About Baby Care

Posts Tagged ‘new baby’

Before your new baby arrived, your toddler was told he’d have a wonderful little brother to play with and how much fun it would be. Then the little brother was born and your toddler started thinking, “This squirming, red-faced baby that takes up all your time and attention is supposed to be fun?” Here are 10 ways to help him make the transition from only child to eldest:

1. Teach him how to interact

Your first goal is to protect the baby. Your second, to teach your older child how to interact properly. You can teach your toddler how to play with the baby in the same way you teach him anything else. Talk to him, demonstrate, guide and encourage. Until you feel confident that you’ve achieved your second goal, however, do not leave the children alone together. If you see your toddler about to get rough, pick up the baby and distract the older sibling with a song, a toy, an activity or a snack. This action protects the baby while helping you avoid a constant string of “Nos,” which could encourage the aggressive behavior.

2. Teach soft touches

Teach your toddler how to give the baby a back rub. Tell him how this kind of touching calms the baby and praise the older child for a job well done. This teaches him how to be physical with the baby in a positive way. Your toddler will be watching as you handle the baby and learning from your actions, so you are his most important teacher.

3. Act quickly

Every time you see your child act roughly with the baby, respond quickly. You might firmly announce, “No hitting, time out.” Place the child in a time-out chair and say, “You can get up when you can use your hands in the right way.” Allow him to get right up if he wants–as long as he is careful and gentle with the baby. This isn’t punishment, it’s just helping him learn that rough actions aren’t permitted.

4. Praise your toddler often

Whenever you see your older child touching the baby gently, make a positive comment. Make a big fuss about the important “older brother.” Hug and kiss him and tell him how proud you are.

5. Don’t blame everything on the new baby

Be careful not to say things like: “We can’t go to the park because the baby’s sleeping;” “Be quiet, you’ll wake the baby;” or “After I change the baby I’ll help you.” At this point, your child would just as soon sell the baby! Instead, use alternate reasons. “My hands are busy now;” “We’ll go after lunch;” “I’ll help you in three minutes.”

6. Be supportive

Acknowledge your toddler’s unspoken feelings, by saying things like, “Things sure have changed with the new baby here. It’s going to take us all some time to get used to this.” Keep your comments mild and general. Don’t say, “I bet you hate the new baby.” Instead, say, “It must be hard to have Mommy spending so much time with the baby.” When your child knows that you understand his feelings, he’ll have less need to act up to get your attention.

7. Give extra love

Increase your little demonstrations of love for your child. Say extra I love yous, increase your daily dose of hugs and find time to read a book or play a game. Temporary regressions or behavior problems are normal, and can be eased with an extra dose of time and attention.

8. Involve your toddler

Teach the older sibling how to be helpful with the baby or how to entertain the baby. Let your toddler open the baby gifts and use the camera to take pictures of the baby. Teach him how to put the baby’s socks on. Let him sprinkle the powder. Praise and encourage whenever possible.

9. Make each feel special

Avoid comparing siblings, even about seemingly innocent topics such as birth weight, when each first crawled or walked, or who had more hair-children can interpret these comments as criticisms.

10. Take a deep breath and be calm.

This is a time of adjustment for everyone in the family. Reduce outside activities, relax your housekeeping standards and focus on your current priority–adjusting to your new family size.

1. Know who you want to help you for the first week or two that you are home with baby.

It’s unrealistic to assume you can do it all on your own or that you have to! And if you don’t plan ahead, you could have every neighbor, cousin and coworker stopping by to gawk at your new little one. While it’s nice that people care, set limits because you and baby need rest and one-on-one time.

Be honest by letting others know how they can be most helpful (visiting at a certain time so you can nap or bringing a meal for your family). People genuinely do want to help you so relish in it!

2. Know that a new baby uses a lot of diapers, and not always “newborn” size.

You can never have too many diapers on hand! Most babies outgrow the newborn size very quickly so make sure you have size one available too. If getting out of the house proves difficult, don’t forget miraculous two-day shipping via the Internet!

3. Know that your breasts will probably become engorged when your milk comes in and you should have a breast pump available.

Don’t delay the purchase or rental of a breast pump because you don’t think you’ll need it until you introduce the bottle or return to work! Engorgement happens and it happens fast. Being ready with a breast pump, even an inexpensive manual one, will bring you much needed relief. While it is different with every baby, your milk typically comes in three or four days after delivery.

4. Know that it’s okay if your baby does not sleep in her crib or bassinet right away.

Those first couple of nights at home with your baby are likely to be challenging. Because it is so important that you get some sleep and that baby doesn’t get her nights and days mixed up, consider letting your baby sleep in her carrier, swing or bouncy chair. It’s unrealistic to think that baby will automatically sleep wonderfully in her bassinet (and if she does you will be surprised and overjoyed)!

5. Know that you will bleed for a while.

I had no idea this would happen. Seriously. I knew that there would, naturally, be a lot of blood during the delivery but I had no idea about the immense amount of menstrual-like bleeding that would take place afterwards. And having not had my period for the last nine months I had no women’s products on hand. Make sure you have plenty of pads to address this issue! This postpartum bleeding could last up to six weeks. If bleeding is excessively heavy, bright red (for more than 7 days after delivery), accompanied by a discharge that smells bad, a fever or chills, you need to contact your health care provider or go to the emergency room.

6. Know that babies like to be warm.

It was during my pregnancy that I was first introduced to the concept of swaddling a baby. Sounded kind of silly to me, but it totally made sense. Learning how to swaddle your baby could help your baby sleep for longer than 20 minute increments (which was super important to me). And because you should never cover an infant with a blanket, I recommend using bag sleepers (or sleep sacks) once your baby outgrows swaddling.

7. Know that batteries are every mother’s best friend.

If a new mom could choose one item to invest money in, I would highly recommend it be batteries. Everything from baby swings to freakish dancing Elmo dolls require these little power packs. Not much is worse than having a hysterical newborn who won’t stop crying unless she’s constantly in motion except having a hysterical newborn who won’t stop crying and then finding out that the batteries in her swing are dead [again]! Stock up on batteries– lots and lots of batteries.

8. Know that you need to take care of yourself.

Perhaps the best piece I advice I could offer for the postpartum period is that as a new mom you need to take care of yourself! I know, I know, you just had a baby you’ve got loads of wash to launder, dozens of diapers to change, lots of bottles to scrub and oh-so-much cuddling to do. And, don’t get me wrong, all of those things are important (especially the last one) but it is also very important that you take a few minutes to yourself. I always rolled my eyes when someone said I needed to be napping while my baby napped (especially after the delivery of my third) but it really is important. Most other things can wait. Your body just underwent huge stresses and it needs to recover. Taking time for yourself might look like napping but it could also be a nice, hot shower while hubby holds baby or a short walk down the block while grandma spoils baby. Whatever it is, it is necessary and you deserve it!