Maternity Leave

Maddy 3 weeks old

So for the 1st two months I was off and got to spend plenty of time bonding with Madeline and healing from my c-section as well. The days were sometimes rough after the 1st two weeks were over and Mr. S went back to work. There would be evenings he would get home from work take one look at me, grab the baby if she wasn't down sleeping and practically push me into bed to sleep, there would be mornings he would gently wake me and tell me he had to go to sleep so he had sleep for work and I would get up with Maddy and take over. We knew once my leave was over I was going to be working a modified midnight shift so we started early with our "time" of day that Maddy was one persons responsibility to get up with although I still had to get up quite often to pump milk while he fed her but some nights I would pump, he would feed her and change her diaper and we would all go back to sleep for the next 2 or 3 hours.

Small baby Big dog

So I would love to say that Madeline started sleeping through the night (STTN) at an early age but she didn't and quite frankly I was tired all the time. They say that the exhaustion and up every 30-45 minutes to pee in the 3rd trimester is good practice for a newborn and I'd say that yes that is pretty true! Thankfully my mother in law was a huge help. She'd come over to visit a few hours a week in which I would, sleep, run laundry, do dishes or just visit depending on what needed to be done. We still have this arrangement but now when she comes over I nap and she plays with the baby a win-win-win situation for the most part.

Tired Daddy and sleeping baby

Of course my 8 week leave started at the end of April and went until the end of June. During this time you would think hey its spring good weather you can get out and enjoy it. Yeah the Michigan weather had other plans for us I think only the last 2 weeks were mainly decent other than that it was chilly or rainy and not really weather you want to drag a newborn out in.