The Basics of How to Care for a Newborn

Taking care of a newborn can be scary. This Hub will help you feel better about taking care of your newborn baby. Taking care of yoru baby should be a beautiful experience not turn you into a nervous wreck.

Being a proud father of a newborn I wanted to share with you my knowledge of some basics of taking care of your newborn. So lets get started.

Assuming your baby is healthy and you have been sent home from the hospital to start your new life taing care of that bundle of joy some of the things you need to concern yoruself with are of course feeding yoru baby changing your baby taking babies temperature and soothing baby. For the first couple of weeks or month this is what you will be living.

Whether you are breast feeding or formula feeding your newborn, you will be feeding him or her very often. Breast feeding will happen more often than formula feeding. Typically a breastfed baby will be hungry every 2 to 3 hours and a bottle fed baby every 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours.

You should be feeding your baby 6 to 8 times a day.

One tip I can give you that my wife and I were lucky to get from our local health nurse is that when the baby is sleeping at night it is ok to feed your baby on demand. Meaning that you can let your baby sleep a extra hour or 2

if your lucky enough to have a sleepy baby. Just make sure your feeding your baby the 6 to 8 times a day. If you are demand feeding at night you can feed your baby every 2 hours once in a while if he or she will take it.

Also these rules or tips are not written in stone. Listen to your child. Your baby will let you know when it wants to be fed.

The liquid amount to feed your baby each feeding is 60ml or 2 ounces. Your baby's tummy is very small right now and can't take much more than that. After 3 to 4 weeks you can bump up the amount if your child wants it.

For formula recommendations we use Good Start (closest to breast milk) formula. We tried 4 different kinds the first few days and our child loved the Good Start (closest to breast milk) formula the best.

You need to bath your baby every 2nd day. Your baby needs his hair washed every 2nd time you bathe him.

Make sure to have the temperature in the room you are bathing baby at a fairly warm temp. I run the warm bath water and have all the doors closed to keep it warm and humid. Babies don'y have much meat on them and will get cold very quickly even when you think the room is warm.

After bathing baby make sure to dry around the umbilical cord so baby doens't get an infection.

Make sure to use a baby safe soap and shampoo. You can't go wrong with Johnson and Johnson.

One last tip on washing baby. Always wash the cleanest part of your baby first and then wash dirtier areas. So face to hair to body and ending with bum area. Common sense that you don't want to wash baby's bum then face.

Keep your newborn swaddled often for the first week or two. Baby will feel more comfortable if you swaddle him.

Baby's temperature should be between 36.5 and 37.5 celcius. Take your baby's temperature by using a baby appropriate thermometer and placing it in the armpit of your baby.

If baby's temp is closer to 36.5 you will want to swaddle and warm the child. If the temp is closer to 37.5 you will want to keep a close eye that the temp doesn't go higher. If it does I recommend taking your child to the doctor ASAP. You don't want to risk your baby's safety.

Listen to your newborn baby and he or she will tell you when they need something. Whether it is a bottle or a diaper change a burp or maybe the child is just fussing because they are tired. Which reminds me, do yourself a favour and invest in a swing of some sort that plays sounds and music. A swing will help you on a daily basis with a newborn.

One last tip is that babies sooth easily when they hear white noise. You can purchase baby noise makers that have many different noises and the best one I have found so far for baby is the white noise sound, apparently it replicates what the baby heard in the womb.

That is basically it for the fort 2 to 3 weeks. Your baby will want to sleep a lot and eat frequently. That's about it. Take advantage of this time to pay attention to yor baby's pattern and get to know your baby and it's quirks.

One thing I must stress that when a baby cries constantly the first week it is because your baby is trying to tell you something. At this time in your baby's life you need to swaddle and cuddle and soothe your baby as best that you can. Don't ever think you are spoiling your newborn, they are just to new to this world to be spoiled.

Good luck and God bless.