I’m a first time parent to a 2 month old baby. I’m looking for some tips/advice on what you wish you did when your baby was 2 months old that would have made your life much better.
Take more videos.
We’ve got lots of pictures but not that many videos in comparison. All his silly little burps, hiccups, even the sound of his little crying. His infant giggle.
Take more videos.
Take more pictures of baby with mom.
@Caden
I was just telling my husband that he needs to find opportunities to take pics of me with baby. I’m always the one taking cute pics of them and mostly have selfies with me and baby.
@Caden
Not exactly the same, but I have an iPhone and have my Live Photos on! It’s pretty fun to go back and catch his little coos.
Take more pictures of baby with mom.
As a FTM, I agree that I really need to pushing for more photos of me with my baby. If not for my SIL and my mom, little to no candid photos of baby and I would exist. I don’t think about it, and a lot of other people don’t think about it in the moment.
My only complaint is that mom does not have an eye for when to snap photos. She takes them at random, regardless of what’s going on at the moment. It turns into a lot of unflattering photos of baby and I. (Like, just snapping a bunch of random photos and I’m always making a weird face because I’m mid conversation, or I’m taking a moment to look at my phone and I have RBF. I have to sift through a bunch of photos just to only like a handful of them.)
Neither of them are photographers, and I appreciate them both for thinking about me, but I do wish my mom would be a little more discerning when she takes them. Talking to her about it hasn’t helped either - she just told me to get over it, because I don’t take enough photos of myself.
So now whenever I’m around my mom, I feel like I’m constantly have to pose for photos at all times now if I don’t want to sift through hundreds of unflattering photos of me with my baby, just to pick the few that actually look good. I can’t relax around her anymore.
My SIL doesn’t take as many, but the quality of the photos tends to be consistently better.
@Caden
Glad you said this. My wife asked that we start taking videos at around a month old, and we are so glad we did!
@Caden
Yes! Set up your phone and take a video of you rocking the baby, singing to the baby. Those days are gone before you know it and it’s like a pipe dream. You won’t remember 95% of it.
@Caden
Omg THIS! My baby was born small cos of IUGR so he was TIIIIIINY. I have like two vids of him as a tiny newborn and my god I wish I had more. His voice was so small too, you don’t think to film them crying but I wish so much I had more.
@Caden
such a great point!!! I tried to catch the whole body hiccups on video but never managed to get the moment. They were adorable.
@Caden
Heavily this. I have barely any videos.
Not Google anything to do with sleep advice and follow my instincts entirely.
The moment I tuned out of external influences and into my daughter’s rhythm, things got so much better. Don’t get me wrong, she sleeps like shit, but I’m riding it with her rather than going against her natural ebbs and flows.
EDIT TO ADD: It also helped to manage unrealistic expectations for good sleep 
@Kingsley
Absolutely this! My mom (and Google) advised that babies “should” go to bed by 6:30-7pm. My daughter is low sleep needs (does NOT require the ‘standard’ 12 hours overnight lol) - so, when she started waking up at like 4am, I chucked that advice in the garbage
Follow baby’s lead ALWAYS
@Nova
Ummm yeah we tried MOC for 7:30 bedtime and he woke up twice before 7am when he had been previously going 10pm-5:30am. Should have just stuck with our own routine to begin with 
@Nova
Oh interesting, I find google advice saying 8-9pm is ok for newborns. It’s worked for us!
Day said:
@Nova
Oh interesting, I find google advice saying 8-9pm is ok for newborns. It’s worked for us!
Oh sorry, my baby was 5ish months when we tried this!
@Kingsley
THIS. Following my child’s lead has been waaaay better than shaming myself by absorbing advice from TikTok and everywhere else.
Just try to relax a bit more and follow your instincts. I was so worried (still am tbh) about doing something that would “ruin” his sleep. In reality, the beauty of 2 months is that you can basically do whatever and not worry about creating bad habits yet.
That being said, I would also try to slowly work on adjusting baby to be a bit more comfortable being on his own a little (as in not being held). My little man is a serious Velcro baby. I don’t know if I could have prevented it, but I wish I could’ve been just a little more conscious of this in the earlier months.
@Kirby
This is reassuring, thank you. I’m always so worried because of all of these videos I see from “sleep consultants” about bad habits and all that other crap. Mine is almost 2 months and he protests loudly if I even think about setting him down in the crib anything other than fully and completely asleep. Drowsy but awake feels like such a scam at this point!
Edit to add: how do you work on the Velcro baby thing when everything I see says you cannot spoil or hold a newborn too much?
@Frey
Drowsy but awake was basically impossible for me until 4 months. Now it works pretty well and he’s borderline sleep trained (5 months in a week). He goes up and down with it. I’m working on just accepting it as part of the process.
Honestly I’m not sure about the Velcro thing. While I agree that you can’t “spoil” a newborn, I think it could maybe help to get them used to being put down for short increments early on and slowly increase the time. I think part of the issue with my guy is that he really wants to be mobile and isn’t yet, so he gets super frustrated just laying on the ground. But it is important for them to do so, so that they can build up their strength and skills!
Do not look into all those mommy IG accounts where they show a perfect schedule and how wonderful they look. It’s not real.