Not due yet, but one month old!

Abbey spent half of her first month in hospital, the other half at home - but she really should have spent it in the womb as she wasn’t due out yet!

One month old, Abbey has her brace on under her padded dress

She had a hectic first month and although looking back it seems to have gone in a flash, I know that to be untrue, the nights were long, very long.

Smiles already or polite wind?!

At three weeks old, she shed her still small  premature clothes and became a much larger baby with a whole body harness for her dislocated hips. Just when we thought we knew how to change her nappy, the game changed, she now had to wear two nappies, interwoven around a large square brace. Despite the chore, she seemed comfy and content in the brace.

Now not only was she tiny, but she was also awkward. We couldn't hold her like a newborn cuddled into the crook of our arms, she was either flat down or up on our shoulder. She seemed to like the height, so she spent most of her time perched on our shoulders.

We tried to not hold her all the time, but she developed a hatred for her cosy and warm Moses basket. A calm sleepy baby became erratic one we laid her down in it. After trying tilting the basket, moving it into a dark room, a bright room , swaddling, not swaddling we found the solution.

Our solution is not recommended - by anyone, especially health officials. But the only way we could get her to sleep was to put her lying on her tummy. We have learned since that babies are spoiled in SCBU as they are allowed to sleep on their tummies as nurses are constantly checking them. A SCBU nurse did tell me while we were there that lying a baby on his/her tummy aids digestion.

Sleeping on mummy ... on her tummy

I was scared when we first tried it, but also relieved. After nervously telling our family, both my mother and my husband’s mum revealed we had slept on our tummies as babies (I still do) and that it was the recommended advice in the 80s.

So we checked on her more often than a sane person should, but she slept soundly, maybe it was the brace, maybe it was genetics - or maybe it was Abbey’s way.

There was no routine at one month, she fed from my breast about 2.5 hours during the day and every 90mins or so at night. Some days were better than others, but it was a sea of exhaustion and newborn cries.

Thankfully we did limit visitors as she had not had any of her vaccinations, so despite the difficulties it did give us a chance to get to know our new family member and she seemed to warm to us!
She is opening her eyes for longer and longer each day, loves being talked to and loves sleeping on her daddy!

The Best Baby Books

I love to read and I love to learn, so when I was pregnant I stocked up on some good solid reading. Yes I had subscribed to all the web newsletters and week by week updates, but for me personally I need to read a book, to feel the ink, to glide across the glossy photos for it all to sink in.

There are millions of ‘baby’ books and you will learn new information in all of them, but I will review the three best books that I read and how they helped me.

1. Your Pregnancy Bible by Anne Deans

There is a reason this book is in it’s fourth edition, it is superb.

The new book contains a lot of information on cesareans, which account for almost 30% of deliveries in the UK and Ireland. It has a week by week development of your baby and also week by week changes to your pregnant body. It covers all aspects of pregnancy from conception to delivery, problems, solutions and the need to know info.

I like that it lays out the information and does not try to influence you into a particular way of thinking. It is something you will dip in and out of and open every week or so. It answered more questions than my random google searches… and there were a lot of those. I left the delivery part until my third trimester as it scared me so much, but I felt empowered after reading this.

2. First Time Parent by Lucy Atkins

I LOVED this book. From the very first page to the end, it is funny. Lucy gently guides you through some of the basics for your first baby and also boosts your ego and assures you things will go horribly wrong and perfect in the same hour! It addresses the needs of the baby, but also the parent. The best chapters for me were - what happens immediately after the birth and what to do when you get home. It provides reasons why babies cry and even the useful diagrams on how to hold a newborn, winding and feeding. It goes through baby development, sleeping, feeding, games to play with your baby and a huge amount of baby concerns.

The moment I knew this book was for me? When I read the top ten new parent worries and the number one question was “Will my baby die? (Yes, we all worry about it.)”

Don’t think about it just buy it!

3. The New Contented Little Baby Book by Gina Ford

Now this one is probably a little controversial. I will write a post soon on our baby’s routine and how we started it, why, and how we got on. This book was given to me with the advice “you don’t need to be as strict as this, but it is a good guideline.”

At first reading of the book I thought, wow this author is a b***h. It sounded so mean, like your baby was robot, it seemed like every minute of the day was dictated by this book and the routine that she guarantees will work.

If you are an organised person, someone who likes routine, who works to deadlines  and who understands time keeping then having a baby will turn you upside down and when that happens reach for this book. It helped to put order on life with a chaotic newborn and within one month I got the result I worked for, my baby slept through the night.

**This post was not sponsored - this is my own opinion**

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