I would have read The Wonder Weeks before baby arrived. I read it when she was about 2 months old, and I'm now sorry that I didn't know all that stuff for her first 3 or 4 "wonder weeks" - the really early ones. I would have loved to have understood better what was going on for her in that time.
I would have bought an Ergo carrier earlier, rather than assuming that because the sling/wrap that I borrowed didn't work for us, there were no carriers that would for for a large newborn.
I would listen to myself more! There have been many times when I ignored what I thought I should be doing for myself and my baby and took the advice of someone else only to discover after that my way would have been better
I still have to remind myself of this now!
My only regret is not accepting help from my mum who offered to come and stay and help out in those early days/couple of weeks..... I wish I had now.... I thought I'd be able to cope just me and the baby and probably would have better if we hadnt had so many BF issues and problems to overcome....because I had soooo many difficulties establishing b/feeding in those early weeks and even months and my DH couldn't take time off from our business and I only had him weekends. That was hard.
I really did feel I needed someone there with me during the days in those first 2 weeks.
Just someone to hold DD while I could actually get some rest. I didn't get to rest much as I was expressing or feeding or settling etc all on my own.
Oh and I would have bought my Ergo carrier earlier.... it is the BEST !!!!
I would have told my well meaning but selfish father to stay away from visiting from interstate for a week from when we first got home. He didnt cook us one meal or help an already stressful situation and dh and I hated the intrusion...which I had pointed out it would be......I was in my own house covering my breasts for his comfort...mad!
I wish I had researched feeding and sleeping scenarios as the strict hossy ones do not translate irl.
Im sure there will be more.. Im very grateful for these forums in fact I wish I had hung out in here a bit more instead of just focussing on being pregnant...
What a great thread!
Reading everyone else's experiences makes me really glad of some of the things I did do - ignore the housework for a month, accept help, sleep when the baby sleeps, find a way to have her right next to me at night, not worry about routine, take all advice with a grain of salt and do what works for me and my baby.
Some things though I would change: refuse to let them take so much blood from her until the discharge paed explained exactly what he wanted to test for, why, how common it was, and the chances of the test having a false positive. (She had about 5 heel *****s and 3 venal punctures before she was 48 hours old, because the paed thought she was a little red and might have a problem with her blood not clotting, and they had to keep taking blood because the test kept giving out-of-range numbers because the blood kept clotting in the tube... )
Actually, next time I would still be too tired from labour to ask those questions myself, so I'd get an independent midwife to come in with me and ask the questions for me.
Ask for help with breastfeeding when I got the FIRST sign of a crack, rather than trying to tough it out. Gone to ABA meetings while I was still preg to get to know people earlier who could have helped. Not expect breastfeeding to be easy instantly! You have to learn how, and so does baby. (Having said that: NOW it's really easy, and I'm so glad I didn't give up - but I could have saved myself a lot of pain and angst.)
Read more about baby care before the birth, so I didn't freak out over every little thing (milk spots! dry skin!)
Found out more about safe co-sleeping arrangements rather than just thinking 'we can't do that, we have a doona'! Bought a co-sleeper cot instead of the cot that doesn't fit next to the bed and is therefore still in it's packaging...
One thing I am really glad I did was set up the laptop in front of the feeding chair and spend a fair bit of time reading these forums - knowing that others had made it through this overwhelming newborn period really helped
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