10 Things I Would do Differently if I was in the Newborn Stage Again

I’m a mom of a almost-three year old as well as a therapist who specializes in perinatal mental health, so I’ve got a fair bit of experience with the common struggles parents experience in those early months with a new little one!

I personally had a rough time in the newborn phase. My anxiety was off the charts, which ramped up the typical perfectionism and high self-expectations that usually show up for me during times of transition. Along with that, my baby had a difficult time transitioning to the outside world with some early feeding/colic issues as well as just being a highly sensitive human (like her mama!).

While there isn’t anything I feel guilty or bad about during this newborn season of life (thanks to doing a lot of my own work along the way!), there are certainly things that I would do differently. I reflected on the top 10 things that I would do differently if I were in the newborn stage again- and it felt lovely to just imagine that for myself. So, maybe there will be some things in here that could feel nice for you if you’re currently in it!

I would reach out for lactation support earlier.

Breastfeeding was one of the most stressful parts of parenting in the first year for me. During pregnancy, I had hopes for nursing and felt very confident as I have seen others in my life have positive and successful breastfeeding experiences. Boy, was I hit with a surprise for our breastfeeding experience.

While I didn’t know it for the first couple of months, my baby had some tight oral ties (tongue tie, lip tie, and cheek ties!) and was really struggling to feed. The first couple of days at the hospital things looked and seemed fine. But, after she wasn’t gaining weight and had to undergo treatment for jaundice (which the difficulty feeding didn’t help)- we switched over to feeding her pumped bottles to make sure she was doing okay.

After we introduced bottles, she would refuse to nurse and would be so upset. We had a very brief visit with a lactation consultant at the hospital when we were doing the jaundice light treatment- and she said that things looked fine and sent me off with a nipple cover.

So, when nursing continued to be impossible, I figured I was just doing it wrong. I googled all of the techniques and tried to DIY our way back to nursing. When I am facing a problem, I tend to focus on how I can figure everything out on my own. And, as it typically goes when I use this approach, I ended up feeling overwhelmed and defeated.

Eventually, I did find a lactation consultant who I could get in quickly with and actually have some time to assess what was going on with our feedings. Right away, she spotted the oral ties and significant tension. We did exercises to support some release, and then we also went to a dentist who specializes in releasing oral ties. The release and exercise process was pretty intensive, but it all really validated how hard our experience with nursing had been.

I had hopes of getting nursing back on track after the release, but eventually switched gears to exclusively pumping and bottle feeding once it was clear that this attempt was just a source of stress for baby and me. But, we saw a major improvement in baby’s feeding (as even feeding with the bottle was a significant challenge for her early on) and reduction in the colic symptoms that accompanied all of the tension.

I don’t know if getting into a lactation consultant earlier would have shifted the trajectory, but it certainly would have reduced the amount of time I was struggling to figure it all out on my own. I think for new parents, reaching out to support- whether it be for lactation, physical therapy, mental health therapy, etc- when you need it is key.

I wouldn’t track things that weren’t medically necessary.

My baby was born at 37 weeks (thanks to a medically necessary induction) and so she was already on the smaller end. With some initial feeding challenges, difficulty gaining weight, and jaundice- we had to track feedings and diapers very consistently at first to make sure that she was progressing. Thankfully, things improved pretty quickly, but my obsession with tracking didn’t change.

For months afterward, I would track how much she ate at every feeding, all of her diapers, as well as all of her sleep- which included a great number of night wakings. It was exhausting. But, my anxiety told me that I needed the data. What if something went wrong and I didn’t catch it because I wasn’t monitoring closely enough?

After working through my perinatal anxiety and perinatal OCD (thankfully, I worked with my therapist throughout pregnancy and postpartum), I realized that this tracking was only making my anxiety worse. I slowly began to ease off of it and build trust in my own mom-intuition. This was a little tricky as anxiety likes to disguise itself as intuition- but after working hard to accept that things are going well, I began to identify and trust more in my gut feelings.

If I were in the newborn phase again, I’m sure I’d do a little tracking in the early days. I’d want to get a feel of baby’s rhythm and learn what their “normal” is. But, unless there was any medical necessity to ongoing tracking, I’d start letting the tracking go after getting back home from the hospital. When I can be more present in what’s actually going on, it’s easier for me to build trust within myself.

I would listen to and trust my own mom-intuition.

While this is a learning process, especially for your first child, it’s something that I would want to work on trusting earlier in the process. With social media, we are constantly bombarded with different parenting approaches and opinions. And while sometimes we might find a cool tip that we didn’t think about before, it can also lead to us doubting ourself in areas that we deserve to trust in ourself.

When I found that social media was feeding my postpartum anxiety and postpartum OCD, I took a break from it. And wow, what a relief. Working to be present and learn what my baby needed and felt supported by helped me to trust more in my own process. She knew how to tell me what she needed, and I knew how to honor that. Every baby is SO different- and so is every parent. So, deciding what you should do based off of what others do is likely not going to be effective.

Over time I have grown so much more confident in my own mom-intuition. It takes time to learn what your child needs as well as what signals let you know that something is off, but the only way to learn that is to be present in the process with them. If I were in the newborn phase again, I would continuously remind myself that it’s normal to feel a bit confused throughout different phases, and that I can trust myself in the process.

I would adjust my expectations around routines to be more flexible.

It may come as no surprise that along with tracking everything obsessively at first, I also was fixated on creating a solid routine. Google told me when and how long my baby should nap and sleep at night, how often they should feed, and what activities are best for engagement at each age. And while having a baseline of some of that information was helpful, it was not helpful to assume that my baby’s experience would look like that.

Thankfully, my baby very clearly communicated to me that my plan wasn’t going to work. I had no choice but to let go of this sense of a fixed routine- because that just wasn’t going to happen. I had many opportunities to work on accepting the need of flexibility in the routine- and once I embraced it- life became so much easier.

Instead of feeling like we had to be home and do a whole routine to get her to nap in her crib (which, she was not a fan of), I could strap her on me and head for a walk so that she could take a cozy nap and I could get some movement in. Instead of obsessing about what we “should” be doing, I’d tune into her cues to identify what she needed in that moment. Taking off the pressure of a fixed routine felt so much lighter for me, and is something that I’d do earlier in the process!

I would prepare a safe co-sleeping space from the get-go.

Every baby is different with sleep, and I assumed that I would have a baby who would sleep well in their separate sleep space. Before she was born, I had intense anxiety about “safe sleep” and focused on all of the do’s and don’t’s that we’re all told so many times along the way. And, while I of course believe that safe sleep is important, I also think that we in America are served an injustice by not learning about safe co-sleeping strategies just in case.

By night one at home, it was clear that our baby had zero interest in sleeping anywhere but in mom or dad’s arms. Despite using every technique I could find to get baby to sleep in their separate sleep space, nobody was getting a wink of sleep unless baby was being held. Initially, my husband and I would take shifts so that one of us could sleep while the other person is awake and holding our sleeping little one. But, I was so anxious that I couldn’t sleep when it was my husband’s awake shift for fear that he’d fall asleep on accident.

This resulted in me being the one to fall asleep with baby in my arms a couple of times. Thankfully, I woke up with baby in a safe position, but it gave me so much anxiety and I began to dread night time. I talked about this with someone who introduced me to the “safe sleep 7” and recommended I set up a safe co-sleeping space for when we were up with baby in the night just in case. Even if I planned to stay awake and try to transfer baby into their bassinet, I could at least be assured that we were in a safer set up in case I accidentally fell asleep.

I did a lot of research on the “safe sleep 7” (and would recommend anyone else do too!) and also had my husband watch over me doing a co-sleeping nap with baby just to see if it would be okay if I did fall asleep. While safe sleep was still high on my list of anxieties for a while, having a safer set up was a game changer for me and is something I would implement from day one just as a precaution.

I would start medication for anxiety earlier (if needed).

I’m no stranger to anxiety- it’s something that I’ve experienced most of my life and it flares up more during life transitions. So, I knew that I would need some extra support during pregnancy and postpartum. I met with my therapist more frequently during this time, practiced my coping skills often, and leaned on my support system when I needed to. Typically, that’s all I need to get through a more difficult season of anxiety. But, it wasn’t enough for the additional perinatal anxiety I experienced.

During pregnancy and postpartum, my anxiety was at an all new high, and I also had some perinatal OCD with recurrent intrusive thoughts about every possible harm that could come to my baby. It was miserable and at times debilitating. During pregnancy, I felt so stressed and worried, and avoided many things that probably would have been good for me- but that brought up fears for me. Postpartum, I could barely sleep due to my anxieties around safe sleep, and found it hard to be present because I was so focused on avoiding anything that could potentially be harmful.

I had contemplated medication during pregnancy, but was too worried about it being harmful (even though I know with all of my perinatal mental health training that it can be very safe and beneficial). But, after seeing how much my anxiety ramped up in the first couple months postpartum, I checked in with my doctor to get on medication.

Just like I tell my clients all of the time, when needed, medication can provide the right lift that’s needed. Once my medication kicked in, I’d still have anxiety here and there, but the intensity was low enough that my coping skills and reframes actually could work. Once I noticed the benefits, I told myself that if I were to be pregnant again, I would utilize medication earlier on if I was struggling with anxiety in that same way.

I would be flexible with my expectations around when certain things would feel back to “normal”.

I thought that all of my routines were going help to navigate this transition with grace. Naps would be a consistent break in each day so that I could get things done and get some me-time in. Heck, I’d probably be back doing the administrative tasks at my work in no time- because of course I’d easily get them done while baby sleeps! And, since sleep is going to go so well, my husband and I will get a few hours each night to connect and relax before bed. I figured, I’d have our daily routine down so well, that things would feel back to normal in no time.

So, you could say that I was surprised when my attempts for normalcy failed. Because, when you have a baby, the needs of a routine change every month or so. There is very little consistency to connect to any semblance of normal. My husband and I were mostly focused on staying afloat in parenthood, my connection with friends was less frequent and for shorter periods of times, and my needs for self-care were so different than before that my old hobbies weren’t as refreshing as they used to be.

I also had to realize that things will never be back to my old normal, and instead we would all be finding a “new normal”. And that this new normal is great! It’s an opportunity for me to grow into myself some more, identify what relationships I feel connected to the most in this season of life, and figure out what self-care actually feels nourishing. It continues to change, and in all honesty, nothing feels very consistent for the first year. I can say now, as my kiddo approaches her third birthday, that I’ve definitely found my new groove, have found time and space for hobbies that I love, and have more energy to connect in my relationships. It’s all different, and it feels so much better than year one did.

If I were to be in the newborn stage again, I would trust that things will find their new normal, and that it’s okay for it to take time. It’s going to require some trial and error. And, it’s going to require some patience and support. But, it’ll get there.

I wouldn’t put pressure on myself to feel comfortable leaving my baby with others.

While I knew my anxiety enough to anticipate that I would need to transition slowly to having others babysit, I didn’t expect it to feel as challenging as it did. My anxiety early on would flare up anytime someone else was holding my baby, whenever I would leave the house I’d want to constantly check the monitor to see that my little one was okay, and I had a hard time trusting that others could support my baby’s needs as much as me. And, by the time I was returning to work, my little one started to struggle with separation from me, and I felt horrible leaving her while she would be crying for so long.

It was important for me to practice taking time away- both for myself and my little one- I would approach it much more gently if I were to do it again. At the time, I felt like I was failing at navigating my own anxiety around separation, I worried that my friends would judge me if I didn’t want to leave for long or if I always had baby with me when we got together, and felt like I was causing this to be harder than it needed to be.

Looking back, I can see how normal that struggle is. We are wired to want to be near baby, and baby is wired to want to be near us. While it’s great to work on bringing some me-time back into the schedule, it doesn’t have to be rushed. If I were to be in the newborn stage again, I would take it at a slower pace if I was struggling with it and know that it will get easier over time.

I would connect more with others who can relate.

I had great support within my friends and family, but I didn’t have many in my life who were in a similar stage as me. While it was nice to have times where I could connect with my friends who weren’t moms and get to focus on other things, I also wanted to be able to talk about what I was going through more with folks who were also going through this.

At times, I worried if I was talking too much about parenthood with my friends who weren’t parents. And, while I know most of that worry was just in my own head, I also found it very refreshing when I got to talk to someone who was in the same boat as me. Also, nothing’s better than scheduling a hang out with someone who already knows it’ll have to be around typical nap times or bed time routines!

If I were to be in the newborn phase again, I might try to join a parent group or an early childhood education group to be around others in a similar stage of parenthood to me. I can struggle to put myself out there, so I wouldn’t put pressure on myself to do this, but if it was calling to me I’d want to explore that avenue a bit more!

I would trust that this stage is only temporary.

The newborn phase was rough on us. We loved it so much, and also felt so overwhelmed and burned out. But, each month things go easier. Starting at about 6 months after my baby was born, my husband and I say “This has got to be the best stage of parenting, I don’t know how it could get better!”, and yet it does!

I know that some people absolutely love the newborn phase. And while it was wonderful in so many big ways, I’m glad to be passed it. I love being in the toddlerhood stage- seeing my little one grow into her own person is the most exciting thing! I get to enjoy so many parenting moments every day, and I also have space to be present with myself outside of parenthood too.

So, if you’re about to become a parent or are currently struggling in the newborn phase- know that it’s just temporary. I find that when I can trust that the hard moments won’t always feel as hard, it’s a lot easier for me to soak in the moments that are feeling really good in the here and now. And I hope you get to soak those in too!

If you need it, getting support from a licensed therapist can make all the difference.

One thing that helped me through the difficult early months of parenthood was being able to talk everything through with my therapist. Having a space to make sense of what you’re going through and get the support you need can be a game changer. If you’re finding some challenges in this transition- I truly recommend finding a therapist who works in perinatal mental health.

If you live in Minnesota- we love supporting parents during these times! I’m Kayla Estenson Williams, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified Perinatal Mental Health Therapist, and Certified Clinical Trauma Professional. I am passionate about helping new parents feel less alone and more empowered on their path of personal growth and parenthood. You can learn more about me and my approach here!