Parenting Poo Gate by Bloom Baby Classes

Poogate

The Bloom Blog

So after my last blog on relationships after kids I recalled an event or events (notice the plural) that have happened to us as a family. You know one of those moments that no-one prepares you for. Those events where your super powers are put to the test requiring quick thinking and impressive reaction times.

This has actually happened a few times, the first time was a a complete “WOAH” shocker but it’s happened loads of times since.

Having three girls all under 4 years you are kind of programmed to do things fairly quickly and in a ninja warrior way. As an example you can be cooking the dinner whilst holding the baby, with a toddler attached to your leg who’s decided that they no longer want to nap in the afternoon resulting in the witching hour from 430 onward. -whilst teaching the four year old to read. That kind of thing you know every day mum stuff.

Bath time was another machine production line kind of operation. The bath can fit 3 small people in and no-one can dissapear they are all pretty much in the same place for probably the only part of the day. You go along in a line, wet hair, wet hair, wet hair, shampoo, shampoo, shampoo, rinse, rinse, rinse etc. You get the picture.

It’s only on the occasion where toddler girl decides to take a dump in the bath that your day goes - to shit quite literally. Whether they just decide to take a poop or occasionally still where they have contracted diarrhea and the first you know about it is yep you guessed it in the family bath.

Eldest “Mummy mummy mummy”

They are all talking they are always all talking or making some sort of noise and you’ve just watched CBeebies for half an hour. Mummy is now on count down to wine o clock, mission kids bedtime and your quite frankly not paying any attention.

“Mummy there is poo in the bath”

Hey? There cannot be poop in the bath no -one poops in the bath. Holy heck the bath is filling with poo!!! Enter Supermum making them all stand and dodge the floating poos whilst you save the youngest first. As that’s the rules - despite the fact its most likely their poop it’s just the running order.

So there they stand crying that they have touched their sisters poop and all you can think about is the potential germ fest risks that can arise from this harrowing experience. Then you realise something…. You have to empty the plug. That’s right Mummy’s arm has to enter the poo ridden bath and empty the plug through sounds of “Ewwww mummy’s touching poo ewwww poooo ewwww”. You’d expect the nightmare to end there but it never does as more often than not the poo doesn’t go down the plughole and you are then required to find nappy sacks and collect every floater that has escaped from your darling child’s bottom.

Like I said earlier, this hasn’t just happened once in fact its happened to my husband on one occassion. We were both in the bathroom when the dreaded “Mummy theres poooo” declaration occurred and what happened? Absolutely nothing he just stood there with a shocked face unable to move. Either that or in shock of my ultra fast and now professional poo saving skills.

It is with events like this that the 7pm bedtime is a mum’s favourite time of the day. The time that Super-mum can finally relax on the settee with a glass of wine. For about half an hour….

I hope you enjoyed my POOP Blog if you have had a similar experience please share and make me feel slightly more normal.

Victoria Jennings Bloom Baby Classes

Bloom-Baby-Classes-My-First-Baby-And-Me

23.10.08 01.50am

After 41 hours of a traumatic labour with a difficult delivery Ana Rose was born … The last time sleep had graced me was 3 days before and Ana arrived into the world bruised and scraped from the failed ventouse and the forceps. Flashbacks of a doctor kicking their white pumps off and putting her foot against the bed to extract her out of me ring back even to this day. Not one person had prepared me for this!

I was too scared to close my eyes through fear she would stop breathing, every time I tried to put her down she cried . The first night home she cried for over 3 hours and neither me or my now husband knew what to do. At one point he asked if we should take her back to the hospital! We were clueless, handed a bundle of crying red baby and sent on our way to cope by ourselves. Night four of no sleep made me see things, I kept staring at Ana and seeing her pull funny faces. I knew it was my tiredness at the time and not that I had brought a possessed baby home from the hospital but the thought did enter my head.

Most days she cried slept and fed repeat, and I held her, sleeping upright with her on my chest then after around a week we gave in and let her co-sleep. Dave would go to the shops for provisions on his way home from work and cook me a meal, id sit holding or feeding her unable to eat my meal and Dave would dutifully cut up the food so I could shovel pieces into my mouth every now and then.

Ana and I would watch box sets on the TV I spent a week watching all the pride and prejudices quite proudly and would report back each evening how many episodes I had watched. There were no baby classes to take her to or none that I knew of - not that I would of gone anyway.

When Ana was around 3 months old I felt a bit more able to go shopping and enjoyed the trip around Tesco perusing the baby aisle and would aim to get out of the house every other day. The supermarket became my best friend, Ana would fall asleep in the car seat on the way home, I would then sit in the car waiting for her to wake up as she slept lightly so attempting to bring the seat in the house always ended in her waking up. She rarely fell asleep in the pushchair so that was my routine. Some days I would just go for a drive waiting for her to fall asleep.

At four and a half months I returned to work, working almost full time hours and Ana went to my good friends who was a childminder so she was in very safe hands. There was little sleep at night as we were still co-sleeping and feeding in the night. Id leave for work at 730am and be home for 6pm life became tiresome, work was no longer enjoyable and at weekends all I wanted to do was sleep and pass Ana to her Dad.

That’s when I realised … I had started to feel different. I was different. I wasn’t happy one bit in fact I felt the complete opposite. I felt dread, sadness and an overbearing feeling of something literally hanging above my head. I didn’t want to socialise , I didn’t want to spend time with anyone. Spending time with Ana was tiring so I almost robotically parented her, handing her over to her Dad whenever I could. I was sad very sad and it scared me to death.

I decided after Anas first birthday to make more of an effort for my husband , Ana and myself. It was hard but I could no longer carry on in this way, it was difficult but small steps helped. I learnt about myself, ate healthier , walked more, got out more , made an effort to socialise more. Small steps, each day and I was able to self manage my sadness, enjoy my family more and the cloud started to lift…

For anyone reading this recognising those feelings feeling scared, reach out get in touch, talk. It does get easier you can feel yourself again. Bloom Baby Classes provided safe, relaxing and welcoming baby classes and know being a mum isn’t always so easy and we love getting to know our mums and their babies.

Vic x