Are you feeling mom-guilt because there’s so much you don’t know about being a first-time mom?
You just received a human being to take care of. There are a lot of things about parenting that you just didn’t think about before. And some of them may sound sheepish, although they are totally legitimate.
You want to know everything and do everything right. But there are so many things, you now have questions that you thought you’d never have in your life. And you feel like you don’t have control anymore.
Here’s a list of the silliest questions I had as a First Time Mom that I was too afraid to ask (and their answers)
#1 Am I Going to Sterilize my Baby’s Bottles Forever?
It certainly seemed so! I had no idea when to stop sterilizing stuff!
At first, when your newborn goes home, everything is pristine.
As a first-time mom, you sterilize everything; bottles, binkies, everything that has contact with your baby. You have more Purell in your hands than the complete Walmart storage. Does that sound familiar?
I wanted that everything my son touched was as free of germs as possible, especially because we were home after the NICU. But as the months progressed, I started to wonder, when should I stop? It certainly didn’t feel like I would ever stop. But it had to end at some point.
You should verify with your pediatrician, but, as a rule of thumb, when your baby starts crawling is a safe moment to start the un-sterilizing process.
You’ll know. Your baby will start to put everything into her mouth and you’ll start wondering “What’s the point”
#2 Do Babies Ever Get Dirty?
We certainly didn’t feel our baby was dirty or in need of a bath. And we wondered if we should give him daily baths? I mean, what are we going to wash?
We didn’t. And our pediatrician recommended us not to.
When we were able to give our boy baths he was well into his 4 months. This was due to his low weight and prematurity. But when we started, we were recommended to bathe him once a week.
This was to avoid any skin rashes, humidity, and infections. It sounds counterintuitive, but it worked for us.
We gradually increased his bathing frequency over the course of two years until we reached a point in which he takes a daily bath.
Additionally, whenever Ollie took a bath, we’d use a natural baby wash. It really worked wonders, he barely suffered from diaper rash, his skin always preserved its natural oils, and he barely had any skin rash at all. I highly recommend it.
#3 How Will I Ever Stop Sterilizing Stuff? Do I Go Cold Turkey?
Don’t stop all of a sudden. Do it progressively.
I used to joke that I was slowly getting my son used to germs.
It felt that way. I started sterilizing every odd day when he started crawling. After a few weeks, it was two times a week, and then once per week. After a couple of months, we were just sterilizing once per month.
Do wash everything with hot, soapy water, and with a unique sponge and brushes that you use only for baby stuff. I still do this and my toddler is 2 years old.
#4 How Does a Newborn Baby Have Fun?
This seems like a first-time mom silly question, I know.
But once we got out of NICU, and out of the initial shock of taking care of a preemie, we started to wonder: “How do newborns have fun?”
By being with her parents, mainly, and interacting with new, safe things.
We played a lot of music, played peek-a-book, read tons of books, and snuggled all the time (after all, we were doing kangaroo care 24 / 7.)
I love the book collection that’s available on Amazon Kid+. It’s a very complete children’s library in your pocket! They have over 13000 free content for children, and although I don’t recommend playing games or tv shows for babies, we did read a lot of books. It was an incredibly rich experience.
You can sign up for a free month here, and see for yourself it’s the right choice for your family.
#5 Why Am I More Attached to my Newborn than Daddy? Is this normal?
Yes! The relationship between a father and his baby isn’t as instantaneous as (sometimes) the relationship between mommies and babies.
Daddies need time to interact with the baby to understand what it means in their lives. They’ll start bonding over the smallest things, maybe your baby has a chin dimple like daddy, or laughs only at daddy’s voice.
All in all, is a huge change for everyone and some dads need more adjusting to it than others. When they do adjust, the relationship they hold with their babies is so unique and wonderful you’ll be wondering why you were worried in the first place.
#6 What Happens when the Umbilical Cord Falls Off? Does a Perfect Belly Button Just Appear There?
This was funny in a way.
I expected that when the umbilical cord would fall, my son would have his perfect belly button waiting beneath it. I just didn’t know that I should have expected anything else.
The truth is that it can be a bit scary.
When our son’s cord fell off, he still had dried cord pieces in his belly button, and there were raw patches here and there.
Take your baby to your pediatrician to check his belly button, and ask your doctor for pointers on cleaning it.
Usually, all the dried bits will fall off on their own, and you’ll need to wait until the raw parts are completely dry to even attempt a cleaning.
We cleaned Oliver’s belly button once a day with chiffon and baby oil and left it exposed to the air for it to dry for a couple of hours a day.
Eventually, it’ll look like a belly button is supposed to look. So don’t worry.
That’s a Wrap
No question is a silly question when it comes to your baby. Since our son was a preemie, we had special training during our 43-day NICU stay, but even so, we still had many, many questions.
It’s completely normal, as a first-time mom, I just didn’t know what to expect!
What other silly questions have you had about baby care? Let’s share the wisdom in the comment section.
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