First-Time Parent: The honest guide to coping brilliantly and staying sane in your baby’s first year. Lucy Atkins

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      What to do when you get home

      ‘The whole world feels fragile now, as if I were carrying my heart around,’ says Melissa, mother of Raphael, nine months. If this throws you into a tizzy for the first few weeks, you’re not alone. ‘I felt total panic at home with my new baby,’ says Julia, mother of Charlie, one. ‘He seemed so fragile and the sense of responsibility was just overwhelming. Instead of gazing at my baby in this bubble of maternal love, I just kept thinking, He’s so important, what if something happened to him?’

      Not everyone feels worried. But if you do, the anxiety should subside once you get to know your baby a bit and gain confidence. If it doesn’t, it’s important to talk to your midwife or health visitor about how you feel (excessive anxiety, apart from being distracting, can be a sign of postnatal depression).

      The main thing is to get to know your baby. ‘He didn’t come with any instructions and I couldn’t speak his language,’ says Lori, mother of Jacob, two. ‘I felt like I was failing all the time.’ Be kind to yourself here. You will slowly learn–your way–that he won’t break if you put his nappy on wrong, or explode if you take too long to do his poppers up (though he may shout a lot). He doesn’t have some pre-programmed need to be held or spoken to in the ‘right’ way, and he doesn’t know any better than you do how he should be bathed or fed. The right way, in short, is your fumbling, inept, loving and slowly evolving way.

      FIVE TOP TIPS FOR THE FIRST FEW WEEKS:

      1 | Take a babymoon (see below).

      2 | Get help (see below). Lots of it.

      3 | Shelve all normal tasks: tidying, bill-paying and sending out birth announcements can all wait.

      4 | Sleep whenever you get the chance (even a half-hour catnap is better than nothing).

      5 | Only have visitors on your terms: ask people to leave, cancel their visits, only let them stay a very short time–normal sociability rules do not apply.

      A word about visitors

      Remember, it’s your baby and you are allowed to do things your way–no matter who you offend. Josie, mother of Kofi, fifteen weeks, remembers that her biggest difficulty during the early weeks was with visitors. ‘I often felt that they did not appreciate my need to be with my baby. With hindsight I should have been more assertive. I found it very hard to watch people pass Kofi from one person to another when I just wanted to hold and protect him.’

       THE PAPARAZZI

      There’s one thing most of us worry about that we needn’t: flash photography by the granny paparazzi is not going to hurt your baby’s eyes, induce epileptic fits or damage anything other than your sanity.

      A babymoon

      Your priority as a new mother should not be to slim yourself concave in the first four weeks. Your body and mind need to adjust and recover. A significantly better way to embark on motherhood is to have a ‘babymoon’. Just snuggle up with your baby and do little else but eat, sleep and feed for a good week after the birth.

      TO HAVE THE IDEAL BABYMOON:

       Stay in your pyjamas for at least three days.

       Have lots of skin-to-skin contact with your baby (this is a great thing for dads to do too, but is particularly important for the mother if she is breastfeeding).

       Eat meals you have cooked and frozen already. You want things that can be reheated quickly and don’t require accompaniments–one-pot meals such as soups and stews that include veggies. They should preferably be heated up (and cleared away) by someone else.

       Stay in bed a lot. Have all the things you need to change your baby’s nappy and clothes in one place. Have a large bottle of water and some snacks nearby. Just chill out together.

      Help!

      You will need to establish who, while you are chilling out with your newborn in the first couple of weeks, will prepare and clear up the meals, do the shopping, clean the house and do the laundry (there will be lots of it). It’s a mistake to assume that the dad will be the one to do all of this. As a dad, your role will inevitably include a bit of popping out to the shop, tidying up, making cups of tea or sticking the odd load of laundry on; but it’s a good idea to get some other help too, so you can snuggle with your partner and baby and enjoy this time together. The baby needs to bond with his father too (and vice versa).

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