What You Need to Know About Newborns
A doctor told a very good friend of mine that the first three months of a baby's life is like a fourth trimester (I guess it wouldn't be called a trimester then but whatev). He said that some major development is far from done but we wouldn't be able to give birth to their giant heads if they stayed in the womb any longer (I wouldn't say that they fit really well at 40 weeks either but I'm not going to argue with nature.)
My friend told me this when my first son was about a month old and I was trying to implement all the "well intended" (code for "shit") advice that is often bestowed on a new mother. It was like an Oprah A-Ha moment and it made perfect sense. If I just let him live his life like he's still in the womb my life will become way less complicated. Here's what I did:
I stopped trying to give him a bath every night. Someone told me a bath was essential to establishing a bedtime schedule. She also told me that this should be followed by a massage (sadly for him, not me) and a story. He hated bath time because he was naked and freezing (for the record, he loves being both now), the massage confused him just long enough to get through it and I don't know why I thought reading "Go Dog Go" to a two-week old was logical, but then "sane" wasn't an adjective I'd use for me in the first three months of my child's life. I accepted that he was a newborn and not a member of the Deadliest Catch fishing crew so he wasn't dirty and he didn't need a bath.
I stopped dressing him in anything other that jammies. He ate, he pooed, he slept and he cried in a one-hour, round-the-clock cycle. When you have a newborn there is no day and night. I quickly found out that newborns don't have schedules and they are like those creepy rave kids strung out on E, they want to party at 4am AND 4pm. It was a perpetual Groundhog Day so why dress for that? Plus, you just have to undress them if they happen to fall into a blissful sleep around 8pm because IT'S BEDTIME!! (said in a high-pitched control freak shrill) and they don't help with the undressing for a while so it's like stripping a surly, drugged monkey. Not pretty.
I fed him when he wanted to eat. I remember crying "he can't be hungry, I just fed him!" so I would try everything to get him to stop only to find out he did want to eat. He would promptly spit it all up but he was happy and therefore I was happy. My motto was "Pick him up. Fill his mouth. Change his bum." If that didn't work, I'd hand him to his father, say "I can't take it anymore" then cry in the bathroom. It worked for us.
I always let him sleep. Another "helpful" person told me I should never let a child sleep past 4pm because you'll never get them to bed. This is, in fact, true FOR A TWO YEAR OLD. If your newborn is sleeping, don't wake them. Even though it may not seem like it, they sleep about 16 hours out of 24 in a day and if you think you can roll that into 8 consecutive hours you think wrong. That's like you sleeping one month so you can stay up for two – you'd starve and/or go bonkers. If your baby is sleeping, sleep yourself or hit the Southern Comfort – don't poke the bear.
I didn't do any classes. You know these classes that they have to "stimulate" your newborn. Let me tell you something, being awake stimulates your newborn. Jingling keys is like an effing air show to them so don't bother with the damn classes. If you want to feel normal and a part of humanity go do something that stimulates you (in a non-porn way) and just sit the baby in the corner or have it strapped to you in a baby carrier. They don't know where the hell they are anyway so there's no point in you having to sit through "If You're Happy and You Know It" clapping your baby's hands like a newborn/E.T. puppet show because I can guarantee you that your newborn is thinking "I'm not happy and I know it. If I had a dry bum, a full tummy and was asleep on your chest while you lay on the couch watching a taped episode of Project Runway now that would be pretty damn sweet".
I stopped changing his bum constantly. When I was sent home from the hospital they gave me a chart to record his peeing and pooing to make sure he was eating enough and everything was in "working order". I was so happy. I love charts and I loved the small sliver of control I had over the situation. The problem was I got into the habit of changing him every 20 minutes or so. This included the night so if he woke up to eat, I changed him after which meant he woke up that much more which meant it was harder for him to go back to sleep which was not pretty because by the time I got him back to sleep he was hungry again. Once I figured out that if you grease up their little bums and slap a diaper on them they can pretty much make it through the night without a change unless they poo. Now I didn't use cloth diapers so this may not be the case with them but the tree-killing, bleached disposable ones I used would soak up a small lake if you threw one of them into it, so baby pee is no big deal.
I picked him up if he cried. Some people warned me that this would "spoil him" and he would manipulate me and cry every time he wanted me. Er, okay, look at me and my sneaky baby! My thinking was I would rather pick him up to find out nothing was wrong rather than leave him to cry and find out something was.
I let him sleep on me. This was considered a big no-no by many because I was "creating a bad habit". Even I wondered if I would have to rock him to sleep and have him sleep on my chest in his dorm room at college (which would make for some awkward roommate moments) because I didn't establish a sleep schedule early on. Here's the thing, even if you get something established in the beginning, they change so damn quickly that it will be out the window the next week and you're back to square one. A wise friend once told me "whatever gets you though the day" and him sleeping on my chest while I watched a movie got me through the day. So there.
Personally, I think you have plenty of time to get all these schedules into place so just do "whatever gets you through the day" for the first little while and cut yourself a break. I like the idea of the fourth trimester. All you need for those first few months is to provide them with warmth, food and love and the nightly baths, ferberizing and Mommy and Me classes can wait a bit. I'm just grateful nature decided that it made more sense for them to be on this side of the fish tank rather than making us give birth to 18lb babies, but I'm weird like that.
16 Comments
Reader Comments (16)
AMEN to all that.
(Even if I did try to squeeze 8 consecutive hours of sleep out of mine at about 3 months.)
My motto was "whatever works". And frankly, some days, it still is. A special thumbs up to the pjs-all-day reco. I never did understand preemie leather jackets.
I wish someone had told me ALL of these things when I had my baby. I caused myself so much undue stress. Next time, if there is one, I am going to take it much easier on myself and the baby. GREAT post!
YES! And cloth diapers also don't need to be changed at night unless there's poop. My small fry stopped pooping at night at about six weeks anyway.
I have learned (now that my oldest is 4 and the youngest is 19 months) that you can fix any 'bad' habbits later , i.e. past the fourth trimester, in 3 days or less. Getting rid of a passie? Sleeping without being rocked? no bottle before bed? Getting them back in their own bed? Whatever it is can be forgotten by a 1-2 year old faster than your sanity can come back if you instead listen to all of the 'helpful' advice givers and had to put up with a crying ALL THE TIME newborn.
Reading through all of your blog, linked over from RFML.
Thank you so much for all of this. When my daughter (who is now 5) was born, I tried to encompass every piece of advice that I received from everyone. It was insanity.
When I have another baby, I will be referring to everything here to maintain my mental health - well, to some degree anyway!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
just found this post now. i have a 3 month or and wow totally agree and do evrything you do/did.
He wears his sleepers all day, only has a bath when i think really needed, sleeps on me, changed only when needed, and the list goes on..
thanks so much for this great post. makes me feel like i'm doing a pretty good job :)
We were drawn to your website as my daughter is due with her first baby any day now and we saw your boobie beanies. Anyway, I had five children and agree with everything you say. I think it is because us old folks miss having a little baby that we share our advice. You are truly filling an important role with this peaceful way of being a mom.
I once had a nurse ask me if I bathed my baby every day, implying that I certainly should. I believe I gave her that special post-partum-stupor look and said, "but she's not dirty.". Luckily it didn't seem to count against me, but I always thought that was the stupidest idea. Unless they blow out the dipe or their hair is just too greasy from my near content nuzzling, they are fine.
So even though I've been reading you for awhile, I'm catching up on some of your archives. This was the single most validating post I've ever read in my life. There is not a BIT of advice you gave here that I wouldn't follow up with a resounding YES. I drove myself crazy trying to get him on a schedule for feeding, changing him EVERY time he woke up in the night, trying to get him to take a nap on something other than my chest, and putting him in tiny baby polo onesies for no. damn. reason. When I stopped doing ALL of that - I finally started to enjoy myself. I stopped flipping through the stupid books which only served to confuse me more.
I did all of these things and do you know what happened? I had a really happy baby and I became an ecstatic and enthusiastic mommy.
You gotta do what you gotta do. This post was awesome and I am sharing it with all pregnant mommies I meet. It will save them so much trouble in the beginning. Seriously. I wish I had known about this earlier on.
finally, a woman after my own heart.
Halle-friggin-lujah!
I'm 8 weeks into this and thankfully have stopped screeching in that insane sleep-deprived voice. It seriously does get better the further along you go, and as soon as I dropped all of those b.s. 'must-do's' it got waaaay better for all of us.
ie: sobbing over my baby in the crib saying 'but I'm going to kill the baby! Everything I read says that I'm going to kill the baby!' because she would only sleep on a parent for the first month was reaaaaally fun.
As soon as I let go (and got a co-sleeper as a gift!), she relaxed/got bigger, and now sleeps in her crib, on her playmat, propped up against pillows, and anywhere else really.
I still do want to hit the Southern Comfort some days though, that's for sure.
Thankyou! I am way past the "having a baby" days but have always felt guilty for the way I treated my newborn babies feeling like I had not done a very good job. Turns out I did pretty much what you have said here in this post and that maybe I was much smarter than I thought I was! My daughter is almost at the "having a baby" season so I will pass on your URL to her. Hopefully she won't have to waste so many years feeling guilty like me! Thanks again!
Thank you soo much for this post!!
I am a control freak, neat freak, and OCD about everything I am able to control...consequently I am due to have a baby in about three weeks, over whom I will have NO control. This post has seriously helped me realize that things do not have to be perfect and scheduled. IT JUST HAS TO WORK. I am sure I would be one VERY stressed mama if I had not had the opportunity to read this post. I would have tried to bathe her every night and tried to schedule her little life, which obviously would create an unhappy little person. The cute outfits and schedules can wait until she's old enough to NEED all of those things.
Plus now that I think about it babies always smell nice :)
Thank you! Needed a good laugh, hearing so many opinions about who should do this and when you should do what etc... This put my mind at ease. whatever works, simple as that!
Oh, that made me laugh!!! I wish I had read this before I had my baby.
It's been 7yrs since my last pregnancy and I am scared to death. Did I already forget all of this sh*t?! Thank you for making me refrain from walking down to the local dive bar and orderig some vodka and a cheap pack of smokes.