My First Week with a Newborn: Postpartum Care + Our New Morning Routine (Life has changed…)

Is that you? How's this one? What I eat in a day at the hospital. Breastfeeding hunger is already kicking in. He eats like honey. I feel better than when I did with Sage. Any words of wisdom for moms to be out there? Say no to visitors. And don't feel like you need to call everyone right away. I feel like last night we were kind of like running. I was running off adrenaline a little bit. It was really like calming last night just to have like no phone call. I don't know. It was just like protecting our peace. I'm glad we did that. And then now I'm excited. Now we have something to do today. Call everyone and FaceTime. Hi honey. Hi. Am I just skin to skin with mommy? You slept like a baby. Oakley's having his breakfast. He's got hiccups again. He had so many hiccups in mommy's tummy. He's awake. But I figured he had a good one. He's cute. I'm gonna make sure I get under his chin. I know. And his rolls. I'm gonna just wring out my towel on his head. You don't love it, do you? You'll learn to love it. Hi baby. He's so quiet these days with all this stuff going on. Alright guys, we are just about ready to go home. We're just waiting for a nurse to come in and give like final blood test results for Oakley. And then also I think I have to check my stomach and stuff. Matt already packed up the car with like all of our bags. We have like a couple of things. We are going to get Oakley dressed. Apparently it's like 17 degrees Celsius outside. So not too cold. This is my going home outfit. His belly. It's so crazy that there's not a baby in there anymore. I could probably still pretend I'm pregnant for a little bit. Also, I didn't give you like a room tour. It looks really cute in here. It's been like the best day. Like honestly, I love this hospital. I delivered at Southlake in Newmarket, Ontario. And the nurses here are so amazing. And we've just had such a good experience both times. This is where Matt slept. His little chair. My bed. Oakley's bed. This was usually like right here. But they've been doing like tests and stuff. This is like the dining table. We're going to pack him up in there. Little kitchenette. Bathroom. Got a microwave. Mini fridge. Yeah, look at the art. It's so cute. This was a upgraded room we got because it had the bed and it was available. He's got a little bit of a popped blood vessel in this eye. But they said it should go away in like a week. Both mommy and Oakley have some trauma from birth. Did not see that coming. Oh, that was huge. Oh my god. They changed one just a couple hours ago, right? He's just so mesmerized by the world, eh? I know, right? He's like, where am I? Oakley's all bundled up for his ride home. Good morning. You hungry? Big stretch. Okay, he's hungry. Let's give him some milk. And start the day. We've started the day since like 3 a.m. But, you know, for you guys. Okay, let's go give you some milky. Track it on my app. Right side. Okay. I love that he's in his home. How's this one? All laundry. It's all soaked with pee. Let's see if he likes these. Whoa. Whoa, that's a good one. Okay, I'm gonna get dressed while he stares at this. And then I'll bring him down to Daddy and Sagey. There's my postpartum belly. So crazy how there was a baby in there just a few days ago. Like, mind blown. Also, my milk has come in. And let me tell you, so much more uncomfortable this time than with Sage. My midwife said it's normal for it to be more uncomfortable. Like more engorgement for like second babies and third babies and so on. So I'm dealing with that. I'm just doing like cold cabbage leaves, icing, hot showers, massaging. And then obviously breastfeeding Oakley. And then also I'm doing a little bit of pumping. Yeah? Hey, say good morning, Oakley. You want to hold him? Yeah. Okay. Okay, let's go wash your hands. He's so cute. Yeah. Okay, we're gonna hold his head. Daddy. You funny? Look at Daddy's baby. I see it. Is that your baby brother? Come on. Say hi, Oakley. Hi, Oakley. I love how she says his name. Aww, he's so cute. Okay, Mommy's gonna go get some food. You gonna babysit? Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna make a smoothie. Oh, I'm glad he let me sleep in this morning. Hey Siri, set a timer for five minutes. Oh no, I'm already leaking. Why am I leaking? So I've actually only been doing like five minute pump sessions because my breasts are just so engorged with milk as it just came in like a couple days ago. So my midwife is like, don't do full pumping sessions. Otherwise my body will think I have twins and make more milk. And there's, it's too much. It's too much. It's so uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful my milk has come in, but this transition period is just a little bit rough right now. But we'll get through it. On the plus side, I've been able to start already storing breast milk in the freezer. So I'm just gonna put this in the fridge in case I have a little bit more to add to it since I'm only doing like the five minute pump sessions. Also, I've been trying out this portable pump. I have a couple from Sage as well, but so far so good. I've been really liking this one. Okay, let's have some smoothies. I'm gonna put these in the fridge. Sage, do you want smoothie? No. Are you sure? It's a strawberry one. Okay. Oh, perfect. That measurement. Time for daddy to carry the baby. I did it for nine months. Matt actually will usually have him in the carrier like every morning. Oh, I like your outfit. So he peed through his outfit again. I'm convinced that he's in newborn diapers. I feel like they're too small. The level ones say from eight to 12 pounds. So yeah, let's try the bigger diapers because like the small ones, I feel like he's just soaking through his clothes. Yeah, you gotta go vegetables. Thank you, little dude. That's yummy. Right? I'm also making my herbal coffee in the thermos. So it's hot. And if I don't put my herbal coffee in a thermos cup, it's gonna go cold. I got my drinks. Okay, so daddy has Oakley, Sage is at daycare, and I want to talk to you guys about something that has helped us so much since having Oakley at home and having to entertain a three-year-old. Life is already crazy. I want to thank KiwiCo for sponsoring this video and helping us as now parents of two navigate this stage of life. One of the things that we used for Sage when she was little, and I'm really excited to be using them again, are the KiwiCo crates. They have different ones depending on what age your little ones are at. They have the Panda crate, which is for ages zero to 36 months. And then this is the one that Sage just upgraded to, so she hasn't even tried this one yet. It's the Koala crates, which is for ages three and four. I love all of the different crates that KiwiCo offers. And then it's not just your traditional toy. It really helps spark their imagination and creativity. It also helps teach you as a parent on how to actually play with your kids depending on their age and where they are development-wise. So I actually stocked up and got two for Sage. This is the Rainbows Koala kit, and then I also have the farm one. I have the zero to two months Panda crate for Oakley. This focuses on items for tummy time and also targeted towards things that they can actually see at this point. Newborns can only see about eight to 12 inches away from them, and they really love large shapes and bold patterns in black and white or high contrast colors. These black and white cards are great. I use them a lot in the mornings while I'm getting myself ready or if I have something quick to do for work. Oakley is fascinated by them. He loves the contrast of the black and white, and I'll just flip to a new card every couple of minutes, and he's just like, ooh, this is so cool. And you can really see how it does grab their attention. This Koala crate is the farm one, and it comes with different crafts to make little finger puppets of animals, which she loves animals. She loves naming them. And ironically enough, she's really into puppets right now. So she's gonna love this, and I'm actually gonna have this ready for her when she comes home from daycare. That time in between coming home from daycare and before dinner, I find it sometimes hard to fill and do things, especially if I'm tending to Oakley or Matt or myself is starting to bake dinner. This is a great activity to help keep her focused and entertained. This is the time of day that I really like to just have some one-on-one with Sage. Sage is getting really into arts and crafts and hands-on activities. So things like this are really gonna help spark her imagination and just challenge her a little bit more. December is here, and if you're starting your holiday shopping, this is such a unique gift to give to someone, especially over the holiday break. Parents are going to need stuff like this to help entertain their kids and get through those last couple of weeks of the year. Use my code NICOLE for 50% off your first month of KiwiCo. It's dinner time. I'm daddy. Okay, so this is our station at night. It's a little messy right now, but I have eye masks. This is like a weighted one. Diapers, wipes, foot cream, snacks. Matt usually makes them, but I made it today. Slap him. No, I had the baby. Yeah, you had the baby. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Apples. Stuff is in here. Got a changing pad. A tablet. Stuff for baby. Stuff for me. And then in this cart, it's all my postpartum stuff, which I will show you tomorrow. But I also have my tea, my water, and anything else that I need. And then the bathroom is right there, which I use probably more than when I was very pregnant. This is where Oakley sleeps. This is the SNOO bassinet. Underneath, I have some extra clothes. Mattress cover and swaddles just in case he has like a blowout or something. But yeah, so I usually swaddle him in this. It's like a double swaddle. So it's like he has his blanket because this is actually quite thin. The one that it comes with. This just straps right in. And then it has like a built-in white noise as well as it rocks if you want it to rock. This is a new breastfeeding pillow that I've been trying. Love it. It's called, I think, The Breast Friend or something. I'll link it below. But it is so supportive. It's the best. I'm not gonna lie. I'm a little worried about tonight because Oakley slept like all day. He would get up for a feed and then just pass out right away. So I mean, he's only a few days old, but I feel like he's already going through a growth spurt because you're just so sleepy. Okay, he's hungry. I'm gonna give him some milk and then I try to time going to bed when he does later in the evening so that I can get a little bit of a stretch of sleep because I do the night shifts and then Matt does the Sagey shifts in the morning. I need Matt to be well-rested and like, honestly, there's not much you can do because Oakley is breastfed. We're not like introducing bottles yet and like, honestly, Sage wouldn't even take a bottle. So, alright. Milky time and I'm probably gonna dig into one of my snacks now. I'm kind of hungry. I'm gonna eat them before the night starts. But yeah, I'll probably try to document like some of the night but we are probably up every two to three hours, which is not horrible, but it's not great. I'm gonna eat it. You're gonna eat it? Yeah. Freeze. Unfreeze. Ahh. You're good now. Freeze. Oh. You gonna trick or treat today? Yeah. Good morning. We actually had a really good night last night. Oakley slept the first stretch for four hours. That has not been the usual. Usually it's been like two and a half, maybe three, but oh, it was really nice. I got a little bit of a longer stretch of sleep. I just finished pumping some milk. I'm gonna put this aside so Matt can bake it up. Usually I want to talk a little bit about how like Matt and I divide and conquer with kids with the whole breastfeeding situation. Matt is usually the one that like sanitizes everything, gets it all ready. I obviously pump and breastfeed and then he will transfer the milk into the freezer bags and stuff and that's just how we split it up because I think a lot of times like the breastfeeding, the cleaning, all that stuff is just thrown on to mom and feeding your baby is a really large part of taking care of them. So I think it's really nice like if you can split it up so it's just not on one person because like if I had to wash everything, freeze everything, get it all set up, it's just like way more exhausting and breastfeeding itself, feeding your baby in any way is exhausting and takes up a lot of time so I think it's good to like split that up if possible. When it comes to our morning routine, Matt is on sage duty. In the future, we'll probably like alternate but I'm obviously still healing from postpartum so I'm just trying to get extra rest when I can and not walk around and do the stairs too much. So he'll like wake her up, get her dressed, feed her breakfast and then take her to daycare while I kind of hang out with Oakley which he's the easy one right now. So he's napping so I'm actually going to go and take a shower and just get myself ready. I might take a nap, I don't know but I feel like I had a little bit extra sleep last night so I'm not feeling too bad. I had to rush the end of my shower because Oakley had woken up so we're just doing a little skin to skin before I finish my skincare and get dressed. So it's 10.30, I haven't eaten breakfast yet because Oakley fell asleep on me. He's on Matt right now but he's getting hungry so I'm going to quickly make myself some food hopefully before he loses it. Alright, there is my breakfast. I was craving like sweet and savoury. You want some bites? Go feed Oakley. My ribs are still hurting me so much. So annoying. If you've ever dealt with rib pain it's the worst. It's honestly been the hardest part of my recovery. Okay, while Oakley is napping I want to show you my postpartum cart. I did not do this with my first pregnancy and postpartum experience. After that experience I was like yes, everyone's prepping the baby's room. Oh, you guys are bouncing on a book and it's not very safe. You know, we're always thinking about the baby, the nursery, prepping everything for when baby comes but you need to take care of yourself after birth and that is why I decided to create a little postpartum caddy for me to have all my essentials ready to go for taking care of myself, self-recovering and healing my body. So, I wanted to go over what I have in here because there's a lot of repeats from my first postpartum experience and some new items too that I'm excited to try out. This is actually Sage's diaper caddy that we used to have in her room but she is basically out of diapers now so I'm borrowing it for mommy's diapers. That's weird. This is usually right beside my bed but I just brought it into the light so you can see. Up top I have some, these are like maxi pads guys. I'm gonna have a blog post with like everything linked for you guys. These are the free to mom briefs. I'm actually wearing them right now and they are the best. You need to get these and they're so comfy. They're kind of like a boxer brief but they're disposable so super breathable, comfortable, cannot recommend them enough. This is a photo postpartum with Sage and it's the exact underwear that I'm wearing there. Okay, then I just got some baby wipes. These can be used for me or baby or whatever I need them for. In here I got like all my sprays and stuff. This is a new product perineal healing foam. I like it. It sometimes stings a bit. I think there might be alcohol in it but it's like a cooling healing foam. Arnica gel, I've been mostly using this for my ribs because I bruise them during the end of my pregnancy. I also have Arnica tablets I've been taking internally for postpartum. The Earth Mama perineal spray, super cooling, does not sting. Another spray that I'm using this time around again is this Clariderm one from Young Living. It's a bunch of essential oils. It is really healing and cooling and it's just like more of an oil spray. Really like it so I'll alternate between that one and the Earth Mama one. I also have some magnesium sprays. This is leftover from pregnancy because I had the worst restless legs ever but also magnesium is really good for you for like relaxing and stuff so I'm still just finishing it up but basically after I gave birth my restless legs are like gone. That's great. Magnesium spray, a little TMI but this is like a more natural hemorrhoid cream. If you know, you know. You're not just pushing on a baby. I have some hand sanitizer spray just in case. Sometimes you're changing poopy diapers and then you have to go straight to like feeding baby and you just don't have time to wash your hands just yet so that's handy. Lip balm, nipple butter. I like this one also from Earth Mama. Oh, that breastfeeding back pain. Okay, another magnesium product that I like. This one here, it has like shea butter in it I believe. I love this one. This is what I would slather my legs in during pregnancy every single night and it saved me from restless legs. I also have a breast pump here. This is a new one I've been trying and really liking it. It's a portable one but I usually have a couple different ones because one might be in the wash or you might be on the go or one breaks. It's always good to have like more than one breast pump so I have those here. My water bottle. Let's go down to the next layer. What is this, a cake? Okay, so down here I have some adult diapers. These are necessary. Definitely get them because during the first couple days you are bleeding a lot. Everything's coming up. Also, sometimes urine so you definitely want some diapers. These are some ice maxi pads so they're cooling and absorbent. It's like a two-in-one. Down here we have more pads so I like to have different levels of absorption for pads because you're gonna want different stuff for different times of like your postpartum journey. I like this brand they're all natural organic. I got different kinds. I will link them in the blog post. Oh, they also have a maternity one that I don't have in here but that's in the bathroom. For nipple care I have these silver cups. I didn't have these for after stage so I've been trying them out and they're nice because they're reusable and they're just cooling so I've been using those. This is a new product one of my friends at the gym actually recommended these so I have yet to try them out. They're kind of like a cooling under eye patch but for your nips so I'm gonna try those. I haven't actually used these yet but they're perineal cooling pad liners. Some people also use tucks. I just try to do like more of the natural route but there is that or like a dermaplast spray for like pain relief. Down here we got the peri bottle. I have one in each bathroom. This is great to help cleanse after you go to the bathroom. I have this muscle melt lotion from Sage Wellness. So amazing for sore muscles and stuff especially if you're breastfeeding. It's great on the neck and shoulders and upper back so I usually apply this at night. I have my postpartum underwear. This is like actual real cotton underwear and I use this after Sage. I really like them. They're like high-waisted, black so they're not gonna stain and I haven't used these yet. I'm still in the diaper and the disposable underwear phase but then this is just Epsom salts for like sitz baths or just relaxing at the end of the night and yeah that's everything that is in my cart. I have this right beside my bed at night and it's so handy to have everything here at my fingertips. Guys that was a workout. I'm still early in my postpartum journey. We've officially been home for just over a week so I just wanted to share like some tips and stuff what's going on. It's like night and day from how I felt like on day one being home to now so if you feel like I have like more energy and I'm walking around like that's just because I've been resting a lot and not leaving the house. I've been joking that I'm on house arrest. Even if you feel like you are doing so much better just remember that you have a very large wound inside your body in your uterus from like the placenta detaching so just because you can't see it it doesn't mean it's not there and that's something that I'm constantly reminding myself of and just really taking it easy. I have not left the house yet for like a walk or anything although my midwife said the other day like I can start going for short walks and then if I start experiencing like more pain or extra bleeding to then take it back a notch and just do some more resting. So everyone is so different when it comes to their postpartum healing journey so don't compare yours to somebody else's. I've also been doing my pelvic floor breathing exercises that my pelvic floor therapist told me I can do after birth. I think it's called 360 breathing but that's just been really good to start connecting my body with my muscles and just starting to lightly strengthen that pelvic floor again because a baby just broke through it. I'm gonna give more details in the blog post as well for like how I kind of use these products and take care of my lady bits and my body during my postpartum recovery because I think it can be a little overwhelming like when do you use what with what and how long do you use things for everybody's different but I can just kind of explain my personal experience and what has worked for me for both births and I really love all these products some of them like I said are new but there's definitely some staples in there that have been really great to have and I just want to recommend them to you guys if you're looking for building your own postpartum cart all right I think that's gonna be it for this vlog thank you so much for watching it really helps out if you give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it leave me a comment down below letting me know what other baby and postpartum content you guys want to see on my channel or just like lifestyle content do you guys want me to do like another what I eat in a day video or something let me know down below don't forget to subscribe on your way out and I will see you guys in the next video bye guys there is a life