The Waldessori Mom

The first couple of weeks with a new baby are a wild ride! Hormones are regulating, everyone is sleep deprived, potential challenges with breastfeeding arise, among any other unexpected occurrences. I wanted to share my experience with our second child at the hospital and how things went once we came home and I had to recover from my c-section. I also share tips on things that can help you while you’re in the hospital and once you return home as well with your new bundle of sleep deprivation– I mean joy!

Hospital experience with our newborn

The first week with our newborn flew by since for the first 3 days after the c-section, we were in the hospital. I find it interesting that for whatever reason, in the hospital N was able to sleep through people talking and other noises way more easily than he does at night time. Nurses would come in and out, administer medicine, etc. and he would be sound asleep. At home, when we had him in the bassinet in our room at night, even just me shifting in the bed and making the bed frame creak would make him start to stir!

As for the hospital stay, we were there for 3 nights which was Thursday until Sunday. Since N is a large baby, he had to do a diabetes test for the first 12 hours of his life. This wasn’t fun to watch because for 12 hours, before every feeding session I had to call a nurse to come in and prick his heel to check his blood sugar. Thankfully everything passed, but it was still upsetting having to prick this poor baby so many times right after he was born! He also kept coming up cold temperature wise so we had to keep him in the warmer. It was this big contraption that reminded me of those hair salon hair dryers you sit under. It connected him to these cables to check his temperature so if he was hungry, I had to call a nurse to disconnect him every time until he reached the right temperature. That one regulated thankfully as well but the first couple days were stressful in general watching him have to do all these extra things!

Since I had a c-section and it was difficult for me to get up, I had to have my husband get the baby for me. Usually by the time we were done with a nursing session, it was time for some kind of medication of mine so I would call the nurse in for that and have them put the baby down to sleep. He would calm pretty quickly.

Breastfeeding tips and experience

The first night at the hospital, he started cluster feeding already! This was exhausting and I wasn’t expecting it because typically cluster feeding starts the second night and they say to “enjoy your rest” on the first night…Well, we skipped over that one and the second night was even worse! I’m exclusively breastfeeding so it was extra tiring. The hospital had these cooling gel pads (don’t ask why they’re square because I’ve never met someone with square boobs before) so I alternated between that and using nipple cream. Eventually, I went to just using nipple cream and I feel like this was more beneficial because it wasn’t as drying.

💡Tip: Bring your own nipple cream in case you don’t like the hospital one. I like Earth Mama nipple balm.

The hospital had a lactation consultant that met with me right after my operation which was really nice because I was able to get help right from the start! For my first son’s birth, that hospital didn’t have the lactation consultant come and see you until your last day! Talk about counterproductive— “Hi! I’m the lactation consultant. Tell me how you’ve been struggling these past few days and I can tell you how to fix it,” rather than fixing it from the start…

💡Tip: Ask for a lactation consultant your first day.

I had a pretty good grasp already on breastfeeding from my first son but some things I needed a refresher on and my booby body armor had already faded since it’s been about a year since I stopped breastfeeding so I did have some pain in the beginning. I started to scab up and after about the first week, the scabs fell off on their own and it became much less painful to breastfeed. One thing that I did learn this time around is that it’s all about the latch! This made the initial postpartum period a lot easier (although still difficult!).

Life after birth: first week at home with a newborn and c-section recovery

We stayed at the hospital for 3 nights. We could have stayed 4, but I missed my oldest son. We didn’t have him come to the hospital to visit us because with his personality, he would have been upset if he had to leave and I was still at the hospital. I did do a phone call with him while we were there but I was ready to see him.

Staying at the hospital sucks because you’re away from home, but it’s honestly really helpful. The nurses are in charge of your medication and are only a phone call away if you need help. They can help you with the baby as well which is always good if you can’t get up from the bed, your support person isn’t in the room, or you want your support person to get some extra rest. A huge help is having food sent to your room. Having breakfast, lunch, and dinner made for me was such a luxury I missed once I returned home.

Even though hospital food isn’t amazing, (I learned that adding salt did wonders though) not having to worry about the next meal took one extra stress off of my plate. I did do meal prep at the house but it’s way different having someone just come to your room and drop off food at your bed. Also, in the hospital I’m not worrying about the food me, my partner, and my son are going to eat. My husband would just go to the cafeteria and buy food and my mom was taking care of my son at my house. Once I returned home, everything had some form of preparation even if it was small.

When you’re in the hospital, it also feels like this little security blanket. You’re not on your own. When you return home, reality really hits and everything seems harder.

💡Tip: Stay at the hospital the maximum amount of days that you can!!

Sleeping comfortably after a c-section

Nothing prepared me for that first evening in bed at my house. With my first c-section, I was in the hospital for 6 days after the delivery (this is much longer than average) and I had access to the hospital bed with the rails all over it and the remote that helped it go up and down. At home, I also had one of those fancy adjustable bed frames so I slept very similarly to how I slept at the hospital. For this birth, I lost the remote to the bed frame at home (and I couldn’t find anywhere how to replace it!) so I didn’t realize how painful it was going to be to sleep in a regular bed. I had a lot of trouble getting comfortable all night, plus being tired from having my newborn and my 2 year old doing their own shenanigans, made it really frustrating not being able to sleep at the end of the day.

I tried propping myself up on a bunch of different pillows in different ways and I couldn’t get comfortable and hardly slept for a day or two— that’s aside from not being able to sleep because I was being woken up to feed the baby! What ended up finally working for me was using my pregnancy pillow since I couldn’t sleep on my side for the first 2 weeks without it being painful (even at 3 weeks I still felt more comfortable sleeping on my back, but side sleeping wasn’t painful anymore). I laid on my back inside of the pregnancy pillow with my head and my shoulders elevated on the top part and bent my legs over the foot part for elevation. Then, I took a regular bed pillow and draped it across my torso horizontally and rested my arms on top of it.

This made sleeping so much more comfortable, it felt like miracle after being in so much pain and discomfort with regular pillows propped up weirdly for support. It was also nice that my pregnancy pillow still had more use to go and wasn’t just for the pregnancy! My husband has been ready to claim the pregnancy pillow as a body pillow so I’m sure he was a bit disappointed to not be able to use it yet but aside from that everything else is a positive!

💡Tip: Use your pregnancy pillow to get comfortable sleep after a c-section! Lay on your back and elevate your legs on the bottom part. Put a pillow across your stomach to rest your arms.

Week 2 with a newborn: finding a new normal

By the end of the second week, I was able to go up and down the stairs regularly! I would still have to take it slow but I no longer had to go down sideways like before. Our newborn started to be awake for longer periods of time, even though the windows are still short. Our 2 year old still startles our newborn in his sleep, but when he’s sleeping on top of us, he sleeps through pretty much any noise. It’s more once he’s in the couch lounger or bassinet that noises wake him up, so when my son is awake, my newborn is on top of someone to sleep so we all get some rest.

I know the first 6 weeks are the roughest part from my experience with my first son. Once we all get into more of a routine it’ll be better, but right now in the first month it’s going to be a free for all with no schedule and everyone resting when they can. It’s going to take some time to get adjusted, but every week I’m recovering more and more and I’m looking forward to everything getting more manageable!