Second Time Moms Advice to First Time Moms

Here's the summary of the awesome thread. I'm sure there will be lots more information shared through the coming months. I skipped the info on which trimester was the worst.

Pregnancy Gas: It's uncontrollable- either learn to not be embarrassed, or for delicate situations, I find stuffing some TP in your panties muffles the sound a bit. ;p Starts in first tri!!

You will pee on yourself. You will pee when you laugh, cough, or sneeze. You will pee when you puke if you're extra lucky.

Kegals:

• Some say. what a joke. You will pee while doing them too.
• Others are advocates for them
• Do your kegels.  You do not want to end up incontinent or have to worry about a uterine prolapse.  After 6 months of PT for pelvic floor rehab, I make it my job to remind pregnant women that kegels are their friend.
• Didn't have to do any PT but do your kegels and then some
• This times 10,000! I was only at 15 weeks when I delivered, but even then I could tell I should have been doing my kegels.
• Another recommendation to do your kegals. I ended up having incontinence issues after DS1 and he was a c/s.

Pads will be your friend.


Hemroids are super painful! I hope I do not get one again. To be safe, I am buying witch hazel pads so I have them on hand if needed.

Parenting:

• just isn't what you assume it to be before you are a parent.  Oh and no matter what parenting decisions you make for your child, someone will be there to question it.  Mommy wars are not a figment of the imagination
• If you do the best you can, you will do a great job raising your kid. No matter who disagrees with your parenting style or what your MIL says about what you feed your child, dress your child in, etc
• Nearly every preconceived notion you have of parenting will pretty much go out the window. The phrase 'I will never...' is a joke.

After birth Pooing

• When they give you stool softener's to get things moving, take them.... HOWEVER, if you think you might need something stronger.... DO NOT TAKE IT! I made that mistake and had zero control while getting up after feeding DS. That's right, it was awful.... you are pretty much numb down under for a while after too
• You will be scared to poop for at least a week after you give birth.  NO ONE talks about this and more people should!  I dreaded having to poop because it hurts and you don't have the same need to push.  It just comes out.  Sorry but it needs to be said because it sucked
• Pooping will never be the same after pregnancy and delivery. :(

My advice would be to take pictures, no matter how bad you think you look. Get in some of the pictures, and make your DH take them. Get pictures of the whole family. And don't worry, because things will work out. You'll get by. Enjoy it!

Sometimes induction is necessary, but if you can, avoid the pit drip. That sucker blows!

Something nobody told me/warned me about. After delivery you will stink for day. I would take a shower, and i would still think I stink. I guess it's all the hormones, but it's pretty disgusting.

• This is true! I stank for about six weeks. I had to shower twice a day which I never did before. My dr said it was the hormones and it would go away, which it did. But it was gross!

Sign up for a prenatal water aerobics class. My hospital offers them in their therapy pool.  I did it with both my pregnancies twice a week and it really helps you to feel great, takes pressure off you, and from what my instructors repeated over and over again gives you great abs which will help during labor.  The bonus of having summer babies is that it will be refreshing too.

Bring sunglasses to the hospital just in case you have to have a c/s. The lights in there are super bright (as they should be) but I was always teary eyed because it was too bright staring up at them.

Sleep when the baby sleep was some of the most useless advice I ever got. It's hard, and with 2 I suspect it's impossible.

Mesh Undies:

• Take all the mesh undies and super large pads you can. Trust me, you'll use them.
• I hated the mesh undies

Modesty:

• If you're modest, I'd start trying to get over it soon. You very well may end up naked. If you're going to BF, you'll have people touching your breasts (I had flat nips so I had a couple LC's helping me out). When in the hospital they check on you a lot and most of the time you'll have visitors.
• I repeat about the modesty. While in labor/delivery and if you end up having a c-section everyone - nurses/doctors/med students are all up in your business. I remember being giving a sponge bath by two nurses after my c-section and being embarrassed but too drugged up to really care.

And this isn't advice, but it freaked me out. You will lose a lot of hair. It's normal and it will grow back, but you will lose hair. I took a shower about 2 weeks PP and literally pulled handfuls of hair out when washing it.

Pregnancy can suck. Labor is hard. Newborns are unreasonable. Some days you'll wonder why you ever did this. But I can promise you, you'll miss it when it's over. So try to enjoy it. 

In the hospital you will get no sleep and by the time you eat your food it'll be cold.

Pooing during delivery:

• Chances are that you will poo during delivery. 
• The pooping thing really depends on how hard your labor is. I didn't poop during. I pooped the same day with no issues. I was in blinding awful labor for 21 hours but only pushed for 15 minutes. I think that helped. 

Swamp crotch:

• While pregnant sucks, no one talks about this either. The remedy....lots of undies and showers. 
• I really had no idea about the moistness down below constantly when you're pregnant.
• I had to wear panty liners FOREVER

Sleeping now:

• When you hear the phrase "You'd better sleep now, while you have the chance" BELIEVE IT. Enjoy your sleep now, rest now, soak it up now. 
• That phrase always bothers the crap out of me. It's not like it's a cache. You can't save up sleep and draw on it like a bank account. You don't get to say 'well hmm my baby only slept three hours tonight. I guess I better use those extra hours I got six months ago.' Unfortunately it doesn't work that way and it just irritates me when someone says it. 
• This x1000! I hated hearing that while I was pregnant, but I really wish I had taken it seriously. I was so tired after Colby was born that I was literally nauseous, I'd never felt like that before.

Water Breaking:

• If your water breaks its not one big gush and its over.....you keep leaking the whole time until you give birth.  No one told me this and it caught me off guard.  Also your breasts may start to "leak" well before your due date.
• mine was broken 23 hours before labor started with my first and about 15 hours with the second.....I leaked and leaked and leaked. It was gross and I couldn't stand to walk around, made me feel like I was peeing my pants with every step

Recovery can be worse than delivery. Everyone is different but I wish I would have had a warning about recovery. I couldn't sit on a hard chair for two weeks! I kept saying I'd rather push her out a million times than have the pain of the two weeks after haha.

So this is silly, but me and my husband were all naive and would think yeah after I push out a baby I'll be loose! Then sex will never hurt again. HA! Yeah right. If you get stitches sex could hurt for a year after, at least in the beginning. Again, very personal and different for everyone, but it is possible.

Breastfeeding:

• Your boobs will leak after you've stopped nursing/pumping and are "dried up." Mine leaked while I was PMSing. Fun stuff.
• Clogged ducts can happen after you quit too. I got my first clogged duct in August. I haven't pumped since May. 
• Breastfeeding at the beginning hurts like hell and there is nothing you can do to prepare your nipples.
• It will probably hurt to have sex until you wean or decrease your feedings by quite a bit.  And your sex drive will suck
•  Breastfeeding wasn't painful at all for me
•  Me either. Not really. Some tenderness yeah but not at all what I was expecting. She even had latching issues. Ask for an LC and it will really help. We ended up going until 17 months.

Don't listen to everyone's horror stories, almost everyone has one to tell....


You get yeast infections and UTI's super easy.

Leg cramps:

• I'd wake up in the middle of the night with the worst leg cramp EVER
• I found drinking coconut water really helped with this. It has LOTS of potassium.

What type of belly band would you suggest?  I'm fine at the beginning of the day, but by the end of the day the past few days my pants were killing me.

• I was looking at THIS ONE from Target.
• They worked well for me and they aren't crazy expensive.  
• The trick is a hair tie to expand the pants. Loop it through the button hole and then button. Anyway then use the beband to cover up your open pants. It never really worked completely unbuttoned for me though. 

And even though everyone says that buying cute expensive baby clothes is a waste, if you want to buy a few pieces, do it. I have for my girls and I love seeing them in them. And don't "Save" the cute clothes for a special occasion. You'll never use them if you do.

Stand your ground on labor/delivery. Don't let your family push you around! If you don't want people in your room then don't have them. Your experience, your decision

The first week is going to be the roughest but hold tight because it does get a lot easier!

Take lots of pics when the baby is little because they grow up so fast!