We’ve had some great news from the hospital this week – our little monkey only has to wear her harness for bed now!! Yayyyy!!! That means that we *should* just have another 6 weeks with the straps before they’re gone forever!! 

I was worried about how she’d adapt to being out of them for so long – when we went to 4 hours out she had days where she struggled with it and we ended up having to put them back on earlier than planned (I guess they’ve become a comfort to her) – but she’s been absolutely fine! And – added bonus – there have been no major tantrums when they’ve gone back on either!

We go to Cornwall on Sunday and I can’t wait to take her swimming (in the pool, not the sea 🤣🤣🤣) If her face when I put her in her rubber ring in the bath is anything to go by (and the screaming fit when I took her out of it 🙄🤦🏻‍♀️) she’s going to love it!!

She has had her harness 10 weeks now, I can’t believe how fast it’s gone! Mind you, I can’t believe how fast time is going in general!! Isla is 20weeks old now 😳 and weighs 13lb 10oz!!! Where has my teeny baby gone????

If you’re reading this and you’ve had a baby (and are thinking BULLSHIT!!!) stay with me… I’ll explain! If you’re reading this and you haven’t (and you’re thinking FINALLY – a good news story about the postpartum experience) don’t get too excited… I’ll explain 🤣🤣🤣

We all know that the postpartum experience is an interesting one! Especially for first time mums, you go from looking after yourself to suddenly also being responsible for keeping another tiny, helpless human being alive, happy and healthy!

Chances are you made some HUGE lifestyle changes when you were pregnant, and thought you had a good idea of what was to come once little one arrived (hello sleepless nights!)

What I guarantee you weren’t betting on is that having a baby would basically turn you back in to a teenager… as I said, allow me to explain…

• You learn A LOT about yourself when you have a baby. Suddenly everything that seemed so important to you before pales into insignificance compared to your new bundle of joy. Your priorities completely change. The qualities you wanted in a life partner change – that hardworking man you married suddenly seems like a selfish bastard when he puts the hours in at work instead of coming home to you (🤣don’t worry – they’re easy to retrain! 😉) So although you thought you’d figured all this shit out, you’ll re-evaluate everything! You’ll realise that you’re not the friend you thought you was, now your friends circle is contracting down faster than you did in the final stages of labour you’ll realise that maybe you should have made more effort when your other friends had babies – which brings me on nicely to my next point …
• You have to make new friends!!! No matter how social you are, how confident, having a baby for the first time puts you right back at ‘new girl’ territory. It’s a sad fact that you see your friends less – they say if you want to figure out who your real friends are ask for help moving or have a baby 🤷🏻‍♀️I actually don’t think it’s that simple, it’s not your friends’ fault that you can’t do everything that you did pre-baby. Nevertheless, you might suddenly find yourself in a position of being Billy no mates, and to rectify that (which you need to do – adult conversation is pretty paramount to your sanity!) you’re gonna have to put yourself out there and make new (other mummy!) friends! Good news is most of the other mummies are in the same position as you do it’s not toooooo bad
• However, like your teenage self, you’re likely to be pretty insecure about your body! Oh, what I’d give to go back to my teenage self and tell her to appreciate that body – no matter how fat she thinks she is… she has noooooo idea how much fatter she will get 😂😂😂And it’s not just the appearance. After having a baby my body feels alien to me, 4.5months on I’m still trying to reconnect with it, and it’s a steep learning curve!
• Especially in the bedroom!!! The things I thought I liked feel different now. I would have never, ever in a million years have guessed that having a baby could make me feel like a virgin all over again!
• Hormones. Oh, so many hormones! Remember those teenage moods?? Well, they’re back. And they’re bigger and stronger than ever. Mix that with the lack of sleep and there’s a good chance that you are now one moody bitch 🤷🏻‍♀️
• There’s also a good chance that your skin has taken a beating – I didn’t have spots as a teenager, but I do now!!!
• Finally – greasy hair. Now, at first I thought this was just for new mums, you know, cos there’s just no time to wash your hair. But oh no, no, no!!! If you spot a mummy with an older baby and are wondering why she might have greasy hair I think I can explain. It’s not that she doesn’t have time – she’s probably figured enough of a routine out by now to manage a shower… she has greasy hair because she’s too fucking terrified to wash it because every time she does massive clumps of it fall out 😭😭😭(not to worry though – your body will grow additional hair to make up for it – just not in the places it should be!)

So yeah… having a baby basically makes you a teenager again. In every way except the perky teenage body. God dammit.

One year ago today… I had the faintest squinter of a line!!! I’d had a miscarriage the month before… so I was TERRIFIED!! Gone was the excitement I’d felt the month before and instead I was full of apprehension… We were due to go to a festival the day after and on holiday the following week – would everything be ok this time? Was I going to start bleeding on the flight? Would flying put me at risk? Soooo many things to worry about!!

When I approached my husband and told him I thought I might be pregnant again he looked at me like I’d gone insane (it really was a squinter 🤣) but also – he really didn’t want to talk about it! It had only been a few weeks before that we’d sat and cried happy, excited tears for a line on a different test strip – those tears turned to ones of despair a few hours later when I started bleeding.

Our holiday was definitely interesting – I packed tests to take with me and I secretly tested every night to check everything was still ok!

Thankfully, everything was ok and one year on our little munchkin is still here, healthy and happy. And I know I am so very blessed to have her in my life ♥️♥️♥️♥️

This morning I got up, procrastinated for far too long over whether I should do my exercises… eventually decided to do them… had a shower, was washing my hair (feeling pretty proud of my achievements so far 🤣) and then noticed that I appear to have morphed in to a giant moulting Labrador. Like, seriously, WTF!!!

Just incase the –

*Stretch marks

*Raging hormones

*Destroyed vagina/sliced open core

*Pittance that is maternity pay

*Postpartum body (which feels completely disconnected to you)

*Mom guilt about returning to work/not returning to work

– aren’t enough, someone obviously thought us women needed a bit more to deal with… cue the postpartum hairloss!

Isla is 19weeks old. I thought I’d got away with this shit!!

I’m telling you if this chunk of hair doesn’t weigh a stone I’m not going to be a happy bunny!!!!

Isla is not the only one who’s been a brave girl this week!!!

I think there are very few people who know me who would describe me as shy – I work in HR so talking to people is a big part of what I do, HOWEVER, I do really struggle with my confidence at times, and I’ll be honest, it’s at an all time low after having Isla.

I have a weird fixation on whether people will judge me by how I look, so when I’m not feeling great in my body I have a horrible habit of not really going out much. Logically, I know it’s ridiculous and I know that no one other than me really gives a shit about how flabby my tummy is, but I just can’t shake it off. (I was like this pre-Isla – I put my midwife appointment off for as long as I could in the hope that I’d lose a few pounds before having to step on the scales!! My postpartum body is just making it worse!)

Up until this week I hadn’t booked or taken Isla to a single baby class (she’s 18 weeks old this week!). In a moment of braveness I have booked up our September!! We’ll be going to baby massage on Tuesdays and Rhythm Time classes on Thursdays. Even braver still – I saw a post on our community Facebook group for the local mums to meet up and have lunch… and… I went!!! All the other mums already knew each other, in fact, they’d just all been to a baby class together, so it was extra nerve wracking being the new girl, but I didn’t die, Isla got to meet some other babies for the first time and – dare I say it – I had a lovely afternoon!

I didn’t catch anyone looking at me in disgust once 🤣 everyone was really lovely! And today we’ve had an invite for Isla to a first birthday party pushed through the door from one of the babies ♥️♥️♥️ Too cute!!!

I may just dodge becoming a hermit yet 🙌🏼

 

We had Isla’s check up for her hips today… and we’ve been told she can go to 4 hours out of her harness every day now!! Even better is that we’ve only got to do this for 2 weeks and then we can go to nighttime only wear 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼 I am so, so proud of her, she’s done so well in it (I know she doesn’t actually have to do anything but still 🤣)

As happy as I am that we’ll hopefully be saying goodbye to her harness very soon, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about it too! We can have the 4 hours out however we want – so can do 1 block of 4 hours, or split it in to 2 x 2 hour blocks or 4 x 1 hour blocks, etc, by the time I got back from the hospital today the only option left was one long stretch… and it ended in tears!! I think she gets so excited about being out that she feels like she has to kick her little legs as fast as she can – ok for an hour, but after 3 hours of it she was exhausted! Tried to get her to nap, but it’s literally like she can’t control those little legs 😂😂😂 ended up putting the harness back on half hour early as she was very grumpy and overtired. I’m sure she’ll adapt to it fairly quickly (I hope so anyway!!)

What I really, really hope though is that she continues to love wriggling! And that I never, EVER take it for granted how lovely it is to watch her do it! The hour out of her harness is by far my favourite part of every day (maybe paired with waking up and seeing her lovely smiles – god knows where she got her morning person attitude from cos it definitely isn’t from me or daddy!!). I don’t ever want to forget how special it is, or lose any of the joy I get from watching her! At the moment it’s an hour filled with so many smiles, giggles and more recently happy tears (goddamn hormones are wreaking havoc at the moment!!)

I can’t upload videos to here (you have to pay extra to do that – my pittance of SMP doesn’t stretch to that 😂) but if you go on my Instagram ( my account name is firsttimemumming… orrrr this link might work! https://www.instagram.com/p/B1wT2pGlIdn/?igshid=1p7pnxfaa8xs8 ) you’ll see just how happy she is wriggling! It’s literally the best thing ever ♥️♥️♥️

That being said – I am SO EXCITED that we’ll finally be able to take her swimming now!!! Eeeeeeeek!!! Fun times ahead 🥰

I’m on a roll now. I’d just like to share mummy vs daddy’s morning routine…

We’ll start with daddy’s because it’s easier…

– wake up

– go get coffee

– make self bowl of cereal

– bring cereal upstairs and eat it in bed whilst playing with phone

– moan at mummy that he doesn’t know why he bothers making her a coffee because she never drinks it

Vs mummy’s…

– wake up

– change Isla’s bum

– Express breast milk

– warm bottle

– feed Isla

– change Isla’s bum again after her morning poo

– continue to feed Isla

– go to drink coffee then realise it’s gone cold

This is standard. But today… ohhhh… daddy disappeared for half hour… Mummy ASSUMED he’d gone out to collect the shopping and get her the breakfast he’d told her he would on his way back… after 30mins daddy shouted upstairs to ask if mummy needed anything when he was out.

Intrigued, mummy started walking down the stairs at the same time as asking daddy what he had been doing. Daddy told mummy he’d been doing the washing up, but mummy heard him turn the tap on as he said it. When mummy got downstairs she found daddy having himself a second breakfast without a care in the world.

Mummy was pissed off. Daddy couldn’t understand why. Mummy considered stabbing daddy, but at the last minute managed to restrain herself.

GIVE. ME. STRENGTH.