Bringing home the baby - what would you do differently if you had your time over?

[murraysmum]

i regret not listening to my instincts and listening to others i would havve sort help when i needed it insted of hiding the fact i wasnt coping

im hoping this bub i wont stress about routine i wont stress about anything just enjoy bub but i dont think that will happen lol

[~Hestia~]

I wish I had of let DS sleep with us more often than I did. I wasn't afraid of bad habits, I was terrified something would happen to him. All he wanted was to be close to us in those early days & I'm sure I only succeeded in making the nights harder for myself & him.
I had DS at 5pm & left hospital the next morning, as was my wish. I'm not sure I would change this in particular, more that I wish I'd regulated my visitors once I was at home. We had visitors everyday for at least the first 4 weeks & it was exhausting!! I brought it on myself though because I just wanted the world to meet my beautiful boy. I now know that there is plenty of time for everyone else, next time there will be no visitors for at least a week!! I feel like I missed out as DS was forever in someone elses arms & I only got to hold him for breastfeeds!!

[paradise lost]

I didn't bring DD home, we were already there

I wish i'd had the help and resources which would have allowed me to keep BFing past 7 months.

But other than that, i don' think i have many regrets - oh, i will NOT be changing bubs nappy at every feed through the night next time! A lot of the time it was barely damp and DD was bone dry but i had it in my head that i "must" change her at every feed or....i don't know, the mama police would come for me? But not next time.

Bx

[fionas]

I wish I'd come home from the hospital earlier instead of having "helpful" midwives grabbing my boobs and shoving DD"s head on to my nipple each feed for 1.5 hours each time.

I wish I hadn't placed so much pressure on myself to breastfeed. I wish I had chilled out a little more, given a FF here and there and lived to fight another day instead of refusing to "give up" and getting mightily het up and emotional in the process. Not good for me, not good for DD and ultimately not good for successfully BFing.

I wish I had even thought of asking DP to take more than five days off. It honestly didn't occur to me even though I couldn't walk (because of pelvis problems) and was wheeling myself around the house on an office chair. That wasn't good for establishing BFing either - I should have gone to bed for a few days and kept DD in bed with me but not being able to get up from a prone position meant I was too scared to do that.

Other than that, no regrets LOL!

[Sequoia]

oh, i will NOT be changing bubs nappy at every feed through the night next time! A lot of the time it was barely damp and DD was bone dry but i had it in my head that i "must" change her at every feed or....i don't know, the mama police would come for me? But not next time.

Haha! Me too! Why I thought it was necessary is beyond me, it was barely damp sometimes, geez we went through some nappies. Now, DS wears a sposie for 12 hours overnight, go figure.

[Gigi]

what would i done differently?

- i aimed for a homebirth, but didn't prepare AT ALL for a hospital birth. Ended up in an ambulance, had a emerg c-section. totally unprepared, not familiar with any of the lingo. having to make heaps of decisions (after having laboured and been awake for 29 hours already). So i would prepare for ANY time of labour/birth, if i could do it again.

- arrange for basic supermarket items and box of fruit/veg to be home delivered for first six weeks, or at least a standing order that baby's father could go collect once a week.

- have a lactation consultant on standby

- realise how important and time consuming establishing breastfeeding is, and allow for that, instead of being surprised by that. it's such a lovely way to bond with your baby too, which really helped me (after traumatic labour).

- bought bamboo swaddling, sheets for baby.

- had filing/budget all up to date

- organise for bills that i usually paid in person, to be paid via my bank, pre-arranged, for first three months

- all that nesting is not for nothing, there is SO MUCH you just HAVE to let slide in the beginning. So sorting stuff out, the cleaning you do late in preg, it's actually beneficial once you've had the baby.

- put your baby first. not getting baby up to take out and show off, if you really feel that baby needs to nap. not disturbing baby from their feed, when visitors want to play "pass the baby". Your baby is important, if those people really love the baby, they will wait, or they will come around another time. People who take offense, that's their tough biscuits, a newborn is a newborn for SUCH a short time.

- allow for "just in cases". e.g if you are very tender after labour, and CAN"T do housework, chances are, someone else will do the washing etc. If you want it done a certain way, leave a page blutacked to the washing machine, with instructions. Then you won't have to stress (when you're supposed to be resting) that your clothes will get wrecked, or whatever the thing is.

Sometimes people just want to help, but don't know the intracies of your machines.

- accept help!

- get a comfy upholstered chair to rock baby in, feed in etc. i got a wooden rocking chair and that was hopeless.

- i wish i had hired a baby hammock for the first few months.

- if breastfeeding, get all the support you can. good chair to feed in, make it YOUR chair. poor support = sore back muscles. Breastfeeding clothing is really good, e.g nuvo maternity. If you have easy discrete access clothing like that, feeding in public is so much less stress.

- i would have made up an entire load of sandwiches, frozen them, then taken one or two out per day, put them in the fridge. Have dh leave me a packed lunch in the fridge. I didn't really eat properly for first few months. Too tired, overwhelmed by caring for nb on my own, whilst ill myself, health problems post labour - so cooking, even standing up long enough to make a sandwich, was beyond me. SOmething i would have never dreamed would happen (remember, i was aiming for a home natural birth).

- for your nipples, get some lanolin (lanisoh at chemist).

- if using cloth nappies, get a Little Squirt, best thing i bought for caring for a nb.

- get a mattress protector for YOUR bed, so when lying in bed with your nb, you don't have to worry about YOUR sheets. i had a swaddlebees mattress protector mat, you lie it ON TOP of your sheets. baby lies on it, so if they do any possets, wee on it, you just wash the mat, your sheets are still dry. Sometimes i would leak milk too, and the mat was great for catching MY milk!

- and don't bother buying teddybears! visitors love bringing teddybears and baby clothes!

[MummyNaomi]

I think I would go on maternity leave earlier - I went 4 weeks before my due date and DS was born 3 days later ......DOH

The other thing is as the others have said is slept more, eg gone immediately to bed when DS napped

Oh and one last thing, I will buy a HAB to avoid the whole 'pass the baby' issue, if wrapped up in you people tend not to 'steal' your baby

[tenar]

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.

[melsa31]

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!

[Shanti]

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 !!!!

[nattyfred]

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...

[Jess]

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

[Willow]

You know...I wouldn't do anything differently. I coped with each situation the best I could and I eventually found my feet. I learned a LOT about my children and about myself along the way.