Navigating Motherhood

Immunisations  Some health visitors advise giving calpol beforehand, some say don’t do it until after… so with that super helpful information, do what you feel is best for your baby! We opted for after, so I had the calpol in the bag ready and he had it as soon as we left the nurses room.  Think carefully about clothing choice.. with a summer baby, we were quite lucky that the weather suited him just being in a vest or a romper. Essentially, you want something that has their legs free or clothing that is easy to take their leg out of (the injections go into the thigh).  It’s highly likely that your little one will scream… I mean who wouldn’t with a needle being put into each thigh?! That scream really does tug at your heart strings! I’ve made sure for each of my boy’s immunisations that I’ve left the day completely free so that we could go at our pace for the day.  All babies will inevitably react differently. For us, after the first immunisations he just wanted cudd...

I thought it’d be helpful to dedicate some of this blog to things I wish I’d been told, or given an insight to beforehand. We live in a world where people’s lives are so busy, or people are so worried about giving advice and it causing offence, that sometimes nothing gets said at all… and actually, I think that’s worse.  So here’s my first one… and this one was actually passed onto my husband by his best mate, he just forgot to give me the heads up!  Newborn noises! Oh my goodness, that first night you’re sleeping next to your little one. You’re so nervous yet so excited to finally have them here… wait, is that my baby or have dinosaurs started roaming the earth again?! Yep, it’s your baby. The noises that babies make are something else and if I’m being honest, it’ll probably scare you a bit (or at least it did me). As with a lot of parents, we got what felt like zero sleep the first few nights as we were constantly watching over our baby to make sure he was ok. You’d start to...

A huge part of my identity is being a teacher and switching off from that has probably been one of the biggest challenges that I’ve had to adapt to. I’m so lucky to have a job that I absolutely love and whilst I know this isn’t the case for everyone, it really is for me. I think it’s so challenging to go from working in an environment where you are around a lot people, constantly on the go, and where no day is the same to suddenly a repetitive lifestyle. I remember my husband saying to me a little while back, “You’re bored, aren’t you?”. I felt so guilty. I felt like I was the worst mum because he was right: I was bored. My days had taken a drastic change and I found that really difficult to adjust to. At the beginning, you’re living in what feels like 3 hour cycles of feeding, changing nappies and sleeping (in short bursts), before it all starts again. It’s very repetitive and whilst that’s exactly what you need in those early weeks, because you’re exhausted, it doesn’t exactly get th...

Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely understand that the NHS is stretched but not being able to have a cuppa when your partner is in labour seems a bit extreme - on average most first time mums will labour for approximately 8-18 hours (sometimes longer). That’s a long time to go without a refreshment! How many hospitals have signs up next to the kitchen areas saying ‘tea & coffee is for patients only, not birthing partners’? I know women really do go through it when in labour but let’s not make out like it’s easy for the partners. Depending on what your labour process is, there will be some element of stress for most partners, whether that’s getting you to the hospital in a panic, watching their loved one in pain and knowing they can’t help, or having to “sleep” on a “chair bed”. Surely this is the time when we should be helping to look out for the birthing partner so that they can be as supportive as possible for mum and baby?!  Thankfully the worst that happened to us was bei...

“Moving house?”  “No, we’ve just had a baby.”  - “Got the changing bag with about 15 nappies, 5 packs of wipes and ten changes of clothes, just incase.”  - “Got the rain cover and the parasol, you can never be too careful when you live in England!”  Everyone tells you that leaving the house when you’ve had a baby is like moving house over and over again but, until you’re in the thick of it, you really can’t quite believe that’s true. You’ll want to pack everything for that ‘just incase’ moment and that’s ok… just make sure you’ve done it the night before as you’ll never feel time move so fast than when you need to be out of the house by a certain time.  Will you forget something? Always.  Will you be late? Most likely.  Will it matter? To you, yes. But to those closest to you, they’ll understand.  So what’s the solution? Tell everyone to lie to you… get your family/friends to tell you that you need to be there half an hour before you actually do… ...

Whether you’re thinking about having a baby, have one on the way, or your little bundle of joy is already in your arms, take a moment to pause and think about what fills your cup… why? Because you were you before you became a parent and it’s important that you don’t forget that!  Parenting is tough, there’s no doubt about it… they don’t say it takes a village for no reason. Your life will never be the same again but in the most beautiful way. You’ll find that the things you did on a day to day just aren’t as important anymore or there’s not as much time for them. But there will come a day when you feel incredibly overwhelmed and you may well wish you had something that was for you… but make it something realistic otherwise you’ll forever be disappointed if you can’t do it and no one wants that.  Before our boy arrived, my husband and I sat down and spoke about what fills our cup… it was stuff we already knew (we’ve been together 8 years) but it was helpful to have it confirmed...

I’ve seen a lot on social media recently about limiting visitors and whilst I understand it, I don’t fully agree with it. I think it fully depends on your family/friendship dynamic. We are not the type of people who are bothered if our house is untidy when those closest to us visit. Would I sling the hoover round if I had the chance? Absolutely, but I wouldn’t feel like I couldn’t have someone over if I didn’t have the time/energy to do this.  From what I’ve read, a lot of the ‘limiting visitors’ opinion has been to allow you to settle into your own routine as a family and to give you all time to bond as a family. My opinion, don’t limit the visitors, limit the time they stay, but if they know you well enough, chances are you won’t have to say anything when it comes to time to leave. Our only rule was that we didn’t want people visiting if they were unwell, which you’d hope most people would follow anyway if they were not feeling 100%.  Will you feel like an over-protective Mu...

There’s no doubt about it, when you have a baby, your body changes… I mean how can it not when you’ve given birth to a tiny human?!  The thing I was not prepared for was how I’d feel about my body, after I’d given birth. Throughout pregnancy, I felt the excitement of getting that bit bigger, feeling my baby kick more, and knowing that my body was doing an incredible thing of growing him. But when my baby was born, my body really didn’t feel like my own. I knew it had done this incredible thing of growing our beautiful little boy but when he was here, it then didn’t feel quite as powerful to me.  I went shopping to look for a dress for my birthday meal and realised that nothing I tried on worked… not because I was bigger, of course I knew that would be the case and was perfectly happy to size up (I was only 6 weeks postpartum), but because my entire shape had changed. Styles of clothes that I had always opted for in the past no longer suited me and that’s what I wasn’t prepared...

When you’re first time parents, chances are you’ll be considering buying everything, and the kitchen sink, for your little one. You’ll want to ensure you have everything you think you’ll need… but why? Let’s think about it… if you decided you wanted something for them, what couldn’t you buy and have in the same day, if not the next day or the day after? There’s really not much. Of course there are things that are absolute essentials (that’s another list) but there are also things that can wait.  Before I fell pregnant, I would too often hear new (and old) parents around me saying “I wish we’d never bought that; they didn’t, or barely, used it”. So my advice… hold off and wait to get to know your baby, that way you can make an informed decision and you may even save yourself some money, and space, in the long run!  Things I consider to be gimmickal gadgets (some things aren’t actually gadgets but I liked the alliterative title - it’s the teacher in me).  - Baby bouncer (or...

When I fell pregnant, my partner and I made the decision that I would breast feed exclusively for the first 6 weeks (I had learnt that you needed to do this to establish your supply) before swapping to combi-feeding to allow a better balance for us all. I thought that this was what I wanted and only when I realised that I couldn’t breastfeed did I realise just how much I really wanted to… and it hurt knowing that I couldn’t.  I did my research beforehand: I attended a breast feeding class and I did a bit of reading but now that I think about it, perhaps I could’ve done a bit more… who knows?!  On day 3 of being at home, our little boy ended up back in hospital. He had lost 12.7% of his birth weight and had jaundice. I was made to feel, by the midwives that visited our home, that it was an emergency and that we needed to get him back to hospital immediately. Well, we arrived at hospital and waited an hour to be seen by the paediatrician who advised us that it was not an emergen...

At the age of 17, I was told I had PCOS (polycystic ovaries) so I knew that my chances of falling pregnant already had a limitation to it, or at least that’s what I thought. When I was diagnosed, my doctor simply told me to come back to see him when I wanted to get pregnant (very helpful) and as that wasn’t something that was on my agenda just yet, I put it to the back of my mind. I did my own research throughout the years and learnt to manage/cope with the excessive hair growth, yo-yo weight and pains, and got on with my day to day life.  Fast forward to 2015 and I met my, now, husband. As most couples do, we discussed our plans for the future and I shared my worries over my PCOS. We discussed this several times prior to getting married and decided what would be would be and focused on enjoying our time as a couple. Well, 2023 came and we married in the August. September came around soon enough and I’d become so in tune with my body that I knew when something was different - I was...

Trigger warning… I write this not because anything particularly traumatic happened during my labour but because there will be elements that some soon-to-be mum’s will not quite want to read just yet so feel free to stop here and come back when your bubba has arrived! If you want some ideas of what helped me… scroll all the way to the bottom.  The short version   Induced using protaglandin gel at 4:30am on a Saturday morning.  Baby boy arrived the day after at 9:30am.  The longer version My induction was medically advised due to me being monitored for pre eclampsia.. but it’s worth noting (and you should be told this) that all inductions are your choice. For me, if something is medically advised, I will always opt to follow the advice but that’s just how my brain works and it doesn’t have to be the same for everyone!  During my week 39 appointment, I was told I would be induced when I reached full term, which was at the end of that week. Up until this point, I wa...