That first stretch at home with a newborn as a first-time parent has got to be the most surreal period of anyone’s life.
It’s like being gifted a very demanding, high maintenance, thoroughbred pet, without any clear instructions on what to do with it. There’s no shortage of lists of the supposed new baby essentials, but I thought I’d compile a list of the less obvious ones, to catch new parents up on what it took me weeks to realise.
The Newborn Survival Kit You Never Knew You Needed:
1. Shite TV
For when you’re stuck to the couch, with a baby suctioned on to you for what might feel like the 186th feed of the day. Staring lovingly at their sweet little heads will only sustain you for so long, then you need to rewatch the entire seven series’ of Gilmore Girls.
2. Biscuits
I would say biscuits got me through about 80 per cent of the sleep deprivation hell, being so tired that I was barely sure that reality was even REAL got me through the other 20 per cent. There also comes a point with prolonged exhaustion when you feel kind of manic and giddy, you might start to think that you don’t even NEED sleep anymore, that, however, is the no-sleep mania talking and is not actually the case alas.
3. Good runners
For getting out and about with the bab. Walking when extremely sleep deprived is actually a complete sanity-saver. Don’t worry if you feel this list is dwelling quite a lot on the sleep deprivation thing; they do sleep… eventually.
4. YouTube White-noise compilation
It’s mad how you can go your whole life, decades, without ever giving white noise much thought, then bam five nights with a newborn and you find yourself rocking a pram while running the hairdryer because weirdly, this seems to help lull them… Save on the electricity and Google white noise compilations there’s a whole world of similarly exhausted parents out there with equally odd brand new offspring.
5. Friends
You cannot, repeat CANNOT, have enough understanding friends at the end of a WhatsApp group. It might be hard to get out to see them in the early days, but the invention of the WhatsApp group was a goddamn godsend for the new parent.
5a. Friends in different time zones
Very handy for the old night feeds. You’re never lonely with a few Aussie friends to chat to at three in the morning.
6. A cotton bud and vaseline
For constipation (THEIRS not yours)… I’ll say no more and instead, direct you to THIS list: 10 New Parent Milestones That No One Tells You About for further instruction.
7. Podcasts
Here’s a selection as recommended by my pal who has a four-day-old – she knows her shit:
The Mortified Podcast; 99% Invisible; Here’s The Thing With Alec Baldwin; More Perfect; RóisÃn Meets…; Death Sex Money; Nerdette; All About Breastfeeding; The Cord: Your Birthing Year and Beyond.
8. More wipes, muslins, towels, kitchen paper and wet wipes than you thought humanly possible
Between them and you, there’s just so much fluids going on.
9. Booze
When I was in the throws of the newborn stage (and really struggling quite a bit – as is the way), my mother marched in one evening and announced that her friend (who it turned out was very knowledgeable in all things booze and babies) had prescribed me a nightly vodka tonic, that apparently it was ‘best for baby’. It was, I found, a sensational idea. Very relaxing.
10. This thing…
Available here.
What’d I miss? What was in YOUR newborn survival kit?
