I am now fully expecting my exhaustion and the craziness to get worse before it gets better as my little bundle of joy is getting noisier as the days progress and his sleeping patterns become more erratic despite us trying our best to get a routine happening!
But I have accepted this now and to quote my paeditrician “the crying is a sign of development and it will continue to get worse up to about 3-4 months”. I nearly died when he said another 3-4 months of increasing noise but now I know what to expect I at least feel better prepared and it is reassuring to know that the crying isn’t anything sinister.
The crying went up a notch even further at the end of the week too with him being inconsolable which it turned out to be constipation – the poor little baby!! So a trip to the Doctor resulted in a very undignified suppository which cleared up the problem – the Doctor thought it was the oral thrush medication which caused it and I am very pleased to say that everything has now returned to normal in the nappy area.
My hubby also returned to work this week which added to my tiredness considerably. Not having anyone to hand my baby over even for a 15 minute break was really tough and with me having no family in Australia to help out this was something that was not going to change and something I needed to work around.
So my focus this week was training my baby to go into his cot or pram for 15 – 30 minute intervals – without screaming down the house – so that I could get stuff done during the day – and although he didn’t take to this too well he was gradually getting used to the pram in particular and when I rocked it I managed to get about 15 minutes of him not crying to tidy up/go to the toilet/do the washing/express milk/do my emails/exercise/make food/eat etc – which was very much appreciated!
My smoothies were an absolute God send at this stage as it was inconceivable to have to prepare healthy meals in my day but getting the right nutrition was so important for my state of mind, my body and my breastfeeding – so knowing it only took me 3 minutes to prepare my smoothie and be getting all the nutrition I needed was a big relief and made me feel good.
When I made them I was also making double quantity and keeping it in a jug in the fridge as if Kai was having a screaming fit which lasted for hours I could still have something healthy to eat – all I needed to do was open the fridge and grab the jug. I also stocked up on frozen fruit so I smoothies were already to go – my favourite ones were frozen raspberries, frozen blueberries, frozen cranberries and frozen mango cheeks. My favourite recipe this week was a mango, banana and passionfruit smoothie – so simple but so tasty! (for more recipes and to see a smoothie being made you can go to the Lose Baby Weight site and onto the Smothie recipe section).
The recipe was;
- A cup of frozen mango cheeks
- 1 x banana
- 2 passion fruit
- 2 tbsp of smoothie mix
- 1 x tbsp of chai seeds
- 2 x tbsp of oatmeal
- 8 x ice cubes
- 250 ml of rice milk
All blended together in my Breville Powermax blender
This week also saw me desperate to get back on the exercise bandwagon but tiredness and lack of time were proving this hard to do as much as I would have liked.
But I was managing to get some exercise in and most days I was getting in a 30 minute walk to the shops before my hubby went to work, I also was trying to get 5 mins of various exercises in during the day when Kai was sleeping or being quiet – such as 5 minutes on my exercise bike, 5 minutes of sit ups, 5 minutes of squats, 5 minutes of press ups – all of which are a lot more manageable when spaced out throughout the day and in bite sized chunks.
But the exercise I really wanted to do was on my new Power Plate vibration machine (which I got from Get Vibratin)– but I had been holding off as it didn’t seem too wise to jump on that and have my body being seriously vibrated and shook so soon after childbirth so I waited and waited and this week saw me at 4 weeks post birth so I hopped on for 10 minutes and gave it a whirl. J
ust being on it made me feel good. I had read so many positive stories about the machine that I felt excited just to be on it for 10 minutes. Whilst I was on it, I did some squats, some marching leg lifts and horizontal leg lifts as well as just standing on for a few minutes having my whole body shake and jiggle around which was quite a funny sensation!
When I finished my legs really felt like that had had a work out and I did need to sit down as I think my body was in shock from all the jiggling – which I thought could only be a good thing! I am going to try and do 10 minutes a day on it at least 5 days a week and can’t wait to bring the results to this blog!
So as week 5 approaches I plan to try and get more exercise in and start focusing more on losing my baby weight. I have lost 500g this week which I am really happy with but I want to give my stomach some focus now as that jelly belly needs some extra attention to get it shifted and toned up again – so next week will be “core time” and making sure I am following the Lose Baby Weight nutrition plan to the letter which means taking my cider vinegar before meals, drinking 4 cups of decaf green tea, drinking 1.5 litres of water, snacking on healthy and high protein snacks in between meals My goal is to lose 10kg by mid March so weight loss here I come!!
To see the full range of Lose Baby Weight plans that include nutrition and weight loss products, exercise plans, recipes and motivation – please see our Weight loss plans which include breastfeeding plans too.
