New Parent Tips
Parenting is a minefield. Most of the time we are all making it up as we go along. There is a lot of trial & error and that is why I thought I would share some of my own experiences. Not just with my own daughter, but through all the information I absorb from my clients when they visit the studio. Over time I have built up an idea of what works and what doesn’t and I have picked up tips on products that I had never heard of. Often it is the companies with the smallest advertising budgets who are making the best products for your baby. Your midwife is not allowed to recommend particular brands but we are…. Here are a few random ones that come to mind. We normally have time during your newborn photoshoot to discuss many more and issues like tongue tie, mixed feeding….
Sleep
What did an NCT antenatal class and also the one at our local birth centre with the midwives. They both suggested this simple method of putting baby in the moses basket or crib with a blanket tucked in. It turns out this doesn’t work for most of us. The best success we had was with sleeping bags or grobags which we continued to use until she grew out of the largest size they made.
White Noise
We were given a Ewan the Sheep. It didn’t have any great affect in the beginning but by around six months it became a vital part of our bedtime routine. Other parents swear by apps that provide the noise of rain falling, a hairdryer or the washing machine. In the studio we use the Baby Shusher app mostly for distraction and to avoid complete silence.
Drugs
Our daughter suffered terribly with both colic and reflux. We never found out the cause nor the solution but believe that she eventually developed enough that she grew out of it. We experimented with diet, special milks etc.
The medicine that seemed the kindest was Infacol. It is orange flavoured so doesn’t seem too mediciney.
If you do want to try Gripe water, bare in mind that the traditional stuff smells terrible. I doubt that you would want to drink it let alone give it to your baby. Luckily Boots make an own brand one that is apple flavoured.
Your GP is unlikely to prescribe you anything more useful until you have exhausted all the over the counter options. If you are tough enough the brave the screaming then your child will eventually grow out of it once their digestive system has finished developing. We eventually were prescribed Ranitidine.
Nappy Cream
For a long time we bought the brands that we got free samples of or vouchers for. Our daughter’s nursery and many people we know use Sudocrem, but when things got really bad there was only one thing that fixed it: Metanium. Make sure you get “the yellow one” not the white barrier cream. In the end we worked out that it was her diet that was causing the issues. Apparently girls get more affected than boys and it was the punnets of blueberries that she was ploughing through that were causing the problem.
I look forward to meeting with you one day soon and hopefully be able to share some thoughts and help you with the start of the beautiful journey that you are beginning.
