It’s 8:45am and my 7-month-old daughter has just woken up from her morning nap. She doesn’t usually go down for her first nap until 9am, but she’s been up since 5:30am, so her entire sleep schedule is off.

The truth is, I loved her before I even laid eyes on her. Before she appeared on the ultrasound monitor as a tiny white speck.

1. Get a good nursing pillow. One of the biggest challenges that I had with breastfeeding was simply getting comfortable.

If you and your partner are about to become parents for the first time, you’ve likely heard the same lament from friends with kids: prepare for your relationship to change forever.

I remember the day, as if it were yesterday, when we arrived home with our newborn for the very first time. After spending many hours in labour, I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I was also quite anxious.

I’m sitting at the top of the stairs silently reserving my spot in Hell. My daughter, almost seven months old, is in her crib screaming at the top of her lungs and crying so hard I can actually hear that it hurts.

Along with feeling that being a parent is the most wonderful thing in the world, moms, especially those who are home all day with their baby, often feel stretched thin and overwhelmed with a laundry list of parental responsibilities.

Y’know that old saying “Where there’s a baby there’s baby stuff?” No? Oh. Maybe that’s because I just made it up. Anyway it should be an “old saying” because it’s true:

If you live in the same city as your parents or siblings, you may have experienced the benefits of having family support close by. You may also be all too familiar with the drawbacks of well intentioned relatives overstepping boundaries that are not always easy to enforce when the babysitters come for free.

Babies are unpredictable, not to mention messy. Be prepared for anything with a fully-stocked diaper bag.