Newborn Care 101 Essential Tips for First Time Parents

Okay, so this is going to be a high level overview of newborn basics. Let me know in the comments what you want me to film separate videos on. I'm going to try to keep this video to like less than 10 minutes, so we'll see how it goes. And if I go over anything that you're like, wait, go back, tell me more about that, then just put it in the comments and I'll make that video for you. Okay, newborn care basics. How do you hold a newborn? This is obviously not a real baby, but the biggest thing about newborns is that you're always going to protect their airway because they basically could go like this and like cut off their airway. They have no core strength. They have no neck strength. I mean, when you put them on your chest, you'll see that they start to push off, but your goal is to always protect their airway and always support their head. So I like to do that by kind of holding underneath their chin and using my hand. But essentially, if I had a baby, like if I've got their chin resting in my hand and I've got my hand on their bottom, like I could move all like this because I'm protecting their airway and their head. You don't want their head to move back and forth. So when you're picking them up and when you're holding them, just always think about supporting their head. Okay, the next thing I want to tell you about is diapering. So you always want to make sure to pull out the flaps on the diaper. It doesn't matter which brand you're using. You want to make sure that you pull the flaps out. For little boys, you're going to point their penis down. A lot of times parents will be like, I have no idea. They're like spilling out of their diaper. It's a terrible diaper. But really what's happening is you're folding the diaper up. So like you're going like this and if you're not pointing down his penis, then he is basically going to pee out his diaper. So just make sure you point that down. With little girls, you want to make sure they can get something called labial adhesions. So just ask your pediatrician about that or your pediatric provider, but you just want to be mindful of that. But diapers, you know, also when they have their umbilical cord, you want to fold. I'm going to show you real quick. You want to kind of fold this top part down. So when you go to do a diaper change, you can actually kind of like fold it down and it'll be right under the umbilical cord. And then you can take this and kind of angle it down and it will help. It'll help to keep it down. So fold this over and then angle this down for the diapers. Swaddling, arms midline, whatever swaddle you have. Babies do not like to sleep with their arms down to the side. They like to sleep with their arms midline. So whatever swaddle you end up with, we want to prevent the straw reflex where their arms are out like this and that's going to wake them up. But whatever swaddle you use, make sure that it gives them the opportunity to have their arms midline right here. Okay, feeding. So breastfeeding, if you're planning on breastfeeding, highly recommend working with a lactation consultant in real life. At the very least, take a breastfeeding class before you deliver or an online course. But breastfeeding is really learn on the job hands-on once you get the baby. So I can't really teach you a whole lot of that right now. Bottle feeding though, you want to do what is called paste bottle feeding and this is applicable to whether you are planning on breastfeeding or if you're just planning on going straight to the bottle. You want to do paste bottle feeding. I have another video on that but essentially you're holding the bottle so that the baby is having to pull the milk out of the bottle. We do not want to feed like this, how we were all fed. We don't want to feed like that. It does not promote infant driven feeding and it can lead to a lot of other, a lot of things like reflux, a baby being uncomfortable, a baby overeating. It doesn't promote a baby going back and forth from the breast to the bottle. So paste bottle feeding is really where it's at. Sleep. So what I will say, two things I will say about sleep. You want to create a safe sleep environment depending on what your parenting philosophy is and what you want to do whether you are going to co-sleep or have your baby sleep in their own crib or bassinet. I have another video that talks about co-sleeping and the real danger behind co-sleeping and why I really think you should review that video if you have a very black and white view on co-sleeping. So check that out. But as far as sleeping goes, you want to make sure whatever environment your baby's sleeping in that is as safe as it can be. And then the other thing that's really important about sleeping is that you understand infant sleep cues and you know how to get your baby to sleep using the five S's. So I have another video you can go back and look at the five S's or I can make some more content on that. But just understanding baby sleepy cues and knowing about the five S's and then having a safe sleep environment whatever your decision is related to where they're going to sleep. I think it's a really good idea to know about developmental milestones and what is appropriate for your baby developmentally. I will say having realistic expectations for your baby related to sleep and feeding and what they're supposed to be doing is really you're going to have a head start if you've looked into that stuff during pregnancy. But if you haven't and you find yourself postpartum and looking for those answers, a pediatric physical therapist is going to be a great resource for you. There's lots of pediatric physical therapy therapists on social media on YouTube that are really giving out that information. But the major takeaway is if you have if you have any concern that your child is not meeting the the developmental milestones that they should, early intervention is key and we see that in the research time and time and time again. So don't let someone blow you off. If you have concerns early intervention is key and I would definitely recommend reaching out to somebody who's an expert in that area for an evaluation of where your baby's at. Okay and then health and safety. So infant CPR is a must do. You've got to know how to do CPR. I am a fan of devices like the de-choker but I will tell you that that is never going to be your first line when your baby is choking. You know as far as that type of choking you probably would not need to even use something like that until they are older and eating solids. In the early newborn days babies can sometimes choke on spit up. They can choke on you know if they have a fast delivery if they've had a c-section sometimes they have a lot of extra fluid in their chest and their lungs and they kind of bring it up over the next couple of days it ends up in their belly better yet it comes up out of their belly and then they kind of choke on it when it comes back down because it doesn't make its way all the way up. So knowing how to react in that situation is helpful. Your nurses in the hospital or at the birth center can kind of give you a hands-on view on how to help with that but I'm going to show you a bulb suction. Highly recommend keeping a bulb suction with you in when you're leaving the house in those first couple weeks postpartum whatever sleep space the baby is in at home anywhere that you are having this bulb suction handy in those first five to seven days is really helpful. So the biggest thing is that you want to squeeze it before you put it in. If you are going to go into their nose you want to do mouth first and then the nose because if they've got stuff in their mouth you don't want to do the nose and then pull it up from their mouth into their nose. So mouth first but but you don't want to just go hunting around in their mouth for something that you can't see. So really I only use this if I like see stuff coming out of their mouth. So if they are spitting up or you know you feel like they're choking and you can see it you're gonna squeeze this bulb suction before you go in and then you are gonna go back to the side of their mouth. So we're not going straight in but you're thinking about going back kind of to their cheek over on the sides. Okay you're gonna squeeze it go in spit it out go back into the other side. We want to limit the time that we go in their nose just because anytime you go in their nose with this it's going to create it can create inflammation in their nose and really cause if a baby is kind of snorty and sniffly it can actually make things worse. But I recommend when your baby's delivered ask your care team before you leave wherever you deliver if you're delivering at home or in a birth center in the hospital where before your a team leaves make sure that they have instructed you on bulb suction when to use it and then after that first week or so try to always have this around you in case you need it because you really never know when you're going to need it and it can be it can make you really anxious if you need it and you can't find it. Okay immunizations and those first couple weeks postpartum I did a prenatal consult for a mom today and she didn't know anything about vitamin k erythromycin hepatitis b these are all things that are routinely given to babies in the hospital so I'm not telling you what to do in that scenario I'm just telling you that you need to look into those things because when you go check into the hospital if you're delivering in a hospital or even at a birth center or even at home they're going to ask you if you want your baby to have those three things and you're going to have to be able to make a decision on that so that's something that you should look into as soon as possible and look at the research see what it says and make a decision that works for your family the other thing that I wanted to say about well checks is you're going to have a lot of well checks your first initial visit is usually within those three to five days after delivery the reason is is because babies really should stop losing weight by day of life three to five and that's that's why and then bilirubin which if you've heard of a baby that's jaundice I'm not going to go into all the details there but the bilirubin levels typically peak at day of life five so if they are continuing to rise after three days we're going to keep checking them a lot of babies will kind of level out around day of life three but it can go up until day of life five so that's the why behind why you have to go to a pediatric appointment within those three to five days after birth and then typically they're going to see you again within two weeks to make sure that we've gotten back to our birth weight by two weeks and then depending on your pediatric provider you'll have a different sequence of follow-ups but that is all really good to know as you are heading into those postpartum days so you can kind of make a plan for what the first couple weeks will look like