Parenting 101: I Never Got My Copy

My first post gave you a little insight into the incredible roller coaster four months I've experienced as a newbie mum. The elation, the depression and all the soiled nappies and milk burps in between. But I barely touched on the level of crazy I actually reached during those introductory months of Motherhood. 

All new mums are nervous, that's a given. It's all totally alien. Buying the 'how to' books, whiling hours away on Baby Centre forums and googling every move and sound your baby makes. But I took this to a whole new level. I'm talking 'coo-coo', someone give the girl a Valium type levels of cray cray.

As I mentioned in my first post, my 42 week long pregnancy revolved around studying and practicing hypnobirthing and preparing myself for labour. I was an expert in the art of taking my mind to my 'happy place'; I could breath away pain [in through my nose to the count of 4, out through my nose to the count of 8] and feel absolute calm through the practice of rainbow relaxation [breath in the colour of blue, glide through fields of purple, breathe love down to your baby.] I was able to completely zone out and enter a beautiful state of meditation and despite the horror story labour that was to unfold, I still absolutely believe that these hypnobirthing techniques allowed me to remain totally calm and silent during labour and manage the pain of contractions. But amongst that stack of well-thumbed pregnancy and birth books on the coffee table, sat not one single book entitled: "What The Bloody Hell You Do Once The Baby Is Here: 1st Ed"

But I was told I'd 'J Breathe' my baby out on a chuffing rainbow! A baby that didn't shit or cry or need feeding every 2.5 minutes... Why did nobody tell me I had forgot the bit when she actually arrived?

Now I'd like to specify at this point that I'd managed to get to thirty without ever having held a newborn baby. Never changed a nappy, never seen a baby be breast or bottle fed, never thought about what they do in a day and certainly never considered what night time with a baby might look like. This was absolutely foreign territory and almost as soon as I arrived home, I had to radio in the troops for back up and supplies (meaning my Mum, chocolate and a shed load of it.) Mum was here pretty much constantly. She would stay over and sleep in my bed with me when Kris was on nights because I didn't want to be alone. She likes to laugh now at one phone call she received from me when we first arrived home from hospital: "Yeah Hi, Mum. Oh yeah we're fine thanks. Uh- Mum... what do I actually do with her when she's awake?" This was a real thing. I had no idea.

Part of what makes Kris and I a perfect match is that we have the same interests, the same outlook on life, the same naughty sense of humour and the same life values. We are a total cliché in that he genuinely is my best friend.  But we are polar opposites when it comes to how we handle certain situations- I over think everything where he is super laid back, almost blasé. But more often than not we find a perfect balance by coming to a middle ground in our decision making (or this is what I lead him to believe- we still do it my way, obviously.) However in the context of handling a new baby, this same formula didn't apply. Kris did you hear the way she just cried, is she struggling to breathe of maybe she is choking? NAH doubt it, go to sleep [snores like a pig.] I was on the verge of calling 999 at every wet fart; Kris would sleep through the night and was phased by nothing.

Now this laid back approach should have been a good influence on me; he had been-there-and-done-that eleven years ago with his gorgeous son, Eli. But it didn't. It made me panic even more, spend my life consulting Dr. Google and turned me into your archetypal bunny boiler. I googled everything:

"Baby just burped whilst simultaneously looking left, is it terminal?"

"Baby cries even though I'm giving her everything she needs. Does she hate me?"

"Baby tries to suck nose when hungry. Visually impaired? Clearly looks nothing like a nipple."

"Baby three weeks old healthy poo pictures."

OK so some of those are made up, but if anyone saw my Google search history I'd have been sectioned (including utterly hilarious questions about the recovery of my 'lady bits', which I'm happy to report after 18 weeks are fully back to normal, answering my "will it forever look like a windsock?" google search.)

Now we've departed the so-called fourth trimester where babies just sleep-crap-eat-repeat, the real hard work has begun. Having regained relative sanity, I'm slowly realising that there are absolutely no definitive answers. There is no text book in the world that will detail the perfect way to raise a baby. In fact, every single text book will tell you a totally different 'perfect' way to do it which- if you're anything like me- will make your head slowly implode.

Sleep is the massive one for us at the moment. Freya absolutely refuses to sleep- she lulled us into a false sense of security during the first four months by sleeping anywhere and everywhere. Now, she will fight and fight it -there's far more interesting things to do when she is awake apparently- and so I have to catch her in that tiny window  of 'tired but not too tired' in order to put her down to nap. At bed time, for some reason, she seems to channel Michael Flatley and flails her legs around as if she is Lord of the flipping Dance. This is followed by about ten attempts to keep her sleeping before I dash out of the room like Ninja Mum, desperately trying to avoid every creaky floor board in our Victorian semi. So if one more person asks me: "is she sleeping through the night yet?", I'm liable to whack out some of my Jiu Jitsu moves circa 1996. No. She does not sleep through the night. In fact, having reached the well known 'four month sleep regression", she actually wakes up nearly once hourly some nights. Oh and she doesn't self-settle either. Cue smug face as 'little Harry slept through from night one!'

I bet Harry shits solid gold bars and farts glitter too.

The suggested methods are endless: 'cry-it-out' vs 'no-cry techniques' and everything in between. Just as you think you've decided on a route to go down, some research pops up that suggests "letting a baby cry itself to sleep is psychologically harmful.  The child will grow up thinking they cannot trust their parents and will exhibit trust issues in adult life." Brilliant. So we will go the 'no-cry' gentle parenting route then: 'Not if you want to sleep ever again in your whole life EVER.'

The truth is, there is no one size fits all. Just as every adult has a different personality and temperament, as do our babies. When I get frustrated that Freya won't go to sleep on demand, I remember that I sometimes struggle to sleep. Sometimes it's too bright, my head is too busy, I'm stressed or I've had a really exciting day. Now that Freya is at the age where babies have sleeping patterns more like an adult (this happens around the four month mark), she too may find it hard to sleep sometimes. However, there are folks (like Kris) who are lucky enough that they can fall asleep anywhere and everywhere and again, some babies are lucky enough to be the same. This helps me manage the utter frustration that bedtime sometimes brings.

It turns out my baby would rather stay awake all day and night partying just like her Mumma: she has to nurse to sleep otherwise we have a mini meltdown; she can't seem to nap anywhere but our dimly lit and quiet bedroom so we have a two hour window to go out of the house before the next nap (unless we go for a drive where she will sleep almost instantly); sometimes taking her out in public is hard work if she is having a bad day; she can't self settle because for four months I didn't know whether she was crying from agonising pain and needed me (which turned out to be the case) or if I should just leave her to cry so that she learned how to get back to sleep herself. It is hard. But I'm not jealous or bitter: she is mine and I love her so much it hurts. Utterly beautiful, a kindness in her smile that warms my heart and a wisdom in her eyes that makes me feel she has been here before. Despite all the hard times with colic, dairy allergies, chronic reflux, teething and her own frustration at not being able to do the things she wants to yet (little Miss Independent), she is our perfect princess.

As far as I'm concerned, if your baby will only go to sleep while you stand on one leg, patting your head with one hand, rocking him in the other whilst singing Metallica's 'Enter Sandman' backwards in Finnish,  then you do that.

I wish I had spent less time reading the 'how to' books and just did it. You will find a way that suits you and your family-whatever your hurdle or challenge- and you might have to change the way you do things every week to suit the ever changing needs of your baby. But never forget that you are doing amazingly, despite how tired or frustrated you may be some days. You created that tiny little energy-draining, all-encompassing, life-fulfilling human. What a bloody miracle. Every day s/he grows and develops is another day you've absolutely nailed it.

Holly

NB. One book and app I have to recommend is 'The Wonder Weeks'. Click here to find out more. It might just save your sanity- no parenting advice as such and again no definitive answers, just a lot of 'this is a normal developmental thing' from a bunch of doctors that have studied baby behaviour and development for 35 years. Plus it's really interesting. Freya has been a text-book case of every developmental behaviour leap they outline. 

New Beginnings: A Why and Wherefore

I've wanted to start a blog for years, but despite my annoyingly overactive brain, my continuous internal monologues, my love for the written word and my ability to find myself in the midst of the most unusual and extraordinary situations, I've never really known where to start. I have done a fair amount of travelling, but my spare time was spent boozing and dancing my nights away with my twenty - something counterparts. I have plenty to say about music, film and the arts, but could never decipher my audience or purpose. Then, twelve months ago, life as I knew it changed forever.

I met my husband in 2007- I had returned home to Shropshire, disillusioned after my second attempt at London living, and decided that after being pursued by him for years, I was going to let this attractive father of one take me out. Fast forward five years and we married in the beautiful Spanish town of Nerja.  In that time I qualified as an English teacher and secured a position at a lovely local school, we brought two furry babies into our family and moved house three times. By 2014, we decided that perhaps it was time to bring another tiny little ginger human into the world. What we didn't expect was to hit a bump in the road before we had even got the chance to pick up speed.  

My husband found out that he would find it very difficult to conceive a child naturally and though he could, getting fertility help wasn't off the cards. Seven months of ovulation tests, fertility apps and reminder alarms later and we finally managed to do it ourselves (I'll skim over the part where I sent Kris a text to tell him to 'hurry home sexy; I'm ovulating and in bed waiting' only to find I'd sent it to my Dad. One panicked phone call to my mother later and the phone was retrieved and messaged deleted.)

Though I never forgot the miracle of pregnancy or the blessing we were given, it had its highs and lows. Lows: 12 weeks of first trimester morning sickness, becoming stressed with work and being signed off when my blood pressure sky - rocketed and moving house at 41 weeks pregnant. Highs: feeling my little human growing and moving inside me, feeling closer than ever to Kris and adoring my pregnancy body.  

Getting ready for the arrival of baby was fun: attending hypnobirthing classes; baby shopping; ALL of the baby name books and half hourly name suggestion texts to my (then policeman) husband; building cots; baby showers and decorating the nursery. But despite reading every book going about labour (which was a futile exercise as everything I read and planned went out the window. My serene, candle lit, atmospheric ocean sounds, no pain hypnobirth turned into a week in hospital, four inductions, water broken via massively unnatural sharp stabby object, intense contractions, 28 hour labour, short lived birthing pool stint, failed epidural, forceps delivery followed by 900ml blood loss and roughly ONE MILLION stitches to my third degree tears) nothing prepared me for the real challenge. Motherhood.

The moment I held Freya Ivy Rose in my arms, my body was overwhelmed with love. I looked into her beautiful eyes and the dawning realisation that she solely relied on me washed over me in a cocktail of sheer joy and utter fear. Here I am, a thirty year old woman who still has to call her Mummy to get her advice on what to wear that day, now totally in charge of keeping this perfectly fragile and utterly reliant little being alive. That first night alone together in a dark hospital ward, two drips in my arm, a catheter installed, totally bed bound, wound dressings being changed every two hours (by a nurse that was my ex- boyfriends current fiancee- a whole different blog) was scary. Just me and her. Nobody else on the ward, the nurses a panic button away, husband at home in our bed, visitors gone- what do I actually do with you, little one? Tears of joy flowed, panic raised from my chest to my throat, my heart felt like it beat only for her yet the fear of responsibility was overwhelming me to the point of regression and calling MY Mum to come and look after ME. I panicked that I wasn't ready for this. 

After our first wobbly night together, waking to see her face in the perspex box beside me was probably on par with the combined feeling of joy of every Christmas and birthday rolled into one.  I don't think I will ever experience that particular feeling again. Pure and overwhelming happiness. There began the tears that would flow continually for about six weeks. Tears of love, agonising pain as I tried to function with my internal and external stitches, from the flashbacks of my horrific birthing experience- I was a total basket case.

Baby blues hit me pretty hard. My dignity went out the window as I peed in the shower to stop the stinging from my stitches. I didn't leave the house for fear of something happening with baby that I couldn't handle and strangers looking on at the terrible new mother that couldn't make her baby stop crying. Breast feeding was painful and left me with bleeding nipples and mastitis. I felt utterly helpless as she screamed in agony at what was dubbed colic for 14 weeks but would later be diagnosed as dairy and lactose intolerance (a lesson learned in ALWAYS trusting my motherly instincts and again another blog!). I wondered why other mummies made it look so easy yet I felt so utterly crap and incapable. Those were dark days. 

Four months later and though my life is ruled by nap times and I'm still woken up at least every two hours throughout the night (I write with baby using my boob as a pacifier as I feed her on my third wake of the night- it's 11.45pm!), I'm starting to feel like the old me. Well, the new old me. 

So here starts new beginnings. This blog is going to be some in retrospect of the last four months and mostly the experiences we share as a family as we start our journey through life. Expect some rants, some reviews, a little about music, film, food, health, relationships but above all some very frank accounts of life as 'La Rouge: The 30 Year Old Mummy Version'

Holly 

**La Rouge is a nickname I was given many years ago by two beautiful friends on account of my red hair. Maybe also my sexy and mysterious worldliness. But almost certainly just because of my red hair.