Top Tips for surviving a newborn

3 weeks ago today I gave birth to the most beautiful little boy in the world and I knew absolutely nothing about looking after a baby except they need food a clean bum and lots of cuddles. 3 weeks later and I can officially say I still don’t know much! If only there was some mysterious handbook of how to look after a baby we would all be having an easy life!

So I’ve decided to put together just a few of the top tips I’ve discovered myself in the last 3 weeks of whinging it being a mummy I hope they come in handy for any mums to be!

Let’s start with the shit stuff… literary! Nappies! Now I’m going to do a post about what brands I recommend so I won’t repeat it here, we are currently using a mix of Aldi and Lidl nappies! It’s important to remember that your newborn is going to shit ALOT! So you need to be prepared for the ghastly nappy changes and be quick on the mark to get it done. I will never forget the first nappy change we did on Rex in hospital! It took us about 10 min because we had no idea what we were doing and that was with 2 of us changing him! As the days went on we finally got it down to a fine art and our times improved dramatically, if there was an Olympic sport in nappy changing we would totally boss it !

Signs a nappy needs changing are pretty obvious, the classic screaming the place down is one sign and hey who can blame them how’d you like to be sat in your own shit? I don’t know about other baby’s but our little one tends to do a massive fart when he’s doing a poo and that look on his face of trying to push one out is a classic sign. For the wee wee’s you don’t know when theve done it so regular checks would be a good idea.

My top tip for nappy changing is simple.. PREPERATION! now you don’t want to get your baby on the changing mat and be faffing around with all the bits you need so what I do is get everything out ready next to the changing mat open up the clean nappy ready to quickly put on, open up the nappy bag and wipes to. It sounds so simple but it will really help get that nappy changed quickly and efficiently and have baby feeling all clean and fresh. little tip.. put a blanket on the changing mat as those mats can get cold which will make the baby scream!

It’s all in the preperation.

Following on from the nappy changes this really is my TOP TIP of the whole blog post because without this one simple thing I would be screwed and forever running up the stairs to grab stuff I need. What you need to do is set up a little baby station downstairs where you keep everything you need so it’s on hand! My coffee table has become my baby station and on it we have all the changing essientails including a changing mat under the table ready to pull out when needed. Nappies, wipes, nappy bags, Muslin cloths and a bag of clean clothes (be prepared for several change of clothes in one day) our current record is 7! It may make my living room look like aisle 7 in mothercare but my god does it save me time! So get your baby stations ready ladies! And daddy’s! ( I also have one set up in my bedroom for the night feeds)

Top tip number 2 only applys to you if you are bottle feeding. I tried breast feeding in hospital and much to my amazement I really enjoyed it! But as it got to difficult I switched to the bottle. Now there’s loads of different formulas you can buy, we went with Aptamil for the only reason that after reading the back of all the packs in the shop I came to the conclusion all baby milk is the same! And it worked out well because Rex loves his Aptamil! Now there’s different ways of making up bottles I started with the good old boiling water mixed with powder fridge it and heat it up as required. This may work for a lot of you but to be quite frank it was a pain in the arse! My sister in law very kindly gave us a perfect prep machine. For those of you who have no idea what that is it’s basically a machine that makes the milk to the correct tempature in under 60 seconds. FANTASTIC! I would totally recommend it, during those dreaded night feeds it’s an absolute god send! I won’t lie they are abit pricey at £125 but worth every penny!

Basically all you do is put the bottle with powder under the spout press the button which sends out boiling water. Give it a little shake put it back under and press the button again and it fills the bottle up so it’s ready to drink!

As you can see to save time I’ve put the correct amount of scoops in little pots on top of the machine so all I have to do is pour that into a bottle and hurray we are ready to rock and roll !!

My top tip number 3 also relates to feeding… (the baby not you!)

You must make sure all bottles and feeding things are sterilised !! We have the tommee tippee steriliser which is fantastic! Again very quick only takes 10 min and easy to use! We keep a jug of water next to the steriliser as everytime you use it you need to put some water in the bottom. Fill up your steriliser with the bottles lids and even dummy’s pour in some water put the lid down press the button and BAM! 10 min later you will have bottles ready to use.

My kitchen currently looks like a little production line, I’ve never been so organised in my life! And trust me organisation is the key when having a baby. So next to the steriliser I have a box to put the sterilised bottles in so we know which ones are ready to use and we can grab them quick when making a bottle which is really handy.

Finally further along the production line … to keep the bottles seperate from all the other washing up I’ve got a plastic tub next to my sink which I put the washed out bottles in that need to be sterlised. The brush came with the bottle set.

My final top tip to make life sort of easier is something my health visator suggested and it’s something Called “white noise” I had no idea what this was but apparently it’s every day noises that tend to calm babies such as a hover, washing machine, fan etc. Now I’m not suggesting you go and turn on all your household appliances to calm the baby down, what I’m telling you to do is download an app called “sound sleeper” this app has saved my arse a few times already. It has all the sounds that baby’s like, I’m not going to lie it’s not a miracle worker but it has worked a couple of times for me when Rex has been upset his favourite noises are the hover and fan.

And there we have it all my time saving top tips for surviving a new born!

Z

Xxx