Holly Willoughby - Truly Happy Baby ... It Worked for Me - A practical parenting guide from a mum you can trust

New foods and flavours …

Ultimately you want to give your baby a varied diet and get her used to a multitude of different flavours – so before she discovers chicken nuggets (they all do!), encourage her to eat a rainbow of colourful foods. I’d suggest trying one new food at a time to make sure your baby isn’t allergic to it, and introduce it with something you know she likes so she’s less likely to refuse it at the first offering.

There are some brilliant ready-made foods out there and I always had a stash in the cupboard for convenience. Steaming and puréeing isn’t always possible, so don’t feel guilty for using them, but they are expensive compared with making homemade batches, particularly if you buy organic, which I tried to.

If at first you don’t succeed! It can be frustrating to watch your baby grimace and spit out your lovingly made, delicious homemade purée, but her tastebuds are developing – what she dislikes one week might be a firm favourite the next! Portion out anything she doesn’t like, label it and pop it in the freezer to try another time.

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Milestones and routines In this section I’m going to outline the various milestones you can expect and give you the routines I used for all my babies (which you can use in conjunction with the timetables you’ll find in the Sleeping chapter – see here). Only use them as a guide for what to expect or aim for, however, and don’t get downhearted if your baby won’t play ball!

Some of my children took to a routine quicker than others. It’s all about having a goal and a reasonable expectation of what’s achievable. The word ‘routine’ might suggest an exact science but, as we all know, babies dance to their own tune, so be patient. As long as you troubleshoot the reasons why your baby might not be eating much or at decent intervals and try to adapt your feeding to rectify any problems, then she will get there in the end. They all do! Tomorrow is another day and a new opportunity for your baby to form good habits.

FEEDING MILESTONES:WHAT TO EXPECT

Very roughly (I cannot stress enough how all babies are different!), this is what you can expect over the coming months …

First few days and weeks In the early days you’ll be feeding constantly. Newborns have such little tummies that they need lots of small feeds to keep them topped up.

6 weeks–3 months During this period your little one will hopefully start having fuller feeds – hence a fuller tummy – and longer gaps between each one.

3–6 months By about three months you might start to notice your baby is really starting to respond to your gentle encouragement to get her into more of a pattern with feeding (and sleeping, as the two go hand in hand). If you only try to eke her out for an extra 5–10 minutes each feed, by the end of the day, and then the end of the week, you might find she is going a whole hour longer and eating more to boot.

6 months–1 year Once your baby reaches about six months, hopefully she’ll be in some sort of routine that suits you and your family. She might not be waking for any night feeds at all and, as a result, you’ll be getting the unbroken night’s sleep you’ve been dreaming of since the end-of-pregnancy insomnia began! It’s also during this time that you’ll probably start moving on to weaning. Get the blender ready!

ESTABLISHING A ROUTINE

First few days and weeks: feed, feed, feed …

I’m a big believer in feeding your baby as much as you like, as often as you like, in those first few days and weeks. You and your baby are just getting to know each other, and all that skin-to-skin contact you have whilst feeding, whether you choose to breastfeed or bottle-feed, is really nice for both of you. Breast milk, in particular, is easily digested, so it might seem in those first few days that your baby is never off the breast. But that’s all good. There’s plenty of time to get her into a routine. Some mums worry about snacking and that the baby is using them as a comforter or human dummy, but I say, SO WHAT! Some people seem to think that babies are born manipulative and that we need to teach them a lesson very early on to nip it in the bud, or these needy babies will go on to rule the home! Errr … when did we become so cynical? I think we are all so concerned with how our parenting will affect our children in the long term that we forget that the most simple thing they need from the start is love, and love will get all that yummy oxytocin flowing that helps with your milk production.

Sleepy feeder Some newborns can be very sleepy, so should they be woken for a feed? I’m a bit torn on this one, as it breaks my heart to ever wake a sleeping baby, but then the arguments for feeding regularly to establish your milk supply and ensure your baby doesn’t weaken are equally valid. I chose to let my babies sleep in those first couple of days and fed them when they woke up, but choose what you feel comfortable with and be guided by your midwife.

After the first day or two you’ll find your baby naturally starts to wake up more often for feeds as her digestion kicks into gear. After that time, if you find she keeps falling asleep at the breast or bottle, take her socks off and tickle her toes; don’t let her be too warm and snuggly. A gentle little blow of breath normally does the trick, and winding every 5–10 minutes during a feed will help too. If she is awake when she starts a feed, try to keep her awake until she finishes it or she’ll never get a full feed and sleep for those coveted longer periods.

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Night feeds: should you wake a sleeping baby? …

This is probably your next question and there are two schools of thought on this:

1. Yes, do it. Filling your baby’s tummy and sticking to the three-to-four-hour routine between feeds will make your baby go longer through the night, more quickly. Sometimes it’s referred to as the dream feed, which you give three to four hours after you’ve put your baby down for the night. So this would be at around 10 or 11pm for a 7pm bedtime. It’s called the dream feed because you keep all the lights off, and try to keep your baby as undisturbed as possible when you get her out of the cot. I have to say it’s not easy to keep babies asleep as they invariably wake up when you start winding them before putting them back down anyway.

2. No, let her sleep for as long as she needs to. This is the only way she’ll learn to stop being hungry in the night. When your baby is really little she’ll probably wake up naturally for that food as her small tummy will empty quickly, but as she gets older she can sleep for longer without needing to feed. There’s some research that says you go into a deep sleep after 90 minutes and will remain in that sleep pattern for the next four to six hours before you start to wake up naturally for morning. By that reckoning, if you start waking your baby up a few hours after you put her down, you risk disturbing her during her deepest sleep.

I tried both options. For me, the second option worked better – at least it did with Chester, as he learnt to sleep through from 7pm to 7am much quicker than my first two children.

I think you can only make this decision when you get to that point and know what works for you and your baby.