Surviving the first week back home with new baby - your thoughts please

[fabsmum]

.... following on from the 'no visitors for a week' thread......

How were you emotionally and physically in the first few days back home? What got you through it?

I remember arriving back home from the hospital at 5pm (we'd had to wait ages to be discharged), putting the car seat down in the middle of the sitting room and just sitting on the sofa with a hard knot of fear growing in my stomach as the sun slowly started to set outside.

I was in such a state mentally and physically - I'd had a three day labour followed by a forceps birth, and came home with a postnatal infection,which had me gibbering and sweating my way through the first week.

Every single picture from this week shows me gripping baby fab in a strangely maniacal way - you know, both arms wrapped around her in a python grip, holding her into my neck or face.

With second and third baby I took to me bed for the first three days back home. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to do it with my first, when I was in a much worse state physically.

As to what got me through - it would have to be DH and his constant stream of nutritious snacks, which I ate while lying on the sofa - dropping crumbs and blobs of mayonnaise on baby Fab.

'me bed'

I think I meant (harrumph - adopts home counties accent) 'my bed'

oh yes we did that whole put sleeping newborn still in car seat on lounge floor
sit on sofa and look at each other and think 'wtf do we do now'
of course with pfb I ran arpoundwriting thank you cards, doing the washign ect instead of resting
then when the baby cluster fed all the first night I didn't get a wink of sleep and for the 1st 6 weeks felt like death warmed up
there are photos of me with ds looking deathly pale , fake smile, oh those were the days lol

Lol I was ok really I have c section and have to rest by the time ds3 arrived I was adapt at feeding him whilst feeding myself so much so that the midwife thought he might have eczema on his scalp- oh no said I in the way that only a non-chalant 3rd timer can thats a bit of scrambled egg i dropped but its got blood in no thatd be ketchup says I and casually wipe the bits out.

I was lucky to be on my own with mother as live in maid for a couple of weeks. I slept when baby slept, ate when baby ate and surrendered all sense of self!

I was a physical and emotional wreck for a good 2-3 months after having DS, literally felt like 5 kinds of shite. Awful labour and birth (32 hours, episiotomy and forceps and heavy bruising), hormones and a baby with silent reflux is not a good mix. I had a very pronounced limp after having an epidural and pushing for what felt like 3 days.
We did the baby in car seat in living room and thinking "shit we are on our on now" thing too when we bought DS home. I wrote down everything he did in book for the first week, when he slept, fed how long he cried for how unsettled he was, I was a maniac.

Oh forgot to mentioned it was the hottest weekend of last summer (26th July), about 33 C, the hospital was hot and smelly and the beds very uncomfortable. The ward was crammed full too.
A girl in the bed opposite me thought it was acceptable to talk loudly on her mobile to her partner calling him an effing this and that at 3 o'clock in the morning and left her baby to wail whilst she nipped out for a crafty ciggy.