MY BABY EXPERIENCE – Page 11

BABY SLEEPING ROUTINES: WHEN? HOW? WHY?

I always was very much against running your life around baby …. My opinion has changed slightly after the first 2 months of having my own baby 🙂
When Chloe was around 12 weeks I noticed that she would only fall asleep on my breast and have a nap whenever she wanted to. This meant not much time at all for anything else in the day, and evening filled with either Chloe crying or Chloe being on my chest 🙂 .
After another evening of Chloe crying whenever we put her in to her moses basket I hit the internet…. Big big big mistake…. you start reading about everything what you do wrong, what you don’t do and you should do, and it just makes you feel like shit !!!! Then you start reading about ways to get you in to this perfect routine and thats when your head starts spinning !!! There is around 100 different ways of getting a good routine !!! Its crazy and my head is spinning just thinking about it.

FEEDING ROUTINE
From the very beginning I knew that I was against schedule feeding, there is a reason why doctors tell you to feed on demand. How do you explain to 3 days old baby that it needs to wait 25 minutes before getting milk as it’s not the feeding time yet ?????It may work for some parents but I didn’t want to try it.

DAILY ROUTINE
I knew that I didn’t agree with putting a newborn baby on a daily routine as in my opinion they are way too small for it. First of all they need to get used to this new scary word, scary smells, sounds etc and to do so they need to be dotted on. I do believe that in the beginning they know best what they want and when they want it. Not sleeping, not knowing what comes next it’s a part of having a newborn baby !

Me and my husband from the start have been letting Chloe do what she wanted: we feed her (or shall I say I feed her as my husband doesn’t have a milk coming out of his breast) when she was hungry, she was sleeping when she wanted, we been going out to the shops and cafes, walks etc when we felt like it.

As Chloe was getting bigger and we have been told by all of the informations we found on the internet that we aren’t doing it right we thought its time to set the routines in place. Apparently the reason our baby cries is because I got her use to sleeping on my breasts, she doesn’t know how to comfort herself and she is also tired because she doesn’t have a daily routine. I asked myself what do I want to achieve and what will benefit my baby?

For a week I stayed more at home and started observing Chloe. I started noticing when she is tired ( 10:00, 13:00 and 16:00) and thats when I started putting her in to her moses basket for a nap. I would give her a dummy and a comfort blanket, she would snuggle her face in to the comfort blanket and fall asleep. No, it wasn’t as easy and just doing that 🙂 it took us few days to get the routine going. On the beginning she would cry cry and cry then fall asleep. Now I just put her in to her basket and she is out.
I do admit that having a strutter in a day has helped her and me. I finally could predict what will happen 🙂 and when I can do some things around the house :-).

Did it help with her sleeping at night? no.

We always have been lucky when it comes to nights. Chloe would wake up for her feeds and then go back straight to sleep, it’s the evenings which were proving difficult which I mentioned in previous posts.
She still was for a while, quite unsetteld in the evening when we put her down into her moses basket. I think that it was just normal transition which she had to make.Come on its hard to sleep in a basket if you can in the safe place of your mums arms. We changed her evening routine a bit, after bath my husband started reading her a story. We also moved her basket in the evening to our bedroom so she could start falling asleep there instead of being with us in the living room. After a few days she started to fall asleep on her own and the screaming has stopped.

Is routine good? Yes, it is.
Does it work? Yes, it does but its not an answer to everything.
What routine is best? It depends on you. We have a bed time routine and we have set times for naps and thats it! I still feed my baby when she wants to eat ( which is very predictable now). If we want or need to go out and its Chloe’s nap time then we will let her sleep in the car or pram. I just wanted to have a healthy balance between Chloe’s needs for a routine and having a life.

My advice is yes baby needs a routine, routine which suits your baby and your life. Remember that every baby is different and needs different things, every parent is different and lives different life style….

Thats the moments which make up for everything

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

LOOSING THE BABY WEIGHT AND BABY BUMP …. 😳😳😳

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

HOW DO YOU DO IT ?
DO I HAVE TO ?
WONT MY BODY GO BACK TO HOW IT WAS ITSELF ?
Apparently answer to the tree above is NO !
Oh and all of the sugar that I was eating apparently isn’t allowed anymore 😳

My Baby Girl is now almost 4 months. The first 2 months I had every right to eat all of those biscuits and chocolates as much as I wanted to (with the stress of being a new mum, sleep deprivation and pressure of being a yummy mummy 😃) and you can’t exercise anyway for the first 6 weeks minimum, let’s be honest non of us has the energy to do it anyway!!
By month 3 I run out of excuses and started getting depressed that I can’t fit in to any of my old clothes. Don’t get me wrong I eat healthy, excluding all of the sweets but if I wanted to loose what was left of my baby bump and get my flat stomach back I needed to act. Easier said that done….It took me a while to get started. I got the 7 minute workload app as I should be able to do it easily around looking after baby. I also got the DVD to work on my belly and getting this skin shrunk back !!!! It wasn’t easy doing it every morning because of Chloe and my laziness:-) but I am doing it now and I can see the results !!! Thought the woman from the DVD annoy the hell out of me !!!
The nicest form of exercise though is going power walking with Chloe strapped to my chest!!!! Gets me out of the house, Chloe gets lots of air and it doesn’t feel like exercise 😊
Oh and I can’t forget about breastfeeding it burns apparently 500 calories a day!!!! So this was a big help 🙂
Oh and just so you know I was 53kg before I got pregnant (very skinny I know but it was due to my very quick metabolism and work) and 71kg by the end of my pregnancy. Now I am 57kg and happy with the weight I just want skin on my stomach to shrink back!!!!

First day / night with a new born baby.

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

First day / night with a new born baby.
After waiting for 9 months she was her! She was perfect and so beautiful (we all say that😊). Me and my husband were so happy, excited and high on adrenaline that there was no way etcher of us will go to get some rest (let’s remember that we haven’t slept in around 40 hours). We ended up just staring at Chloe who was fast asleep through the whole day.
I remember thinking this isn’t that bad, we are really lucky as our baby doesn’t cry at all …. I couldn’t be more wrong 😊
It all started as soon as we decided that we need to get some sleep after being awake for 40 hours. Chloe started crying so I feed her, when she finished I tried to put her down in to her cot but she would cry. She cried every time I took her off my breast. After 5 hours or feeding or should I say comfort sucking I couldn’t do it anymore, I had to stop or I would start crying. She was crying and nothing except my breast would calm her and I was in so much pain that I couldn’t nurse her anymore. It was a horrible night, I remember very clearly thinking : what have we done? Our baby is a cry baby! Is this how it will be every night? In the morning we found out that all of the mums been in this same situation. But no one tells you that this is normal, that’s what babies do. On my course I been told that Chloe and will be sleeping all the time for the first 72 hours. By the time we got home (best feeling ever❤️)I was sleep deprived but I just couldn’t go to sleep. Like all of us I got home, sat on the sofa with my husband and with Chloe in front of us and we both said: what do we do now? And like everyone we ended up just looking at her for the rest of the day 😊 First night at home wasn’t much better she cried a lot which is understandable : she didn’t have a clue where she was and what was going on. On the positive side we got some sleep here and there as we kept doing turns through the night 😊. At this point we started to worry, is this how it will be all the time ??!! Don’t worry it’s not. After that Chloe has settled a bit. No, you do not get lots of sleep but you get some 😊. Chloe just wanted to be on the chest most of the time, it does make them feel safe. Chloe would feed every 2 hours for the first month. I know that is sounds little but your body does get used to it.

1st WEEKEND AWAY WITH MY LITTLE MONSTER

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

We are in Brighton !!! As part of my Christmas present we came for a weekend away to Brighton. Our first time away from house as a family!  What is your opinion about taking 10 week old baby to the hotel ? ( if it’s negative I don’t want to hear it 😊). I found it much easier than I thought it would be. Chloe sleepy in her carrycot and she slept pretty well! It took as a bit longer than normally to get her to sleep but once asleep she was fine.  We were the one getting up and checking on her all the time (don’t ask me why as I won’t be able to answer). Our meal out last night was a bit of a disaster 😊. We found Jaime Oliver restaurant and decided to have a dinner in there. Once inside we been told that there is around 40 min waiting time for a table. We decided to wait in the bar area … Why? I don’t know. I think that we forgot that we have a 10 week old baby in the pram…or maybe because there was quite a few prams around the restaurant and one at the bar so it made it feel ok…. After 20min both me and my husband just went what are we doing? We shouldn’t be in the bar area with a little baby !!! So we left …
and went eat at the hotel. Fallowing day we just spent walking on the seaside and doing some shopping (Chloe like always has had much more bags than anyone else😄). We stopped for a coffee and to feed Chloe, we just started to leave when Chloe did a massive poo….and I left her nappies in the car! The thing with Chloe’s poos is that they very often leak…. Google when’re is the nearest boots, run to get nappies and come back just in time to find out that there is no baby changing facilities ….. So I changed Chloe’s nappy in the middle of Costa … Sorry everyone but it’s not my fault, there was nowhere else to do it 😁 All in all weekend was a success and Chloe seemed not too bother about the change in scenery….

PARANOID ABOUT BABY SLEEPING ROUTINE 😳

BABY ADVICE, MY BABY EXPERIENCE

Paranoid about baby sleeping routine.
Paranoid is how you can describe what I became yesterday. Why Chloe only falls asleep to have a nap on my chest or with dummy? Why is Chloe crying in the evening before going to sleep? should I let her cry to sleep? is she too small to self soothe ???!!!!!! I was going crazy !!! I was reading lots of different articles on the internet, asking other mums about they experience, reding some more and then driving my husband mad with questions ….. Why do some people make you think that it’s not good if your 2,5 months old baby doesn’t fall asleep on their own and doesn’t sleep through the whole night??? I know that we all do things differently and would bring up our kids in a different ways and that’s fine. What isn’t fine is when you make other people feel bad about the way they choose to do things!! There is nothing wrong with letting your baby fall asleep on the breast, there is nothing wrong with cuddling your baby when they cry & there is notching wrong with using dummy if you choose to do so!!! We all want our babies to sleep well through the night and to fall asleep on their own, have a good sleep routine (whatever that is) but on the end of the day we are talking here about small babies!! There is so many specialist claiming to know best, so many different approaches and opinions on how to put your baby to sleep and about sleeping routines; it’s hard to know what is the best option. Because there is so many of them there obviously isn’t one good way of doing it and noone knows what is the best way !!! Just do what seems right for your baby and what you feel comfortable with!!!!! #baby #sleep #sleepingroutine #newborn #firsttimemum

Labour – aren’t we all looking forward to it? 😳 NOT

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

Labour – aren’t we all looking forward to it? 😳
The most scariest moment of my life !!! I was petrified even thinking about it !! Reading and listening about it was making me feel sick. Why babies can’t just pop out ??!! Oh life would be so much better 😊
I think that the worst thing about labour was that I just didn’t know what to expect, not knowing is quite scary. I plan everything in my life so not being able to plan this little detail was freaking me out as I wasn’t in control!
You are expected to decide what type of labour you want … But how should you know when you don’t know, how you will fill, how long it will take, how you will deal with the pain….
I remember going to see my birth centre. There was around 20 of us making our way to one of the rooms when we seen a woman screaming in pain and looking pretty bad … I turned to my husband and said : I am not doing it !!! I am not going to give birth hehehe
Did any of you notice that all of the people who try to be “helpful” always tell you about the word labour scenario ? I did and this wasn’t helping at all.
Me and my husband decided that we will try water birth and if it gets too painful I will get epidural😊. I know that there is a lot of brave women saying : I will do it all natural, but I didn’t want to try to be brave😊.
Then there is the question of when?. When will the baby decide to come?😊. Everyone says that your first baby is always late and you usually have it in week 41 or 42. When when when when ……. I had a bet will almost everyone about my baby’s due date. I was admitted that she will come one week earlier which would make it 27 of October, everyone else been betting one week late or more. Guess who was right ?…….
Did you hear that most labours never go to plan ? They don’t ! neither did my.
My waters broke on the evening of Sunday the 26 of October which was great as this mean that I wan all of the bets 😁. My baby girl was one week earlier ! I didn’t have to wait any longer to see her !!!! So my water broke, what’s next? I didn’t have any contractions so I knew that my labour didn’t start yet. We called the hospital and we been told that I have to be seen by the doctor.
We went to the hospital and after monitoring baby for 30min to make sure that she is fine I was sent home and told that if my labour doesn’t start I need to be back at the hospital at 7pm (24 hours later). Obviously I didn’t really sleep, I keep waking up to see if I was having contractions 😊. By the morning my contraction has started but they were very mild and far apart. So of we went walking, out for a lunch (yes I did) and to the shop for pineapples ( apparently it helps). By the late afternoon I had contractions every 6-7 minutes. I remember seating on my exercise ball and saying to my husband : hun I have really high pain threshold, this isn’t bad at all ! I have called the hospital to confirm that I don’t have to go to go back there just to be told that I have to be seen by a doctor. While waiting for the doctor midwife told me that I will be induced … But why ? I am having contractions so why should I be induced? Apparently that wasn’t the proper contractions, I remember telling my husband that this midwife didn’t know what she was talking about, that I have a very high pain threshold that’s why I wasn’t in agony 😊…. I couldn’t have be more wrong 😊. We have waited from 7pm to 3am to be seen by the doctor (apparently very very busy night with emergences) and by this point contractions were much more painful, or my pain threshold has decreased dramatically 😊. Before you are being induced you always have to have a ultrasound done to check that the baby is ok …. Can you imagine my face when doctor told me that baby is sideways and I may need to have emergency cesarian ??!! I went from wanting a water birth to being induced to having cesarian ??!! Luckily he was wrong, his boss informed us that baby is fine, she is ready to come and I’m 4cm dilated 😊but I still need to be induced….. Once induced question asked by my midwife was: what pain relief ? We decided on epidural but because I really wanted to be mobile (thought of not being able to walk to the toilet was scary) and be able to feel when to push I didn’t want it straight away. I wanted to see how long I can last on gas & air. Plan was that once I can’t bear the pain anymore I will get epidural. Midwife said that the earliest baby will arrive will be 1pm so with that in mind waiting with epidural was a good idea….. As it turned out it wasn’t 😊 Around 8:30-9:00 am I couldn’t bear the pain anymore and asked for epidural but at this point midwife has discovered that I’m almost 8cm dilated (she was very surprised) She said that baby will be here very soon so there is no time for epidural. On the 28 of October at 9:24 Chloe was born 🙂 I can easily say that it was the happiest moment in my life 😊 My advice is take epidural earlier don’t try to be brave as I was 🙂 but considering that being induced is twice as painful as natural birth I am very proud of myself for doing it on only gas and air and I have to point it out I didn’t scream once !!!!!!!!! I also need to mention my husband. He was amazing throughout the whole time and I probably couldn’t do it without him . Even though he was trying to feed me banana while I was pushing (you can imagine what was my response)😁
My biggest fear throughout the labour …. not to poo … thats why I was only eating bananas 🙂

Pregnancy- most wonderful 9 months … and 9 months of annoying comments and question :-)

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

Pregnancy – my story
I loved being pregnant ( most of the time ) and been lucky enough to have only few side effect like indigestion, feeling sick in the evening.
Only thing trying to destroy my happiness – other people !!!! Did you find that everyone had something to say or an advice to give?!
7 most annoying comments and questions :

Nr 1:
Most annoying from all was the question
Q- what do you want to have a boy or a girl?
Me- a girl
Q- it doesn’t matter as far as it is healthy.

Obviously it doesn’t matter buy you just asked me what I would prefer!!!! Why ask ???? !!!! So enjoying.

Nr 2:
Q- what are you having ? A boy?
Me- no, a girl.
Q- are you sure it isn’t a boy ? I think that it is .
Really??!! Do you really think that you know better than me(mum) and ultrasound scan?? I actual got paranoid that I will have a boy not a girl and have been panicking what I will do with all of those pink clothes 😊

Nr 3:
Q- when are you going on maternity leave ? Soon?! (3months pregnant)
Me- no I’m planning on working right up to week 38
Q- really? Don’t you think that you should be resting?
I understand that some people want to go on maternity early and there is nothing wrong with it, but I’m not one of those people. I love my job and I was fit enough to work right to the end. My question is : why do you ask me if there is a big chance that you won’t like my answer?

Nr 4: you shouldn’t be doing all of those things (go out, go shopping, decorate house(we just bought our first home) walk etc. YOU SHOULD BE RESTING as you won’t be able to do it once baby arrives.
How can you do nothing all day long ? How can you seat in front of the tv all day long ? For me that is just being lazy !!! I think that you expect me to do nothing so you can justify why you are/was lazy. As a pregnant woman yes I did get tired quite easily and needed more rest than normally but that’s it!

Nr 5: Soon you won’t be looking that good (when you get big bump)
That was when I was 3 months old. This enjoyed me big time! I work in fashion ( nothing very posh I’m Visual Merchandising Manager ) and I like to look good and decided to prove everyone that being pregnant doesn’t mean that you have to dress like a old lady with no fashion sense! I agree that a lot of maternity clothes are very mumys but you don’t have to dress like your mum or wear tracksuit! More about it later 😊.

Nr 6: your bump in very low (in a tone of voice which suggests that I will go in to labour any minute now.
Really? And you are a classified midwife from when ? Going by those comments I should have given birth at 6 months!

Nr 7: You are not allowed to do it!!!
This one was getting on my nerves but I couldn’t do or say anything as it came from a good place. I’m very independent and like to get things done so having to ask people at work to do things for me was killing me! Having people not allowing me to carry a box of tissues was drawing me mad! 😊
Did you experience exactly this same? Seems like pregnancy and new born babies makes everyone very opinionated ….

Yummy mummy to be 😊

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

Yummy mummy to be 😊
I mentioned before that I decided to prove wrong everyone who told me that I can’t be fashionable with my baby bump ! And I did😊 I have been posting selfies of me while pregnant 8-9 months pregnant to prove it. I will attache some of those .
A lot of maternity clothes are …. Well how to put it …. Awful!!! But it’s slowly changing as retailer starts to understand that we want to look good !!! Really good one for maternity fashion is ASOS . Sometimes quality may not be the best but choice is great and it’s very current !!! H&M does some nice pieces. I personally didn’t find anything in Topshop which was very disappointing as I have had a very high hopes.
I did end up buying normal clothes in bigger size. This came handy after my gorgeous baby was born as I didn’t (still don’t) fit in any of my old clothes 😊 Only maternity clothes I bought was some dresses, tops(by the end when my bump was pretty big) & denims ( tried few company’s but H&M is definitely the best and most comfortable one). I also ended up wearing lots of my old clothes like Blazers, Jumpers etc.

Newborn doesn’t want to sleep … surprise 😀

BABY ADVICE, MY BABY EXPERIENCE

Newborn doesn’t want to sleep …
How long did it take you to go on the internet to search : baby doesn’t want to sleep, baby doesn’t want to sleep in mose basket ? 😄 oh yes most of us did it within 48 hours of being at home. Every time we put Chloe down in her mose basket hoping for a brake she would start crying. We thought that she hated this basket! You can find a lot of advice on the internet, we used some of them and our common sense. Baby is used to being in warm belly, snuggled up, not having much space.
– basket was definitely very big for her, her arms and legs would stretch and she would wake up straight away. We decided to swaddle her and this really helped.
– basket was also cold so we used fleece blanket over her mattress which made it cosy.
Those worked for us . Chloe sleeps in it but I think that she still hates it 😊