While having a child can bring you immeasurable joy, there are also lots of things that may surprise you along the way. Therefore, it’s good to prepare yourself by finding out more about pregnancy, birth, and infants. Here are some things you should know about having a baby.
Adjusting To Motherhood May Be Difficult
Caring for your baby will bring many changes to your life, and both you and your child will need time to adjust. They’ll likely need constant attention, which can be demanding itself. At the same time, your body will undergo hormonal changes as it returns to a pre-pregnancy state. This can cause your emotions to fluctuate. During this time, focusing on eating and drinking for recovery and trying to get rest will help you a great deal. Once you’ve passed the first few months, you and your baby will feel more accustomed to one another.
Your Baby Will Need Health Tests
After delivery, your baby will need to undergo various tests to make sure that they are healthy. None of these will be extremely uncomfortable for them or intrusive, so you don’t need to worry too much about the process. Simple hearing tests with miniature headphones and a small prick on the heel for blood are the standard procedures. If you want to know more about the conditions or diseases these tests check for, you can do some research into them. For example, you could find out what a positive DAT means when a medical laboratory finishes analyzing blood from the umbilical cord. You should also know that if everything’s fine, you may not hear about the screening results.
Newborns May Not Sleep Smoothly
People sometimes say that newborn babies sleep for many hours each day. The reality is that they often only sleep soundly for a few hours at a time before waking up, especially right after birth. This is why one thing you should know about having a baby is that you should expect to wake up with your child frequently. You can try to sleep along with them to get as much rest as you can, but you may not get through a whole night without disturbance for a while. Know that this kind of behavior for infants is typical and that it will eventually pass. In the meantime, you can try out different strategies for acclimating your newborn to a regular sleep schedule, as well, such as sleep training.
