Two weeks.

I guess my overwhelming feeling today is one of tiredness. I haven’t had as many naps as I would like in the last few days and it looks like I won’t get one at all today. Obviously this is the normal feeling of mothers everywhere with a newborn and I know it will get worse, but I love my sleep so it’s challenging.

Constant Contact

Although Baby Boy is spending more time awake, the majority of time he is asleep. This would make for an easy life, but he wants to be held while he slumbers (and most of the time when he is awake too). When it’s my shift I either have him in the sling or lie with him cuddled up to me in bed at night, but he spends a lot of time asleep on his Dad too. 

End of Paternity Leave

G went back to work today. I’m lucky that I have my mum here for the next week so I don’t need to get used to doing everything on my own yet, but I miss having him around. It should make the transition easier though and it gives me another week before I have to do all the school runs etc on my own. I think the biggest challenge will be bedtime. My eldest is fine because she can entertain herself, and put herself to bed if necessary, but my toddler still wants me to lie with her while she falls asleep. As an added difficulty she has been resisting sleep over the last week so instead of 5 minutes calm time she has been messing about for around half an hour. If the baby is asleep I can have him with me, but the playing has woken him up, and the nights that he has been awake he has mostly been crying so G has been trying to comfort him downstairs (with varying success). Obviously Little needs to learn to lie down and sleep on her own, but it’s not so long since she was being fed to sleep and the arrival of a baby isn’t the best time to try to take away comforts.

Dry Skin

Baby still has very dry skin and is constantly peeling. We aren’t spending enough time moisturising him, because he’s either asleep and we don’t want to wake him, or he’s crying and we want to comfort him or he’s awake and happy and we don’t want to ruin that. His skin doesn't look sore and I know he will get better skin eventually.

"Is He A Good Baby?"

People continue to ask if he is a good baby and I haven’t yet worked out how to answer. Does he sleep well? Again, I don’t know. He sleeps pretty normally for a baby: he wants to be snuggled and he wakes up roughly every 3 hours to feed. That’s pretty good for a baby. There have been a couple of nights where he has had longer periods awake and crying, but as long as I don’t try and put him in the cot he has mostly been happy to go back to sleep between feeds. Is that good? Or are people expecting him to sleep through the night (which wouldn’t be healthy at less than 2 weeks old)?

I still have a tendency to call him “she” and it has taken me a while to remember his name on occasions too, but I’ve been assured on Instagram that it’s all pretty normal.

Headaches

I nearly forgot to talk about my headaches, I’m not sure how given they plagued me for so much of our first week. Last Monday I went to see my old acupuncturist who I used to see when I had bad migraines. She gave me some treatment and advice and I have been mostly headache free and definitely migraine free this week. Given that last week even codeine wasn’t providing complete relief this is a huge improvement.

Tongue Tie Update

Baby Boy's tongue tie was cut over a week ago now and while his latch has improved and I am in less pain, his latch still isn’t great. This is mostly my fault as I’m not working consistently to ensure he gets his mouth wide enough or a deep enough latch, especially at night, but I’m hoping he gradually gets better as he grows. 

I ended up getting a call from the hospital about his referral last Monday, so a week after his referral was made. Apparently they have a short waiting list at the moment, but even if he could have been seen within a few days of their call I think it’s still too long for people to wait when they are in pain (or in worse situations than me where the baby isn’t getting enough milk and is failing to gain milk).

Registering The Birth

We had our appointment to register Baby Boy this week so he officially has a name (it's not really Baby Boy) and his Dad now has parental responsibility. I find these appointments quite funny because when you aren't married to the baby's father all questions are directed to the mother until you confirm that the man next to you is the father and you want him on the birth certificate. I like the brief moment of power, but it's not like I am going to refuse him. And then in years to come if I want to take Baby Boy abroad I have to have his permission because he doesn't have my surname. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

An Update on Me

I've recovered really well and other than some painful gas and a weak pelvic floor I'm pretty much back to normal. Obviously I have a bit of a belly still, but thanks to the weight loss in pregnancy I can fit in to my normal jeans. I'm hoping I can manage to cut down the constant grazing on sugary snacks so that my weight doesn't balloon over the next few months.

I'm currently battling a cold that the toddler brought home from nursery which when combined with the lack of sleep is likely to make the week ahead challenging, but at least no one expects me to achieve much at the moment. Fingers crossed I can get an early night tonight...