things I wish I had known

I think I took a fair amount in my stride after Ada was born. I was tired, had lost some blood and inevitably sore. I do wish I had known how long it may take for me to heal. It was 6 weeks before I stopped taking pain relief everyday.

I thought I had been told but I didn’t really realise that breastfeeding is work, exhausting work. You need to eat enough, drink enough, sleep enough and stick with it. Ada took a long time to feed and fell asleep a lot because she was hot and feeding was taking so long. I was feeding her 7-8 times a day and each feed was taking over an hour. Feeding alone was a full time job spread over 24 hours.

I hadn’t heard about cluster feeding. Babies like to feed continuously sometimes. Rather than eating every three hours, they feed for something like for 3 – 6 hours straight. Ada cluster fed her first night, I was in the hospital and a bit beside myself wanting to sleep. The nurse propped the two of us up on our sides and I dozed while Ada fed all through the night. This happened again on the second night at the birth unit. It was the possibility of needing to feed all night that scared me about going home, I thought it may be easier to do that at the maternity unit with help. The less than friendly night staff meant I wanted to go home anyway. On her third night Ada slept in her wee bassinet next to us not needing feeding all night and nights have been OK since then.

Now feeding is easy and fun and she grins cheeky grins up at me mid way through. Not in public darling.

What things surprised other parents in the first weeks?