22/11/2016 0 Comments 4 monthsThe happenings of 4 months I have survived !!!! only just… First month hands down was the easiest, second month had me shifting gears, the third month had me cranking my shit up a notch and here I am now at the start of Four months a bit more hairless, my mind buzzing with thousands of words of advice good and bad, craving 8 consecutive hours of sleep and desperately downloading the ‘Happy Mumma challenge’ (I’ll explain later). First off .. gosh I am so so blessed to have a super happy, chilled, healthy chubba of a bubba. I am so lucky to wake up every couple of hours during the night and receive those cheeky sleepy smiles from him, to be able to breastfeed him and to know that I gave him those cute little arm and leg rolls and the man boobies. I am so lucky to have a baby who has been in perfect health since day 1 of pregnancy, to have a baby that is thriving and learning something new every single day and I am so lucky to spend every single waking moment in the presence of such a gift. You have probably gathered from previous posts that sleep for me up until this current point feels like its almost non existent. I probably have been getting 4-5 hours sleep on a good night, but that’s interrupted sleep not a nice long stretch and I know I have said it countless times but it really is true that what causes the most stress on the topic is the opinions on what your baby should or shouldn’t be doing, that its your fault if your baby is a shitty sleeper AND other mums talking about how good their baby apparently slept. I’ve been stressing over sleep for weeks and today I decided to say “fk listening to all this controversial BS about sleep and that this too shall pass” followed with the action of gracefully sliding my sunny’s down my face to hide those permanent bags and gluing my fingers crossed. Research also says that mothers are excessively sleepy up until 18 weeks postpartum so hopefully I will only have one more week of this excessive sleepy business because I desperately need a shift in energy. Also I’m wondering if anyone knows when the “sleep when your baby sleeps” advice becomes invalid? I didn’t do it for the first 3 months and am now I’m regretting it because what would you know it took me 3 months to get over my stubbornness to realise I need rest to recover. Wanna know something equally as exhausting as almost non-existent sleep? Breastfeeding. So much stuff is entailed into the role like remembering to wear your breast pads- I have forgotten a number of times to wear them and I have also embarrassingly had to walk around in public with my whole shirt visibly saturated from my leaking boobs…. so now I stash sanitary pads everywhere so when I do forget to wear breast pads or if I run out they come in handy so I will never have to do the public walk of shame again. Picking out the same ugly maternity bras day in and out is also exhausting. I swear they are made to make you feel like shit. Almost all of them look like a 10 year old’s training bra and while they are comfortable they just dont accommodate a variety or shirts or set the mood right (Sorry Adam). Then there is still not having the choice of wearing just whatever the hell you want because your best friends need to constantly be making a public appearance every couple of hours, you also have to learn to get the household stuff done will a baby attached to your nipple and have to learn how to pee with your baby for those occasions… which is a skill that becomes almost 99% hands free (just don’t wear undies and air dry … TOTALLY KIDDING ). The funnest part of breastfeeding is sleeping with sheets on your bed maybe once a week because you have also completely saturated all sets of sheets by forgetting to also wear a bra and the breast pads to bed and you cannot be bothered to A. wash those sheets 5 times a week, B. make the bed these days and C. learn the lesson and wear breast pads to bed. While we are on a roll with the breast milk topic I may aswell point out that we also dont really get those Friday and Saturday nights off when the hubby is on the night shifts because your boobs are going to be so full of milk that you wake up with painful triple F’s lying in your pool of milk begging for the pump (or the baby) to release them. Also if you have a baby like mine who takes advantage of the boob for all sorts of reasons other than just to be fed you will understand and agree that there needs to be some hormone that men can take to produce boobs with milk and if there is one hook me up with the supplier. Some days are hard and its those days that you dont leave the house for a week because putting your undies on is just too exhausting. Then there is some days where you crave being bored out of your brains because your body and mind are just on non-stop. There are those days where you check your daily, weekly and monthly horoscope religiously for any sort of heads up and clues to try and be prepared for life (I actually have done this) and Then there is those days where you have pulled energy out of nowhere and have gotten a years worth of things done in one day and that feeling is like no other. It can be repetitive and tiring but it really is never boring but that baby free feeling can be exhilarating. Anyone without a baby who treats the weekly or daily grocery shopping as a chore please take advantage of it. The other day Adam took me on on this really nice half an hour relaxation retreat without Atticus….. it was to Woolworths. It was just enough to clear my mind, it smoothed out those craned muscles in my back and neck and it had me tasting that delicious freedom. Half an hour obviously is not enough so I found myself trying to waste time in paradise slowly taking my time browsing every aisle knowing full well that we only came down for chocolate and not new light bulbs, tongs and pencils. As relaxing as it was it’s also funny to point out that while you crave those tiny teases of freedom you also as a mumma look forward to coming home quickly so you can see them again because they are just so irresistible. So I’m 4 months into this gig that I entered with no instructions just like every other mumma. I have never been prouder, more challenged, happier or more exhausted in my life and it is really beyond me how I actually get up and function every single day but when you love someone more than anything else in the world you literally wouldn’t batter an eyelid if it meant you had to walk through fire for them. However the lack of sleep, the demands of breastfeeding, the stress of running the house, the world of craziness that comes with a baby, the lack of self-time, the little and mostly divided time I have with Adam and with the inability of allowing myself to take proper care of myself like simply preparing and eating healthy food or drinking 3L of water every day I have noticed that all these lacks begins to take a toll on myself so I decided that I’m going to try The Sleep mummas Happy mumma challenge because its the easiest way to give back to myself after all the above. I am yet to make time to start it but when I do we will see how it all goes.. and with that I will keep my glued fingers crossed. Also no one told me that at around four months postpartum I should expect to begin shedding like a dog. I mean come on ! With the combination of postpartum hair loss, Atticus beginning to pull my hair and the fact that my hair is already super thin its a given that eventually I will end up with no hair at all.
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