If You’re a New Parent, You Need to Get These 5 Things

 

Being a new parent is like entering a never-ending game of Whac-A-Mole, except the moles are your sleep, your sanity, and your ability to shower.

Though as much as it’s a rollercoaster that never stops, there are things you can do to make the adjustment period a lot easier and keep you sane as your little ruckus becomes a toddler.

With my daughter recently turning 1, I’ve been thinking about the purchases I made which have served me the most. Some have been absolute game changers and I’d like to share them with you in the hopes they serve you too.

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1. Probably the best invention since the copy-paste buttons

Ok hear me out. This one is a bit left field but if you don’t already have them, you’re going to want to get a pair of wireless earbuds.

They don’t have to be fancy or expensive. They just need to connect to your devices. Here’s why they’re so useful.

Firstly, let’s state the obvious. Earphones allow you to listen to stuff without your baby hearing so you don’t wake them up or let them hear things you don’t want them to. Ya duh, so what’s the big deal and why wireless? Sit down Herbert, I’ll tell you.

You can watch stuff with your partner
During the newborn phase, my wife and I regularly watched movies together while sitting across the table at dinner. Didn’t need to be next to each other. We each took 1 earbud and were able to get up and move around freely while our daughter slept on her lounger next to us.

You can still do things together.

You can listen or watch whatever you want
Rap music, loud action scenes, explicit podcasts, etc. You can move around the house, feed, and even bathe your baby without them hearing anything you don’t want them to. No wires means no need to unplug anything every time you need to get up.

This is especially useful when they start to get older and crawl/walk and you need to watch them like a hawk. You can still be around them for long hours and give them attention while keeping sane by listening to your usual podcasts, music, or whatever else you want in the background.

The great part is you can just have 1 earbud in so you can be attentive to them while listening to your own thing.

You can work while being with your child
Do you have any online meetings that don’t require much engagement or your video to be turned on?

I’ve sat through countless meetings with my earbuds plugged in, playing with my daughter on the mat away from the laptop. I listen to what’s going on and go back if needed, but I get to spend more time with her and take a break from sitting.

They’re less of a hazard
I used to use regular earphones while I worked at my laptop. But each time my daughter crawled to my desk for me to pick her up, she’d end up grabbing the wires and stuffing the ends in her mouth. Not only was it a nuisance for me, but she could have bitten off those rubber ear tips and choked on them. They also aren’t the cleanest.

With wireless buds you don’t have to worry about anything being pulled out of your ear. You just continue as you were.

You don’t have to miss out on everything
Life can get boring if most of your day is spent with your child.

And if you start missing social gatherings and lose out on all the things you usually do, things can get depressing.

Earbuds allow you to in some way still be a part of things. You can still listen to commentary of the game. You can still join your family calls or catch up on movies.

Use earbuds to get back a piece of your life while still fulfilling your responsibilities as a parent.

2. The sanity saver

Babies and sleep seem to have a love hate relationship.

On the one hand, they can knock out and sleep through a live Metallica concert. On the other hand, they’ll sometimes wake up if you blink a little too loud.

But there’s one thing that’s helped me with my daughter’s sleep and that’s pink noise.

Pink noise is essentially like white noise (just slightly lower) and is basically a constant sound frequency that helps your baby fall asleep. But there’s more to it than that.

Helps calm your baby down — The constant sound helps get your baby in the mood for sleep. The monotonous sound means their brain doesn’t have to process any other sounds and can start to relax.

Helps with routine — if you play the pink noise regularly when it’s time for them to sleep, it will start to become part of their routine. Which helps as a trigger to let their body know it’s time for sleep.

Saves your life — Not even being overly dramatic here. But spending an hour putting your baby to sleep, only for Johnny next door to sneeze really loud and wake them up, has to be up there with the biggest crimes against humanity.

Enter pink noise.

Have it on, generally close and at a decent volume (don’t make your baby deaf) and it will drown out all sneezes, creaks, clanging pots, and meteor strikes so their sleep isn’t ruined. Brilliant.

White noise, brown noise, and all the other similar noises should work too. I just tried pink noise and it worked for me. You can either get a dedicated machine to make the sound (I use one called Hatch) or just find a 10 hour one on YouTube and play it off one of your devices.

Only word of caution is if you haven’t had your afternoon coffee and decide to lay down next to them with the pink noise on, there’s a good chance your baby will be waking you up in 2 hours.

3. This one is amazing but sucks

Excuse the terrible dad joke (I had to) but wireless vacuum cleaners are an absolute genius invention, especially if you have a baby or toddler.

Yes, again with the wireless, but they’re a real lifesaver for a few reasons

Firstly, let’s state the obvious here but they save you time. Nobody likes lugging around a wired vacuum cleaner, switching between sockets around the house to get all spots cleaned. Yes it’s a first world problem (I’m lazy, sue me), but from personal experience, I often put off vacuuming until it’s absolutely necessary.

But when I finally took the leap and invested in a wireless one, it was an absolute game changer. The house was a lot easier to maintain and I could get all the high spots and crevices without much effort.

With a baby, you need to have the house as clean as possible to avoid them getting any rashes or sicknesses. Being busy with your parenting duties also means you’ll have to do things in a rush — perfect for a wireless vacuum you can just pick up and use whenever you have a free minute.

Another reason its so useful is when your baby starts to crawl and explore, they’ll go pretty much everywhere they have access to. Gone are the days of just leaving your fallen hair to collect on the carpet or cookie crumbs on the dining room floor.

You want your kids to build immunity but not eat hairballs and other nasty stuff that happens to be on the floor. Babies will put anything in their mouth, and having a wireless vacuum on hand to quickly clean up any messes or at least maintain some level of cleanliness is a real help.

For some, this may not be affordable. Only reason I got mine was because it was on sale. But if you do have the means and don’t already have one, I’d highly recommend it.

4. The handy stroller alternative

This one may be obvious to some, but the type you should get and the reasons you should get a baby carrier may not be as obvious.

First and foremost, carriers help you take your baby around without having to kill your arms carrying them. Sometimes a stroller is too much of a hassle or is not practical in a certain place. Having a carrier means your baby is secure and your arms are free. Which brings me to the next benefit.

Having your baby with you and being hands-free and mobile means you can get on with your regular stuff without worrying about them. Watching over them constantly sometimes means you can’t do your usual tasks. So bring them along with you and let them watch. They’ll be safe and maybe learn something in the process.

Side note: For the front-facing (baby is turned away from you), it’s important you get a carrier that supports their bum so their spine is straight. I use Ergobaby but any designed to give your baby more of a ‘seat’ should be fine.

The next reason is for napping. Especially when we’re out on walks or in a mall, I’ve found my daughter falls asleep faster when I walk with her in the carrier. She feels calm and secure so generally knocks out if she’s tired enough.

And if there’s a loud sound or she suddenly wakes up from a nightmare, she usually goes right back to sleep because:

1. I can immediately start ‘rocking’ her back to sleep by moving back and forth
2. She feels safe
3. She knows where she is and that I’m watching over her

 

Only note here is to make sure you adjust the harness properly so your back is supported. Otherwise you’ll end up with a back ache if you use it for long hours.

5. Use this one to free up your mind space

It’s stressful enough having a baby. The last thing you want to do crowd your mind with more things to worry about.

Unfortunately, there’s lots you need to keep track of like your baby’s sleep, feeds and even diaper changes.

For example, you need to make sure your baby is getting enough sleep and also know when is a good time to start putting them to sleep/wind down so they don’t get overtired (yes that’s a thing).

Keeping track of wake up times, sleep times, and then calculating how much time they’ve slept and how much more they need, becomes time consuming. Especially during the early stages when you don’t have a routine set up.

When my daughter first arrived, we’d write down everything in a note-taking app or just ended up winging it.

But then my wife came across an app that is really simple to use and helps you track everything. It has a built in calendar that helps you visualize things and the interface is pretty easy to use.

The app we use is called Huckleberry and its totally free for tracking (which is what I recommend it for). Disclaimer: I have no affiliation to the app. There could be better ones out there, but its what we use. Any tracker app will do.

When everything is easily tracked and you don’t need to waste your mind space on remembering timings. It also puts your mind at ease because you can go back at any point to see patterns and learn more about your baby.

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Being a new parent takes a lot of adjustment. Every child is different but so is every parent and what works for some may not work for others.

I hope these help you along your journey, but in the off-chance they don’t, remember there’s always a way to at least alleviate whatever challenge you face.

Parenting is hard, but the exciting part is there’s almost always a way to make it easier.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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