INTRODUCING OTIS ....

Otis William Cotton - 0 days old

Otis William Cotton - 0 days old

Its June and my baby is already six weeks old. Where has the past month and a half gone? The good news is I'm back into the swing of things on the blog. Well, sort of. 

Otis arrived on Monday 7th May at 12.10am, after a very long (48hour) labour which resulted in me having to being induced, and have an epidural, which wasn't something I had planned. It just goes to show that having a birth plan is great, but be prepared that it can all change. When you've been 6cm dilated for over 18 hours, with no pain relief, and nothings changing, you have to take the recommended advice.  He was 6 days late (due date was the 1st May) and weighed a very healthy 8lb 7oz. 

The past few weeks have gone by in a flash, as we're currently settling into our new life as a three, and getting to know one another. 

There's so much more to having baby that I never understood before. Terms like engorgement, mastitis, and how your tits swell up like a couple of bricks after you've had a baby and continue to hurt if you're breast feeding/ expressing. How breast feeding can hurt and be fecking painful if the latch isn't nailed. The night sweats, the need for a padded ring to sit up at night, and how having a cot attached to the bed isn't practical when you've had stitches down there, and you need to slide down the bottom of the bed to go to the loo. And, just how long the recovery takes from an episiotomy. I'd say about six weeks actually. 

The tearful moments. The crazy hormones that make you cry because your husband drank your favourite bottle of chablis that you'd been waiting nine months to drink (I don't think that was just the hormones), but couldn't, because you're on another round of antibiotics for the mastitis. Or, because you don't think you took enough photos of your baby as a newborn, and now he's six weeks old. Seriously, this has happened. 

The amount of unwanted advice you get from other mothers. Mothers who had their babies ten, twenty, fifty odd years ago, when gripe water was actually made from alcohol and when smoking around a baby was OK.  And this isn't just from the older mothers. The look or disapproving radio silence when you tell your mum friends about your parenting methods.  Or, when you say you've bought a canopy for your babies nursery, to be told it will be the death of your child.  Everyones an expert eh? But it will look great on instagram, yeah? 

Every day is a life lesson in parenting, and if I've learnt anything, its that we're all just winging it like each other, and a mother should never judge another mother. 

 Now speaking of canopy's... Lets get back to the fun stuff. 

Otis William Cotton - 2 weeks old. 

Otis William Cotton - 2 weeks old.