OOOHHHH the hemorrhoids - gosh !!!!! Labour is easy compared to the hemorrids you can sometimes get afterwards!!!!!!
And the little 'scratches' on your labia that burn when you go to toilet afterwards...and what to do and how to sit....
Read all about labour in the first 6 months then read all about baby care in your 7-9 month and just touch up on labour in the last month too.
There is no time to figure out what to do with baby once they are born you have to the wing'it. I was so worried about the birth i never read about baby care and gosh was I in for a shocker cause it doesn't always come naturally.
1st baby labour - sometimes there is no urge at all to push but that you can still push.
1st baby after birth - breastfeeding doesn't come naturally,
within the first 12months - sleep every chance you get and a mother must follow her instincts if she suspects something is wrong with their child.
2nd baby labour - can be a MUCH shorter labour and before you have even thought about calling your MW you could have a sudden huge urge to push!!!
2nd baby after birth - no two babies are the same - I kinda new this but sometimes one can be anxious about certain thing unnecessarily and that breast feeding can be easy and natural. (I was so nervous after my 1st child)
Like many other Ladies have already mentioned I wish I'd been more prepared for the struggles of establishing breastfeeding. I'd expected it to be so easy and was so devastated when it all went south in the days following the birth.
I also wish I was more prepared for the "baby blues", I'd assumed I'd just get a bit teary one day and then it would all be over, I didn't expect to be a total mess for the first 5 days after our birth, I felt absolutely useless and couldn't understand why I wasn't bonding with my baby.
I'd also go back and tell all my family and friends to not expect to visit untill a few weeks after the birth.
Labour - how hard it would be for DH to see me in that pain, and that he needed 'time out', and how exhausting it would be (see next point), no matter how it ends...oh and that barley sugar and staminade would be such a good friend (about the only things of use that I packed in my hospital bag)
First few days
1. how exhausted I would be - I remember the nurses trying to get ds to BF, and I was so tired I could not sit up or keep my eyes open!
2. how hard BF would be and for how long!
3. that it is not always 'love at first sight' - i still remember looking into the cot at DS and thinking 'is he really mine', and wondering if I was meant to kiss him each time I put him down in his cot for a sleep (I did not 'naturally' feel the need/desire to - much different to now)...I was so stressed about if this was normal, but to worried to ask someone as I was afraid that I was 'abnormal' and that they would come and take my baby away from me because I was not going to be a good mother!
4. that no matter how hard people tell you motherhood is, you dont really belive it till you live it!
Labour- I went to all of the classes available while I was pregnant so I would be well prepared. Yet, when my water broke I freaked out and forgot all of the techniques to calm myself down. Being frekaed out slowed my labor by 8 hours. I wish I would have tuned into being more calm.
Birth- Immediately afterwaards I felt bad because I was so tired I wasnt as enthusiastic as I had hoped for when she came out. I just remember being so exhausted. I loved her with every inch of my being and I felt kind of let down. Yet, I cant expect to be jumping for joy after giving birth. I just wanted her to fall asleep in my arms with me.
i wish (like most of these ladies) that i was more prepared for the breastfeeding, and like someone else has said, i know now that it does get easier but boy i hated hearing it.
i wish that id been more prepared for the baby blues, i was one of those women that was convinced that it wouldnt happen to me, im pretty easy going and optomistic about most things so why would this be different? but i really think that the issues that i was having bfing contributed to that. that and i wasn really prepared for when baby comes home iykwim? i hadnt really thought past getting her out and hospital if id known that i wouldve been doing most of the work on my own (DH was useless.. as much as he tried not to be)
I was so focused on the actual birth that I didn't mentally prepare for the sleep deprivation or plan for things like breastfeeding etc.
This time around, I have definitely focused on the birth, but have gotten help from the ABA and my midwife to assist with breastfeeding and supply prior to the birth.
I've also asked my mum to stay for a month or so - so that I can just concentrate on feeding and sleeping with my DD while my DS has my mum to entertain him.
So I guess my advice would be not to get hung up on the birth - it's one day, but start to prepare for after bub comes home.
For me, the baby blues were HUGE and I really didn't think I'd get them. Breastfeeding was way more difficult than I thought and I had no support, so with Coops I lasted one week
I wish I'd used the shower for pain relief the first time around.
I wish I'd done a bit more research on what my body was doing during labour and concentrating on my breathing.
I wish I'd known that getting an epidural meant I had a 50% chance of vacuum or forceps birth.
I wish I'd known that when I was getting to the point where I was thinking "I can't handle this anymore" that I didn't actually have much longer to go.
I wish I'd spent more time cuddling skin to skin, sniffing him and gazing at him rather than getting him into a routine. I wish I'd been more prepared to go with the flow.
And I wish I'd had more healthy food in the freezer ready to heat and eat for dinner!
It's been a while since anyone's posted in here but I thought I'd share my experience...
Labour: I wish I'd known that it can't always go to plan. I wanted a really natural birth with no drugs, and possibly even in the bath. But, i went overdue, got induced and had to have a c-section (pelvis too small for bubs head). My advice is even though it's a really scary thought, don't count on having it the way you want it. Read about everything that can happen, because I had no idea what was happening to me.
Baby: Have confidence in yourself, trust your instincts! I could tell something was wrong with DS around 3 weeks before he started showing symptoms and then within a week he started screaming from reflux. And don't stress if you can't tell which cries mean what instantly, or you feel like you don't know what you're doing. Give yourself time and you will learn.
Labour: I wish I had not just left everything up to the medical staff believing they knew best. I wish i had done a little bit more research. My pain threshold was not as high as I thought it was. I wish someone had told me that labour was more like doing a marathon run than trying to push out a watermelon (I had looong labours)... the pushing part was not the hard bit... it was getting there in a positive mindset!
After: I wish i had known about the importance of a Babymoon... i hadn't even heard of that phrase. I wish I hadn't feel pressured to go out to a New Year's Eve party one week after giving birth. I should have babymooned for at least a month!!! I learnt this by the time I had my second and third
I was 18 when i had DS...I knew nothing about labour...I wish some one told me about the feeling of needing a huge poo!!
And its ok to stay in your pjs all day when you have a newborn
I wish I knew to hold the baby a lot, instead of letting her just sleep in her cot all the time. See I thought if she slept in my arms this would 'spoil her' or create a habit.. I wish I knew that newborns don't know the difference!!
I wish I knew about gentle parenting! (Everyone I know seems to love strict routines and controlled crying, and I hadn't heard of anything else)
i havnt got to havin our bubs yet but so far the best thing ive been told (by my MIL midwife) is to make a list of the things that need doing as you think of them so that when u get the chance to ask for help or someone offers you dont need to sit down and think about it cos with everything else thats happening you wont be able to think of anything, so the help is pretty much useless.
My wish for both was to learn to RELAX! I learned it during the labour (it made the contractions about 1/4 of the pain!) and if I'd relaxed more when he was a newborn, I think I would have enjoyed it more. Most of the time I felt like I was on a speeding train and couldn't wait for it to stop
I wish I'd known how much stuff I'd have to do one-handed... and I wish I knew how to do it all that way! (It's even too hard to make a cuppa or change a DVD..) Then we got a sling Wish I'd had THAT sooner too!
For Labour, I wish I had known what transition was like without an internal. I remember saying I wanted to go home and being told that I was doing fine. I just wanted to curl up in my bed to make it all go away. DD1 was born not too long after.
Baby: I wish I had known that I didn't have to have a routine or teach her to sleep. I wish I had known about safe co sleeping and that not all babies liked being wrapped (another non wrapper here, she screamed, and a MCHN tried to tell me they all liked wrapping - Poppyc0ck) And I wish I had taken the advice to sleep as much as possible.
Labour - Kinda embarrassing - I wasn't breathing properly, using the breaths to push because I was scared that if I used all my breathing to push, I wouldn't have any left for me and I'd pass out. LOL! I was in a GREAT frame of mind during labour!!!!
After - Yep, Mum had warned me about the haemmorids, but I sat, crying, for days at the uncomfortableness of them. They were worse than my stitches! Also, I wish that someone had told me about using lanisol leading up to giving birth to prepare for breastfeeding. Bleeding nipples is NOT fun and I wish that I'd known about it before hand. As it was, it was day four before a nurse told me to go and buy it, when I was just about to give up b/f altogether. Instead, after I got through that, we are still going, 13 months on
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