Tips: Birth to Six Months
Parenting tips. I love them. I love good stories about goofy things kids do and say. So, the question of the day is this:
What advice would you give a new mom and dad with a newborn? How did you gain this insight, through personal experience or observation?
I have several tips from personal experience.
Tip 1: If you are have trouble with sore nipples, go buy some Soothies available at Rite Aid, Walgreens, and Fred Meyer. They are expensive, but well worth it the feeling of relief when applied. They also last longer if you cut them up in thirds.
Tip 2: Three months IS the magic number and breastfeeding DID get so much easier as Blaine grew. Don't give up.
Tip 3: Brag to your friends about how supportive and wonderful your husband was during labor, delivery, and the first weeks of recovery at home. If your husband is like mine, he will eat it up! And then go change another messy diaper. Grin.
Tip 4: Enjoy your tiny newborn. They sleep all the time, but I loved just holding him. If he was sleeping and I wanted to hold him and just revel in being a mom, I would go pick him up and hold him as long as I felt like it. I said to myself, "I'm the mom; I can hold him whenever I want."
Other tips, anyone?
What advice would you give a new mom and dad with a newborn? How did you gain this insight, through personal experience or observation?
I have several tips from personal experience.
Tip 1: If you are have trouble with sore nipples, go buy some Soothies available at Rite Aid, Walgreens, and Fred Meyer. They are expensive, but well worth it the feeling of relief when applied. They also last longer if you cut them up in thirds.
Tip 2: Three months IS the magic number and breastfeeding DID get so much easier as Blaine grew. Don't give up.
Tip 3: Brag to your friends about how supportive and wonderful your husband was during labor, delivery, and the first weeks of recovery at home. If your husband is like mine, he will eat it up! And then go change another messy diaper. Grin.
Tip 4: Enjoy your tiny newborn. They sleep all the time, but I loved just holding him. If he was sleeping and I wanted to hold him and just revel in being a mom, I would go pick him up and hold him as long as I felt like it. I said to myself, "I'm the mom; I can hold him whenever I want."
Other tips, anyone?
posted by Rosie Leichty @ 10:01 AM
12 Comments:
At 8:09 AM,
Anonymous said…
I love Tip 4--if I had it to do over, I would take more time to just hold my baby and revel in the wonder of being a mother. The baby grows up so fast. I admire your enthuasim for motherhood.
At 7:21 PM,
Dorcas said…
Amen on tip 4.
My tip: Don't be too proud to ask for help. But be careful who you ask. If you have an extremely colicky baby, don't ask advice from the woman who said her babies were so easy that she used to enjoy it when they were sick because then she had a good excuse to hold them.
At 9:01 PM,
Anonymous said…
The men in my life view women as cows (my father and brother-in-law are both farmers.....) When my sister got breast infection with her first baby, her husband got her udder-mint from the barn, which is generally used to control swelling in a fresh cow's udder. I snickered heartily when I smelled the fresh minty air that surrounded her, but it worked. When you are in the phase of misery that she was in, you'll try anything, even if it was intended for bovines........
Ag
At 10:47 PM,
Sheryl said…
Rosie, I just noticed that your tagline (is that what it's called? - "Those who hear not the music...") really fits your passionate idealism in parenting. Some people don't understand why you're so intense; you're hearing the music of God's incredible gift of life to a new mother. Were you thinking of this in choosing it?
At 10:50 PM,
Sheryl said…
Btw, Ag, good, funny post. I'll bet ITF is blushing now!
At 4:31 AM,
Glen Zehr said…
This has nothing to do with tips, Rosie. I just wanted to mention one thing. Do you remember that article you wrote about your dad and how he hung his nose on that nail, going down into the basement? Every time I look at your blog name I think Joyful Nose and think about that story. You ought to post that on here.....
It would give everyone a good laugh....
GZ
At 6:54 AM,
Anonymous said…
Okay, so I'm not a mom, but I've worked with many babies and been around alot..........and I've gained some firm opinions.
On tip 2. I have gotten angry with some women, one in paticular who could NOT breastfeed, but kept on trying with pious fervor. Might take more time for some than others, but there are cases where it simply does not work, so GET A BOTTLE!
One case especially I was so upset. First-time mother, thinks nursing is the only way, has a very fussy baby. I was holding the baby and listening to her talk. The precious child was pale, scrawny and obviously undernourished. The mother and father were going off how she gets so fussy because of her fiery temper and she really has a mind of her own and blah....blah....blah. The baby was two months old and it took no Dr. to diagnose the situation. In their desperation for breast-feeding and for their child to have a personality, they made life exceedingly difficult for themselves and their child by not supplementing!
I am all for nursing, but I cannot stand to hear and see innocent and underfed babies simply because the mom is too proud!
If you cannot breastfeed it does not mean you are a bad mother!
GET A BOTTLE!
Ag
At 12:01 PM,
Mrs. Sweetheart said…
Ag, You go girl, I agree 100 percent. I was one of those Moms who had to end up bottle feeding my babies, but I had very contented babies.
At 1:27 PM,
Anonymous said…
Yea, I agree when those proud mothers refuse to listen to advice... and refuse to suppliment even when their baby is a obvious 'failure to thrive' thats when I am tempted to call social services!!
At 10:47 AM,
esther said…
Maybe this is kind of an addition to #4, but my advice is just enjoy whatever stage they are in because it will pass. And some of those stages pass so quickly, and it is all you can do to keep up.
-Hold them when they are fussy and teething because when they are 10 they are not going to enjoy the "hold-me" part. Sometimes it is all you can do to get a quick hug in (it embarrasses them, you see.:])
-Enjoy nursing, because they will soon only want solids.
-Enjoy those first steps and first words because the time will come when you would like them to be content to stay at home and just not talk so much.
-Enjoy the helpless-can't-do-anything stage cause they will soon want to do everything for themselves.
-Enjoy their devoted worship of mom because they will sooner or later figure out that mom isn't always right.
-Enjoy picking out their clothes for the day and dressing them because they soon have their own ideas on what they want to wear when, regardless of how it looks together.
-Enjoy the preschool stage because they are soon off to school.
I could go on and on, but I think by now you have the picture. And I know right now I need to enjoy having all my children home under my roof before they start out on their own.
At 9:59 PM,
TulipGirl said…
View that first month as a "babymoon." Don't push yourself to be supermom. Or leave the house. Or do anything except love on that new little one, snuggle in bed, and nurture the new baby. And snuggle with your honey, and ooh and ahh together at this little person that God has created through y'all.
At 7:41 PM,
Japheth said…
I don't know if it's alright for a guy to comment here, but as a father who has "caught" two of our children and set up the swimming pool for a water birth three times in our house, maybe I can just interject something here.
Trust your instinct! If you don't know, ASK!! But don't try parenting by committee. You will end up miserable and feeling like a failure.
On a lighter note, when our first son was born, he was great! He nursed well, slept fairly regularly and burped on a half dozen pats or so. Then one night when he was about three weeks old, I came into our bedroom where my wife was feeding Jr. I, just having inhaled a can of Pepsi, did what all "real" men do. My wife looked at me in horror and reminded me that now I had a son who would start to imitate me. (I think she was grasping for straws at that age!) Any way, I slowly recoverd from that shocking blow and said, "I will not burp like that again on purpose!
It was six months until we could get our son to burp at all!! Now does God have a sense of humor or what?
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