Here is to New Beginnings

There is an amazing baby shower being thrown for mamas Tammie, Liz and Christina by some great friends of theirs.

It was requested that in honour of their upcoming births we send some advice or assvice as Motherbumper so nicely put it.

I thought long and hard about this and made the mistake in taking a peek at some of the great posts submitted by other bloggers.

Nevertheless, I have a couple of things up my sleeve. I apologise if I rip off your idea but there are just so many good ones out there.

1) Get support. I made the mistake of assuming that I could do everything myself, boy was I wrong. In the end I was exhausted and cranky which was not good for anyone. Get help from family and friends, don't worry about asking them to come on by and take care of the baby for an hour so that you can get some time to yourself. Or ask them to bring something nice to eat. Whatever it is, ask.

2) Don't always take everything the baby books have to say as the only way to do things. I did find it very useful to read as many books as possible mostly because I had so many questions and no one who could answer them. I personally like any of the Ann Douglas books.

3) Find yourself a moms group. Getting together with other mothers with children of similar ages was a life saver for me. They are some of my dearest friends still and we have been there for each other through many things.

4) Trust yourself. I think that we don't trust ourselves to know what is best. You and your partner will know what is best for your child. Trust that you will make the right decisions.

5) Learn to breastfeed lying down. In my opinion this is the best way to breastfeed because you don't hurt your back and you can just relax and let the baby enjoy his meal. After you are done you can both take a little nap. This was my life saver for the the midnight feedings.

I am done now, I think that I have given the moms-to-be quite a few pieces of advice.

Now for some of the assvice that I received when I was going to have Isa. I have to admit that I have erased many things from my memory. Mostly because it was certainly not worth remembering, so the list will be extremely short.

1) Don't give them a pacifier or bottle or they will not learn how to latch properly. I agree that you don't want to give a one month old a pacifier or a bottle as it may interfere with them learning how to latch. But you can certainly use your own discretion to determine when you can introduce either.

2) Drinking beer will help your milk come down. Enough said.

3) Don't let your baby sleep with you because if you do they will never leave your bed. So not true, Isa slept with us until she was 3 months and it was the best decision we ever made.

Congratulations to all the parents-to-be who are anxiously awaiting the appearance of their little one. Being a parent is the most wonderful thing in the world, it will be very hard at the beginning but it will get better, so much better.