After three pregnancies and three babies, you would think the first weeks home with a newborn would feel less alien. For me, they never did. 

Those early days with a new baby are magical and mysterious and exhausting and exhilarating—no matter how many times you’ve done it. My kids are big kids now. Eleven, seven, and five. But the memories of their newborn-ness are as sharp as they’ve ever been. I wish I could go back sometimes, just for a few days, to feel the electric blast and wild bliss of it all again. 

But in the absence of time travel, I’ll do the next best thing: share some hard-won know-how to help you weather the sea-change from pregnant woman to mom. To let you know that it’s all normal, it’s all okay, and to remind you (gently) to try your best to enjoy it all.

It’s Going to Feel Nuts 

You are going to walk into your house or apartment holding your baby for the first time and you will wonder where the people who are supposed to take care of this baby are hiding. When the thrill and terror of those first steps across the threshold settle, you won’t know what to do with your body. Am I supposed to put this baby down? Entertain it somehow? Should I sit or stand? You’re going to feel like someone just dressed you up in a “human mother” costume and plunked you on the set of a very realistic docuseries. Then, they misplaced the script. 

Don’t worry. This feeling will fade. You, your partner (if you have one), and your baby are exactly where you’re supposed to be. The mother costume will start to feel real, comfortable even. You’ll experiment with where to sit, what to do, and how to just be with your baby. (And, no, you don’t need to entertain them. Babies are in the flow of the wonder of life. No shiny baubles required.)

You May Experience a Direct Download From the Universe

File this under “believe it or not,” but a day or so after I gave birth to my first child, while alone in the hospital room with her, I experienced what I can only describe as an instantaneous systems upgrade. There I was, looking down at my newborn, still wobbly from childbirth, and the thought occurred to me: “I know everything about this baby.” It was as if a manual on childcare had been uploaded into my head and heart. I had skills that I swear I did not have mere days before.  

I have checked with my husband: this is a mom thing. Not a dad thing. 

If you experience this motherhood-upgrade, trust it. You are stepping into a tradition that has existed since time began. Of course you know what to do. The species depends on it*.

*Also, if you don’t know what to do, that’s okay too. Sometimes the download takes a few days, weeks, or months. But trust me, the know-how is in there. You’ll access it when the time is right. 

There Will Be Crying 

Yours. Your baby’s. Your husband/wife/other’s. Your mom’s (if you’re lucky enough to have one of those). Babies break hearts wide open. If you’re not comfortable with copious amounts of tears—and the loudness that goes along with them—I’d get some practice before your baby arrives. (Maybe get yourself invited to one of those indoor play spaces where they serve lukewarm coffee to the parents—the one ray of light in the cacophony of tantrums. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.)

You are embarking on a totally new adventure with your newborn. Your baby has never lived in the world. You have never been a mother. To cross through the portal together is going to require some shedding of skin: tears will help you get there. 

There Will Be Poop

So much poop. You will never think, talk, examine, or care about poop more than you do when you bring home your baby. It will also be everywhere and get on you, so get ready. When my oldest, my daughter, was a newborn we had a white shag rug in our living room. I, novice that I was, decided to change her wet diaper on said white shag rug. In the exact moment that I removed her diaper, she pooped in a way that I can only describe as explosive. Poop shot like a geyser from her little bottom and Jackson Pollacked the formerly white rug. So, yeah. 

Don’t Change a Diaper on a White Rug

See above.

There Will Be Magic 

I don’t know about you, but before I had my babies, I had never been around a newborn. Other babies, sure, but a newborn? Never. If you’re a newborn newbie, I have some good news for you: newborn babies are magic. 

Don’t let naysayers cloud your vision with talk of sleeplessness and need and colic. Forget about all that stuff for a minute. None of it matters when you’re in the presence of a newborn. I don’t know why it is, maybe because they’re still connected to whatever existence before physical birth is—in the cloud-lands with all the other soon-to-souls—but there is something other-worldly about a newborn. They’re here, but also…not. Nothing is in the way of their presence. No labels. No know-how. They are just living, breathing bundles of enlightenment. 

You can argue with me on this point, I will not change my mind. Newborns are magic and you, lucky Mommy, are the direct recipient of that magic. Don’t distract yourself too much with phones or visits or waddling trips to coffee shops in those early hours and days. Soak in the magic. It goes as quickly as it arrives, and you won’t want to miss it. 

It Will Be Hard to Eat Food

Not because you won’t be hungry—you will be starving all the time, especially if you’re breastfeeding. It will be hard to eat food because you will almost always have a baby on you. Maybe the baby is nursing. Maybe the baby fell asleep in your arms. Maybe the baby has been crying so much that you don’t dare put them down. Whatever the reason, you are going to have to figure out how to eat copious amounts of food with a baby in your arms.

If a meal train is coming your way, encourage your well-meaning friends and neighbors to bring you food that you can easily eat with one hand. A well-wrapped burrito, perhaps. A tidy burger. Finger foods of all varieties. That complicated pasta that barely stays on a fork just isn’t going to cut it when you’re multi-tasking baby care. 

It Might Be Hard to Rest

Maybe you’re a unicorn-type woman who has no problem extending herself grace and practicing self-care. If so, you can skip this section. If, however, you are a normal human woman who has osmosed the cultural message of “Always Be Doing,” the R&R required in the weeks and months postpartum might be challenging for you. You will prioritize sleep, because your life depends on it, but you might struggle with rest. 

What do I mean by “rest?” I mean, keeping your body down. Sitting. Laying. Lounging. Rest means eating good foods and drinking lots of water. It means doing nothing for as long as you can. It means letting other people do the dishes, take out the trash, change the diapers, make the food. It means luxuriating in care from others, allowing yourself to be pampered and treated like the goddess that you are. 

Childbirth is a kind of trauma. Your body is blown open, in ways both literal and spiritual. It is a doorway into an entirely new way of existing and it needs to be honored. In some cultures, new moms spend the first forty days after childbirth in bed. Forty days. In bed. That, my friend, is proper rest. 

You might not be able to manage a month-plus in your bedroom, but you can definitely stake a claim on your couch and let the people around you do the chores for a while. There will be plenty of time down the road for you to bustle around and do it all. In those early weeks, your only job should be to care for your baby and be sweet to your own miraculous self. 

You Will Have So Many Questions 

Oh sure, you’ll get brochures and pamphlets and books and advice all the way through pregnancy and the immediate aftermath of birth, but it still won’t be enough. Not even close. Your baby is the one and only “your baby” that’s ever been. It will have needs and tendencies and idiosyncrasies that you could never, in a million years, prepare for. You will have burning questions about the most mundane and most fantastical things, and you are going to need a resource for answering them.

Figure out the people and places you can turn to for help and get them on speed dial. New parenthood is a mystery, and you will be especially vulnerable to worry about your newborn’s well-being. So, when your baby turns their head in some way that just “looks weird,” you want to know who you can turn to for reassurance. 

Pro tip: it’s probably not your pediatrician. Pediatricians are amazing, but they’re busy and many have grown immune to the terror of new parenthood. They might not have the time or inclination to answer your every little query, so find some well-educated friends or parents who have been to this rodeo before and utilize them. 

It Will Go By So Fast

I know, you’ve already heard this. Everyone tells you this. But everyone tells it to you because it’s true. And even though we all know it, it still takes us by surprise. The days are so long when you have a new baby. There is so much nursing and diapering and soothing and bouncing and gazing—every moment feels intense and immense. You think you’ll remember every momentous piece of it and then…

Time passes. 

Your babies are replaced by toddlers. Then big kids. Teenagers. The moments you thought were indelible start to fade. The first time they roll over is replaced in your memory banks by the first goal they score in soccer. You see shadows and remnants of the baby that once was on the sleeping face of your eleven-year-old, but that’s all they are: shadows. A flickering “remember when.” 

It goes by so fast. There is nothing to be done about it but to try and remember, even just once in a while, that this baby in your arms will grow so big she won’t even fit on your lap anymore. Breathe her in. Smell the top of her head so often it makes you look like a cuckoo. Run your fingers down the bridge of her tiny nose. Make note of the weight of her sleeping head and the sound of her breath, in and out, against your chest. 

There is nothing better than your baby. Yes, first-time motherhood is hard. Yes, it’s exhausting. Yes, it will test you in ways you can’t even imagine, but on the scale of good and bad those things are featherweights. Cherish every wet, disastrous, ridiculous, hungry moment. It will not last, and you will never get to do it for the first time, ever again. 

I’m so excited for you. 

Read Next: The 14 Friends You Need in Your Postpartum Mom Crew