One of the great things about having a baby in the UK is the amount of support that you get once you're back home. When I was pregnant, I wished I'd had more appointments, seen an obstetrician, had more scans (you get 4 or 5 in France I think!! Only 2 over here!). But the support once the baby is born is fantastic.
I stayed 2 nights and 3 days in hospital, mainly to establish breastfeeding. That's pretty hard as both Logan and I had to learn how to do it. It doesn't come naturally to babies, contrary to what I thought!
I was sent home on Saturday afternoon. That first night at home I nearly gave it all up. Logan just couldn't latch on and was absolutely starving. It was heartbreaking to see him starving and try to latch on in vain. Thank goodness for 24 hour supermarkets as at 1 am I sent M (my husband) to Tesco to buy a bottle and some ready made formula milk. Half an hour later he was back and I was able to give my baby some food.
So that Sunday I was a wreck. That was my first Baby Blues day. I felt a failure for not being able to do the most natural thing of all: breastfeed. I did try again during the day, with limited success. And I had made the mistake of accepting 2 lots of visitors that afternoon. The first lot went well, then the midwife came and as I explained what had happened the night before, I started to cry uncontrollably. Never cried like that before! I just could NOT stop!! She was wonderful and really reassured me, watched me breastfeed, gave me advice etc... Unfortunately the second lot of visitors arrived while she was still there, so I had to show my red puffed face but they were very good with me. AND that was my first mother's day!!
As I'm doing this 7 week after the events, I have to check my Facebook wall to remember what happened back then. That's the main reason why I wanted to write a blog: to remember everything later on! Facebook has been wonderful as lots of my friends are mummies and they've experienced most of this stuff so have been able to give me lots of advice and tips.
So Sunday night was his 2nd night at home and he got colic. I had 2 beliefs about colic: breastfed babies seldom get it, and it only really starts at 6 weeks or so. Well wrong on both counts. Logan screamed and screamed from 10.30 pm to 3.45 am.
Monday night we got something else: my boobs started producing proper milk as opposed to collostrum (this is by the way so much easier to feed!) and Logan's bowels started adjusting to that change. As a result, he SHAT 7 TIMES between 11 pm and 5 am.
For the rest of that week, nights were pretty hectic as Logan was learning the difference between night and day. This meant that when he was waking up in the middle of the night, he would stay awake needing entertained for 2.5 hours at a time.
The midwife came every day, usually in the morning, and that was briiliant as I would write lists of questions every day and tell her my experiences. We found out on Tuesday that Logan had only lost 250 gr from his birth weight which was excellent news (all babies lose weight at the beginning and up to 10% - Logan had only lost about 5%). So despite the struggle with breastfeeding, Logan and I were actually doing pretty well!
I do have it easy though as my husband works from home, so it's been great having him take Logan for a while when I need a break.
First trip in the car: from the hospital to the house
First trip in the pram!
In his own bed
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