Dr. Greene's Top 5 Tips for New Parents

1. Get your home in order before the baby arrives: Clean, organize, and find a place to store all baby products, so they can be easily accessible.

2. Find the places that are open all night and who will deliver to your home – keep a running and accessible list of nearby pharmacies, grocery stores, etc. and have these numbers readily available.

3. Keeping your baby safe is important. Choosing products that are BPA- and toxic-chemical-free is a key part of protecting your baby. One way to help do this is to choose products from a company like BornFree, whose entire line of baby bottles, pacifiers, teethers, training cups, extra niples, etc., is free of BPA, phthalates, and other estrogens. You can purchase them easily at www.newbornfree.com, Whole Foods, and various outlets across the country. With each new choice, keep your baby's safety and health in mind.

4. Try and get on a good sleep schedule ahead of time to adjust to both your needs and your baby needs. Once the baby arrives, try to nap when the baby naps. Nursing helps with this (in addition to providing the very best food for your baby and improving your own health) by making you and your baby drowsy after feeds. When your baby is awake and not nursing, taking turns between parents, when possible, is a great way to ensure both parties are tending to the baby while taking care of their own health as well and getting as much rest as they possibly can.

5. Read up beforehand and don’t be afraid to ask your pediatrician questions even before the baby arrives in your home such as what to expect for feeding, sleeping and general care of your child.

Dr. Alan Greene - As a father of four himself, Dr. Greene has devoted himself to freely giving real answers to parents' real questions -- from questions about those all too common childhood conditions to those that address the most rare childhood illnesses. Dr. Greene is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of California at San Francisco. Upon completion of his pediatric residency program at Children's Hospital Medical Center of Northern California he served as Chief Resident. He entered primary care pediatrics in January 1993. He is now a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine, an Attending Pediatrician at Packard Children's Hospital, and a Senior Fellow at the University California San Francisco Center for the Health Professions. Dr. Greene is the author of Feeding Baby Green and Raising Baby Green.