How to Care for Your Newborn

They don’t come with a manual, but we’ve created one for you.

Your new baby is going to introduce to a range of new skills. You’re going to have to learn what this sign means or that sign means. Here are some tips with links to more information.

Care of the Baby in the Delivery Room

Amazing physical changes occur with birth. When the baby is delivered, the umbilical cord is cut and clamped near the navel. This ends the baby's dependence on the placenta for oxygen and nutrition.

Laying Your Baby Down to Sleep

Your newborn is growing quickly, which uses a lot of energy. As a result, your baby may sleep for a total of 18 hours a day. Chances are your newborn also will not sleep for long stretches.

Infant Feeding Guide

Appropriate and healthy feeding of your baby during the first year of life is extremely important. More growth occurs during the first year than at any other time in your child's life. For the first few months, breast milk or formula is all that's needed.

Breastfeeding

Nature designed human milk especially for human babies, and it has several advantages over human milk substitutes. Your milk contains just the right balance of nutrients, and it contains them in a form most easily used by the human baby's immature body systems. Because it was developed for your human baby, your milk also is gentlest on your baby's systems.

How to Bottle-feed

Newborns need supportive nutrition and plenty of loving—two things you can supply while formula-feeding. There are many formulas, so ask your health care provider which is best for your baby.

How to Diaper

Change your baby’s diapers when the diaper feels wet or heavy or if you find stool (bowel movement). In general, expect to change your baby shortly after each feeding.

Umbilical Cord Care

Proper care can help your baby’s umbilical cord heal. Do not pull or pick at the cord. The umbilical cord should fall off on its own within 2 weeks after the birth. Use the steps in the link above as a guide.

Care After Circumcision

Circumcision is a simple procedure most often done in the nursery before a baby boy goes home from the hospital, if the family has chosen to have it done. Circumcision can be done in a number of ways. Your health care provider will explain the procedure and tell you what to expect. To care for your son after circumcision, follow the tips in the link above.

Car Safety Seats

Each year thousands of children are injured or killed in car crashes. Car safety seats can help keep your infant or toddler safe and secure in your vehicle. But they need to be used correctly.

Newborn Appearance

Parents often dream of what their new baby may look like, thinking about a pink, round, chubby-cheeked and gurgling wonder. It may be surprising for many parents to see their newborn the first time—wet and red, with a long head, and screaming—nothing at all like they had imagined.

Newborn Reflexes

Reflexes are involuntary movements or actions. Some movements are spontaneous, occurring as part of the baby's usual activity. Others are responses to certain actions. Health care providers check reflexes to determine if the brain and nervous system are working well. Some reflexes occur only in specific periods of development.

Newborn Senses

Babies are born with all of the senses — sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Some of the senses are not fully developed.

Skin Color Changes in the Newborn

In newborns, skin color changes are often due to something happening inside the body. Some color changes are normal. Others are signs of problems. The changes described in the above link can happen to any newborn.

Keeping Your Newborn Warm

Your baby can’t tell you when he or she is too hot or cold. So, you need to keep your home warm enough and make sure the baby is dressed right.

Fever in A Newborn

A fever is common when an adult has an infection. In newborns, fever may or may not occur with an infection. A newborn may actually have a low body temperature with an infection. He or she may also have changes in activity, feeding, or skin color.

Newborn Warning Signs

Your newborn baby is going through many changes in getting used to life in the outside world. Almost always this adjustment goes well, however there are certain warning signs you should watch for. Learn some general warning signs with newborns in the above link.

Your Growing Newborn

In the first month of life, babies usually catch up and surpass their birthweight, then steadily continue to gain weight. A weight loss up to about 10 percent of birthweight is normal in the first two to three days after birth. However, the baby should have gained this back and be at his or her birth weight by about two weeks.