Newborn Care – Face Your Concerns As You Become A New Parent
If you are currently trying to get pregnant and looking forward to life with your new baby boy or girl, your thoughts may have turned to concerns about how to care for a tiny baby. Will you know what to do, when the time comes?
What if you can’t do it, or make mistakes?
It may still some of your worries to know that everyone who is pregnant for the first time or who is looking forward to getting pregnant has these thoughts.
We aren’t born with a parenting instinct, unfortunately, and rarely is it taught in school.
If you did not grow up with good parenting and seeing those competent parents with younger brothers or sisters, or have this experience in your extended family, chances are you are even more concerned about your abilities to become a good parent yourself.
Even if you didn’t have the advantage of warm, loving parenting, learning how to care for your newborn baby boy or girl is a skill that can be learned, from the advice offered by other good parents, parenting books and advice shared on websites and in forums online, and striving to be the parent you want to be.
Parenting is one of those skills that is learned (mostly) by doing.
In childbirth classes and before going home with your newborn, you will learn how to hold her, feed her, change a diaper and give her a sponge bath. This, plus sleeping, is just about everything a new baby does in the first few weeks of her life.
Be very gentle with the stump of the umbilical cord. It will fall off in somewhere between a week and two weeks after birth.
Do not bath your baby in a baby bath or sink (or you could use a mixing bowl) until after this has happened. For the first couple of weeks of life, an infant should have only very gentle sponge baths, using a soft cloth and warm water.
It is OK to dampen a cotton ball or cotton swab with rubbing alcohol or witch hazel to help dry the umbilical stump or simply follow your midwife’s or doctor’s directions (they have probably said to just leave it to fall off naturally).
You can bath your baby girl or boy in a sink or shallow tub (if you don’t have a baby bath, which is much more convenient and comfortable for baby) after the stump falls off.
Never use the bathtub – it is far too easy for a wet baby to slip out of your grip in the tub. You need to hold your baby firmly with one hand supporting his or her head, while gently washing with the other.
For safety reasons, never leave a child in water, not ever taking your hand away from holding them or ever turning away for even the briefest moment.

