Austin Newborn Photographer | Ten Things Every New Mom Needs

Austin Newborn Photographer | Ten Things Every New Mom Needs

 

Becoming a new Mom is beautiful, holding that little life you created, in your arms for the first time is such a special moment. On top of that it is also hard, confusing, and overwhelming at times. Everyone giving you different advice, telling what to do and what not to do. There is one very important thing you need to remember with all the advice, and that is, that every baby is different! What works for one may not work for another, you have to learn what works for you and your baby. Just like advice, there are endless things you can buy for your new baby, and quite honestly you will buy a ton of things that you don’t need or use. I have put together a list of ten things every new mom needs. Some things on the list are from my clients and some things I used with my own town kids. This list isn’t meant to tell you to go out and buy these things. Just like advice, they are suggestions, they may not all be right for you and your little one. We are just Mom’s helping other new Mom’s, giving you advice on what worked best for us!

With all these new things available for newborns and Mom’s, we often ask ourselves, do we really need all of this? For example, when you go to register for your baby shower, you get a huge list of things that are recommended to buy. Big, corporate companies want you to buy all of these things, and some people do. The thing is, you probably only need half of them. Below is a list of ten things I believe every new Mom needs, you can click on the title of each to be take to the item and read more about it. I am in no way affiliated with any of these companies.

P I NI M A G E

#1 Happiest Baby on The Block

So I chose to list this one first because this was the absolute biggest help for me when I had my son. Happiest baby on the block was developed by a pediatrician named Dr. Karp. The idea behind these techniques is to kick in a natural relaxation reflex that all babies have, and let me tell you IT WORKS! My son was a fussy newborn, he would cry for hours sometimes, and it was hard. A friend told me about happiest baby on the block and I honestly felt like it was just too good to be true but I watched the dvd and figured it couldn’t hurt. Well it went from taking anyway from 30 minutes to hours to sooth my fussy, colicy baby to him being completely relax and most of the time sleeping in less than 5 minutes! It was unbelievable. The second I swaddled him up and did the techniques he stopped crying. Now I am not going to say this worked all the time, but it did work most of the time. I use these techniques in almost every newborn session and clients are always amazed at how quickly and calm their baby is. I recommend it to everyone I know.

#2 Dunstan Baby Language

This is another education system I used with my son. This one is a little harder to master. Dunstan baby language is the universal language of babies, as it describes. Priscilla Dunstan is the genius behind this. She grew up with a photographic memory for sound, and when she had children she realized that her baby had different cries. After years of studying infants from all different ethnicities she came up with the Dunstan Baby Language system. Instead of writing a huge paragraph of how it works, you can watch her interview on Oprah Here. It really is amazing to watch, whether you have children or not.

#3 Muslin Swaddle Blankets

Everyone buys swaddle blankets, they are always on registries and a common gift. I have tried countless different swaddle blankets with my kids and they where all either too small, too think, not stretchy enough, and baby constantly breaking out of them. When I had my second child there was a new type of swaddle blanket called muslin blankets and they where fantastic and the designs where adorable! They are larger than the average swaddle blankets you buy, they are thinner and breathable, and they have just the right amount of stretch to them. If you have a little Houdini like my son then I have a special trick that I used. I would swaddle him in the thin muslin swaddle blanket then I would put one of these velcro swaddle sacks on top. You want to make sure it isn’t too warm since they are wearing two blankets, but it was pretty easy to tell if he was too warm or not.   It was months before he was able to break out of our little swaddle system and combined with the happiest baby on the block he slept so much better!

#4 Baby Monitor

I don’t know about anyone else but when I had my first child it was so hard to choose a monitor, and now there are even more to choose from. The go to monitors these days seem to be the video monitors. It really is an amazing idea, you don’t have to go into the babies room and risk waking them, you can just look at the little screen. For me though, the idea didn’t help ease my anxiety those first few months. Every single mother worries about SIDS, I did with both my children. So When I was shopping for my monitor I found the Angel Care Monitor that had a sensor pad with it. The sensor pad goes under the crib mattress or bassinet mattress and senses movement and breathing, so if baby stops breathing a VERY loud alarm goes off. I was worried that it wouldn’t work at first so I tested it countless times by lifting the baby off the mattress and sure enough it worked. The best part, now you don’t have to worry about choosing between the video monitor or the sensor kind because Angel Care makes a combined one. When the baby is old enough to roll off the sensor area you can remove it and just use the monitor. Anytime anyone asks me about monitors, this is my first recommendation, I love it!

#5 Nursing Pillow

Whether you are breastfeeding or not, nursing pillows are great, they save your arms and can be used for multiple things. There are all different brands to choose from so I would definitely go and try some different ones out to see what find most comfortable.

#6 Milk Freezer Tray

If you are breastfeeding these are great. These freezer trays freeze your milk into individual one ounce stick rather than freezing multiple ounces at once. I used to have a lot of waste from having to defrost a full bag of milk when I only needed an ounce or two. I found these trays and would freeze my milk then remove the sticks and put them into the storage bags. So instead of defrosting a whole bag or wasting bags freezing one ounce in each I could just pull out however many ounces I needed. Another great things is since they are frozen into sticks you can put them in a bottle if you need a bottle on the go. The cons of these trays is that the lid isn’t a tight fit so you have to be careful not to spill. I have also heard that the milk can freezer burn more easily like this, but I would use my milk before that happened.

#7 Breast Pump

Obviously this is more for breastfeeding Mom’s but if you are breastfeeding is an absolute necessity! When I had my first child I did not invest in a good pump, I just bought a hand held pump. I learned my lesson and when I had my second baby bought a nice electric pump. Buying a good pump is really important. They may seem expensive, and they are technically, but when you weigh the fact that you are getting free milk vs. the cost of formula, it pays for itself and more. Trust me when I say, if you are breastfeeding, a good pump makes the world of difference. Saying that however, what some Mom’s don’t know, is that even using a good pump, it doesn’t get all the milk. I would always hand express after I pumped and get almost an extra ounceThe link attached is the pump I used but there are many others you can choose from.

#8 Onsies and lots of them!

If you have had a baby, you know how messy those tiny, adorable little bundles can be. Between the puke, poop and pee you are constantly having to change them. You can go out and buy these adorable little outfits but you might want to save them for going out. At home, all you need is onesies. There are different kinds you can get but you can usually get a pack of multiple plain whit onesies pretty cheap. There are onesies with built in mittens which are amazing. I hate mittens, they are worse than socks, use them once and the other one is gone forever, so having them built into the onesie is a really nice bonus. Another kind is the ones that are open on the bottom, so when you are changing diapers you don’t have to undo the buttons, you just slide it up which is really nice for nighttime changes!

#9 Nose Frida

I know, it looks disgusting. You are literally sucking boogers out with your mouth, but hear me out because I was just as grossed out as you are right now when I first saw these! I have personally never tried these but I know a ton of people that swear by them. It looks gross but when you suck out the, shall we say goo haha, there is a filter inside that stops it from going into your mouth. So whats worse, sucking it up (literally and metaphorically speaking) or providing your little one with some much needed relief and possible avoiding further illnesses in the process.

#10 Sling or Wrap

When you have a baby, you don’t have a lot of time to get things done, but what time you do have is a whole lot easier with a sling rather than one handed with a baby cradled in the other arm. There are days where they will literally want to be in your arms all day, and who can blame them? They have spent the last nine months warm and bundled up in the comfort of your tummy, you can’t expect that need for Mom’s warmth to disappear over night. So when you have things to get done around the house or even when you are at the grocery store or running errands, slings are AMAZING. I will say though, that slings where one of the hardest things for me to shop for and a little bit of a learning curve too. There are a lot of different slings, wraps and styles to choose from. The bed thing you can do is to go and try them out. There are usually smaller boutique stores that sell a good variety. I did not attach a link because there are just too many different ones, but I am sure you can find them

For all new and expecting parents, I hope this helped you, if it did please share with your friends and feel free to add in the comments what you couldn’t live without after you had a baby!

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