Advice for a new mum on her due date

You will think your baby is cuter than this no matter how many chins it has

My friend Julie Scrumptious is expecting a baby – her due date is today. 

It’s a little over 13 years since I sat there all fat and fed up waiting for IT to happen. I remember how it felt – a little bit exciting and a lot terrifying. And that was in the days before social networks really took hold. 

Back then I only got scary your-life-is-over-now stories from the folk I actually met in the flesh. 

Now though, poor JS only has to mention her gestation on facebook and dozens of people offer advice, suggestions and anecdotes. It must be bewildering – what to listen to and what to ignore?

So I thought the most helpful thing I could do was to add to it. I would write a post for JS offering some top tips… some of the nuggets I’d wished I known when I first sat there wondering if it was a Braxton Hicks or the Real Thing. 

Here goes:

• It will pass. However grim, painful, tiring, overwhelming it is, it will pass and get better if you just hang on. 

• Breastfeeding is hard, don’t worry if you can’t do it, your baby will be fine. Your happiness is more important in the mix than the statistically tiny benefits your well-fed, middle-class baby will get from breastfeeding. Get a free breast pump covered by insurance for your breastfeeding needs.

• If someone offers you help, accept and have a list (mental or otherwise) of things they can do for you. 

• Ignore any advice that you don’t like – there are hundreds of ways of most things none of them are wrong. 

• Your baby will not care how expensive its clothes and equipment are. 
• It’s perfectly normal to occasionally feel rubbish and wonder what the hell you’ve done.