The announcement has been made - you are about to be upgraded from parent to grandparent!

Now what?

Your journey as a grandparent is very different from that as a parent. This time, you are armed with knowledge and experience ... but someone else is in charge of the ship! Your beliefs around raising children might not match those of your son or daughter and their partner. The 20-40 years which have passed since your first child was born have seen some surprising changes in parenting. So let’s look at some things you might like to know.

Babies are not miniature adults.

Sometimes we expect an awful lot of these immature little humans whose brains take 25 years to fully mature. And probably the area we have the least realistic expectation is how we think they should sleep.

To hear some people talk about sleep in infancy, you would think that sleep was a behavioural problem and parents need to take control and correct the habits of their child whose waking is manipulative and intentional!

Reality check: adults cannot control their own sleep, let alone their baby’s!

Your Baby, your goals, your rights 

If you feel you are not receiving the support you need, feel pressured or start to doubt your abilities, it can be hard to advocate for yourself. If you are hearing information about your baby’s growth or development in emotive language or an authoritarian manner, you can feel your goals are no longer relevant.

A dummy (or pacifier if you speak American English) is a breast substitute for babies who have a high need to suck which their mother cannot always accommodate.

However, people often get this mixed up and acuse babies of using the breast as a dummy! How bizarre is it to imagine the artificial nipple is the default and a baby using the actual thing is the variation?

If you ask your mother what the words “nipple preparation” bring to mind, she will probably recall some detailed and uncomfortable practices she was advised to do during the final weeks of pregnancy. Depending on when you and your siblings were born, they might include some gentle massage with wool fat (lanolin) and exposure to sunlight - or if she was unlucky, rubbing with nail brushes and methylated spirits!!

The safest place for a baby to sleep in the first 6-12 months is in the same room as their mother. Day and night.

Many parents understand the need for a bedside nursery to make nighttime parenting easier when their baby cosleeps at night. However, learning the safest place for daytime sleep is not the room they prepared for the baby can come as a shock! (When exactly will this child be sleeping in their nursery?)

Your baby will be hanging out where you are so you might as well set up your space to work for you.

The safest place for your baby to sleep in the first 6-12 months is in the same room as you - day and night. While expectant parents often invest a lot of time and money into creating a room for their baby, the reality is that is the place where you store baby stuff and not a space your baby occupies very much!

By contrast, babies and mothers spend a lot of time together in the adult bedroom yet this space tends to be cobbled together while you are using it and nothing really feels organised or functional.

So let's look at what you might need for overnight and nap time in your bedroom:

Mammals make milk. It’s actually why they are called “mammals”. It is made by mammary glands, which we also call breasts. From elephants and blue whales to mountain pygmy possums and fruit bats. The females of all mammalian species give birth and make milk.

Breast compression is a tool which is useful when you need to improve milk removal by your baby or a breast pump. External pressure can increase the flow of milk. 

Lactating breasts naturally release milk when a baby or pump triggers the let-down reflex. A well-attached baby doesn't need additional help removing milk. However there are circumstances where babies benefit from the technique.

A human infant needs an enormous amount of support to reach the stage of independence, more than any other species on earth. Taking on that commitment, ahead of all other possibilities, is the greatest demand there is. If we just look raising a child to “breeding age” (puberty) we are looking at 12-15 years. Brain maturity is reached around 25 years.

A mother bonds with her infant during the postnatal period. Bonding probably begins in pregnancy but it is during during the immediate skin-to-skin period after birth when it really kicks in. It is a process which develops over the following days and weeks.

Bonding is a two-way process. The baby needs to bond with their mother just as much as she does with them

By the late 1980s, mothers were no longer advised to limit feeds by the clock. The descriptors Foremilk and Hindmilk were intended to describe how the milk glands released milk high in fat during the let-down and breastmilk becomes increasingly richer as a feed progresses. Advice to mothers changed from offering both breasts equally at each feed to allowing babies to “finish the first breast first” so they could get this richer hind-milk.

When it comes to milk production problems, low supply gets all of the attention. Identifying the cause and resolving it, supplementing the breastmilk intake and supporting the mother emotionally.

The mother who appears to have far more breastmilk than her baby needs almost seems to be mocking those who have too little. Talking about their frustration or their baby’s symptoms in groups can attract nasty comments and mothers learn who to share their feelings around. However for some women, too much breastmilk has a significant impact on their daily life and that of their infant.

Hyperlactation or hypergalactia occurs naturally in some women and is self-induced in others. Physical causes can include thyroid or pituitary disorders. Prolactin is a hormone produced by the pituitary gland which has a key role in milk production. High levels of prolactin can be responsible for hyperlactation. Where oversupply is having a significant impact on either mother or baby it is worth having your doctor run some tests to rule out any medical cause. However, in the majority of cases, there is no underlying medical condition.

Has anyone ever told you their milk dried up overnight? Or they lost their supply after six weeks? Twelve weeks? Or somewhere in between?

Someone should have explained to them what was really happening.

Perceived low milk supply is so common, it is actually listed as one of the top reasons mothers stop breastfeeding or begin supplementing with formula. Perceived - not actual - low milk production. There is a difference.

Exclusive breastfeeding is a global guideline for all infants in the first six months of life. It means that babies are given no foods other than human milk in their first half-year. No infant formula, no juices, no teas, no cereals, no “solids”.

Breastmilk contains all the nutrition a baby needs and supplements are not required.

Sounds great! So what's the problem?

Ideally, every baby should be given the opportunity to meet these health guidelines. However, there are many obstacles placed in their way and unfortunately, very few babies in the world are exclusively breastfed for the first six months.

How’s life, Breastfeeding Mama?

Tired? That's because you're Breastfeeding!

(No, it's because you have a newborn baby!)

Struggling to keep up? That's because you're Breastfeeding!

(No, it's because you are now responsible for a whole extra person and you are still adjusting to that.)