really useful baby tips

Compiled by Melanie Carpenter

Really Useful Baby Tips Last Updated July 2011 of 11

Really Useful Baby Tips

Foreword (July 2011)

I am a 36 year old first time stay-at-home mum of a gorgeous ten month old baby boy, Nathan. Born and raised in Australia, I was living in London for nine years prior to moving to Abu Dhabi with my husband and baby in March this year for a better quality, more family oriented life. Prior to going on maternity leave, I was a marketing manager in The City for an international financial services software company.

The idea for this came to me when I was at a residents’ meeting for our apartment complex in Abu Dhabi, where I was hoping to meet some other mums and start to make some new friends. One of the first women I met was Claire, a mum of four from Scotland. This is no ordinary mum... she had four kids in the space of six years (crazy, I hear you say!), and pretty much raised them on her own, without family or any help, as her husband worked away during the week and was only home on the weekends. Now 48, and with her children now 18, 16, 14 and 12, one could say she is a very reliable source of advice on raising children. After finding out I had a small baby, she gave me some good baby tips that I promised to myself I would write down for future reference.

Then I started thinking of one of my oldest and closest friends, Katie in Australia, who has three kids, now 7, 5 and 3, and who also does almost all of the child rearing on her own, with only friends for support, as her husband works away on the mines in the north west of Australia, and is away for weeks at a time. I’ve already mentally been taking notes from her, having spent some time previously with her and her family long before I had Nathan, and I’ve seen how she ‘runs a tight ship’, and how lovely natured and well behaved her kids are. She’s been a great source of advice with the little niggles (mainly teething) I’ve experienced with Nathan so far. I’ve also got some other mum friends that have babies and younger children who have helped me out from time to time with some advice.

Being an active stay-at-home mum, I like to keep myself busy with various projects so my brain doesn’t go completely to baby mush. Now that the new apartment is pretty much set up, I thought to myself: Why not collate all these tips, as well as some you’ve been giving to other mums and mums-to-be, into a simple and free downloadable booklet? And then create a community on Facebook where other mums can contribute tips, ask for advice, respond to other mums’ questions etc, and continue to add to the advice booklet? And there the Really Useful Baby Tips Facebook community and booklet was born.

Of course, these tips are by no means prescriptive, and I’m certainly not saying they’re absolutely going to work. Furthermore, all kids are different, with different temperaments, they respond to different things, and they’re growing and learning at different rates. You also might not agree with the tip, because it’s not how you want to deal with a particular issue, or suited to how you want to raise your child. I know I’m by no means an expert either... with one barely out of the oven, I have a long way to go, and am learning every day. I just thought that if I could share some of the tips I have learned so far, whether from something I’ve read, through my limited experience, or from other mums, and even just one of these tips helps someone else, then that’s a good thing.

Throughout, I have tried, (and will continue to try), to attribute these tips to their original source. I want to keep adding to this collation, and distributing it further, so please let me know of any tips you’ve got or have heard and you’d like to share with others, and please feel free to recommend the community and booklet to others.

In summary, my advice is: everyone is full of advice. Listen to who and what you want to, and take on board what’s right for you. At the end of the day, you’re the parent and you make the decisions. And the biggest tip anyone has ever given me, (Katie!), is just when you think you’ve worked something out, it’ll all change again, and you’ll have to figure something new out!


Contents Getting Your Baby to Sleep Through the Night ............................................................................................................................................ 4

It’s all about the routine ........................................................................................................................................................................... 4

Teach your baby to go to sleep on their own ......................................................................................................................................... 4

Crying (in relation to sleep) ........................................................................................................................................................................... 5

Going to sleep ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 5

Waking at night ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 5

Feeding ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 6

Breastfeeding ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 6

Bottle Feeding ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Reflux ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Weaning ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7

All Things Wee and Poo .................................................................................................................................................................................. 8

Teething .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 8

Baby On the Move ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 9

Learning, Behaviour and Discipline ................................................................................................................................................................ 9

Getting Your Body Back ................................................................................................................................................................................ 10

Pelvic floor exercises .............................................................................................................................................................................. 10

Strengthening your abdominals ............................................................................................................................................................ 10

Really Useful Baby Products ........................................................................................................................................................................ 11

Toys .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 11

General ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 11


Getting Your Baby to Sleep Through the Night

It’s all about the routine It’s not everyone’s aim to get their baby sleeping through the night, and if you prefer to follow your baby’s lead and let them eat and sleep when they want to, then please ignore this section.

I read two books that I found very helpful in achieving this goal. Baby Wise by Gary Ezzo (big tip from Katie on this one, thank you!), and the Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg (thank you Holly). Both of them proposed similar routines, although they differed most significantly on the issue of crying. More on that later.

Getting your baby on a consistent eat, activity and sleep routine is the key. I’m not going to go into it all here...I’d recommend getting both books, and taking your pick on which method works best for you.

A good routine also:

• Helps you establish and maintain a good milk supply if you’re breastfeeding; • Helps to ensure that your baby gets enough food during the day so they don’t need to feed at night, and; • Helps you to determine what might be the cause of your baby crying, e.g. are they hungry, tired, do they need their

nappy changed, etc.

Teach your baby to go to sleep on their own • You need to teach your baby to fall asleep on their own without rocking, jigging, car driving etc. If you get into the habit of

having to rock or jig your baby to sleep, which might give you peace and quiet in the beginning, you will end up having to do that all the time to get them to sleep – not fun months down the line. This is what The Baby Whisperer calls ‘accidental parenting’. Start good habits as early on as you can – put your baby down for their sleep while they’re still awake.

• If you put your baby down while they’re still awake, they’ll wake up where they fell asleep. If you don’t put them to bed until you’ve got them to sleep on you, or anywhere else that’s not their bed, they’ll get a bit of a shock waking up somewhere different. Plus, if you wait until they’re asleep before you put them in their bed, they’re more likely to wake up while you’re putting them to bed – argh!

• Don’t miss the window of sleep opportunity. Learn to recognise your baby’s signs of tiredness, (yawning, rubbing eyes,

getting tetchy), and put them to bed. If you leave it too long, they’ll get overtired and will battle going to sleep, meaning more and longer crying.


Crying (in relation to sleep)

Going to sleep The issue of crying is probably the most contentious of all. All babies cry; some parents absolutely do not want to let their baby cry, however, if you want to be able to get your baby off to sleep quicker, or stop them waking in the night, (this is when they’re at least three to four months old, not in the early newborn weeks when they shouldn’t go longer than five hours without feeding), then you may need to learn to let your baby cry. (Of course, problems such as reflux and colic can hinder sleep and need special consideration.)

Letting your baby cry will not harm them If you’re an advocate of Baby Wise, then you’ll read and understand that letting a baby cry is not going to harm your baby, reduce their IQ, or give them trust issues. It is absolutely normal for most babies, especially in the beginning, (assuming you’ve made sure they’re not hungry, have been winded, and their nappy has been changed), to cry up to 20 minutes before they nod off to sleep. If you’re more on the Baby Whisperer side of the fence, then letting a baby cry is a no-no. Again, what you do is entirely your choice, and no-one is right or wrong – it’s what works for you and your baby. I am describing here what has worked for us.

Be consistent Absolutely imperative to this approach is that you need to be consistent, and to be consistent both you and your partner have to agree that this is what you want to do, and you need to support each other, because it is hard, especially at first. If one of you is going to give in, then it’s not going to work.

Learning to let your baby cry, and when to go in and tend to them We let Nathan cry. Not for hours on end mind you, the maximum has only ever been 15-20 minutes before we’ve gone in to give him a cuddle and put him straight back down again. But we found over time that the time it takes for him to go down for his nap or to sleep at night is mostly only a few minutes, rarely more. But he’s had to learn that, because in the beginning, it took longer. We tried the Baby Whisperer method of push/pat (earlier months), but quite simply it didn’t work for us, and ultimately I didn’t have the patience for it either. So, after reading the Baby Wise section on crying, and talking to other mums about the issue, I thought I’d try the ‘let him cry for a bit’ approach.

Don’t think we’re cold hearted either. When we first tried it, (at around four to five weeks), we found it very upsetting. We’d sit on the edge of our bed next to his Moses basket, holding each other’s hands for support, with a stopwatch so we could keep absolute track of how long he cried for. Gradually though, we learned to recognise when he was just crying because that’s what babies sometimes do when they go down for a sleep, or when he was really upset.

You’ll learn to recognise your baby’s cries As a parent, you’ll learn to recognise your baby’s cries – when they’re hungry, tired, or wanting attention. We never let Nathan get distressed - we can tell by his cries when something really isn’t right, and will go straight in to tend to him. We can’t see any ill effects from letting him cry either – every time I go into his room to pick him up in the morning, or when he wakes from his nap, I get a huge smile. He’s a happy, contented baby, and he knows we love him because he gets showered with attention, kisses and cuddles every day.

Waking at night The same concept goes for when your baby wakes at night, (if your aim is to have your baby sleeping through the night). If you’ve been following a routine, then you’ll know your baby has had enough food to be able to last them through the night. If they start waking up during the night, and you go in to feed them or tend to them each time, then they will get used to it. You’ll encourage a habit. The Baby Whisperer also calls this ‘accidental parenting’. Try to let your baby self soothe themselves back to sleep rather than rushing in straight away, even if that means a period of crying. Again, you’ll learn to recognise your baby’s cries and whether they’re in distress or not.


Feeding Before I begin the tips in this section, I have to voice an opinion here. Of course, not everyone will agree with my point of view, and that’s absolutely fine, but seeing as I’m the collator of this particular booklet, I think I have the right.

Whether you decide to breastfeed or formula feed, (or a combination of both), that’s entirely your decision as the mum. No one has the right to tell you what to do. Having had Nathan in the UK, and knowing the attitude is similar in Australia, I think the huge pressure from the general society on mums to breastfeed is unfair. It may be that breastfeeding is better for the baby, but formulas have improved significantly over the years, and at the end of the day, it’s the mother’s choice, and a happy mother is a happier baby. Some mothers can’t breastfeed because of tongue tie, mastitis, baby not interested/won’t latch on properly – there’s a multitude of reasons. Or it may be simply that they don’t want to. And really, who can tell who’s been breastfed or bottle fed at the end of the day? So my tip here is, do what you want to do, and don’t worry about what everyone else says, and don’t let them make you feel guilty for your decision.

Having said all that, I did breastfeed Nathan for the first four months, although I did introduce formula for his late night feed at eight weeks to help to get him sleeping through the night, (as formula is denser than breast milk and therefore slower to digest). This was my choice, and it worked for me. (Needless to say, I did get some judgement from some other mums... how dare you use formula, it’s cheating!)

Breastfeeding So, here are some of my personal tips. I need to reiterate that these worked for me; you might want to do something differently, or not agree, and that’s totally up to you.

• Introduce at least one bottle feed by four weeks and no later than six weeks If you leave it too late, you could run the risk of your baby not taking the bottle at all, or only after a huge struggle. Do it early enough, and they’re too young to develop a preference. This is especially important if you are planning to go back to work at some point in the first 12 months. (I know mums that have left it too long and have struggled, once they were ready to start giving milk in a bottle, or to finish breastfeeding, to get their baby onto the bottle.)

• Share the load Another advantage to introducing the bottle was that in giving Nathan the expressed milk for his last feed at night, it was a great opportunity for my husband to share the load and give him one of the feeds, and it was fantastic bonding time for them both. And I got to go to bed earlier than normal, giving me some much needed and well deserved extra rest before I had to get up for the middle of the night feed. By this time too, you have had enough time to establish good milk production. (If you start expressing too early, you could start producing too much milk, which can be quite painful.)

• Be aware that exercise and diet can affect your milk supply I found that on the days I exercised, even a light run or fast power walk, my milk supply was reduced. I found this out as I compared how much I was able to express mid morning compared to later in the afternoon after my workout. Similarly, if you’re running around and have had a really busy day, this could affect your milk supply too. So if you’re an active mum, be aware of this. To address this problem, once Nathan had finished feeding from my breast, I topped him up with expressed breast milk.

• Drain one breast before moving to the next one To ensure your baby is getting enough of the calorie rich hind milk, I would recommend draining one breast before moving onto the next one, and concentrate on getting your baby to have full feeds. This means not stopping when they come off the breast, but burping them and putting them back on to make sure they’re full. If they only snack, they’re getting mostly the watery foremilk, which doesn’t have all the goodness; if your baby is feeding small and often, this could be what is happening. (If your goal is to get your baby sleeping through the night, then this is very important.)


Bottle Feeding • No need to keep buying new bottle teats

When you first start out bottle-feeding, you start with one hole in the teat. When your baby is ready to start taking in more, rather than buying the next number teat, use a sterilised pin or needle to put another hole in yourself. This tip came from my NCT (antenatal) instructor.

• You don’t really need a bottle steriliser If you live in a country where the water supply is clean and drinkable, then you really don’t need to buy a bottle steriliser. You can wash and soak the bottles in hot, soapy water, then rinse with hot water. This will normally suffice to make them clean enough for your baby to drink from. (Just make sure you use a bottle brush to get any dried milk residue out, and that the teat is clean from residue too.)

Reflux We were lucky enough to escape this problem with Nathan, but having spoken to mums that have had this with their baby, I can imagine how distressing and tiring this is, and I fully sympathise. If you Google this, there are loads of sites suggesting ways of helping with the problem, but these are the tips I have heard from my circle of mums.

• Try feeding your baby upright, it can be a more comfortable position for the baby to feed.

• Check to see if your baby is lactose intolerant. You can see a doctor about this, but basically it means potentially eliminating dairy from your diet, or trying a lactose free formula if you’re bottle feeding.

• Try taking your baby to a cranial osteopath or chiropractor (that specialises in treating babies) – I’m not sure of the ins and outs of this treatment, however, I think it has something to do with the alignment of your baby’s spine and internal organs. Getting things back into place, which may have been put out of place during the birth process, can help.

• Medication that I have heard has helped is Losec – see your doctor about this.

Weaning • Annabel Karmel’s books and website are quite good for advice and great recipes.

• Try and introduce as many different foods and tastes as possible as early on as you can, to help them get used to the

variety and to help avoid fussy eating in the future.

• After about seven months, try to introduce lumps and textures and make them bigger the older they get. If you feed your baby really pureed foods for too long, they may reject anything with lumps. This will help them progress onto ‘proper’ food more easily.

• I try to make Nathan’s food where I can rather than using manufactured baby food. To reduce the time and effort on this, when I’m cooking our food, (which I make fresh and mostly from scratch), I make extra for him, but take it out of the pot before I add anything with salt or preservatives (i.e. processed food). Then I mash or puree it and freeze it in small portions for future meals. Fresh, natural and tasty, and I can control the lumpiness of it too.

• It might be worthwhile looking up Baby Led Weaning, which has been recommended by UK midwives as an alternative

method of weaning to the traditional pureed foods method. Essentially, ‘You just hand them the food in a suitably-sized piece and if they like it they eat it and if they don’t they won’t.’ Check out www.babyledweaning.com for more info.

http://www.babyledweaning.com/


All Things Wee and Poo • If you have a newborn boy, point his willie down to avoid leakage from the top of the nappy.

• If you’re using disposable nappies, make sure you pull out all the frilly bits to reduce the potential for leakage.

• Fold the top of the nappy at the back down on the inside to help stop poo leakage from the back. (Holly’s tip.)

• This is one of Claire’s tips. When it comes to toilet training, don’t bother with those padded training nappies, especially

when you’re out. You’re better off buying a load of cheap underpants/knickers that you can quickly and easily cut off your child and throw straight into the bin. There’s nothing worse than being in the middle of a shop/restaurant/queue and your toddler decides that right then and there it’s time to go. Trying to get a pooey training pant off a wriggling child is no easy or clean feat. Carry a pair of scissors with you in your bag, cut them off as soon as you get to the toilet, clean the child up and replace with a fresh pair.

• Katie’s big tip – don’t rush the potty training. Rather than force them when they’re not quite ready, wait until they’re really

ready, say around the age of 3, before you really start proper potty training. The first child will generally take longer, and subsequent children generally not as long, simply because they have a bigger brother or sister to copy and look up to.

Teething Nathan started teething at about six months, but it wasn’t until six weeks later that the first tooth popped through. Teething has made my previous ‘angel’ baby grumpy and grisly at times, which I sometimes find quite trying. Anything you can do to help alleviate teething pain is well worth a try. There are loads of websites dealing with this problem, but I thought I’d ask Katie for some of her ideas on helping to distract Nathan from the pain.

• Give them things to chew on.

• Don’t be afraid to give them baby paracetamol - you know what a toothache is like, well it’s the same for them but usually two or four at a time!!

• Try the teething gels, such as Bonjela, but make sure you follow the instructions and don’t use it too much in any given 24

hour period.

• Try giving them a (washed) cold carrot to suck and gnaw on – this tip from an old Indian woman.

• Use a bottle of ice that will slowly drip out – teething babies love anything cold.

• Use a teething ring - you can get ones that go in the freezer.

• To try and distract them, fill a mini blow-up pool with plastic balls for them to roll around in; lots of colours and moving bits.

• For night time, use a light projector that shines lights/shapes on the ceiling – it mesmerises them and helps distract from the pain as they’re going down for their sleep. (We use the Fisher Price Ocean Wonders projector which also makes water noises, which Nathan absolutely loves.)

• Run a bath with minimal water in it and some toys, put a towel under them so their head is propped up and they won’t be too slippy slidey – another distraction method.


• Teething rusks, baby biscuits or milk arrowroots are messy....but peaceful.

• Tommee Tippee makes a great fresh fruit feeder that you can also put an ice block in.

• A friend from Eastern Europe gave me some amber teething beads as a gift, which she says has been a tradition in her country for years. Am not sure if they actually do anything, but it can’t hurt to use them.

• My sister-in-law, Anita, recommends teething powders – I haven’t been able to find them here in Abu Dhabi, but she says

they work. Jo Frost swears by Nelson’s teething granules.

Baby On the Move • Even before they start wriggling or crawling, or trying to get out of their buggy/high chair, Claire recommends you get into

the habit of strapping your baby into their buggy or high chair, so that they get used to the restraints from the outset. If you try to slap them on when they’re already on the move, you might get more tears and resistance from your baby.

• Similarly, if you have a play pen, (great for when you want to keep your baby in one place, while you’re cooking or doing something potentially hazardous to your baby), don’t wait until your baby is crawling before you put them in it. Get them used to it when they’re still in the ‘lying on their back’, or ‘sitting in one spot’ stage. They’ll be less likely to feel as though they’re being restrained. Also, don’t put them in there when they’re crying or upset, or they’ll start to associate the playpen with something bad.

• When your baby starts to roll onto their front while they’re in their cot, and they can’t roll back, they can sometimes get

very frustrated and upset. To help stop them rolling over before going to sleep, or during their sleep, place two large rolled up towels either side to create a barrier.

• Cot bumpers or barriers are really good for when your baby is starting to wriggle around in their cot, so they’re legs don’t

get caught in the rungs.

Learning, Behaviour and Discipline Here are some really good ideas I’ve seen to help encourage general learning and good behaviour as your child starts to do things for themselves and test their parents’ boundaries:

• Label items, appliances and furniture around the home to help with word association and learning to read. (I saw this in Katie’s home.)

• If you have the space, set-up different activity stations to help keep your child stimulated and occupied. Katie has a playroom with the kids’ toys, dress-up box and DVDs, a colouring station, and a table that could be pulled out for more messy activities like gluing, painting and play-do.

• Routine charts are a great idea, where you can have a picture for each step in the routine; Katie had one for getting ready for

bed, getting ready for school etc. Kids can look at the chart to be reminded of what’s next, (get dressed, have bath, brush teeth etc), and can mark off when they’ve completed the step with a star or other funky sticker. (In the beginning, you might want to establish some sort of reward system to help them learn the routine faster.)


• Claire recommends the 5-3-1 warning approach to letting kids know what’s happening. So let’s say your child has been over a friend’s place playing with other children. When you’re ready to go, rather than plucking them away from their activity out of the blue, give them a warning. ‘XXX, we’re going to be leaving in 5 mins. Then, ‘OK XXX, 3 more minutes and it’s time to go.’ And finally, ‘OK, one more minute and we’re leaving.” This prepares the child for the action, and reduces the chance of a tantrum. Can be applied to going to bed, end of an activity etc.

• Jo Frost, aka Supernanny, has a whole range of fun charts, activities and reward ideas that can be created and used to help

your child with learning and to improve their behaviour.

• I’m a great believer in establishing and encouraging good behaviour and manners in children from a young age, and necessary to this is positive and constructive discipline; setting your child boundaries and enforcing them consistently. Jo Frost has built a big empire around addressing the behavioural and emotional problems of ‘problem children’. Effective use of time-out/the naughty step etc are some good techniques she explains in some detail.

Getting Your Body Back Having a baby puts a lot of strain on your body. Exercise is extremely important both during and after pregnancy to help you get your body back to some semblance of what it used to be. And of course, the more babies you have, and the older you are, the harder it is.

Pelvic floor exercises I cannot stress too much how important pelvic floor exercises (also known as Kegel exercises) are, especially if you have had a vaginal birth. And not just during and immediately after the birth, but for the rest of your life. You need to get into the habit of doing pelvic floor exercises whenever you can – when you’re feeding, while you’re at the traffic lights, watching tellie or on the tube, they should be part of your everyday life.

Why are they so important? Paving the way for a baby can stretch things like you wouldn’t believe, especially if you’ve had a difficult delivery with tearing, an episiotomy and/or forceps – your pelvic floor and vagina literally takes a hammering. And if you’ve had more than one, it’s even more important. Consistently doing pelvic floor exercises reduces the chance of you peeing every time you laugh, cough or sneeze, and reduces the potential for a pelvic floor organ prolapse (such as a cystocele, when the wall between the bladder and the vagina weakens, causing the bladder to drop or sag into the vagina).

I’d recommend buying a set of Kegel weights which will gradually help to strengthen your pelvic floor, and use these in addition to your pelvic floor contractions.

Strengthening your abdominals When you are pregnant, your abdominal muscles separate to make room for your growing baby. About 6 weeks after you’ve had your baby, you need to start gradual abdominal strengthening to re-join those muscles.


Really Useful Baby Products

Toys • Fisher Price Ocean Wonders light and sound projector • Fisher Price glow-in-the dark seahorse – a friend bought this for Nathan, and he loves it, plays nice soothing lullabies with

the sound of water in the background. Comes in both blue and pink. • Fisher Price Rainforest Jumperoo • Fisher Price Rainforest Baby Gym (for your baby’s early months) - has some great toys dangling down (that you can detach

later), and you can easily attach other toys to keep it fresh and interesting. • Lamaze toys – I think the best one out of all of them is Freddie the Firefly, because it has so many different ‘bits’ to fiddle

with – it kept Nathan entertained for hours, even from a really young age. Logan the Lion is also quite good. • The Baby Einstein range of DVDs and toys are great. • Anything with tags on it... babies love fiddling with tags. My friend Holly was given a gift that was handmade by a friend of

hers in the US that was a square bit of material with loads of tags made out of different types and patterns of material sewed all around it. I haven’t been able to locate anything quite like it.

General • Tommee Tippee makes a great fresh fruit feeder that you can also put an ice block in to help with teething. • Chicco baby bouncer/rocker chair – I found this a really reasonably priced baby chair, that had some good toys, was easy to

clean and easily adjustable. • Dummy bunny – this product is great for using dummies at night, and can help you to wean your baby off them when the

time comes. Babies can sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, and if they’ve lost their dummy, they can fully wake trying to find it. The dummy bunny enables them to easily feel for the dummy in the dark, and easily put one of the dummies in their mouth. When it comes time to reducing the reliance on the dummy, you can simply remove a dummy at a time. (This tip came from my friend Aida. Nathan doesn’t use a dummy, but she shared this with me as a really useful baby product.)

• Bibetta bibs – they are fantastic, as they’re made out of wet-suit material, so absorb plenty of liquid without getting baby wet, have a catchment area for food at the bottom, and are super-easy to clean in soapy water, and pretty quick to dry as well.

really useful baby tips

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