Hello ladies!
So lovely to hear from you all.
Breaking & Melly - blimey you are so close now. I'm so excited for you both!! On the post partum healing I just sat in several baths a day with warm water. I found the bleeding heavy for a week or two then it slowly tapered off. Healing really depends on whether you tear and your own body. Defo get some stool softeners. It's not just for first vowel movement but a lot of women suffer with constipation post partum. I'm still on them as I still have painful bowel movements. I'm the exception though!
I'd also recommend doing lots of cooking and putting the meals in the freezer.
BBbliss - poor you. Someone said to me to treasure my baby as this is the easy phase of being a parent. I can only say that you can only do so much. You're a lovely caring mother - she is lucky to have you. Sending you all the strength in the world.
Ging - you sound like you're doing great!!! I'm still exclusively breast feeding. I got lucky she seemed to know what to do. In my humble experience I drove myself crazy over the "holding the baby too much" concern. People are so opinionated about it. Your boy is soooo little - I think you should just hold him if that's what he needs. I think they evolved to be close to us for survival and our culture tries to make them independent from birth. Don't get me wrong I'm not an attachment parent advocate, but I do think that you have to do what you have to do to get through first 12 weeks. They change so quickly ... Even if he is clingy now, he will grow out of it. If you can put him down awake and encourage him to drift off by patting his tummy and shushing then great. Or perhaps you can even put him down awake and he will drift off by himself - that's amazing. But if you can't, do what you need to do to get him to sleep. Just keep trying every so often.
I think it's great he does most of the night in his bassinet. Mums I know who have co-slept all night have had a hard time moving the baby out of their bed. My baby wakes at 4 for good and won't even sleep next to me!
We are doing better. She has been sleeping 7-4 with no breaks for a few weeks. We do get the odd night of disruption but I manage around 6 hours a night.
I have been expressing and letting DH do her last feed at 7. He is brilliant at putting her to bed. If it's me she fusses on and off the boob for an hour or more, falls asleep on me, then I carefully transfer her to her cot after 20 mins. DH hasn't got the patience, feeds her til drowsy and puts her down sleepy but awake and gets her to settle by herself! I'm such an emotional mess I can't do it and she cries if I try.
They change very quickly so just as you get settled into one pattern it all changes. On the flip side it means that something that doesn't work today might work tmrw! She now falls asleep in her buggy!!! She still doesn't like being worn. I was worried about using a dummy too Ging but as she's got older she doesn't want it so much. Now I practically have to force it in and that's when she is overtired and desperate for sleep.
Just do whatever you need to Ging! Bad habits can't really be formed so young and as they change constantly new habits are fairly easy to form!