A Recipe for Caring for Your Newborn

You’ll need the following ingredients:

1.  Overabundant patience
2.  Endless hugs and kisses
3.  His favorite toy and blanket
4.  Tons of music to sing and books to read
5.  All the time in the world

Step One: Gather up plenty of patience, and put it on the back burner. You’ll need to keep this ingredient warmed up and ready throughout the caring process. Your newborn will require it almost constantly, so you’ll need to have a lot prepared. When you start running low for any reason, step away and take a deep breath. Remind yourself that it’s okay for this to happen. Replenish your patience and get back to tending to your newborn.

Step Two: Mix in numerous hugs and kisses. Be very generous with them! Whether your newborn is happy and smiling or angry and fussing, hugs and kisses are vital to a great recipe. You can never go overboard with this ingredient.

Step Three: Make sure to include your newborn’s favorite toy and blanket. Both are key. Even if he’s still too young to actively play with this toy himself, you’ll want to use it as you play with him. An optional component to this step is experimenting with funny voices to make this ingredient even more exciting. Once playtime is over, wrap your newborn in his favorite blanket. He won’t make it through the next steps without it. Sprinkle in more hugs to keep him really warm.

Step Four: Break out the lullabys and children’s books! You’ll want to sing softly and read quietly for this part of the recipe. Your newborn may react in different ways; you might need to have some patience handy. Dashes of hugs and kisses here may be necessary as well. And if his blanket isn’t enough, reintroduce his favorite toy for him to hold onto and cuddle with. Continue to sing and read as needed.

Step Five: This is the most important step. Devote all the time you can to your newborn. When you’re not working, sleeping, actually cooking, or doing anything else, he needs every ounce of love you can give. You’ll have to rock, sway, pat, hug, kiss, sing, read, tickle, play, and do everything with your newborn in order to care for him. It’ll be hard sometimes. You’ll feel like you’re doing it all wrong. But always remember: you don’t have to follow something to the letter. Do what works best for you. And no matter what happens, he’ll turn out just fine.