Expecting a Newborn? Parenting With Baby Needs

As a father of boys, they have shown their needs with the different age groups they have grown into. At some point, I needed to start as a father and give them the appropriate attention. When they were all newborns, I loved spending time with them and watching their curiosity grow with the world around them. They are awesome, yet it seems that family dynamics increase in complexity. On the other hand, I do not like the idea of wanting to feeling that a product is being sold onto me, when you attempt to become realistic with what you provide, and give opportunity to thrive. With this in mind, I wanted to add a couple of my own thoughts into the parenting game. By doing this, I want to ensure some validity to my thoughts and personal arguments on the importance of the newborn stage. It all starts here, and the journey into parenting is challenging, demanding, and rewarding. When you establish good and healthy habits for yourself and your child, your personal touch in parenting will also grow with your baby.

Babies are cute, cuddly, and seemingly expensive. Having your first will feel like a whirlwind with not knowing, or “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”. You will ask yourself many things and look for valuable information to make yourself the best parent you possibly can. If you are reading this, you will become a more confident parent the more you keep at it. This time moves rather quickly, and will become a blip in your life. It also helps to take plenty of pictures to cherish these moments with your child, or to embarrass them when they bring a spouse home as a young adult. Some adults will cherish these memories when kids are babies, but there are a couple of things you should know.

Have I said that newborns have three different responsibilities? They have to eat, sleep, and poop. That is the requirement of newborns. As a parent, you are supposed to fill in these needs because they obviously cannot fulfill these things by themselves. You will hear your child’s personality as they will have different cries for these different things. Being a parent is always a full-time job and no number of things you buy will increase the satisfaction or training up a child the right way. When you properly train your child when they are younger, they will stay along this training and become set for life.

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Your baby needs you

Moms and dads alike must have time to cuddle, coo, and change dirty diapers. However, caring for the basic needs and having the ‘fun’ moments all the time do not always happen. Many times during the day or night, baby will end up crying. You will have no idea why they are crying, but they just do. Babies have not figured out how to manage their own emotions or relax themselves. This is the importance of contributing patient love that you want to imprint onto your baby. Soothing your baby is not an easy task for you or the baby, and it will take you on an emotional roller-coaster. Before trying to soothe your baby with multiple techniques, it helps that whomever holds the baby is as relaxed as possible¹. It will take practice to learn these techniques, but your ability improves with each child you add into your family.

Your baby needs a safe place

They will need a place to sleep at night, safely and comfortably. When we had our boys at this young age, we kept them in a crib, in our room. There was no need for us to send the child to a completely different room, for us to walk 50 steps back and forth to get the baby to eat and sleep between these two. It also cut down on the time we spent awake (do you want more sleep?), and you may not need that baby monitor. For what it’s worth, we had our own strategy from the very beginning to include the comfort toy sleeping with mom and dad to capture our essence for the baby. Otherwise, you might find that your home or other homes are not always equipped to handle a baby safely. So, if this means you need to move things around do it before anything happens.

Your child needs attention

Let us face the fact nobody likes to feel or be alone. Both parents must spend time for care and fulfilling this fundamental need. I have a couple of young boys, and it does not get easier with age. The demands become different, and they all require one-on-one time to formulate and continue the relationship between the two of you. When your child is a baby, they want to feel and smell you. This is how they know someone is watching over them and prevent the feelings of abandonment. In all honesty, first-time parents will experience their own personal pains when they hand baby to someone else for a short-period. This is included with the feeling with wanting to get it right with the first child.

Discipline with your kids is a challenging experience

When you correct your child remember to NEVER do it out of anger or personal feelings. This is a difficult step as a parent, because that means you do become emotional when things are either out of place or your child hits that personal nerve. The most difficult part of discipline with your child, is that this step begins from the parent, and will need to model right behavior, language, and actions with your partner. Since your children look up to their parents for everything, your relationship and how you act in front of your child models the way they will interact in the future². By making the changes on showing love for your spouse, your child will show the same affection for other children and adults.

Toddlers have not developed their sense of right or wrong, and will require parental discipline to establish these boundaries early. When your child become older between 6-months to 24-months, your child will start learning about right and wrong. Your child will become more mobile and will become curious about the world around them. It is appropriate to introduce some discipline with your toddler at this age³. It is important to continue displaying a constant show of love towards your baby so they do not feel unloved by their parents⁴. By showing love towards your baby, the discipline you show is showing that you are in charge of their safety and well-being.

The parenting journey is one a delightful experience. I have had my own struggles and have seen other parents show the love they need for their children. This will help them become well-adjusted, and show fundamental traits for having healthy relationships with others. If for any reason that you are not in a healthy place personally to have healthy relationships with other people, I would encourage you to do some self-reflection or reach out to a counselor that will help you do better as a person. With all of these in mind, how have you improved as a parent? If you saw a friend starting out, what kind of suggestions would you give to become a better parent? Like, save, and follow us on our social media, and share us with your friends who will find the enclosed valuable.