101 Mum-tested Tips

Pre-baby

• Eat well
• Give up smoking
• Stock up with lots of good food and some quick and easy frozen food (save space by removing the boxes before putting pizza in the freezer)
• Take good nutritional supplements
• Eliminate toxic household and personal care products
• Get acquainted with homeopathy — let Arnica, Chamomilla and Belladonna become your best friends, and Pulsatilla too
• Don't bother to buy a cot
• Check out baby clothes in charity shops
• Start to build your local support network
• Find out about local support groups for breastfeeding and babycare:
  • NCT (National Childbirth Trust)
  • La Leche League
• Chat to other new mums
• Prepare e-mail lists or stock up on nice cards (or design your own birth announcements), stamps, address labels

Useful things to have for the birth

• Honey for energy
• Orange cubes in thermos flask
• Frozen picnic icepack — wrap it up in a small towel
• Lavender sprigs to sniff
• Damp flannel
• Photos to distract
• Relaxing music

Useful techniques for the birth

• Breathing
• Walking about
• Pelvic rock
• Stroking and rubbing gentle massage
• Back massage
• Squatting — rocking on all fours
• Keeping a relaxed mouth/shoulders/hands
• Keep tongue on the roof of the mouth

First few months with your new baby

• Do what comes naturally
• Focus on your baby
• Touch, stroke, rock and hold your baby lots
• Enjoy skin contact
• Talk and sing to your baby
• Gaze into your babies eyes
• Only wash your nipples with water, nothing scented
• If your breasts are hot and swollen, experiment with putting cold uncooked cabbage leaves inside a loose bra, what a perfect shape!
• Use your own milk to soothe sore nipples
• Bathe with your baby — using your bent knees as a backrest
• Leave the nappy off whenever possible
• Use cloth nappies and change them often

Survival

• Always say "Yes" to offers of help
• Get sleep at every opportunity, have a daytime doze, early night or lie-in whenever possible
• You'll sleep and feed better if your baby sleeps with you. (See Three in a Bed, Deborah Jackson, Bloomsbury 2003)
• Get out, arrange to meet friends for gentle little walks, to the playground, library etc.
• Cocoon yourself — ignore world news
• Avoid noisy, dirty, airless, crowded places
• Look after yourself, stay healthy
• Eat a healthy wholefood diet
• Take a good quality supplement
• Keep your hair neat and tidy as it symbolises bringing order to the head and thinking
• If you need a hair parting in a hurry and can't find a comb — use a fork

Getting your figure back

• Walk to the park
• The Chi Machine

Housekeeping

• Don't worry about a bit of mess and dirt
• Keep like with like
• Stock up on Neways Household products
• Washing up — do the cleanest things first
• Rinse to remove detergent film (especially if you don't use Neways Dish Soap)
• Scalding with boiling water is a good way of sterilising and unblocking drains
• Have two laundry baskets — one for dark and one for light
• Have some scissors in every room (in a safe place)
• Keep a button jar for mending, memories and counting games

Food

• Avoid the sweet section in shops
• Just don't buy sweets
• Eat natural fresh food with as much raw fruit and veg as possible — easy and nutritious
• Avoid hunger tantrums with tasty, healthy snacks of raw fruit and veg, rice cakes, nuts
• Grow edible alfalfa sprouts in a jam jar
• Have a bathtime fruit-fest
• Assume that they will eat the same as you
• Expect them to have a spoonful of whatever is on the table
• Cook food together
• Make easy vegetable and lentil soups
• Make family birthday cakes
• Get rid of aggression by making your own bread
• Holiday on organic farms — see WWOOF
• Don't buy soft drinks
• Avoid "sugar free" or anything with sweeteners
• Raw carrots seem to be helpful for threadworms

As they grow up

• Tell them how much you love them
• Be encouraging and appreciative
• Help them to do things for themselves
• Put large press studs on little children's clothes so they can manage them
• Let them help with grown up chores
• Walk with them to school
• Use public transport
• Be in the playground when they come out
• Take them to work with you
• Have family time and games nights with the TV off
• Develop an extended family
• Consider giving a foreign student a home, if you have a spare room
• Encourage creativity and buying less e.g. make home made cards for friends' birthdays, etc.

Bedtime

• Don't bother to buy a cot
• It is easier to sleep and feed your baby if you sleep together
• Both get some fresh air before bedtime
• Rainfall is soothing
• According to The Happiest Baby by Dr. Harvey Karp, Penguin 2002 (subtitled "The new way to calm crying and help your baby sleep longer") babies crave the 5 "S's" swaddling, side/stomach (rolling the infant onto her side or stomach), sucking, swinging and shushing.
• It is my guess that The Chi Machine would provide the swinging and shushing, the right rhythmic, soothing, swinging natural womb-like movement and white noise, though this hasn't been investigated scientifically so far as I'm aware.  Please ask me for more information on this if you'd like to experiment.
• The parent would use The Chi Machine and meanwhile cradle the baby so they both benefit from the movement.  Dr Karp does not, I believe, know about The Chi Machine (yet)
• Be boring, reduce exciting stimuli in the environment
• Quieten the house when it is time for the baby to sleep
• Turn the TV off
• Whisper and talk softly as you carry the child or walk towards bed
• Talk gently about happy things that have happened or nice things you've seen during the day
• Try telling a story making it up as you go along
• Cuddle and read a bed-time story
• Stroke their head and over the eyes to close them and massage their feet
• Make sure that all the pictures in the room are pleasing images
• As they get older make sure you end the day on a calm, positive note
• Ask permission to give them some gentle, silent foot stroking, it can make things better after a difficult day

Getting up

• Set the breakfast table the night before
• In the morning look out at the day together before getting going
• Don't ask children questions for the first ten minutes of the day
• Over breakfast talk about things that need to be done

Making memories

• Plant a tree or bush when babies are born
• Try doing a pencil sketch of your baby/child
• Measure the size of her foot against your little finger
• Have your camera at the ready at all times
• Occasionally just take photos of the general household scene
• Date the photos
• Record baby sounds
• Use a big picture frame for a collage of snippet photos of all friends and relatives
• Keep squares of favourite worn-out baby clothes for some creative project
• Mark a door frame or chart to record how they've grown on their birthday every year

Feel free to copy or distribute anything on this site that you may find useful or of interest, provided you include my source details.  Feedback welcome.  Thank you.

Disclaimer: The opinions and recommendations on this site are based on my own experience and that of other authors.  I do not represent any medical establishment and my advice is not intended to replace that of a medical professional.  Please consult your care giver with any concerns you may have.