so I would nurse on and off for like an hour or two or three until I couldn’t stand the pain anymore. For me, the on and off of cluster feeding was excruciating. When I couldn’t do it anymore usually around 9pm, my husband would take over and top baby off with formula or pumped milk from earlier in the day and hang out with her in the living room and try to get her to sleep. I would get ready for bed and get about a 4 hour stretch of sleep from 9pm - 1am. This is where that risk to your milk supply comes in, but if I lost my supply because I slept for 4 hours, then so be it. I’m thankful to live in a time where formula is an option. Usually my husband got me around 1 am to feed her again and we would trade off. I hung out in the living room and would watch tv to keep myself awake while holding her because falling asleep holding a newborn is very dangerous. Sometimes I might get her to sleep by rocking the bassinet and I might get another hour or two of broken sleep. So, figure out what shifts look like for you and do them until you don’t need them anymore. Below is the stoller I used (UB Cruz V2) and they're recently updated Bassinet (V3). I had the older version of the bassinet but I love everything about the new V3! I also linked their more popular Vista V3 that converts to a double stroller. I LOVE the changes they made to the seat of the V3 and will hopefully upgrade to that eventually. As a disclaimer I actually bought my Cruz and Bassinet from Facebook marketplace for half of the retail price. You can always start there if you aren't sure what stroller you want!
Part 5 - Sleeping
Now for some reason I was not prepared for my baby to not want to be laid down to sleep at all. I thought okay I have to live on broken sleep in 2-3 hour intervals for a few weeks and the stretches of sleep would get longer over time. Like I thought baby would cry, you would pick them up feed them and lay them back down and go back to sleep. Yeah definitely not. This is why shifts are so important! While shifts were working great for us, they weren’t going to be sustainable long term. My baby had to figure out how to give us longer stretches and your baby will too eventually. Let’s talk sleep safety. In the hospital they will tell you to follow the ABCs of safe sleeps. Alone, on their back, in a crib (or other sleep safe space like a bassinet or pack n play). This is the evidence based safest sleep option. But babies don’t always love that and no one tells you what to do instead. It is VERY unsafe to fall asleep in a recliner or on the couch holding your baby which is very easy to do as a sleep deprived new parent trying to soothe your baby that won’t lay down in their crib and you don’t know any other sleeping options. This is where the safe sleeps 7 comes in for co-sleeping. I was about to do this and had prepped the futon in our spare room for this and decided I’ll try one more time in our room and she finally did a 4 hour stretch in the pack n play. So know your sleep options! Use shifts with your partner at first. If shifts aren’t sustainable long term and baby isn’t getting longer stretches, look into the safe sleep 7 for co-sleeping if you need it. It’s absolutely safer than falling asleep holding your baby in the nursery glider. I’ll put the picture up here and I want to add that there should be no pets in the bed since it’s not mentioned on this graphic. I was not going to put my baby in my bed with my husband and dog. We would have co-slept in the nursery if we had to. Try to stick to the ABCs of sleep for the safest option, but there are ways to reduce risks of co-sleeping if you need to. Okay, that’s my advice for newborn sleep.
I want to emphasize that following the ABCs (Alone, on their back, in a crib) is the SAFEST way for your baby to sleep. However, the safe sleep 7 is a great place to start for bedsharing in a safer way. Falling asleep holding your baby in a recliner or on a couch is NOT SAFE.
Here is what the CDC says about safe sleep for newborns. If your baby is not going for this, and you want to bed share, please start with the safe sleep 7.
Part 6 - Getting Stuff Done
Your newborn will let you lay them down, just not when you want to sleep… okay but for real they will probably let you lay them down when they’re awake and looking around, which doesn’t last long. I would actually lay my baby down on her playmat in the living room and watch her on the camera while I took a two minute shower and got dressed. They can’t go anywhere as newborn and our house is tiny. Any other time, I would wear her in the Solly wrap. I loved to wear her in those first months! I had to think through what can I absolutely not do while wearing her and showering and getting dressed falls into that category. Everything else I did while wearing her. But honestly, do not stress yourself out about getting stuff done. My husband stepped up in a huge way around the house but we also just enjoyed the newborn snuggles and did the bare minimum around the house. Let go of any extra stuff, don’t start making new meals, don’t decide to reorganize the pantry. It can all wait. You won’t have this slow time with the next baby because you’ll have a toddler to take care of. So slow down and only do what absolutely has to be done to keep your sanity. Some tangible examples of bare minimum would be not folding the tiny baby clothes, go full no-fold method, it’s fine I promise. Wear the same clothes as the day before if you want to, no one will know or care and it means the longer you can put off laundry. Stick to meals you already know how to make, now is not the time to try that new recipe.
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