All You Need To Know About Caring For A Newborn

It can be a very worrying and stressful experience having a newborn to care for. If this is a situation that you find yourself in at the moment, then you are probably feeling quite overwhelmed, even if you have tried to prepare for it as much as possible and taken all the appropriate neonatal classes and so on. Or if you have just found out that you are due to have a baby, then that is also a good time to start thinking about everything you might need to know.

In this post, we are going to take you through some of the main things that you should know about caring for a newborn. As long as you bear these points in mind, you should find that you are much more clued up on what you need to do - and also, what kinds of things you need to avoid. If you can remember all this - or even most of it - you will be able to care for your newborn much more effectively.

Image Source - CCO License

Helping Your Baby To Sleep

This is one of the most important things you need to achieve as a new parent, and it’s also the kind of thing that can be quite difficult to do right. Most parents will struggle with helping their baby to sleep, and it’s something that you need to learn about as much as you can if you are going to get them off to sleep more effectively and quickly, and reliably. So what do you need to think about to ensure that your baby is much more likely to sleep properly and deeply?

One of the first things to think about is that all babies are unique, and yours might sleep differently to another. Also, their sleeping patterns will change quite regularly, so you need to pay attention to what they seem to need and, in a sense, follow their lead. Beyond that, there are some tips that can help you to get your baby off to sleep.

Probably the most important of those is the matter of routine. As long as you and the baby have the same routine each night, they are going to be a lot more likely to nod off easily, so make sure that you are taking them down at the same time each night and going through the same set of activities. Then it’s a matter of soothing them in whatever way you can until they sleep.

Try to be patient, but forgive yourself if you are impatient too. And remember to lay them on their back, never their front, to help avoid SIDS.

Image Source - CCO License

Understanding Their Cry

One of the difficulties that people famously run into when they have a baby, especially when it is their first baby, is figuring out what they are trying to express through their crying. This can indeed seem like a riddle, and it can often be tricky to get to the bottom of if you are not sure about it. However, there are a few main needs that crying usually refers to, and at first it is merely a case of going through each in turn to see which they need. After that, it’s about getting used to different cries and knowing what they mean, which will come to you quite naturally over time.

So what are the main reasons newborns cry? Generally, it is due to: hunger, tiredness, or loneliness, or it might be that their nappy needs changing. So if you go through these in turn, you will be able to figure out which it is in each case. If your newborn continues to cry after you have dealt with each of these, and they don’t stop, it could be something more serious, so you should not discount that possibility, and you should make sure that you are caring for them appropriately. In general, however, you should expect your newborn to cry frequently - it’s a natural part of what they do.

Feeding A Newborn

Another one of the major challenges for most parents is figuring out how to feed their newborn, and there are actually many elements to this that you need to be aware of as best as you can be. Feeding a newborn is something of a knack, and you will find that it does indeed take some practice, so make sure that you are doing all you can to be patient with the process and just allow it to unfold as it needs to.

Image Source - CCO License

However, there are, again, some things that you can bear in mind which might help you when it comes to figuring out how best to feed your newborn. Part of the difficulty is knowing how often they need to be fed. For newborns, generally that is going to be every two to three hours at first. This will likely decrease over time, but mostly it’s just a case of making sure that they seem to be well fed.

Beyond that, you also need to focus on the aspect of actually getting them to latch on. Most mothers find this quite difficult, so it’s something that you need to make sure you are prepared for. Don’t worry if it is difficult at first, as this is the experience most people have. Just persist, and it should happen.

Bathing

Bathing is another aspect to caring for a newborn that you can’t really overlook, and it is the kind of thing that you need to make sure you are doing in the right way. In this case, the right way means that you are gentle with your baby, but also firm enough to ensure that they are properly cleaned by the bathing process. The process is quite simple, you just need a baby tub and then gently wipe them all over with soapy water. You might find that your baby quite enjoys it naturally, but if not you can make a game of it to help them find it fun. They should get used to it soon enough.