Mothering Forum banner

How did you spend your days with your newborn?

5K views 7 replies 7 participants last post by  lgalofre 
#1 · (Edited)
Hey Mamas (and Papas)! I'm just curious to hear...we often talk about all the things we do with our older babies (tummy time, story hour, mommy & me), but I'm interested to hear how y'all spent those first six weeks with your newborn? How was your recovery? How did your baby adjust to being in the world? What did your newborn like to do? Did you do skin-to-skin? Did you stay at home the whole time or did you go out and do stuff? What were your main priorities during that time? What was your emotional life like - did you feel excited, joyful, alone, crowded...exhausted? What was your social life/community like during that time? Did relatives/friends/neighbours visit? Was it just you and the baby? What kinds of things did you do with your baby (feeding and sleeping included)?

I'd love to hear about your life during that period and how you spent that precious time with your baby!
 
#2 ·
We did a fourth trimester with both girls so they were always on one of us (or sometimes a grandparent etc). Feeding meant that was often me and I spent a fair bit of time sitting in a chair or in bed.

We didn't make a point of not going out but I did fewer errand-type trips because both babies hated the car seat so we tried to minimise their travel.

I didn't really *do* anything with them as such. They mostly just fed or slept in the carrier and life went on around them [emoji1] I did sing to them and take them for walks or bounce on the fitball if they were unsettled but I had embarrassingly easy newborns so that wasn't often.

My main priorities were establishing breastfeeding, maximising everyone's sleep and having a fourth trimester. Fortunately those three things dovetail together very nicely so working on each goal helped with the others.

The first three months are my favourite parenting stage so pretty much all good memories for me.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#3 ·
What newborns like to do is sleep, eat, and be held a lot. I always talked to him a lot. For my benefit and his. :) He ate every 2 hours. And I felt like I was never going to sleep again, which made me cry several time. You will be doing a lot of baby laundry. I remember a lot of time sitting in bed and watching Netflix while he nursed. If I had to do something I would lay him in the boppy pillow, but he never liked it for long. I wasn't brave enough to leave the house AT ALL until I had to for his two week check up. If the weather had been nice I might have tried to go out more, but he was born in Winter.

For me recovery was pretty hard. I felt like that was one thing that nobody prepared me for. I was in a lot of pain from being stitched up. And all the bleeding is just annoying. I would take a bath every night because the warm water was soothing and cleansing, and it was the only time I felt comfortable. Sex was painful for a while for me, and I was afraid it was ruined forever (It wasn't. In fact it got better than ever). I had my mother in law come hold him for two hours just so I could nap, because my baby wouldn't sleep unless he was next to me, and I had a hard time sleeping with him at first. And the hormonal changes just made me feel very weird. I felt sad and would cry regularly, even if I didn't know why. I felt lonely for sure. I remember being disappointed and leaving conversations when my baby had to nurse, until I was brave enough to do it in public.. We lived with my in-laws for the first few months after he is born, and while I had thought I would hate that, it was actually wonderful to have the support. Becoming a mother is just a tremendous physical and emotional experience, and I was a little overwhelmed by it. If you are having a hard time ask for help!

Personally my favorite period is around the time they start walking. Toddlers are the best. And I feel like I had a difficult newborn, but he became the sweetest toddler.
 
#4 ·
When my son was a newborn everything was so weird. I never took any kind of parenting class and had honestly never even held a baby prior to his birth.

I was so out of my comfort zone and really lost but I also had some super strong mommy instincts kicking in at the same time haha

Anyway the first few nights were super rough. After the horribly uncomfortable sleep during my 3rd trimester and the hospital bed all I was looking forward to was finally sleeping in my bed while on my stomach.

My son had other plans. Literally, for the first three nights he refused to sleep in his bassinet. I had to sleep on the couch with him on my chest. Looking back on it though I really love that memory because that was 100% pure mommy and baby bonding time.

After that though, he became the easiest baby in the world. Like he was so easy to please. He never even cried if his diaper was messy which amazed me.

I think the hardest part of those early months though was my postpartum. I knew my whole pregnancy that I would have it due to a lifetime of chronic depression but nothing could have prepared me for that. Worst off is that is trigged old habits that just exploded into an eating disorder. That in turn completely destroyed my milk supply and by 3 weeks old he was on formula. Then that just made the postpartum even worse because I felt like this horrible person who couldn't provide food and nourishment for him.

Any way I know this was super long hey, you asked for experiences haha

And luckly I've almost fully overcome my disorder due to my current pregnancy. This new little baby probably saved my life based on the path I was on. It's literally a miracle baby. I should not have been able to get pregnant based on my bmi and calorie intake.

I hope this baby will be as easy as my first born for sure. Like he didn't even mind if we were playing like call of duty with him in the same room napping. Most of my days were spent constantly cleaning and doing laundry. My house was perfectly bleach cleaned all the time back then.
 
#5 ·
Nursing, is all I remember, with DD2. DD1 couldn't nurse, and I spent most of my to,Mpumping and reading books.

Some friends came to visit and we went for walks/ hikes. I visited family for the holidays (DD2 was born in mid-autumn) and nursed and walked at their house.

If I was away DH had the baby in a carrier/ ergo.

Taking a bath together was sort of a special event. Took a little coordination- turn up the heat, get DH on -call with a towel so I wouldn't have to get out holding a slippery baby, but I'm sure that's manageable on your own, really.

I had vaginal births so easy recovery for me. My DDs both ended up in the NICU so that came home as "newborns" but I was in varying stages of postpartum life- i.e. Newborn and newly postpartum didn't always match up.

I did lots of skin to skin the the NICU but not much once I was home, really. IDK what that would be like if baby and I just went home together pretty quickly.

It goes very very fast
 
#6 ·
Ratchet; said:
.

Taking a bath together was sort of a special event. Took a little coordination- turn up the heat, get DH on -call with a towel so I wouldn't have to get out holding a slippery baby, but I'm sure that's manageable on your own,
I didn't do it very often but, if I was on my own, I laid a towel on the bath mat before we got in. When I was ready to get out I laid the baby on the towel and lightly wrapped her up. Then got out and got my own towel.
 
#7 ·
Lying in bed with baby for the first 2 weeks skin to skin. Having my family come visit me in bed. Having hubby or other kids bring me food/water. Then for the next 2 weeks, I laid in bed w/ baby when I wasn't up making quick meals for the other kiddos while wearing baby. I also did journaling, listened to music and took lots of pictures during this time. Didn't go anywhere for about 6 weeks and before then it was only to go to doctor visits. Really, the first 4 weeks are about bonding w/ your newborn and taking care of yourself so you can better take care of everyone else after that tender time.
 
#8 ·
I spent those first weeks at home with a lot of annoying visits. I wish I could stay at home alone with my baby but there were always family coming to visit us. It was a hard time because I was really tired and I had to attend all of them. :crying:
Luckily now visitors have stopped coming because we are not a lot at home.:wink:
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top