Dress: Lisa Marie Fernandez / Charlotte’s Bow Swaddle: The Beaufort Bonnet Company (similar versions on Etsy)
Thank you to Donna Cummings Photography for capturing the most precious photos! These were taken 10 days after Charlotte was born.
The first month has been both the longest and shortest month of our lives!
Charlotte is beyond precious, so sweet, and the most snuggly baby on the planet. We call her our little tree frog because she loves to lay on our chests with her legs tucked up like a frog, it is her happy place! She is teeny tiny. She was 6 pounds when she was born (one week early) and dropped down to 5 pounds 5 ounces by the time we left the hospital. My sweet mother-in-law bought us the cutest preemie clothes because all of her newborn clothes were way too big!
I want to preface this post by saying I am so grateful to God that He made me a mother. I have dreamed of being a mom since I was a little girl and am in no way trying to complain about motherhood because having Charlotte is the biggest blessing of all, BUT I want to be truthful and honest about the first month of challenges I faced as a new mom.
The first few days at home were really tough. On top of feeling like you have no idea what you are doing, I was SO sore from my C-section. I hadn’t planned on having a C-section or ever researched it and had no clue what the recovery was like. It was so tough, at first I was counting down the minutes until I could take the next pain pill. I had also never been so swollen in my life! Four days after having her, we had our checkup with the pediatrician and I literally couldn’t put my shoes on because my feet and ankles were so huge (I felt like I looked like Shrek!)! Thank God for Lee – he was awesome and taking care of everything (including stretching out the laces on my tennis shoes). It took exactly a week to really feel like I was starting to recover and didn’t need pain medication.
From the start, I knew I wanted to breastfeed and hoped my entire pregnancy that I would be able to. Luckily Charlotte latched right away when we got to recovery and we had a pretty easy start. One piece of advice if you are struggling in the hospital: ask the nurses for sugar water! They have these little droppers and it helped so much if she got uninterested or started to fall asleep. We took a bunch home and it really helped in those early, hard days when you are still figuring it out and your milk hasn’t come in. The nurses assured me that once my milk was in we wouldn’t need it anymore, and they were right!
Going home was really hard. Breastfeeding is no joke. I had trouble getting her to stay latched. She was crying so hard and so much her voice was hoarse and it literally broke my heart. I was crying and wishing so badly to be back at the hospital with the nurses to help me. My sister-in-law just finished breastfeeding her baby for a solid year and I truly didn’t realize what an accomplishment that is until now. It is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done and I can 100% understand why people don’t want to do it. You feel like a slave to your baby BUT it is the best thing for them and if you can do it, it truly is amazing. It’s incredible that our bodies were made to feed our babies! I plan to do a whole post on breastfeeding soon – there is so much I didn’t know and wish someone had told me! The 2nd-3rd week it really started getting better, so if you are struggling just keep trying!
The exhaustion y’all is unlike anything I have ever experienced. Waking up every few hours at night is so tough but those moments in the night are where you really bond with your baby and those moments are so special. Yes, there are some really hard nights. Lee has woken up to me bawling crying, not being able to figure out why she won’t stop crying. It’s frustrating, your emotions are all over the place. By the 3rd week I felt like Charlotte and I finally started to figure each other out and really get in a rhythm.
Having help from family and friends has been life saving. My mom stayed with us for two nights and Lee’s parents stayed with us for a few nights. It is hard for anyone to truly help when your the one breastfeeding, but having someone there to rock them back to sleep if they are fussy is really nice. My mom would sit with me in the night while I breastfed and talk to me and grab me anything I might need. It was really nice to have that support and to be able to let Lee sleep! We are really lucky to have family close by, my mom has been a rockstar helping as I can’t drive for the first 6 weeks. It was also super helpful having Lee’s family here the first week helping with laundry, grocery shopping, meals and everything in-between!
We had planned on getting her on a schedule as soon as we could. I read Babywise and had printed out their sleep/feed schedule as a starting point. It is so hard to get on a schedule those first few weeks, you are just in survival mode and especially breastfeeding you feel like you have to feed on demand. We somehow naturally got on a schedule. Everything I have read says that babies thrive on routine and it is so helpful to us too.
At four weeks our schedule is 5:30-6 AM/ 9 AM/ 12 PM/ 2:30 PM/ 5:00 PM/ 7:00 PM/ 9:00 PM/ 11:00-11:30 PM.
This schedule doesn’t always happen but it has worked well for us and she has been sleeping 5-6 hours most nights now, which is AMAZING!
Everyone says having a newborn is the hardest thing you will ever experience, and honestly it is so much harder than I ever could’ve imagined BUT it is the most rewarding. It is incredible how the second they are born you can’t even fathom how much you love them. Seeing Lee as a dad is also the most amazing thing. I knew he would be incredible, but seeing it in action is the best. I am so blessed to get to experience this crazy rollercoaster with him. 🙂
I am planning on doing a post soon with all of our favorite products and a post about breastfeeding too. Sorry this was a long one!
If you have any questions please email me or leave them in the comments!
xo,
Laura
P.S. – wrote this blog post while pumping. Oh how life has changed! haha
You are doing a great job momma!