My Top 4 Newborn Hacks to Make Life Easier
- May 13, 2025
- 6 min read
It’s been the best part of a year since I last wrote a blog and since then I’ve given birth to my second child. A lot has changed, I’ve learnt, I’ve grown, and I’m excited to get back into writing during those precious pockets of free time I find in the day. Being now a proud mum to two under two I want to share these four essential hacks that have helped me with the challenge of caring for my newborn these last two months, in hopes they could ease someone else’s life too.
Shower with your baby
Not physically holding them as you shower but rather next to them and at the same time. If you have a shower over bath or a larger shower wet room this works perfectly.
Step one
Place your babies bath at the far end of the bath or close to the edge of your shower space. Fill it and ready it for baby. Also ready the shower for yourself by turning it on and positioning it pointing straight down so it’s not going to splash baby.
Step two
Gently place baby in their bath, covering their belly with a soaked flannel to help keep them warm and feeling secure. Big hack - don’t wet their hair yet! They may start to feel cold sooner and get irritable with wet hair, so leave their head and hair dry for now.
Step three
Get in the shower and clean yourself first, you’ll be right next to baby, facing them and easily keeping an eye. They should be leisurely flexing their little legs in their bath by now. You’ll probably find your baby enjoys watching the movement in-front of them while you wash and it’ll keep them entertained.
Step 4
You’re clean, you step out of the shower, dry off and get into your dressing gown you’ve readily placed in the bathroom. Then, instead of turning the shower off, I turn it onto high heat (still ensuring it’s not hitting baby) as the steam helps heat the room to keep baby happy.
Step 5
Wash baby! I find that baby is much happier being pulled out of their bath into a steamy warm room too, and dry them off as much as you’re able before leaving the bathroom.
This is my routine and it’s been a game changer. Hitting two birds with one stone, no need to worry about baby crying in another room while I’m showering. I also try to time it when baby has had a feed and just had a big poop so they’ll be most content.
Hang a mobile over your baby changing space
Since around two weeks old my newborn was much less happy sitting in his bouncer seat. He doesn’t lay in his play gym for long either. I felt like I never got more than two minutes to wolf down a meal before I was back holding my sweet little one. But stumbling upon this hack has really helped me in this area.
Hang a baby mobile above your downstairs changing station!
We have a designated changing area downstairs, a foam changing pad on a desk which has a shelf positioned directly above. It’s also right next to our dining table. I decided on a whim to hang our barely used baby mobile from the shelf bracket above the changing area so that baby could watch it while he laid there.
Amazingly, he absolutely loves watching it spin around, he will excitedly kick his legs and flail his arms for a good while! Maybe it’s the more dramatic spinning movement compared to the wobbling of a few hanging toys, whatever it is, it works! So resist putting it over their cot thinking it’ll send baby to sleep, ditch that aesthetic set up and let it entertain them!
Position a chair next to them so you’re close by and then you can have more chance to comfortably eat at meal times - win!
Ditch the pram
Having my second baby has confirmed that for me, a pram is useless during those first few months of life. Wearing baby in a sling has been a life saver. I have no idea how anyone gets anything done without one, or manages to get out of the house easily with a newborn! I truly believe that newborns need and thrive from closeness and security from mum most of the time, it regulates their temperature, their emotions and helps build attachment. Whenever I’ve tried leaving the house with either of my children as newborns in a pram, it’s only ever resulted in an unhappy baby, lots of tears and a stressed mama.
With my first I suppose I just thought prams were normal, maybe I felt the need to show my new baby off when going outside, thinking that family will want to see and interact with them. But now my main concern is always what’s going to keep my baby most content, what does he need most? Security and closeness. In the first two months my babies have happily fallen asleep in a sling and stayed asleep for 1-3 hours. At 8 weeks I’m starting to use a structured carrier with my son as he’s awake more and starting to enjoy his surroundings (facing inward).
People may see it as an inconvenience to me, having baby tied or strapped onto me so much but I couldn’t disagree more.. I can rest knowing he’s content and get some hands free time.
Researchers have found that babywearing for three hours a day reduced infant crying by 43 percent overall and 54 percent during evening hours.
Buy the sling and/or baby carrier! Let baby sleep on your chest while you take a shopping trip, or enjoy a walk. You won’t regret it.
Cosleeping
When my first was born I was fiercely against co-sleeping and I spent about a week desperately trying to get her to sleep in a moses basket. But after being faced with the reality of barely an hour or twos sleep at night, my baby waking so quickly after I put her down time and time again, I was completely exhausted and terrified of the sleeplessness that lied ahead and how I would cope. It made me question everything.
I remember thinking.. this can’t be right, this can’t be normal, surely this isn’t how it’s going to be?
A friend had told me while I was pregnant that she coslept and I’d not given it much thought until then. I did some deeper research and hesitantly trialed one night, following all the safe-sleep protocol. Lo and behold, baby and I had an incredible nights sleep. Since then she has slept through the night for the majority of time, (dream feeding through the night when I breastfed) and my son at 8 weeks now is very similar.
It really saddens me that mothers are made to fear co-sleeping and are taught in the west that it’s dangerous, when in reality it’s simply biologically natural. Looking at the facts, the lowest SIDS rates in the world are in countries where bedsharing is traditional, for instance parts of Asia and South Asia including Japan, where up to 70% of individuals co-sleep.
It is not bedsharing per se, but the condition of the adult and safety of the sleeping environment that leads to infant deaths. A 2009 study by public health officials in Alaska found that 99% of the babies who died had at least one of these risks: sleeping with someone other than the mother, maternal tobacco use, impaired bed partner (alcohol use), sleeping face down position, or on a sofa or waterbed. A 2014 study by Blair et al. of 400 SIDS cases from the 1990s and mid 2000s found no increased risk of bedsharing in the absence of hazards.
Co- sleeping babies also spend more time in lighter stages of sleep which is thought to be physiologically more appropriate for young infants, and more conducive to safe sleep for babies.
The NICE Addendum states “it would be inappropriate to use the term risk when considering SIDS and co-sleeping as the causes of SIDS are likely to be multi-factional and a possible causality link with co-sleeping is not clearly defined”.
I would love to write a full blog post on co-sleeping and the science and evidence surrounding it. It’s a big topic that definitely deserves more time, but I hope if it’s something you’re considering you give it further research.
I encourage other mothers to give these hacks a try, God willing they can offer some ease to someone and help you enjoy motherhood.
Peace be upon you,
An English Muslim Homemaker
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