Birth-6 weeks

Happy New year! I'm only nearly 3 weeks late but I've been busy cuddling this little one too much, running after a preschooler or catching up on house work!

Just thought I'd do a quick round up of our first few weeks...

Sam's arrival 8 days early was something I was very grateful for, and as he was born the day James' parents were heading off on their 3 week holiday they were glad that we were out of the hospital with an hour to spare before they had to leave for the airport! They would have been gutted to have missed that excited phone call, and first newborn cuddle. Thank goodness for parents too as Mum came to ours at 2am that morning I went into labour to look after Alex, they then took him to Wales for the day as it was my Grandad's 70th birthday. Alex was very excited when he found out the news that he was a big brother to a little boy and apparently was so well behaved all day-as he fell asleep on the way back he wasn't too interested in Sam the first night and just wanted his bed.

Sam was the spitting image of his brother at first, and followed Alex's lead in not sleeping much unless it was on one of us, we did end up co-sleeping a few nights too, which I hated as was so worried he would get smothered in some way.

I am beast feeding but this came with many struggles, about 3/4 days in I was in agony, cut and so sore, the pain was excruciating! But I put immense pressure on myself and bit and screamed through the pain, until James eventually couldn't take any more of my crying and whining about it and bought me a pump (A Phillips hand held one). This saved my sanity, I think I would have given up shortly after otherwise as it made me feel so down and like I couldn't give Sam my best for him. He now has supplements of between 1-3 formula feeds too, which at first I felt guilty about but now I don't care, I know my supply wasn't great with Alex either. Despite the feeding issues the first few weeks Sam barely lost any birth weight unlike Alex. This last week feeding has been going great and I haven't used the pump and only 1 or 2 bottles a day-which is great as I was getting fed up of sterilising all the time! Not sure why we put so much pressure upon ourselves about how we feed our baby-can't believe it is still such a taboo subject!

Christmas and New Year went by with a bit of a blur, but it was quite nice as we got a job lot of our visiting done in one hit and and other peoples houses (we actually still haven't had too many visitors at our place at all). We had Christmas and Boxing day at my parent's house, unfortunately James had to work a shift between 2-6 so that was a bit strange to not see him-didn't quite feel like Christmas. My Dad's parents and sister joined us for the Boxing day dinner and the next day we went up to my Mum's brother's house to see all of her family. The day after James' parents got back and we shared our Christmas presents then-so another chaotic afternoon! New years we were again at my parents house for a low key meal and evening playing games-I could have done with being at home by 11 in all honesty!

James had a whole month off work (apart from the odd shift at his second job and checking in on his Dad's work whilst they were away) so I was dreading the 7th of January when I would be left with both boys for the full day, but it actually went really well, I even managed time to make a home made pudding and dinner (that hasn't been so likely since)! I find the evenings the hardest between 4-7pm as Sam always needs feeding/fussing over at precisely the time I need to start dinner or save something from boiling over of burning to a crisp-meals have been interesting and needless to say we have eaten out more the last 6 weeks than we have all year I think! The preschool run wasn't as bad as expected, I thought I'd never get out the house with all of us decent enough to go out by 8.30 but somehow I have made it happen (just about), although the first day back I was very nearly late to pick Alex up (enjoying a 3 year old free shopping afternoon, lost track of time, buses changed route/times...oops, lots of panicking and a phone call to my brother to see if he could be back up for me).

I have his 6 week health visitor check up on Monday so will be interested to see how much he weighs now as haven't had him weighed since the last midwife check up! He seems to have suddenly filled out and grown in length, I have just had to put the first lot of clothes away already-a sad moment for many Mum's I am sure!