Are you the lucky soon-to-be parent who is expecting a little bundle of joy to come out to this world soon? Well, you probably know there will be some big changes in your life and our goal here is to give you some personal experience and a first month in review with a newborn.
Giving birth – Magical experience?
Birth is often said to be a magical experience. For me, it wasn’t. Outcome – my beautiful baby girl certainly is magical, but the whole process was long and painful, even little traumatic. Although I went into my labor with optimistic outlook thinking pain is in the head, I quickly realized it is very much in the body.
Everything started great. I was 40 weeks and 2 days, on the control that day I was already slightly open and doctor said it could be any day now. Frankly, I couldn’t wait to go into labor, last few weeks of pregnancy were tedious. And that night, as I was sleeping, I felt something wet dripping down my legs. With excitement, I announced my water broke to my husband and we quickly went into the hospital. Thankfully, all things were ready. At the hospital, I was 4 cm open, things were progressing nicely, or so I thought. I went through obligatory preparation (shaving, bowel cleansing) and went into the delivery room thinking I’ll have my baby until the morning. Took a little longer – 13h.
My own contractions were irregular and therefore they decided to induce labor with drip. While before, the pain was manageable, after drip I quickly changed my “no epidural” decision. I felt little ashamed I didn’t stick with my decision, but reminded that you can’t really know how will you feel when the time comes. It helped for a few hours. But after few hours it stopped working and delivery was still not in sight. The next hours were torture. Baby head was not in good position, although on every checkup before everything was great. Doctors kept saying, breathe through just one more contraction and I knew they were lying.
Thankfully, my husband was with me. He reminded me to breathe, brought me water and wiped my sweat. It really helped a lot he was there as a moral support. I would recommend everyone to bring someone who will be there for them.
Finally, doctors decided I must give birth since the baby was at risk being so long without amniotic fluid and pushing phase started. After what seemed like hours, I heard that little cry that made all of this worth it. When they put Lea on my chest, I was in somewhat delirious state and 30 minutes of stitching has gone by in a breeze.
At Hospital…
I was moved to the room and thought I’ll crash right away, but found myself unable to sleep. I was anxious to see Lea again. After the baby was checked and cleaned, they brought her next to me. She was hungry! And although I watched many videos about nursing, in practice that proved to be little more difficult. Baby and I both struggled to find the right position, I felt burning pain in my wound with every movement and I felt discouraged.
Hospital had the status of child-friendly and that means Lea was with me 24/7. I was in charge of consoling her when she cried and also changing her diaper. At the start, I was completely lost. I was terrified of picking her, she looked so fragile and I was still little weak from the labor.
Changing diaper also looked scary, those little outfits are so hard to put on! Thankfully, nurses were very knowledgeable about all those things and ready to help at any time. I took advantage of that and called them for help frequently. In a day or two, things improved. I was still tired and afraid but I started to adapt to baby’s rhythm. One thing I couldn’t do was to sleep. For all 5 days in hospital, I slept barely few hours. I felt constantly on needles and in fear for the baby. If I closed my eyes, I felt strange shivers in my body and I awoke from light sleep yelling in panic. I researched a little and found out that similar to postpartum depression there is also less known postpartum anxiety. Thankfully, my symptoms started to lessen when I came home. But it’s common for new mothers to struggle with similar issues in silence, thinking it’s should be that way or fearing what will other people think.
Lea picked up jaundice so we had to stay in the hospital longer than usual. Even though I knew that condition is common and mostly harmless, it was a scary experience.
Finally, after 5 days at the hospital, we got a green light to go home. Adventure just began!
The first week at Home…
So it’s time to finally get your newborn home. You are ready for this. Well, you have been preparing for that for the last nine months. You are ready…. You know what to do. And then everything goes down the drain. Soon you find out that little bed you prepared, toys, gadgets, sounds… don’t help that much. Like every person, your new home member has the mind of its own, and soon you find out that your newborn doesn’t like what you thought it will enjoy immensely.
We have 2 cribs at home, many toys that make sounds, lights, Rattle for newborns and we used it – never! From my experience, in the first month, all your baby cares for is: eating, sleeping, pooping and crying. Oh, boy, crying… But we’ll get to that in a moment. I just wanted to say, don’t feel bad if things don’t go as you planned, just try to find what works for your baby even if it means that you will sleep on 20% of the bed and your little one will take other 80%. I’m not kidding. You will be the happiest person in this world when your little one is asleep. And sleep will soon be a long lost friend that you miss so much.
I must admit that first week with a baby was one of most stressful time that I remember. Especially when baby starts to cry and you did everything in your power but it just won’t stop. You feel so incompetent, frustrated, angry and helpless that you want to jump out of the window!
But wait – don’t get scared, it gets better with every day. Crying won’t stop but you will cope with it easier – at least psychologically – in your head. You will soon learn that your baby needs to cry and that it doesn’t necessarily mean you are a terrible parent. It just means your baby is trying to communicate something to you – you just need to decipher it. We will talk about that more when we talk about Baby colic.
My thought is that every first-time parent who survives the first week with a newborn at home should get some kind of achievement or medal, because the change in your life is really drastic. Lack of sleep, new chores, lack of free time – lack of time in general can really take a toll on the person. But don’t worry. In week two it will get better, at least you will adapt to a whole new life and you will start to appreciate the positive side of the parenting.
Baby Colic or Infantile Colic
Oh boy, those are ugly and you will need to have some steel nerves! But first, what are Baby colic? – nobody knows. There are a lot of theories; some experts think colic are caused by gastrointestinal problems and cramps in the child’s still underdeveloped gastrointestinal system. Other experts think it’s caused because infants miss another trimester in mother’s womb.
The Baby colic are defined as crying episodes that last for more than three hours a day, and more than three days a week for a three-week duration in an otherwise healthy child. Typically, it starts between the age of two weeks old and four months and the crying most often starts in the evenings.
Baby Colic – ongoing crying without particular reason will really test your nerves.
We were “lucky” ones whose child started to have colic right from the start. And when you experience it for the first time, you get to know the real stress. Is it hungry? No, It doesn’t want to eat. Hot, cold? No! Dirty diaper? Nope. Too much stimulation? Too little stimulation? Nope! Whatever you try it just won’t stop crying. You think something is wrong but whatever you do, nothing helps. First time experiencing it, you really get the urge to jump through the window. And for the next few days, you feel cold sweat going down your spine as the evening nears. But with each new day, you become more experienced and you learn some new strategies. Also, you get to know your baby better, what it likes and doesn’t like which really helps in fighting big bad colic.
Five weeks behind us, and we still face colic every second or third day. But now, episodes are way shorter because we know what helps to calm our little crybaby. There are a ton of tips to handle baby with colic, but keep in mind that not all will work for your child. We found just two strategies that help to soothe our little “opera singer”.
- Feeding frenzy/breast sucking – first of two strategies that work for us is holding our baby on mothers breast, constantly feeding for a few hours. Most of that time, our baby actually doesn’t eat, just holding the breast in her mouth soothes her. But don’t you try to take the breast from her mouth! That will be the biggest mistake you have ever made!
- Walking with your baby in hands – the second strategy that works great for us. I think my hands and legs muscle mass had at least doubled in last five weeks as I have spent countless hours walking up and down in the apartment with my little girl in hands. Most of the times it works like a charm. But regular walking isn’t enough and I have developed special walk – I call it “Stick in the butt walk” because I have to walk like I have… well… stick in the butt. And sometimes I bump into objects on purpose because little one really likes bumps and jumps.
Other things people recommend that you should definitely try:
- White noise – many people swear in white noise that it works as a charm for colic. White noise simulates sounds that baby heard in mothers womb and that helps to calm it. You can create white noise with a hair dryer or vacuum cleaner, or just go to YouTube – you can find a ton of white noise soundtracks there. For us, it didn’t do much good – it just made us crazier. But occasional “Shhh…” did have some short-term effects.
White noise – a great fighter against newborn crying.
- Rolling the baby in the blanket – swaddling – another method that showed great results in many babies. It also simulates cramped space of mothers womb by restricting the movement of the baby. It makes it feel secure and calms it down.
- Side or stomach positioning the baby – although it is recommended that your baby sleeps on it’s back, when you’re facing the colic, side or stomach positioning can do the trick. Those positions also remind infants of mother’s womb and make them more comfortable. Although we didn’t have any success in colic phase, we did notice improvements in the behavior in our baby’s standard restless phase.
After reading this article, if you still don’t have experience with parenting, you may be thinking: “This sounds terrible, like I already don’t have enough stress in life, the baby will bring even more!”. But If you are a seasoned parent, you already know that all those hardships are easily forgotten. And by easily, I mean it takes just a few minutes to forget everything that just happened.
In the end, parenting is (almost) rainbows and sunshine.
When you see that little face and when you hug your little bundle of joy, all you feel is a immense happiness. Seeing your child growing and learning new stuff literally on a daily basis really fills your heart with happiness and those positive feelings greatly outweigh all the hardships you have to face. And knowing your baby, who is 100% dependable on you is (still alive) thriving and growing makes you feel competent. Because if you can succeed in this job, you know there is nothing in this world that you can’t handle!
If you already experienced all the joys of the first month, you can find out everything about the second month of child life and what that brings. And if you want to know what else can you expect from your child as it develops, be sure to check that article.
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