First-Time Parent: The honest guide to coping brilliantly and staying sane in your baby’s first year. Lucy Atkins
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Draw the curtains round your hospital bed so it’s a bit quieter and less distracting for you both.
Talk or sing to her–she’ll be reassured by your voice.
If she’s crying, try to calm her by jiggling or soothing her. If she’s in a lather it may be harder to get her to work out that it’s a feed she wants.
If you can’t calm her, just offer her the breast or bottle.
Changing nappies
TIPS
Never flush a nappy down the loo.
Always wipe a girl baby from front to back (towards her bottom), and don’t clean inside her labia.
Wipe a boy baby all over his penis, testicles and bottom, but never pull back his foreskin to clean under it. Also, gently hold his penis down or you’ll get an eyeful of pee.
Often babies poo just as you’ve whipped the nappy away (or put a clean one on). Just keep on wiping.
If you’re using real nappies, follow the instructions they come with. If I were you I’d do a practice run with a baby doll before the birth.
Bring to the hospital: cotton wool, newborn nappies and several Babygros. Unless there’s nappy rash you don’t need creams, and talc is not advisable as it can be bad for their lungs. Cotton wool and water are generally considered better for a baby’s skin than wipes, but if you do use wipes it’s best to go for unperfumed ones, which are less likely to irritate the skin.
If your baby is really plastered in poo, just dunk her whole bottom in a bowl of warm water–it’s much more effective than dabbing away for half an hour.
THE GREAT NAPPY DEBATE
In a nutshell, the argument goes like this: disposable nappies take 200 years to biodegrade. Cloth, or ‘real’, nappies don’t, so are probably more eco-friendly. They do need washing, but they’re cheaper than disposables. Over two and a half years, you’ll probably spend about £700 on nappies. The best-known types are Pampers and Huggies, but supermarket own-brand ones from Tesco and Sainsbury’s are cheaper and, in my experience, just as good. The average price of branded nappies is 17.9 p per nappy. Own-brand nappies average 13.6 p per nappy. You can buy lovely eco-friendly disposables–for instance ‘Nature Boy and Girl’–at Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose. They are more expensive, but are seventy per cent biodegradable and very effective.
The proponents of ‘real’ nappies say you can buy all you need for as little as £60. See Contacts for more information and useful addresses.
‘I remember it took Fred and me–together–over half an hour to change our first nappy,’ says Sarah, mother of Hazel, twelve and Olivia, ten. ‘Fortunately, it soon became significantly easier.’ Midwives on wards are hideously overstretched, so you may find yourself faced with a nappy full of sticky black poo unaided. Don’t panic. It’s very straightforward and if you get it wrong, will the baby explode? Will she need hospital treatment? No.
Don’t get paranoid about how often you change your baby’s nappy–just do it whenever you notice that the nappy is dirty or wet. Initially there will be no pattern to this.
As for location, in hospital, the Perspex cot with a towel on it is a good place. In your house, a towel or changing mat on the floor is safest. Tiny babies can’t officially roll, but they do wriggle, so always keep your hand on your baby if she’s on a changing table to stop her falling off.
HOW TO CHANGE A NAPPY
1 | Lie him on a towel and take off his dirty/ wet nappy. Use the nappy itself to scrape off any excess poo. Hold his ankles together and gently raise his bottom up a bit. Wash his bottom and genitals with cotton wool dipped in warm water. Pat him dry thoroughly with dry cotton wool (bits will stick to his bottom until it’s dry) or a soft towel or muslin.
2 | When clean and dry, hold his ankles up again and slide the back half of a new nappy under his bottom.
3 | Fold the top half up on to his tummy and secure it using the sticky pads from the bottom bit. Ideally, you want the sticky pads to be on his tummy, but if you put the nappy on backwards who cares? At least you’ve got it on. You can always get a midwife to check it when she finally comes.
4 | Babies often poo just when you have put on a clean nappy–if it happens, just start again. Otherwise wash your hands and feel very pleased with yourself for accomplishing the first nappy change.
How to hold a newborn
Always make sure one of your hands is behind the baby’s head, neck and shoulders. Most babies like to be held close to your body against your shoulder.
You
Your wonderful postnatal body
Or should that be ‘unrecognisable’? Here are a few shockers:
TIP
On the photos front, you may want to give your hair a brush and change out of your bloodstained birthing shirt–you’re going to be looking at these photos for the rest of your life (and showing them to anything with a pulse for years).
You will still look at least six months pregnant once the baby is born. It takes six weeks for your womb to shrink back to its normal size and texture.
Your tummy will be outlandishly squishy and spongy but will gradually firm up again.
Your stretch marks will be bright red–they’ll fade to white eventually.
Your Caesarean scar may look very raised, red and alarming–that will also fade to white eventually.
If you feel you’ve aged about twenty years in the last twenty-four hours, you probably have. Seriously, try not to be freaked out by all this–it’s temporary and happens to us all.
How you may feel physically
You’ll probably feel shockingly weak and exhausted. If you had a Caesarean it can be very difficult even to sit up. Your shoulders and legs may ache, your throat may be sore (if you spent hours baying like a beast in labour) and your eyes may be bloodshot. Luckily, you’ll also have a fantastic baby–or babies–to keep your mind off it all. Indeed, you could well feel utterly elated.
If you gave birth vaginally–particularly if you tore or had an episiotomy–you’re going to be seriously sore and bruised for a few days, if not weeks, and sometimes longer, though with much less intensity. Walking may be difficult and sitting down can be torture.
THERE ARE A NUMBER OF WAYS TO SOOTHE YOUR VAGINA AND PERINEUM:
Bring a plastic jug to the hospital: pouring warm water over your bits as you pee seriously alleviates the stinging. Bring one yourself, because you’ll either