Smiles

I am just loving being a mother.

Don't get me wrong, its not easy. Getting up every four hours at night is exhausting, and I find if she wakes up after 3 and a half hours I can actually cry. Just that half an hour is so important to me! Breastfeeding is also not that easy, being the only one who can feed my precious one and spending hours sitting alone in rooms at parties, isn't fun. As for the projectile vomiting and explosive pooing... Well that's another story all together!

But all in all? Its much easier than I thought it would be! I don't know what I expected, but I really thought it would be worse. I expected much less sleep and I expected breastfeeding to be really painful. The stories everyone told me, I was convinced I'd be a tired bleeding nippled crazy person. But I'm not. Well I am still a crazy person, due to sleep deprivation! But I still function ok.

I still feel incredibly incompetent most of the time. I don't seem to ever know what to do when, and I'm constantly sending messages to all my other mommy friends asking for help and advice. Thankfully they're all fantastic and offer constant reassurance and support.

Things I haven't figures out yet:
1. How to breastfeed or express without getting full of milk or getting Lily full of milk. The other day I somehow managed to spray her in the eye. I laughed for ages about that, which probably makes me a bad mommy but she didn't seem to fazed.
2. How to avoid getting Lilys clothes, changing mat and myself full of poo when I change a poo nappy.
3. How to shower, bath or go to the toilet during the day when I don't have someone to watch her.
4. How to avoid sneezing as soon as she FINALLY falls asleep after trying to get her down for ages. Resulting in a spectacular splayed arms, wide eyed fright!
5. How to have my usual cup of coffee while its still hot in the morning. I'm to scared to drink it while holding/feeding her because I'm a notoriously bad drinker and I'm worried I spill on her. Haven't had a hot cup of coffee in ages!
6. I still don't know the words to most of the lullabies and baby songs that seem to calm her down. So I either sing twinkle twinkle little star on repeat or I make them up.
7. How to have a conversation on the phone that is not ended with, I have to go Lilys crying/hungry/awake.
8. How to not drop everything I'm doing to smile and laugh when she smiles at me. When I look at her and get a sparkly eyed smile back, I can't carry on doing what I was planning on doing, I have to smile and laugh and cuddle my sweetheart. This is mostly why I don't get anything done during the day!

Things I have mastered!
1. How to eat any meal with my fingers, left handed. Lily always seems to be hungry as soon as I sit down for a meal. And its very hard to eat with a fork when you have to do it one handed with a baby latched onto your chest, so I use my fingers. Not the most polite thing to do I know, but if I didn't, I'd starve.
2. How to eat a meal in 5 mins flat. When I do get chance to eat without feeding her, I eat so fast because I'm SURE she's gonna kick off any second.
3. Changing a wet nappy before nighttime feeds before she wakes up enough to start crying. Quick quick quick!
4. Typing blog posts/ twitter status/ facebook status/ emails or bbms with one hand on my BB
5. Night time feeds. I'm so organised they go by so easily.
6. Swaddling
7.Waking up just before she wakes for a feed, thereby avoiding any crying!
8. Singing, rocking and reading my twitter feed at the same time.

Like I've said in a previous post (101 things about me) all I've ever wanted is to be a mother, and its better than I ever thought it would be!

Puking, pooing and lack of sleep

So we're a little over 3 weeks onto our new lives, and what a three weeks its been! The first few days in the hospital we're actually nice. Shaun took time off work so he came in at 8am and left at 8pm (usually a bit later, he'd push it until they kicked him out). The first night I was so exhausted, I had woken up on Wednesday morning at 8, slept from 12 till 2 that night and then nothing until 11pm on friday evening, where I was to be found a sobbing heap with a screaming baby who couldn't latch. It was a nightmare. I didn't know what to do and I was beyond exhausted. Eventually a nurse came in to see what was up and I begged her to take Lily to the nursery so that I could just sleep for an hour. Her response? No sorry the nursery is closed tonight because we're having a maternity open day tomorrow. So we're only taking first night babies. Whew I thought, good my baby is a first night baby! Oh no she says, only ceasar babies. So I cried some more and asked her to just help me feed her. Eventually she saw that I was just not coping and said she'd take her, but would have to give her a top up feed of formula. Although I had been so adamant not to give her formula, I agreed. Its very difficult to stick to your guns when your baby is hungry! So I slept for four blissful hours and went to fetch her. She had also slept and eaten and was much happier. That night she had to go under the lights because she was a bit jaundice from the vacuum the used to pull her out. That was so traumatic! Now I can see that I was being overly dramatic but I was tired and scared and overwhelmed and she was all alone in the incubator with these little sunglasses stuck over her eyes and no clothes on and SCREAMING. She was meant to stay with me in a private room but I just couldn't take seeing her cry like that so they took her to the nursery. Again she had to have top up formula feeds, because under the lights they can dehydrate. The next day we went home, so wonderful to be in my own home with my own things! That night I gave her a bit of formula because she was hungry, but the next day my milk came in and since then we've had no problems.
She has pooed on Shaun and mom, ha ha. So funny! As soon as they open her nappy to change her it all squirts out! Ha ha. She also has a bit of a puking problem and she puked all over all of us. She projectile pukes and manages to totally cover us. So much that you have to change your outfit all the way to underwear. Ha ha. So now I have to hold her upright for 30mins after each feed so her tummy settles. Difficult to do at 3am when I'm exhausted but worth it. She slept in a two hour routine at first but is now on a 3.5 or 4hour one which is much better. I sleep with her when I can, which means that not much else gets done!
She's very very sweet and shaun and I are very much in love with her. We're slowly finding our feet and getting used to things. I'm breastfeeding and its going well, although I I can understand the allure of bottle feeding. Much more socially acceptable to whip out a bottle than a boob!