Today I turn 33 weeks pregnant with my second son, and I can finally say “I’m ready”.
With anxiety lingering since the very beginning, for all different reasons, I’ve struggled with the feeling of being ready to have a newborn in our lives.
Don’t get me wrong, that new born is wanted, but it’s taken me this long to feel ready to bring him into the world.
My mind wonders and I constantly think back to the struggles I had with Lamb as a baby. He couldn’t latch so I exclusively expressed, but he fed every 2 hours so I basically lived off half an hour sleep between feeds (once I’d fed him and then expressed his next bottle). He had colic so needed infacol before every feed and some serious winding. He couldn’t crawl so often became very frustrated at being stuck in one place, and by the age of 1 he decided eating and sleep wasn’t for him.
I can’t fault Lamb as a toddler really. I mean, they all have their moments, but overall he’s been a pleasure to raise. Although, the threenager stage has well and truly hit us.
He’s well behaved in public (the majority of the time) and a very smiley, happy boy.
I’m beyond happy to be giving him a little brother, but I’ve spent the whole of my pregnancy worrying about all of the things I struggled with when Lamb was a baby; what if he’s the same as his brother?
With all of that in mind, as I turn 33 weeks, I can finally say I feel ready. I’m ready for the sleepless nights (Lamb gives us those anyway!), I’m ready for the multiple nappy changes, I’m ready for the new challenge ahead.
I’m also scared about our new chapter. I’m scared about PND, I’m scared about feeling lonely, I’m scared about taking care of 2 children alone when hubby works away, but it’s a good scared. If I wasn’t feeling scared then to me that would mean I didn’t care.
I want to prove I can do this. I want to fight the baby blues and feel myself again as quickly as possible (unlike the 16 months it took me with Lamb), I want to enjoy my children. So it’s only normal to worry about all of the above.
Today I turn 33 weeks pregnant and I finally feel ready.
Bring it on!
Ax
First up is 
. I stumbled across this a few weeks after Lamb was born and when I was still trying to get him to latch. The idea is you use the latch assist to suck and stretch your nipple gently drawing it out to help your baby latch. I only used it a couple of times and personally didn’t find it help that much, but I certainly recommend you get one and try if you are struggling with latching. What’s the harm?
as pumping exclusively is time consuming! I of course don’t know how feeding will go this time, but I certainly intend on expressing and freezing milk. I also found expressing a little before trying to feed definitely improved his latch, although for us it didn’t work completely. Another tip would be to pump before feeding naturally so your nipple is a little bigger and this may help baby latch better.
If, like me, you decided to store some of the milk you’re expressing then you’ll need some breastmilk storage bags. I actually found some amazing ones in Home Bargains that were literally £1 a box and they worked brilliantly. I had so much stored up I couldn’t afford to keep buying the branded ones, even though they are fab. If you have a Medela breast pump then these 
will be ideal for you, or even this 
. If you just want bags then I recommend these 
which are really good value.
and it was amazing. So make sure you grab yourself something like this if you’re intending on breastfeeding. You also need some 
in case of any leaks (I had to use hundreds last time!) I’ll be trying the Medela nursing pads, but I also recommend Sainsbury’s own, or Asda’s own.
