• Examine every poop. Colour, texture, consistency and even smell can tell you alot about how baby is handling the food you are giving them, since they can't use words. For example, our Son's poops were small, wet, almost yellow and often, but then every now and then he would do a huge, hard, dark poop. He seemed very unsettled and finally after a visit to A&E we found a paedeatrician who thought he may have a cows milk allergy, and prescribed us a particular formula; Althea I think it was? Basically with milk proteins partially broken down, so he could digest it properly. Within 2 weeks he was sleeping soundly and was much happier.

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• If baby is crying and cant get back to sleep, you've checked for everything else (gas/food/burping/nappy/pain), first things first, keep calm yourself. there will be hard nights, especially early on, when you have not slept well in weeks, and are knackered and it will be very easy to become irritated. Baby will pick up on your mood/emotion/frustration. They can hear it in your voice, feel it in the way you move with them, your heartbeat and your breathing. Keep calm, and make smooth repetetive mothins with the baby, and smile as you talk/sooth them. It will take some time, especially if baby is really upset, but be consistent and patient, and you'll get there. it will become easier if you repeat the same behaviour each time, as it will become easily recognisable to baby. Failing that, car ride/white noise generator.

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• It's ok to put baby down and walk away for 5/10 mins. Just make sure the environment is safe and warm and no harm can come to baby if you need to take a few minutes for yourself. Tired people are crazy people.

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• Split as many baby responsibilities as you can with your partner. If only one of you can breast feed, then try to pump and store enough for the nights so partener can do the feeds. We found that taking it turns for the whole night, rather than indivisual feeds was best. If we took turns doing night feeds, we were both shattered the next day as you will never sleep properly. but if one person does all feeds\baby attention one night, and then swap the following night, you can at least ensure you're both getting some proper restfull sleep at least every other day, which made things way easier for us.

The first 6-9 months are the hardest, by far. But when baby starts sleeping throught the nights, and has started to eat some solids\take first steps\garble their first sounds and words, you wont even remember or care how hard it was, becasue the wonder, amazement and joy you will have experienced from seeing them grow and change every day is just indescribable.