Are you facing up to your very first Christmas with a baby? Need some advice on how to deal with flying, the long car trip, critical relatives or even Santa? Kate Gillan is a parenting expert who has some older and wiser advice for brand new parents who are going to be highly strung this holiday season. We first posted this story a year ago but since our first timers last year are now hardened graduates of Christmas with Baby, we think there might be some worried newcomers who could use this advice!
Christmas can be a minefield of family grudges and temper tantrums. It can be tense and if you’re in Australia hot and bothersome as well. People you have avoided all year are now the only ones who will be helping you with the washing up. If you’ve wondered how you survived a tense family Christmas before, try adding a new baby to the mix! Your carefully planned baby routine is out the window as you have to deal with in-laws whose ideas of baby routines may be very different to yours!
You can expect arguments or at least discussions about everything from what your child is wearing to your use of disposable nappies, so if you haven’t discovered this already EVERYONE has an opinion about how to care for the baby! Especially if this is your first (Child and/or Christmas!).
How can you survive the potential minefield of Baby’s First Christmas?
Kate Gillan is not only an expert at wrangling the cranky-est toddler but she has some clues for wrangling the grown-ups in the family Christmas equation.
Firstly her advice is simple ‘It’s Christmas you have to go.» So no matter what’s going to happen (realise it probably will) and you’ll just have to smile sweetly and deal with it and if you can cope, so will the baby.. they’ll probably sleep soundly through the whole event!
Secondly: they’re all going to be talking about you anyway, how long it took you to arrive, how much gear you brought with you and how well you seem to be coping with the new arrival … so just be nice and deal with it!
Seriously I think this is great advice from Kate and now as a veteran of four Christmases, I can look back and laugh about how stressed I was the first year we attempted a car trip of around 300km with a new baby before lunch! This year, the poor kid is getting buckled into his car seat and handed over to the first friendly pair of hands he sees at our destination while I get a drink! This will be a significant change from the first Christmas trip where I think I shed more tears than he did and we drove from Melbourne to Warrnambool (the 300km trip) on the rumble strip of the highway (which gave the car a baby friendly vibration) so he’d nod off to sleep.
I can remember getting stressed about nap times, about feed times, about what I was eating and drinking, where he would sleep, how we were going to change him.. My list was longer than Santa’s but in hindsight I really need not have bothered. Everything was fine! Experienced sisters whisked the baby away, Grandparents were keen to entertain, cousins were around to have non baby conversations (what a treat!) The massive argument about what we’d forgotten at home was ridiculous, shops would be available for whatever was needed and we could have both relaxed and enjoyed the day more without the added stress we placed on each other!
This year our Christmas will be different and if you need some hints on how to make your Baby’s first Christmas the best it can be, listen to the advice from the lovely baby expert Kate Gillan.
Свежие комментарии