Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

Hi Mary, Congratulations. Not sure if you remember but I now have an 8 week old boy at home and we are doing well. I thought I'd email a few things that I wish I knew before he was born. Maybe they will help out another new mom!
It's a big shock when you get home, just being tired and trying to recover from labor is tough when you can't get much sleep at home. The first few nights are a big adjustment. Eventually you'll get in to a rhythme and you get a little used to being up at night so much. Try to sleep whenever the baby does.

A few good books that helped: The Happiest Baby on the Block, also comes in DVD if you don't want to read the whole book. But this author recommends swaddling to calm your baby. Baby stores now carry swaddlers made with velcro so they stay closed and babies can't get their arms out. It looks strange but it's amazing how much our baby likes being swaddled tightly at night. Also I liked the Baby Whisperer mostly for her idea of the schedule. Eating, then some activity like a diaper change then put your baby to bed while he/she is still awake but tired. It's hard to get this schedule going the first week but it's really working now and I can better predict if he's hungry, tired etc.

If you breastfeed, read up as much as you can. Even if things go well it's very tiring and time consuming, more then I thought it would be. And we found out our baby wasn't gaining enough weight (my milk supply wasn't enough) so we ended up supplementing some formula which I planned to do anyway. Getting a weight check (on the same scale) is a good way to tell if your baby is eating enough if you end up breastfeeding.

Well I hope things all go well for you. I'm just now starting to get 4-5 hours of sleep in a row at night and it's starting to get fun because our little boy is smiling and cooing at us. Good luck to you.

Debby

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