After having a baby you are sent home with doctor orders and thoughts of what the next few days or weeks with your new baby will be like. Now believe it or not it will be extremely different between your first baby and any children after the first. With each additional child you will remember the time after your first baby more and more fondly as you see how different this recovery time is. Not because your subsequant children are less loved or adored, but because it is always easier when there is only the baby and no children running around to be cared for and destroying your house. So here are the things I found that are extremely different from when I brought Alex home as my first baby to now that I am 6 days out from having Emmalee.
1. NO DRIVING FOR A WEEK- This is an order than was given to me with all my dismissal papers from the hospital. Now I am pretty sure that with my doctors this is a normal thing they put on their dismissals because for most women they prescribe them tylenol with codiene to help with the pain and that can make you loopy. But with me being "blessed" to being allergic to codiene just have to make it through with regular old tylenol. Lucky me. lol
Anyway, seriously no driving for a week?! I have 3 kids that have to go to and be picked up from school and a husband that works. No driving is not an option.
With Alex I didn't need to go out multiple times daily to go anywhere.
2. NO LIFTING ANYTHING HEAVIER THAN BABY FOR 2 WEEKS- Another dismissal order. Really?! I have a 2 1/2 year old that has to be helped into our SUV. Plus just carrying laudry baskets around with clothes are heavier than my tiny little one. This is nice in theory but impossible to not lift anything heavier than Emmalee for 2 weeks.
With Alex, there was only Alex and not laundry and picking up to do after 4 other kids.
3. TAKE A NAP WHEN BABY TAKES A NAP- This sounds like great advice. Especially since newborns sleep so much, but when there are 4 other kids to take care of and Alex is the only one that goes to school all day, it is pretty much impossible to sneak a nap in. With just one, you could be napping all day long, but with your 5th, unless all your other kids are old enough to be in school or young enough to all take naps you are lucky to get to sit down for a bit.
4. PEOPLE BRINGING OVER MEALS TO NEW MOTHERS- Again this is an awesome thing to have blessed upon you, but by the time you have 5 kids, the fact that you popped out another baby is old news to everyone and it just is not really done. You have been through this multiple times and know how to juggle it all already.
With your first I think people figure you are going to be so sleep deprieved and frazzled because you are new to all this that they feel sorry for you. By the time you have your 5th, you have been going for YEARS without a good nights sleep and deal with chaos on a daily basis, so life REALLY hasn't changed that much more. lol
5. YOU WILL HAVE TO RECOVER PHYSICALLY AFTER CHILD BIRTH- After every labor and delivery you have to allow yourself to recover. And maybe it is because with your first one you are able to have more down time because you dont have other children to chase after, or the fact that you are younger with your first. I don't know, but I don't remember being this sore after having Alex.
I remember having the cramping while nursing with all of the kids those first days. And it was always horrible. That part I expected and remembered. What I didn't remember was the horrible pain after that part. The feeling that my lower abdomen had been ran over and that my crotch had been kicked repeatedly with steel toe boots. I mean it makes sense that I would feel like this, but geez, I don't remember it being like this with any of the other kids.
Heck then you top it with the extremely sore wrist from where they placed my iv, that makes me want to cry everytime it is touched and the fact that my chest is sore from my milk coming in I feel awesome. REALLY. lol
6. YOUR OTHER CHILDREN DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT YOU ARE NOT A JUNGLE GYM- You come home sore from child birth, only wanting to be left alone, and your other children have missed you and only way they can show this is by crawling all over you and in the process poke and prod every sore part of your body with knees and elbows.
Now these 6 things are just a few things I have noticed that are different between bringing home my first baby, Alex, and my fifth baby, Emmalee. I must admit I find it humorous seeing my first time mommy friends on facebook posting about things with their babies and see how different it is with their pregnancies and my pregnancy. They have their rooms completely finished down to EVERY detail, house deep cleaned top to bottom, meals in the freezer ready for when they bring home baby, etc. And that is all great and amazing to get done, but when it comes to your 5th, any deep cleaning lasts for about a day, the baby room is done just enough to be functioning(if you have it painted and bedding to go with a theme you are doing awesome), and what are preplanned meals?!
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