To Dummy or not to Dummy? That is the Question

 
Most of the photos I have of Darcy with her dummy she is asleep

Before Darcy was born I had a list in my head of do’s and don’t’s that I wanted us to have with Darcy I can safely say a lot of these all went out the window as you don’t really know what you or the baby are going to be like until you are in the moment. One thing that I always thought I would never change my opinion on is Darcy not having a dummy, I am not the hugest fan of toddlers walking around with dummies in their mouths and you always hear the dreaded “dummies give you wonky teeth” story so that was one thing that I thought was set in stone. Fast forward to Darcy being 3 months old and the no dummy rule also went out the window.

Darcy from birth has always stuck her fingers (sometimes her whole fist) in her mouth, as the weeks went past Simon and I increasingly got worried that this was going to be a habit for life. As she grew and was able to use her hands more her hand/fingers went less in the mouth until it came to sleep time, as soon as Darcy got sleepy the fingers went straight in. After weeks of discussing it and thinking of all the positives and negatives when Darcy turned 3 months we decided to give her a dummy when she got sleepy. Our thought process behind this was that; it will be “easier” (note the air quotes) to take the dummy away from her than it would be to take her fingers away, as we knew we didn’t want her to grow up sucking her fingers/thumb.

I love photos of Simon & Darcy asleep 

The first couple of weeks were great, Darcy no longer sucked her fingers and the dummy worked perfectly; as soon as she got sleepy the dummy went in and within minutes she was fast asleep, the dummy would then usually fall out and if she stirred or cried all we had to do was pop the dummy back in and she was asleep again, lovely! Until we started using it for more than just sleep time now it was being used for; sleep time, grumpy time, mummy just needs to wee time, not quite dinner time. It was not all day it was just when she was getting a little grumpy or needy and the older she got she started to know what it was and where kept it when she didn’t have it.

I am sure Darcy is magic because every time Simon and I discussed taking the dummy away she would get poorly and we felt we couldn’t take it away as she needed it to comfort her. This happened every couple of weeks from 10 months until Christmas, so by now Darcy was 1 and we had already discussed by the time she was 1 it was going but yet again she got poorly. One of those lost days between Christmas and New Year we were sitting around talking about goals for 2017 and I said January 1^st Darcy is going cold turkey with the dummy, so the 1^st January came around and we woke up took the dummy away and that was it no one could say the word dummy around Darcy.

 Oh gosh I miss her being this tiny

I can’t say that it hasn’t been hard because it has, but it is nowhere near as bad as I built it up to be in my head. I was expecting a devil child who never slept and sucked their thumb she wasn’t quite that bad. The sleeping was going to be the most difficult aspect for all of us to get used to, her night time routine is quite solid so we hoped that if we kept to it she would fall asleep without the dummy. The first couple of days once Darcy was put to bed she would cry for about 30 minutes as the days passed it turned to 20 minutes, 10 minutes to when eventually Darcy could be put to bed at night without a single cry, hallelujah! We might have the night-time routine down but the day-time nap is a completely different story. This is still a working progress a month down the line but each day it is getting easier for all of us.
 
One thing that I would advise when deciding to take away the dummy or making a big change would be everyone who is involved to be on the same page. Darcy is fortunate not to just have her Daddy and I around she also gets to spend a lot of time with both sets of Grandparents and her Aunties and Uncle and we had to make sure that everyone understood what was going on and our new sleep plans so that Darcy could stay in a routine no matter where she was, as routine is the most vital part when changing an aspect in a babies life.

Whether you do decide to have a dummy or not, each parent to there own. You might be like us and changed your mind or you always knew that you would or wouldn't. One thing I am sure of is that every baby is different even when they are siblings do what you feel is right and never change your values or beliefs for anyone.   

2 Month Update

I cannot believe my little Darcy Ray is 2 months old, cue tears. I love her at this age she lets me cuddle her all day, she smells so good and she is like my own little personal hot water bottle ideal for these chillier months.

Feeding

Darcy loves milk more than I think she loves Baby Daddy and I. She drinks 7 ounces every 4-5 hours; she has set herself a very good routine. Darcy’s first milk of the day is her night feed which happens between 3:30-4:30am the next is breakfast at 8am, then lunch at 12pm, dinner at 5pm, bedtime feed at 10:30pm then the cycle starts again. Darcy is very good at telling me if she has finished, if after 5oz she is full she will push the bottle out with her tongue then shuts her mouth like a stubborn baby and won’t let the bottle back in so I know she is done. If you want to know more about Darcy’s food journey read my previous blog post.

Sleeping

I am not going to brag but I think I have the best baby in the world, okay so I did brag! Darcy goes to bed after her bedtime feed at 10:30pm and sleeps until her night feed between 3:30-4:30am goes back to sleep until 6-7am I told you I had the best baby. Before Darcy graced us with her presence every single person told me to be prepared with how tired we were going to feel but in reality Baby Daddy and I are doing okay (touch wood) and this is all down to how Darcy sleeps at night. I’m not going to lie and say I don’t feel tired by mid-day as I am not used to going to bed at 11am and waking up at 6am but in time I am sure I will feel more awake. When Darcy was only days old she started sucking the back of her hand or her thumb we didn’t want her to get into this habit as it would be a lot harder to stop her from sucking her thumb than it would be to take away a dummy. We only give her the dummy when she is going to sleep as it really calms her down she soon spits it out once she is asleep, the challenge is to not give her the dummy when she is just being groggy.

Likes & Dislikes

Without a doubt Darcy’s favourite thing in her little world is bath time she splashes and smiles, it’s lovely to see. As much as bath time is her favourite thing getting out of the bath is her least favourite thing she screams the house down when we get her out for about 10 minutes. I love that she is a water baby just like Daddy and we cannot wait to take her swimming it is going to blow her tiny mind. Darcy has grown very fond of the Teletubbies she watches them in awe at 7 in the morning I think they may steal her first giggle from me. Other than getting out of the bath another thing that always makes Darcy groan is pausing feeding to burp she is one greedy baby who loves her milk.

 

Personality

For the few weeks of her life I told myself all those gas smiles were real smiles but lets face it they were not but then one day while we were singing there it was her first real smile! It made my heart explode, forget the seven wonders her little smile is my favourite thing to see in the whole wide world. Darcy has a funny little personality she loves being sung and talked to loves to stick her tongue out at you. Darcy gets daily facetimes with Nana, Pop and Auntie Abbi and does not take her eyes off of them the whole time they are talking to her. I love seeing how much she loves them and they love her.  

Achievements      

Already in her little life Darcy has achieved loads she can hold her head up not the whole time she has big cheeks they must get heavy. She has no problem with her eyes she loves watching the television, looking out the window and following you around the room. From day 1 Darcy has had the strongest grip, the other day she actually left nail marks in my hand whilst squeezing out a number 2. I cannot wait to see the big milestones that month three has to offer.

Is breast best?

Every doctor and midwife you see along the journey asks the big question “are you going to breastfeed your baby?” The amount of pressure put on an expected mother about breastfeeding in my opinion ridiculous. I knew I wanted to attempt breastfeeding but I wasn’t going to allow someone to make me feel guilty about thinking about bottle-feeding either.

After Baby Daddy and I discussed feeding we decided to try breast-feeding, Darcy took to the breast really quickly; this may have something to do with her being a heffalump, it was very reassuring. A few weeks before Darcy was born I started to leak so I knew that Darcy was getting something when she was feeding. The first couple of days were going really well Darcy was feeding every 3-4 hours for 20-30 minutes, I was exhausted for these few days as I was only sleeping for about 2.5 hours before she wanted more. 

 

On our day 3 check with the midwife she noticed that Darcy was slightly, shall we say? “sun kissed”. Darcy had jaundice which isn’t worrying unless she gets to day 10 and still is showing signs, the midwife did explain it is very common and larger babies find it slightly harder to break it down. There are a few things that can help breakdown jaundice one of these being vitamin D, otherwise known as sunlight but seeing as Darcy arrived in the cold, cloudy months of December there was a lack of sunlight. The other way to help breakdown jaundice is passing urine as this gets rid of all the stuff your body doesn’t want, to make a baby pass urine they have to feed, so the midwife suggested that we definitely feed Darcy every 3 hours instead of letting her get to 4. This caused quite a lot of stress for me as I felt a lot of pressure to make sure Darcy fed every 3 hours, this meant sometimes I had to wake her up which she did not appreciate and most of the time she was falling asleep on the breast. To help make sure Darcy was getting enough milk the midwife lent us a breast pump at first I was slightly nervous about using it but once you do it for the first time you realise it feels just like the baby. They gave us a tiny cup to use to feed Darcy, as they do not suggest using a bottle, this felt very unnatural and was actually really difficult to use and more of the milk was running down her chin than going in her mouth.

 

I was managing to pump 3 ounces in 20 minutes per breast which by the midwifes opinion was impressive, it was very reassuring as it meant that I knew Darcy was getting roughly the same amount when feeding. When Darcy was a week old she started to latch on and off the breast this caused very sore nipples. Midwifes and Doctors saying breast-feeding doesn’t hurt in my opinion once the baby is latched on it doesn’t hurt, what does hurt is the actual nipple itself. Due to Darcy latching on and off my nipple they started to crack and bleed and I know I have just gone through labour but sore cracked nipples takes 2^nd place on the pain scale. Because my nipples kept leaking it meant that they never had time to dry and heal so they were constantly sore and bloody. Every time Darcy was feeding I would flinch due to the pain, which caused her to get tense, this was the first step into considering bottle-feeding. 

 

By day 10 my nipples could not handle it anymore they were so sore! I decided to keep using the pump as my nipples could handle it and feed Darcy my breast milk direct from a bottle. Thankfully again Darcy took to the bottle really well and by using the bottle we knew she was definitely drinking 3-4 ounces instead of guessing when she was feeding from the breast. They say the more you pump the more milk you produce for me this was the opposite the more I pumped the less milk I produced, this became tricky as Darcy was needing minimum 3 ounces every 3-4 hours and I just wasn’t producing enough plus my nipples still were not healing. After a long discussion we decided to move Darcy to formula milk, I couldn’t keep up with her needs and my nipples were crying for me to stop. Due to Darcy enjoying her food just like her father she unsurprisingly took to formula milk very well. Now at 7 weeks Darcy drinks 6-7 ounces every 5 hours and is in a very regular routine.

Positives:

1. Protects your baby from diseases 

2. You build a bond with your baby

3. Its free!

4. No prepping needed you just need to shall we say whip it out

Negatives:

1. You don't know how much your baby is drinking

2. Daddy doesn't get as much intimate time

3. Sore nipples!

4. Due to the position Darcy and I breastfed (lying down) it was hard to be out of the house for the first few weeks.

 

The 3rd Trimester

By the 3^rd trimester I was the size of a beached whale and definitely felt like one. I could barely move, couldn’t sleep and just wanted Baby H to arrive.

Throughout the pregnancy Baby H was measuring on the 95^th centile, which means that only 5 babies out of 100 would be measuring larger than her, which isn’t a lot. This also meant that she was a rather large baby, which explained the giant bump. Baby Daddy when born weighed a hefty 10lbs you can imagine how terrified I was at the thought of pushing a 10lb baby out of not so large hole. Every time we had a scan, which was 4 times (another post will explain) they kept mentioning how large the baby’s tummy was duh duh duhhhhh… I was terrified. On our last scan which was at 34 weeks they said Baby H was roughly 7lbs and on average a baby would gain 1/2lb a week, this meant if we had got to 40 weeks Baby H would be weighing roughly 10lbs (terrified face).   

  
29+5 weeks 

By the 3^rd trimester I didn’t have any real cravings but I did enjoy a chocolate milk every now and then…I lied, a pint a day…I lied again sometimes even 2, promise that was it. I also no longer felt sick or nauseas, big thumbs up but the bottom of my back ached and my groin was swollen and it took me a couple of minutes to get up and down, big thumbs down.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I was fed up with being pregnant and I am not ashamed of saying that. I know that some people love being pregnant and have a glow blah blah blah, but the only glow I felt was that I no longer looked as crap as I did in the 1^st trimester. I was so uncomfortable by the end I couldn’t sleep in my bed as I couldn’t get up out of it, Baby Daddy made me too hot and my bump didn’t allow me to get comfortable so I had to sleep on the sofa. Every day I hoped that Baby H would make her appearance because honestly I forgot what it felt like to not be pregnant and really wanted my body back. I am pretty sure that I am not the only one who has felt that way and I do not think we should be ashamed to admit it.

The 3^rd trimester was the hardest, I felt like I had no control of my body it was being controlled by a small-handed person on the inside and she was having a whale of a time with my bladder. The 2^nd trimester was the best as I no longer had the nausea or morning sickness and had a lot more energy than I did in the 1^st. The 1^st trimester was the messiest as you can imagine.

I would love to hear about your pregnancy and the ups and downs you felt because one thing I have learnt through out this process is that everyone has a different process.  

Baby Mumma xx   

Welcome to the world

Firstly if anyone is good at maths you will be able to work out that I am over 40 weeks pregnant.

So…

I would like to proudly introduce Darcy Ray Hurley born on the 5^th December at 8:17am weighing 8lbs 15oz

Words or dance moves cannot express how much I love this baby girl! 

Shall we talk labour…

It all started on the 4^th December and as far as we were concerned we were having a normal Friday. Baby Daddy and I went and bought the Christmas tree, we tested out the baby carrier using a Minnie Mouse cuddly toy, Baby Daddy went to work and I had a nap. During my last bit of sleep for the next 72 hours (if I had known I would of taken full advantage of the napping time) the phone rang which angrily woke me up, after taking a good couple of minutes to get off the sofa as I was the size of a whale I managed to get to the phone for it only to stop ringing. You wouldn’t believe the anger I felt, 38.5 weeks pregnant the size of a whale and finding it very hard to sleep to be woken up by the phone and not get it in time grrrrr! At that point I felt my underwear get heavy with liquid as you can imagine the first thought that went through my mind was “OMG I have wet myself!” I felt my underwear but the liquid could only be described as water.

You watch the big movie blockbusters and expect your waters breaking to be a scene from the movies; the water gushing out of your body, you screaming in pain and obviously being in the most public and inappropriate place possible. Where in fact mine was the opposite; I was home on my own, felt no pain at all and lost barely any water this is why I was no to sure on what had happened. The first thing I did was ring Baby Daddy and explain that I thought my waters had broken he on the other hand thought I had wet myself but was still heading home. I then rung the midwife and again explained that I thought my waters had broke she was also unsure but asked us to come in at 7pm for check-up, considering it was 4pm I was concerned what I would do for 3 hours.   

Baby Daddy got home and we both just sat there wondering what was going on. We finally decided to put on a Christmas movie and decorate the Christmas tree. I had already rung my parents to give them a heads up that they might be going for a late night drive. After what felt like forever and still feeling no pain we took a slow walk to the midwife unit that thankfully was only a 25-minute walk for a pregnant person and 15 minutes for everyone else. After the check-up with the midwife she said that she was 90% sure my waters had broken and booked me in for an induction the following evening if I hadn’t gone into natural labor.

We were walking home when I got my first contraction at 8:10am, it was a tight feeling in my lower abdomen very bearable. By now my parents were on there way and my contractions were an hour apart. At around about midnight my parents arrived and my contractions were 20 minutes apart and still very bearable they were still just period pain like. We all decided to try and get some sleep but trying to sleep when you are in early stages of labor is practically impossible, for the one going through it Baby Daddy managed to fall asleep quite quickly, I just sat there. Within an hour my contractions went from 20 minutes to 5 minutes to 3 minutes apart but still very bearable pain. I rung the hospital and asked if I needed to make my way in, as we are an hour away (the countryside has its disadvantages) they told us to make our way in. I am very thankful that we left when we did because as soon as we got in the car my contractions went to 2 minutes apart and became a lot more painful. I can’t remember most of that journey as my eyes were shut breathing through the pain but I do remember that it was incredibly windy and we had to make an emergency stop, as there was a large branch in the road.         

This is the point where my memory gets a bit hazy as I do go onto inhale a lot of gas and air. When I got to the hospital the lovely midwife Amanda checked me out and said that I was 4cm, which means established labor Yay! Now the following is what Baby Daddy has told me as gas and air is a bit like being drunk, it numbs pain but also strips you of your memory. We got moved into the labor room and I got strapped to a monitor that would check Baby H’s heartbeat and one that was marking my contractions.

I couldn’t of gone through labor without Baby Daddy and my mum by my side, on the left Baby Daddy was holding my hand and supplying me with water as the gas and air and screaming was really making my throat dry and on the right my mum was helping with my breathing and had her hand on my head which I found really soothing. Without all these elements I wouldn’t have got through labor with just gas and air and in 5.5 hours. I can tell you that it hurt like nothing has ever hurt before in my life but I couldn’t quite tell you how much because I honestly cannot remember how much, which is strange I know. The part that hurt most was when she was coming out because as you can imagine certain parts were being stretched like they have never been stretched before.

I remember the midwife told me it was time to push and I really did feel the urge to push, after 35 minutes of pushing she was out yet the next 3 minutes were the hardest 3 minutes in my life.

Darcy had the cord wrapped around her neck she had also pooped and because of these she was in shock. The midwife had pushed the emergency button and quicker than I could say go the room was filled with at least 10 nurses, there were three surrounding Darcy I had new midwifes looking after me, it just seemed everyone had a job to do. Like I said I can’t really remember any of this, thankfully, all I do remember is wondering where my baby was but also being exhausted. My mum and Baby Daddy said it was the worst 3 minutes of their life as all they saw was Baby H come out blue in the body and white in the face. There is a test that midwifes do on newborn babies, which has a score out of 10, anything above 7 is good and Darcy scored 0 in her first minute of life. After 3 minutes she was scoring 9, which is great. Even though Darcy had a very hard start to life she was only in immediate danger and thankfully had no long-term effects. I cannot thank those midwifes and nurses enough for helping my baby girl in those crucial moments. During this time "supposedly" the midwifes removed my placenta and gave me 2 injections, none of this i remember.

They finally called Baby Daddy over to look at her in the crib so we all knew that she was out of danger. Eventually they put her in my arms and that was it I exploded with love for her and I knew at that moment that I would never let her be in danger ever again. Here are a few photos of those first few hours.

Baby Mumma xx 

25 Weeks

25 Weeks

Is anyone else finding it tough to sleep?

I have always been one of those people that could shut their eyes be asleep within minutes and then not wake up for 6-8 hours, whereas Baby Daddy takes ages to fall asleep and then can stir by the smallest of sounds.

Since being pregnant I am having a lot of trouble sleeping and it is getting on my nerves. I know people say that it is your body training you for when the baby comes but in my opinion I should be able to sleep now so when baby H does turn up I’m all well rested and ready to go. But no I am up at least twice a night to go to the toilet and now indigestion has kicked in so when I am trying to sleep I am lying there with terrible heart burn and indigestion plus my bump is constantly in the way. Why body why?!

I know my bump is in fact my beautiful baby but gosh it is getting in my way when I sleep. The weight of the bump and gravity do not bode well for sleeping, I can no longer sleep on my back as it hurts my spine too much and lying on my side means I topple over from the weight of my bump. I have had to start sleeping with a pillow underneath by bump to keep me straight and take the weight off the bump. This helps until I switch sides because in a semi-conscious state I have to remember take the pillow over with me to the other side. 

One night I must have been on one side for too long as the baby was lying on a certain nerve at the top of my left leg which caused the whole leg to go dead which was fun when I got up for my mandatory wee at 3am. After walking up and down the hallway to make the pins and needles go I had a numbing pain at the top of my left leg and groin which didn’t help when I was trying to fall back asleep.

I can walk in the pitch black from my side of the bed, around the bed through the corridor and into the bathroom without hurting myself, impressive right? Thinking about the positives.

The worst thing about not sleeping great at night is how tired I am throughout the day, I wake up in the morning tired and only get more tired throughout the day so by 6pm I am shattered and could go to bed. 

Let’s just hope all this ‘training’ does indeed help when Baby H gets here maybe I should start getting Baby Daddy up as well?

24 Weeks

24 Weeks

I can proudly say that I am not afraid of the labour section of pregnancy.

In my head from the moment I fell pregnant I have had the same thought about giving birth and that is ‘you can’t stop the labour from happening so why be scared of it’. I can imagine a lot of women have wished, begged and tried to stop the labour from happening but as much as everyone tries it is going nowhere. We do not suffer with weak bladder, sickness and indigestion for 9 months to not get the reward at the end. 

For the past 5 years I have suffered with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and in that time I have easily suffered with the worst pain I have yet to go through. The pain is all in my lower abdominal which I can imagine is a very similar place to child birth.

Going through the pain of IBS I now know and so does Baby Daddy how I deal with (in my opinion) extreme pain and hopefully this will help for child birth. Firstly the pain comes in waves much like contractions, the tight, stomach punching pain can last between 30 seconds and 2 minutes and will then ease for a couple of minutes and it can go on like that for hours sometimes.

Going through these waves of pain I get extremely hot and need a wet cold flannel on the back of my neck to keep me cool, I will also strip of all clothes as they make me feel even hotter and very claustrophobic. I find the part of my body that gets the hottest is my feet and they swell (which is always lovely). This is one point I will definitely mention to the midwife’s as I will over heat and probably strip down.

The second thing I will mention to the midwife’s is that I deal with the pain quite internally and like to breathe through it and once the wave of pain has gone or subsided that is when I normally will talk to Baby Daddy and ask him for a new cold flannel or some water. I personally don’t think I am going to be a screamer as I do like to breathe through it and count in my head.

The worst thing I feel about my IBS pain is that I am not too sure on what my body is about to do and this is what mentally scares me especially when I am on my own. Sometimes I don’t know if I am going to be sick, pass out or poo myself! (All 3 of these things have happened, thankfully not at the same time). The one thing about giving birth is I know what my body is trying to do so hopefully fingers crossed this keeps my head in a good place and I won’t be too scared and plus I have Baby Daddy and a trained team on hand to help me with anything I need.

Hopefully going through the pain of IBS for the past 5 years will help me understand not necessarily the pain I will feel giving birth but how I will deal with the pain. It will also help those around me if I explain that I get very hot, don’t like my feet being touched and go quiet. Let’s wait and see what happens in 16 weeks’ time.

Baby Mumma xx