Thanksgiving

Welcome to the November 2012 Authentic Parenting Blog Carnival: Gratitude and Traditions This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Authentic Parenting Blog Carnival hosted by Authentic Parenting and Living Peacefully with Children. This month our participants have written about gratitude and traditions by sharing what they are grateful for, how they share gratitude with their children, or about traditions they have with their families. The Authentic Parenting Blog Carnival will be taking a break in December, but we hope you will join us for the great line up of themes we have for 2013! ***  
It’s Thanksgiving season in the States. I’m not American, but I am thankful.
My life over the last year seems to have been an exercise in the Nietzsche quote, “that which does not kill me makes me stronger.” I was pregnant with nowhere to live, coming off anti-depressant medication with an on-off partner causing me untold stress. Then I was moving house at 33 weeks pregnant with no basic necessities like flooring, saucepans or a cooker. Then I was in labour 5 weeks early. Then I was in hospital for 2 weeks with a jaundiced, premature baby under the care of NICU. Then I came home to a flat whose roof had leaked so badly the bedroom wall was drenched. Then I was unceremoniously dumped via text message and became the single mother of a tiny baby. Then I was dealing with accusations and abuse from S’s father as well as finding out some particularly unpleasant things I wish I’d known sooner.
Would I rather things were different? I’m not so sure. Yes, I would like to have a partner. I would like S to have a father in her life. I would definitely prefer to be able to look back on my pregnancy and the birth of my beautiful daughter with more happiness. But on the other hand, all of those things, all the pain and the tears and the fear and negativity, have brought me to where I am now. It hasn’t killed me, and it has definitely made me stronger.
When you split up with someone who has had a somewhat detrimental effect on your life and wellbeing, one would generally be heard to utter such phrases as “I wish I’d never met him.” I can’t say that; I can’t regret meeting S’s father because that would mean I wouldn’t have her. And despite all the trouble we’ve had, I have never once regretted having her, even for a second.
The famous serenity prayer used in 12-step meetings the world over asks, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” I cannot change this situation. I have spent much of the last year trying to change the unchangeable, blindly banging my head against a brick wall that has not moved an inch. So now, I have to accept the situation, and be grateful for what has led me to be in this position.
Being pregnant and having nowhere to live has made me so grateful for having somewhere to live now, and being housed before S was born – it turned out to be a fairly close call! The fact the house was completely unfurnished, whilst being a bit inconvenient, meant I was able to choose everything and make it mine and S’s in its entirety. I will be eternally grateful to my friends S and B who drove down here from Oxfordshire while I was still in hospital to decorate S’s room, assemble furniture, and unpack boxes so that when we did come home, it looked more like “home” and less like something from a shocking exposé documentary. The fact we had so little provided an opportunity for my friends to show their staggering and incredible worth. A friend from a church I’ve not attended for fifteen years arranged for one of his fellow churchgoers to come and paint over the damp left by the leaks. Numerous friends and family members gave me kitchen equipment, baby clothes, furniture, toys, books. My brother has proved himself worth his weight in gold by laying floors throughout the house, and by acquiring me a washing machine and fridge-freezer. My sister’s boyfriend has come round and put things up for me. My sister Z has played taxi for me more times than I care to remember, picking up shopping and furniture orders to save me money on delivery charges. She also helped me to choose paint when I was given a compensatory decorating voucher by the council, and did some painting too.
The fact S was born 5 weeks early was very scary for me, both because I felt entirely unprepared for it, and because of the risks associated with a premature birth. We are both so lucky that she was born healthy and relatively large, and although we were in hospital for 2 weeks, only two days of that was spent in NICU, and a lot of parents and babies are in a much worse situation. As one of the nurses said to me at the time, it seems terrible being hospital for 2 weeks now, but it’s just 2 weeks at the start of the years you have to come. I am thankful that she is happy and healthy, and at 7 months old, you wouldn’t know how tiny and delicate she was when she was first born
The situation with S’s father is more complicated and unpleasant, but ultimately I am thankful that things ended when they did, before anything bad could happen, before S was old enough to understand anyone had disappeared from her life. Things are far from ideal, but they are definitely the best they can be, under the current circumstances. I am grateful for all the help and support I have received from so many different people and places in the last few months. People I would not have expected anything from have turned up here with a friendly face, a shoulder to cry on, encouraging words, food and smiles. They made me finally realise that I don’t need that in my life, that I can do this on my own and do it better than as a part of that particular couple.
It really is true: that which does not kill me really does make me stronger. I’ve had simultaneously the worst and best year of my life, and now I know that I am capable of so much more than I ever imagined. If I were American, I would be spending my Thanksgiving remembering all the reasons I am so very lucky.
*** Visit Living Peacefully with Children and Authentic Parenting to find out how you can participate in next year's Authentic Parenting Blog Carnival!   Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants: (This list will be live and updated by afternoon November 30 with all the carnival links.)

• Counting My Blessings — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama expresses the importance of reflecting daily on all of her blessings, a ritual she shares with her daughter. Jennifer also shares a few things that she is most grateful for. .
• Thanksgiving — It really is true that what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. Vicky at Single Mother Ahoy had no choice but to be thankful for all the things that had a good go at finishing her off this year!
• My little gratitude list — Stone Age Parent provides a summary list of all that she is grateful for in her life, including her son, her family, her home, her friends and her country.
• Baking Bread and Nurturing Wonder— Amy W. at Me, Mothering, and Making it All Work shares her way of keeping family traditions alive and nurturing a sense of wonder and thankfulness for food through preparing homemade bread during the Holidays.
• Going Inside for the Winter Holidays — Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children reflects that going inside, both physically and figuratively, allows her family to enjoy the winter season in peace and reflection with plenty of time for appreciation of the most important people in her life.
• Traditions — Sustainable Mum discusses the difficulty of establishing traditions that were important in her own childhood for her own children.
• Giving thanks for parenthood — Can we truly give thanks for both the darkness and the light on our parenting journey? Shonnie from Heart-Led Parenting shares her perspective on how gratitude for all that life offers is possible and essential.
• A Tree for the Birds— Alisha at Cinnamon and Sassafras shares her family's new tradition of skipping a traditional Christmas tree in favor of one in the yard.
• Cultivating Gratitude In Children — Lindy at Poppy Soap Co. shares her unique plan for helping her son understand just how blessed they are as a family.
• Are You Truly Grateful — Laura at Authentic Parenting ponders about the ramifications of gratitude as a characteristic.
• Maintaining Traditions Through Family Changes — Jenn from Monkey Butt Junction talks about how changes in her family have led to changing traditions.

Seven Months On

S is seven months old tomorrow. Things have changed a lot since Easter Sunday, when I woke up at 5am thinking I’d wet myself!

Seven months has gone so quickly, and I feel like I missed the first couple of months because I was so busy panicking, so busy struggling to just keep my head above water that I didn’t enjoy having a beautiful, tiny little baby.

S at 2 weeks (notice massive babygro)

When she first came home from the hospital, S was so small even the “tiny baby” clothes swamped her. While we were in hospital she wasn’t even dressed a lot of the time; she was either wrapped in a blanket, or snuggled under my t shirt. When we came home a friend posted us a bag of baby clothes her daughter had grown out of; they were lovely but massive, I couldn’t imagine S ever growing into them and assumed my friend’s daughter must be a lot older than S. She was three months old before any of the 0-3 months clothes fit her, but by the time she was 4 months old, she was starting to grow out of them! Now she’s growing so quickly I never know which size clothes to buy!

Until I had S, the fact a baby is born completely unaware of the things we all take for granted had never occurred to me. It’s been so lovely to watch her learn she has hands and feet, and that she can use her feet to kick things, her hands to grab. She has gone from a tiny, silent little bundle whose only noise was the occasional cry if she got hungry, to a burbling, grabbing, punching little monkey who has the best grin I have ever seen. She wakes me up by chattering to herself in the mornings and I go to sleep listening to her soft snoring next to me. The last couple of days, she’s been trying to stand as much as she can, which is worrying!

I’ve not had a full, uninterrupted night’s sleep since the middle of my pregnancy – and I don’t care! Don’t get me wrong; I love my sleep, and am exhausted in a way you would not believe, but over time I think I’ve just gotten used to it. Someone said to me early on that I should cherish those night feeds because they will stop all too soon. That person was so right. There is no feeling quite like being woken by S poking me in the ribs because she is hungry. On the nights where she sleeps a little longer between feeds I often wake up before her, wondering what’s going on and why she’s not hungry. I know that eventually she will stop feeding at night, and stop sleeping next to me too. That will be a sad day.

According to a Cow & Gate magazine that came through my door the other day, in their first six months a baby’s weight will double. The last time S was weighed, her weight had more than trebled since she was born. She’s currently on the 50^th centile line, which makes me stupidly proud, even though it’s just some stupid statistic. When she first reached her due date (she was 5 weeks early) her weight put her on the second centile line.

Yesterday when D (my Home Start lady) was here we were talking about the neighbours and she asked if I knew the people downstairs. I replied no, they’d moved in when S was still very small, and I was not particularly sociable at that time so didn’t really speak to them. D commented that often when we’re talking and I mention things like this, it’s as if I’m talking about someone else. She told me she finds it hard to reconcile this image of a depressed person sitting alone in the house and not speaking to anyone, with the confident single mother she sees every week. I was a bit gobsmacked to be honest. I spend a lot of my time with barely a clue as to what I’m doing, and hoping I’m not making huge mistakes on a daily basis. The fact I come across as confident was a completely alien concept to me; I’ve never thought of myself as a confident person. But then, after she left, I thought about it a little more. Although I don’t have all the answers, and I do make a lot of mistakes, I am confident when it comes to being S’s mother. I know when she is tired, when she is hungry, when she is bored. I have very definite ideas about how I want to raise her, what values I want her to grow up with, what I do and do not want to do. So yes, perhaps I am confident.

I was watching a phone-in show on TV earlier this week, where they were talking about cutting Child Benefit for families with more than two children. They commented that it tends to either be the very rich or the very poor that have a lot of children and a journalist on the panel made a very interesting point. She said that quite often young women coming from an underprivileged background have always felt worthless, as if they don’t have a place in society, and when they have a baby they finally have a purpose; they have produced a child and they feel worthwhile. Although I wouldn’t say I’d really grown up in a terribly poor family, I have always had a bit of an issue when it comes to self esteem and feeling like I was worth a great deal or good at anything. Now that I have S, and am over the initial total and utter shock of becoming a mother, I find that I completely understand what that journalist meant: for the first time in my life, I have a purpose and my life has a meaning beyond “if I don’t go to work today the other people in my team might get a bit swamped.” And yes, when I stop and think about it, I do think I’m quite good at being a mother. As much as you can be, when your child is only 7 months old, that is. When I was pregnant I would worry about how I could possibly fill the days of my maternity leave once the baby came. Now she is here, and I often look up at 5pm and wonder where the hours have gone.

 

The photo on the right shows one of S's first babygros (she is wearing it in the photo above: see how big it is on her!), against the one she wore to bed this evening. I remember being given that small one and thinking, gosh it's so big it'll be ages before she grows into it. She was completely lost in it. Now I look at it and wonder how she ever fit into it!

My tiny little premature baby in her teeny-tiny too-big babygros has become a big bruiser of a bouncing baby, laughing, burbling and grabbing at everything in sight. I know that all too soon I will look up and she will have become a toddler, a schoolgirl, a grumpy teenager, an adult. Seven months has passed in a flash and I am so glad I’ve taken a million and one photos to look back on and remind me of every single moment.


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Loved Up

I have fallen in love with my daughter all over again. Because I spend all day, every day with her, it’s easy to just get used to the day to day goings on, and forget to marvel at the fact this little being came from me. Every now and then I have a weird, jolting reality check where I look at her and think: I made that. And because I’m on my own with her, I take a lot of pride from the fact she is so freaking awesome.

The last couple of weeks have been tough; S has clearly been having a Wonder Week, and has grown out of all of her clothes seemingly overnight, as well as suddenly changing shape and magically grasping things like sitting up for more than 5 seconds without help, and putting food into her mouth. This post is dedicated to all the things that make me so glad I have her:

The way she greets a toy like an old friend, even when she was only playing with it ten minutes ago. She shouts with delight at her toys and has long, detailed conversations with them.

Lately, when I get out of the bath in the morning, I’ll wander into the bedroom to find her laying with her blanket over her face, waiting for me to come in and “find” her. The excitement on her face is indescribable.

The way she can have endless, unadulterated fun with a coloured post-it or a TV remote.

The way she will lift her head when she wants to sit up, and will grab my hands to pull herself up – then decide to stand instead, and produce a massive grin at her clever trick at having stood up.

If she is napping in her bouncy chair and wakes slightly, she kicks her legs to bounce herself back to sleep.

She doesn’t care if I’m wearing no make up, or my shirt has some dried sick on it, or I’ve not brushed my hair, or I’m having a fat day. She’s always excited to see me, even if I’ve only popped out of the room for two minutes to get a drink.

In the mornings when we wake up, I’ll pick her up and lay her on top of me, and she’ll put her head down and snuggle with me for at least 5 seconds before poking at me and wanting to play.

She instantly forgives my many mistakes and errors. I may have left her alone to cry while I went to the toilet, or it may have taken me a little too long to realise she had fallen into an awkward position and was crying for me to help her up. I may accidentally jolt her chair while she’s asleep, causing her to wake up suddenly in a panic. I may have had my head in the wrong place so that when she lolled her head forward she ended up headbutting my jaw. All these things will make her very upset and there is likely to be crying, even screaming… but only until I give her a big cuddle and distract her with a funny voice, and then it’s as if nothing ever happened.

I have yet to find anything at all that is so bad it can’t be instantly rendered entirely inconsequential by her giggle.

The other night, Robbie Williamswas on the Graham Norton show. Normally celebrities gushing about their offspring is not something I bother with, but what he said really resonated with me. He talked about how, having been a pop star since he was 16, he’d never really had to do anything for himself and had been worried he would be selfish and a bad father, and then the baby was born and “you just melt. The baby came out and everything changed, cosmically, spiritually, life, everything.” I really understood what he meant.

In stark contrast to this, and following on from previous posts about body image, I’ve just seen an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians where their mother sits the girls down over lunch and convinces Kim, who is 29 years old, that she needs botox. And then pulls a grey hair from her daughter’s head and mocks her for it. That woman is raising five daughters to believe that how they are is not good enough: they need make up, hair extensions and dye, expensive designer clothes, heels at all times, and minor surgery in order to be acceptable. To their own mother. And then they go out on their TV show and in magazines and on the internet, and send the same message to teenage girls around the globe. Now that I have a daughter of my own, this scenario fills me with horror.

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Diary Entries From Early Motherhood

12^th June (9 weeks, 1 day)

Today S had her first set of jabs. The nurse who did them has worked at the surgery for years and knows most of my brothers and sisters; she told me S looked exactly like my younger sister Z at this age. S cried a little with the jabs, but not too much. Once I’d got her back in the sling she seemed to forget there was ever a problem! These days, every time she wakes up from a nap it’s like she’s learned a new sound or expression. It’s amazing fun to discover her latest thing. Lately our favourite way to spend time is for her to stand on my lap while we take turns in kissing each other’s noses. Well, I say kiss – she generally just opens her mouth and slobbers on me, but I’ll take that!

23^rd June (10 weeks, 5 days)

S is not really sleeping much at the moment. It’s pretty difficult because if she doesn’t sleep then neither do I. I don’t mind though; I just have a little nap in the afternoons if I get too tired. She’s started making little noises, using her voice rather than grunting. It’s so sweet to listen to! Argh she is crying again… evenings are not much fun at the moment!

24^th June (10 weeks, 6 days)

S seems to be suddenly growing and changing really quickly, we saw a friend today who said that S had definitely grown since she saw us a week ago. She interacts more now too, which makes time spent with her a lot more rewarding. I’m feeling a bit more positive about things, but it’s still difficult a lot of the time. I worry about taking her out around town in case we bump into her father; I don’t want to deal with the confrontation, the accusations. Tomorrow we are going to visit a friend to have some photos taken, and he lives really close to S’s father. I know I can’t let something like that stop me from going out and doing things, but it’s tough right now.

25th June (11 weeks)

We went to see a friend today to have photos taken. S cried throughout, so it was largely a wasted journey. We saw one of the ex's friends on the bus up there, which was a bit nerve-wracking as I'm sure she will have texted to tell him we were headed in his direction. I walked home because I was nervous standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus. That wasn't much fun either, but once we'd got off the estate it felt a lot better. Good to get some exercise. I need to sort my diet out too, I've been eating crap and it's not doing either of us any good. I need to get more organised with the house work, it's like a bomb site round here lately and it's starting to do my head in.

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Counting my Blessings

As my recent blog posts may have hinted, I’m having a pretty rough time at the moment. Whenever I am awake in the wee small hours, I often find myself getting pretty angry that I’m doing this on my own. This is not what I signed up for. When I got pregnant I was in a relationship. When I gave birth I was in a relationship. I assumed that when my baby was 6 months old and having trouble sleeping, I would still be in that relationship, and would therefore have a bit of help and support in dealing with extreme stress and sleep deprivation. I also assumed that my family would be there to rally round, that I would have a whole hoard of people I could call upon to come and lighten the load, either by helping with housework, or looking after S while I had a break. The reality is that I assumed wrong. And when I’m so tired and so  fed up I can barely see, and I’m walking into door frames and pleading my child to please just go to sleep, I find myself pretty cross about that. Where are all these people who are supposed to rally around a new mum? Aren’t they supposed to be helping me? I’m not meant to feel this alone and isolated.

It’s times like this that I think I just need to take a step backwards and look at the facts, reminding myself why I prefer my current position to any possible alternatives. Count my blessings, as it were.

• I may be the only person having to deal with S’s grumpy moods, but I’m also the only one who gets her regular cuddles, smiles and giggles. All her love is just for me and I don’t have to share.
• As pointed out by numerous friends on numerous occasions, I’m actually doing pretty bloody well on my own. The whole “look how far you’ve come” argument really is valid, as evidenced by the “diary entries from early motherhood” posts I’ve put up lately.
• I know from bitter experience that sadly we really are better off without S’s father – and that even when he was here, he didn’t help out with anything I would find useful at 3am. He bought us a cooker and then he buggered off, and it was the best thing for all concerned.
• Most of my family might not be banging down the door to offer their help, but lots of other people are. My Home Start lady is truly amazing, and I have some of the best friends a girl could wish for, who I know will help if I ask.
• Despite the current blip, and even for fleeting moments during the blip, S is a happy, healthy baby. I’d rather have this situation than one where she is less happy, less healthy, or perhaps in an unsafe situation.
• I might be tired, but other mothers are dealing with much worse, more worrying and stressful situations than just a baby who is not sleeping well.
• From what I’ve been told/reading lately, all babies go through an unsettled stage at 6 months. And at the moment a lot of babies are not sleeping well. There are a lot of sleep-deprived mamas on my Facebook; I’m not alone in this!
• Despite having a hard time, I have not compromised my beliefs with regard to how I want to care for S. I have resisted the urge to dump her in the cot and run away! She has a slightly more frazzled, grumpy mummy, but she still has a mummy who gives her lots of cuddles and kisses.
• As per yesterday’s post, this is a lesson in patience and acceptance. I’m doing my best to learn to just sit with it, take a deep breath and do what needs to be done – a life lesson that will no doubt come in very useful a few more times before S is old enough to fend for herself!
• I’m knackered and fed up, but at least I’m not sleep deprived and having to get up and go to work in the mornings! If S keeps me up all night, I can always share her nap later in the day, or go to bed earlier the next night.
• Because I’m alone in this, I don’t have to make an effort to maintain other relationships while I’m this tired and fed up. I would imagine couples going through this end up having an awful lot of arguments about nothing even vaguely important, because their fuse is too short to do otherwise! If I feel crappy I can cancel my plans with friends or family, and therefore avoid sniping at them over nothing.
• There is nothing in this world more awesome right now, than the look on S’s face when she’s pulled a blanket over her face to play Peekaboo with me. And it’s just for me.

There are a million other blessings I could, and probably should, count, but I’m too tired to think of them. It helps to think of the positives though, and remind myself that right now I’m in exactly the right place, doing the right thing, with the right people around me. Everything happens for a reason, and I’m learning a lot from this experience. You learn a lot more, a lot more quickly, from uncomfortable situations.

I’m trying to keep telling myself this.

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Things I Wish I Could Explain to S...

• You can wear your bib as a cape, but it won’t be quite so effective.

• You can either suck your thumb or my nipple; both doesn’t work so well.

• Hard to believe, but if you just give up and go to sleep for an hour or so, you will feel a lot better when you wake up.

• I’ve not disappeared off the face of the earth, just gone to the toilet. I’ll be back before you know it and you’ll feel silly for crying.

• It is entirely possible for you to grab my breast without clawing it to shreds. Please learn this quickly.

• If you just move your arm a little, you’ll be able to roll out of that position… No, move it the other way… No, not your leg…

• This toy is designed for teething; if you put it in your mouth it might make you feel a little better. The other toy is fluffy, and not really designed for anything mouth-related. Surely you can taste that?

• We share a bed. I can hear that you are awake from your chattering; I just pretend not to in the hope you will go back to sleep. Lifting your legs and banging them back down on the bed like that is just rude!

• If you’re so hungry you’re crying, the answer really is to stop crying and drink milk when it is offered. The crying won’t make you not hungry. Fact.

• I love you very much, but sometimes when I feel something warm and wet running down my arm, and I don’t know whether it’s pee or dribble, it’s hard not to question your motives.

• I know you love to stand and get a good old look around, but I’d really love if you could at least attempt the whole sitting/crawling thing first. You’ll love it once you get the hang of it and can sit yourself up without having to wait for me to figure out why you’re yelling every time!

• If you just cling to me a tiny bit, instead of going all floppy, our walk down the stairs in the morning will feel less precarious.

• I know you don’t enjoy the act of putting your coat on, but once it’s on, you’ll enjoy chewing on it, and you’ll enjoy being in the sling leaving a trail of slobber on my chest even more.

• It would be helpful if you could aim your sick at the muslin I am holding in front of your face, instead of turning your head and depositing it on me/the floor/my leg/the sofa.

• It is really not funny to wait until the minute I put a load of nappies in the washing machine before doing a great big poo. Nobody wants that smell hanging around the house until the next load goes in.

• You have a lot of toys designed specifically for babies of your age. There are fluffy things, chewy things, brightly coloured things, ones that squeak or make other annoying noises. There are blankets and play mats on the floor to keep you comfortable while you play… I can’t help but feel you’re a tiny bit ungrateful when all you want to do is sit on my lap and play with the tag on my cardigan.

• Your toes are cold because you kicked your socks off. I am more than happy to put them back on for you, but if you pull them straight back off again, your toes will stay cold.

• I understand that you want me to play with you, and you don’t like for me to leave you alone on your play mat, but if I don’t eat soon we run the risk of my collapsing on top of you.

• This is the most important one: I love you more than you will ever comprehend, more than chocolate and ice cream and duvets all put together. 

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Counting My Blessings

A Change in Priorities

When I was pregnant, a friend whose baby had not long been born warned me: don’t worry about the birth; the thing you need to try to prepare for is afterwards. I thought she was ridiculous: I had no worries at all regarding my abilities as a mother, and was sure everything would be fine once we’d got the scary business of the birth out of the way.

Turns out my friend was more right than something that is really very right.

Since having S, everything has changed. My priorities are totally different. And I think all of these changes have been for the better.

The first, most immediate change was simply that I could no longer just pop out somewhere: wherever I went, S had to come too. From that very first day in the hospital, it felt wrong to be away from her, even if just for a shower in the next room. When she was in NICU and I had to leave her there overnight while I slept on the ward, I felt like I’d left a limb behind somewhere. The day after we came out of hospital, S’s father gave me some money to go out and buy some food, telling me to just pop out and leave S here with him. It was the shortest, most horrible shopping trip I have ever been on. It just felt wrong to be wandering around without S; the last time I’d walked around town was 2 weeks previously, and I’d been carrying her in my belly. Now I had no bump and no baby, and I rushed around the shop as quickly as I could in order to get back, convinced that something bad would happen while I was away. When I came home, she was still fast asleep and completely unaware I’d even left the room. Since then, I can probably count the number of times I’ve left her anywhere on my fingers.

There was the time I left her with my mother while I went into a salon: she cried the whole time and my mother didn’t come to get me.

I left my sister Z pushing her around town in the pushchair while I had my hair cut a couple of months ago, and spent what is normally an enjoyable experience hoping it would be over soon so I could get back to my baby.

Since then, I think the most I’ve left her for is playing in the living room while I go upstairs to the toilet, or stand outside on the balcony chatting to my neighbour. My friend tells me I have First Baby Syndrome; others tell me it’s not healthy and that I need some “me” time, that I should leave her with a sitter and go out with my friends. In all honesty though, I don’t want “me” time. In the evenings when she goes to bed, more often than not I come downstairs and after ten minutes I miss her. A couple of hours in the evening to read and study is plenty for me. I’m not interested in going out drinking or for a meal. Occasionally I wish I could go to the cinema of an evening, but I know that if I went I wouldn’t enjoy the film because I would be thinking about S the whole time.

I used to laugh at the cliché you always see on TV shows, where the parents go out and leave their child with a babysitter and a massive list of instructions, then spend their entire evening on the phone checking everything is ok – now I am worse than that.

When I fell pregnant I had not been in my job for long, and I only worked 4 days a week. I would often take on overtime working in another team on my day off, and sometimes on weekends too. I wanted to do well in the quarterly development meetings, to go on training courses and progress as much as possible. Although I knew I would be off work for a while when I had S, I figured I would go back and just leave her at a nursery or with her father or a family member. Now the idea of leaving her in a nursery, even the best nursery in the world, for that length of time, on a regular basis, terrifies me. While I was walking through town yesterday I overheard a lady with a pushchair telling a friend, “well my job will still be there if I want to go back, but I didn’t have a child so that I could leave it with someone else…” I have several friends who are returning to work after having a baby, and several of them have said to me that if they could find a way to afford being a stay at home mum, they would do it. On the other hand, though, I have another friend who suffered with Post-Natal Depression and knew that she had to get back out to work or she would be in trouble. She seems to enjoy her job and her children seem, if anything, brighter and happier than a lot I’ve met.

As for me, I’m still undecided as to whether I will go back to work. But if I do, it won’t be on the same hours as before; it’s likely to be considerably fewer.

Becoming a mum has made me more confident in myself, with the realisation that actually, I’m doing this on my own, S is doing well, I’m doing a good job. But it has also made me endlessly paranoid and worried I’m doing it all wrong. The other day while D, my Home Start lady was here, S was lying on her play mat and I noticed a mark on the side of her face. I was horrified: what could have happened to cause a massive bruise like that? I knew that if  D saw anything in my home that gave her cause for concern she was obliged to report it to the charity, and to my health visitor (everything is confidential unless it’s something like a massive bruise on a baby’s face; then they are obviously obliged to report it). I sat there on the mat saying, “oh gosh, look at that, is that a bruise? Oh no where can that have come from, what’s happened, oh no…” Then S moved, and it turned out it was just a shadow from the way she was laying. D looked and said: babies will always get little bumps from time to time. She told me that when her son was little he was completely fearless but very accident prone, and eventually the staff at A&E told her if they saw him again that year they would have to call social services. That reassured me for a while… until I found a couple of scratches on her leg yesterday afternoon!

I have definitely become a lot more health conscious, and my diet has improved massively. For a few weeks after coming home from hospital, I was living off crisps, microwave meals and chocolate. I was only taking my supplements as and when I remembered, which was not on a regular basis, and I generally felt like crap. All the while, in the back of my mind, I knew that if I improved my diet I would feel better; years of experience of eating junk and feeling awful have taught me how much difference the old 5 a day can make. Then one day I realised that as S grew and started to take in what went on around her, she was likely to begin to think that all food came either from a crisp packet, or the white box that goes ping in the corner of the kitchen. That day I went shopping and had a salad for lunch instead. Since then, I still eat a lot of chocolate (like you wouldn’t believe!) and my eating habits are definitely not as healthy as they could be, but I try to always eat as much fruit and vege as I can. I also feel that I need to be healthy, not just to set a good example to S, but so that I can be as healthy as possible to be a good mother to her. After all, if I die of heart disease at the age of 50, where does that leave my daughter? When I look back at my childhood, one thing that stands out is that my mum and all her friends were always on a diet. They we either starting a diet or breaking their diet or talking about the next diet. My auntie had a fridge magnet that said, “I’ll start my diet tomorrow… tomorrow… tomorrow…” One time my mum did a sponsored weight loss for charity. In the eighties everyone was on about diets and weight loss; nobody thought anything of it. But I don’t want S to look back on her childhood and see the same thing

I saw a documentary on TV about foods that are marketed as healthy but are actually just as bad as many others, and when I saw a brand of drink that I and a friend both enjoyed featured on the show, I texted her: “oh wow, that drink actually has more calories than a can of Coke!” I was really surprised. She responded that she was completely uninterested in the calorie content or healthiness of any foods. This really surprised me; this friend has a toddler, and I had just assumed that she would have the same “I need to be healthy for my child” feeling I had. I thought everyone had it. It’s not like I have a blind panic of “must exercise, must lose weight” or anything like that, but the thought that I need to keep myself healthy is always there, in the back of my head. In the past I have been somewhat reckless with my health. My diet has always been questionable and I was never one to read the instructions on a pack of medication. Now I read the instructions, the list of possible side effects, check whether it’s compatible with breastfeeding, and more often than not put it back in the cupboard and make do without it. As my health visitor pointed out to me very early on, S is entirely reliant on me, so while she is my first priority, I need to be second on that list and ensure I am fit and healthy enough to do a good job of looking after her.

This is a weird one, but I feel like a grown up now I’m a mother. I’m 31 years old, I moved out of my mother’s house when I was 20 and have spent a number of years living alone, paying my own bills and fending for myself. I’ve had jobs where I was responsible for the financial affairs of an entire company, or where I managed several other people’s workloads. And I spent last summer playing house with my ex and his six children. But that’s exactly what it was: playing house. I still feel a lot like I’m playing house now; every time I do a load of washing it feels like a complete novelty to me. Having S has made me actually grow up and behave like an adult though. I can’t just not wash up (well I can, but only for one day); I can’t just not get out of bed if I don’t fancy it. I have to get up, prepare food, change and wash nappies, clean things, make sure bills are paid. Before, if I ran out of money part way through the month I would just make do with living off whatever was left in the kitchen or go hungry. Now I have to be careful with my money and make sure it never runs out, that there is always credit on the gas meter.

Every time something else for the flat is sorted out (painting a wall, putting curtains up or a floor down) I feel like I’m one step closer to being a proper, actual grown up, with a home and a floor and curtains and a loo brush and bins that have to be taken out. The fact that S has to have two lots of supplements every day adds to this: they have to be measured out in a sterile syringe, and given to her at the same time every day. She can’t do that herself; I am responsible for it. It’s not just me any more, messing about and maybe tidying the living room every other week. I am entirely responsible for another human being, who has nobody else to rely on and I take that responsibility very seriously. Oh good grief, I’ve grown up.

The way I feel about my body has changed. Before I got pregnant, I was constantly worried about how my body looked, whether I looked fat, whether this outfit made my belly look too big. I exercised a lot in order to improve the way I looked in my clothes. I used all manor of lotions and potions on my skin and spent a fortune on hair care products. When I got pregnant and my bump started to get bigger, there was massive relief that now my belly was supposed to be big, so I could wear tighter tops and let it stick out. After having S, I just wore whatever was hanging around; I’d moved house shortly before giving birth, and it was a long while before I sorted through all my clothes so I didn’t have much to wear, and I didn’t much care about how I looked. So what if my belly was sticking out, I’d just given birth. Now, six months down the line, I think I probably have a healthier relationship with my body. My belly does stick out, but so do most people’s, and really nobody’s ever looking are they; they’re too busy worrying about their own lumps and bumps. I like the way my legs look these days, but I’m more impressed by how well they can carry S and I around and up and down stairs all day without collapsing. I would like to lose a little more weight, but I doubt that will happen before I stop breastfeeding, and I’m not going to stop just for that reason. And these days I’m more likely to just use the baby shampoo that’s on the side of the bath than to rush to Boots to buy the expensive stuff I used before. Who really cares whether my hair smells of a rainforest? I’m just glad on the days it doesn’t smell of baby sick! I do occasionally have days where I’ll wear make up, but that’s mainly because I still have a reasonably bad (for a 31 year old) case of acne that probably won’t clear up until I stop breastfeeding. I’m too lazy to put makeup on every day though; it’s only for really special occasions, or days when the bags under my eyes are just that little bit too dark.

It’s a very strange experience, to suddenly be responsible for another being. Because S’s father is not in the picture, I am acutely aware that I am all she has. If I don’t do something, it won’t get done. When I first got pregnant my boss told me: “I think having a baby might just sort you out.” What he meant was: you can’t sit about all day navel gazing and pondering the futility of it all, if you have to get up and change a nappy and sing several rounds of Row, Row Row Your Boat. I hate to say it, but he was 100% right, just as my friend was when she told me everything would change after S was born.

Diary Entries From Early Motherhood

29^th May (7 weeks, 1 day)

Today we went to see the health visitor. They like for you to go once a month so that they can check you’re not damaging the child. When we first came out of the hospital and S’s father left we had a couple of weeks where the health visitor and her nursery nurse were coming out to see us twice a week – so once a month is really nothing, I take it as a good sign they think I can go a month without doing something awful. They seemed happy with us; I kind of feel a bit like they should be asking more questions or be more concerned, as if perhaps they’ve just not noticed I’m doing it all wrong yet. I was surprised at how short the appointment was.

Although S is 7 weeks old now, she was 5 weeks early so developmentally she’s only expected to be 2 weeks. By that expectation, she’s doing really well and very alert. People keep saying to me, Oh isn’t she alert – but I’ve nothing to compare it to. As far as I’m concerned, she’s a baby and she’s alive and kicking, no different from any other baby.

I’ve stopped trying to settle her back into her Moses basket after night feeds. Now she goes to bed in the basket, but after she wakes to feed I just put her down next to me on my bed. She seems to settle a lot more easily if she’s next to me, and it will hopefully mean I can get more sleep!

1^st June (7 weeks, 4 days)

Tomorrow is my 31^st birthday. This is not how I imagined it would be. I’m having quite a negative time at the moment if I’m honest. I know I have S but I will be spending my birthday largely alone apart from her; and she can’t exactly wish me a happy birthday or anything. She’s been fairly difficult this evening; she slept most of the day so I couldn’t get her to sleep at bed time.

I feel bad for her when she’s like this; she only has me to look after her so when I’m all frazzled and have had enough, there’s nobody to take over and be all fresh and nice with her; instead she gets me, begging and pleading with her to please just be quiet and go to sleep as I try not to cry. I wanted better for her than this, I wanted better for both of us. I didn’t want to be a single mother living alone on a council estate with no support. I feel like I’ve let us both down with the way things have turned out, S is suffering because of my poor life choices. I don’t want it to be my birthday tomorrow; I don’t want to sit here on this bloody sofa on my own, wishing I had someone to share it with. Wishing I’d done things differently, because even though I know it wasn’t my fault and her father was looking for any excuse to go and sleep with someone else, and wasn’t worth my effort any way, even though I know we are both a hundred times better off without him in our lives, it still hurts and I still feel like perhaps if I’d done something differently, things would be better for us now. As it is, I’m alone and struggling.

9^th June (8 weeks, 5 days)

This morning S’s father turned up unannounced with 3 of her siblings. We’d agreed he could bring them, but he didn’t contact me to finalise a time, so I wasn’t expecting them first thing in the morning. S wasn’t best pleased with it either, and was horribly sick all over her brother. The whole visit was quite stressful for both of us, and I was glad when they left. S was sick again a couple of times – the kind of sick that requires outfit changes for both of us – and then slept all afternoon. She didn’t even stir when I changed her and put her in her Moses basket at bed time, or when I picked her out of the basket to have her sleep in the sling because I was worried about her lack of movement. Eventually I called NHS Direct. They had me check her body for rashes etc, and although I could find nothing, they told me to take her to hospital to be on the safe side. Of course, the minute we got to the hospital she woke up and was as alert as ever, and I felt stupid; but they did check her out thoroughly so I could at least put my mind at rest.

My Breastfeeding Journey

After researching my earlier postabout breastfeeding, I thought I would write a post about my own experience.

S was born 5 weeks early, and didn’t have the suck/swallow instinct that full term babies have. That first night, a nurse came down to the post natal ward from NICU and put a feeding tube up her nose and started feeding her formula. I agreed to it because I had no idea what was going on and didn’t want my baby to starve. They had a timetable for how much formula they would give her, increasing over the days so that her stomach expanded. Meanwhile, I was given an electric pump to keep by my bed, shown how to use it, and told I absolutely must use it for 20 minutes on each boob, every time S was fed.

The first day I don’t think I even touched the pump; it was kind of scary, and I was kind of shell-shocked. A lovely nurse came down from NICU and told me I should strip S down to her nappy and put her under my shirt, on my chest, as much as possible as it would help her in all sorts of ways, and it would help to get my milk flowing. For the next few days, a nurse from NICU would come down every 3 hours to feed S formula via her nasal tube. At the same time I would hold her to my breast so that she associated my boobs with her tummy being full. Then I would spend the better part of an hour trying to pump with this industrial-strength pump. What nobody tells you is that if your milk hasn’t come in, using a pump for 20 minutes at a time, 8 times a day, really makes your nipples hurt. You have to do it though, to make your body wake up and realise it’s meant to be producing milk.

When S was 3 days old, she was jaundiced and so they took her up to NICU to spend some time under lights. Although it was horrible, and I cried and felt awful, it was probably one of the better things to happen to me in hospital. As I sat by her little fish tank feeling a bit lost but not wanting to leave her side, one of the nurses sent me to go for a little walk and get something to eat. When I came back the shift had changed over and the new nurse asked what I was planning to do. When I looked at her with a blank expression, she got a paper towel from the dispenser and wrote me what she referred to as “a magic tissue” – a timetable for when S would be fed over the next few days, and what I was to do. Then she sent me back to the ward, telling me to get some sleep, and that if I happened to be awake at any of the overnight feeding times to come up and sit with S, and otherwise she would see me in the morning. Over the next few days while S was in NICU, I sat in a chair next to her and at feed time we would try to get her feeding. And then she would go back into her little UV-lit fish bowl, and I would pump.

When they finally let S come back down to the ward to be with me, she was still being tube fed and I was still struggling with the pumping. I don’t think anyone mentioned to me that because I was so traumatised from giving birth 5 weeks early, it was probably delaying my milk coming in. As it was, that concept never occurred to me, and I spent a few days convinced I was clearly not meant to be a mother and had made a terrible mistake in bringing this poor child into the world.  I think my milk finally came in when she was just over a week old, and the relief I felt was not something I will ever be able to describe. She still had issues with latching, and staying awake long enough to drink enough milk though, so the tube feeding continued – but now that I was actually producing some milk, we could stop the formula and start putting my milk into the tube, which I felt a lot better about. The ward staff were very supportive, if a little hands-on with my boobs, and would come in and try to help me position S in the best way and hold her properly to ensure she latched on correctly. The NICU nurses continued to come down to the ward ever three hours to feed her via tube – each time they feed through a nasal tube they have to check first that the tube is going into the stomach and not the lungs. The good thing about a baby being fed through a tube is that they remove all the air from the belly with the syringe, so S never had any wind, and was rarely sick. One evening after shift change the night-shift nurse came down to help feed S. It was a lady we’d met a few times before, and who had been really good to me when S was in NICU. I went off to the fridge to fetch some milk to put into the tube, and when I came back and handed her a bottle of my milk rather than formula, she was genuinely thrilled. We soon switched S’s feeds over so that she fed from me, and then had a small “top-up” via tube to make sure she was getting enough and wouldn’t lose weight.

Shortly after that, S pulled her feeding tube out. It was the second time she’d done it, and as she was starting to get the hang of the breastfeeding, they suggested we leave the tube out, and top up her feeds with a cup instead. We tried that a few times; it was very messy, and she didn’t seem interested in the milk. We hoped this was because she was getting enough milk from me already. When, a couple of days later, she had put on 50g in one day, we decided she was definitely getting enough milk from me, and they finally let us come home. Because she was tiny, and had been jaundiced (which makes a baby very sleepy and they may not wake up for feeds), they let us leave with very strict instructions to never, ever let S go more than 3 hours between feeds.

With this in mind, I took S home, horribly paranoid that she would lose weight and they would take her back into hospital again. The morning before we left the hospital, a midwife asked how my nipples were, and I said they were sore – so she gave me some little packets of a thing called Jelonet. This is like a little mesh that you put over your nipple, and it’s meant to make it feel a little better. I was not overly impressed, but it did make a little difference and so I took what I was given.

For the first few days, I was setting an alarm for every 3 hours to ensure I didn’t miss a feed. Any time we went even slightly over that 3 hour mark I would go into a panic, convinced I was a terrible mother and S would lose weight and then they’d take her away and I would have failed at motherhood. Night times were the worst – I would put her to sleep in her Moses basket and pass out myself, only to wake up half an hour later in a complete panic, thinking I’d slept through the next alarm, worried because I couldn’t remember putting S back into her basket and panicking because I must have fallen asleep and rolled over on her or dropped her or something. After a couple of days the midwife discharged us and the health visitor came round. She took one look at us and told me that since S was putting on weight fine, we could just leave her overnight and just feed her when she woke. Even though she was still waking every 3 hours or so, it was a massive relief to me that the health visitor thought we were doing ok! On that visit she also saw the way I was sitting to feed S and said, you’re going to be doing this several times a day for a long time… if you do it like that every time it’s going to hurt and you’ll get fed up. She showed me how to sit more comfortably, using every cushion we had available as well as a pillow off my bed (which has only just gone back upstairs), and I’ve not looked back since.

Meanwhile, my nipples were more and more painful. It got to the point that the times between feeds were spent largely dreading the next feed. Every time S latched on I would cry out in pain, and if she slipped or moved in any way whilst feeding it was agony. Quite often my crying out in pain was what caused her to move in shock. As soon as I was able to get out of the house, I went to Boots and bought some Lansinoh. It worked almost instantly, and for a week or so I carried it everywhere with me. In fact, I still have two half-empty tubes lurking around the house somewhere, and can definitely vouch for its magical healing abilities when you burn yourself on the oven because you’ve crossed the line into drunk-tiredness and should really not have been near anything hot.

One thing that didn’t help the nipples was the growth spurts – I had no idea such a thing really existed until they happened. There were a good few evenings where S would start to feed around 4pm, and between then and maybe 10 or 11pm I could put her down only to change her nappy or to quickly run to the toilet. This was a really testing time for me, being on my own in a poorly furnished flat, with nobody I could call to bring me something to eat or drink was a nightmare. I felt so alone and miserable, but luckily it didn’t last too long.

I am lucky in that I live fairly close to town; back when we were still sticking rigidly to the 3-hourly feeding schedule (even after the nights were relaxed a little) I would go out and then just rush home when it was feeding time. The first time I ever fed S in public I was with her father and we decided to be brave and get some lunch in town. We went into the Slug & Lettuce, which has a little section at the back which is usually empty, but when we got there a screen was pulled across. The manager came over and I said I’d been hoping to use the relative privacy to feed my baby. He said he had a party coming in and needed to set up, but that we could go and sit down there so long as we were gone by 5pm. He even helped carry the push chair down the steps for me, pulled the screen across behind us, and sent a female staff member to take our food order. It was still a bit daunting, but after that I had a little more confidence. The next time we went in there and S was due for a feed I was sitting there thinking that perhaps we could just eat quickly and head home, and then I peered over and noticed that the lady on the next table hadn’t just pulled a scarf around her because she was cold; she’d been feeding her baby for the last ten minutes and nobody had noticed. I have to say that since these two episodes, even if I’m visiting another town, I will generally try to seek out a Slug & Lettuce if I need to feed S.  I’ve fed her in other places, including sitting on a picnic blanket in a park one sunny day, and I’ve never had anyone say anything negative about it, but I do still feel a bit funny about it, and more often than not she is fed at home on the sofa.

S still feeds through the night. On a good night it may only be once, and then an early morning wake-up. On a bad night, when she’s not feeling so well for whatever reason, it can be 4 or 5 times. At first I would sit up, switch a lamp on and read a book while I fed her. Then I thought I’d just try feeding her lying down and see what happened. Now she sleeps in a grobag next to me in bed, and night feeds are really no big deal; I barely even wake up for them.

I have shared my story in the hope that other people can see how a situation that seemed quite hopeless and depressing to start with can be turned around and actually become a success story. By the time S was 6 weeks old her feeding was fully established and she was doing really well. I really think I was lucky to have stayed in the hospital for so long (even though it nearly finished me off mentally), to have so many people around with so much experience; whenever I tried to feed S, if she couldn’t latch on or kept falling asleep or we just weren’t getting on too well I could press a button and one of the ward staff would come and help me. The NICU nurses were truly amazing and helped in ways you couldn’t even imagine. I remember one day when we’d just been told yet again we couldn’t go home and I was in floods of tears when a lady came down from NICU for feeding time. I don’t remember everything that she said, but I know she made me feel so much better about my situation and helped me to learn to feed S laying down so that we could both get some rest together.

At first, when people would ask if I was still breastfeeding, and when I said yes they would say “oh well done!” I would think what are you on about, it’s not some major achievement; I’m just feeding my baby. While I was writing this week’s posts though, I went back and thought about my own experience, and also looked into other people’s experiences, and actually I do feel quite proud of myself, and proud of S. And we did it on our own; her father left when she was 3 weeks old, but even before then he wasn’t really around enough to make a difference. S will be 6 months old next week, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the way things are going. Breastfeeding has given me a massive sense of accomplishment that I don’t think I would have if she’d been formula fed, or if I’d changed her over to formula when things became difficult. I am so lucky not to have had to deal with things like mastitis or blocked milk ducts, or this may well be an entirely different story.

If you've enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy this post: 10 Reasons Breastfeeding Is Better Than Formula

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Things They Don't Tell You About Breastfeeding

This post deals with all the things nobody really seems to mention about breastfeeding, until they happen or you ask. If you are not breastfeeding, or do not intend to breastfeed, that is entirely your choice, and this post is not intended as a way of judging that decision. 

My view is that breast is best, and I feel very strongly that all babies should get that benefit whenever possible. Please feel free to skip this post if it is not relevant to you.

The current World Health Organisation recommendation is exclusive breastfeeding for at least the first 6 months. Some people don’t agree with this and do things differently, and they are completely within their rights to do whatever they choose – mum always knows what is best for her baby. That said, I do feel a lot of women give up breastfeeding early because they don’t have enough information on it. So here is some information.

• Breastfeeding is better for baby than formula. This is not a debatable point; all scientists etc agree. It has benefits for mother and baby alike, including protecting you against cancer, and passing on your immunities to your baby. It also helps you to create a bond with your child unlike any other.

• If you decide you want to breastfeed your baby, try to read up about it a bit beforehand so that you are prepared. Although it is “the most natural thing in the world,” a lot of babies will have trouble latching on. And it hurts like buggery to start with. It doesn’t mean you’re rubbish or not cut out for this sort of thing or whatever else. Expect every single member of the ward staff to come in and offer you advice, and probably grab your boob as you try to feed as well. You will lose all modesty where your boobs are concerned.

• If you are planning to breastfeed, I cannot shout loudly enough that you should buy some Lansinoh lanolin cream. It’s a little purple tube and it costs about £12, which seems extortionate, and you may be tempted to think you can do without something that’s so expensive. And then, three weeks into breastfeeding when you’re crying out in pain every time your little bundle latches on, you’ll be prepared to pay ten times that amount for one of those little purple tubes. Incidentally, Lansinoh cream is magic and works wonders on just about every kind of skin ailment. It is the work of the gods, I tells ye.

• It would also be prudent to purchase nursing pads, as boobs tend to leak a lot, especially in the early days. There are a lot of different ones out there, and it’s down to personal preference, but I found the Lansinoh ones were the best. And they actually stick to the inside of your bra properly so that you don’t lose them or find them floating about your neckline mid-afternoon.

• One thing nobody tells you (I wasn’t aware until I started researching this post) is that it’s recommended to feed your baby within the first 6 hours, so as to establish your milk ducts to their full potential. Don’t panic if you can’t though; it’s not the end of the world, just useful to know so that you can at least try.

• If you’re breastfeeding exclusively, you just kind of have to accept that your life is not your own for the next however-many months. A breastfed baby will need to be fed more frequently than a formula-fed one, and will not sleep through the night (unless you are very, very lucky). This is because breast milk is so efficient, it fills your baby’s stomach, and is then used up very quickly. Formula will sit in their stomach for a while before it is used up, meaning baby doesn’t get hungry and wake up.

• No matter what anyone tries to tell you, if your baby is exclusively breastfed, it really can be exclusively breastfed. You don’t need to feed baby cooled boiled water or juice or anything else. If the weather is hot, your boobs will know about it, and your milk becomes more dilute so as to be more thirst quenching. When your baby goes through a growth spurt and begins to feed every half-hour, that doesn’t mean your milk is not enough and you need to get some formula or baby rice. Your boobs notice the baby is feeding more frequently, and increase your supply, so within a day or so, there’s more milk with more calories there for the first feed, and baby doesn’t get hungry again for a few hours.

• There is no food or drink known to man that is as nutritious and calorific as breast milk. Even when baby starts solids, it will still be getting most of its sustenance from your milk until solids are properly established, around a year old.

• Your boobs are magic. They work on a “demand and supply” principle, meaning that if your baby feeds regularly, your boobs will increase their milk production to accommodate that. Unfortunately, this does mean that you can’t “cheat” by expressing milk for someone else to feed baby while you take a nap. Your boobs can’t tell the difference between a pump and a baby, and will just assume the demand has increased. You are likely to be woken by full, engorged boobs waiting for a baby to feed.

• If you have problems establishing breastfeeding – and you most probably will (everyone does), don’t give up just yet! Find out where your nearest Children’s Centre is (your health visitor can tell you) and go to a breastfeeding support group. It sounds odd, and it kind of is – but you can usually guarantee a cup of tea or coffee, a room full of mums in the same position as you, and some experienced helpers with boatloads of advice and support. When I went there was even jam on toast.

• Regarding breastfeeding in public – this is now covered under anti-discrimination law, and staff/proprietors cannot legally ask you to leave or not to breastfeed in their establishment. A lot of women prefer to wear a scarf or something else to protect their modesty, but apparently you don’t actually have to. I’ve never tested that theory though.

• Some women have a particularly fast letdown, and when their little one latches on it can come too quickly and make them gag. There are a lot of different ways to deal with this, so if you find you have this issue, it’s probably best to speak to your health visitor or midwife. Some tactics include changing the way you hold the baby, frequent burping, more frequent feeding, or hand-expressing until the flow slows down.

• One thing I wasn’t aware of before I had a baby and actually thought about it – there is more than one position for breastfeeding. On TV and what have you, you tend to see a woman holding the baby across her chest – but many women find it easier and more comfortable to feed baby whilst holding baby under her arm (like a rugby ball), or (my personal favourite for night-time feeding) laying down. As long as the baby is getting milk and is comfortable, it really doesn’t matter how you’re holding them. When they get older, they will choose their own position, often with one hand grabbing at your clothes, or (S’s personal favourite) clawing at your mouth and throat.

• Regarding feeding positions – bear in mind that you will be doing this several times a day, potentially for the better part of a year. Sometimes, especially in the early days, baby can feed for 45 minutes or more at a time. It’s important therefore, that you are sitting comfortably and not leaning or straining. Use a lot of pillows to prop yourself and baby into a comfortable position. Your back will thank you.

• Something I wish I’d been told (perhaps I was told, but I wish someone had told me it every day for the first month) is that breastfeeding can take 6 weeks to establish. A lot of women try their level best at it, and give up after a few weeks because they find it so hard, not realising that if they’d just hung on in there a couple more weeks things would have become a whole lot easier. I you intend to breastfeed, it’s best to just give your life up to it for the first 6 weeks and accept that you won’t be doing much else but getting used to it. If you need to, switch the phone off, lock the doors, and just sleep whenever the baby does. This phase doesn’t last forever, I promise.

• Until breastfeeding is established, it is weird, uncomfortable, exhausting, time-consuming and completely alien. I was imagining giving birth to a baby and feeding it straight away and everything being peachy. It doesn’t happen like that (unless you are very lucky). It does hurt to start with, your nipples do get sore, you do wonder what the hell is going on. In order to get your milk supply up, your baby does spend a lot of time feeding. I remember a good few evenings where I was literally stuck to the couch from 6pm to 10pm with barely enough time for a toilet break between feeds. I was at a loss until someone explained it’s normal, everyone goes through it, and it doesn’t last forever.

• Once you get through the initial bedding-in stage, breastfeeding really is the lazy person’s option. No sterilising, no panic if you’ve forgotten to buy formula in this week’s shop, no getting up to warm a bottle and checking it’s the right temperature while your baby screams in your arms, no having to remember to take a bottle if you go out, perhaps two or three if you’re out for a while. Baby’s hungry? Find somewhere to sit, and open your shirt. You don’t even necessarily need to find somewhere to sit; I know a lot of women who breastfeed with their baby in a sling, while they carry on with their day. The most difficult part of breastfeeding is finding clothes to accommodate your boobs whilst allowing easy access.

• Breast milk is magic. Not only does it have the exact right nutrients in the exact right amounts to feed a growing baby, changing as the baby develops, it is also good for minor first aid. (bear with me on this, I know it sounds a bit odd). You know when your baby scratches her face with the nails you forgot to cut, and you feel like the world’s worst mother? Spread a little expressed milk on it, and it will be gone in no time. It can be used in ears to protect against an ear infection when baby has a cold, on nappy rash, eczema, mosquito bites, grazes, rashes, you name it. It is also good on acne, adult or infant.

• If you breastfeed exclusively, it can delay the start of your period. This can last anything from the first couple of months right up to a year of age, perhaps even longer. An added bonus for those of us who really don’t enjoy such things (is there anyone who does?)

• The down side of breastfeeding is that you can’t get someone else to do it for you, while you go and have fun (or sleep). The up side is that you get to sit and cuddle your baby several times a day. It’s not something you can do whilst doing the washing up, cooking the tea, ironing hubby’s work shirt or much else except watch TV and have a little drink. Make the most of having a cast iron excuse to sit down and have a break.

• When babies are very small, you have to hold them in position and help them latch on and make sure your arm doesn’t drop or they fall away from the boob and get upset that their food supply has disappeared. When they’re bigger, you just point them in the vague direction of your boob, and they sort themselves out. S is 6 months old now, and pretty much starts to undress me when she gets hungry these days.

• Another thing breastfed babies do when they’re older is use feeding time as a time to practise things like grabbing, raspberry blowing, poking, and other loveliness. Just recently during night feeds S had taken to feeding from one nipple while she grabs and pinches at the other, which is not very nice. It is quite fun to watch them practising their other skills though, and only a problem if you’re just giving them a quick feed before you go off out somewhere. That is the time they will spend 20 minutes blowing raspberries before bothering to actually have any milk. Try to enjoy it; they’ll be moody teenagers before you know it.

• Breastfeeding helps you get rid of the baby weight! I don’t know why they don’t shout this one from the rooftops, seriously. It uses up extra calories from your body, so as long as you’re not shovelling a slab of chocolate down your throat at every meal, you do just lose weight from sitting on the couch watching daytime telly. It does mean that you can often find yourself ravenously hungry and horribly thirsty though, especially if they’re going through a growth spurt.

• One thing that’s obvious once it’s been said, but still needs to be said, is that your diet will affect the quality of your milk. Your body can only make milk from the materials available to it. Obviously if you’re struggling to look after a tiny baby, your diet does tend to go out the window a little bit. But once this concept dawned on me, I started to pay more attention to what I was eating and drinking.

• Breastfed babies can often go a long time between poos – another bonus! This is something a lot of people have never heard of, and it is not the case for all breastfed babies. Before starting solids, S would only ever poo every 5 days. If she went longer than 5 days, I would start drinking lots of orange juice, and that would speed things up a bit. Strange but true – your drinking orange juice will help your baby poo.

So there we have it: a rather lengthy post of all the things I thought might be useful to know about breastfeeding.

Apparently only 3% of UK women are still breastfeeding at 5 months, which is a sad statistic that we can hopefully improve if we all share our knowledge and personal experiences.

This post is part of a group of Things They Don't Tell You About... posts. The others are:

Things They Don't Tell You About Pregnancy
Things They Don't Tell You About Childbirth
Things They Don't Tell You About Motherhood
Things They Don't Tell You About Babies

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