Since January

OK so I haven't written since January. Last time I updated this blog we were just grateful to have survived. Since then we have moved house to Kings Heath, Josh has been christened, I have returned to work, Alex has been coping with his promotion, and life has dealt us a million mini personal trajedies and successes. I can't begin to describe how I feel. Half the time just tired is the overriding sensation but I pinch myself daily to check it's all real because, in truth, I feel so very blessed.

Josh is 11 months old. He loves a giggle. He took 6 steps yesterday, and says mama and dada in the right places (mostly). He claps when he thinks he's being clever. He fakes choking then laughs at me when I fall for it. He is a whirlwind of energy and fun. He is the best of me. He is clever, optimistic, a bit challenging and a social, happy little boy. He has 2 best mates at nursery, and is best buddies with Ben our godson - they are just so alike I think history may be about to repeat itself with Nathan and Alex mark 2. When I look at the last post I wrote I can't believe how much our lives have changed. As well as living in a different place, embarking on projects in the house to convert the garage into a utility room and rehabilitate the (mahusive) garden, and being at work 3 days a week in my case and 5 days for Alex the heartbeat of the home has changed because every day brings a new milestone (Oh God he can reach the telly... Oh hell he's found the playstation... Oh crikey he's not going to sit still for his nappy change ever again...) and a new dilemma. But with each dilemma comes a new reason to fall off my chair giggling or bury my head in my hands and laugh. I'm covered in laughter lines that were not there before; and yes ok they're wrinkles but I know they're from laughing not from tiredness or frustration although there's plenty of that too.

Just born

4 weeks old approx

The first weeks were a mystery and a whirlwind. Al and I talk about them in terms of shock and awe. The hardest thing we've ever done, together or apart. Words and pictures cannot do it justice. It's survival of the fittest. Eventually you come out from the cloud in about month 3 and start to feel human again and wonder what the hell has just happened.

6 weeks old

Thinks starting to get bearable and interesting. His face was beginning to get expressive and the bond was growing. The family unit and routine was beginning to replace our old life and feel like, or better said redefine what was, 'normal'.



16 weeks (just)

15 weeks

Beginning to get real feedback from Josh on a day to day basis. He was over his colic and now showing signs of being a happy baby who slept through the night and loved his food. As his energy and curiosity increased his love of life did too; cue snowball effect. Weeks of not really thriving on milk and early teething led to starting on spoon feeding on baby rice and baby porridge at a very early stage. He loved food. He'd eat anything you gave him. Josh's first love affair was yoghurt - even now nothing quite matches up to it - but any puree of fruit or vegetable was a hit!

5-6 months

 

In between these we moved house - Josh was good as gold and remarkably un-flustered.

Christening - May 6th

 

 

Both June 2012

August 2012

 

Yesterday!

 

A review

Josh is about to turn 14 weeks and we've just started to arrange his baptism. The days have a semi-rhythmical pattern of feeds and nappy changes to them and even bedtime appears to be settling down. It's as though I'm distanced enough from the birth and the chaos of the first weeks to write something constructive. So here is what we've learned:

1. If your labour is as long and arduous as mine it can really affect the first few weeks of your life together and that can be distressing. We were rocked by it all and it didn't help the breast feeding. All the literature says not to mix bottles and breast until they're at least 6 weeks old. This is I now know, pap. Utter pap. Quite a lot of the government literature is pap I've discovered. I know women who rescued their breast feeding by giving a bottle of formula at night so they could get some sleep. Some even gave it up for a week or two and then resumed it when they felt well enough, expressing all the while to keep their milk flowing. My first lesson I learned was, too late, stuff the rules.
2. From the start of his third week, when Alex went on paternity leave, I went to a mum and baby yoga class. This was a lifeline. Firstly I overcame the challenge of getting there on the bus with a baby, getting him dressed and fed, and generally functioning which made me feel wonderful. The breath of fresh air and the walk was good for him and for me and stopped me going crazy stuck in the house. The company of other mums also going through the same stuff made me feel much less alone. And the exercises we did together made me feel much more confident at handling him, knowing what to expect from him and able to encourage his development. Overall a thumbs up!
3. Sleep deprivation is absolutely the hardest thing to deal with in the whole world; no exaggeration. We were lucky that our big baby physically outgrew his moses basket and at 7 weeks (6 months is the government recommendation) had to move to his nursery. I learned that the mute button can be your best friend. This sounds awful but it is true. Babies are noisy sleepers. We disturbed him and vice versa. Add to that the basic fact that a newborn considers nighttime to be playtime and it becomes very hard going. Josh is fab though. As soon as he started to get interested in the world around him instead of sleeping all day he started sleeping better at night. And again I suppose bottle feeding came in handy here too because he could sustain playtime for longer between naps because bottles fill you up more. I'm still very sad we didn't breast feed but I don't imagine he'd be sleeping 10 hours a night like he does now if we had.
4. Colic can be overcome and medical professionals don't know what the hell they're talking about. Colic is described by the NHS as any unexplained crying. When I asked about colic and said he was crying A LOT they patronisingly said 'well babies do cry'. Colic can be made better (at least Josh's was) and here's what we did: Used probiotic; Changed him and laid him flat using a cushion/pillow; Raised his moses basket mattress at one end with a towel so his head was raised; Did a daily tummy time (it helps their digestion); Kept an eye on nappies for signs of any intolerances; Gave him water where possible; Burped him thoroughly and soothed him as much as possible; Tried Infacol (placebo effect I think) and Colief in his milk which actually worked; finally We changed his feed to Aptamil formula for colic and constipation. I couldn't say which one clinched it, maybe all of them, but at 10 weeks or so he just seemed to stop crying due to colic...
5. Only to be replaced by teething! Teething has made him crabby and I've found it easier to deal with than colic. For a start the cause is clear and by the time teething kicked in a) I was a more experienced mum and b) had discovered the dummy. The dummy was our best friend from about his 2nd week of life. To anyone who says they are unnecessary I say: pooh to you with knows on. We've tried baby Bongela and Anbesol; both recommended but the last two days Calpol had to be used as baby Joshua's cries became more anguished. But for a baby who needs to suck for comfort a dummy is an absolute must-have.
6. That said we have recently decided to cut down use of the dummy to a bare minimum and, proudly, I can report some success. He now uses it on average once a day, gets himself off to sleep for most naps without it and even some nights at least starts without it. The reason was purely because he woud thrash about at night searching for his beloved dummy; driving himself crazy he'd almost break his neck in the search. We're hoping cutting the use of it down will result in a better nights sleep for all of us. In defense of the dummy a speech and language therapist friend told us that non-nutritive sucking is very good for babies. Also, as it was one of the most familliar objects in Josh's life it was the first thing he tried to grab at, which improved his hand eye coordination enormously. Most importantly it helped to calm and soothe him at an age where very few other things could.

I think this summarises most major points but we learn new things daily. If asked would I do it again the answer is an emphatic 'yes'!

The start of the adventure

Was he really this small?

Getting out and about #1

Getting out and about #2

Al feeding

Bath time

Asleep in our bed

Xmas with dad, uncles Dave and Nathan, aunties Claire and Laura

What a good grip

Discovering the Christmas tree

On Christmas day

with Great Nan, Nan and Grandad

Godmother Danielle gets a hug too

Laughing with dad

Posing for mum

10 weeks old - Joshua's First Christmas

So, Joshua is 10 weeks old and he experienced his first Christmas! He slept through most of it and was adorable and quiet and well-behaved. We have a bedtime routine now and life has a certain amount of rhythm but we need to get better at being flexible at nighttimes - we spent Christmas Eve away from home until midnight and Josh was awake the whole time, he just refused to sleep at all!

Still, we had a wonderful time. Alex put up the Christmas decoratioons and joshua eventually noticed the tree and was mesmerised by the lights. He also made two delicious stollen that we are still eating and we collected our hamper from the butcher on his first day off. We had a relaxing Christmas Eve mooching about in dressing gowns eating stollen. Bernadette came to visit and then we headed out to Jess and Graham's apartment in Edgbaston. She'd outdone herself and made masses of food and everything looked beautiful. We introduced Joshua and he sat on my knee looking interestedly at everything, wide-eyed. Then we drove to Nathan and Laura's. Apart from a 40 minute period of irritability on the part of Joshua the evening continued to be very pleasant. We dropped off our presents and picked up some new ones and saw Dave and Claire, wished Emma and Ben a happy Christmas and goodnight and then put Josh to bed. Bless him he spent about 40 minutes wide awake just staring up at the ceiling after we'd "put him to bed" until finally he'd had enough and he hollered and we went to get him..! But then until we left he sat contentedly on Al's knee looking around. We walked home and went to bed at about 1am. He fell asleep in his pushchair at last and bless him I took him out of his car seat, coat, hat annd pout him into his sleeping bag without waking him up - he slept soundly til 6.30am.

I've never gone to bed feeling so tired on Christmas Eve or woken up on Christmas day feeling less alert!!! Still, parenthood has its benefits and the main one is seeing Josh in the morning - he's so smiley on his changing mat. Tonight in fact he displayed his newest party trick - he laughed! Three times he laughed out loud and it made my heart explode with happiness to hear it. It was especially funny because he'd just done the biggest nastiest poo in days and seemed particularly happy about it!

Christmas was tiring but very enjoyable. We dressed him up in his santa suit and me mum and dad took him to church. He was definitely the cutest member of the congregation and slept through most of it too! When we got back home Al's parents and nan were home already and the meal was well under way. Alex cooked a delicious meal and afterwards we spent hours opening the many many presents, mostly Josh's; it was lovely. Finally we put him to bed and spent the night eating turkey sandwiched and watching the Goonies on telly, surrounded by the chaos of opened presents!

It's been lovely so far and there's still the new year to go!

Big Thank You

Today is the first day we've not received post including a card or present; the generosity of our friends and family has been amazing. Friends from church Jean and Mike, Al's cousin Penny and Laura and Nathan have been invaluable sources of kindness and support, so have Pauline and Jo from church and everyone has been on the phone with offers of help and concern in the first few weeks. Countless books and toys, clothes and other gifts have arrived; I'm not sure we have even kept track properly of who has given us what as we were so bamboozled in the first days. It's been amazing.

As he's growing Joshua is starting to explore the world, meeting a great many people and seeing it from different vantage points like his swing and car seat. He's doing very well and says thank you for all his many gifts! xx