Welcome to parenthood

I am officially a mum, I have a baby in my arms that is now fully relying on me. I gave birth at midnight and I was back home with my brand new baby by late afternoon.

Me and James walked through the door with our little baby and we looked at each, ‘what do we do now?’. We were both absolutely clueless and expected to walk through the doors feeling like this huge change had taken place, but it felt normal?

As Jayden was sleeping James suggested putting him in the next to me/bassinet so we could eat and rest, so we do, except Jayden doesn’t like it and wakes INSTANTLY.

So we picked him up, soothed him again and put him down, same thing happened. We did this every single day and night for I don’t even know how long, it got to the point we would take it in turns to chest sleep on the sofa while the other one slept (so unsafe!!).

I explained to both the health visitor and midwife about the difficulties we were having but zero advice or tips and we were both determined not to bedshare.

Jayden was now about 3 weeks okay and he still refused to sleep in his cot, next to me or bassinet. The only place he would sleep was on us and we were running on fumes; James was due to go back to work in a week and I said enough is enough.

One night I was sat in bed with Jayden on my chest for my “shift” and I decided to do my research, what is bedsharing, why is it so dangerous, can it be done safely etc.

My research lead me to Isadora, aka The Happy CoSleeper. She had SO much information to hand about how I could do this as risk free as possible.

So I took the plunge, I kicked off my blanket, put Jayden next to me at chest level and went into the C Curl position and fell asleep, albeit, a very very light sleep but it was sleep!!

My whole life then became about bedsharing and I became so passionate, but unfortunately, not many people felt the same way I did. I heard from so many friends and family members about how I was doing the wrong thing, I just had to let him cry or I wasn’t putting him down right etc.

Thankfully, James was onboard and he loved the cuddles we had with Jayden every night. I truly believe that bedsharing saved me from being even more depressed and anxious than I already was (more to come on that next).

Motherhood is hard, it’s had its ups and downs but that newborn stage in the first month, that was literal HELL.