Mistakes New Parents Make
New-parent mistake No. 1: Panicking over anything and everything.
“Many new parents have overblown physical reactions to spitting up, vomiting, and other things a baby does,” says Leon Hoffman, MD, director of the Pacella Parent Child Center in New York. ”And the baby picks up on that anxiety.”
New-parent mistake No. 2: Not letting your infant cry it out.
“We, as parents, think our job is to make sure the baby is not crying,” says pediatric nurse Jennifer Walker, RN. “That’s because we associate crying with the fact that we are doing something wrong and we need to fix it,” she says. “Babies are designed to cry. They can be perfectly diapered and fed and still cry like you are pulling an arm off.” Because that’s the way babies communicate. It doesn’t mean you can’t console or cuddle them.
For the most part, crying is just part of being a baby. But if your infant is inconsolable for an hour and has a fever, rash, vomiting, a swollen belly, or anything else unusual, call your pediatrician as soon as possible. You know your baby best. If you think something isn’t right, always check with your doctor.
New-parent mistake No. 3: Waking your baby up to breastfeed.
“Breastfed babies can — and should — sleep through the night,” Walker says. ”But there’s a common misconception that breast milk is not thick enough to get an infant through the night. But it is possible and beneficial for breastfed babies — and their moms — to sleep through the night.”
New-parent mistake No. 4: Confusing spit-up and vomit.
Walker says, “The difference [between spit-up and vomit] is frequency, not forcefulness. Spit-up can absolutely fly across the room.” But vomiting is all about frequency. “If your baby is vomiting with a gastrointestinal virus,” she says, “it will come every 30 or 45 minutes regardless of feeding.” Spit-up, on the other hand, is usually related to feeding.
New-parent mistake No. 5: Not sweating a fever in a newborn.
“Any fever over 100.4 rectally in the first 3 months of a baby’s life is an emergency,” Walker says. The one exception is a fever that develops within 24 hours after an infant’s first set of immunizations.
“Some parents may just say ‘he feels warm’ and give the baby Tylenol,” Walker says. “But that’s a parenting mistake in this age group. An infant’s immune system is not set up to handle an infection on its own.”
