In any of the literature you’ll read on pregnancy you’ll see that laying on your left side is best for circulation of your blood to your baby. But even if you read nothing at all your baby will tell you, left is best. Wow did our twins kick up a fuss if I tried laying on my right side or back for more than a minute. They disliked it intensely! Go with what your body and your baby tells you in addition to heeding what the books say.

Towards the 30th week with the extra weight pressing me into the bed my hip bones became so sore that I couldn’t sleep for more than an hour or two. I found laying on my left side suspended on top of two pillows, one under my bump and one under my bottom to be the most supportive. I put two pillows down side by side in the bed with about a 2 inch gap between them and that’s where I centered myself. It creates a lift which reduces the pressure on your hips while you sleep. This was the only relief I found worked for me. For daytime naps I lay like this but positioned my feet higher than my heart to help drain the fluid from my feet. I had a LOT of fluid retention (30kg weight gain by the birth) and although raising my feet didn’t show any physical signs of improvement, internally it eased the pain. The skin on my feet were stretched so fat with fluid they stung with pain. My partner massaged them most nights and tried pushing the fluid back up into my legs but alas, all it achieved were trenches of dents in my fluid soaked shins.

Legs up on the walls ladies!

I believe

“I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.”
— Audrey Hepburn

Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth. Walt Whitman

Gloop squished between your fingers! The simple things in life are often the best.

The power struggle between Kaia and Leila continues. 19 1/2 months old now and flexing their muscles. It’s like WWF smack down in here!

While pregnant I had a conversation with a friend who had recently had his first child. It went like this, he said the midwives told him to feed their daughter only every four hours. “It will get her into a good feeding habit” they said. She would scream and scream and he said she was the unhappiest baby. After weeks of this he said they finally ditched the midwife’s advice and fed her on demand. The transformation was evident. She was a new little girl, happy and calm. Given that newborns are meant to put on as much weight as possible and drink as much milk as possible, the midwives were fools. His pivotal advice to me before our girls were born was this, take midwives’ advice with a grain of salt. Just do whatever you feel in your gut is best for YOUR baby.

YOUR baby. That’s the operative word here. The baby you hold tightly in your arms belongs to you and no one else. If you feel that you should be doing something different to midwive’s advice, it’s your call. Don’t be bullied into hanging in there, and ‘that’s not how it should be done’ bollocks. Just do it. I didn’t receive any stifling advice like that from our midwife, it was simply “if they sleep more than 5 hours you should wake them and make them feed as there’s a risk they could become dehydrated“. Now that made sense to me. I agreed with it but only encountered it once with our little Leila while in hospital. After that they were up every 1.5 to 2 hours! We did however have a ‘Lactation Consultant’ (who looked about 25) come around telling me how I should be feeding the girls. From memory she had nothing productive to advise about technique, more picking on things she wasn’t happy with. If her intention was to make me feel bullied and belittled for using nipple shields on my extremely cracked and painful nipples, she succeeded. However my mother, partner and I decided to go ahead and continue using nipple shields anyway and our girls had zero problem adjusting to them, feeding with them, nor any issues with my milk flow because of them. But I was made to feel like it was the worst thing in the world to be doing! I look back at those conversations now and wish I had the mindset to tell her to shove off.

I don’t want to paint all lactation consultants in a poor light. I believe they have a very important role in the community to help new mums give breastfeeding the best shot they can so they don’t fall into the arms of formula. Breastfeeding is such a beautiful, natural, perfect food for your baby and chances are you haven’t had many women around you breastfeeding recently to bounce questions or concerns off. Lactation Consultants have their place in society and that is on the other side of the fence to the super profitable canned formula companies. Which is a good thing in my eyes. Read a great article from ABA that talks about the ‘great divide’ at “Feeding our babies: Choice? Guilt? Anger? Regret?“.

As your newborn becomes an infant (say around 2-3 months) you can implement a sleep/feed cycle that will get them into a healthy routine that will actually make them feel secure and happy. Babies love routine. It gives them a sense of security and knowing what to expect next. Our girls would actually go and rattle the gate when they felt it was time to crawl upstairs and have their nap! I’ll share my experiences with our twins in Sleep Challenges – “Save our Sanity: Implementing a Sleep/Feed Routine“.

Okay. Nobody likes talking about bodily fluids let alone these ones. But I have to fill you in on something that didn’t really register with me until one, obviously learned nurse asked me “When did you last do a number 2?” While every nurse that walked through my room asked me when was the last time I fed the babies or when they last did a #2 (they even had a chart I had to fill out on those). I hadn’t really given myself a second thought. “Since I checked in…hmmmm. Six days.” As the words left my lips I realised that was bad. She dropped her chin and looked at me with wide eyes. “Six days?! Okay I’m going to give you this liquid to drink and we’ll see how you get on.” And do you think I drank it? Well she came back a few hours later and it was still sitting on the shelf. I was so preoccupied with changing and feeding the girls and talking to visitors that it had slipped my mind. And now I was going to pay for it. She said okay. It’s not going to work for you sitting on that shelf there! I’m going to pop a capsule into your bottom and you’ll need to keep it there for about six minutes to make sure it’ll do a proper job. Um. Okay. What’s my second option? I’ll drink the mix, see?! She looked at me with compassionate but very insistent eyes so I lay down on the bed. Eeewk. It took 1 1/2 minutes for me to start pacing all around the hospital room until I couldn’t bear it. I poked my head out the door (pardon the pun) to the reception desk and said “I don’t think I can wait 6 minutes! Will it work anyhow?” She said “Well, if it doesn’t then you’ll have to get another one“. Eeeek!! So I persisted for another minute until I couldn’t take it anymore. Basically it informs your rectum to forget about it’s job of holding shut and everything “takes a chill pill” and totally relaxes. Relief! It was the blackest poo I’ve ever seen. Obviously it’s not healthy (or helpful) for waste to stay in your system that long.

When you’ve had a cesarean it’s hard to distinguish operation pains from the ‘regular’ ones so if you’ve had a c-section, keep this little story in mind and chat with a nurse if you haven’t been 2’s within a couple of days of birth…..and drink the little cup of liquid when she tells you!

Good Lord, the midwives! Don’t get me started on the midwives. And the Attila Lactation Consultants! Even more fanatical. If you’ve got grazes all over your nipples and find yourself stomping the floor while breastfeeding nipple shields are a saviour. Much to the tutt tutting of the midwives and lactation consultants, they did absolutely nothing to impact my milk flow nor the feeding skills of our twin baby girls. If you find yourself banged up, send your partner out to buy a set along with some Lansinoh cream (a must for cracked nipples) and you’ll never look back. You don’t have to continue with them permanently, just till the skin heals and you can try your technique again with fresh nipples.

If only men understood that just because we’ve jumped 2 cup sizes our libido hasn’t followed suit. My partner absolutely loved looking at my new-found boobs…and that’s all he got…to look. As I said, “Looky looky. No touchy touchy!” but during those first two weeks it was plain to see that my breasts were well and truly the sole property of our twins. Gashed & hurting he daren’t come near them! Lucky he’s a patient man.

The situation is simple. A brand newborn baby hasn’t been exposed to ANYTHING out in the big wide world yet. Not greasy hands, nor bacteria from elevator buttons, lazily washed hands after a toilet visit or a thoughtless wipe of the nose. As their mother you should feel entirely free to insist all visitors wash their hands thoroughly before picking up or touching your baby. This includes family, friends and especially medical staff. I asked staff on two occasions to wash their hands before touching our twins. One replied “Oh I used the gel outside earlier” and then thought better of it and washed his hands anyway without further comment.

There is one thing you are the ABSOLUTE guardian of and that is you and your baby’s welfare. If you feel at any time that you are not comfortable with any situation be it the way a staffer is handling your baby or a visitor who has a cough, speak up immediately. It’s not worth letting it fly around as an uneasy feeling. Act on it and feel better for it.