Caring for Your Newborn

From hospital to home: Our Newborn Care Guide

We want babies to get off to the healthiest start in life, and for parents to feel confident and secure in caring for their newborns. We have written our own guide to newborn care called Caring for Your Newborn. It answers the most common questions regarding newborns, what is normal and not normal, and provides guidelines on normal newborn care including feeding, sleep, diapers, skin care, taking your baby out, and much more. Printed copies are available in our office for free. For many of these topics, there is also a more detailed discussion available on our website. You can view a list of all our newborn articles.

  1. Introduction
  2. Last Minute Decisions
  3. The Most Important Things to Know
  4. What Happens in the Hospital
    1. What to expect in the delivery room
    2. After delivery
    3. Routine Newborn Screening Tests
    4. Routine Treatments
    5. Other Tests & Procedures
    6. Common problems in the hospital
    7. Your Newborn’s Risk of Infection
    8. Late Preterm Infants (35-36 weeks)
    9. When Can We Leave the Hospital?
    10. Preparing for Discharge
    11. Hospital Follow-up
  5. First Days at Home
  6. A Tour of Your Baby: Your Newborn’s Appearance
  7. Normal Newborn Behavior & Reflexes
  8. Getting to Know Your Baby
  9. Baby Fussiness & Crying
  10. Newborn Development
  11. Newborn Feeding Basics
  12. Breastfeeding Basics
    1. Breastfeeding Basics
    2. Most Common Concerns
    3. The Five keys to getting started
    4. Breastfeeding Positions
    5. The Latch
    6. What to Expect Each Day/How to tell if it is going well
    7. When and where to get help
  13. Formula Feeding
  14. Routine Newborn Care
  15. Diaper Duty
  16. Newborn sleep
  17. Preventing SIDS: Safe Sleep
  18. Your Newborn’s Health & Safety
  19. If Your Baby Gets Sick
  20. You and Your Family’s Health
  21. Recommended Resources
    1. Recommended Newborn Care Books
    2. Recommended Breastfeeding Books