When you are pregnant it can often feel like the whole nine months is devoted to the process of getting that baby out.
Sure you might shop for a few cute bunny rugs and a raft of expensive items for your little one but you don’t pay a lot of attention to what’s going to occur when you bring your baby home.
A recent and very unscientific straw poll found that 100% of new mothers goggled “newborn + sleep” in the first 24 hours of being home.
The poll, conducted by me, of, well about 10 mums in a Facebook group, found that without fail first time parents felt ill prepared for what comes after you get home with that bundle of baby.
When you are pregnant it can often feel like the whole nine months is devoted to the process of getting that baby out. Via IStock.
Just a quick look online sees perturbed parents posing questions, ones with hindsight you could giggle at, but at the time that seem perfectly appropriate.
From:
"We've been trying to always have one of us awake at all times watching the baby so that we're never both sleeping at the same time. Does a newborn need to be watched 24/7 or am I just stressing out over nothing?”
to:
“How do I tell if my baby is asleep?”
So its no wonder that new mums are starting to book into sleep school before their baby is even born, according to a story in The Herald Sun.
According to the report waiting lists at some Melbourne sleep schools are now stretching to four months.
“Pregnant women are buying a cot, a bassinet, a car seat, a pram, a breast pump — and booking in for sleep school,” said author, midwife and maternal and child health nurse Cath Curtin.
“Mothers are so fixated about the birth … and then they go home and it’s like ‘Now what do I do?’
Ms Curtin said that she feels we have “lost touch in teaching parents how to parent.”
“It starts in hospital, where mums only stay for four days which is not long enough to be really taught what to do,” she said.
If someone urgently needs help they will skip the queue at Tresillian. Via IStock.
The manager of Masada Private Hospital’s mother-baby unit, Patsy Thean told The Herald Sun said her present waiting list was eight weeks. While other public units are quoted as having waiting lists of three to four months.
Ms Thean said that women often try to book in before their baby is born, but she discourages it.
“Not every baby will have a problem, so you have to wait for a couple of months first,” Ms Thean told The Herald Sun.
Post continues after video.