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Well done for getting through nine months of pain and discomfort, the labour and birth and welcome to the next chapter!
You may have felt when you left the maternity ward, “are you just going to let me walk out of here with this baby in this car seat? Is there no more questions, no exams to make sure I know what I am doing?” I know I felt shell shocked enough that “I”, little old “me”, had just given BIRTH! And got through it, then to be told I am fine, and baby is fine to go home! What do we do when we get home, I remember asking myself, what comes first, how should I feel, what is my routine when I get home?
In a nutshell what I am trying to say to you is, the days and weeks following the birth of your baby are painful, tough, rough, stressful, tearful, tiring, loving, beautiful, enlightening and so many other emotions rolled up into one big one! I will attempt to remember the best tips I was given and some I made up myself to help you get through the first 3 months.
• Be realistic -babies can disrupt the most organised household so take each day as it comes. Accept you’ll feel tired and emotional at times and don’t set unrealistic targets. Getting dressed by lunchtime may feel like a major achievement if you remember to do that! Having a shower when you’re on your own is another great hurdle to get over.
• Start teaching your baby that going to bed at night is different from a daytime nap. During the day, try putting baby down in the mosses basket in the living room,
This way you can get on with things you need to do and baby is getting used to sounds during the day that will always be there. Don’t stress too much if a truck goes by and wakes baby up, this will happen all the time and it’s a good way of getting over it and used to it at the same time. At night, always take baby to the room he/she sleeps in, draw the curtains (use a black out lining) and leave just a nightlight on.
• If you are breastfeeding, it is stressful when you are getting up to feed, but ask your partner to do the “winding/burping”, while you settle back down. Don’t think a bottle of formula would be better in the night, just because you are doing all the feeding, it’s just as much bother as breastfeeding, and once you are awake, you’re awake! A bottle or a breast doesn’t make a difference at all.
• Don’t loose sight of the health benefits breastfeeding has. It is very stressful and demanding at times, but only you can get yourself through it. I would say the first 12 weeks are TOUGH, after that it got very very easy and I was so glad I got through it on my own! Despite family members always saying to me “that baby needs more milk, put her on the bottle she will settle better”. Well that was a load of rubbish, I did that with my first baby and breast or bottle, she still screamed! It wasn’t what the milk tasted like, it was “Colic” that was making her upset, and just by changing milk, doesn’t change anything.
• Accept help when offered – if you get offered meals made for you TAKE THEM or cleaning done, TAKE IT – don’t be a super mum, you don’t need to, you already are! Believe me if you DONT take these offers of good will, they will never come back round again! Usually you only get these offers of help at the start then they fade out as the months go on.
• If you are stressed out and feeling “trapped”, put baby in the car seat and go for a drive. Baby will fall asleep very quickly (I always found a classical radio station did the trick in seconds!) and you can take a drive around to relax. I actually used to do this at afternoon nap times, and as soon as baby went to sleep, I would go for a drive through (not every day!) and have a peaceful lunch on my lap.
All in all, just go with the flow, don’t be too wrapped up in “what you should be doing” as per some “baby experts”, they are not going through what you are going through at that time. Do whatever you need to do, to enable you to enjoy your new baby and stay relaxed. Happy parenting!
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