Bringing Up Baby

You will no doubt have an idea of what your breastfeeding journey is going to be like.  For me I had fully immersed myself with some rose tinted spectacles. It was going to be a beautiful experience where me and my son  those wonderful intimate moments together.  I was going to provide for my baby, all his needs, and have him look into my eyes dreamily whilst he fed. But that's not how it started out for me. Straight away I knew that something was not right. As the midwife lay my son at my breast and helped him attach he simply slipped off and went to sleep. Again and again we tried and he would suck once or twice and then slip off and fall asleep.   'Oh what a lazy boy you have! Don't worry he will get it!' Midwife, nurse and healthcare assistants told me again and again.   After 4 or 5 hours I felt panic rising that my baby wasn't feeding and although everyone kept reassuring me he would feed, he just had to get the hang of it, eventua...

My birth experience was not what I had wanted it to be. As a first time mum I had hoped for the natural birth I had imagined while writing a birth plan. Alas it was not to be!  I was under a consultant for the entire pregnancy and through regular monitoring it had been picked up that I had low amniotic fluid. In the end it dropped again and it was decided I should be induced at 37 weeks. I was terrified - I had two sweeps the week before and I walked miles and miles in the hope to get things going naturally but my little one was not done cooking and so made no moves at all! The induction started early on a drizzly Monday morning in January. And within 2 hours I started having contractions which quickly settled into a steady pattern of every 2 minutes.  I went on like that from 11am through the day until early evening and I wasn't sure what was happening if baby was on his way or not! All I knew was it hurt like hell and was getting stronger and stronger. I barely saw the ...