"It gets easier!" or so they say?

 Hi guys Jess here with a little blog. 

Those of you who are parents and have been through the act or raising a child will have heard this phrase a lot. 

"It gets easier."

This is in response to several areas of a child's life, new born, teething, sleep regression, toddlers, threen-ager (age of 3 attitude of 13), fearsome 4 year old's, teen years, school years, puberty....you get it the list goes on. 

But my though process today is does it get easier? Or does it just change. Instead why don't we just say, 

This is a phase, no body has the one answer to cure all, we are all just winging it 90% of the time and you have to do what works for you. 

Because let's face it that is more accurate! 

I am still in the very early stages of parenting in the new born stage with a 2 and a half week old, but I have also worked in childcare with children from 4 months to 12 years for over a decade, I've told parents, it gets easier, this is just a phase, it will pass, what I haven't told parents is once on things over another phase is coming. 

For me as part of the newborn phase my biggest stress has been feeding, mostly down mis-interpreting information, too many different bit of information, not really knowing what questions to ask and not really understanding a lot of things, anything over 4 months I'm fine, newborn to 4 months, I'm I  the dark just as much as any new mum. Throughout I have been told "it gets easier"

My biggest issue was around jaundice and feeding, I've spent near of 2 weeks trying to increase breastfeeding feeding, and all except a couple of days formula feeding, trying to get to a point of exclusively breastfeeding all for the purpose of helping lower the jaundice levels, the reason, it was advised increasing the breast feeding would help, keep going with the breastfeeding, more feeds will help a lot. My head interpreted this as more breast milk feeds help lower jaundice quicker, so I kept going, not being able to express very much meant I was the sole feeder, which meant I was constantly latched on to, couldn't really be away from little one for to long and if he had a feed that didn't end in the tell take signs of a full baby (baby and boob a mess with milk, fall asleep, settled and happy) then I felt like a massive failure. 

After speaking to several people and asking several questions not always the right ones, I finally figured what I needed to find out, I asked is it the milk that helps lower the jaundice or the volume of feeds. 

It was the latter, all of a sudden once I had my answer I felt more at ease, I still got advice for the breast feeding and found we did in fact have a tough tie, something which had been missed, its not a huge one and he can latch and feed so it doesn't necessarily need resolving but does explain why I have had some difficulties and we navigated some new feeding positions,  alongside this I made changes to my breast pump from manual to electric  and didn't feel guilty for doing a few more bottles of formula for a head start on expressing, now we are currently just bottle fed, which helps with not confusing little man between latching to a boob and bottle, I'm able to express more milk so little man still gets the good stuff from breast milk and I don't feel so worried about giving him formula to top up, my nights though long are less stressful, the tears are less and although their is more Gas and burping from bubble and a bit of reflux we are generally happier as a unit, hubby can help more with feeds and I don't feel so worried about being away from little one for longer than 15 minutes. 

This was my experience, and I suppose I share it to highlight the following 

-Nobody has all the answers you have to try different things and see what works for you. 

-Keep asking questions, sometimes it takes a while to find the right one to ask to get the answer you need. 

-And yes it does get easier but be prepared there is always going to be something to navigate later on, so hold on the the precious moments. 

This is one of many posts in and around my pregnancy and I have a few more lined up, I suppose I am sharing these posts not to scare future mums,  but just to give real answers and the truth, up until my antenatal classes and all except one friend who was honest, most people have sugar coated a lot of aspects of pregnancy and birth, and to be honest I do better knowing the full truth of what to expect so I can face it, rather than just being told, it gets easier.  

Thanks for reading

Scribble back 

Jessie 

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