Before I offer advice to new parents, I would like to congratulate you on being new parents. There will be many unpredictable things that come with parenting, surprises and sorrows, but it will be fun.
But happily, you will learn to be a parent naturally as you raise your child. Your baby’s healthy development will give you the confidence to believe in yourself and try to see things from your baby’s point of view.
However, we still offer advice on caring for your baby because it can help you to take better care of your baby. Here are my 31 practical tips for all new parents (including newborns, toddlers and children).
Let’s dive right in.
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One: How To Care For Your Newborn
Newborns are quite fragile and require a lot of care from their mothers at this time. Here are my top 8 tips for new parents to help you take better care of your newborn.
1. Formula cannot surpass breast milk
It is suitable for the digestion and absorption of the newborn’s gastrointestinal functions, and its quality and quantity will change to suit the infant’s growth and development needs. In particular, colostrum is rich in immunoglobulins, lactoferrin, lysozyme and other immunologically active substances, which can strengthen the newborn’s ability to fight infections, something that cannot be replaced by any formula that claims to be “infinitely close to breast milk”.
Feeding does not need to be timed too much, in general once every 3 hours or so, and each time the principle is to eat enough and eat well: that is, the baby does not cry or make a lot of noise after feeding, and the weight gain is normal.
As your baby’s food intake increases day by day, it is also important for your mother to supplement more. Babies are taking milk at increasingly longer intervals, but there are also sudden requests for milk, which should also be met promptly, without refusal or worry, as your body will replenish milk as needed.
2. Hugging your baby properly
The correct way to hold a baby should be to hold the baby’s head with the left hand and the upper body with the right hand, then move the left hand to the baby’s hip and place the bend of the arm under the baby’s head so that the baby’s head rests in the bend of the left arm, close to the adult’s heart.
3. Change Cuddles' nappy promptly
Changing your baby’s nappy should be done promptly and carefully, and nappy changes should be different for men and women. “To change a baby girl’s nappy, clean the dirt from the top downwards, and for boys clean the scrotum and don’t turn the baby’s foreskin. Also for female babies, the nappy should be padded downwards a bit, while for male babies it should rest below the belly button and folded in a small square, otherwise the urine will easily leak out when the male baby is urinating.
Usually you should change your bottom more than 4 times during the day and more than 2 times at night. Each time you change your bottom, you should wash it and apply an appropriate amount of skin care oil.
4. Keep warm
It is also important to keep the baby warm. Because the subcutaneous fat of newborn babies is very thin and the relative surface area is relatively large, it is easy to dissipate heat. The body’s thermoregulatory centres are not yet mature, so if the temperature is too hot, the water will be overly positive and may lead to dehydration fever. If the temperature is too cold, the baby’s own heat production capacity is insufficient and can easily lead to sclerosis.
The temperature and humidity of a newborn baby’s environment must be taken very seriously, and the temperature of the baby’s hands and feet must be felt regularly, and covers and clothing must be added and removed in time to keep the baby’s body temperature within normal limits.
5. Cut your baby's nails promptly
Your baby’s nails may already be long from birth and some mothers put small gloves on their babies for fear of them scratching themselves, however this is not the right thing to do. You should have a special pair of baby nail scissors for your baby so that you can cut his nails while he is sleeping.
After clipping, check to see if there are any square corners or sharp points on the nails, and if there are, trim and polish them smooth so that your baby won’t scratch himself again when he swings his hands.
6. Take your baby out appropriately
Babies born in summer can go out in the sun half a month after birth. Choose a time when there is no wind to take them outside, and go out for a slightly shorter period at first. Try to expose as much of your baby’s skin as possible, but be careful not to let the sun shine directly on your baby’s body. Babies born in other seasons can also go outside after they have reached one month, if the weather is good. Sun exposure will promote calcium absorption.
For newborn babies, it is best to keep the room temperature between 24 degrees and 28 degrees and the humidity around 60 degrees and 65 degrees.
7. Promote your baby's visual development
To promote your baby’s visual development, hang some brightly coloured bed hangings around your baby’s cot. Newborn babies are more sensitive to black, white and red colours.
Regular, contrasting patterns that attract the baby’s attention, such as black and white checks, black and white stripes and concentric circles, can all promote the baby’s visual discrimination skills.
There are also red balls that babies love. You can train your baby to do eye tracking exercises every day by placing the ball about 20cm away from your baby and letting your baby look at it, then moving it slowly so that your baby’s eyes move with the ball.
8. Interacting with your baby
Make the most of your baby’s rare waking hours by playing soft music or talking softly to your baby to help him/her get used to the new world as soon as possible. You can also tease your baby with toys with loud sounds, such as rattles, rattles and various hanging toys that make sounds, to guide your baby to turn his or her head to find the source of the sound. However, it is important to note that newborns have a very sensitive sense of hearing, so make sure you are gentle with your baby’s voice to avoid affecting his or her hearing.
These 8 advices for new parents will make the newborn baby safer. Please pass it on to a new mother or someone about to give birth.
Two: What You Can Expect When Your Baby is a Toddler
Most parents will find themselves more prone to anxiety after the birth of their baby than before, always worrying about all sorts of things that are going on with their baby. In fact, it is instinctive and nature’s magic for parents to be overprotective of their babies. These 4 tips below will help new parents to better educate their babies.
1. Growth
Between the ages of infancy and pre-school, your child may move from a chubby little full-bodied child to an active, semi-balanced child. His baby fat will gradually disappear and he will grow taller and taller. Not only will his physical features change as he gets older as a toddler. At the same time he may also be able to say words such as “mummy” and “oh”. From the time they are 18 months old, their vocabulary grows every day.
According to research, a two-year-old child usually knows between 20 and 200 words, by the age of three they can understand around 1,000 words and they are slowly learning to form longer and longer sentences from words.
2. Keep moving forward, keep moving backward
Maybe last week your baby didn’t know how to hold a spoon, this week he’s learning to use it to reach things from a distance. As a toddler, your baby will continue to build and refine his skills. He is beginning to learn to eat on his own, put on his socks, knows to turn the pages of his favourite books and perhaps he is showing an interest in toilet training and has even learnt to go to the toilet on his own. As with a child’s rapidly developing skills, some skills can quickly fade away.
It is common for this to happen and if an accident occurs while training a child in a skill then they will regress to their performance as an infant.
3. Adjustment of personality
He will only cry when he wants something or feels pain. During the years when your child is learning to walk, they will have big tears and this will test your patience very much as he is testing his limits. He will ignore your warnings when you tell him to stop throwing his toys. All the experiences and your reactions are teaching him what behaviour is acceptable and what discipline is not to be broken.
It is also reassuring to draw your child’s attention to her positive and meaningful behaviour. Children at this stage will gradually develop their sense of humour, give them a hug when they amuse you, kiss them and tell them “I love you”.
4. Other things to look forward to
It is very likely that your child’s first friend will also be a toddler, and this friend will be his bridge to the other children in the nursery. He may not know how to play with other children, but he is more interested in sharing toys with other children than playing alone.
Your child’s sleep will also change at this stage, they will get about 12 to 14 hours of sleep a day, naps may be a little shorter and bedtimes will become longer at night. He may develop separation anxiety, throwing a tantrum when you leave him, but then putting on a smile when you return.
Three: How To Help Your Baby Learn To Walk Correctly
New parents do have a lot of immaturity at the beginning of life, and this ‘overprotectiveness’ can help to ensure that you don’t make any major mistakes when caring for your baby. What parents can do with their love for their baby as he or she learns to walk is much more useful than applying some vague parenting dogma.
1. Choose the right venue and shoes
First of all, when babies are first learning to walk, to prevent falls, they should choose a place with a large range of activities, flat ground and no obstacles. If you are walking indoors in winter, pay special attention to avoiding coals, radiators and sharp angles in the room to prevent accidents.
At the same time, babies should wear suitable shoes and light clothing to facilitate movement and walking.
2. Keep practicing every day
Secondly, when babies are learning to walk, parents should be careful not to rush, and not to stop practicing for fear of falling. They should be taught flexibly according to the specific situation of their child.
When learning to walk for the first time, you should arrange time to walk with your child every day, and pay attention to protection, so that the baby can learn to walk faster.
3. Learn to walk quickly with a walker
In addition, for the first time, babies can be allowed to learn to walk in a walker. When the steps are more steady, parents can hold the baby’s hands or let him learn to walk with one hand, or they can hold the baby’s armpits at the back or pull with a towel and let him walk forward.
After a period of exercise, the baby will slowly begin to make independent attempts and the parent can stand in front of him and encourage him to walk forward. At first, he may waddle, lean forward, stumble and lunge into your arms, unable to gather his feet, which is a normal sign as the centre of gravity is not yet in place.
At this point, parents should continue to help him practice and let him venture out for a second and third time. Gradually, practice makes perfect, and the more stable and farther he walks, the more he will be able to walk independently in a short time.
Four: Childhood Advice for New Parents:
Children have grown up a lot by this time, both in age and height. What they need at this time is more of an emotional connection. We have summarised the following 12 tips that will enhance the bond between new parents and their children.
If your child is learning to walk, it’s a great thing to do. These tips will make it easier for new parents to help their child learn to walk, and they won’t hurt his legs!
1. More encouragement, less punishment
Positive emotional communication and expression is a form of recognition and encouragement that parents should hold as their children grow. However there are many parents, including myself in the past, who cannot help but use punishment, criticism and even threats and intimidation to teach their children.
If a child grows up in a critical environment, he or she may subconsciously use a critical attitude to solve communication problems; if a child is punished or threatened for not doing well, he or she has no choice but to suppress his or her fears and deny his or her emotions in exchange for parental approval. Under such discipline, the child may be obedient, but he or she may also lack self-confidence, have suppressed curiosity, be incapable of empathising with the emotions of others, and have many emotional deficits and problems.
Punishment can be appropriate for younger children, especially when it comes to matters of morality or responsibility, but one thing that should never be punished is failure. If a child is told from an early age that failure is shameful, he may not admit it, or hide his failure, or even act dishonestly, rather than reviewing, learning and growing from it.
2. More delegation, less pressure
Children who grow up under strict discipline will lack independence and the ability to manage their time and themselves, and will be lost and confused once they enter university with no one else to help them plan. This is why parents should gradually delegate authority as their children grow up. Tell them what to do when they are three or five, give them some delegation when they are seven or eight, and when they are at university they should be completely in charge of themselves.
Many parents think they are trying to control their children for their own good, but I have four reasons why they should be delegated.
First, the generation of parents who do not see to understand their children may not know what they want as much as their children do.
Secondly, if parents make too many decisions for their children, they can instead contribute to a lack of responsibility later in life.
Thirdly, if parents discipline too much, they will drown out the children’s own voices and they will not find their own interests and lose their confidence.
Fourthly, if too much pressure is exerted, it will put a heavy burden on the child. Many of today’s children have psychological problems, some as serious as suicide and depression, which are caused by being under great pressure. Parents must not over-pressurise their children, but should have the responsibility of relieving the pressure.
3. Do more and talk less
Children who grow up in interactive learning really know how to grow up by example and practice what they preach!
To really understand, on the one hand, you have to try to learn through interaction, so that children know that nothing is absolute and that a problem can be seen from many different angles; on the other hand, you have to “teach them to fish”, teaching them the ability to think, to learn and to solve problems. The most important thing about learning at university is that when you have forgotten all your subject knowledge, what remains in your mind is the essence of education.
I often encourage my daughter to debate the side she doesn’t believe in when she attends debates, to think more about the side she doesn’t naturally think about, so that she can understand that there are two sides to things and that there are no absolute rights and wrongs. When one is faced with two sides, one thinks more deeply about the issue, plus this way of thinking develops empathy in children.
In addition to this critical thinking, it is also important to lead by example. Some parents will threaten to beat their child if he fights again, and it is clear that such parenting will only backfire. It is what parents do, not what they say, that really sinks into their children’s minds. Parents who tell their children to be punctual when they are not, who tell their children to be polite when they are not, who tell their children to be honest when they are not, who tell their children to be responsible when they are not, are not really teaching. So, if you want your children to be what they are, you have to set an example for them by being consistent in your words and actions.
4. Be more of a friend to your child
Respect for parents is certainly necessary, but it is more important for parents to be friends to their children. Growing up in this day and age, children may have all sorts of different pressures on their minds and when they face problems, confusion and challenges, they may avoid talking about them if they just feel that their parents are the elders on high, slowly creating a generation gap and disconnect. Parents may feel that their children are too difficult to understand, but in fact it may be that they themselves have not put down the shelf and set too many rules.
Children who grow up under too many rules and frameworks will be timid, reserved and passive, and in the new era it will be difficult for such people to reach their potential and stand out in good companies or schools. Today we want to raise children who are happy and optimistic, who can see a glass of water half full rather than half empty, who can trust their parents and confide in each other, who can love themselves and others.
In fact, children are very eager to be our friends and we need them very much to be our friends and to have their trust. Many of the habits of today’s children are different from ours, and it is very difficult for them to learn the rules of our time, so we need to learn theirs.
Does that mean no rules at all? Certainly not so.
Rules can be in place, however.
- Set the rules, but first make the reasoning for them clear, not blind obedience.
- The child has complete freedom within the rules.
- A child who breaks the rules will be punished by speaking well.
- The fewer the rules, the better, in order to be instructive.
- The older the child, the fewer the rules and the more the delegation of authority.
5. Love should be generous and strict
There is often a ‘polarisation’ in parenting. Either they love their children to death, or they are strict and uncaring. Parents who love their children too much often take care of everything for them, so that they do not learn from an early age to overcome difficulties on their own and do not do things for themselves, taking the help of others for granted.
Some parents use “love” as a reason to be overly strict with their children, often scolding them or even beating them. Such children tend to obey, but gradually lose their self-esteem and self-confidence, their courage to move on, their indomitable spirit and their desire to speak the truth.
The ideal parenting should be “loving and strict”, parents should say more encouraging words to their children, share more happy times with them, give them more space to develop and believe that they are the best.
6. Do not substitute your child's choice
Many parents often have an “uneasy” mentality towards their children and do many things for them. From an early age, they help their children get dressed, they let them sleep with adults, they check their stationery and books when they go to school, and they don’t let them do their chores. In this kind of blind protection, the child’s curiosity and desire to try things out are erased, and the child becomes lazy, dependent, afraid of hardship, irresponsible and irresponsible.
Let go of what your child can do and let them do it themselves early on. It is important to let your child choose the key choices in order to increase his or her sense of responsibility and self-confidence.
7. Awareness of Multiple Intelligences
Harvard professor and psychologist Howard Gadner has proposed a theory of multiple intelligences, which is widely accepted, and which suggests that people have at least seven separate intelligences, namely: verbal-linguistic intelligence, musical-rhythmic intelligence, logical-numerical intelligence, visual-spatial intelligence, physical-kinesthetic intelligence, self-awareness-self-reflection intelligence and communicative intelligence. spatial intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, self-knowledge-self-reflection intelligence, and communicative-communication intelligence.
These intelligences are intricately combined in different ways and to different degrees in different people, making each person’s intelligence unique in the way it is expressed and characterised. We should therefore be conscious of the fact that intelligence is multifaceted and manifests itself in different ways, and that the criteria by which we judge a person’s intelligence and success should also be varied.
Don’t jump to conclusions about your child, you must be good at finding their strengths and building on them, so that eventually every child will be successful.
8. Mistakes are as important as successes
Most parents think that “it is not good for children to make mistakes”, but mistakes are as inevitable and meaningful to a child’s development as success. The process of making mistakes is a process of experimentation, innovation and growth. If a child is afraid to try anything for fear of making mistakes, and grows up cautiously and fearfully, that is the biggest failure.
Mistakes are also a kind of beauty and success. When a child makes a mistake, parents must treat it calmly, when it is a good thing, when it is an opportunity for the child to progress and grow, do not make a fuss, do not blame, and do not deny the child the opportunity to try and practice because they are afraid of making mistakes.
9. The family environment determines the character and behaviour of the child
The family is the first school for children and parents are the first teachers of their children. A good environment in the family is vital to the development of children.
Research has shown that children who live in an atmosphere where their parents fight and argue for a long time are more likely to suffer from mental illness. Children who grow up in a gentle, loving home environment are less likely to have major personality problems.
In other words, all children are not born good or stubborn, but are the result of their family environment, and their home upbringing. Therefore, parenting is not only about raising children, but also about managing family relationships and creating a healthy and harmonious family atmosphere for children. This is because a good family atmosphere is more likely to produce good and healthy children.
10. A child's future is in the hands of his or her parents
Many parents may feel that their child’s future depends on the outcome of their schooling and on the results of their child’s efforts. Actually, it is not! The future of a child is not in the hands of the school, but in the hands of the parents. Instead of expecting changes in education from society and schools, we should start with education at home.
It is effective parental discipline that will determine the future of a child. That’s why qualified parents work on home education, rather than pinning their hopes on outside influences on their children. As school starts, remember to give your child a hug every day to start the day off on a happy note.
11. Moderate use of electronics to develop self-management skills
It takes a concerted effort from parents for their children to develop good habits in the use of electronics.
Firstly parents need to set an example by using less electronics in front of their children.
Secondly, parents should also be moderately permissive of their child’s desire to play on the phone. Rules can be established with the child, with times and periods, and the child can keep to the agreement to enforce them. Some families play computer games with their children once a week. Because they are playing together, children do not become overly engrossed in the game itself, but enjoy being with their family.
Finally, it is important that children themselves have the right attitude and learn to control their desires in order to achieve a better version of themselves.
12. Make a reading list and stick to your reading habit
Reading consistently is a good habit that can affect children for the rest of their lives. Reading favourite extra-curricular books broadens children’s horizons, increases their motivation to learn, enables them to take the initiative to perceive and absorb knowledge, and actively use this knowledge to think, analyse and solve problems with their brains.
Last Blessing:
In fact, babies are extremely vital and they have a huge potential to grow, allowing us to make the occasional small mistake – but making sure they are still healthy. Sometimes the only negative impact of the little mistakes we make in parenting is that they can make us feel guilty inside as parents.
When caring for a new baby, parents should not be too nervous about even the slightest mistakes and should not blame each other, as they will get better at it.
These tips for new parents will help many people to educate their children. You can share it with mums who are in need of it or on your social accounts so that more mums can access and learn from it. It’s going to be a great project!
Finally, I hope you will be a positive, optimistic and cheerful mum or dad and grow up with your baby.
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