To make new mum life easier?

[Animallover87]

Due my first baby next month.

I know it'll be a huge life change and I'm keen to try and protect my mental health as far as possible by taking steps to make life a bit easier.

For example, I'm not going to try and breastfeed. I've bought a prep machine and was considering just using ready made formula for out and about to avoid faff.

Having a planned c section which most people seem to recover fairly quickly from and allows me to feel a bit more in control of what's going to happen.

Next 2 me on my DHs side of the bed so he can do the lifting baby etc during the night if I'm struggling with movement after c section at the beginning.

Any other tips, even if unpopular, to make life easier for myself as a first time mum?

I probably will get flamed for this but I wouldn't have opted for a C section. It's major surgery.
Some women have a fairly ok natural delivery. I had one, whilst it was no picnic, I was up and out and about with baby within a couple of days.
There are pros and cons to breastfeeding. Bottle feeding seemed a big faff, I didn't breastfeed for long (3 months) but in the early days it was easier.

A few more things to help:

-Changing station upstairs as well as down to make things easier during the night
-Batch cook and store in the freezer
-Bouncing chair so you can have a bath with baby with you
-Lots of high energy snacks close by and box sets to watch
-I'd recommend a baby sleeping bag, they save my sanity as DD woke everytime she kicked her blankets off!

Good luck x

@mrlistersgelfbride no reason you should be flamed at all! I've chosen an ELCS as I want to avoid the potential life changing injuries that CAN come from a VB. That's great you were OK though and happy with your choice, its just not a risk I'm willing to take.

I'm definitely going to get some of those baby sleeping bags.

Also I do have a bouncy chair but I'm looking forward to having baths solo when DH is home from work in the evenings!

For the first two months or so DH and i slept in shifts. I slept 8pm until 1am and then went downstairs to swap so he could sleep from 1am for work. This meant we both got a good amount of consecutive sleep.

If your baby is sleeping upstairs, take your prep machine up with you at night as well. This has made our night feeds so much easier!

Muslins. All the muslins.

I had a high needs/ colic baby but adamantly wouldn't bed share. No judgement to any mums who do, you have to do what you can to survive but do all you can to do it as safely as possible.

Roll with the punches. Babies don't sleep: it's normal. Babies don't recognise routine: it's normal. Babies aren't always hungry for the same amount at the same time each day: it's normal. I WISH I hadn't stressed so much at the beginning.

Finally in full contradiction of everything I've just said, don't take advice from people who's baby doesn't have the same mood as yours. I nearly slapped a mum who had a chill baby for berating me when I said I couldn't put DS down for 5 minutes so I could shower.

Enjoy your new baby!

Baby sleeping bags are great. I had two winter babies so were great for night feeds.

Consider using a dummy - in small babies they can reduce the risk of SIDS and for my child they really helped him settle. They don’t work for everyone but we found ours brilliant.

A C-Section does not make life easier, I have had C-Section and natural. The recovery from a C-Section is so much longer and more difficult.
Things that will make it easier; baby wearing, avoid making plans with other people unless they understand and you are comfortable with being late and last minute changes to plans. Rushing to get ready to go out with a newborn is stresful. Moses basket in the lounge or where you spend most time in the house for easy and safe putting down when they fall asleep. For your mental helath I would say try and get daily walks into your day, will help with your mood and babies sleep. Look for local sensory rooms or baby groups. Sensory rooms are reallt relaxing for mum and baby and great for babies development. Try and get the jobs around the house done as early as you have chance in the day or you might end up stressed and finding you don't have time later on. Have plenty of spare bibs and bedding so your not too stressed with keeping on top of laundry. A lot of babies bring back milk so bedding and bibs need changing frequently. You will find there is so much more laundry once baby comes.

Batch cook
Buy a soft sling so you can use both hands
Lots of baby grows
Stocked high rise nappy station and nappy bin next to it
Have some mum uniforms ready for the first 6 months (easy, washable, comfy) - you might go through them and there isn’t loads of time to think about what to wear. Ditto with hair.

First, congrats on the baby. A very exciting time! Getting prepared is a brilliant shout and so many people have already given fab tips. I just wanted to comment to say that I understand your c section choice. I had a planned section with my first as she she was breech, which was smooth and complication free. With my second, I opted for a natural birth, as most people recover more quickly, and I had a 1 year old to get home to. However, my son’s birth was horrific. I was in hospital far longer and had to be re-admitted 2 days after going home for another 3 days. I then had repeated visits back to the hospital for about 12 weeks! My experience is unusual with a vaginal birth, but I can completely relate to your choice. Good luck and enjoy your little one when the time comes.

A c-section is a relatively stress free procedure if done electively (although still
major surgery) but the recovery is certainly not a walk in the park. I’ve done both and found my c-section recovery much harder going in the short term than my natural birth (even though I had an episiotomy and internal stitches). I don’t say this to judge or sway you from your choice but I think it’s really important to be prepared for the fact that you won’t be able to do a lot of basic things following a c-section birth that you can often do after a vaginal birth. Picking up, feeding and carrying baby are all very painful in the first fee of weeks. You need to make sure you have a lot of hands on support to help lessen the load until you’re feeling physically stronger again.

I bottle fed from birth second time around. No issues. As this is your first you may want to do a few test runs of the prep machine to make sure you and DH are comfortable using it as you’ll often be making bottles half asleep when baby is born!

My c-section left me infertile.

You get loads of conflicting advice, go with what feels right. Agree with other posters, breastfeeding really helped my mood and was easier (felt down hormonally when I stopped and dont forget, periods are also heavier). Left hospital 4 hours after vaginal birth and walked to pub next day. So c-section not necessarily easier but your decision all the same. You don't know with delivery how it will go, whatever.

I gave my little one water at night to cut out night feeds around 6 months (combi breast/expressed bottle fed from 6 weeks). This was old hv advice (my mil was hv) but seriously, this worked amazingly well and with 2 under 2, i needed my night-time sleep. Baby was putting on weight well, I couldn't have done this if baby wasn't thriving. Early waking at 5am is usually a cold baby. I popped an extra blanket on if I woke 3/4am to prevent this when it was cold.

Just relax, enjoy snuggles. Play music you love and dance with baby. And remember... everything is a phase- they grow and change fast. If they do/don't like something they can change really fast so don't be afraid to retry. Every baby is different, so take all advice with a pinch of salt. I'm expecting baby 3 and can't wait. :-) relax and enjoy.

not sure what the reason is for your planned c section. i am assuming its medical as in the UK we don't offer elective sections unless there is a sound medical reason on the NHS.... but if the planned c section is a choice... while you won't go through labour, recovery is 6+ weeks. so definitely not the 'easy' option, especially considering the risks etc. having said that just because someone tries for a normal delivery, doesn't guarantee one

Breastfeeding reduces sids too

If you want to make your life easier for yourself as a first-time mum, have MUCH less of a plan than you do now, or at least get a much, much more flexible one. Be ready to consider alternatives as you go along, as you understand more about yourself, your kid, and your partner. That is all the control you can hope to have here: being able to respond to a situation you've never been in before.

Just from the examples you've given: recovering from a good C-section takes much longer than recovering from a good vaginal birth, and recovering from a bad C-section is obviously a lot worse. What does your medical team say? Bottle-feeding is more work than breastfeeding except in that you can share the work of bottle-feeding more than you can share the work of breastfeeding. Are you already confident you're going to be able to get your partner to share that work? If your partner is going to be on baby side of the bed during the night, it's still likely that you're both going to wake up when baby does. Are you confident that won't make your partner less useful during the day? Etc.

Good luck.

Yet a c-section, major abdominal surgery holds even greater life changing risks than vaginal birth. Your comments on all of your posts make no sense. You come across as incredibly naive. I've had both a c-section (out of medical necessity), and a vaginal birth and the c-section left me with life changing injuries. I'm still affected by these injuries a decade later and had to have further surgery to help correct some issues. My SIL had an ELCS and again, was left with very serious injuries and took over a year for her to heal from this.

As for the perfect prep machine, a small bit of research will tell you that these are dangerous which puts babies at risk of food poisoning and they are not recommended.

This isn't true, actually. Do your research if you're going to post a thinly veiled judgement.

Set your expectations low is my best advice. I think that is why we found our second easier, we were much more realistic. Also don’t Google, it’ll leave you stressed. Trust your instincts.

Don’t buy loads of outfits. Dressing a baby in vests and sleep suits (even during the day) is the easiest and they don’t care what they wear. Sleeping bags for nighttime. Have a big stash of easy to grab and ready to eat food. Get your house in order before the birth. We went minimalist before our second was born and it is so much easier to keep the place looking good.

I know you’ve already read this loads but I always said I wouldn’t bf and definitely not in public but I found it much easier and quicker than bottles.

If you want to avoid faff, breastfeed. It's so much easier that messing around with formula, bottles, sterilising teats etc.

If you're not breastfeeding, do definitely consider dummies.

Some tint babies need to suck A LOT for comfort, particularly in the evening. Breastfed babies will often cluster feed for this, but if you have a bottle fed baby they can end up taking too much and being quite sicky. Dummy after bottle is finished (post-burping) can be very helpful for this.

Clothing - get more than you think you need. Just in case of sicky/nappy-busting days, there's nothing more stressful than wondering if you'll have something dry before they do something unspeakable....

Say YES to help. People want to help new mums. Guests will not feel bad if you ask them to stick the kettle on and fish out the biscuits.

Most babies have a time of day that they settle easiest for for nap. When mine were toddlers it was usually around 8.30/9am. Embrace the contact nap at other times of dayif they are fidgetty, but aim for one easy one to be in the pram or similar. It means they get used to napping there so you have an easy "out and about" option. Also means someone other than you had a way of easily settling baby a little down the line.

@ReadingSoManyThreads Your anecdotal evidence is meaningless - plenty of people on this thread have spoken about life-changing injuries from vaginal births. Birth of all 'types' comes with risks, that's the nature of the game.

lol.no judgement at all. perhaps you should do some research? it's major abdominal surgery and recovery for any such surgery is 6 weeks ... as we advice patients. obviously varies patient to patient but that is the official advice given.

@tt9 I did do research, I did mine when I had two elective c-sections for non-medical reasons on the NHS. That was the aspect of your post I was referencing.

Yes, I too had a fully elective c-section which according to your post isn't allowed?

Don’t become the only expert on the baby. Because if you become that now, the mental load of all future child rearing will gradually shift on to you. So allow your DH room to develop his parenting skills at the same pace that you do. Even if it’s excruciating watching him doing something in a ridiculous, inefficient way!

I’m due mine shortly and baby will definitely be going on my husbands side of the bed. If they’re on my side I don’t think I’ll sleep at all listening for every breath and movement.