Mama to Freddie and Leo, Sophie Church (@sophie__church) answers our Mamahood's most burning questions around her pregnancies, life in the spotlight and her favourite Mama Mio essentials.
How Have You Found Becoming A Mum In The Spotlight And Also Being Pregnant For The Second Time?
Obviously, I had Freddie 7 years ago now, so things have completely changed since I had him and to be honest, I didn’t remember a lot about being pregnant and newborns. So, for me it feels like I'm going back to square one again, but I guess it's completely different this time being with Jake and being in the spotlight. What I've realised is you have to really think about what you’re putting out there to people. Know that everyone has an opinion and sometimes that opinion isn’t what you necessarily agree with, but you just have to realise that everyone raises children differently and just because what I think personally is what I want to do doesn’t mean what someone else is going to do. And sometimes you just have to have thick skin about it. It is hard sometimes when you want to share everything with everyone but you know that some people aren't necessarily going to agree.
How Did You Come Up With The Name Leo?
Leo has always been one of my favourite names, and when me and Jake were talking about names, we said that any that neither one of us didn’t like, we would completely scrap but from day dot. From the moment I found out I was pregnant I said Leo, and Jake loved it and from then it just stuck. For the girls names, we ended up having about 3 different names but for some reason Leo was always our boys name from the beginning.
How Did Your Pregnancy Journey Differ During Lockdown?
I mean it was hard at times because we couldn’t do the things we wanted to do and we couldn’t see our family and we couldn’t share that experience with other people. But for me the toughest part was when Leo's here and not being able to take him to meet our friends and meet our family and take him out to do things and show him off to the world. Because during the pregnancy not really much changed in the sense that Jake could still come to the scans, which we were really fortunate he could do, and we could still obviously have the scans, we could still do the classes but they were just adapted so we had to do them online and we still got to facetime the family and share the pregnancy journey with them. But it's just now that Leo’s here we would like to be able to show him off to the world which we can’t do at the moment.
What Are You Going To Do To Ensure That You Have Time For Yourself?
I think it's really important that as a mum, and as a parent, you take some time out of your day for self-care to do whatever you want to do whether that be to have a bath, have a 10-minute walk, go to the gym, have a cup of tea. Anything like that is so important because as parents sometimes we put our kids first and are own self-care goes to the back of the pile and you can end up getting quite down about it and quite run down. I can sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed about everything but I just make sure that I give myself, even if it's an hour a week to do something for me. I enjoy working out or going for a walk and listening to some music or just chilling out and having a bit of peaceful time.
Do You Want More Children?
I mean even though Leo isn't the best of sleepers at the moment, he can be very wingy during the day and very unsettled. We’ve had a lot of troubles with his milk and the fact that he’s colic and also got reflux, do you know what it still doesn’t put me off having kids! I would love probably 2 more, so 4 kids all together. I just like the idea of having like a huge family having big Christmas' together having big birthdays all playing games, I would just love 2 more! I would be happy with 2 but if we did have 2 more, I would be happy.
What Advice Would You Give To A New Parent?
It would definitely be, nothing can really prepare you. Expect sleepless nights, expect to be tired, expect to have days where you feel frustrated, but that’s normal and it’s fine if some days you feel sad and other days you wake up and you're completely happy because we all go through that. Remember that how you feel in that moment is temporary. Remember that if you have an argument with your boyfriend, partner or husband in the night that in the morning just start fresh and forget about it because there's going to be hard times like hat when you’re both going to feel frustrated with each other but remember you have a little baby at the end of the day, so what more could you want!
What Products Did You Use In My Pregnancy And How Early Did You Start To Use Them?
I used throughout the whole of my pregnancy, the Mama Mio products, which I absolutely loved and I'm still actually using them now! I started using them probably from the first trimester, pretty much as soon as I found out I was pregnant, because I just wanted to completely prevent any stretch marks from the very beginning and I used them all over my body because the whole of your body gets bigger when you're pregnant. It’s not just your bump, it’s your arms, it's your legs, it's your bum, it’s your back - everywhere. So, for me, I just wanted to start them from the very beginning and then right up until now I'm still using them because a lot of people think that once you give birth your belly just goes back in and that's how it is, but actually you can still get stretch marks after you've given birth when your skin is that going back to normal and healing
Sophie's Mama Essentials
Did You Workout During Your Pregnancy And Are You Working Out Now?
I worked out before I was pregnant quite a bit, and then when I found out I was pregnant because we were in a lockdown and gyms didn’t open and we didn’t have our home gym then I actually didn’t do anything. Don't get me wrong we went for the odd walk every day and did like the odd really long walk, but for me I just didn't really want to put too much pressure on myself. I wanted to enjoy the fact that I can sit around eating crisps and chocolates for nine months, and not really thinking about too much. Also, when I was pregnant it was during like the winter months so I, like most people, if it's raining or if it's cold, I don't really fancy go for a walk so I kind of just did what I could do and I didn’t put too much pressure on myself! Now that I've had Leo, one of the things I do like to do for my mental health is to work out, even if that’s for 10 minutes just to wake myself up in the morning and put me in a good headspace! I'm now sort of slowly going into easy workouts which I actually did get signed off by my midwife to say that it was all okay, and I think that's really important that after you give birth you check with your midwife to make sure that it is safe for you to work out. Everyone is different, I had a natural Labour and didn't have stitches so for me, I could go back to working out quite soon, whereas other people have to wait a few more weeks than I did.
Tips For Packing A Hospital Bag?
This is one thing that gave me severe anxiety and it took me ages to do. You know what I ended up buying a pre packed bag because I didn't know what to put in there and then adding other little bits and pieces that I saw from other people's Instagram's. I even just googled it to be honest! If you Google hospital bag lists there are so many people on Google that you could just print off and go and get all the bits and put in hospital back and add any extras. So, yeah, that would be my number one tip: Google hospital bag lists, print that off, go down to your local supermarket everything you need on the list and then add any little extras.
What Is The Hardest Part About Becoming A Mum?
For me, it's a frustration of sometimes not knowing why your baby is upset and crying. Like you've gone through the steps: they've been fed, they've been changed they're not hot, they’re not cold and they're still upset and you still can't settle them and that sometimes made me feel that I was doing something wrong. It makes sense your question as you question you as a parent and what I've realised is, you just can't do that! Sometimes babies are upset, and sometimes they are sad, and they do cry - that is just normal. I guess another hard thing about becoming a mum is when you've got two kids or three kids or for kids you have to make time for the other children. You don't want them to suffer because you've had another baby, so it's just managing that time as well as everything else that goes on in day-to-day life.
Did You Have Any Morning Sickness And If You Did, Do You Have Any Tips?
I had severe morning sickness from about six weeks to probably about week 15. I actually ended up going on various types of medication to try and help me. One thing, that I did that helped me was having small meals and often, and trying to drink as much water as possible, so that if you are sick, you do stay hydrated. Also keeping myself busy, even if I didn't feel that well, make sure that you get out of bed, go for a small walk and get that fresh air because that made me feel better rather than sitting in or sitting in bed moping around all day.
Did Your Skin And Nails Change During Pregnancy?
My nails not really because I've always had brittle nails anyway. People say your hair changes as well, my hair didn't really change. But, my skin definitely! I suffered really badly with pregnancy acne and even now I'm still trying to find ways to clear with my skin and sort out the scarring that had been left with. That was really hard and did I make me feel really down at times, especially at the early stages I didn't feel very well, my skin was really bad and I didn't feel that great in myself in general. It's just hard sometimes to find ways to pick yourself up. But, that's why I think it's really important I try and share with people on my social media that, to have spots during pregnancy is completely normal, and I try to share different things that I've tried that worked for me.
Are You Breastfeeding And If Not, Why?
I actually chose to bottle feed Leo from the very beginning. I breast fed with Freddie and I found it very, very painful and he just didn't get on with it. I didn't know how much he was taking; he was very unsettled; he wasn't sleeping very well and I don't think I was producing that much milk anyway. So, this time around I just thought that rather than start trying to breastfeed and getting myself in a state because I couldn't do it, I just wanted to start doing what was right not only for Leo but also for me as well. For that reason, I decided to bottle feed. There are so many preconceptions nowadays about bottle feeding, and I just think it just needs to be normalised more and people don't need to be embarrassed or shouldn't be embarrassed to say they are bottle feeding rather than breastfeeding because it's about what works for you as a family.
The New Mama Edit
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