Roll on to 13 August 2013.
The first morning in hospital as brand new parents to a gorgeous baby boy we had to attend a demonstration on how to bath your baby. I sat there deer in headlights trying to take in as much as I possibly could of what seemed like an impossible task. The next morning we had to do it ourselves. I did not sleep at all that night. I walked the hall to the nursery like someone on death row. A terrified nervous wreck. I couldn’t remember a thing the nurse said the previous day. I filled up the little baby bath with a sense of dread while they rolled my teeny tiny human over. It took me forever to undress him as I was petrified of breaking him. It took me even longer to bath him as I used a new cotton ball on every tiny part of his body worried about spreading infection. While washing his hair I honestly thought I was going to pass out from all the anxiety. This very long and very careful bath routine carried on for about 2 weeks. Now I cannot even believe bath time was such a terrifying experience as I plop my baby in the bath and wipe everything with the same wash cloth without even giving it a second thought.
The moral of the story is that yes being a parent can be scary, there will be tears, there will be moments of thinking ‘I can’t do this’ but you will adapt, you will learn, and soon it becomes second nature. I now laugh at scared new mom me who took 20mins to top and tail her baby. What frightened me so is now my favourite time of day as I watch my baby splash in the bath and chew on a rubber ducky.