Learnings of a diabetic mum

By | 22 July, 2013

Eva and I are now three months into life and motherhood, and so far so good. Eva has learned to smile, recognise people, chatter away and be generally adorable. Mummy has also learned a lot… 

  • Abandon any hope of pre-bolusing for meals. Just because the baby is asleep when the plate hits the table, doesn’t guarantee you’re going to get to eat the food.
  • When breastfeeding during a heatwave replace the majority of insulin with ice cream.
  • Don’t attempt to do any fancy adjustments to basal rates to compensate for breastfeeding – it is impossible to predict whether the baby will feed for 5 mins or 45 mins. Just reduce basals by 20% across the board and eat more to deal with any lows.
  • No baby bag is complete without at least 2 cartons of apple juice and a pack of fruit pastilles for any post breastfeeding lows whilst out and about.
  • Likewise no house is complete without strategically placed apple juice cartons at every spot where you might feed the baby.
  • Baby junk outweighs diabetes junk by a good few kilos. But carting it all around means you barely notice the diabetes junk any more
  • Meters that beep when you apply blood are not helpful in the middle of the night when they wake the baby you’ve just spent an hour getting off to sleep.
  • I was wrong when I thought waking up to treat a hypo ;
Category: Living with diabetes Tags:

About Alison

Diagnosed with Type One in 1983 at the age of four, Alison's been at this for a while now. She uses Humalog in a combined insulin pump and continuous glucose monitoring system and any blood glucose meter as long as it takes five seconds or less.

3 thoughts on “Learnings of a diabetic mum

  1. Lesley

    In my (smug?) non-motherhood, this made me laugh out loud! Or was it supposed to? Seems like everything involved in motherhood is a pre-runner to a hypo. You seem to be coping very well. x

    Reply
  2. Alison Post author

    “everything involved in motherhood is a pre-runner to a hypo” That’s a pretty fair summary Lesley! Its good fun though. Worryingly we’re now at 6 months and the only bit of that post that’s no longer accurate is the bit about the heatwave, the rest of life remains in contented chaos! And I haven’t been brave enough to go for an HbA1c!

    Reply

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