Lisa and Thomas had their first baby, Kristof, earlier this year. Lisa runs her own beauty business and they live in southern Ireland, near to the sea. Their little man arrived in to the world 4 & ½ weeks early.

 

Tell me about your expectations of motherhood Lisa? What did you think it would be like? When you were younger, or whilst you were pregnant?

I think I expected to have more structure by now! Our little boy is 7 months now, and I really thought there would be more structure than what actually we have.

I also didn’t expect to have as little freetime as we do! Either time for my husband and myself, or for me alone. I run my own business and I thought I would be able to work every evening after a few months, I thought I’d be able to give Kristof to Thomas and work Saturdays quite easily. But I was surprised how quickly my priorities changed once he was born. I don’t mind not having so much freetime or time for us as a couple, but I certainly didn’t expect it to be like this. But we are just trying to enjoy all these moments with Kristof while we can.

I also didn’t expect my mothering instincts to kick in so hard and so fast – I was amazed by that. I had no idea you could love a little person so much and so quickly.

Tell me a bit more about the reality of life with a little newborn like? What are you finding a challenge? What has taken you by surprise?

Well for us the hardest part is the lack of sleep. I didn’t expect that to be as hard as it is. We are both so tired! Last night we both were sleep walking and talking in a bit of a daze because Kristof has been waking every hour and a half all through the night.

And Thomas is really very tired as well – which I find hard sometimes, because he is the one who has had a night’s sleep! But he really is exhausted – he is cooking all our meals and taking very good care of us, but he is feeling it too 

We are looking in to the best sleep solutions at the moment, trying to work out what will be best for us. We are thinking of trying to stop the night feeds, which I will feel sad about, it all goes so fast, but I think we need to try and do that so we can get a little more sleep! Because really everything else is fantastic, it is just the sleeping that is so hard at the moment.

 

 

Tell me about the area of becoming a new mum that you found the hardest?

For me it was the visitors! Particularly because Kristof came early I was very mindful of the germs. And everyone just wanted to hold him and kiss him and that made me very anxious. I didn’t know how to say no, that’s not ok, but people taking Kristof from me made me very unsettled.

I ended up having a c-section and, because Thomas had used up all of his leave before the birth with Kristof coming so early, he had to go back to work two days after I got home. I had a lot of visitors at that stage and I ended up making tea and coffee for them whilst they held the baby! Kristof would end up overstimulated from all the passing around and after they left I would be left with a very fussy tired baby who just wouldn’t settle. I found it very hard that people would stay too long and not wash their hands!

 

And what about things that you might do differently if you were to do it all again?

Well, again, I would definitely have no visitors in the hospital, and then very few people, maybe just grandparents for the first few weeks, once we got home.

I would also ask people for more meals and for healthy food rather than just cake! People brought us so many delicious cakes, they were very kind, but very soon our freezer was full of very little else! It was delicious, but there is only so much cake you can eat! I think I would try and work out ways of having more people bring us food –we really needed it! we ended up eating a lot of take-out because we were too tired to cook.

I’d also get a cleaner lined up and get to know them and get in to a routine with them before we had the baby. My husband didn’t want to do hire someone after the birth as it felt like another stressful thing to do. But if we had had it all up and running before hand it would have been an amazing thing to have.

And tell me about the things that worked really well for you Lisa, what made your life easier after the birth?

My mums group! It was something you advised me to do Layla, and it made such a difference. You told me to start building a community before I gave birth and so I went to pregnancy meet ups, doula meet ups, I looked on facebook for other mums like me, found people to go for coffees with, found toddler groups, breastfeeding groups, found activities in our local library. 

I then set up my own mums group that ended up with over 20 members.

We met 2 or 3 times a week in the summer in the park. The idea was that we would do some exercise together, but often that didn’t happen because the babies would be fussing or hungry, but it was so great to get out, meet other mums. If I was struggling with sleep or feeding or whatever I was able to bounce things off the other mums. I found this invaluable, particularly because I don’t have any family nearby.

It was also great to have a reason to get out of the house. I think if I didn’t have that, I would have been at home, stressing about the mess and trying to Marie Kondo Kristof’s wardrobe! As it is I am far more able to just let things go and enjoy being with my new baby.

I was also really glad that I had got everything ready so far in advance. I had absolutely everything ready really early, and people thought I was crazy, but I am really glad now that I did. I didn’t have any expectation that I would have the baby so early, but when I did it meant that when we got home from the hospital everything was ready go and we didn’t have to worry.