Parenting Your Newborn

Congratulations! You have a new baby! Now what?

Welcome to Planet Parenthood, where the sleep is scarce but the love will blow you away. In this section, you'll find your baby's developmental tasks, your priorities, and a simple Parents' Gameplan, all set up to make your life easier when you've only had an hour of sleep and you've got two minutes to read.


Your Newborn's Primary Developmental Tasks:

Learning to eat

Learning to sleep at night

Learning to handle lots of stimulation

Development of trust

Rapid physical and brain development

6. Settling into his body



Your Challenges:

Learning everything about your baby when he was delivered without an owner's manual -- and as soon as you figure it out, he changes!

Renegotiating your entire life.

Getting some sleep.

Your Top Priorities

Learning to feed your baby

Learning how to comfort her

Getting some sleep

Learning how to relax and enjoy the moment (Don't sweat the small stuff -- and it's almost all small stuff.)

Gaining the confidence that you really are the perfect parent for this baby!

Your Strategy:

1. Wear your baby.
She'll cry less. You'll be more in touch with her cues. Babies are designed to be held.

2. Breastfeed.

He’ll be healthier, have a higher IQ, and cry less. You’ll be happier in the middle of all that unfolded laundry. (The hormones that get released when you nurse are similar to those released after orgasm.) Nurse on demand, not on schedule. Get whatever advice you need to get nursing established. As soon as your baby can handle it, nurse at night lying down, so you can doze while she nurses; you won't be so exhausted the next day from night feedings.

3. Sleep whenever and wherever you can.

For me, the family bed was the only way to get any sleep at all. It makes some people anxious. There are now great options, like a baby bunk, that connect right up against your bed so you can't roll on the baby accidentally. Or a baby hammock positioned near your bed, which lets your baby sleep in womblike comfort right next to your bed. My advice is to read as much as you can, and then lose the guilt. Do what works for you and your baby.

4. Plan for the baby to be with Mom or Dad as much as possible for at least the first year.

An infant needs to be with an adult who is crazy about her. That’s too much to expect from a paid caretaker. Not to mention that if the paid caretaker IS crazy about the baby and leaves your employ – and the chances of turnover are very high – your baby will experience it as a tremendous loss. HE doesn’t know this isn’t a second mother. In fact, if he spends most of his waking hours with her, he doesn't know it isn't his primary mother.

5. De-prioritize everything else,

except eating, sleeping and loving, for yourself and the rest of your family. This isn't just for moms. It's amazing how many dads assume their lives can go on as usual when there's a new baby at home.

6. If you stay home with a baby, don’t let yourself get isolated.

At the very least, get out of the house every single day and go for a walk. (No one cares if your hair doesn't look its best, I guarantee.) Or get together with other moms or dads and talk babies. Or politics (For instance, why the U.S. is one of only five countries of 168 studied that doesn't mandate some form of paid maternal leave, putting us on par with Papua New Guinea, Lesotho, and Swaziland!)

10 Must-Know Baby and Toddler Nap Facts.

We’ve written quite a bit about baby and toddler naps here on the blog, so if you’ve been following our site for awhile, you’ve had the chance to read a lot of baby and toddler nap tips and tidbits. But, some of you are new moms  and we strive to educate all of our parents on the importance of good sleep and how to achieve it!

Today, we’re presenting you with 10 must-know facts about your baby’s or toddler’s naps. Think of it as your nap “cheat sheet”. ??

10 Things You Need To Know About Baby and Toddler Naps

The first nap of the day is the most important. This isn’t to say that other naps aren’t also important. But the first nap of the day tends to be the most restorative, setting the tone for the day, and it’s generally the one that produces the best sleep for babies and young toddlers.

Most babies don’t transition to one nap at 12 months; most transition to one nap between 15-18 months. There seems to be a prevailing opinion out there that at the one year mark, babies should suddenly transition from two naps to one. And some will, with no problem. But we’re here to tell you that making the 2-to-1 nap transition at 12 months isn’t the norm for most babies. In fact, most babies aren’t ready to move to one nap a day until 15-18 months.

Most 6 month old babies aren’t ready for just 2 naps per day; most still need 3 (or even 4). Just as there’s a misconception that all 12 month old babies are ready to transition to one nap per day, there’s also a misconception that 6 month old babies are ready to transition to just 2 naps each day. We think this misconception is at least party due to a recommendation that Weissbluth makes in his book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. In the book, Weissbluth states that only 16% of babies need a third nap after 5 months. Keep in mind this statistic came from a study of a limited number of children.
We are not discounting Weissbluth’s studies, but we do take it with a grain of salt, since all babies vary in their ability (particularly mood-wise) to stay awake for long periods of time. In our extensive work with families, we’ve found that far more than 16% of babies appear to need 3 naps at 6, 7, even 8 months of age. Therefore, we usually tell parents not to rush into a 2 nap schedule with their 6 month old babies. Doing that increases the chances that their 6 month olds will become overtired, which will in turn affect their night sleep. We’ve found it’s better to stick to a 3 nap schedule (or even a 4 nap schedule) and then gradually transition to a 2 nap schedule around 8 months.

Your child’s nap needs will change greatly between birth and 18 months. Greatly. This just makes sense if you think about it — newborns nap pretty much constantly during the day, while an 18 month old needs just 1 nap. That’s a lot of change during a relatively short period of time!
So, how many naps does your baby or toddler need in the first 18 months of life? You can read this article for detailed information, but here’s the short version:

*1-3 MONTHS — 4-5 naps per day, depending on how long his naps are and how long he can stay up between naps.

*3-4 MONTHS — 4 naps.

*5-8 MONTHS — probably 3 naps (though some will need 4 until after 7 months). A few babies will only have 2 naps at a very young age, but those naps are usually long.

*9-15 MONTHS — 2 naps. Some babies will transition to 1 nap at 12 months, but that’s not common.

*15-18 MONTHS — 1-2 naps. The transition from 2 naps to 1 usually happens in this window of time.

*18 MONTHS-4 YEARS — 1 nap. The age to transition away from all napping varies a lot, from 2 to 5+ years old, but the average age is between 3 and 4 years old.

If your baby or toddler sleeps well at night, that doesn’t necessarily mean she’ll nap well during the day. Remember, nap sleep is different than night sleep. Naps happen during daylight hours, when the sun’s up and when it tends to be noisy and busy. External factors like that can make it hard for a baby or toddler to nap well. And many families struggle with keeping a consistent daily nap routine in place — because life tends to get in the way! That, too, can make it hard for a baby or toddler to nap consistently. Contrast that with nights — it’s dark, it’s (usually) quiet, and everyone is (usually) at home. That at least partly explains why many babies and toddlers who sleep just fine at night struggle with their naps.

On-the-go, “moving” naps aren’t as restorative as naps that happen at home, in bed. This might come as a bit of a surprise, but it’s true — naps that happen “on the go” (in a moving car, for example, or in a moving stroller or shopping cart) aren’t as restorative as naps that happen on a non-moving surface (like a bed). They aren’t as long, for one thing, and during a “moving” nap, your baby’s or toddler’s sleep won’t be as deep. The occasional on-the-go nap isn’t a big deal, of course; sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do. But if the majority of your baby’s or toddler’s naps are happening in the car, or in a stroller, you may need to rethink your daytime routines and schedule.

It’s possible for your baby or toddler to nap too much. Yes, we realize that this particular “problem” doesn’t plague most of you. ?? But it’s true; some babies and toddlers nap too much, and it negatively affects their nighttime sleep. How much nap time sleep is too much? You can check out this article for details, but here’s a fast breakdown:

*INFANT STAGE (birth – 4 months) — newborns will sleep 14-18 total hours during the day. To maximize nighttime sleep, limit naps to two hours, and try to keep your baby awake for 30 minutes between naps. (Need help with newborn sleep? Take a look at our newborn e-Book.)

*BABY STAGE (4-12 months) — babies need 13-15 total hours of sleep during the day. 2-4 of these hours should be naps (depending on how much sleep your baby is getting at night.)

*TODDLER STAGE (12 months – 3 or 4 years) — 1-3 hours of total naptime is considered normal and healthy.

Educate yourself on when common nap transitions occur, and how to manage them. Nap transitions are likely to occur at the following times:

*3-4 MONTHS — baby transitions from 5 naps to 4.

*5-6 MONTHS — baby transitions from 4 naps to 3.

*8-9 MONTHS — baby transitions from 3 naps to 2.

*15-18 MONTHS — toddler transitions from 2 naps to 1.

As for how to handle these nap transitions? We have loads of resources on that very topic in our Members Area – keep reading for details!

If a nap just isn’t happening, know when to give up and try again later. We end up dispensing this advice quite often to our consultation clients who we are working on nap training: don’t waste too much time trying to make a nap happen. No sense in spending 3 hours trying to force an afternoon nap to happen — at that point, you’re probably closer to bedtime than you are to naptime!

When your toddler is finally done taking naps, consider replacing nap time with “rest time”. It’s always a little sad when your toddler finally ages out of his naps. Gone are those one or two hours of peace, when mom or dad could get some work done, catch up on chores, or take a nap themselves! However, the end of nap time doesn’t have to mean the end of your afternoon peace and quiet. Simply replace nap time with rest time.

BONUS NAP TIP: We like you so much, we’re squeezing in a bonus tip for you! This one deals with short naps, an all-too-common problems for the parents in our Baby Sleep Site® community. The fact is, short naps are normal for newborns and young babies, but by about 6 months of age, most babies are able to take longer naps. Want all the details on why short naps happen, and how to fix the problem? Check out this article on short baby naps.

Using a Mother’s Microbes to Protect Cesarean Babies

The first germs to colonize a newborn delivered vaginally come almost exclusively from its mother. But the first to reach an infant born by cesarean section come mostly from the environment — particularly bacteria from inaccessible or less-scrubbed areas like lamps and walls, and skin cells from everyone else in the delivery room.

Photo

The transfer of the maternal microbiome occurs naturally after (a) a vaginal birth. After a (b) C-section, researchers transferred the neonatal microbiome from the mothers with a (c) gauze treatment.CreditKim Caesar/Nature Publishing Group

That difference, some experts believe, could influence a child’s lifelong health. Now, in the first study of its kind, researchers on Monday confirmed that a mother’s beneficial microbes can be transferred, at least partially, from her vagina to her baby after a C-section.

The small proof-of-principle study suggests a new way to inoculate babies, said Dr. Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, an associate professor of medicine at New York University and lead author of the report, published on Monday in Nature Medicine.

“The study is extremely important,” said Dr. Jack Gilbert, a microbial ecologist at Argonne National Laboratory who did not take part in the work. “Just understanding that it’s possible is exciting.”

But it will take further studies following C-section babies for many years to know to what degree, if any, the method protects them from immune and metabolic problems, he said.

Some epidemiological studies have suggested that C-section babies may have an elevated risk for developing immune and metabolic disorders, including Type 1 diabetes, allergies, asthma and obesity.

Scientists have theorized that these children may be missing key bacteria known to play a large role in shaping the immune system from the moment of birth onward. To replace these microbes, some parents have turned to a novel procedure called vaginal microbial transfer.

A mother’s vaginal fluids — loaded with one such essential bacterium, lactobacillus, that helps digest human milk — are collected before surgery and swabbed all over the infant a minute or two after birth.

An infant’s first exposure to microbes may educate the early immune system to recognize friend from foe, Dr. Dominguez-Bello said.

Friendly bacteria, like lactobacilli, are tolerated as being like oneself. Those from hospital ventilation vents or the like may be perceived as enemies and be attacked.

These early microbial interactions may help set up an immune system that recognizes “self” from “non-self” for the rest of a person’s life, Dr. Dominguez-Bello said.

In the United States, about one in three babies are delivered by C-section, a rate that has risen dramatically in recent decades. Some hospitals perform the surgery on nearly seven in ten women delivering babies.

An ideal C-section rate for low-risk births should be no more than 15 percent, according to the World Health Organization.

Dr. Dominguez-Bello’s study involved 18 babies born at the University of Puerto Rico hospital in San Juan, where she recently worked. Seven were born vaginally and 11 by elective C-section. Of the latter, four were swabbed with the mother’s vaginal microbes and seven were not.

Microbes were collected on a folded sterile piece of gauze that was dipped in a saline solution and inserted into each mother’s vagina for one hour before surgery. As the operations began, the gauze was pulled out and placed in a sterile collector.

One to two minutes after the babies were delivered and put under a neonatal lamp, researchers swabbed each infant’s lips, face, chest, arms, legs, back, genitals and anal region with the damp gauze. The procedure took 15 seconds.

Dr. Dominguez-Bello and her colleagues then tracked the composition of microbes by taking more than 1,500 oral, skin and anal samples from the newborns, as well as vaginal samples from the mothers, over the first month after birth.

For the first few days, ambient skin bacteria from the delivery room predominated in the mouths and on the skin of C-section babies who were not swabbed, Dr. Dominguez-Bello said.

But in terms of their bacterial colonies, the infants swabbed with the microbes closely resembled vaginally delivered babies, she found, especially in the first week of life. They were all covered with lactobacilli.

Gut bacteria in both C-section groups, however, were less abundant than that found in the vaginally delivered babies.

Anal samples from the swabbed group, oddly, contained the highest abundance of bacteria usually found in the mouth.

The results show the complexity of labor, said Dr. Alexander Khoruts, a microbial expert and associate professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota. “It cannot be simplified to a neat, effortless passage of the infant through the birth canal,” he said.

As the month progressed, the oral and skin microbes of all infants began to resemble normal adult patterns, Dr. Dominguez-Bello said. But fecal bacteria did not, probably because of breast or formula feeding and the absence of solid foods.

The transfer fell short of full vaginal birth-like colonization for two reasons, Dr. Dominguez-Bello said. Compared to infants who spent time squeezed inside the birth canal, those who were swabbed got less exposure to their mother’s microbes.

And all infants delivered by C-section were exposed to antibiotics, which also may have reduced the number and variety of bacteria colonizing them.

A larger study of vaginal microbial transfer is underway at N.Y.U., Dr. Dominguez-Bello said. Eighty-four mothers have participated so far.

Infants delivered both by C-section and vaginally will be followed for one year to look for differences in the treated and untreated groups and to look for complications. Thus far the swabbing has proved entirely safe.

The procedure is not yet recommended by professional medical societies, said Dr. Sara Brubaker, a specialist in maternal and fetal medicine at N.Y.U. Until more is known, physicians are hesitant to participate.

“But it has hit the lay press,” she said. “Patients come in and ask for it. They are doing it themselves.”

Dr. Brubaker is one of them. When her daughter was born three and a half months ago, she arranged to have her baby swabbed.

Babies should be breastfed exclusively for 6 months

Breast milk is nature’s perfect food for babies.

Think about it: mother nature has had more than 2.5 million years to figure this one out.  Breast milk contains the perfect mix of fat, protein and carbohydrate for the babies developing physiology.  It contains protective substances that give her immunity to diseases.

In the early stages of a baby’s life, breast milk meets all of her nutrient needs.  No other foods or fluids – including water – are necessary.  (Breast milk itself is 88% water, which more than satisfies an infant’s thirst).

A report called Infant and Young Child Feeding issues by the World Health Organization summarized research indicating that infants should be breasted exclusively for the first 6 months of their lives.  

Babies exclusively breastfed for 6 months have 8.6 times lower risk of diarrheal illness.  A study from India found that deaths from diarrhea and pneumonia could be decreased by one-third if infants were exclusively (rather than partially) breastfed for the first 4 months.  Sadly, only 35% of infants are exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months of life.

Breastfeeding also confers intermediate- and long-term benefits on both the child and the mother, including helping to protect children against a variety of acute and chronic disorders.

Infants not breastfed are between 6 and 10 times more likely not to survive the first months of life.  Formula-fed infants also have increased risk of long-term diseases with an immunological basis, such as asthma, type 1 diabetes, celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and childhood leukemia.

Other studies suggest that obesity, high blood pressure and heart disease are more common later in life in kids not breastfed, and that kids that are formula-fed on average have cognitive scores 3 points lower than those breastfed.

Breastfeeding should continue (with solid food) for at least two years

In the same WHO report mentioned above, the authors recommended that breastfeeding continue along with the introduction of solid foods (i.e. “complementary feeding”) for at least 23 months (two years).  This is the minimum period required to adequately nourish the growing baby.  Some parents may wish to continue breastfeeding beyond this point.

At six months of age, the increased energy needs of the infant start to exceed the energy provided by breast milk, so that’s the time to begin to introduce foods.  It is not okay to continue to breastfeed exclusively at this point.  At the same time, breastfeeding should still continue on-demand throughout the complementary feeding period (up to 2 years of age).  Breast milk continues to provide higher quality nutrients than complementary foods, and also protective factors that guard against childhood illness and reduce the risk of chronic diseases later in life.

The WHO recommends that breast milk provide at least 50 percent of calories for a child between 6 and 12 months of age, and one-third of calories between 12 and 24 months of age.

Infant Child Care

Here are a few things to look for when considering what your infant needs from his caregiver:

Licensing

Most states have a licensing process for in-home caregivers; a daycare center absolutely must be licensed to operate their business. Specific state websites are available that will outline the requirements for licensing; some states even offer referrals to quality care. No matter which kind of care you choose - make sure that your provider has some early-childhood education and even some certifications. Everyone who cares for your infant should have basic first aid and CPR certification.

Provider/Child Ratio

An infant needs and deserves lots of love and attention throughout the day. The ratio of providers to infants should never be higher than 1:4. If you are able to afford one-on-one care for your baby, she will no doubt benefit in many ways, but even if your childcare center has a higher ratio, a properly trained, loving caregiver can still provide great care to your infant.

Television

There can simply not be enough said about the effects of television on small babies and toddlers. 

Numerous studies show that even children's programming is inappropriate for this age-range. Babies need to be exploring their world, and interacting with caregivers. Make sure that your daycare center, home daycare or nanny doesn't keep the television blaring in the background all day. Your child will have plenty of time to develop a love for sitcoms and Sesame Street!

Safety

Child care centers, and in-home daycare centers should all be thoroughly baby-proofed. Vigilance to safety can be the difference between life and death (or serious injury) to your child. Don't be afraid to ask lots of questions, and get down on hands and knees to check out that outlets have been covered, cords are tucked away, and there are no buckets of water sitting around for little ones to take a dive into. Check out the childrens safety network for more info on baby-proofing and accident prevention. 

Child care providers should also have smoke detectors installed, and have a working fire extinguisher at the ready, in addition to having basic first-aid and CPR training.

Cleanliness

You want your baby to be as healthy as possible, and cleanliness is one of the best ways to keep her germ-free and happy. Make sure that her caregivers are washing their hands frequently, and keeping the child care areas clean and free of debris. If your baby is being cared for by an in-home provider, make sure that any pets in the home have been properly vaccinated and are never allowed near the baby while unattended.

Lots of love and affection

The most important thing to remember when choosing infant care is that your baby needs constant love and affection. Find a caregiver that is committed to spending quality time with your child, and is willing to assist her development every day. Baby should bond with her caregiver, Lucky baby - she has one more adult in her life that loves and cherishes her!

Author,

Andrea Beilinson