Sharon Peters, parenting expert and founder of Parents Helping Parents, gives you wisdom that will cut through the white noise of sleep deprivation and new parent panic.
Here are a few tips for new parents to remember when you are welcoming a new little one into your home:
Get help. Help is invaluable as everyone gets accustomed to new routines before, during and after the birth of a new baby. Even parents who already “know the ropes” from an older child benefit greatly from assistance. Help is especially important because while watching over and taking care of their infant (a more than full time job) parents’ ability to eat, rest, take a shower, answer a text, or engage in a brief conversation can become major accomplishments. The more caring, thoughtful helpers parents can find the easier all of this and more becomes! Friends, relatives and people who work with babies are all possible sources of practical and emotional support. Of course anyone who gets to be around an infant and his or her family benefits enormously as well.
Eat and sleep. This can be almost impossible in the first weeks after a child arrives but getting enough food and rest is important for every parent. Babies benefit from moms and dads who are not too hungry or exhausted. Making sure food and rest happen as frequently and fully as possible is one of the central jobs that any family helper provides.
Trust yourself! New moms and dads often have to handle lots of opinions and advice while in the middle of juggling their own emotions and exhaustion. It is no wonder that new parents can find it difficult to feel confident about what you they are doing. If you are a new mom or dad, even though you are probably second guessing yourself while relatives, friends, doctors and even passing strangers are offering solicited and unsolicited opinions about newborns, remember that you have a tremendous amount of information about your baby that no one else knows. As much as possible seek advice from people you trust when you feel it could be helpful but don’t accept suggestions as automatic solutions, try out ideas that make sense to you and then watch how things go.
Hang in there. As you juggle the challenging aspects of a baby’s new life, remember there is light at the end of the tunnel. Developmental growth during the first three months of an infant’s life is rapid. An enormous amount of physical and emotional transitions get worked through on an almost minute-by-minute basis. I guarantee that your day-to-day routines will look different in a month or two.
Sharon C. Peters is the founder and director of Parents Helping Parents in Park Slope. Parents Helping Parents offers practical solutions to parents and parents and children through individual appointments arranged on an as needed basis. Topical workshops and ongoing groups also provide participants with opportunities to share their personal experiences and hear helpful perspectives. Sharon’s work is also published regularly in Brooklyn Family Magazine, blogs and at www.phponline.org. She has an MA in Educational Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University and since 1995 has met with hundreds of individual families and led workshops for many schools and community organizations. As a step, birth, adoptive, married and single mother, Sharon has parented five children, several coping with special needs.