The first six weeks with a newborn, by the hour

The first six weeks with a newborn run on a clock you cannot read. Day and night blur. The phone says 3am, then it says 3pm, then it says 3am again. You will look at the kettle and forget what the kettle does.

I tracked the first six weeks because tracking is what I do. The numbers helped me understand what was happening to my brain. They might help yours.

Week one: the dazed week

Week one is not real. You will think it is. It is not. Whatever you do in week one, do not make decisions in week one.

A newborn in week one feeds roughly every two to three hours, which sounds manageable on paper. It is not on paper. The two-to-three hours is from start of feed to start of feed, not from end of feed to start of feed. A breastfeed plus a nappy plus a settle is forty-five minutes, sometimes ninety. The window of sleep between is small, and you will spend half of it staring at the bassinet.

Your job in week one:

• Bring water to your partner every time she sits down to feed
• Do every nappy you can do (this is the most useful single thing)
• Wind, swaddle, and settle after the feeds she does
• Manage food coming into the house (the freezer / the deliveries / the relatives bringing soup)
• Be the door (decide who comes in, when, and for how long)

The body of a postpartum partner is doing repair work that you cannot see. She is bleeding, leaking, healing, and probably crying somewhere around day three to five when the milk comes in. Do not panic. The day-three cry is famous. It passes.

Week two: the small breakthrough

Around day eight to ten you will get a stretch. The baby will sleep for four hours and you will both wake up convinced something is wrong. Nothing is wrong. This is the first hint that there is a person in there with a rhythm.

This is also when the visitors stop being a novelty and become a tax. A friend who pops in for an hour is taking an hour out of the only window you had to sleep. Be ruthless. Move people to weeks three and four. Anyone who is offended is not someone you owe anything to right now.

Things to do in week two:

• Register the birth (free if within 60 days, online via your state's registry)
• Submit the Medicare newborn enrolment via myGov
• Start the Centrelink claim for Family Tax Benefit and any newborn payments you are eligible for (rates and thresholds change, check the current figures)
• Book the maternal child health nurse visit if it has not happened
• Book the six-week GP check-ups for both your partner and the baby

Doing the admin in week two is unfair to week-two you, but it is generous to week-six you. The calendar will get worse before it gets better.

Week three: the witching hour appears

Around three weeks in, an evening pattern emerges that I did not expect. Between roughly 5pm and 10pm, the baby will get fussier, feed more frequently, refuse to settle, and cry in a way that does not seem to have a cause. This is sometimes called the witching hour, although it is rarely an hour.

The witching hour is normal. It coincides with the moment in the day when your partner's milk supply is at its lowest, the baby is most overstimulated, and you are both most tired. It is not a problem to solve. It is a window to survive.

What helps:

• A long evening walk in the pram, outside, even if the weather is mediocre
• A bath (theirs, then yours)
• A baby carrier so the baby is upright on someone's chest
• White noise (the dryer, the shower, an app)
• Tag-teaming. Twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off. The handoff is the rest.

Order dinner during the witching hour. Do not try to cook. Future you will thank present you.

Week four: the social smile

Around four to six weeks the baby will, one day, look at you and smile. A real smile. Not wind. The first one will undo you.

This is also the week the fog you have been in starts to lift slightly. You will notice that you have a body. You will notice that you have not exercised. You will notice that you have eaten beige food for a month. The lift is small. Do not get cocky.

Now is the moment to:

• Get outside, every day, for a walk, with the pram, with your partner if she is up to it
• Start one small ritual that is just yours (a coffee on the porch, a podcast in the car, ten minutes of stretching)
• Check in with your partner, properly, sitting down, asking the actual question (how are you, not how are you with the baby)
• Ask her how she is sleeping, eating, and feeling, and listen to the answers without trying to solve

If she has been crying daily past two weeks, if she is flat or angry or detached from the baby, say something to the maternal child health nurse or the GP. Postnatal depression and anxiety are common, treatable, and not anyone's fault. Around 1 in 7 mothers and 1 in 10 dads experience postnatal depression in Australia. The numbers do not care how much you love each other.

Week five: the routine fingerprint

By week five a shape emerges. Not a routine. A shape. The baby tends to feed at certain times, has a longer stretch at a certain point in the night, gets fussy at a certain point in the evening. The shape is not the same as the books. It is yours.

Stop trying to make it look like the books. The shape is the shape. Work with it.

A practical sleep note: in Australia, Red Nose guidelines recommend the baby sleeps on their back, in their own safe sleep space, in your room for the first six to twelve months. No bumpers, no loose blankets, no pillows, room not too warm. This is not negotiable, and the guideline is consistent across the developed world for a reason.

Week six: the check-up

Six weeks is the marker. Both of you should see a GP. Your partner gets a postnatal check, including a mood screen and a check of stitches, pelvic floor, and general recovery. The baby gets weighed, measured, and given vaccinations.

You will probably not be checked. Check yourself anyway. Are you sleeping when you can. Are you eating. Are you drinking less or more than you used to. Are you snapping at people. Are you avoiding people. Write down the answers.

What I wish I had known

Six weeks is not a finish line. It is the end of the first lap. You will not be back to normal at six weeks. You will not be back to normal at six months. You will be a different normal, and the new normal is mostly better, and entirely yours.

The hours that felt longest in week one will be the hours you miss in year one.

Hold the baby. Drink the water. Do the nappy.