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Home › Articles › Your Growing Baby › Straight Talk About Real Babies

Straight Talk About Real Babies

Defining New-mom Expectations

By Ann Calandro, BSN, RNC, IBCLC

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Some experts believe that sleeping through the night is not a healthy habit, because frequent night waking is a normal safeguard against SIDS. Only when close to larger and dependable caretakers do babies feel relaxed. In the early months, if Baby can't see you, you don't exist for him. Your caring response is crucial for healthy growth and development.

Newborn Stomachs
Parents also need to know about baby stomachs. They are very small at birth – about the size of a cherry. Mom makes that perfect colostrum. When Baby nurses he will get a teaspoon or two in the first day, and the amount will increase gradually. When Mom's milk increases on the third day or so, Baby's stomach is still small, so she drinks her fill but then needs to sleep a bit. Breast milk digests quickly, so Baby needs to eat again soon. There you go. Understand why babies eat so often in the early days?

Hospital-born babies lose weight the first two days, so they also have some catching up to do. Most regain their birth weight by a week or two and then need to double it by 5 or 6 months and triple it by a year. How much would you have to eat to do that?

Spoiling?
Another comment I frequently hear is: "He's already spoiled. I pick him up when he fusses, and he stops crying. I'm afraid he has me trained already. I know I shouldn't pick him up." Why not? Who says?

Mothers are sometimes berated by family members and visitors for following their normal and natural instincts of responding to their own babies' needs. It is a sad world when we worry about training a newborn to be happy alone. Of course he needs to be picked up! He is not mature yet, certainly not capable of thinking, "I believe I will make her get up out of bed just for fun and pick me up." I worry about mothers who do not respond to their babies. When babies are left in their cribs to cry or left in the nursery with nurses for hours on end, I wonder what is wrong.


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