This will help you to avoid unnecessary worries when you meet your baby for the first time.
– a newborn baby who just came into this world, does not have a pink skin like we think. It is more of a red tone, blueish or even purple. Do not panic! Soon your newborn will adapt to the unfamiliar surroundings and will become your typical rosy-cheeked baby. Feet might still stay a bit purple for some days, though;
– in the beginning your baby will look a bit wrinkly and crooked. No wonder! Imagine spending some months in a small cask! With time your baby’s back will become more straight, you will see the neck, and his arms and legs will get straight as well;
– a newborn baby cannot hold his head yet, his neck is too weak, so make sure you always support the head when you pick up and hold your baby. Do not let any abrupt movements in the neck area. If necessary, ask a nurse to show you how to hold a baby carefully and safely, including the times when you give him\her a bath or perform hygienic procedures;
– your baby’s skin might slightly peel off in the beginning, especially on the back, palms of his hands and on the feet. This process will soon come to an end by itself;
– some babies may have red vascular spots on their body (more often on the head). They will also disappear on their own, though not so fast (usually it takes more than a year);
– you might find white spots (like little cysts) on your baby’s face (especially on the nose). These spots are called milia, or milk spots. They usually occur due to the clog of the sebaceous glands. You do not have to do anything about them, they will disappear on their own in the course of some weeks;
– baby’s first feces are dark-colored, even black. When you start breastfeeding, it will gradually change color to yellow or a little bit ginger, quite runny in consistency. It can also contain white grains of undigested breast milk.
4. Until the milk comes in, your baby will actively draw drops of colostrum. And by “draw” I mean “gnaw until the nipple is bleeding”. To save the breast you can regularly apply Lansinoh to the nipples. You do not have to wash it off before breastfeeding. If you develop some serious war wounds (which happens to a lot of us), apply Bepanthen to your nipples directly after breastfeeding (and wash it off with running water before next breastfeeding session).
5. When your milk comes in – it is an important event. If it comes unnoticed at night, the following morning new mother wakes up under the two hot stones. I mean, breasts. In the day time you can react fast and start expressing excess milk with your breast pump, in order to avoid engorgement. If you feel that your breast is too hard, hot and hurts (this is engorgement), then express some milk until it feels better. Do not express all of it until the last drop because milk comes in in the same quantity as was expressed (or eaten). On the day when milk comes in (usually it happens on the second or third day after birth) and the day after that, do not go heavy on drinks, or you will be flooded with milky rivers.
Perhaps, for some time you will regularly fight with engorgements because in those first days after birth many new mothers produce milk for wholesale. Be patient, soon it will be fine, and your body will produce the right amount of milk according to the needs of your baby.
6. Right after birth your belly will not go away completely, it will probably look like you are 5—6 months along again. Your uterus has not contracted to its normal size, it will need about 6—8 weeks to do that. Breastfeeding contributes to a faster contraction of your uterus, and you might feel it when you are feeding your baby (it might be a bit painful).
7. Do not forget to go to the toilet regularly. Even if you feel like you do not want to. I know it sounds strange now, but wait until you give birth.
8. To feel more calm and confident in the sphere of baby care when you return home, do not be shy to ask for help from a nurse at the hospital. Ask her to show you how to swaddle a baby, change a diaper, etc.
ІІ. A little bit of psychology
When I returned home from hospital, I had a feeling that I was absent for more than a month instead of just four days. Like I had just returned from a long trip. And it looked like everything was the same, but you see it with different eyes… No wonder, because your new life has just started!
The first weeks with a baby require determination. However, if you become a mom for the first time in your life, it is not that easy to get ready and gather yourself beforehand. But if you know that you are not alone with those difficulties and worries, it is easier to start your journey of motherhood. I was somehow not aware of the main difficulties, and all those things that I read during my pregnancy turned out to be not that important after all. From the books I learned how to swaddle and bathe a baby, fight baby colic and many other everyday things. But nobody wrote that the above mentioned colic can bring the parents to the boil. In fact, those books only superficially mentioned all psychological difficulties that might await the new mother. Mothers/grandmothers also kept silent, pretending that they did not have any of those problems, and wondering why I am complaining about the lack of sleep and weariness.
Meanwhile, the birth of your baby is a huge psychological stress. After birth hormone levels are unstable, there is physical and emotional weariness, constant lack of sleep, various fears and doubts – new mother experiences all of this, together with the infinite happiness, of course.
This book is titled “Lifehack for moms”, so here you will find numerous great ideas and advice about different topics: how to put your baby to sleep, how to dress him/her according to the weather, what your breastfeeding diet should be and how to get back in shape after birth. But below you will find a few words about something else. It is not really lifehacks, but they are definitely the most true-to-life and much needed words of support for all mothers.
1. Let’s begin with proverbial lack of sleep. Perhaps, you will be lucky and win the lottery titled “Calm baby who sleeps good since birth”. But it is more likely that you will become a member of a social club whose participants monosyllabically answer “Idontgetenoughsleep” if you ask them “How are you?” Just be assured that everyone goes through the same things. Well, excluding the winners of the above mentioned lottery and those who gave birth around 20 years ago and more (as the latter simply do not remember anything).
Even if a baby sleeps good at night, the new mother might have her own sleep disorders. Moms sleep very light and little, so they do not even see dreams, as their brains do not have time to make them up.
Get ready it is not going to be easy in terms of sleeping for the first year (or even longer). Just accept this as a fact and as something temporary, and please do not worry, even if it feels like it will never end. Trust me, everything will surely get better!
For me sleeping problems were an issue number one. At some point it felt like I needed to feed on freshly squeezed caffeine to survive. Only breastfeeding stopped me from that, so I completely understand you, my dear not sleeping moms. Especially for you I wrote the longest chapter of this book with detailed advice on how to improve your baby’s sleep. In short, if your neighbors know all lullabies by heart and in the mornings you hear them singing: “Twinkle, twinkle, little star…” – then do not hesitate to open this chapter.
2. Be ready that for the first time it might feel like a groundhog day. Yes, now you have all the time in the world to enjoy motherhood and your baby. However, sometimes it might feel like every new day is exactly the same as the one before, and the most interesting things pass you by. Somewhere out there people have fun and go to shows, solve global problems and organize important meetings. They throw parties and go mountain skiing. And you? In the whole day you changed nine diapers and breastfed thirty-three times.
Wait, what was that about global tasks? Isn’t that the most important and global task that you have right now in front of you – to bring up a Human being? There is no one who would bring up and care for your baby better than you. Your little one just recently came into this world which