Changes

Since having a bub my life has changed dramatically. It's something that I'd never really given a lot of thought to. I knew I'd stop working and I'd be a full time mum, but I didn't think much further about what that involved. 

At first it felt rather strange, like I had no purpose. I know my job is to look after our baby and I love looking after him, but it felt strange. I've worked full time for 21 years. I enjoyed working but I've never been really attached to working. I can happily not work, I don't need to work to feel fulfilled or like I have a purpose. But not working felt very strange. My days felt long and aimless. I'm getting more used to it now, slowly getting a bit of a routine and adjusting to being at home all the time. Now my days seem to go very quickly, they don't feel long and aimless at all. 

I imagine once I get into a proper routine, which I'll be able to do better once bub is sleeping more and I'm not so sleep deprived I'll wonder how I ever had the time to work. I still feel like my days are full of nothing. I get to the end of the day and if I'm lucky I've done a few loads of washing. More often than not I'm folding the washing at 9pm as I haven't managed to get to it during the day. I'm doing very little housework, all I do at the moment is look after bub and that's the way it should be.

We aren't sure if I'll be going back to work. Hubby doesn't want me to and I don't like the idea of someone else looking after our little man. I'd like to be able to work from home, that'd be my ideal. I don't mind the idea of working and taking some of the financial burden off hubby, but we both hate the idea of a stranger looking after our son. Both of our mothers have said that they'll babysit so that I can work, however as they both live an hour away, logistically it would be very difficult. Plus as great as they are, I don't like the idea of either mum looking after our bub on a long term basis, especially hubby's mum. She'd make our child neurotic and that's the last thing I want for him. Thankfully we don't have to worry about me working for a while yet, I'm being paid up until the end of November, so we are very fortunate.  

I've started going to mother's group and it's been great. It is nice to meet other mums with babies around the same age as our bub. I'm lucky that I have quite a few friends with babies, but it's also nice to be around first time mothers who are going through the same sort of things as I am.

Body wise I'm doing quite well with weight loss, considering that I'm not making any effort to lose weight. In the first three weeks I lost fifteen kg's. Nearly four of those kilos were bub and I'd say that the rest were fluid. My stomach is getting smaller every day which has really surprised me. I thought my stomach would be all floppy and gross, but it's not. 

I'm planning on starting an exercise routine when I can be bothered. I've been going walking around three times per week, more to get me and bub out of the house than for exercise. The way I see it, it took me ten months to put on the weight and if it takes me ten months to take off the weight that's okay. I have ten kilo's to lose to be at my pre pregnancy weight but each week a little bit more weight drops off. A few of us in my mothers group are going to start walking together to get some exercise and social time, I'm looking forward to that. I've missed walking but it's just been too hot for me to bother lately. Bring on winter! 

Hubby's family are having a very hard time adjusting to bub. They have a lot of expectations that we weren't aware of before bub arrived and they really have no idea about the realities of having a newborn. At the moment hubby and his brother aren't talking. They had a huge fight because the brother (BIL) got annoyed about not being able to hold bub. He'd previously complained to hubby about being at our house for an hour before he got to hold bub. He seems to think that as soon as he arrives bub should be handed to him, regardless of whether he's feeding or sleeping. They sorted that one out, but this new fight is because BIL says that he's now visited five times and hasn't got to hold the baby. I'm not sure if he has visited five times, but he is right that he hasn't been able to hold the baby his last few visits.


The last time he visited and held bub, I'd just got bub to sleep and handed him over to BIL for a cuddle. BIL proceeded to tickle, poke and prod him until he woke up and started crying. I considered that a lesson learned and now no-one gets to hold bub when he's asleep. Since that visit, all BILs visits have been at night time. He comes over unannounced, usually at or after 8pm which is when we're trying to settle bub, and he expects that he'll get to hold him. That's just not realistic and it's not going to happen. Also, the last time he came over he was stoned. I'm not having stoned people around my child. Hubby told him that he can't come over if he's stoned and he got really annoyed about it, but  that's his problem.


BIL has asked hubby to take bub over to his house so that they can have some male bonding time. I don't know why he can't have bonding time at our house, probably because he thinks it's me keeping bub away from him, but it's as much hubby keeping bub away as it is me. Hubby and I have discussed this and agreed that it's not going to happen. When he's older I'll be okay with it, but whilst he's so young I'm not comfortable with him being away from me.


It makes me angry that BIL has these expectations. This is our child. It's not his child, he has no claim to our child and no right to have expectations and to make demands of us. He also has no right to yell at and upset hubby because he hasn't got to hold our baby. Not once has he asked if he can hold the baby and if he told us when he was coming over we could let him know when bub was awake so that he would be able to hold him. 


If he was a good brother to hubby he'd stop thinking about himself and what he wants and start asking how hubby is doing and if he needs any help, instead of making life more difficult by starting fights and being passive/aggressive. I'm very tempted to ring him and tell him that but I know it will only make things worse so I'm keeping my mouth shut for the time being.