I'm Sonja - a first time stay at home mom with my three month old son, Paulo. My blog is called Whuffling as a reference to the funny "whuffle" noise that he's been making since birth. We live in Providence, Rhode Island with my husband and our two cats. Our life is pretty chill, but we're always up for a trip to the beach or a good cheeseburger.
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First off, huge congrats to Violet, Dustin, and Roman! My own son and I just survived the newborn phase, and I thought they might appreciate some tips on getting through the first few weeks relatively intact. Here goes!
#1: Take care of yourself.
This seems so obvious, but when you have a new baby who is crying, it eclipses all reason. Anytime my son cried in the first few days, I felt that I personally needed to help him – even if he was with his father. I had to be talked down into letting it go and sleeping for a few hours at a time because truly, if I didn’t take care of myself then I was of no use to the baby. Same goes for eating. There were times when I would realize that I hadn’t had five free minutes to eat and I was absolutely starving. Especially as a breastfeeding mother, it was truly important that I take those five minutes and get some food – even if it meant that the baby would be fussing a bit while I did so.
#2: Pre-Game EVERYTHING.
Newborn care is very time consuming. It’s so hard to really understand this until you’re doing it. Feeding and diaper changes – how hard can that be? Well, when baby is feeding every two hours and needs to be changed just as often… and feeding takes twenty minutes… and then if he’s going to sleep, you have to hold him for a bit… there’s really no time left at all. I was a nanny before I was a mom, and one of the ways I got through the day was to set-up absolutely everything before I had to do it. Before each and every diaper change, I would have the changing pad, wipes, and diaper cream out and the clean diaper unfolded before I had even touched the baby’s clothes – let alone the dirty diaper.
To be really effective at this, I spend a few minutes straightening out the changing table whenever the baby sleeps. Same for feedings – I have my boppy, a water bottle, my Kindle, and a spit-up rag within arm’s reach every time I feed the baby. At night, I have midnight snacks laid out on the kitchen counter so I don’t have to even THINK to grab them – let alone go into the cupboards. I organize the diaper bag when I get home from a trip out of the house rather than before I leave so that I can just grab it and go and know that I have enough diapers, wipes, a change of clothes, and spit rags. I’m not the world’s most organized person by nature – but doing all of this ahead of time makes it so much less stressful when caring for baby becomes particularly exhausting.
(Also: pro-tip, for little boys make sure the equipment is covered with some kind of drop-cloth during the first few weeks. The fire hose tends to go off when the skin gets cold, which can be quite a mess. I was vigilant about this and managed to keep the mid-change peeing episodes to a minimum, but there still was a day when he was about five days old when Paulo somehow managed to pee directly into his own eye.)
#3: Get out of the house.
When we brought Paulo home, I made the commitment to myself to get out of the house with him every single day. I knew I was going to be a stay-at-home mom and could easily get into the rut of staying at home all the time since I didn’t have a job to go back to in a few weeks. A lot of moms I know waited a few weeks to bring baby out of the house – I didn’t wait at all. As soon as you’re comfortable doing so, take the baby out. I had a babysitter all of once to go out to dinner. Other than that in the past three months, I’ve brought my son anywhere with me that I need to go.
It’s helped a lot, both in terms of my sanity, and in terms of getting him used to the outside world. I know his limits fairly well and don’t try to push them – I always nurse him before we leave and absolutely elect to stay home instead if I know he’s overtired. However, most of the time, he’s happy to be out. He enjoys the car and I know he likes the Ergo better than the stroller, so I do my best to accommodate him to make our trips easiest for everyone. I credit our getting out of the house every day with the fact that at three months, he can handle things like going to a restaurant without having a breakdown. Sure, he might fuss from time to time, but it’s nothing that holding him or nursing him in the car can’t fix. And if he does melt down? I always plan an exit strategy – the few times when I absolutely couldn’t just leave with him if I needed to, I was lucky enough that he took a nice nap. Which is another benefit of getting out and about – even little walks and small errands give the baby enough activity to be more tired and thus sleep a bit better at night.
(Pro-tip: If you have a car, the backseat is an excellent place to nurse if you’re out in public. You can place a blanket over the window for privacy if you like and it’s quiet enough for baby to really be able to relax. I even take my boppy in the car if I know I’m going to be out on a long trip.)
#4: Accept help.
It’s tempting for some new parents to try to do it on their own. And to a certain extent, you need to get your feet under you and develop confidence as a parent. However, you don’t need to do this completely alone. I might have erred on the side of having too much help and felt a little overwhelmed by my family by the time my mother in law left at the end of baby’s second month. But that first three weeks that my own mother was with me made the difference between my being functional and my being a complete wreck. I was complimented on how put-together I was for a brand new mom and my family gets all the credit in the world for that. If a close friend or relative offers to come and help, figure out what would be the most helpful to you and have them do it. For me this was having someone take Paulo in the mornings so I could nap after being up with him on and off through the night. I have friends whose parents have taken the baby for the occasional night here and there to let them catch up on sleep. Even simple offers such as putting in a load of laundry, washing dishes, or providing a meal – take it. I fully intend on paying this one forward for any friends with newborns as I’m so, so grateful for the help I received.
#5: It’ll be over before you know it.
It’s a cliché, but it’s a cliché because it’s true. At three months, my baby is an entirely different person than he was at three days or three weeks. I feel like I’ve really “hit my groove” as a mom and the hard days – and oh, there are still hard days – aren’t nearly as hard as the newborn days. Once you get over the bump where the baby is taking ALL of your mental energy as well as your physical energy and you don’t need to think about what to do next quite so much, it gets easier. I would say that this takes about three months, which is what I’ve heard from friends and experts as well. (Dr. Harvey Karp – author of “The Happiest Baby on the Block” which was really one of the most helpful resources I found for newborn care – calls this period “the fourth trimester” as the baby is really spending all of his time just getting used to being outside of the womb.) This sounds like forever when you’re up all night and counting off the days, but it really goes by fast. I absolutely did my best to enjoy my son’s newborn days, but I’m also quite grateful that we’ve passed that hurdle and have adjusted to each other.
I’m sure other moms have a zillion things they could add – these are just the biggest things that helped me stay sane and focused during the adjustment from pregnancy to motherhood. Remember that it doesn’t last forever and enjoy every sweet moment when you can!
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