It’s been 6 weeks since my life changed forever. Our beautiful baby came to us, my body started its recovery, and my sleep schedule took a major hit.
Sleep
6 weeks on, Oliver is sleeping pretty well at night. He generally gets in a 5 hour stretch at the beginning of the night, and then wakes every 2-3 hours until morning. I generally get to bed about an hour after Ollie (to allow for pumping, and some time with Tony), so I normally get about 4 hours for that first stretch. Once or twice a week he manages a 7 hour stretch and then sleeps again until morning. I can’t quite see what causes these longer stretches yet, maybe they’re just random, but when they happen I wake up feeling so refreshed!
His day napping isn’t quite as efficient. He’s still having lots of 10-15 minute cat naps. On good days he’ll nap for longer stretches, like an hour or two, but only when he’s still on my lap, which makes me completely useless. I try to get him down in his bassinet, but he normally wakes after 5 minutes, but every once in a while, like right now, he stays asleep for a longer nap, and I’m able to actually get some stuff done!
Food
To be completely honest, while I’ve been making fairly healthy choices for most of my meals, I’ve been adding some pretty unhealthy snacks, which I’m sure has slowed my progress since birth. Moving forward I obviously need to make more of an effort if I want to see real progress. This means I need to work on my relationship with food, which as I mentioned in my last post, is quite unhealthy. I still haven’t quite figured out how to start repairing that, but it’s something I need to figure out so that I don’t pass that on to my son as he grows up.
As I’m settling into being a new mom, currently with no real routine, I’m ready to start paying closer attention to my food intake. This means I’ll loosely track my calorie intake without obsessing over exact weights and products. Obsessing like this has been one of my downfalls in the past, and I’m sure would negatively impact my efforts to repair my relationship with food. I also need to be conscious of my water intake, both for my health and my body’s requirements to produce breast milk.
Exercise
As I mentioned in my last post, I haven’t been cleared for any exercise more than walking. This includes lifting the pram in and out of the car. So for now that means walks only. There’s a few routes around my neighborhood that are good for walks, ranging from 2 km to 3.6 km. I’d like to go a little further, but Oliver tends to get a bit fussy through the longer walks, so I don’t think we’re quite ready yet. Perhaps more than one walk a day would work, but Oliver’s fussiness during the day combined with his super short naps makes even one walk challenging at this point. Speaking of short day naps, the little guy is now awake!
My Body
My body has changed dramatically since becoming pregnant. My belly is still protruding out like I’m half way through a pregnancy except now it feels saggy and is covered in stretch marks. My posture has changed from holding and rocking Oliver, and everything just feels a lot looser from the lack of strength training through my pregnancy.
I’m 7 kg down from my peak pregnancy weight, which includes the reduced weight from baby, placenta and fluids. I’m still 12 kg away from my pre-pregnancy weight, so I’ve got some work to do to reach my first goal, which is to be back at my pre-pregnancy weight.
Becoming Beautiful Today 