• Let your newborn lie skin to skin between your breasts to discover in his/her own time and way where your nipple is and how to feed
• Don’t touch the back of your newborn’s head during feeding – this will stimulate a reflex to jerk his/her head backwards giving the impression that s/he ‘refuses to feed’
• Sometimes babies just need to cry! When you’ve checked everything and baby is still crying, gently moan with your baby, cooing and gently singing a lullaby
• Rocking stimulates the happiness hormone in the brain – that’s why children (and adults) enjoy swinging. Make a hammock out of a blanket and swing your baby with your partners help
• Newborns love to be with their mothers. The traditional way of carrying the baby on the back solves many problems. Try it sometime!
• Keep your baby’s head covered with a beanie in winter. The head is disproportionately big and unprotected with hair, which means that your baby can lose a lot of body heat this way. Cold hands does not necessarily mean that your baby is cold or tired
• Don’t over-burp your baby. If bottle feeding, when baby stops drinking, this is a good time to burp. If you’re breast-feeding burp once when swopping from one breast to the other
• Don’t dress a newborn in yellow – it makes them look jaundiced when they’re not and jaundiced babies look more yellow than they really are
• If you’re worried that your baby is running a temperature, kiss the back of his/her neck rather than touching the forehead. The kiss will alert you whether to worry or not
• If you’re worried about bathing a slippery baby, don’t soap the baby before putting him/her into the water. Simply add aqueous cream to the water, or soap baby in the water.
Life with baby is trial and error. Be practical, don’t panic and use a bit of magic. It works wonders – especially for you!
