Novice

Even though I have just given birth for the fourth time, please don't assume I know what I am doing.

It could be the age gap between baby 3 and baby 4 or my ever decreasing brain cells allowing me to forget, but I feel like a first time mum again.

I almost grabbed the Health Visitor as she was about to leave, to plead with her for more information, more leaflets and more support because I didn't feel she gave me her all, her very best, during my first home visit.

She was fairly dismissive with my questions and regularly made reference to the other three monkeys that were building a den* in the garden.

* It was the most fabulous den made with sheer brilliance and I was so proud of them.

I pointed out that everything changes and guidance given ten years ago from my previous lovely helpful Health Visitor was now either dis-proven, extinct or further developed.

Even the Midwives seemed to all be reading off different hymn sheets.
Midwife 1 advises me to breastfeed from both sides.
Midwife 2 (weighs baby regularly due to weight loss) advises to just feed off one side for up to forty minutes, as the best fatty milk it right at the end.
Midwife 3 says in shock..."Sandra really told you that? Because we all attended a session which said that was absolute rubbish and you can feed off both sides. The milk is all the same."

Smashing.

I have a confidence about me, that I don't think I had for awhile with baby 1. More so, the knowledge that I have no reason to panic about everything and that although she is super tiny, she won't break when I try to bend her arms into the babygrow or her little body doesn't need to be wrapped in layers and layers of warm clothes before swaddling her in twenty blankets. I'm also more relaxed with allowing other children to manhandle my bundle of joy, knowing again, they won't necessarily drop and smash her.
I also think I have a slight better understanding than a first time mum of the different types of baby cries. I know there are some that don't need split second attention.
I still don't want others to think that I am 100% in knowing what I am doing is right or that any guidance or advice will be rubbished. It's all welcome.

She is OH's first baby and he is doing remarkably well. Completely relaxed, he seems to know exactly what he is doing, like he has secretly been reading every parenting handbook on the side. He definitely doesn't act like a first time parent. Maybe he has confidence knowing there is a (clueless) fourth-timer in the household?

I like that I don't feel arrogant, that I don't feel that I have "been there, done that!" I don't think that attitude would be fair to OH.

I have been reading booklets this morning on topics that I should really know tonnes about and am nervous about attending a breastfeeding group next week. Fancied somewhere that I could get a cup of tea amongst friendly mums and know that I could get my knockers out to feed the baby in safety. But the Midwife told me that the woman who runs the group will be so pleased when I go, a "breastfeeding pro," she referred to me as. That Barbara will be making me attend all the new parent/parent to be sessions to teach them all the tricks.

Arghhhhh, was she not listening to my thirty questions on breastfeeding baby 4 because I wasn't sure I was doing it right?

So please, anyone reading this, don't take my advice, don't assume I know it all. By all means, I am happy to tell others how I manage things IF THEY ASK! But I am definitely not one of those mums, that force their ways onto a newbie.