The months and weeks leading up to delivering a baby are exciting...and tiring, too. Then the whole world changes in the instant you give birth and any thoughts of those nine
long months of pregnancy vanish and you redirect all of your attention to your newborn child.
It quickly sinks in that you are completely responsible for the well-being of another human being, and this human being can't even hold his head up yet.
I remember looking down at my son as we drove away from the hospital; we had him elaborately hooked into his car seat and all I could think of was how small he looked in the middle of that big contraption.
And then I thought, "I can't believe they're letting us leave."
I had never taken care of a baby before...I hadn't really even babysat. And then it occurred to me that I had been so busy reading all my pregnancy books that I hadn't read any parenting books. ARGH!
And then we got home and I thought, "Where's the band?"
Where was the band to welcome us home? There was no band...and there was no instructor waiting inside our home to tell me about feed
ing, or changing diapers, or burping, or appropriate winter outwear for babies, or preschool, or kindergartens in the area, or college funds.
But I did it...and everyone does.
Every baby is different...so, if your friend tells you to get a certain brand of bottle and it doesn't seem to work for you and your baby--try another type of bottle. It doesn't mean your baby is difficult or wierd. Don't worry--every baby is just different.
LISTEN to your baby.
The best advice my pediatrician has ever given me was this, "Relax. Babies let you know when something is wrong."
He's right. Babies do let you know.
Babies cry if they want their diaper changed, need to be burped, or helped to sleep, but mostly it means they are hungry. YOU can take care of that.
It's nice how motherhood works out: You're new at it, but the baby is too. You will learn together.
Nicole Crowley likes to concentrate on the good stuff over at her blog "BananaBlueberry.com."
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