Baby Makes Three: What You Really Need to Know About Bringing Baby Home
Stephanie and I recently took the four-day DONA International Postpartum Doula Training here in Calgary taught by AJ Hadfield, PDT/PCD(DONA), CD(DONA), CLE. With so much valuable knowledge shared with Stephanie and myself, we wanted to share some of the wisdom with you directly. I sat down with AJ to share her experience on what families REALLY need to know about bringing their new baby home.
~ Christine
Here’s what AJ generously offered us:
image description: a newborn baby lays perpendicular across their parent’s belly, skin to skin.
Setting up your space to welcome a new baby
“What makes life easier on the main floor living area is a safe place to change the baby, put the baby down, and lay baby down to sleep. A pack and play meets all these needs in a contained space. It is truly portable and can be taken to Grandma’s house or trolleyed around the house room to room. They are available new or used and are easy to find.
An alternative, because babies do not need fancy solutions is to convert the end of a dining room table. A folded, cushy towel covered by a receiving blanket, with a basket of diapers, wipes, and a couple changes of clothes does the trick. You could even add a basket to the table for baby to lie down in. Babies do not care if it’s a $500 Halo Bassinet or an empty drawer, it just needs to be safe.
A must have item is a carrier. In the beginning, a wrap or a ring sling works best. Not a big bulky carrier - not for little babies. I’m not a fan of carriers trying to be the right choice from day one to three years old. I don’t think there is a carrier out there that transitions well that way. Carriers with an insert - most babies don’t like that. A buckle carrier is a bag that you put on your body and you put a baby in. Little babies need a carrier that hugs that baby to the parent, pulls a baby in tight, nice and snug - a wrap carrier fulfills that. Getting comfortable with a carrier is life changing. If you’re going to buy one piece of baby equipment, a good wrap will save you.
A good carrier helps foster independence. It helps foster capability. New parents get that baby in there and that baby goes to sleep, and it’s like, “Oh my god! I can do this!” That’s huge, to have that sense that I actually have some skills. Not all wraps are the same either. It’s so challenging for parents to figure out what they need – stretchy or woven? kinda stretchy, or really stretchy? With so many options out there, it’s something we go over in detail in our Baby 101 class at MOSS Postpartum House.”
What is surprising about the first few days of breastfeeding?
“How hard it is. How relentless it is. How steep the learning curve is at the beginning. How fierce they need to be. That’s my new favorite word I use for breastfeeding, is that a new mama has to get fierce. All new mothers are gentle, soft, and loving and then hesitant when they start breastfeeding. New mamas need to get fierce about breastfeeding. They have to bring the baby to the breast in a focused and deliberate way, and that surprises moms. It’s a piece that I see when I see a mom getting fierce, we are over the hump of what she thinks it’s going to be like to what it needs to be. Getting to fierce takes a little bit of work.
The better prepared [families] are for the realities of breastfeeding ahead of time does help. I’m often meeting a new mom once she’s had the baby and is trying to figure out breastfeeding. That’s harder for her. If she hasn’t had any breastfeeding specific education beforehand, new moms don’t understand what’s going on and how the system works. They want it to work, but they don’t recognize the mechanics of it. Taking time to understand in advance of breastfeeding how the milk supply evolves, how a baby works, the importance of latch, how to get a good deep attachment – if they’ve done the work ahead of time they have more ‘ah ha’ moments.
The best ways to learn about breastfeeding when you’re pregnant:
Favourite Book: Breastfeeding Made Simple [Christine chiming in - if you are a Five Elements Birth Services doula client, we have this book in our lending library! Let your doula know if you would like to borrow it]. Hands down. Written by the top LCs [lactation consultants] worldwide, it’s broken down in pretty basic chapters, it’s well written and easy to read, and doesn’t get bogged down in the mumbo-jumbo.
Favourite Videos: Global Health Media. I use those all the time with my clients now, especially the one teaching hand expression. I encourage my clients to watch the ones about latch. They’re really good, there is nothing better out there.
Online Resource: Kellymom.com is the best. Kelly Bonyata a real person and it’s been her project for a number of years. She’s an ICBLC who is a great gathering point for information. She will site the references and direct people to other resources. It’s very accessible, it’s written for people who are looking for answers.
I encourage people to focus in on a couple good resources, and to let the rest go. There is so much misinformation about breastfeeding on the internet. There is so much anecdotal information about breastfeeding on the internet.”
How might our relationship be impacted by bringing in a new baby?
“It is so surprising to new parents how fatigue breaks them down. Couples who normally have a pretty even-keeled relationship, because they are so tired, they don’t function the same way. They don’t hold space for each other the way they normally do. We know the idiosyncrasies of our partners, how they think, what they need in a conversation, how they need to function during the day. When you are really fatigued and your brain isn’t working the same way, you don’t have the ability to take those things into consideration.
As a new mother, she is also in this sensitive permeable place and her brain doesn’t function the same way as she normally does. Her partner may say or do something that pre-baby would normally roll off her shoulders; in the immediate postpartum it cuts her to her heart. That’s hard to manage for new parents.
The Gottman research shows us that the average couple has a good disagreement once every eight days. A newly postpartum couple has the same level of disagreement once every day. That statistic is hugely reassuring for new parents. It is so common for new parents to question their choice of spouse a few weeks in. ‘Did I make a mistake in choosing this partner?’, ‘Did we make a mistake in having a baby? Because this life that we had has been blown all to hell, we’re fighting all the time and he just doesn’t get it.’ To be able to tell them what the research says - that this is normal and it’s a transitory stage, and you will come out the other side. That can be helpful.”
