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Congratulations! You’ve got yourself a perfect little person that you made all your own! Now it’s time to go home and keep that sweet, fragile being alive for the next eighteen years or so. No pressure! You are going to do great! If you’re like me, you are probably panicking and convincing yourself that you are going to completely screw this up. Take a deep breath, Momma. You really are going to do great, and until you’ve convinced yourself of that, I’ve got some new-mom hacks for you.

15 New-Mom Hacks

1. Have a new diaper at the ready

   • Mommas, I thought this was a universal rule that everyone followed. Apparently, it’s not, so this makes it at spot number one! When you lay your sweet baby down for a diaper change, slide a clean one underneath him before you take anything off. You know that pee and poop just fly during diaper changes. Be prepared and put that diaper underneath to catch that mess! There is nothing worse than having to give your baby a whole new outfit because it got peed on during a diaper change… Nothing worse besides poop, I suppose.

2. Wipe with the Diaper

   • Here’s another one that I thought was the status quo, and it really goes hand in hand with number one. For that first wipe, use the part of the diaper that was touching baby’s belly! Obviously, you will have to use a few wet wipes afterwards, but save yourself that initial wipe! I don’t know why, but I seriously feel like that first diaper wipe removes more poo from that sweet baby bottom than the wet ones ever can.

3. Slide a messy onesie down, not overhead

   • It’s inevitable. If you have a baby, there will be at least one blowout in your life. (Don’t kid yourself, there will be many.) Man, am I glad that I knew this trick before having my babies. All those cute little onesie’s have folds on the shoulders. Those folds open wide to slide the onesie off of baby without going over their heads! Have you ever tried sliding a poop-smeared onesie over the head of an infant who lacks the ability to support said head?! I’m really sorry if you have. That’s a nightmare I’m glad we will not have to live out.

4. White Noise for Sleep

   • Oh, you don’t believe in miracles? Well I’m going to have you singing hallelujah in a minute. If you’ve got a newborn who doesn’t sleep or goes through the dreaded “witching hour” every evening, girl have I got the key for you. Get yourself a white noise machine. Get it, use it, love it, cling to it, panic if you don’t have it on your family vacation. When my first was a newborn, my mother told me about how she would leave the vacuum running just to get my oldest brother to settle down and sleep. As bizarre as this seems, I tried it with Elaina. Sure enough, my fussy little girl stopped her fussing instantly. This lead to a chain of events that landed us in the beautiful world of white noise. First, my husband and I searched for “Vacuum noise” on YouTube and played it over a bluetooth speaker all night long. These search results naturally lead us to a “Magic White Noise” video. It wasn’t long until we were the proud owners of our very own white noise machine. Why invest in the machine, you say? Initially we felt the same way. However, the YouTube video method is not perfect, and when that YouTube video shuts off due to lost wifi or the video simply ends, your baby will wake up. As soon as that white noise is off, your baby will stir. Many white noise machines come with an infinite option that will only shut off once you do so yourself.

5. Pair music to tv show, get CD or Playlist for the car to help fussy babies

   • When we had our first, my husband got her a Valentine’s Gift that changed our lives! It was a baby shark CD that came with a DVD of all the songs on the CD. We let her watch the music videos that went with the songs, and she instantly fell in love with Pinkfong and Baby Shark. Then whenever she would begin to get fussy in the car, we would play the CD with the corresponding music. She would stop crying every. single. time. It’s like a miracle. It worked so well that when our second born was even fussier than our first about car rides, we knew we had to show her the same DVD. Sure enough, she loved Baby Shark and was happy to listen to the songs in the car also.

6. Prop the tablet up in the car

   • If your baby is rear-facing, and you’re okay with using screen time to get your baby through a particularly long car ride, do I have the hack for you! You know how kids’ tablets have a kickstand on the case that folds out? That stand can be slid perfectly into the little slot in the middle seat of your car where the cupholders come down. Boom, instant tablet holder.

7. Keep environment the same throughout baby’s nap for longest sleep time

   • If you have one of those mobiles on your baby’s crib that shuts off after 15 minutes of lullabies, I’m guessing your baby wakes up after one 30-minute sleep cycle. This is because your baby’s environment is not the same as when he fell asleep. So when your baby stirs after those 30 minutes and notices the music has stopped, he completely regains consciousness wondering what in the world happened to his relaxing lullabies. He’s still tired and probably cranky and you’re just wishing he would sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time. As cute as that mobile is, I’m so sorry to be the barer of bad news but those lullabies are useless if they don’t have an endless loop setting. If your baby falls asleep in a dark room with lullabies, he needs to pass through every sleep cycle in a dark room with lullabies to be able to connect those sleep cycles and get a full rest.

8. Prevent Day/Night Confusion

   • Is your baby sleeping all day and partying all night? They probably have day night confusion. This happens extremely often. When babies are in the womb, they are often rocked to sleep during the day while we are active. Then they wake up when we lay down for the night. You remember getting kicked in the ribs all night, right? Yeah, that’s why. You can fix this by setting baby up in a pack and play on your main floor during the day. I recommend doing so right by a nice, big window. Then, go about your usual activities. Don’t worry about waking baby by vacuuming or doing the dishes. The exposure to light and noise during the day will help them begin to develop a better circadian rhythm. It also helps to wake your baby during the day every two hours to feed. Getting as much of their feedings in during the daytime as possible will keep baby from waking up hungry as often during the night.

9. Swaddle

   • Everyone knows about the swaddle. What many don’t know is that, often, parents give up on it too soon. Our oldest daughter was two months old when we stopped swaddling her. I had been swaddling her the old-fashioned way, with a swaddling blanket. She was breaking out of her swaddle all the time, so we thought she just didn’t like it. We were so wrong. As soon as we stopped swaddling, she stopped sleeping. When she was three months old, I fell ill with a nasty stomach bug that kept me heaving over the toilet every 15 minutes. Enter Dad. Being that I rarely gave my husband the opportunity to put our little one to bed, he did not exactly know what he was doing. He slid her into a little velcro swaddle that we had used only once in the first month of our daughters’ life. She was wrapped like a perfect little burrito, and he put her to bed. I remember lying on a mattress in the bathroom with my ears piqued, listening for when our daughter would inevitably wake up in 3 hours to feed. That night she slept for seven hours straight for the first time in her entire life. It was a miracle and my husband absolutely took all the credit. He continued to swaddle her and put her to bed. She continued on to sleep 9-12 hours every night. Long story short, when your baby starts to break out of her swaddle blanket, put that sweet bundle into a velcro swaddle!

10. Bedside Sleeping Bassinet

    • When I was pregnant with my second, I knew a bedside bassinet was a must. My first slept in her bassinet only a handful of times. It was a cutesy one that played music. None of that mattered for sleep, and when you are the parent of a newborn, sleep is all that matters. My second daughter slept 9 hours through the night from the get-go. There are a million things we learned to do differently as second-time parents, but the bedside bassinet absolutely contributed to her sleeping the night from the very beginning.

11. Vaccines

    • It breaks your momma heart to watch your sweet new baby cry out in pain when they get their vaccines. Of course, you want to comfort them immediately and help them to forget ASAP. The absolute best way to do this is to nurse them. There is nothing more comforting to a newborn than skin to skin contact with you while they nurse. If your baby is formula fed, you can give them their bottle and hold them close to you for the same effect. This works 90% of the time. Occasionally, you may find you have a baby who does not forgive and forget easily. My first was this baby. She would scream. Then she would simmer down a bit, only to remember what had just happened and scream even louder. She would do this at least three times before finally settling down. Ladies, love it or hate it, my phone and baby shark were the only things that made her forget. Screen time is the devil or it’s the thing that helped my baby forget about the scary, painful thing that just happened to her.

12. Diaper changing Stations

    • We have two floors in our home. We had 3 diaper changing stations. One downstairs, one in baby’s room, and one in our room. We used them all. You never know when the poopocalypse will strike.

13. Hydration for Nursing Moms

    • You need to drink your water momma. Staying hydrated is going to keep your milk supply up, and you are always going to be thirsty. While you are going to spend the majority of your time glued to the couch with a newborn glued to your nipple, your husband is officially promoted to water boy. Having him refill your water is a great way for him to contribute to your babies feedings.

14. Baby wear

    • Wearing your baby during the day allows you to get things done and be near baby at the same time. Sometimes babies just want to be near their mommas. On days where you can’t seem to put your baby down without the waterworks, this is a great way to keep baby happy while keeping yourself handsfree.

15. Zipper Jammies

    • You guys, babies hate getting dressed. They hate it. They want to be naked and wrapped in the world’s softest blanket. I can’t say I blame them. That sounds pretty marvelous to me. However, they need clothes, especially if your baby is born in the cold months like mine were. You are not going to want to button a million tiny buttons while your baby is screaming at you and trying to wiggle away. Don’t even get me started on when you misalign the buttons and discover you skipped one. Save yourself the trouble and just get zipper jammies. Your baby will thank you for the quick change.

Good Luck, Momma

Now you have a few tricks up your sleeve. As you continue on your motherhood journey, you may even come up with a few tricks of your own. I know it may not feel like it right now, but you are fully capable of being everything your baby needs you to be. You are his momma for a reason. You are going to do so good together. If you have any hacks to add to this list, please add them to the comments!