My baby is 3 weeks old now!
Although I did a lot of research into having a baby and the things I would need, there are some things that I got quite wrong or had to learn by experience.
Having a baby is a difficult but amazing experience, you can’t really prepare for it fully and I’m sure everyone will have something they didn’t buy or was caught off guard with something! Here are my tips for getting through the first few weeks with a newborn.
Baby clothes:
Get sleepsuits that have built-in feet and mittens. Bonus if you get the ones with zips rather than poppers!
Baby outfits are so cute but most don’t have feet and mittens on them. Getting socks and mittens to stay on a baby is not easy! They do scratch themselves so mittens are a must! Socks actually work better for mittens than mittens.
I had most of my baby clothes given and the sleepsuits do have mittens and feet in but they are poppers. Trying to get poppers fastened when the baby’s legs are going mental is not an easy task. It’s like trying to dress a worm.
If I had to start from scratch, I’d just buy around 10 – 15 zipped sleepsuits and vests.
Towels.
I bought a pack of two baby bath towels, you know, the ones with the little baby hoods?
We ended up buying a further three white hand towels – this was for the changing mats. The changing mats are cold so we had one to put down on top of the mats to stop him feeling cold, also this meant we could pat him down after wiping him so we weren’t putting a nappy over damp skin.
We did end up buying a second changing mat for downstairs. So now we have one in the living room and one in the nursery – I already bought a caddy to have nappy supplies downstairs.
Nursing bras.
Wow, I really underestimated how much milk would leak from my boobs! Turns out I needed more than two nursing bras as I needed a new one each day. As soon as my milk came in, I leaked so much!
I ended up buying another 4. It is worth trying different styles. I hate the ones with the clips to pull the bra down and prefer the ones that are just cross over cloth so you can pull down and get your boob out without faffing with the clips as I just end up with both unfastened and my boobs out as I can’t fasten with one hand between swapping sides and it just does not feel comfortable.
Muslin cloths.
I only bought a packet of muslin cloths as I didn’t think I’d use them, but I actually use them loads! I assumed I’d just want to use wipes to clean sick up but the clothes are much better, plus bigger for putting over your shoulder or under the baby’s chin.
It’s best to have them to hand both upstairs and downstairs and they need washing often, so stock up!
Food and drink
It’s time to start practising making tea and buttering toast with one hand. At 3 am.
Also, train your partner to bring your food cut up into bite-size pieces so you and eat with your fingers of one hand while breastfeeding.
When it comes to drinks, a water bottle with a straw that you can have on the sofa/chair with you is a great idea as reaching over to get a drink from a side table can cause the baby to unlatch, or wake him if he’s asleep.
Hospital bag.
When you pack your hospital bag, pack it for ease of access so you are able to describe to others where things are. Also, go through it with your partner and make sure you have a refresh of where everything is closer to your due date. Don’t pack it weeks in advance and just forget about it.
It’s hard to move around after giving birth and often midwives will be going in your bag to get things out for you, so make sure baby’s first outfit, your change of clothes after the birth and things like shower gel, toothpaste, maternity pads and pants are easy to get to and easy to explain to there’s where to get them.
I ended up having a bed bath after my labour and the midwife had to find my shower gel to wash me and nightie to dress me. It’s not glamourous but you want it to be as easy as possible.
Aw, congrats! <3
You’re right. Dressing a baby is no easy task, they don’t particularly enjoy it and it need to be done, so better make it as easy as possible by buying practical clothing items. Great tips for getting throught the first two weeks with a newborn. I remember when my nephew was born and I was helping my sister in law with taking care of him and how I would phone my mother a couple of times a day because it was my first time taking care of a newborn, it can be overwhelming at times. It helps to have a helpful partner or just somebody to call.
There is so many things that all the books don’t tell you that you only find out by having a baby to look after.
You would think they would make better fitting mittens. They were rubbish 18 years ago when my eldest was a baby too. lol
Being a mother is definitely a learning experience. x
Great tips!!!
The fact that socks work better than mittens sounds strange, but well done for discovering that and making your life easier. I had no idea that mittens need to be used often. It makes you think if the people who design baby clothes actually interacted with babies. 🙂
These are good tips, thanks for sharing your experience!
I found the opposite with the sleep suits though! I hated the zipper ones and found the popper ones so much easier, as I could just unpop the legs for a nappy change instead of having to unzip bub completely – I had winter babies so that might have been a factor, haha! 🙂 And yes to the muslins! Baby towels, blankets, burp clothes, muslins…they are all so handy! I could never get enough, anything that mean I didn’t have to do the washing every day was a lifesaver!
And I had the same probelm with leaking – I found the reusable bampoo breast pads worked so much better than the disposable cloth ones at containing leaks! 🙂
Hope that you are having a wonderful Christmas week 🙂