Sunday, November 16, 2008

Newborn Baby - What to Expect the First Month

By Caroline Miller

The magical day finally arrived. My baby I and are finally here. She was a douzy at ten pounds. In a few days we finally got to take her home and were we in for a rude and constant awakening. As I write this she is screaming her lungs out for no apparent reason. That ladies and gentleman is the nature of motherhood. You can do whatever you think is possible to try and help her but in the end you cant understand her and she has no other way to tell you what's wrong or what she may need besides screaming and crying. I have a close friend that tried to describe to me the feeling she got when she first took her baby home. It may sound weird but this is what she said to me. She said "all this crying is driving me crazy; I just want to kick her out a window". Now we know she wouldn't even dare do any such thing but that point goes to show you what kind of guerrilla warfare goes on in a home the first month that a baby arrives.

If you are one of those type of people that cant function without 8 hours of continuous sleep than I urge you to never have a baby or to find someone to wake up in the middle of the night to take care of them. The first month we woke up every hour on the hour to give her her feeding and to change her. Even during the day it isn't any easier because she still needs to be fed and she still needs to be changed. She will wake you up to make sure that it happens. Essentially there is almost no sleep involved for you during the first month of parenthood. I know that's a tough pill to swallow but there really isn't anything you can do about it. You either go in knowing full well what is going to happen or you don't go in at all.

Reading this right now doesn't even begin to do justice to exactly what I am talking about because words can never describe the skull penetrating screaming and crying or the crippling effect of no sleep on the body and mind. It is something that you need to experience for yourself but it doesn't hurt to be forewarned about what terrors lie ahead.

I love my baby and watching her grow and mature is something that I can never replace in my life. She is amazing to me every day I see her and even though she will bring you to your knees from pure exhaustion I hope that your children bring you that kind of happiness.

This author lives in Flemington, NJ with her husband and 5 month old daughter and is an expert contributing author for a luxury baby shower party favors boutique offering variety of baby gifts, coffee baby shower favors, handprint footprint kits and more. This author and Babygiftstation is also dedicated to providing valuable and informative articles on childcare, baby safety tips, pregnancy health, parenting, potty training and more.

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