How to Keep Your Shit Together When Your Newborn Arrives

For nine months you have been dreaming of this moment. You’ve been through hours and hours of grueling, painful labour. With doctors and midwifes treating your privates like a pincushion at a clothing factory. Your bundle of joy is finally here and now you want to rest.

Then your baby cries. You pick baby up and feed him, he poos then sleeps. Usually on you. Less than two hours later you start again…..

Less than a week later you’re wandering the house in a zombie state. You can’t remember the last time you took a shower or changed your tracksuit pants, your t-shirt is stained with milk (if you bothered to wear one), and you’re eating Nutri-Grain and chocolate for dinner at 1am.

Looking after a newborn is hard. Parenting books offer you all sorts of advice and theories but their instructions don’t always match your baby’s make and model, and they don’t come with a live-in nanny, cook and housekeeper. Your world has changed dramatically. You’re trying to learn on the job and you’re exhausted. Losing your marbles may be sensible, but it’s not practical.

Stockpile EVERYTHING….

You’re suddenly responsible for a little human, whose only form of communication is crying and who is totally and utterly dependent on you for survival. This is not a Y2K fizzer, this is the real deal. Stockpiling is warranted.

Fill your freezer with frozen dinners and your fridge door with take-away menus. Set up an account with Coles or Woolworths to have your groceries delivered. If you have an older child hoard toys, surprises, craft activities and movies to entertain them. Download your favourite TV show, ready to watch at 3am when your baby won’t stop crying.

Most importantly, fill your phone with the numbers of friends and family who can help. To use a cliché, it takes a village to raise a child. Fingers crossed it’s a big village.

If your mother-in-law says she’s stopping by the shops on her way over, ask her to pick up the groceries. If your neighbour offers to cook dinner, ask them to cook extra for tomorrow. If your sister wants to clean your bathroom, see if she’ll vacuum as well. Then when they’re finished ask them to look after the baby while you take a nap or a shower. This is one of the few times in your life when you can be selfish, make the most of it.

But, while you’re being selfish don’t neglect your other half. They’re on this journey with you and probably also losing their mind. They’re living off canned soup, enduring sleepless nights and wondering what’s happened to their tidy home and thriving social life. To be honest they’re probably also wondering what’s happened to you. The articulate person they once knew who is now talking about nothing but nappies, food and sleep. If you’re lucky enough to have someone standing by your side be grateful. Not everyone does. Isn’t that a sobering thought!

Keep your standards low

Your friend could breastfeed while cooking dinner, talking on the phone and playing with her three year old. Good luck to her, we can’t all be super mum. If you manage to do any one of these things with a newborn in the house you’re doing well.

Don’t look at magazines that show perfectly groomed celebrities shopping while their newborn sleeps in their arms. Ignore friends who swear that their baby slept through the night from two weeks of age. Don’t listen to grandparents who tell you that they raised seven kids and coped just fine. Instead focus your energy on getting through today.

Luckily good enough is enough when it comes to parenting. So, if you’ve eaten take-away for a week, your bed isn’t made and dirty dishes are piled up in the sink. The milk in your fridge is three weeks old, the cat has started going next door for dinner, and you find yourself wiping up spilled juice with a baby wipe. Ask yourself if it really matters. The answer is probably no.

Remember the upside..

Yes your eye balls are protruding from your head, you’re living off coffee and Maltesers and you haven’t been in bed at the same time as your partner since your little one arrived. But, there is an upside. You are a parent.

Newborns have a particular smell. It’s sweet, soft, milky, warm and comforting. Bury your nose on the crown of their head and you’ll know what I mean. Drink in that smell because it doesn’t last and you will miss it.

When you feel like your world has been turned upside down by someone that’s three and a half kilograms and 50 centimeters long remember that soon they will turn to you and say “go away”, and you’ll wonder where this time went.