How To Cut Baby Nails

This is something that gave me night-mares. I would always dream of accidentally cutting my baby's cuticles while clipping her nails. It used to take more than an hour to clip her nails with my shivering hands and I would not have even clipped them closely and it was of no use. Now my mom calls me an expert in clipping baby's nails. Thanks to my co-sister who gave me confidence and encouraged me. I would like to share a few thoughts on this that I learnt from her.

• Clip a baby's nail only when she is asleep
• Nail clippers/cutters are the best option for babies when compared to scissors
• Bring the tip of the clipper to the end of the baby's nail and carefully clip it from one end to the other. The position should be as shown in the picture.
• Baby's nails are soft after a bath. So try to clip her nails after giving her a bath
• Do not try to bite and clip her nails, instead use a nail clipper
• Do not try to tear it off from one end as it might hurt the soft cuticles of the baby
• Remember to put the clipped nails in a paper and throw it into a dust-bin

If your baby never sleeps on your lap and she wakes up if you try to take her from her crib/cradle to clip her nails when she is asleep, then you have no other go but to clip her nails when she is awake. When you do this, have some one to divert her and do not allow her to see you clipping her nails. It takes longer time to clip when she is awake, but it does not matter. Take your own time. Safety is more important than time-saving.

How Much To Feed A Baby

I had this question in mind when my daughter was born. She kept crying all the time and I was not sure if she was hungry. I wanted to know how frequently to feed her in order to keep her calm and hunger-free. Most of the web sites said feeding an infant once every two hours is more than enough. But out of my experience and my pediatricians advice I strongly feel that, feeding-on-demand really makes sense. During the first month of birth, an infant always likes to suck and it gives her a lot of comfort, reassurance and a secure feeling. So when ever she cries it is a mother's duty to nurse her. It creates a strong bonding between mom and child and the baby starts realizing that her mom is there to take care of her needs. As she grows up, she would stop crying very often and she would know how much to drink in a day. So even if you compel her to have more, she would not.

This might not be suitable for babies who are formula-fed. Frequently bottle feeding your baby might result in obesity.

If you are a working mom and would like to give your baby pumped milk then here is a very useful website that calculates the amount of milk your baby needs for each feeding approximately.

http://www.kellymom.com/bf/pumping/milkcalc.html

How to Give Bath to a Baby

A few months ago when some one asked me, "What is the scariest and difficult thing on earth?" I would have said "Bathing a baby". But now it has become an every day routine and I am able to manage it very easily, thanks to the latest baby bather products in market.

The main difficulty in bathing a baby is our confidence level. If we are a bit scared of the wet slippery baby, the baby would be scared too. Babies are very intelligent in reading our mind with our body language and expressions. I could not believe my eyes when I found that my 1 month old daughter could read our expressions. She would look at her father with fright if he shouts at her (just for fun) and would change her expression to loud laughter when he smiles at her immediately. So the first rule is be confident while handling the baby.

Things you need:-

In your baby room:

1. One baby bath towel

2. Dress for the baby

3. Diaper

4. Baby cream

In your kitchen sink or Bathroom

1. Baby bather

2. Bath tub/kitchen sink

3. Hot water in a bucket with a small cup or mug. Water temperature between 90 to 100 F

4. A towel spread on the bather

5. A hooded towel to wrap the baby

6. Liquid baby wash or soap

Place the baby bather inside a tub or a kitchen sink. Spread a thick soft towel over the bather so that the baby does not come down when you give her the bath. Dip your elbow inside the hot water to feel the heat. It should be bearable. Undress the baby and place her inside the bather. A bather looks like an easy-chair which gives lot of support and comfort even for a new born. Apply soap or liquid baby wash after pouring a couple of mugs of water all over her body. Wash off thoroughly.

Until this point it is smooth going. Now when it comes to the face, most of the babies do not feel comfortable. Put yourself in your baby's shoes. If some one wets your face, applies soap and washes it off, do you like it? How breathless you become. The same holds good for babies. But there is no other go. She can't do it herself. So try to gently wet her face, apply soap and then wash off gently with your fingers. Do not pour or splash water on her face which is extremely dangerous. See to that her mouth and ears are safe and no water gets into them. Some babies open their eyes while washing their face. Use a tear-free baby soap or baby wash. After thoroughly washing her, wrap her in a hooded baby towel and take her to the baby room.

Place her on the bed and wipe her gently with a soft baby towel. Apply a baby cream through out her body and face. Tie the diaper around her waist and dress her up. Now you have a fresh baby who will fall asleep as soon as you feed her :)

How To Put A Baby To Sleep

Putting a baby to sleep is an extremely challenging job especially during the first few months of birth. The infant feels insecure and always likes to be with her mom and seldom goes to sleep. You would have to spend sleepless nights with the baby for a few weeks. It is extremely tiring with the postpartum depressions and becomes worse if you had undergone a C-section. It is always better to have a person for help, at least for the first three months. With my experience I had learnt a few techniques to put my baby to sleep with very less time and effort. Let me share those in this blog so that it would be useful for other moms around having a tough time with their babies.

• When you are nursing the baby or offering her a bottle in the night, make sure the room is dark. You can use a small torch light for your convenience. Gently rub her hair so that she falls asleep with your touch. Most of the babies fall asleep with this technique if they are already in a sleepy mood.
• Hold her on your shoulder and pat her gently. When you do this make sure she does not lift her head up. Try and put her head down so that she becomes inactive and goes to sleep quickly. A mild "shhh" sound or a song (sung with a low voice) would be of great help to drive her to sleep.
• The easiest and quickest method is of course rocking the cradle. Most of the times it takes only 10 to 15 minutes when we use this method. The only exception is when the baby is in a playful mood she would not sleep even when you rock for an hour. In that case do not strain yourself. Play with her for a while and put her to sleep only when she is ready to go.
• Instead of a cradle try to make this "easy to make cradle" which almost all babies love to sleep in. Have a long cloth tied to a hook in your ceiling. Insert one end of the cloth to the hook and bring the other end and tie the ends together tightly. Put the baby inside the cloth which hangs like a cradle but is very compact and dark for the baby to sleep. Most of the south Indian mothers use this cradle and we use sarees for the long cloth.
• Give her a bed time shower and then feed her. This works out well with most babies. An oil massage before the bath would also help.

If all of these techniques do not work for your baby, make sure the following factors are taken into account.

· Make sure she is not hungry. If she refuses to sleep after all your efforts, she might be hungry. So try to feed her and then put her to sleep.

· Offer her a pacifier. She might be feeling insecure due to which she might refuse to fall asleep.

· Switch off all the lights and make the room dark.

· Do not talk among yourselves when you are putting the baby to sleep. Let the place be silent.

· Keep an eye on the temperature. Let the room not be too hot or too cold. Let her clothing be according to the temperature outside. Too heavy or too scanty clothing disturbs a baby’s sleep to a great extent.

· Check if she is in pain. Colicky babies never sleep until they are relieved off their pain. If yes then give her appropriate medication for the pain.

These are some of the techniques I adopted for my baby and they really worked out well. Hope this is useful for the moms having tough time putting their babies to sleep.