Now that we’ve talked all about the baby’s crying, let’s talk about yours! All new parents know that if you ask five people for their advice (not that people even wait for you to ask), you’ll get ten different opinions. So, even though you didn’t ask me for my opinion, here is my list of ten sanity-saving survival tips to help you endure the challenges of your baby’s first months a little more gracefully.
1. Trust Yourself: You Are the Latest in the Unbroken Chain of the World’s Top Parents
Leslie, still in her hospital bed with four-day old Gabriel, told me: “I’m usually such an optimist, yet I’ve had weird dreams of dropping him and leaving him places. My husband jokes that some special ‘inexperienced-parent’ alarm will go off when we take Gabe home from the hospital!”
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Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.
Dr. Benjamin Spock
If you’re like most new parents, you probably alternate between feeling like a major-league pro and an amateur. It’s enough to give a person “parental whiplash!” And, the conflicting advice given by many baby experts can deepen the confusion.
But before you lose confidence, please remember this: You are part of an unbroken chain of successful parents that stretches all the way back to the beginning of time. You and your baby have survived because you are descended from the best mothers, most protective fathers, and strongest children in the world. That’s why Dr. Spock’s advice to parents to trust themselves is so correct.
Trust your feelings. Relax and remember that all your baby really needs from you is milk and your nourishing love. And all you really need is patience, support, a little information, and perhaps a massage every once in a while.
2. Lower Your Expectations
You’ll see. Having a baby is like going to sleep in your own bed and waking up in Zimbabwe!
Sonya to her daughter Denise a month before
Denise gave birth to Aidan
Becoming a parent is filled with all sorts of misconceptions and surprises. And perhaps the biggest misconception of all is that you’ll automatically know what to do the moment your baby is born. Yet even after giving birth to her third child, Beth quipped, “At the end of my first pregnancy about the only thing I was really prepared to do was filling out forms and buying maternity dresses!”
Parenting requires some practical experience (especially when caring for challenging babies). Yet many pregnant couples today have never even touched a newborn. Despite this lack of experience, they expect themselves to instantly be able to care for the babies and manage the household and have a job and be lovers.
Unfortunately, these unrealistic expectations have been growing in our culture for at least the past fifty years. Even though people warned you when you were pregnant, “Your life will never be the same!” you probably shrugged it off. Few believe their baby will be tough. For most women, being pregnant is so close to their regular life that they get lulled into a false sense of security. Before delivery, you can still linger in a hot shower and think, “I’m ready. I’m on top of this.” It’s so automatic that many women are tricked into believing that taking care of their newborns would be just as natural, but as you now know, that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s only after your baby is born that you begin to see the demands of parenthood more accurately. Suddenly, that long hot shower you took a month before the baby came looks like a Caribbean vacation.
Another expectation that may not immediately materialize is loving your baby the moment you see her. Of course, many parents do instantly fall in love with their new infant; however, one of the little-told truths about becoming a parent is that many new moms and dads don’t feel smitten right away. It makes sense that falling in love might take a little time. After all, few of us experience love at first sight. Don’t worry, like the song says, “You can’t hurry love.”
And that’s not all. You may soon notice your brain has also unexpectedly changed. Memory loss is one more proof that your life is temporarily out of your control. One new mom told me, “My best guess is that during the delivery a piece of my brain came out with the placenta.”
Lots of moms feel that giving birth turns them into complete “boobs”—and in a way it does! Lactation makes your body awash with prolactin which, along with the other massive hormonal changes going on inside you, probably is the basis for this new forgetfulness. Finally, you’ll notice your ditziness is made ten times worse by exhaustion. Clear thinking is terribly hard to hold on to in the face of prolonged sleep deprivation.
So be patient and kind to yourself. In a few short months you’ll have your feet on the ground again and, what’s more, you’ll know your baby better than anyone else in the world!
3. Accept All the Help You Can Get
When I moved to California from Florida, I was happy to be independent from my family. But when my baby was born, I missed them in a way I had never felt before. I suddenly wanted and needed my family around me.
Kathleen, mother of two-month-old Ella Rose
Never in history were a mother and a father expected to care for their baby all by themselves. The idea of a nuclear family—one mother and one father to do it all—is one of mankind’s most recent, and riskiest, experiments, attempted only over the last two or three generations. (That’s a mere sixty years out of the 60,000 years since the modern human era began.) In the past, a couple’s family and community always pitched in to help, and later the couple would return the favor.
Sharon, mother of Noah and Ariel, was a work-at-home mom, a thousand miles away from her family, with no baby-sitters or nanny. Sharon’s goal was to make sure her kids were happy and healthy—even if she was dead on her feet. She described feeling like an old tomato plant, where the fruit looks plump and delicious even though the plant that nourishes it looks scraggly and anemic.
I’m always telling the parents of my patients: Get help and don’t feel guilty about asking—or paying—for it. Enlist your friends to bring you a frozen casserole, do some cleaning, or watch your baby while you nap. Just as you are giving so much of yourself to take care of your new child, lean on your support network to help take care of you—you’ll pay it back later. The extra pair of “hands” of a niece, neighbor, nanny, or swing is neither an extravagance nor a sign of failure. It’s the bare minimum that most new moms have had throughout time.
4. Get Your Priorities Straight: Should You Take a Break or Do the Dishes?
On the few occasions that my crying baby fell asleep before I did, I used the time for me! I soaked in a bubble bath, relaxed with a drink, read a book, and prayed that she would sleep a little longer.
Frances Wells Burck, Babysense
As I just said, I encourage you to get some help, but if you don’t have access to help, don’t worry: Your job is doable—as long as you put your priorities in order. The time will come to achieve everything you want, but that time isn’t right after having a baby.
One of your top priorities is: Don’t try to do too much. For example, the week after having your baby is not the time for you to host your family from out of town. As my mother used to say, “Don’t be stupid polite!” A few well-wishers are fine, but only if they’re healthy and helpful. Visitors who can’t cook or clean take up your precious time and, what’s worse, they can carry germs into your home. People you keep away may call you paranoid but, in truth, you never had a better reason for being neurotic and overprotective!
Another good idea is to leave a sweet announcement on your answering machine, giving your baby’s important statistics and telling everyone that you won’t be returning calls for a few weeks. Of course, you can always return calls if you want, but this at least frees up enough time to accomplish even higher priorities—like soaking in a hot tub.
Rest: The Essential Nutrient for New Parents
Sometimes the most urgent and vital thing you can do … is take a nap.
Ashley Brilliant
When we were teenagers, we were “dying” to stay up all night. Now, we’re “dying” if we stay up all night!
The extreme fatigue that goes along with being a new parent can make you feel depressed, irritable, inept, and distort your perceptions of the world like a fun-house mirror. (Some countries torture people by waking them up every time they fall asleep!)
So please nap when your baby does, sleep when your mom comes, and, however you have to do it—get some rest!
5. Be Flexible: It’s Much Better to Bend Than to Snap
You just have to accept that some days you’re the pigeon and some days you’re the statue.
Roger Anderson
There may be a few times in life when an unwillingness to compromise is admirable—but after becoming a new parent isn’t one of them. That’s why I believe the official bumper-sticker slogan for all new parents should read, Be flexible—or die!
Part of the fun, and responsibility, of being a mom or dad is to be able to choose which parenting options make sense to you and works for your child. However, it’s also important to be able to throw your choices out the window and start all over again when things are not going the way you planned.
If you’re a person who enjoyed being organized, on time, and having a spotless house, this new flexibility may require practice—and deep breathing. But you may as well take it all with a sense of humor because the time has come when your milk will gush down the front of your favorite blouse and when your little darling will empty her diaper load on your white sofa!
If you can, throw away your to-do list for a few months. Accept that the clock on your wall has been temporarily transformed from a time-management tool to a decoration. And know that for a while, day and night will cease to have any true relevance.
You’ve “bought your ticket,” so let go and open yourself to the marvel, awe, and exhilaration of one of the greatest adventures of life!
6. Know Thyself: How Do Your Baby’s Cries Make You Feel?
When your baby screams in your face, are you able to calmly think, He must be having a bad day? Or do you think, Oh, my God, I’m doing something wrong! or I don’t deserve to be a mother! Or even, Who the hell does she think she is?
There’s no question your baby’s screams may trigger a flood of upsetting feelings from the past. You may suddenly remember voices of anger, criticism, and ridicule directed at you long ago. And you may begin to get angry or defensive. Of course, your newborn’s cries can’t possibly have a connection to your past traumas. She’s much too young to feel anger or to be able to criticize or manipulate you. However, fatigue and stress can sometimes fool your mind and make these innocent cries feel like stinging attacks.
This, too, is a normal part of being a new parent. When these emotions well up inside you, take the opportunity to be brave and share your feelings with your spouse or someone else who truly cares about you. The more you discuss your past pains and your current fears, the more clearly you’ll see how unrelated your baby’s cries are to those old experiences.
7. Don’t Rock the Cradle Too Hard: Babies, Frustration, and Child Abuse
David suddenly felt a wave of anger blow across him like a hot wind. After weeks and weeks of colicky screaming by his twin sons, Sam and Ben, he got so angry he punched his hand through the door. “I was so frustrated and exhausted I couldn’t control myself. I would never hurt my boys, but for the first time in my life I understood how a parent could be driven to such desperation.”
Few things feel better than when we can easily calm our baby’s screams, but when everything we do fails, few things can make us feel worse.
Remember, your baby can belt out a shriek that is louder than a vacuum cleaner. That’s why it is so difficult to take when she’s on your shoulder and blasting right next to your ear. The sound of her cry also sets off a “red alert” reflex inside your nervous system that makes your heart race and your skin cringe, creating an urgent desire to stop it. This crying can become almost intolerable when it’s coupled with fatigue, depression, financial stress, hormonal chaos, family conflict, and a history of being abused. When these stressful forces combine, they can sometimes push even a loving parent over the edge into the dark abyss of child abuse.
A mild-mannered father I know told me that he once shocked himself, in the middle of the night, when his daughter’s cries started to “get to him” and he found himself rocking her cradle “a little too hard.” “I felt like such a terrible parent. My little Marlo was so unhappy, yet nothing I did seemed to help. I felt so incompetent.”
Another great frustration for parents is when a technique that usually calms their baby suddenly does nothing. It’s like getting mugged in broad daylight when you least expect it.
However, no matter how desperate you feel, always remember that there’s a big difference between feelings and actions. When you are exhausted, you can joke all you want to about leaving your baby on someone’s doorstep but, needless to say, you’re not allowed to do it.
What should you do when you are feeling like you’re near your breaking point?
8. Keep Your Sense of Humor Handy
He who laughs … lasts! Mary Pettibone Poole
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There are times when parenthood seems like nothing but feeding the mouth that bites you. Peter de Vries
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The only normal families are the ones you don’t know very well. Joe Ancis
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Babies are always more trouble than you thought … and more wonderful. Charles Osgood
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It’s not easy for me to take my problems one at a time when they refuse to get in line. Ashley Brilliant
Raising a child is a constant series of tasks and challenges. You don’t want to make mistakes, but you will. Remember, perfection is found only in the dictionary. So, forget dignity … forget organization … be gentle with yourself … and laugh, laugh, laugh.
Laughter is exactly what this doctor orders. Rent some funny movies or watch reruns of I Love Lucy. Try imagining Cleopatra burping her baby and getting a giant spit-up down her back.
Laugh at your hair, laugh at your baby, laugh at your messy house. Laugh at the fact that you are now one of those women you used to avoid who gets into heated discussions at parties about burping and the color of her baby’s poop.
9. Take Care of Your Spouse (S/he Just Might Come in Handy Someday)
When Curtis, Cheryl and Jeff’s second child, was four weeks old, Jeff said “We haven’t even had sex once yet.” Cheryl shot back, “What do you expect? Every sexual part of my body is either oozing, bruised, or throbbing!”
Taking care of a new baby is so demanding and time-consuming that it’s easy for a parent to start feeling like they’re giving a hundred and ten percent effort (usually true) and their partner is giving only seventy-five percent (usually false).
- “I work all day and still come home and give the baby a bath.” vs. “I take care of the baby all day and still make him dinner and scratch his back.”
- “She’s so lucky to lounge around the house, watch soaps, and hang out with the baby all day.” vs. “He’s so lucky to go to work and see different people.”
The truth is, being new parents is a joint effort. There is so much to do that the only way to do it all, and still be friends, is to work as a team.
Your baby’s world balances on the two of you. That’s why she would never want to hear you say, “I gave up everything for you. I even put you ahead of my relationship with your father/mother.” In fact, if your baby could, she would sit you down and tell you, “Don’t you worry about me. I’m fine, but I’m really gonna need you later. So, for right now, have some fun, see a movie … but please take care of yourselves.”
Caring for your baby is only half your job; the other half is giving each other some TLC. Dads must support and adore their wives, moms must nurture and caress their husbands, and you both have to cut each other some extra slack and avoid harsh criticisms. (Of course, in any given situation your reactions will be different from your spouse’s. You’re separate individuals with unique life experiences.)
Make the time to take walks together, to give each other ten-minute massages, back scratches, or sexual pleasure. Try to never take your partner for granted and never go to bed angry. These first months are the hardest part of the first year, but the great news is, if you work together, your marriage can emerge from this period stronger than ever.
Can you imagine how embarrassed you would be if your “bag of waters” broke open in the middle of a business meeting? While a new dad has spent the past nine months going about his life in a fairly normal way, his wife has been stretched in a surreal kind of mind-body “taffy pull.” Let’s face it, any guy who has watched his wife give birth knows the real truth about who the weaker sex is.
Mothers are great heroes! When it comes to making babies, we men chip in a sperm while our wives essentially pull a dog sled from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, except for your 23 chromosomes, every single molecule of your baby was individually carried to her through your wife’s body. It’s almost as if each cell should carry a little tag that reads, Inspected by Mom.
And, after your child is born, your wife has another awesome responsibility on her shoulders. While you get to go to work, she’s at home dealing with leaking breasts, sore nipples, an extra thirty pounds, and a frantic, red-faced person yelling at her—all after little or no training.
And then there’s sex (or no sex)! You may be interested in having sex after abstaining for the last part of the pregnancy, but for many new moms, sex is the last thing on their mind. Women often have “pelvic exhaustion” after the delivery, and although your wife may look like she had a “boob job,” she may not feel very erotic. (Remember those are really for the baby now.)
What should you do? Rethink your priorities. Remember, no one on his deathbed ever said, “My only regret is that I didn’t spend more time at the office.” Now is the time your wife needs your attention, support, and tenderness the most. (It’s no accident researchers find the best predictor of breast-feeding success to be the spouse’s support.) Bring home flowers, change some diapers, and give her a break to go out with friends—now, that’s the type of “child support” she needs!
Another way to really help your wife is to take over the job of calming your baby. Men are superb at soothing babies when they learn the Cuddle Cure. Frank, a construction worker and father of colicky two-month-old Angela, said, “I love being able to soothe my screaming baby in seconds.”
Okay, it’s true: You have had to do all the hard work and “heavy lifting” so far, and you’re so busy you barely get the chance to pee—but it’s not easy being a new dad either.
Remember, your husband is descended from the world’s most successful cavemen, and he probably has dinosaur-size expectations of himself. He may not have to protect you from saber-toothed tigers, but most men still feel a huge pressure to go out into the world and compete in order to provide for their families.
If your husband is quiet, don’t think he doesn’t feel things as deeply as you do. Men shown crying babies responded with less talking than their wives, but they had exactly the same sharp increase in sweating, heart rate, and blood pressure.
There’s no doubt that many new dads feel as nervous handling their infants as the first time they asked a girl to the prom. So be patient with your sweetie. Be available if he needs you, but don’t rescue him right away when he’s fumbling around trying to figure out how to calm your baby—just remind him of the 5 “S’s.” He’ll sense your confidence in him and he’ll feel great when he can do it on his own. Then, rather than seeing himself as an outsider with the baby, he’ll feel like a “star player on the team.”
10. Don’t Ignore Depression: The Uninvited Guest
My whole world suddenly turned black. My emotions jumped from guilt to rage to despair to such utter anxiety that I thought I would either jump out of my skin or lose my mind. I had terrible visions of hurting myself so I could be taken to the hospital and rescued from all this.
I felt like I was being punished for thinking I could be a good mother. I felt like I didn’t deserve to have a child … and I cried for hours.
Louisa, mother of three-week-old Georgia
As shocking as it sounds, approximately forty percent of new moms experience unhappy feelings intruding upon their joy during the days and weeks after the birth of their babies. You may notice yourself suddenly being tearful, worried, or exhausted yet unable to sleep—all of which may be early signs of postpartum depression.
Shortly after delivery, women may experience three different levels of depression: the baby blues—mild weepiness, anxiety, and insomnia; true postpartum depression—a bruising, more debilitating type of grief; or postpartum psychosis—a severe and rare condition including hallucinations, incoherent statements, and bizarre behavior.
The baby blues usually start a few days after the baby is born and last at least several days. No one knows exactly why they occur, but some scientists think they’re triggered by the dramatic changes in a woman’s hormones after delivery. In addition, the blues can certainly be worsened by all the other stressful situations going on in a new mom’s life—including having a very fussy baby.
The blues are so common that many doctors consider them a normal part of giving birth. Nonetheless, the fatigue, fear, and unanticipated sorrow can be very distressing while you’re experiencing them.
Feeling dejected and rejected Sarah called me. She had just about had it with her four-week-old daughter, Julie. Sarah said, “She’s fussy and demanding all the time; I feel robbed of my joy. I dread her crying because I never know if it will last five minutes or four hours! And on top of that, I have insomnia. I’m a light sleeper by nature, but now I’m so attuned to Julie’s cry that I can’t sleep for longer than a catnap. I’m anxious, exhausted … falling apart.
“I watched my babysitter act so calmly around Julie and I couldn’t help but feel that I was making her worse with my awkward attempts at calming her.”
I asked Sarah and Tom to come in so I could teach them the Cuddle. I hoped much of Sarah’s problem stemmed from her exhaustion, but I was also concerned about her having the baby blues. After teaching them the 5 “S’s,” I encouraged Sarah to make an appointment with a psychologist, just in case the techniques didn’t help. Fortunately, the Cuddle made a dramatic improvement in Julie’s screaming. Sarah quickly mastered the skills of calming her and getting her to sleep longer. As Julie slept more, Sarah began to feel like a better mom.
“Yesterday, I calmed my little baby in less than five minutes! I was so proud! Within a week, I felt like the darkness lifted and my life had turned around.”
True Postpartum Depression
One of the least discussed secrets about having a baby is depression. During the first weeks of what should be the greatest bliss of their lives, about five percent of normal moms (estimates range from three to twenty percent) experience strong feelings of sorrow and anxiety. If mild sadness after birth is called the baby blues, then this more severe depression should be called the baby “black-and-blues,” because it is a bruising assault on a woman’s psychological health.
Crashing waves of emotion knock these women off their feet and make them feel like they are drowning in sadness, shame, anger, anxiety, pain, fear, apathy, exhaustion, and hopelessness. It can take all the energy a mother has just to make a sandwich. Oftentimes they have fantasies of hurting themselves or their babies. These symptoms can occur at any time after delivery and last from a few weeks to several months.
A woman who feels this way can become so fragile that almost anything makes her think, Every other woman would make a better mother. Or, I’m sure she’s crying because she hates me. No matter what words of support her loved ones offer, she feels totally adrift and thinks it’s impossible for them to really understand how she feels.
This black hole sucks away a woman’s optimism and self-confidence. Yet, at the same time, the shame and isolation accompanying postpartum depression lead most of these moms to keep their suffering a secret from their doctors.
However, depression is a medical illness. Although these mothers often feel responsible for their condition, they should have no more guilt than people suffering from allergies. Like its milder version, the baby blues, postpartum depression is believed to be caused by a temporary hormonal imbalance. It, too, is made worse by the stress of fatigue, financial pressures, family problems, and colic.
If you are feeling like this, you’re not alone. Many women have experienced what you are going through. Fortunately, there are some very effective treatments that can help you feel better. Please, call your doctor. You may not even have postpartum depression—low thyroid levels after delivery mimic depression. And if you do have it, you can be greatly helped by any one of a dozen excellent new medicines, hypnosis, light therapy, or psychotherapy.
This severe reaction to the physical, emotional, and hormonal shifts occurring around birth may affect as many as one in one thousand women (usually within two weeks of delivery). Typically, these distraught new mothers hear voices and see things that other people can’t; their statements become irrational and preoccupied with bizarre trivia; and, they may refuse to eat and become frantically active and extremely confused.
Postpartum psychosis is treatable, but it’s an absolute medical emergency! If you think you or someone you know may be suffering from this extremely serious condition, seek medical help immediately.