Morning everyone & happy new year! 2022 was an absolute ride, one I’m definitely thankful for but glad to wave goodbye to.

With the departure of 2022 went the first 4 weeks of my second babies life. I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone and that we already have a 1 month old!

With my first it seemed like every second of every day dragged (especially the nights!) but with baby B it all seems to be a huge blur! It’s probably down to the fact that baby A never slept anywhere but on me so I spent hours on end watching TV and cuddling this tiny person, whereas baby B sleeps all day on his own.

What to expect for the first 48 hours? Well every baby is completely different of course. Some are sleepers, some are clingers and some just want to know what’s going on – they have just spent 9 months in the womb after all.

With my first (A) he slept the whole time in the hospital (around 15 hours) with 3 really short feeds and my second (B) slept the day (6 hours in hospital) with 2 feeds. The daytime for us was easy! They slept, ate, had their nappy changed and went back to sleep. The nights however, are a different ball game.

My eldest sleeps in his own bed but wakes up a couple times and sometimes gets into our bed so the first night was spent playing ping-pong with the crying. B would start making A cry and repeat! Whether it was the mental preparation that I knew this would happen or if I was overtired but this was all very funny to me at 3am.

Since I didn’t sleep, my partner took them in the morning so I could – from what I’ve heard from friends, this is pretty standard! They’ve spent 9 months in a warm water bed inside of you, it makes sense they want to be close to you.

My best advice for having a baby in general is prepare for everything! The stress of a newborn and change in hormones are helped so much by just preparing simple things.

As this was my second I knew I wasn’t getting any sleep for at least the first night so I:

• Drank a large coffee before bed
• Put muslin cloths by the bed
• Downloaded a few books on my phone
• Had a drink by the bed

And just remember;

You made this baby, you’ve got this! The first few days/weeks are definitely hard but you’ll get through it. Take time for you and be kind to yourself.