Friday 9 August 2013

Mammy Blog: One Month Update

I'm in complete awe at how quickly babies grow!

I had Flynn seven weeks ago, and already he's smiling, laughing, 'dancing' (kicking his legs and waving his arms along to music - so cute) and reaching out to touch things. We're very fortunate that he's been able to tell the difference between day and night since about four weeks, so he's awake and alert the majority of the day and we don't usually have much bother getting him to sleep on a night. He's only been waking up once during the night, for up to an hour just to get a bum change and a bottle, for about two weeks. Although for the first couple of weeks it was a killer (especially because when he was a newborn he was waking two or three times a night) I'm used to it now and can function on a few hours sleep at a time.

I'm not going to lie, it hasn't been easy, but the good news is that it gets easier as time goes on. I suffered pretty badly from the baby blues for the first month. I felt like I was going crazy, but was assured it was normal and doesn't necessarily mean it's post-natal depression, and I've started feeling more like my regular self the last few weeks. It's hard to explain the kinds of emotions you go through after having a baby, but my biggest 'thing' was that I felt overwhelmed with all the attention, and I'd actually felt like that for the last few weeks of my pregnancy as well. I went to a big family party a few weeks before I was due and so much of the focus was on me and the bump that I had to leave, and this continued a few weeks after he was born. I regularly left the room when there were a lot of people around not just because the attention was a bit intense, but I also found it difficult to see Flynn being passed around a lot of people. He was all mine for nine whole months and now he was here I didn't want to share him! I still feel like this a bit, but have now let others take over to babysit, so I'm getting better.

I've always been pretty close to my parents but I'm definitely a lot closer to my them now, especially my mam after what we went through together. I feel very lucky that Flynn came into the world with just me, Craig and my mam in the room doing it together. Even Craig says he feels he's got a special connection to her now after that. I feel like I understand them a lot more too, I guess when you become a parent yourself you start to think a lot like them. I also cannot express how glad I am that my mam is an expert on babies and is always around to help, so that puts my mind at rest a lot! You hear so much out-dated advice from people as soon as you have a baby, it's reassuring to have someone who is actually kept up-to-date with what is safe and what isn't recommended for babies on the other end of the phone anytime you need them!

Things are settling down a bit now that Flynn is in a good routine so I hope to be around a lot more!