There is an easy answer to this common problem, and that’s simply asking your husband to help you out with the baby.  On the other hand, those of us who have already gone through the stage of having a newborn baby and being confused out of our minds do know that when it comes to being a new parent, things are seldom easy.

Sometimes new moms really want to portray the image of a mom who can do it all effortlessly.  I know that I wrestled with asking for help when my first baby was born because my train of thought was that I should be able to handle a baby without a problem.  After all, I grew her inside me without a problem, so why should it be difficult to deal with her? The truth was that I was exhausted and confused and way too proud to ask for any help.  I know if I would have asked my husband for help, it would have happened.

So the question isn’t really how do I get my husband to help with our newborn but instead becomes what is the best way to ask my husband to help with our newborn?  Although not all men are the same, there are indeed some tactics that you can use that may help you get a positive response from your husband:

Don’t be vague.  Casually mentioning that you’re tired or declaring in a sing-song voice that someone needs to change the baby’s diaper isn’t direct enough.  Instead try something along the lines of, “Will you please take the baby so I can take a nap?” or “Will you please change the baby’s diaper?” Conveying your needs clearly will save you an awful lot of potential arguments in the future.

Don’t be a taskmaster.  Ask your husband to help you with the baby, but unless he asks for specific instructions you don’t want to load him down with lengthy directions.  As moms we all like to think we’re the best at dealing with our babies, but that doesn’t mean we get to insist that everything is done exactly our way every single time.  Let dad figure some things out on his own, and he’ll be a better father for it.

Don’t assume he can read your mind.  You might think to yourself, “Certainly he knows how exhausted I am! Why isn’t he offering to help me?” while at the same time he’s wondering, “Will I offend her if I offer to take the baby for a while?” Don’t allow resentment to build up because the two of you are assuming that you each know what the other person is thinking.

Be reasonable.  Hey, he’s tired too.  He might be just as overwhelmed as you are, if not more so.  Give the guy a break.  You can’t insist that he does absolutely everything.  Ask for help, but be willing to give help too.

You may be pleasantly surprised to find that your husband wants to help, but just isn’t sure what you need.  He won’t know until you tell him.

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• Why can’t I loose weight?
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At last your baby has arrived, and you’re experiencing all the joys that come with being a new mom. But you may not have bargained on acne and varicos veins, not to mention constipation, vaginal pains, and mood swings, or perhaps one of the more serious conditions that pregnancy can trigger. In this compassionate, comprehensive guide, Dr. Jennifer Wider, a physician as well as a mother of two small children, delivers up-to-date medical information, candid answers to a host of questions, and expert advice on a range of postpartum issues, including:

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Everything a Mom Needs to Know for a Happy Nursing Experience

For the new mom and her baby, breastfeeding provides countless physical and emotional benefits. Breast milk provides proper nourishment, helps strengthen a baby?s immune system, and deepens the mother-child bond. However, breastfeeding doesn?t always happen as naturally as one might expect. As a Neonatal Practitioner and Board Certified Lactation Consultant (and mother of two), Stacey H. Rubin knows the difficulties new moms can experience. Now, in The ABCs of Breastfeeding, she offers a practical and reader-friendly guide that will help every new mother feel comfortable and confident about feeding her baby. From pregnancy to weaning, this helpful book will show nursing mothers how to:

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I want to walk out of Target and leave Blair there, wailing…. Nice people work at Target. Surely someone would take her home and care for her and buy her pretty things.

So begins Vicki Glembocki?s brutally honest yet hilarious memoir of her agonizing transition into motherhood. Why agonizing? Because no one told her how tough it would be. Finally, Glembocki lays out the truth about those first months with baby: the certainty that you?re doing everything wrong; the desire to kill your husband, your mother, your dog; the struggle to balance who you were with whom you?ve become-a mother.

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Babies Online will be selecting someone to receive a FREE hard-copy of The Second Nine Months. All you have to do is share your opinion by leaving a comment about this post. That?s it! Leave a comment and you?re entered to win.

This contest is over. Congratulations to the winner!

I vaguely remember my baby shower ? I was a bloated exhausted seven months pregnant and the thought of a room full of my husbands crazy French relatives, and my own family made me long for the couch, a Snickers, and some maternity sweatpants….

But I suffered through it. I had spent hours pouring over baby stuff from Target and made a fantastic (if I don’t say so myself) registry of top notch baby chairs, swings, and polka dot swaddlers. I will be honest ? I’m an opinionated young mom who believes in ?stupid stuff? girls don’t need to wear pink in order to diffuse future gender issues….My list was a colorful array of lemony yellows, and deep forest greens. At my baby shower the only item I got that I requested was a first aid kit. Sitting in the center of a restaurant surrounded by pink frilly nightgowns I wanted to sob. So, from a post-pregnant-hormonal-current mom to the go-er of a baby shower….here are the top ten items you can get someone who’s full of baby:

1. Diapers and wipes. I know I know you were probably thinking along the lines of an elaborate ?going home form hospital? gown but lets face it: all babies do is poop and pee. Diapers are expensive and a new mom can’t get enough…the thought of a nursery chock full of supplies is comforting for a new mom who’s going to want to spend what little free time she has napping, not cruising the baby isle of Shop rite.
2. Get a diaper genie, for said diapers and wipes. If you wanna be really cute get a 100 pack of Pampers for newborns, and the genie. It’s a god-send!A nice safe, powder fresh place to store dirty diapers.
3. Gift cards (I know I know, I need to get the boring stuff out of the way) Once said diapers run out and the mom to be (who may or may not be nursing or pumping or formula feeding) will need baby stuff. Baby stuff can get expensive and there’s nothing more satisfying than realizing you have a $50 gift card to Babies R Us so you won’t need to shell out your own money.
4. Onesies. Remember when I mentioned poop and pee? Well, I forget drool, vomit, and boogers. New moms sometimes swoon at the idea of dresses, and little sailor outfits for their newborns but the truth is we are often too exhausted to deal with anything less than a piece of cotton that has three buttons. And when you end up changing said newborn five or five hundred times per day it’s nice to have an endless supply of onesies around.
5. A month’s worth of pick up laundry service. This will be the best gift ever, I can promise you.
6. If you’re the DIY type why don’t you make a coupon book, similar to the kind you might have made your parents when you were too little to have a real job, and real money to buy them gifts? Coupons that say ?4 hrs babysitting while you sleep in? or ?two meals cooked by yours truly…?
7. Bibs. Hundreds and millions of bibs…pre-baby I had a nice stack of about thirty in my linen closet and now I’m lucky if I can find one before I force feed my daughter rice cereal. There is is parallel universe where all the bibs end up, floating around.
8. A breast pump. I know this tends to cater to the boob-mom but even the worst kind of boob-mom sometimes needs a break. Maybe she wants to go out for dinner, maybe she wants to sleep through the night? She’ll need to pump, and pumping is expensive. Chip in, or rent the woman a breast pump! You can also scour Ebay and Craigslist for them.
9. Subscriptions to mom-magazines. You’d never guess, but there are lots of fun friendly magazines that make the (sometimes) dull monotonous days of mommy-hood go buy. My two personal favorites? Cookie and Wondertime. Steer clear of Baby Couture unless your mom-to-be is materialistic and the type to chuckle at six year old girls looking like mini Kate Moses.
10. The baby Bjorn baby chair. It’s pricey, but there’s a reason…it’s a miracle worker. It’s pretty basic (red or black gingham I believe) and has wooden toys once baby becomes interested and develops that fun thing called hand eye coordination. The little one can relax, or once he’s ready sit propped up to view the world. While being a mini voyeur he can twirl the wooden bears or suck on them, while mom does what she needs to do.

I hope I helped at least one person. One person with a sense of humor and the understanding that the basics in baby-buying are important

There is absolutely nothing in the world that compares to holding your new baby. The bond and draw you feel knowing that they are just as much a part of you as your own two hand. The countless hours you spend carefully studying your baby’s face and every single detail you can find about them never seems to lose it’s first-time wonderment. It is exciting to feel the embrace of your child and your partner as two have all of a sudden become in a flash both one and three.

As an only child myself, I breathed a sigh of fulfillment that I would never again have to worry about growing old alone. While I think everyone has this fear from time to time, it is a fleeting but constant fear through an on only childs’ life that they will be left alone by accident or fate. I find that I can barely remember what my life was like without my daughter. She is only now turning eight weeks old and I feel like these last few months have been simultaneously the longest and shortest periods I’ve ever experienced in my life.

On one hand I am amazed that he is growing so fast and barely have time to enjoy one moment to the next before it changes, while on the other I am so excited to see her grow up and learn about her world that I almost can’t sleep at night! Sometimes at night I wake up to her soft cooing and in my drowsiness almost startle to the realization that she is no longer a figment of my childhood dreams, but a living breathing human being lying in a bassinet not feet from my bed. It almost scares me to get up and look, fearing that somehow this all had been a dream and I had imagined it all. It all feels so surreal. I feel like she has always been there waiting for her time to come into the world. I find it fascinating to think that when I was in my own mother’s womb, I had my daughters’ egg already inside of me, and within that egg the key to my family history and the sequence that will eventually make up my grandchildren.

I don’t think that you can understand the feeling of being caught in a single moment while at the same time feeling stretched across the ages until you yourself become a parent. I found my thoughts dancing over all of the nights my mother had waited up for me to come home, and all the mistakes I had made as a teenager that in one way or another hurt my family. All of those nights that I came home late and dismissed my mother’s worry and frustration with me all of a sudden came around full circle. What would I feel like if my daughter had not come home on time? Will I now be the one losing sleep waiting for the door to click open and heave a sigh of relief when the door quietly squeaks? Will I pretend that I am asleep to cover up the fact that I had been up late worrying? Will I get up and stand in my doorway as she comes upstairs to her bedroom to ask her if she is all right?

I find myself singing the same songs my mother used to lull me to sleep with, and comforting her with the same loving touch I always savored before bedtime. No matter how much you may feel like you are different from your parents, there is never a time that you feel so completely molded in their image as when you have your own child. Seeing my father hold her for the first time tonight was truly the perfect gift I could have received for Christmas. I stepped back as he pulled her into his arms and smiled down at her, her eyes lighting up as she peered up at his face as a smile grew across her lips.

All I could think about was how I used to be that small baby girl in his arms that he was smiling down at, and now I am watching him hold the baby that will carry on in his likeness and memory years after he is gone. He paused for a moment and looked up at me and softly smiled, only remarking that I would always be his little girl even if I’m not so little any more. I bit back tears and smiled back, replying that he would always be my daddy and he was going to be the best poppy in the world. After his near-fatal cancer scare earlier this year, I am so thankful that he is here with us to experience the birth of his grand daughter and relish in the quiet completeness that only a baby can bring to your heart.

Happy holidays to everyone celebrating their first Christmas with a new family, and to those dreaming of the Christmases to come, enjoy the love and warmth the togetherness allows us to experience and remember to make your memories count. Please comment back to this post and tell me what your perfect Christmas gift or moment was this year and a little bit about yourself so that we can spread the holiday cheer here at babiesonline.com!