A few notes I've jotted down for other first time mom's in the first 2 weeks of being home with our baby:
Pick your battles. If giving her a pacifier is going to let you get many more hours of a happy baby...decide what it's worth to you.
Nursing is hard. You hear this once you have a baby, but all you see in society is how natural and easy it is for mom to feed while at a coffee shop with friends. Find someone not afraid to tell you nursing is the hardest thing ever and call that person crying whenever you want to quit...and find someone who isn't going to judge you for it, and will tell you it's okay to quit if you need to.
Cry it out. Holy buckets the tears....there will be so much crying. Your husband will be perplexed at why your are bawling giving her a bath...but let him be confused and just cry.
It's okay to secretly hate everyone who says "sleep when your baby sleeps" as if it is that easy. Sleep whenever you can is more accurate, and don't be afraid to ask people to help in order to sleep.
Take people up on help. Especially the ones that have been there, if they are offering they most likely sincerely mean it don't feel bad about people feeding you. I felt so guilty that people were offering to bring us meals, but it was SUCH a huge help and could have used a lot more of it. Just make a mental note to repay the favor to them, and to pass it on to the next new mom. I'm one of those that hates not being able to do everything myself, and that was the hardest thing to get over.
Every day is super different...yet the same. The days really flew by for us the first 2 weeks because we were just living feeding by feeding. In that way, it was just living the same day over and over again. And yet, babies change so fast that each day can be really different. I'm writing this mid week during our 2nd week at home and I think about our biggest struggles our first week, and it's not our struggles now. For example, she would wake and be pretty temperamental for 2-4 hours in the middle of the night the first week (and then started this again by the end of the 2nd week). Now (at the start of her 2nd week), she has her days and nights pretty much worked out. We have a system now, me and Kevin, with dealing with naps (ours and hers) but the first few days we felt like we had to do everything together. We also were terrified of leaving her in a room and using the baby monitor the first week...but finally started using it and loving it.
One of the best pieces of advice I got before she was born, was to pick one thing you want to get done that day...and only one. I remember thinking that was outrageous, but now it has helped me stay sane. Sometimes I'll get that one thing done,and sometimes I won't, but my expectations for what I can accomplish right now are still pretty low. And that's good.
Shower daily if it makes you feel better, it always does for me.
Brush your teeth often, because your normal routines are gone so may as well over brush them so you don't forget.
Sometimes you don't leave the house in 3 days, and you wear the same clothes for 3 days and nights, and that's okay. Your baby loves you even if you smell.
You can get lost looking into your baby's eyes or down at her sleeping face. Like realizing you've spent the last 4 hours just sitting there looking at her (when you should have been sleeping)
Don't weigh yourself very often. I did once, just a week after she was born, and felt awesome about the weight I'd lost, then weighed myself a week later and was the same. It was then I remembered an article that said how it took 9 months to put on that weight, so be patient becuase it will take atleast that long to take it back off.
Take a lot of photos. You'll ever regret taking too many photos, but will regret not taking enough.
Keep a publically posted list of things to get done. It helped me by writing things down to get it out of my head, and helped when someone came over and asked what the could help with...it's all there. It also helped with me and Kevin, becasue then when one of us had time we knew waht could get done.
I did not handle questions well the first couple days. I think it was from lack of sleep, but I felt like people would not stop asking me questions and I could barely function, let alone think of responses. Everything from how are you feeling, to where does this go...it was terrible. I had to tell Kevin that I was learning to let things go and he just could put that dish or towel wherever he wanted, because I could not handle questions about things.
It took 12 days for me to realize that "they" were right and you really do start to forget the pain of childbirth. I swore up and down in the hospital I would never do that again, and then one day I sat and thought "was it really that bad?" I know the answer is 1000x "yes"...but for some reason your mind plays tricks on you and you start questioning it.
Find a few people to ask a million questions to...preferably those who have recently gone through the same thing (moms with children under the age of 1 I find are the most helpful). That being said, most anyone who has had a baby have been amazing.
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