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Looking after a newborn...it's tougher than you think

My baby Rafe is now three weeks and four days old. Blog posts are few and far between, as are hair washes, stretches of sleep and getting anything done.

Looking after a newborn baby is tough. Seriously tough. They may be small and adorable but when they want something they morph into ferocious, red, wailing little monsters...or Rafe does anyway.
And they poop like absolute troupers! I basically spend the majority of my life changing nappies and Rafe takes great delight in farting in my face as soon as his dirty nappy is removed and freshly filling the new one.
I'm fairly lucky thats the worst I've had to contend with so far. Daddy not only got pooped on but then immediately after sprayed with wee aswell all in the same nappy change. He now claims to be far too traumatised by the experience to complete further nappy changes insisting I am so much better at it...hmmm. And I'm sorry if this is gross or TMI, but Rafe is breasfed and the colour of his poop's! Mustard yellow! and impossible to remove those stains from anything!

Now lets talk cluster feeding. The absolute worst part in my opinion. You feed your baby, you carefully burp your baby, you cuddle your baby back to sleep then gently...gently try to put them down in their Sleepyhead Deluxe and BAM! They are wide awake and yelling for more food. After an hour or so of doing this on repeat it gets seriously draining. 

Then there's the changes to your relationship, wait...what relationship?! There is very little spare time to spend with your partner anymore. I miss my fiance despite the fact that I live with him. Rafe recently spent a full week sleeping in bed with me in his Sleepyhead, turfing daddy out and on to the sofa downstairs. Thankfully he has now claimed back his spot in the bed, but once baby is finally asleep we cannot risk having a chat or Lord forbid a cuddle for fear it will awake the little beast. A good nights sleep and a lie in are very much a thing of the past. Some nights Rafe is really good and only wakes every three hours to feed. You know you are a mum when you consider three hours of unbroken sleep to be a treat. Then there are some nights when not even three hours consecutive sleep are going to happen...lets not talk about those.
People will tell you to sleep when your baby sleeps, which is actually very good advice. But then in practice as soon as your baby is asleep you want to take the opportunity to get shit done. When he's napping I want to get a shower in, brush my hair, feel human again. Oh and now we are on the topic of showers, well don't expect that to be a private activity again. Rafe lays in his Sleepyhead in the bathroom doorway while I shower as I don't want to leave him by himself for longer than five minutes. 

Now I know all of this seems very negative. No I do not have post natal depression, and yes I absolutely love my child more than anything and I feel incredibly lucky to have him. BUT it is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Before you have children your friends and family will tell you how hard it is and like us you won't believe them. How hard can it be to look after a tiny human right?! But it really is tough. It is also 100% worth it though, I wouldn't change him for the world. 
Anyway I am planning to do a post partum update very soon and also posting about the post natal workouts that I have started and the progress I am making in terms of getting the pre-baby body back! But that's for 2017! And when Rafe decides I am allowed...he's the boss!

Happy new year everybody! Hope 2017 is the best one yet!

Jx

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