This article was in all really interesting, so I've posted it all below. Link ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- When you take your bundle of joy
home from the hospital, it's inevitable you won't do everything right.
We asked pediatricians for the five most common mistakes parents make
with their newborns.
Letting a newborn sleep through the night
"One of the things that makes me cringe is when parents say to me, 'The
first night home from the hospital she slept all the way through the
night!' " says Dr. Lance Goodman, a pediatrician in Boca Raton,
Florida. "I tell them, 'Oh no! She's not supposed to be doing that!' "
Our pediatricians were unanimous: Parents need to wake up their babies
to eat every four hours. With a few rare exceptions, newborns should
not sleep through the night for the first two weeks of life.
Babies who go too long without eating could become dehydrated, Goodman
says. Plus, sleeping eight hours at a stretch might be a sign of severe
jaundice. "They might be so lethargic they can't arouse themselves to
feed," Goodman says.
So when is it OK to let your baby sleep
through the night? "At the two-week checkup, if your baby is gaining
weight and sleeping through the night, hallelujah! Go enjoy it!" says
Dr. Ari Brown, author of "Baby 411" and a spokesman for the American
Academy of Pediatrics.
Not feeding on demand
Our pediatricians say new parents sometimes make the mistake of wanting
baby to eat on a strict schedule. The doctors say as long as a newborn
is eating at least every four hours, they should keep whatever schedule
they want.
"A baby is smarter than any grown-up," says Dr. Robin
Madden, a pediatrician in Silver Spring, Maryland. "Whether breast-fed
or bottle-fed, they know when they're hungry and they know when they're
full."
"Babies don't feed on a cookie-cutter pattern," adds Brown. "If you follow their demand, they're going to eat better."
Taking a newborn to crowded places
Another thing that bugs Goodman: When people take their newborns to a
crowded place, like a busy store or a child's birthday party. "There's
no reason to do that," he says. "It's a matter of using common sense."
Exposing your baby to lots of germy people is a problem for two
reasons. One, he could get a life-threatening bacterial infection. Two,
even if he gets a fever from a virus (which is less dangerous), doctors
will still have to hospitalize him to make sure it's not something more
serious.
"A fever in a baby less than six weeks old is an
automatic ticket for a two-day hospital stay," says Brown. "Your kid's
going to get a spinal tap, blood drawn, and catheterized for urine."
Keeping a newborn cooped up at home
While going out to crowded places is a bad idea, it's also a mistake to
stay home 24-7 for six weeks with your newborn. "Look at postpartum
depression -- what could be more depressing than being cooped up with a
kid who's not talking to you and cries all the time?" says Brown.
Brown encourages her patients to take their newborns for walks outside.
She also tells them if they need to take the baby to the grocery store,
to pick a time when it will be less crowded.
Not trusting your instincts
Our pediatricians said too many new parents don't trust their inner
voice. "It's all about listening to yourself and trusting yourself,"
says Dr. Lisa Thebner, a pediatrician in New York City. "But when
you're getting a lot of feedback from nannies and friends, it can be
hard to block out all that white noise."
If you don't trust
yourself, you could be putting your baby in danger, says Madden, who's
chair of pediatrics at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland,
and associate clinical professor of pediatrics at George Washington
Medical Center in Washington.
"I've had parents who have a
feeling their baby is sick, but people around them say the baby is
fine," she says. "So even though their instinct says something's wrong,
they wait way too long to bring the baby in to the doctor because
people reassured them."
And here are three more mistakes parents of newborns make, according to our experts :
•They put their babies to sleep on their sides or stomachs. (The
American Academy of Pediatrics says the back is best to avoid Sudden
Infant Death Syndrome.)
• They don't vaccinate their
babies even though the pediatric academy, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention and virtually every scientific organization
recommends it.
• They don't bring a baby with a fever to
see the pediatrician. Any newborn with a fever needs to be evaluated by
a doctor.
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