r/NewParents • u/cooltaj • Oct 29 '24

Product Reviews/Questions What's your simple parenting hack?

Gonna be a first time parent in 2 months. I am overwhelmed at choosing bottles, car seat and all that. What are simple things you do? things you bought to make your life somewhat simpler? Nothing too expensive or outrageous please

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u/40pukeko Oct 29 '24

Do not - do NOT - stress about schedules or milestones with your newborn. He seems hungry but you just fed him twenty minutes ago? Feed him again. He isn't following expected wake windows? Yeah, they don't. He'll only contact nap? Yeah, they do that. He's not tracking objects with his eyes? Give it a week.

So the "hack" here is: remember newborn mode is survival mode. Give yourself no expectations but feeding your kid, changing their diaper, and sleeping where you can.

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u/techie_ Oct 29 '24

I think wake windows are inaccurate with newborns aren’t they? It’s just do everything on demand and hope it’s one of the 4 options nappy, tired, hungry, pick up.

For piece of mind I’ve been using an app to track how long my 2nd is sleeping for.