The Professional
One of the first things we learned is that everybody will tell you exactly what you need to do for any situation. Everybody’s a critic, and unless you’re doing it their way you’re completely wrong. That’s not such a big deal in general because you can normally just discount them and move on with your life.
The real problem presents itself when the family or close friends get involved. If you’re fortunate enough to have both grandmothers available to help you shortly after delivery, then you’ll quickly figure out what I’m talking about. They’ll both tell you exactly what to do, and they’ll often conflict on their approaches. And you’ll have read things that definitely contradict both of them, since a lot has changed since you were a baby! So what do you, the brand new parents who have no real experience, do in that situation.
Bring in the professional for some quick consulting to set everybody straight! We had several of our newly parented friends recommend Moms on Call to us. It may have been the smartest thing we did in the early days with a newborn. Laura showed up at our house around day 10 and spent about an hour with us. She was so incredibly AWESOME – just like a baby whisperer! You should really read their story
She showed us just about everything we needed to know. She showed us how to change the diapers properly, give a good bath, clip the fingernails and toenails, super baby swaddle, set us up with a longer term schedule, etc., etc. I can’t recommend this enough. We were very sad to see her depart our house, but we felt soooo much more confident about the whole thing after that – like we might actually be able to do this! And we could call or email anytime we ran into a problem.
After The Professional has swooped down from the heavens to impart you with great wisdom, when people start telling you how to do things you can just tell them that The Professional lady set us up on a set of procedures that we’re following. Sure, The Professional’s way of doing things may not necessarily be better than Grandmom’s on everything, but it’s sort of a line in the sand that you can wrap your head around and anchor you in confidence.
To this day I’m still in awe at the one hour Laura spent with us in our house showing us how to be parents. She has a halo around her as far as I’m concerned – everything she showed us has worked out perfectly.