As I am writing this, I cannot believe nearly 2 weeks of Honey Nut’s life has already flown by – I wish time would slow down! It’s been an amazing two weeks, she is just adorable and we love her so much, especially her brother – he is obsessed with her! It’s been lovely having my husband home on paternity leave, he’s been awesome at making sure Tyler and I have been fed, and getting me what I need when I’m feeding Honey Nut. I’d been keeping daily updates on my Instagram page, as that’s quick and easy, as I’ll share these updates on the blog too. For now, here is how the first day and the first night at home went.

Day 1 – Tues 28th June

Our first night was in the hospital and Honey Nut slept the whole night. I thought newborns had to be fed every 3 hours, so I tried to wake her at 2.30am and feed her, but she wouldn’t wake and just gagged. Suddenly she was coughing up blood! I raced out to the midwives in reception who said that this is absolutely normal, she’s coughing up stuff she swallowed when inside me, just keep her upright until she stops coughing. Phew! I went to the loo 3 times in the night, having to leave Honey Nut sleeping to go to the loo by the birthing centre reception – you don’t half bleed after having a baby! It was awful, hearing a woman screaming as she was in labour while I went to the loo – it was hard to forget what had just happened to me when you could hear it all over again! I was quite starving in the night, so thank god I packed those Nutrigrain bars – I got through 6 of them by the end of the day.

If you’re wondering what the postnatal ward in the birth centre is like, there’s basically 6 beds partitioned of with blue curtains. I was lucky to get the corner with the window, so I wasn’t surrounded by curtains. I could hear birdies and even seagulls outside. The lady in the bed next to mine had a baby that cried the whole night, squealing like a piglet – this was right by Honey Nut’s cot with the curtain between them, and still she slept through that. I did feel sorry for this mum, but then again she did snore. Opposite me at around 6am, the girl who I heard scream in labour came in. She had given birth at 4.30am.

Honey Nut woke at 7am when I finally fed her again. I later found out this is normal when a baby is just born, they sleep for about 6 hours, but it’s a one-off. Tyler on the other hand had to be fed every 3 hours straightaway because he was a tiny baby. One thing I discovered was whenever I fed Honey Nut, I had this awful pain, like period pain but worse – it was sooooo bad! The midwife came for a morning check and I told her. She said this is normal for second babies and gets worse the more babies you have, it’s basically your uterus shrinking back to it’s normal size, and whenever you breastfeed, you release oxytocin which is linked to it, and you’ll feel this pain, it lasts 48 hours. But oh man in hurt, I asked for some paracetamol. I had breakfast brought to me around 8am (tea and toast – so nice!) and then some paracetamol.

At Wexham Park Hospital, they put an electronic tag on the new babies, in case anyone tries the steal the babies (it’s never happened, they say, but it’s just a precaution). Honey Nut did her first poo in the morning, it was like black tar. And I panicked at the amount of creases down there with a girl, and the poo getting in all the creases, how do you clean that?! I accidentally knocked the tag off, and a midwife came in running! It was lucky she came, as Honey Nut decided to poo more at that moment, so the midwife handed me loads of tissues just in time!

Ganesh came over around 10am. Honey Nut had a hearing test down, when the lady puts an earpiece in her ear and checks something. She passed.

I had macaroni and cheese for lunch, but it tasted like hospital food, bleugh. Around 4pm a lady came round to do the newborn checks that had to be done before we could be discharged. She checked Honey Nut’s heartbeat and did this awful thing with her hips to check they were formed ok, my baby really cried, it was awful Anyway she was fine, but she said I wasn’t as their records said I hadn’t had a rubella vaccine. I was like, yeah I have, there must be some mistake – my dad was my GP and he made sure I had everything! So she went to check the system which annoyingly delayed us being discharged.

About half an hour later she came back and said yes it was an error on the system, and now we had to wait for Miranda to discharge us. So an hour later she came and went through a millions things on her checklist – I was like, yep, yep, yep. Once that was done, my bro and sis brought Tyler in and then took us home. Here’s Honey Nut and Tyler on their first car journey together.

Here’s my first photo with my two children (how weird does that sound?!)

The first night at home, we went to bed around midnight. Tyler was sleeping in his room for once. Honey Nut wouldn’t settle in the cot, so I lay her next to me and sent Ganesh to Tyler’s bed hehe. I slept with the lamp on so I could see Honey Nut and so I could see what I was doing with night feeds as it still was not natural to me yet. Then at 1.30am Tyler came into the bed, so we all slept together.

Honey Nut woke around 3am for a feed and then 7am for another, so the first night at home was alright. The feeds took about 20 minutes. It made such a difference having a smartphone, so I could look through Facebook and Instagram while feeding her and not feel so isolated from the world – as I did with Tyler when I had a crappy Nokia. I can’t believe I used to have to switch my laptop on to upload photos and check Facebook – loooong!

Anyway that was Day 1 and I figured out that Honey Nut didn’t like the cot mattress, so I put a pillow on top with bolster cushions and rolled up blankets on her sides, and she has been sleeping so well there ever since.