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If you follow my blog, you’ll know that my husband and I welcomed our first child into the world in the Fall of 2023. Let me tell you… It was a surreal moment leaving the hospital. I was still physically healing from the birth experience, my husband and I were exhausted having slept only about 3 hours over the previous 60-hour period, and we were just sent on our way with our newborn baby. Can you believe they just let you waltz on out of the hospital with your baby less than 48 hours after it enters the world? My husband will admit to being extremely nervous when we were waltzing out. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t anxious either, despite being older when my niece and nephew were babies. Again, surreal was the only word that I could use to describe that moment. For the moms that have been there already, I’m sure the experience was similar for you. For those that are preparing for that moment – get ready! Since that October morning, here’s a few things that got us through that initial anxiety and that we’ve learned in the parenthood process.
Advice
You’ve probably heard it before: babies are resilient. However, when you hold that newborn of yours for the first time, hear their cry, and see their face… you think they’re the most fragile and innocent thing in the world. It’s really hard to believe that cliché at that moment. But I’m telling you, they really are. My little girl was very squirmy early on (and still is at nearly 5 months old!). When I’d be holding her against my shoulder burping her, she’d sometimes swing her head into my cheek/chin bone. She’d do it with some force, too! Every time yielded the same outcome – a loud and pronounced scream and a waterfall of tears. The first time, I was genuinely worried that she had given herself a concussion. I mean, what do I know? She still had a big soft spot on the top of her head. I went to google to affirm my hope that everything was okay. Hint: Everything was okay then and the handful of times she did it in the future. My point with saying this is that we’ve learned first-hand how that cliché really is true. Don’t worry over the small things – they happen to virtually every baby at some point and it’s normal and natural to have happen.
Get comfortable with having milk, formula, and throw-up/barf on you. I have never heard of a parent say that their newborn doesn’t spit up excessively. I’m not a doctor, but when we expressed our concern to our pediatrician, they told us that as long as our girl was smiling and not visibly upset after spitting up/throwing up, she was more than likely fine. Though that was re-assuring to hear, it was difficult sometimes to keep up with the milk supply because of how often she’d be eating from her losing a lot from spitting up (fortunately I’ve learned some tips and tricks to increase milk production that I explained in a blog post here). We eventually figured out when to burp her, what her signs were if she was going to spit up her milk, and how to feed her to minimize her burps (we primarily bottle fed breastmilk). But we also got comfortable with having the barf on us nearly endemically. One day my husband had got dressed to go to the gym, only for our little girl to start throwing a fit right as he was leaving. He didn’t want to leave me with a screaming baby, so he helped settle her down, fed her, and burped her. She ended up barfing all over his shirt. This story epitomizes the baby experience – he rolled his eyes and left for the gym with barf stains all over his shirt. He didn’t even think to change shirts. He just didn’t care. My advice: Reach that point quickly and it’ll all be less stressful when the inevitable happens!
Don’t feel pressured to have people over quickly after getting home from the hospital or likewise feel pressured to go out with your baby. I wrote a blog here where I discussed how we managed the sleep transition for our little girl that you can read, but your sleep schedule will be broken and disrupted, and you’re more than likely going to be completely worn down each day. This state is not conducive to hosting guests. Take some time to take care of your baby and yourself, establishing a routine and acclimating yourself to your new normal. Get some sleep and relax before letting everyone come over!
Essentials
Pacifiers: Fact: babies cry. We tried a few brands of pacifiers early on, but the one that stuck with our baby is the one that stuck with many of our friends’ babies and can be found here. I can’t really describe why this brand specifically worked, but our girl was spitting out all of the other pacifiers. These BIBS Pacifiers are BPA-free, safe for our sanitizer machine, and created an excellent soothing noise that calmed (and still calms) our baby when she gets fussy. The second layer to calming our baby down was a simple Shhhh Machine that can be found here. This device worked wonders and it was extremely noticeable the difference it would make when we were trying to get our newborn to stop crying early on. It definitely works!
Swaddles: We swaddled our baby from the first night at the hospital to about 3.5 months. In my blog regarding sleep, I explain the reasoning as to why, but the swaddles (can be found here) do prevent them from waking themselves up in the middle of their 2-3 hour sleep blocks at night, which are massive for your own sleep health!
Playmat: This one is probably a staple in every American household with a baby. The songs that this playmat plays are nearly universally recognized amongst newborn parents due to it’s prevalence. The playmat comes with hangable toys to grab the attention of your baby, has multiple sound settings that engage the baby, and soothing and fun songs to sing along with to your little one. Our baby LOVES just laying on her back on the mat. It’s a must-have, really. The mat is also machine-washable, so it’s easy to clean from all the milk, drool, and spit-up that your baby will get on it. This playmat can be found here
We have used this bouncer (can be found here) so many times. If we weren’t able to hold our girl upright on our shoulders after feeding, we would put her in this bouncer as it would help keep her upright to prevent lots of spit-up of milk. Also, it’s helpful to have when doing just everyday things that you take for granted without having a newborn. Need to take a shower? Easy, put your baby in the bouncer next to the shower so you can keep eyes on her while also taking a shower. Getting ready at your makeup table? Easy, put your baby in the bouncer next to you and she’ll be happy to watch (though she probably won’t be able to see you those first 1-2 months!). In general, we got our money out of this item and more. It has been very helpful in managing spit-up and doing things around the house when our little girl is awake.
Spit-up/barf management: Have TONS of burp cloths on standby. We use these Yoofoss Muslin brand that can be found here. They’re nothing fancy, very affordable, and very effective at soaking up milk and barf. We have bought a handful of packs because we went through (and still go through) so many of these each day. Also, our baby would get hiccups a lot which would induce spitting up. A friend of mine recommended us get some gripe water (can be found here), and we had phenomenal experiences with it. 9 times out of 10, the hiccups would go away immediately after serving the gripe water. This was extremely helpful at keeping milk down after feeding because if she got hiccups after feeding, it was nearly guaranteed that she’d spit up most of her feeding. Eliminating those newborn hiccups with the gripe water was a blessing.
Tummy Time: Tummy time is such an essential part for a newborn as it’s pivotal in their development of neck muscles to hold themselves upright. You need two primary things for tummy time: A pillow and a toy to capture their attention. We used this pillow (can be found here) as it is perfectly designed for a newborn and our girl loved the cushion it gave her. The toy we used is a booty shakin’ llama, and I wrote a separate blog here about how this toy quickly became a staple in our home. This llama is still a toy that we use today with our little girl as she still loves it as much as she did the first time she heard and saw it do it’s dance routine. A video of the llama can be found here. These two items enabled our girl to excel at tummy time very early and get those needed muscles quickly!
Again, babies are resilient! Parents have nurtured newborns for thousands of years successfully without all the helpful items that I’ve listed above. However, the anxiety at navigating this phase can be very real. These are just a few things that we learned along the way and a couple of items that made our lives (and our little girl’s) a lot better and easier. Hopefully they can do the same for you!
Items mentioned in the blog can be found here:
BIBS Pacifiers:
Shhhh Machine:
Swaddles:
Playmat:
Bouncer:
Burp Cloths:
Gripe Water
Tummy Time Pillow:
Llama Toy
Life of Les 
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