I’ve read all the books. My poor husband.
This may or may not work for you, but one trick my aunt used when she had triplets: All through the day, whenever they were hungry, she would feed them, and cuddle them, and sing to them, and play with them. And all through the night, whenever they were hungry, she would feed them. They very quickly started sleeping through the night.
I’d add one more to the list:
7. Because
Sometimes kids just cry and there is nothing you can do about it. If everything else checks out, sometimes you just need to let they cry it out.
For grandparent stuff, just embrace the role of the irrational worrywart and make it clear you trust her, but that you are still going be a worrywart. When that fails, blame your doctor, blame your husband, and choose your battles.
Not overstepping bounds is a tough one. We ended having to find a new arrangement because while Grandma was thrilled, she had other family obligations that became tough to manage with a baby. This happened suddenly, and not in the smoothest way, so really work that communication do that you know what to expect, and always have a plan B in the back of your mind. Family is too important to risk people becoming resentful.
Looking back, there was only one major thing I needed to know: God and babies laugh at plans.
Read the books but don’t take them as gospel. What works for you is going to be the only thing that works for you. Don’t feel guilty if what works isn’t the ‘approved’ way. As long as you feel that your baby is safe and cared for, ur doin it rite.
Also, having a newborn is oholyshitexhausting. It gets better, and fast. Being a parent will always be low-grade annoying, though.
This is basically what I came in to say. In the beginning I thought there was a right way to do everything. Eventually I realized that every baby is different and most of parenting is trial and error to figure out what works for each child (and parent!). For example, with my first I had this whole plan to make homemade baby food…that went down the tubes when I realized that he despised anything pureed. No baby cereal, no pureed baby food, nothing! Fortunately I was attending a free baby class offered through a local hospital and the RN taught me how to make finger food for a 6-month-old baby. He loved it! So yeah, the best laid plans and all that…
The first 5 years take forever, the next 13 happen in a flash…or maybe the years just get shorter and shorter.
My 2nd of 3 is trying to figure out what college to go to next year.
After 3 years and 2 kids, my back finally gave out. 
I’m in physical therapy now for a lumbar sprain.
So for the love of puppies, learn the best way to pick up that baby! Use your legs, keep your core tight, and all the other stuff you’re supposed to do.
Oh, if you go for a baby sling or carrier, get one that distributes the weight over BOTH shoulders. For my oldest, I had one that only went over one shoulder, and jesus god, it killed my back after a while. That’s also the shoulder that I eventually ended up having surgery on to repair. Coincidence? Perhaps, but learn from my mistakes anyway.
Having your mom around to help will be great, no doubt, but be prepared with at least one back up plan before the baby arrives. I was going to go back to work for a while and my MIL was going to stay with our daughter for about 6 weeks to give me a chance to see if going back to work would work for our family. At the end of day 1 I came home and she said, “I forgot to tell you, I’m leaving for a 3 week cruise on Monday.” :eek: The next day I brought the baby into the office with me to explain why I wouldn’t be coming back again. Stay at home parenting really worked for us for a while, thank goodness, because if it hadn’t I was going to have find a new job because my child care situation essentially forced me to quit the old one.
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It’s perfectly normal if you don’t “bond” with your baby at birth. Some mothers experience the shaft of light breaking through the clouds and choirs of angels singing, “This is a love stronger than you ever thought possible!” Others, like me, look at this creature and feel approximately like Arthur Dent on a Thursday - confused, worried, and a half-step off from having a handle on the situation. If this happens to you, do not worry. Love grows over time as you care for your baby.
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This is the Edinburgh Scale for postnatal depression. If you start to worry you aren’t handling things, or you’re sad or unable to function beyond normal baby blues (and sleep deprivation), check it out, and talk to your doctor.
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It’s probably quite safe to sleep with the baby in your bed. You just need to takeproper precautions. And you will most likely wind up doing it even if you aren’t planning on it being a regular thing. It can make life a lot easier, especially if you’re nursing, and let you get more rest. And when the AAP and others are screaming at you never to put your baby in your bed, do NOT take this to mean that nodding off in a recliner or napping on the couch with your baby are good alternatives. These are actually the most dangerous places to sleep for a baby, and a source of many of the “cosleeping” deaths cited in studies that proclaim cosleeping to be too risky.
Oh, and everyone seems to agree that having baby sleep in a separate *room *vastly increases SIDS risk. If I’d known this, I would have kept my first baby in my room, even when my husband was slightly annoyed by her snuffling.
Asked and answered. See my earlier post.
As Jas09 says, there are only a few ways to really mess up a baby. Your mother will be fine. Really.
Remember the dollar value that you are saving because of your mother taking care of your child.
Can you do things like hire a cleaning service to come in once a week and clean her house? Pay for a vacation? Make extra food and drop it off? Fill in the blank ______.
My sister took care of her step daughter’s girl for three years and the mother basically treated my sister like hired help. A little kindness in return makes a huge difference.
This is like one of the many dirty little secrets of parenting (right up there with “breastfeeding isn’t for everyone” and “if you don’t feel like making organic, grass-fed home made babyfood, that’s ok”). No, not everyone cosleeps, so you’re going to get a lot of people saying, “That’s not true - I didn’t do it!” But a LOT more people than you would expect do, whether it’s just for one night every once in a while or every night until they’re 5.
Oh yeah, this was probably the best advice I got. Night feeding times are not playtime. Up, eat, down.
Other random things:
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The large size zip-lock bags are the best, I used them for tons of things. A few in the diaper bag if you needed to lock up a nuclear waste diaper, keep a spare outfit in a zip-lock (in summer, it can be a onsie, but in colder weather it needs to be more, 'cause if you have a poo emergency, there WILL be poo on the socks), keep all the little bottles of lotion and small items in a zip-lock so they’re not rattling around in the diaper bag, I would even put together complete outfits and zip-lock them so if my mom was having baby time, I could stack up three bags or so and she’d be prepared and not digging through drawers if she needed to change the baby. This is also a good strategy if you are packing to spend the night at grandma’s house.
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Seriously, other than “back to sleep” I just let my mom have at it. I focused on how awesome the help was, and didn’t worry too much about how her ways were different than my ways.
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People forget a lot of this stuff. So, if you have a great friend who is super smart and raised great kids and her kids are now in middle school, and another friend who is a dingbat and her kid is a month older than yours, when you need advice ask the dingbat first. She will probably have actual recent information (sure, ask other people too, but it’s AMAZING how I can’t even remember the difference in what was going on at 3 months v. 6 months).
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I have about 11 million photos of my husband with our daughter, and maybe 2 of me and our daughter. Someone looking at our baby album would think I died in childbirth. If you are usually the person who takes pictures, come out and ask people to take some with you, too. I wasn’t feeling the most photogenic after having a baby, but you don’t have to display them or anything. They are neat to have, and when your child is older, he will think it is great to see pictures of himself as an infant with his mom.
Two jobs for your husband:
Job 1: He’s the gatekeeper for the first month or so. You’re going to be tired out, and all your friends and family are going to want to come see the baby. His job is to keep visits to an acceptable level, so you don’t feel you’re having to entertain visitors when really you just need down time. Let him answer the phone and the door and the texts, and let him make sure you aren’t worn out by visitors. And he should be comfortable with the phrase, “Zsofia’s lying down now, so it’s not a good time.” Note that you don’t have to be asleep for this to be a true statement. Just keep the TV turned down low. 
Job 2: On those nights when the baby just won’t go to sleep, and is crying, and it’s 2 am, and you’ve been up for hours, it’s Dad’s job to bundle baby up in the carrier and put baby in the car, and the two of them go for a nice long drive while you go to sleep. Odds are, baby will fall asleep on the drive. Just make sure dad has his wallet and ID in case he gets pulled over by a cop, who might wonder why a guy is driving around with a baby.
The one thing that’s caused a lot of friction between my family and my brother’s has been the binary aspect.
If the First Grandmother was available, we didn’t exist. We didn’t get calls, smss, see pics, or see the kids for months.
If she wasn’t, we’d be expected to drop everything to play soccer mom. And by everything, I mean that they’d call at 4pm telling my mother to go get the kids (who would be leaving school at 4:15pm and she takes half an hour to walk there), on a day when she already had three appointments. The attitude improved after my brother had the bollocks to complain to me that recently they had needed Mom (with that much warning) and she hadn’t been available because she was 400km away visiting her mother! My reply wasn’t very polite 
Now my mother gets to feed the kids every Wednesday and spend every Wednesday afternoon with them, even if the First Grandmother is available (they get that afternoon off from school).
Another thing that can happen with grandparents is that they really do not realize/understand/anticipate how much work taking care of an infant is going to be. They don’t quite make the connection that they were 30 years younger last time. They remember the “small child” phase more than the “dependent infant” phase. So sometimes they simply have to back out–or step down to 2-3 days a week–because they just can’t handle it. You probably should be aware that this can and does happen, and that if it does, it’s really no one’s fault.
Well, she did do it… good lord, 19 years ago for a second time with Evil Half Brother’s kids. His first one got dumped on her all day 5 days a week when she was three freaking weeks old!
But I just realized that 19 years ago isn’t really that much better than 34.
When the baby was three weeks old, by the way. Not my mother. My mother was, let me see, wow, 54! She has gotten older.
Wow, alot has already been covered. I’ll try to add:
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Have a good washing machine and dryer. Your laundry load will double and you will have sudden messes over clothes or blankets that need to be thrown in immediately.
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Have a car seat for every car you have.
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Have both a big stroller, one of those kind where you can load up with extra junk and has the feature where you can snap the car seat into it - BUT they take up half the car trunk. And have a smaller umbrella stroller you can easily haul around.
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When our kid was born about half his clothes were used. Pass them along when your kid outgrows them.
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Babies do look alike. And often if you have several kids you will be looking at a picture years later and forget exactly which kid that was. Lables and dates are good.
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Before giving birth, not only agree with your spouse on a name but agree on a spelling. I’ve heard of times where the spelling on the birth certificate and the social security card is different and its a mess to clean up.