'The First Baby' by Louise McClean

I was nineteen when I had my first child and though we hadn't planned to start our family so soon, accidents happen, and we weren't over bothered.
Having been the first grandchild and the first to marry, I now also produced the first of the new generation. This was a bit alarming as I didn't know the first thing about babies and the eyes of the extended family were upon me.
To help matters the baby, David, was a month premature weighing just five and a half pounds when we brought him home from hospital.
At the time (September 1953) we were living in Ulster in a little wooden house which had been a WW1 army hut. It was heated by a small coal burning stove in the living room. In this room we did everything except sleep - cooking, washing, the lot. There was no bathroom of course, but at least the toilet was indoors which was quite a luxury in those days.
So we brought this premature baby home in a wicker basket and laid him on the couch and gazed at him in awe. He slept for the next hour while we had a cuppa and we watched his every move lovingly.
As he awoke and began to cry I jumped into action. I was going to breast feed, naturally, but first I had to change his nappy. This was no easy matter with that huge towelling nappy and that great lethal pin and such a tiny baby, but eventually I did it and we settled down for our first feed at home, feeling quite relaxed.
It had seemed quite easy in hospital with the nurses at hand, but it wasn't so straight forward at home I discovered. He kept dozing off every few minutes and I struggled to keep him awake and sucking. After about half an hour I gave up and put him asleep into the basket. Fine, he slept for ten minutes and then woke up and yelled till his little face was bright red. So, I lifted him again, put him to my breast again, he went to sleep again, I put him down again and in ten minutes he was yelling again!
By this time I was at my wit's end. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. I was an obvious failure as a mother and my husband was no help at all - useless in fact.
After about two hours of this I was in tears. My husband got on his bike and went to ask my mother what I should do. She arrived back with him but by then the baby was asleep with pure exhaustion and so was I! She did her best to reassure me, made a cup of tea and went home again.
This pantomime continued for about a week with me feeding non-stop, day and night and never managing to get out of my nightie. Eventually the district nurse came and seeing my exhaustion and my poor sore breasts, suggested we put the baby on a bottle (National dried milk in those days) and the problem was solved. I was obviously a failure as a breast feeder but by this time I couldn't have cared less. My baby was sleeping, well some of the time at least and life took on some sort of pattern and normality at last.
Looking back over David's first few months, it's a miracle he survived at all due to my ignorance. But survive he did and he turned out a really healthy, happy child who was six foot tall by the time he was fourteen so I must have done something right!
Life was a lot easier with my other three children who were all bottle fed from birth. They may have suffered some deep psychological harm because of this but who was caring- not me for sure! I'm all for the easy life.