2 Month Update

So every month I aim to give you guys an update with how me and baby are getting on. A month goes by so quickly, but there are small changes that are happening all the time. I could probably write a book if I was to document each one but I'll keep it nice and compact! I suppose I have leap frogged a little as I haven't yet shared my birth story, but I'll save that for another day (to be honest it was such an out of body experience that I'm going to have to take notes form my birthing partners before I write it!). Anyway here it is, my second month being mummy to my beautiful flower...

I think hearing the words 'your daughter' are beginning to settle in. In my first month people would say those words and I literally had a delayed response every time they were motioned, because the felling of having my baby girl finally here with us was so surreal. We've actually had quite an active few weeks, my boyfriend's been working away, but my family were still on their summer holidays for most of this time and so I counted us in on everything they had planned. She's a pretty travelled baby already (within the UK!), we've had trips to Holton, Staffordshire and most recently Harrogate. I often get stopped by older women cooing over baby whenever I take her out, and whenever they ask her age they always seem surprised that I'm out and about with her. I thought it was pretty normal to go outside the house with a baby. I took her out within the first week she was born!, but maybe other Mums like to stay home for the first few months and enjoy their new born without all the attention. I for one love the attention as long as it's directed to her!

There have been so many small changes that I've seen in baby. My favourite one is seeing her slightly constipated smile turn into a proper gummy one! It's the most heart warming thing, looking down at your babies face and seeing them smiling up at you. I'm not quite sure what it is that makes her smile, sometimes she'll be staring into space and then all of a sudden a smile appears on her face. But I would like to think it's caused by me attempting to entertain her with peak-a-boo and making silly faces...that's what I tell people anyway! Her feeds are slightly further apart now which is a bit of a relief, because it means I don't always have my breasts out. She also doesn't stay on my boob for as long, I think it's because she takes in more milk at a time; which again means I'm not spending all my time feeding. I have been very lucky with my milk supply, I seem to have gallons stored in there which means leakage was beginning to become a bit more of an annoyance. As she's not feeding quite as much as she used to I've been using the Tommee Tippee manual breast pump to express. This means me and my boyfriend can spend some quality time together each month, which is what we plan to do. My Mum is thrilled because it means she gets baby all to her self! I still need to get used to being without her for more than a few minutes though. Me and my boyfriend took a trip to the cinema to Watch War of The Planet of the Apes. I was so excited because we were waiting for it to come out during my pregnancy, but because she came 5 days early we just missed out on it being released . Anyway the film was really good but I couldn't stop thinking about her all the way through, and by the end I was rushing home to see her beautiful little face.

One thing that made my life a lot easier in the second month was purchasing a pacifier. I was near enough adamant that I wouldn't be purchasing a pacifier for our baby, mainly because I saw them as big round stoppers! But when you are lacking sleep, and your arms ache from all the flying motions you use as a distraction, they become small gifts from heaven! She has an everyday Tommee Tippee soother. (We're clearly fans of Tommee Tippee!) I prefer the smaller pacifiers but every baby is different, and it just so happened that she took to this one instantly. I have noticed a difference in her sleeping routine this month, and I think the pacifier has a part to play in that. It often falls out of her mouth once she's asleep, but where she would have woken up before, and I would have had to feed her to get her back to sleep, I can now just place it back in her mouth. I know the difference now between her wanting comfort and wanting food, and she will make it clear that a dummy isn't enough by continuously spitting it back out. So I know that she isn't missing any feeds. She is waking up fewer times in the night. I could maybe do with a few more hours sleep but I can't get greedy! I am beginning to establish some sort of routine now. She'll sleep from half 8/9pm till 5am for roughly 3 hours at a time. The 5am part is a little bit of a struggle but once I've fed, changed and played with her for a bit sometimes she'll give me another hour of sleep before we start our day.

So 2 months of being Mummy means 2 months since my body was stretched to its full capacity! I'm not yet back to my original size, but I have dumped the elasticated maternity trousers for my skinny fit jeans. Without going into too much detail things with my body are going back to normal...in all areas! My weight at the moment isn't really an issue for me, I seem to have dropped a lot of baby weight very fast. I'm more concerned about getting toned and fit. Since I was chauffeured around during most of my pregnancy I haven't been using my legs very much, and so my stamina and fitness isn't great. I plan to get back in the gym, especially now I can leave a bottle of expressed milk to whoever is looking after her, while I'm gone. I'm wearing my stretch marks loud and proud since they seem to be planning on sticking around. I may have to compromise the bikini's but oh well. I know stretchmark's bother a lot of women, and we try all sorts of creams to get rid of them but honestly I'm kind of liking them now. It reminds me of my journey to motherhood and the memories of my first pregnancy. I go through phases of complaining about them, but I'm lucky enough to have a boyfriend who reminds me that I'm still beautiful. Just think of them as tiger stripes. That shit is fierce!

39 Weeks Pregnant

2 Months Postpartum