Having some difficulties with the body positivity again. A lot of people make negative comments about people who are pregnant or who have recently been. There is a lot of pressure to return back to the previous weight.

I couldn’t walk with the last month of the pregnancy, or much after the birth because I had major surgery. Then I hurt my knee and I couldn’t walk much because of that.

People don’t have realistic expectations. I don’t really talk about when I’m suffering, so how would they know? And I’m the only one responsible for taking care of my son during the night. So I’m exhausted and tiredness makes people eat. I’m doing the best I can right now to survive. That is all I can do.

In the spirit of body positivity. I’m glad that my stomach took care of and protected my child during pregnancy. It’s a miracle of life. I’m glad that I can walk a little more now. Being outside is really important to me. I’m glad that I can take care of my son. I remember when I was a child I didn’t really understand why adults would complain about being overweight. I thought it was perfectly fine for a mother to be overweight. From my perspective, it was softer to hug. My recommendation as a child was to dress better. Because it’s easy to feel bad when you wear unflattering clothes. I think if you dress well it doesn’t matter what size you are, you can still take pride in your appearance. Perhaps I should take my own advice.

I’m thankful for my beautiful family. And thankful for the progress that my son is making with the bottle. I’m thankful that we have enough to eat. I’m thankful that the medicine is helping my dog to feel better because she has been sick. I’m proud of myself for working on my exams, even though it’s difficult to find the time with a baby at home.

I think it’s hard having taking care of a child because I like to help people. It feels like so much of my life now is centred around my son. I miss helping people. He deserves all of the attention and all of the help in the world. I know that it is important. I didn’t have that and I know how badly it screwed me up. I’m glad that I can do that for him. But I do miss helping people. It helped me to feel better about myself and negate the voice in my head telling me that I wasn’t good enough. Perhaps that is something I need to work on. Valuing my inherent goodness.

Sometimes my day feels small taking care of a child. Cleaning up. Feeding. Entertaining. To many people these are just regular everyday things. But sometimes regular everyday things are the most important. What a child values is consistent care and kindness and it helps them with so many challenges in their life if they have that stable base. I care about the little things. Like being positive when it is time to clean him up and not making him feel bad about being messy. Asking for permission to change him. Allowing him the space to protest if he doesn’t like something and listening to his wants and needs. Cheering for him when he achieves his goals. He gives me the biggest smile and the cheering encourages him to try and do it again.

On the one hand, my day is small but on the other I feel like I save him from himself on a regular basis. Like a sentinel I’m always there watching, trying to protect him. The boy is a lemming and even though nurses say that kids are resilient and stronger than we think. I’d argue that they’re not. It’s important to be safe.

I wonder how I got through my early life of being a baby. It’s a miracle because my mother didn’t take care of me properly.

I’ve been dealing with post partum depression. Trying to manage everything at once feeling overwhelmed constantly. Living in denial telling myself it’ll get better, hoping that I could change nothing and it would miraculously get easier. That’s not how life works. For things to get easier it helps if you do things to make it easier. So I had to let something go to make my life a bit easier.

It’s unique how anxiety just latches onto something else. It just turned into worrying about the future. I was reading about ppd and it turns out hormones are linked, especially if you’re breastfeeding, stress, lack of sleep and inflammation are also major factors. What is interesting is that a medication for ppd actually works on reducing inflammation to treat it. It makes me wonder about the mechanism of inflammation on depression and anxiety in general.

I had been blaming myself for the anxiety and stuff that I was feeling. It’s nice for it not to be my fault and there are things I can do to help. Reducing stress, exercise, eating healthy, sleeping well, socialising and changing to formula could help too in the long term. It’s good to know that it will make me feel worse during the process though.

It has honestly been a bit rough recently. I’ve been feeling overwhelmed. My son started waking hourly throughout the night. Things are getting better now. I’m practicing various aspects of sleep training with him. I think I can celebrate now that I’m down to one wake a night! Hooray!

He’s trying really hard to crawl. It’s wild how quickly they grow up. I love his sweet face and his cute chubby cheeks. He’s such a good boy! It’s scary how he is a lemming though. I feel like a sentinel watching over him trying to protect him from himself. I’m glad that he is safe and happy.

It’s hard transitioning him to a bottle. He has a lot of strong feelings about wanting a boob instead. He’s okay taking a certain amount of formula, but after a certain point he says no more! I would like for him to be entirely on formula. It would be easier for my health. I just don’t want to upset him. I hate seeing him cry. I guess we just have to go a bit at a time and take things slow. I look forward to when these difficulties are behind us.

I enjoyed spending time with my family.

Weight loss has taken a bit of a hit because we’ve been eating unhealthily. But we’re trying to get back into eating healthily.

As always, my husband has been amazingly supportive. Our communication during disagreements has been better too. I’m really thankful for that.