No longer a newborn!

We’ve survived the fourth trimester! I can’t believe I’m saying this but it’s gone incredibly fast even if each day has felt like an eternity.

It’s been a bit of a blur, especially the first month when neither of us was too sure how and why and what and when. 🤷🏻‍♀️ The days seemed to go by without much happening but changing nappies and feeding her and I had moments when I thought, is this it? It just felt really boring and I had a hard time adjusting to the new rhythm. Her rhythm. Luckily, when she was about nine weeks old, I started noticing some big changes like her becoming a lot more responsive and if she had had a good sleep or a nap she’d wake up with a big smile. Suddenly the days weren’t as boring. I would wait for her to wake up just to see that big smile on her face, have a little cuddle and a chat.

She has started sleeping nice long stretches and I’m no longer sleep deprived like during the first month. Even then she slept relatively well and I got in total about five hours sleep in total per night which I thought was quite decent in the beginning 😊🙈.

I’ve accepted for now that the best naps are in the pram so I’ve resorted to walking around a lot, at least 7k daily, and at home she would nap for about half an hour to 50 minutes only, which doesn’t give me much time for myself. I’ve abandoned my blog a bit but that’s ok, I know it won’t last forever. If I can shower, eat or do laundry that’s already an achievement! 😁

I’ve taken her to Coventry and Estonia 😊 so she’s experienced train 🚊 and plane ✈️ travel already. She’s got a British Airways travel log book given by a lovely flight attendant 👨‍✈️ on our way to Tallinn. Travelling on my own gave me the confidence that I really can manage looking after her in stressful conditions. It wasn’t easy lugging all the bags with me plus her in the BabyBjörn. She stayed very calm and didn’t cry much, I was so proud of her.

I’m slowly getting a hang of this mummy thing 😊 but it’s still incredibly hard. The whole ‘go with the flow’ thing is starting to wear off and I wish the days became a bit more structured! We do have a routine but it’s still not set in stone and each day and night still feels and is different. It has become a bit more rewarding and interesting though. We’ve started swimming lessons with Water Babies and planning on doing some baby yoga 🧘‍♀️ with her too. We go to cafes and restaurants so mummy doesn’t have to be stuck at home all the time.

Things have slowly started to click, like this article says. I feel I’ve bonded well with my baby (hard not to if we’re together almost 24/7) and can say that I have her figured out most of the time… I need more patience as things certainly won’t get easier, there will be plenty of new problems ahead, but all I can think is that I have more confidence in dealing with her and that’s already something! No one has ever said that bringing up children was going to be easy.