The First Week Home With Baby: What to Expect

Bringing your baby home is exciting, emotional, exhausting — and sometimes a little surreal. You spend months preparing for birth, and then suddenly you are home with this tiny person wondering: Are they eating enough? Is this much sleeping normal? Why am I crying? Should their poop look like that? The first week is a period of enormous adjustment for both you and your baby. You are recovering from pregnancy and birth while your newborn is learning how to feed, sleep, regulate their body temperature, and adjust to life outside the womb.

You do not need to have everything figured out. Here is a realistic look at what that first week may bring.

Days 1–2: Getting to Know Each Other

During the first couple of days, many newborns are quite sleepy.

You may notice your baby:

• Sleeping for much of the day

• Having short periods of quiet alertness

• Wanting frequent feeding opportunities

• Passing dark, sticky meconium stools

• Having only a small number of wet diapers at first

• Wanting to be held almost constantly

If you are breastfeeding, your baby will initially receive colostrum, the thick, concentrated early milk your body produces in small amounts. Frequent feeding helps stimulate milk production. It is recommended to feed based on your baby's cues and, when families need a general guide in the early postpartum period, offering the breast at least eight times in 24 hours. Skin-to-skin contact can also be a wonderful way to help baby settle and encourage feeding.

And what about you?

Your body has just done something enormous.

During the first few days, you may experience:

• Vaginal bleeding

• Cramping or “afterpains”

• Perineal soreness or swelling

• Caesarean incision discomfort

• Breast tenderness

• Sweating

• Exhaustion

• A surprising mix of emotions

Give yourself permission to recover. This is not the week to worry about getting back into a routine.

Days 3–5: Things May Feel More Intense

For many families, days three through five are some of the biggest adjustment days. Your baby may suddenly seem more awake and much more interested in feeding.

You may notice:

• Cluster feeding

• More frequent waking

• More wet and dirty diapers

• Stools beginning to change from dark meconium to lighter green, brown, and eventually yellow

• Increasing interest in feeding

• Some yellow colouring of the skin or eyes

It is also around this time that newborn weight loss often reaches its lowest point and bilirubin levels commonly peak, which is one reason early newborn follow-up is so important.

Your milk may be changing too

If you are breastfeeding, your breasts may begin to feel:

• Fuller

• Heavier

• Warmer

• Firmer than they did during the first couple of days

This is often when parents say their milk has “come in.” Your baby may want to feed frequently during this transition. Frequent feeding does not automatically mean that you are not producing enough milk.

What About Jaundice?

Jaundice causes a yellow colour to the baby's skin or the whites of the eyes and is common during the newborn period. However, jaundice should still be assessed. It is recommended that jaundiced infants be evaluated by an experienced healthcare professional to determine whether testing or treatment is needed.

Contact your baby's healthcare provider if:

• Yellowing seems to be increasing

• Baby is becoming increasingly sleepy

• Baby is difficult to wake for feeds

• Feeding is not going well

• You are concerned about diaper output

• Something simply does not seem right

Days 5–7: You're Beginning to Learn Your Baby

By the end of the first week, you probably still will not have a “schedule.” And that is completely okay. What you may begin to notice instead are patterns.

You might recognize:

• The little movements your baby makes when hungry

• Their favourite feeding position

• How they like to be soothed

• When they tend to cluster feed

• The sounds they make before waking

• What their normal diapers look like

You are beginning to learn your baby — and your baby is learning you. That confidence develops gradually.

Diapers Tell Us a Lot

One of the simplest ways to get information about newborn feeding and hydration is to watch diaper output. Wet and dirty diapers should generally increase throughout the first several days as feeding becomes established. By later in the first week, adequately feeding babies typically have increasingly frequent wet diapers, and stools should have transitioned away from the dark, sticky meconium of the first days. If your baby is producing fewer wet diapers than expected or diaper output suddenly decreases, contact your healthcare provider.

What Should Postpartum Bleeding Look Like?

Postpartum vaginal bleeding is called lochia. During the first few days, bleeding is generally dark or bright red and may include some small clots. Over the first week, it should gradually become lighter and often changes toward a pinkish-brown colour. You may notice a temporary increase after being more active. Consider that your body's way of reminding you: You are still healing.

Heavy bleeding is different. It is important to contact a healthcare provider for concerning bleeding such as soaking a pad in an hour twice in a row, very large clots, foul-smelling discharge, persistent abdominal pain, or fever.

Your Emotions May Surprise You

You can be incredibly happy that your baby is here and still find yourself crying while standing in the kitchen.

The early postpartum period can bring:

• Happiness

• Anxiety

• Irritability

• Overwhelm

• Tearfulness

• Protectiveness

• Loneliness

• Confidence one minute and complete uncertainty the next

Hormonal changes, physical recovery, sleep deprivation, feeding challenges, and suddenly being responsible for another human being are a lot to process. You do not have to pretend everything is wonderful simply because you love your baby. If emotional symptoms feel intense, frightening, are getting worse, or are making it difficult to function, talk with your healthcare provider.

Newborn Sleep Is...Interesting

Your newborn has absolutely no idea that nighttime is supposed to be for sleeping. Newborns wake frequently to eat and may have their longest awake period at precisely the moment you would like to go to bed.

Rather than trying to create a strict sleep schedule during the first week, focus on:

• Feeding according to your baby's needs

• Using a safe sleep space

• Sharing nighttime responsibilities when possible

• Resting whenever you realistically can

• Accepting help

• Letting non-essential tasks wait

There will be time for routines later. For now, everyone is adjusting.

Don't Skip Baby's Follow-Up

Newborn follow-up during the first week is important.

Your baby's healthcare provider may:

• Check their weight

• Assess feeding

• Look for jaundice

• Perform a general newborn examination

• Discuss diaper output

• Complete any screening that still needs to be done

• Ask how your family is adjusting

Babies are usually checked during the first week, and earlier follow-up may be required depending on when baby was discharged and their individual needs.

When Should You Call Someone?

One of the hardest things about being a new parent is figuring out what is normal.

Contact your healthcare provider if your baby:

• Is unusually difficult to wake

• Is feeding poorly or repeatedly refusing feeds

• Has fewer wet diapers than expected

• Is becoming increasingly jaundiced

• Repeatedly vomits

• Seems unusually sleepy or unwell

• Has difficulty breathing or concerning colour changes

And remember to pay attention to your own body too.

Seek medical advice for concerns such as:

• Heavy or suddenly increasing bleeding

• Fever or chills

• Foul-smelling discharge

• Increasing abdominal, pelvic, perineal, or incision pain

• Severe or concerning headache

• Chest pain or shortness of breath

• Feeling extremely unwell

• Significant concerns about your emotional well-being

Postpartum care is not only about checking the baby. You are still a patient too.

Give Yourself Grace

Your first week home does not need to be picture-perfect. Your house may be messy.

You may wear the same pajamas for two days. Dinner might be cereal. You may forget what day it is. Your baby may want to feed right after you finally get comfortable. And visitors might arrive at exactly the moment everyone starts crying. None of that means you are doing anything wrong. The first week is about feeding, healing, resting, learning, and getting to know each other.

Everything else can wait.

Alicia's RN Tip Lower the expectations for the first week. Feed your baby. Feed yourself. Keep your water bottle nearby. Rest whenever you get the opportunity and let other people handle the dishes, laundry, meals, and errands. Your job right now is not to “bounce back.” It is to recover, learn your baby, and ask for support when you need it.

You Don't Have to Figure It Out Alone

Those first days home can bring a hundred little questions that did not occur to you before your baby arrived. Sometimes you need medical assessment. Sometimes you need feeding support. And sometimes you simply need someone experienced to tell you, “Yes, this is normal.” That is exactly why postpartum support exists.

At Georgian Bay Postpartum Nursing, I provide compassionate, evidence-based support for parents and newborns during the transition home — because bringing home a baby should not mean suddenly having to figure everything out on your own.

Support for you, not just your baby.