Whilst I was pregnant with Noah, I spent what feels like all of my spare time invested in researching pregnancy, birth and being a new mummy. By the time I was ready to pop I felt I had read every book, listened to every piece of advice, asked all the questions, I was basically a walking talking baby expert. Or that is what I thought…

Then Noah arrived! I have wrote from my experience a few things people maybe forget to mention whilst I was preparing to become a parent:

The New Baby and You

9 months in the making, sickness.. heartburn.. swollen feet.. fainting. You name it we had it….and the baby comes out spitting image of their dad (How is that even fair?!)
Theres a very high chance you will still look pregnant when you leave the hospital with your newborn.
Babies do not look so attractive at birth. In fact they are more likely to resemble a soggy purplish pink wrinkly raisin type thing with a funny shaped head, kinda alien (Don’t worry, you will still love them all the same!) they get very cute, very quick!
Your baby will no doubt pop out starving hungry from the get go, if you’re breastfeeding, they will instinctively know that is where their food comes out of, they may even crawl up your tummy to get to it. Clever monkeys!
Peaceful nights sleep between feeds? Haha forget that. Babies snore, they snore loud, even louder than daddy does!
It’s acceptable to eat chocolate and chips for breakfast if thats the first thing you see, who has time to make anything in the first few weeks anyway?
Even if you did make something, forget about eating it warm (I am almost certain babies know when mum’s food is ready).
Cold little baby hands. Mittens are useless and fall off in our experience, baby socks on hands however … perfect!
Your swaddling attempts will never ever be as good as the midwifes.
Baby acne. Yep! thats a thing. It will go on its own and is totally totally normal.
Babies shed their first layer of skin like a snake after birth in the first few weeks. This scared me to death at first but then realised its a total norm.
Changing a nappy is a military operation, unless you want to get peed on of course.
Separation anxiety is a thing. You may find yourself coming up with every excuse in the book to not let someone else babysit because you’re scared they may take his passport, board the earliest plane and runaway with him. ‘He doesn’t take the bottle.’ ‘You had a sore throat 6 months ago and I’m afraid he may catch it’.. ‘He is allergic to other humans, sorry!’
You may well drop your phone on some part of your baby whilst getting a cute picture of them, you pretend it never happened (mine was the arm, no injury was inflicted, just woke the monkey up!)
You can’t help but look at other mummies and admire how great they look, then catch a glimpse of yourself in your car rear view mirror looking like you have been dragged through a hedge backwards.
Every new mum feels like you do right now, and are no doubt going through all the same ups and downs around the same times too. Talk to fellow new parents, vent!
It’s actually ok to cry like a bitch when you feel you haven’t got a clue what you’re meant to be doing.
Jumping up and down is risky, unless you want to piss your pants.
Waiting for the toilet is risky…. unless you want to piss your pants. Tell your partner to always ask if you need it first before he decides to spend 10 minutes in there.
You can buy every single baby toy on the market, approved by baby experts and paediatricians around the world, but your baby would much rather suck on a 2 dollar bath sponge.
Muslin clothes for baby sick. They are awesome! But if your baby has just chucked a good one over your shoulder or down your bra, whatever is closest will do. Even if it’s dads newly cleaned Pyjama top (Sorry Jordan!).
You get extremely annoyed when someone touches your sleeping baby. SLEEPING means don’t touch, do I need to make a sign and glue it to his head?
Your baby may cry for 5 hours straight and go completely silent whilst dad walks through the door from work. ‘I swear he’s been crying non stop, honest!’
Just as you are ready to scream with total frustration and proclaim how much you hate this mother sh*t, the monkey will smile at you, then your heart will melt.
Your new favourite hobby is picking huge bogeys out of your babies nose.

And now If you are breastfeeding..

Breastfeeding is not easy. Babies need to learn to breastfeed at the same time as you, but once you have both cracked it, you will feed like a boss!
Try your hand at hand expressing colostrum before baby is even born, then freeze in syringes ready for his arrival. This not only helps when your too tired to feed baby but gets you used to the feeling too. My lovely fellow mummy / midwife / friend over here gave me this tip and it is total genius! If you don’t use the produce (As if you wouldn’t ) NICU or SCABU at the hospital have many mummies that would die for that liquid gold for their newbie.
This is the most natural way to provide for a baby, gods gift, trust your body!
You may feel genuine labour like pains when breastfeeding at the start. This is your Uterus contracting back to its pre baby size. Pineapple juice helps. I’m not entirely sure why.
You will live in a bra for 3 weeks and become somewhat of a recluse.
You are basically a glorified milking factory until your baby establishes what they need. No, in fact you are always a milking factory, sorry!
There IS a bad latch. And… it … is… toe curling!
Cracked, sore, bleeding nipples, JEES! Lanolin cream and fresh air seriously works wonders.
Mastitis is worse than labour (I swear, I had it twice!) Don’t give up, feed through the pain, your babies are basically sucking out the infection in turn making you better.
Eating strawberries might really piss your baby off.
If you are fit to drive, you are fit to breastfeed. One drink will hardly touch your babies milk if you time it right (Even though I made myself wait so long before a teeny weeny glass of wine, it tasted so good!)
If your baby doesn’t like it when you drink wine, try beer instead.
Every single person has seen your boobs, the next door neighbour, the gardener, even the coffee barista at the Cafe. Mostly because you forget to put it back in your top after feeding.
It is ok to feed your baby in public if you want to/ feel comfortable. If someone has a problem, you have the right to politely tell them to fuck off (Or not so politely).
You will spray milk in your little ones face when they pull off. This usually happens when you’re not watching, you only realise when they are nearly drowning in a pool of the stuff. You will be pretty quick to say sorry.
That’s right, your boobs might actually spray milk out (spray it in your partners face when they aren’t listening to you and wait for their reaction, it’s comedy gold).