Dear Niece,
Now that you finally have that baby in your arms and have taken in the sight of his precious face, make sure you take a sniff and enjoy that new baby smell. Seriously, hold him close to your nose and take a deep, long breath of baby!
I don’t remember where I read it, but sniffing your baby is good for you! The smell will register in your brain and help with bonding, so it is very important. Also, babies smell good, probably because nature wants you to sniff ‘em a whole lot to help with the bonding, so there is no reason not to enjoy it. If you can smell your baby then he is probably very close to you, and that is also important.
Everyone has an opinion on holding babies and will tell all sorts of stories to support their stance. Ignore them all. Don’t let anyone tell you how much you need or should be holding your baby or guilt you into holding or putting down your baby when you don’t want to. Trust your gut and if you feel baby needs to be held, hold him. If you feel baby needs to be put down, put him down. All babies are different and there are some babies that want to be held a lot. There are also babies that prefer chilling in a bouncer or swing near mommy instead of being held. You will figure it out. I know it sounds crazy, that you will be able to tell what he wants even though you can’t communicate. But the truth is, you can and you will. You won’t be able to describe the difference but you will recognize the difference between sounds and cries and what they mean. So trust your instincts, hold him when needed.
After you are done sniffing, unwrap him and count all those little fingers and toes. This is important, too! I had assumed the doctor would let me know if my child was born with missing or extra digits so figured the counting was only a pointless cliché too often repeated. I was tired and overwhelmed and I just wanted my squishy on me. A couple of days later, once my head had cleared just a little, I was changing his diaper when I noticed something where his leg meets his body. I thought it was poop and wiped. It wouldn’t come off. After a few minutes of confusion I figured out it was a birthmark that I simply had not noticed. How I did not see a round speck about the size of a pencil eraser I do not know. A week or so after that, once we were home and getting into the rhythm of things, I grabbed his little foot to put a sock on and noticed the toes looked a little funny. Upon further inspection I noticed that his little toe nails had grown so long they were started to curve over his toes!! I had been so caught up in worrying about cutting his finger nails to prevent scratching that I totally forgot about toe nails!
See, things will be happen real fast right now, mostly because sleeping and eating is all messed up. While at the hospital you have a chance to inspect your baby in those supper bright lights and discover things like birth marks and toes. You get to see everything, ask the nurses or doctor about anything that seems odd or concerning, and you will now have a frame of reference of what is normal on your baby.
Once you’ve counted all the little toes take another sniff. Hold him close and take a deep breath and enjoy that sweet baby smell coming from your baby. You will hear this a lot, but it goes by way too fast and before you know it, that baby smell is gone. It will be gone and that baby will be squirming to get away from you and on to exploring and getting into things. Before you know it, it will all be a blur and the details will get muddled. So enjoy that baby, take pictures, but focus on living in this moment. Focus on now, tomorrow will come soon enough.
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