Babies are not harmed if they cry for a minute or two. Even if their nappy is soiled.
When the baby sleeps in the day, try to sleep as well. You are a better parent from it.
Most babies do not sleep the whole night, there is always someone with a worse problem than you so don't compare your nightmares to the lucky few.
Babies don't like surprises so putting them on a routine is better for both them and you in the end.
If breastfeeding; feed for about 25 min on first breast, check that it is emptied - and if baby is still hungry- feed from the other. If the baby falls asleep whilst eating, put him down so that he awakes and then continue. It is important for the baby to get to the hind milk, and that does not come until about 15 min from start. The hindmilk is what makes them feel fuller, so if they don't drink that they will soon be hungry again and you can end up feeding nonsstop throughout day and night.
When the baby is a few months, he needs to learn to soothe himself when he wakes up from a sleep cycle. This means that no matter how awful it feels, sometimes it can be better to leave them crying for a little bit in the night when he/she wakes up. (providing he is fed and changed and not ill of course). I have noticed that when we try to do that, most times within a minute he will have fallen back to sleep. This is of course very controversial parenting and we all do what we think is best and work for us but in my case I know that sometimes I have rushed in far too quickly which I believe has made it harder for little Gu to learn to settle by himself.
At 4 months, little Gu suddenly got into waking several times a night and wanting to eat. After a few weeks I was so exhausted I could not function anymore. We were at the parents in law and decided to test a theory I had been told that the baby can smell the mother and her milk and therefore wakes up wanting to eat. So I decided to sleep in a seperate room for 3 days and Mr M had to sleep and feed him. Lo and behold, almost immediately he changed and demanded to be fed less and less.
Little Gu definetely had stomach problems when he was newborn. He was pulling his legs up and screaming from the pain. When we started giving him infacol it immediately helped. Baby massage was also good ( learnt at baby massage Triyoga, primrose hill.) He also loved to listen to soothing music so I searched for "sound of water" on youtube and found some excellent music to play for him, which literally made him fall asleep immediately.
When the baby is born, they are going through the fourth trimester which is good to remember. So try to do anything as calmly and gently as possible. We were lucky that he was a calm baby from the start but I am sure that it helped that we made sure that he felt protected, warm and cozy all the time. We always made sure that changing the nappy was a nice experience by keeping him in a warm place ( it was freezing as he was in the Swedish winter) one thing we did was to use a fan heater close to the changing table and when he had a bath. So nothing was shocking but just pleasurable for him ( I hope). Not letting him be in really loud environments or meeting too many new people in one day was also something we adhered to. Basically common sense. We also did wrap him from day 1, which made him instantly calm and happy.
Anyway those are some things that I wished I knew when he was born, it would have saved me a lot of time and energy. Something I have also realized by now is: never ever thank your lucky star for having a baby who sleeps/eats well, because that can all change by tomorrow!
GOOD LUCK!!
GOOD LUCK!!
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