First time out with baby & feel like I'll never leave the house again!

[Firsttimemummy19]

My baby is 7 weeks old and today I decided to take him to the shop to get a few bits and basically see how we do out & about.

Firstly it took me 15 minutes to get the pram chassis in the boot. I have car adapators so the car seat fits to the chassis thinking this would be easier but I'm only little and everything was so awkward. From trying to battle the chassis in the boot to even trying to get the car seat in & our the car.

I don't have the money to replace the pram or car so I feel like I'll never venture out with my baby again while he's still small and I'm reliant on pushing him in a pram :(

What's the answer? Do new mums tend to stay at home?

You need to just get on with it, that's how you gain confidence. Staying in all day won't help you and is not good for you. With a bit of planning and preparation it doesn't have to be a big deal.

I think you do need a pram. Baby in a carrier isn't going to be sufficiently protected from cold weather, rain and wind is going to go in their face, no matter how well they are wrapped up.

It really shouldn't take 15 minutes to fold a pram and put it in the boot, I used to sell them at work and all would fold and be stored in a car in 20-60 seconds at most. My own buggy takes about 30 seconds to put in the car, but when my dc were very little I tended to just bring the sling from birth to 10ish weeks because I had c sections and didn't want to damage my scar. Practice folding and storing it a few times so you're not trying to figure it out when you're also loading baby and stuff into the car to actually leave.

For my winter baby I wore ring sling inside my coat, so I'd just get out, put it on, put baby in then put my coat on. For my April baby I just threw a hoodie over me/us when needed.

Babies held close in a sling get a lot of warmth from mum's body heat. Plus for little babies, their faces should generally be tucked under one strap of the sling so there's not a huge amount of them exposed and visible. On really horrible days I just zip my coat around us - I can still see her when I look directly down but she's protected from wind and rain. You can get coat extenders so you can zip it round you.

On an early outing when DS was 1m, I went to a friend's with some other friends. It was the first time I used the car seat on the chassis as it was a small boot (still too tender from EMCS and complications to lug baby in car seat). I knew how to get the pram body off, but the car seat was different. After 5 mins of fumbling, we ended up in mothercare to ask

Second time, I only left the house in the first month for essential medical reasons as the recovery was very painful and very undignified. When baby was 7 weeks anf I was begining to feel like a functional human, DS1 got chicken pox, baby got it at 9 weeks. By 10-11 weeks, I'd hardly been out for months!

Well done for getting out and congratulations on your baby. It does get easier but it does need an element of planning.

If you are planning on going out in the car could you get it all sorted the night before while someone else supervisises the baby? So Pram, folded and in the car, changing bag packed and car seat ready (straps lengthened) so it’s easy to put the baby in and go.