5 Months Postpartum

Hello, Everyone :) I think it's about time I did my postpartum update as I haven't done one in a very long time. I'll go over everything that I missed in the past few months as well. There isn't that much though. I have kind of mentioned my progress at Oscars monthly updates, so if I mention something I've already mentioned, then I'm sorry. But I guess it's better to talk about something twice than forget about it altogether :D I will warn you though, that unless you are interested in this kind of information or you are just curious, going through it yourself...it is an honest depiction of things, so be aware of that :)

This is me almost 5 months postpartum :) 

The jeans I'm wearing are a size w27 and they are Miss Sixty. The grey sweater is just a basic from H&M

I think the one thing most women are most worried about after birth is how to lose the weight. I gained 12 kg/26.4 lbs during my pregnancy and now I have lost 14 kg/30.8 lbs. I didn't do anything special to lose the weight, so I might be lucky or it might just be that easy. I must admit, I am trying to eat in moderation and I am making sure that my portion sizes are not too big. But I haven't given up on having sugary snacks or greasy food (occasional pizza and take away :D). I also think that I am probably in better shape than I was before getting pregnant and it's all thanks to the little chub chub Oscar :D He is a little attention seeker and likes to be carried around and bounced and swished through the air. This means I am getting a good daily workout just by taking care of him and making sure he is happy :) Also I think I have my age on my side, being still in my 20s and all that :) 

My waist is about 4 cm wider than before pregnancy, even though the weight is lower. And My abs are not really where they use to be :D Can a baby move your muscles around :D ??? It's probably not as crazy of a thought as I think it is.

I think I have also fully recovered now, ok I was pretty much back to normal at my 3 months postpartum mark. I do have to mention a part of post birth that I'm not the biggest fan of. And it's the leaking bladder :D I will be the first one to admit I never really took doing the kegel exercises seriously and I will be the first one to admit I should have. It's nothing uncontrollable, I mean you won't be able to tell, but I do have to use liners every day, just in case. I'm sure it will pass in time, but if you are pregnant and are probably tired of hearing everyone telling you to them...DO THEM :D I don't know if it helps, but it definitely can't hurt. I'm sorry if I've been a bit too open about the subject, but I'm thinking, better be honest, I'm sure I'm not the only one with the problem.

Another annoying thing that has happened, is losing my hair. I think it's because the lovely pregnancy hormones have now worn off :( And I find my hair everywhere...EVERYWHERE. So that is why I need to get a haircut...sooner rather than later. This also goes for my nails...I mean they are not falling off :D but they are less strong than they were during the pregnancy. So to avoid it getting any worse I am actually taking antenatal vitamins :D I had some left over, so I'll finish them and then continue with the breastfeeding vitamins instead, even though I'm not breastfeeding anymore.

Breastfeeding takes me to another topic, and it's boobs. It started out extremely painful to feed Oscar and at day 5 it was so horrible I made D get me a breastpump, just so I can get a rest. And from then on I pumped for about 2 weeks only breastfeeding him once or twice a day and then started breastfeeding more often with the help of nipple guards, which I managed to wean off eventually. At 3 months mark Oscar decided it is much too hard to breastfeed and much easier to feed from a bottle so I had to stop. I did keep trying for a few days with no luck and then I just stopped. I also thought about pumping for his feeds but in the end I decided that it's just too time consuming.

I also have pretty bad back pain, but I'm thinking that it's more because of lifting Oscar all the time, rather than side effects from the epidural.

Enough of the shitness though. Yes I don't think it's a real word either, but the other word I thought of was boo boos :D so...

I think I did mention it before that I stopped taking the contraception pill, because the one subscribed to be made me a complete bitch :D I mean my hormones were all over the place and it also made me bleed constantly, so it completely threw off my period. I haven't gotten another subscription for a different pill for now, but it is something I'll do once we move to the new house and I've got a new GP. I have a tiny hatred towards my current medical centre...it's really far and usually the waiting room is filled with strange people :D

All in all I feel pretty great in myself, and even though it does take a long time to recover from birth, it's absolutely worth every twinge and pain. And my god there was a lot of pain :D

Now I'm writing this post I have probably forgotten a few important things I wanted to mention :S I need to remember to make a note to make notes :D

Hope you enjoyed the post or at least found it a bit informative as to what to expect after birth :)

Stay tuned

xoxo

Oscar is 4 Months Old

Good Evening, Everyone! :)

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Hope you are all good. What a month it's been. I say that...I think everything has kind of settled down on the baby front and not much has really happened.
Oscars routine has changed a bit though and little changes come every day, I'm just always there with him when they happen, that they don't really seem that big to me at the time. Only looking back, it's when I see how much he has changes over the past month. This is why I'm so grateful to MYSELF, yes myself, that I have been keeping up with these monthly updates. I just can't see myself remembering all the little things unless I write them down, which I do. I think it's so important to remember all of his firsts. It's not the exact date I need to know though, I think knowing the month of when something happened is just as good.
I started thinking about it the other day actually. Would I care if there was a clay mould of my feet and hands from when I was little ???? No. Would I care if I didn't know when I started turning over or when I first had my spoon full of solid food? No.
To be honest I just love those moment my dad caught on camera when I was dancing away, listening to MTV when I was about 2 years old. That memory of when we went for a picnic by the river when I was about 5. That moment when we first saw our new apartment, the video shows me and my sister running from one end of the room to the other....it seemed so big (the apartment was quite tiny).
I just think capturing every moment is completely unnecessary, it's the memories that we make ourselves, that are important.
Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is, that with our first children I think it's so easy to get carried away with trying to capture every moment in their lives on camera or picture, rather than just enjoying the moment there and then.
Here are the memories I've made about Oscar this month though. I might have missed a few and I might make a big deal about something trivial, but that's ok, because I know that in the end I will always have this blog to come back to and read through all these first months of him, that I have probably forgotten about in a few years time :)
Hope you enjoy the post, as much as I've enjoyed another month with my little guy :)

Joggers and top from Tesco. The hat is from a set from h&m :) And dribble bib is Lovijoy...I got a set of 5 with different design for 10.95 :)

EAT

He still eats every 3 hours during the day, but I can see that he will be able to last longer quite soon, as he doesn't really get upset before I feed him...unless I've faffed about for too long :D 

A major change in his diet is that I am now giving him 2 scoops of baby rice before he goes to bed. The first night I did it, he slept for a whole 8 hours then woke up for a feed at 4AM and didn't wake until 7. I didn't want to get too excited about the 1 feed a night thing as he has done it once before. It was quite cool though, and even though the next night he only lasted 6 hours, it's still better than feeding him 3 times a night :)

Yesterday he actually only woke up once for food. I did try to give him some at 6 AM, but he was just being fussy rather than hungry, so after settling him and taking him next to me, he slept for another 2 and a half hours :)

I did think about starting him on solids slowly after he turned 4 months old, but I will probably wait for a little longer and probably start around Christmas time with a spoonful on mashed sweet potato or carrot or smth :)

PLAY

He now has a jumperoo, which he loves. He goes all crazy on it :D he is still a bit too short for it though, as we have to put a pillow under his feet. But I can see him reaching the floor all by himself in a short time. I took apart the swing that we had because he wasn't really interested in it. He still likes the rattle/crinkle/vibration toys and enjoys chewing on all of the toys he has :D

I turn around for a second and his wiggled himself sideways on the mat and is acting like nothings happened. Good thing I didn't look away for too long as I would've probably found him under the Christmas tree :D

SLEEP

He has a 30 minute nap after being awake for 2 hours all day, except around 2-3 PM when he goes down for a long 2 hour nap...this is when I get things done...bleached the whole bathroom yesterday :D and cleaned the flat and in the process broke our massive coffee/tv table :D 

Like I mentioned before he now sleeps longer during the night and only eats 1-2 times. He does go down earlier as before though around 7.30. This is because he now doesn't have a nap after waking around 5PM after his long lunch time nap. He goes to sleep with little or no fussing after being awake for almost 3 hours.

One of the rare times when he actually looks happy being on his stomach :D 2 minutes later he faceplanted into his mat though and then he wasn't that happy anymore :D

MILESTONES

So last month he started rolling over...he has since become very lazy and pretends he doesn't know how to do it anymore :D But every now and then he proves himself wrong and does indeed roll over...only when he really really wants to though. He is not really happy being on his stomach anyway. 

On the theme of rolling over, he is actually very good at turning himself on his side now and is actually quite happy sleeping on his side for a good couple of hours. I am thinking he will very soon be able to roll on his stomach...I don't think he will like it though, because then he will have to get back on his back :D

He is also very vocal. He can babble away for a long time...it's extremely amusing when he does it at night...:S :D

Another thing that is definitely happening now is teething. The drool and the chewing is non stop :D and his tops get so wet it's unbearable :D he is not a big fan of the dribble bibs though and even if he is ok with me putting them on, most of the time they just end up in his mouth.

Sitting on a high chair like a real boy :) he looked so cute in his big boy outfit. The hat is from Tesco, trousers from Next and denim shirt from Primark.

This is probably everything for this month. 

Almost forgot...he had his last vaccinations yesterday, which means there is no more until he is 1 year old :) On a bad note though, he is now running a fever. I noticed he wasn't really himself when he woke up and didn't really eat. At first I didn't really think much of it, but then he didn't eat a lot at his next feeding as well and felt a bit hot. I took his temperarture and it showed 37.8...I know it's not much, but he is so tiny so there are lots of cuddles and hugs today and not much else :)

I was going to go and meet up with a few friends for some Christmas Market fun, but I don't really want to drag O around when he is not feeling 100%.

Happy 4 month birthday, little monkey :) I baked the biggest cake ever :D 

Hope you enjoyed reading the post :)

Stay tuned by following the blog :)

xoxo

3 Months Postpartum

Good Evening, Everone :)

In the light of Oscar turning 3 months old I figured it's time for my post partum update. I haven't done an update on how I'm doing after the birth in a long time, so I guess it's about time for it to happen.

Over all I am doing pretty great. I actually feel normal again and I think my body is getting used to the lack of sleep or shall I say the broken sleep. 

Some of it is completely my own fault, because I really should be going to bed earlier than I do. Oscar goes down at around 8-9 o'clock and I go to sleep about 2 hours after that. I could blame the fact that I take my shower then and then I have to sort out the bottles and formula for his night time feed, but it wouldn't be fair. In all honesty, all this can be done before he goes down for his night time ''nap''....it's just that grown up time I can't give up. That few hours in a day when I don't have to take care of him. I quite like it, and I'm hoping he will start sleeping for longer stretches rather than me having to actually change my bedtime. 

I have now lost all my baby weight, or pregnancy weight, however you want to put it. I can easily fit into all my old clothes now, but I do feel the elasticity of my stomach has to improve somewhat before I can confidently wear a tight dress or a t-shirt again. I actually miss that I don't have to suck it in...loved that part of being pregnant :D I can easily fit into my size 6 zara jeans (size 2 for US) but I'm much more comfortable in size 8 (size 4 for US)

Ok so, I am actually doing something for my stomach to go back to where it was before getting preganant, not just talking about how I don't like the state I am in now. I am doing a lot of stand up excercises for my abs while I bounce O around, which makes them work even more, as he is my weight :D No excuses being unfit with a baby. And O loves the action anyway so I'm quite lucky in that sense. I also do excercises while I sit on the sofa with him. Half crunches while holding him again...work magic I tell you guys, they really do :D Another thing I have noticed is my arm muscles...bouncing a 6kg baby for hours in a day will make you one strong mama. I am pretty sure I would be able to carry my weekly food shop bags for miles :D

The only thing I must say about all this strength and weight exercises is that my back is taking the toll. I could really do with a nice and painful deep tissue massage to relieve all the tension....maybe next year :D

I have also done a few changes in my diet. Now that I'm not breastfeeding I have stopped eating those extra calories I needed to produce the milk. I think I have gone to pretty much what I did before finding out I'm pregnant, which is having one big meal a day. 

I usually have a light breakfast. I have a yoghurt and a banana or a cereal bar if we don't have any fruit. 

It is very rare when I have a big lunch, or that I have lunch at all to be honest (I know I shouldn't do it, but lunch time passes without me even noticing it most days) The only time I do have a big lunch is when I make something for me AND D. Or if D is making lunch. In this case I keep my dinner light or I have whatever D is having, but a smaller protion.

Most of the days I do have dinner as my main meal though. And that happens around 6-7 pm. After that I snack on either some chocolate or I have some ice-cream. I do treat myself...I'm a woman...I need chocolate every now and then :D

The last thing is a bit of tmi, but hei, what the hell. When I was still breastfeeding I went on the pill that was safe to use during those days. Unfortunately the pill I was subscribed did not suit me at all. And when I say at all, I mean, at all :D I turned into a right old bitch...honestly. It made me so hormonal and not only was I a bitch to D I was also really moody and I even a bit depressed at times. It also made me bleed all the time. I only lasted 28 days and then stopped taking them. And now I can really say that I am much happier and I feel like I am in such a better place. Pills or any other form of hormone to prevent pregancy has never affected me in such way before. And I must say that if you have any history of hormonal problems before, steer clear of this pill called Cerelle. I do need to go see my gp again to get a different prescription, but I'm being incredibly lazy. And lets be honest ... if those pill would be 100 per cent effective, I would'nt have Oscar, so I'm in no rush :D

I think I have pretty much covered everything now :) 

Hope you enjoyed the post, or at least found it a bit informative :D

Stay tuned, follow my blog and leave some feedback :)

I would love some feedback, or maybe a post request

Until next time xoxo

I will try to add pictures. But the selfies just don't do it anymore, so I'll have my sister or my mom take them for me tomorrow :)

Healthy Happy Life

Good Morning, Everyone :)
It's time for the weekly healthy living update. I'm aware that I missed last weeks one, because it was my Birthday weekend and my friend was over from London. So this will be a two week update...I guess.
I must admit that I haven't been that healthy. It's not the food I eat when I do eat that's unhealthy though. The problem is the food I'm not eating. I haven't done it on purpose, but most of the days I kind of miss breakfast and lunch. I use to have porridge for breakfast on most days, and now it's a banana :S and sometimes a yogurt as well. I feel like I'm living on coffee. I still only have 1-2 normal coffees a day and then the rest of the 6 are decaffe :D But they do fill me up, especially when I have my coffee with milk and hazelnut syrup (damn you Starbucks )
On a good note though I've skipped so many calories I'm pretty much down to my pre-pregnancy weight now. And even If I will start eating more at lunch and mornings I don't think I will gain any weight because I'm breastfeeding more now. Which is why I really need to stop the coffees and start the healthy meals.
D has told me to prepare some lunches for the week, so It would be easy for me to just grab and eat them when I get a spare minute, but it's just the matter of doing it rather than just thinking about doing it :D
SO the update from the past 2 weeks is, that I've done good at the weight loss front, but not so good at the health department.
Another thing is that I'm back on the pill. My idea was to get the implant again and then take the pill as well to regulate the bleeding, but since I'm breastfeeding I can't do that just yet. I haven't taken pills with this hormone before though, so I'm not sure how they will affect me. I guess time will tell...hopefully I won't get bad skin and intolerable hunger :D

Here is what I look like at 7 weeks postpartum :)

(pictures coming as soon as possible...I promise :))

I have been doing a few exercises with Oscar..I use him as weight :D he likes it :D And they have really helped to get my stomach back into normal tensity, there is still a long way to go, but every little helps and I'm sure it will only get better as the days pass by :)

3 Weeks Postpartum Update

Every time I start these update  posts I think I will be really good all week and do a post every day. But believe it or not, days just seem shorter these days. There just doesn't seem to be enough hours in a day any more. And quite frankly I have so much to write about every day, but it would all be baby related because I don't find much time for myself any more. I'm sure it's bound to change but for now since Oscar is still so little and still needs A LOT of attention all the time, every minute is spend on him and I'm ok with that.

Today is actually the day when we are going to register him...eeek :) Then it will all be official. Funny thing about it all is that little O will have an English passport... I have an Estonian passport and D has a French one :D I'm sure travelling is going to be such fun :D

But back to this post...3 week update. Not a lot has changes with me to be honest. I haven't lost any more weight which I'm ok with as they do say the last few pounds are the hardest to get rid of. And it has only been 3 weeks. The other day I actually had a glimpse of my abs and I didn't think I will be able to see those for at least another 3 months so there is definitely progress.

There is an update on the dreaded stretch marks though. I have them now. I actually got them after the pregnancy and they are on my left boob (there might be some small ones on the right one as well, but I haven't found them yet). It's actually quite annoying and it happened with the engorgement. I'm not quite sure why but my left boob seems to produce more milk, so it gets filled a lot more. And it looks bigger as well, and when I say bigger it's probably a whole cup size bigger. I've tried to get my right one to produce more by pumping it more often, but it doesn't seem to work. I call it my lazy boob. Fortunately for me I only flash my boobs at home so no one else can see the marks :D
There is a lot of boob action all the time...still not confident enough to breastfeed in public though, but I'm sure if I'd need to I would. I'm actually sick of boobs. It all revolves around boobs these days lol.

The most important thing that has happened though in the last week is that O now sleeps longer during the night. So if we plan it right during the day I only have to wake up once a night now :)

I do the last feed with him at 12 am or at 1 am then change his diaper and put him in his sleepsuit. We don't give him a full bath every night (we'll try to do it every other night for now). In between those nights I usually just give him a quick wash in the sink after his last poo. He really enjoys water. He is super calm in the bath as well, which I was really worried about because I remember my little brother screaming his head off during his first baths  :D
But O just loves warm water :) We actually put a towel in the bath as well so it would be more comfy for him.

I make it sound like it's all really easy and to be honest apart from the fact that it all takes a lot of hours during the day it really is quite easy. The only hard part is when he starts fussing and he's been doing it a lot over the last couple of days. He just doesn't seem to want anything except to wiggle and fuzz :D And we just have to be ok with that because there is not much we can do about it. But it does get a bit annoying. And because he is sleeping more during the night he is now more awake during the day and the day time naps are shorter which we now have to get used to.

Little O also decided not to be so little any more :D He has grown out of all his newborn and 0-1 month clothes. The thing is that he is in that awkward phase where he can't fit into the smallest size but is still too small to fit into the bigger size. Fortunately Mothercare does a size that fits in between there (small baby, up to 10lbs), so I've had to buy a few outfits for him to get through the days.
Baby clothes sizes are stupid really. You have 0-3 moths, which means it's really for 3 month olds and then 3-6 months. And in between that you don't really have a lot of options :D I'm sure we'll survive though, even if I have to cut off the bottom parts of his little all-in-ones....his legs are really long :D

And that's about it for this weeks update. I'm sure I've forgotten to tell yo guys about loads of things but I can blame it on mommy brain now :)

This is what I look like 3 weeks post birth :)
I can finally close my jeans without struggle...anazing :D It feels weird to pull my trousers up now time to time as I walk around. I might even need a belt lol

 Nothing wrong with a little selfie :D 

 Hope you enjoy my ''just woke up'' face and hair. And also the mess in the backgroun :D 

And this is little Oscar, 3 weeks old in one of his new outfits. It's a two piece from Mothercare. And I love the fact that it has a hoodie, because none of the hats really fit his head :D He has changed so much. He came out looking like mini D, but he is definitely looking more like me now...I think. My grandma actually said that it's good luck for the sons to look like their mothers :)

Little scrunchie. He likes to curl up like this every time I try to take a photo :D 

On that note I'm off to attend to my baby. And hopefully I will find time for more posts this week :)

Stay tuned, everyone :)

xo

2 Week Postpartum Update

Another week has ended !

This is what I look at 2 week after giving birth. I have a bit of a muffin top on the sides :D Annoying, but I wasn't hoping to look this great just after 2 weeks so I'm happy anyway. I have now lost a total of 19 pounds so I have another 5 pounds to go to reach my pre-pregnancy weight. The thing is that I think I was heavier than I'm comfortable with before getting pregnant. So hopefully, with the breastfeeding and adding a bit of excercise I can lose 10 pounds rather than 5. 

I am feeling so much better these days anyway and even managed to get a nice small brisk walk today. The thing is I can't walk that fast with the pushchair because the roads near our flat are not quite flat...victorian square and all that I think I need to venture a bit further out to get a good walking pace and not shake up the little one too much :D
And since we are pretty sure about the name now I don't mind announcing it here (there is a slight chance we're going to change our minds because our registry appointment is not until next Friday) 

Drumroll please !

We have gone for Oscar Leo :) I'm practicing calling him by his name every now and then and seems like it suits him quite well :)
He is growing so much as well. We think he is going through a growth spurt and he was actually 3.3 kg at his last weigh-in with the midwife, which was on wednesday. If he keeps going at this rate he'll be too big for all his newborn clothes in a matter of days :D 
Another thing is that he is actually quite long/tall and his legs are long as well. So a few all in ones are actually a bit too short for him now as well. He can't really stretch in them anymore :D
Other than that we are still continuing with bottle feeding him expressed milk and only very occasionally topping it up with formule (mostly in the evening when all I have left is milk expressed after having coffee :D I don't want him to be awake all night long)
He really is the cutest thing though and I might get frustrated at times because it's all so new still, but I get over it so fast . It's just all crazy amazing :D

1 Week Postpartum Update

Has it really been a week already? We have survived it :) This has probably been one of the most challenging week of my life and yet I don't mind because it's all worth it, every minute not spent sleeping and fully functioning :D
First of all I would like to mention that they really don't tell you the pain you feel after the birth. Muscles I didn't even know existed hurt and I still find it a bit painful to sit down. First few days were the worst. Just the thought of getting out of bed so I can leave the room to calm the little one made me tear up and then another thought that I have to breastfeed.....
So the plan was for me to solely breastfeed for about 6 weeks and then start using a pump to express for one night feed and emergency. But I'm finding it really hard. On day 3 I actually cried because of the pain. And yes, some of you might say that he is probably just not latching on properly, but he was getting a good feed that put him down for a good few hours, it's just that feeding every 2-3 hours every day is really hard on your nipples. It really is....so the plan failed. We got the pump and I'm pumping every few hours to build up the milk production and we are also using formula, to get him to gain some weight. He was 3kg when born and at his 5 day check-up he weighed at a tiny 2.7 kg

So all in all things that have gone according to the plan : Zero
And that's ok. We are making things work for us and it's really something you have to do rather than vigilantly sticking to some silly plan you made before the baby arrived.

Here is my 1 week postpartum update. I will talk baby all through the week anyway, so I won't do a seperate one about him. 

This is what I look 1 week after giving birth. I am actually amazed at how fast I bounced back. I still have a little belly, which is absolutely fine. It's quite funny actually, because it's really soft little O likes to sleep on it :D
All together I have lost about 15/16 pounds. I have not done anything other than breasfeeding in a sense of excercise :D so that is just the weigh that has hone off without any real effort. I do think I need to do some muscle work to get back in shape but I'll wait until the pain resides and I've had my 6 week check-up and ok from the doctor.
My stitches are healing nicely and there is now just a little uncomfort rather than real pain.
Also like I said earlier, instead of solely breastfeeding I am now expressing milk and using a bottle most of the time, I do like to get in a feed in the evening though and get some bonding time. I have to top him up with a bottle though because he just dozes off after 15-20 minutes and then wakes up a bit hungry. But I'm afraid 20 minutes is maximum I can have him latched on because of the pain.
I am using a hand pump (tommee tippee) at the moment but will probably get an electric one soon to be more efficient. And we are using Hipp Organic formula. O seems ok with all of these ways of feeding. And a happy and full baby makes happy parents :D
It is all very surreal though...I can't believe I'm a mother. And it's amazing.