There's so much I want to share with you that everyone should have the opportunity to learn. So many mothers have a list of things they wish they had known and I have done my best to compile this for you. 

The fact is raising  a child is hard, and having information and support helps make a hard job more enjoyable and successful. People love to comment and give unsolicited advice, all in a bid to help, but just like their gory birth stories they told you in pregnancy, it is utterly unhelpful. Get informed, not advised and you can take control, feel confident and know that you know what's best for your baby more than anyone. 

What You and Your Baby Need you to Know

 Having a baby is one of the greatest gifts life can give. You will learn a lot about yourself, your family, and get to know a whole new person who will be connected to you and your partner forever. Your baby will also be connected to it’s mother’s mother, as she made the eggs that made your baby and you are connected to your grandmother for the same reasons. If you have a baby girl and are currently pregnant you will hold the eggs that may one day make your grandchild. It’s magical.

Having a baby is one of the greatest gifts life can give. You will learn a lot about yourself, your family, and get to know a whole new person who will be connected to you and your partner forever. Your baby will also be connected to it’s mother’s mother, as she made the eggs that made your baby and you are connected to your grandmother for the same reasons. If you have a baby girl and are currently pregnant you will hold the eggs that may one day make your grandchild. It’s magical.

Throughout pregnancy you will be already bonding and getting your baby used to it’s environment. Your labour may influence how settled your baby is and how well you feel is the first few weeks and months with your new baby. This is why I strongly recommended educating yourself about physiological birth and hypnobirthing. I can recommend Rachel Reed for her physiological birth education http://rachelreed.website

After your baby is born you will be full of adrenaline and may struggle to sleep for the first day. However baby’s first day is often sleepy, to allow you to rest ready for the first night of intense feeding to stimulate your milk production so try and sleep if you can. Sometimes this happens on night 2. A difficult birth or c section may alter this behaviour but it will come, it just may take longer.

Stay in bed, don’t worry about clothes for you or baby. Skin to skin and establishing feeding is the first priority. If you are bottle feeding skin to skin is still vital. People around you are there to help feed you and support you, holding the baby at this point is not helpful. Having baby close to you gets your milk in and feeding is always helpful even if nothing is really coming out as it’s putting the order in.

Visitors can make this challenging, baby has been used to only you and your smell and heartbeat. Baby will want to smell your milk and BO (!) and know you are near.

Visitors should be brief and not covered in perfumes. Baby’s have a very sensitive nose which makes up for their poor eyesight at birth. Consider using natural and non perfumed washing powders too. Sleep when baby sleeps if you can.

The intense time of holding and feeding nearly constantly ends so quickly, embrace it and be grateful for it rather than look for ways to avoid having to hold your baby close. It’s normal and not a sign of failing parenting, you just don’t see it in society as you rarely meet new new babies.

You will be rewarded for a strong connection and the security that this will provide your baby in a contented and confident growing baby that will start to be happy apart from you for bigger chunks and happier to fall asleep without milk. I remember my husband holding babies hand whilst she slept on the bed after had fed her to sleep, so she gradually got used to sometimes sleeping when I wasn’t next to her.

Using a sling is a great way to be hands-free but still holding your baby. Avoid using a car seat as much as possible, it puts babies in a hunched position and if you think how quickly they are growing, you don’t want a baby that will develop a hunched posture. The squished positioning often makes them sick and have hiccups anyway. The prams that allow to add a car seat onto often mean babies are in there for long periods, there are regulations that state that newborns should not be in a car seat for very long at all.

The more reassurance and confidence you give your baby that you will respond the more they will be calm, confident and happy. Each baby is so different and personality plays a huge part, but when there is no pathology your baby should be content with this responsive approach.

You may get comments about being possessive or the fact you should have a break, or your baby will become clingy from people who never used this intuitive approach or who have forgotten what normal newborn behaviour is like as it goes by so fast. Be confident in your own instincts.

The first night or second is brutal for mum and baby, you will both be exhausted and will both do all you can to get the milk supply stimulated. It will seem like it may never end, like you should give a bottle or that there is something wrong. There isn’t, you will both be pushed until you can’t anymore and at that point it ends and baby sleeps. Remember, your baby is as exhausted as you.

Your baby can’t really move, can’t really see, and is completely dependant in you for comfort, food and drink. This is a scary situation and it’s no surprise they want security. You can’t over feed a breastfed baby. Get your partner to tell you how amazing you are and hand you a glass of wine.

After about 6 weeks, periods of being awake extend and they are happy to be awake without feeding for longer. At 3 months this extends even further. It’s a very short time in your life, so embrace it instead of fighting it.

Your milk is different at different times of day so expressing and bottle feeding it can confuse baby’s body clock. It’s a great option over formula if it’s needed, but you’ll likely find it easier to feed your baby yourself when they want it. By 3 months you won’t even have to sit up in bed to do this, you’ll be able to feed lying down and probably won’t need to do a nappy change. This means baby is more likely to sleep as they are not properly awake to feed. Night milk is very fatty and you often get longer stretches of sleep at night for this reason, it also contains sleep hormone and you’ll go off to sleep after feeding more easily too. If you give them pumped day time milk at night they will be wide awake.

If your baby is distressed or there are feeding issues it may be your diet or a tongue tie in baby. These are often missed and are easily resolved. Milk, gluten, beans, pulses are more likely to cause wind and gut irritation in baby. Eating plenty of fat, protein and fibre can mean your milk is rich and filling and you are not depleting yourself too much.

The best thing people around you can do for you is feed you. There are lots of quick and easy healthy grab foods you can fill the fridge with as you’ll suddenly find yourself starving - a biscuit won’t cut it.

When baby’s sleeping in the sling use this time to cook bulk meals that will leave you left overs. Avocados, eggs smoked salmon/trout, pate, nuts, dark choc, salad leaves, steak and fish are all good things to have in the fridge/cupboard. Making hearty cakes with almond/chestnut flour, coconut oil, eggs as main ingredients for a filling snack.

What you eat affects your milk and your energy levels so invest financially and with your time to make it as good as you can. Expressing and bottle feeding isn’t breastfeeding, it is bottle feeding with breast milk. There’s more about breastfeeding than the milk.

Some cultures don’t use nappies, these have been sold to us and we’ve been encouraged to keep our children in nappies for as long as possible by companies that make nappies. Your baby from birth will know when it needs to go and have queues, so start to notice them. Your baby will also poo and wee when awake or stirring, not in their sleep. Starting to notice these patterns will allow you to get them out of nappies as soon as possible out of respect for your child. Natural nappies also avoid plastic chemicals on their skin so are a good choice for the months you do use nappies.

Co sleeping is discouraged by people with poor emotional intelligence and companies that make baby beds. Every other mammal snuggles with their baby at night to protect them and help them feel safe and secure. It also helps mum’s stress hormones lower and increases her love hormone. Your baby won’t want to sleep with you forever, you won’t need to train them out of it at a few months old.

Use a single duvet wrapped around you and separate blankets for baby and you can co sleep safely. Your baby may be happy in a next to me crib. 

You’ll often hear parents complain and give negative comments about their own experience, or they will obsessively ask you about your sleep and ‘how you are’ in suggestion that you should be knackered and miserable. This can encourage us to think that we should be having time for ourselves from day one, should get as much sleep as possible and make it easy for ourselves as possible.

How many things in life are hard but amazing? Do we tell marathon runners to make it easier and just do a 5k, or do we support them and value their hard work and dedication? You’ll have plenty of time to sleep and take a break, have a tidy house and time to yourself when the children grow (it happens in a flash) so don’t wish it away.

Our mental health can affect our capacity for unconditional love and is why having a baby can be a mental health trigger for some. If you already have an increased stress load from emotional trauma or an unhappy environment then you are already at capacity and so having children can tip you over the edge. Work on your mental health in pregnancy and after to help you have the capacity for the intense love you will need to give. Mindset is everything.

In the age of co parenting talk about what you want and actually need rather than allowing assumptions and I wish you all the best at this special time

If I worked with you preconceptually you will have heard me talk about prevention of common problems in babies such as reflux and eczema, as it is much easier to prevent than to treat. However, there is still so much we can look into if your baby is suffering with either of these. Even if they don't seem bothered by a symptom, it is important not to ignore because it is telling you that something is out of balance and this needs addressing as the imbalance will be affecting various other systems and processes also. 

They say there is no cure for reflux and that we don't understand what causes it. This is very much incorrect. What we don't understand is the single cause of these problems in all babies; which is very different from not being able to decipher the contributing factors in a unique child with a unique environment, diet and genetics. With a personalised approach that isn't looking for a single black and white answer, the root cause of these symptoms can be addressed and health restored. 

If breastfeeding, a mother's diet needs to be looked at as well as mother's gut health including her oral health. There are things we can do to support digestive health and microbial balance in both mother and baby, as well functional support for the gut to aid good digestion and absorption. 

Reflux in adults and babies is caused by irritation to the esophagus due to reduced production of stomach acid which can be because of food allergies, stress and/or lack of available nutrients. You may think that malnutrition is unlikely to be relevant, however it is incredibly common despite adequate availability or often excess of availability of calories. 

Why would low levels of stomach acid cause acid irritation in reflux? The valve between the stomach and oesophagus needs a very acidic environment in order to shut properly. The stomach should be heavily acidic when it is digesting foods, if not, the valve stays open a bit (or sometimes a lot) and the acid that is present in the stomach comes back up the windpipe. 

We give babies and adults antacids which further add to the problem and contain various toxins as an added unhelpful bonus. We need stomach acid to digest foods properly and prevent allergies, if we don't digest properly we don't absorb properly and so we run low on nutrients needed to make stomach acid. The more and more stomach acid levels drop the more primed the stomach becomes to infection which can have serious consequences. Of course the antacid helps the symptoms, but the symptom is not the problem, it's the body telling you there is something wrong and shouldn't be dampened down an

The following books are highly recommended as part of your pregnancy and baby's first years, having the insights these books give you is a game-changer.  Put don the dross that a celebrity has paid someone to write, or anything to do with Annabel Karmel AKA the baby witch! These books will lay the foundation for a healthy happy family which means good relationships. 

The Positive Breastfeeding Book - Prof Amy Brown

The Positive Birth Book - Milli Hill

Informed is Best - Prof Amy Brown

The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will be Glad That You Did) - Philippa Perry

The Wonder Weeks - A Stress-Free Guide to Your Baby's Behaviour - Hetty Van de Rijt, Frans Plooij, Xaviera Plas-Plooij