Rosie's first few hours
I was discharged from hospital after two nights and off we went to our own house. The first night was brilliant and Rosie slept from 12am to 7am which we thought was fantastic however the midwife announced this was because she was slightly jaundiced and to feed her every 3 hours. She said she would come back the next day with scales to see how her weight was doing. From there on everything seemed to go wrong - she just wouldnt latch on to feed and when she did she pulled herself off or fell asleep. I ended up feeding from 9pm - midnight non stop as every time she pulled off she would scream and scream. I was in tears as I had no idea why she wasnt feeding. Luckily my best friend, who is also a mum, suggested giving her a tiny bit formula. I was a bit reluctant because I had heard so much about nipple confusion however suggested I feed it to her on a spoon. This worked wonders and Rosie turned from a distressed hungry baby to a full up happy baby in a matter of minutes.
To cut a long story short we had a lot of problems with breast feeding. For some reason Rosie just didnt want to latch on so she was being fed a mixture of formula and expressed breast milk. Expressing was an absolute pain as I had to do it for 30mins every four hours and still had to sterilize and make up bottles as well as feed. At around 2 weeks I tried using nipples shields which were a god send and I could feed her on the breast for 10 mins or so before each feed. This stopped working at around 3/4 weeks as Rosie decided she now hates nipple shields so back we went to expressed breast milk.
**Advice**
Although I promised myself not to get worked up over breast feeding I had no idea how hard it actually is and felt like a bit of a failure when she wouldnt latch on. Expressing all the time was a nightmare and there were a good few times when I could have given up but we managed to power on and....
At five weeks Rosie suddenly latched on!!! We havent looked back since!! Although she still gets a formula feed before bed. So the moral of the story is: Dont panic if breast feeding isnt working. Its really hard work, try and get all the advice you can and remember there are ways to help and eventually the baby will get it.
Weeks 1 to 5
Week 1 to 5 were hard work. Really hard work. I think it was the sudden shock of becoming parents. Realising it wasn't just about me and Tom any more and this little tiny person was relying on us so much. Also the lack of sleep - it is so true what they say about sleeping when the baby does!! I also found me and Tom were arguing quite a lot from the pressure of it all. But the good out ways the bad by far and you get rewarded greatly with smiles, coos and gurgles that make your heart melt.
Weeks 6 - 10
Things all changed again at week 6 when Rosie surprised us all by sleeping through the night with just a feed at midnight! This was amazing and meant that me and Tom could have more than 4 hours interrupted sleep!! Rosie has also now learned how to smile properly and I cannot explain how brilliant it is to wake up to cute smiles coming back at you from her basket. She has also has had a hip scan and her first jabs and her first cold - which Tom took her too as I couldnt bear it! Tom said she handled them like a star! Her first christmas was brilliant, although she had no clue what was going on.
Rosie is 10 weeks tomorrow and I will begin posting more frequent updates and picture of how she is getting on.
If you have any questions at all then please comment or get in touch. My next blogs will be products we couldnt have lived without and some pictures of Rosie's room. So please follow me if you have like what you have read so far!
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