Time flies when you're having fun...

Sorry for the silence. Ever since the Monkey has grown out of cluster feeding and sleeping for hours on end, on me, I've struggled to  find the time...or energy...to blog. It gets to 7pm, the Monkey is in bed and I'm whacked. Ridiculous really.

Here's an update:
Amazingly, the Monkey is now 5 months old. He's discovered he has thumbs. He likes singing. He loves whacking his toys and hanging from the bars in his baby gym.  He has a penchant for rattles. Fake sneezes really tickle him.. He's rolled over a grand total of three times.
And believe it or not...the Monkey now loves the car - hurrah!! In fact, I find myself taking detours to prolong naps these days. Who would have thunk?!

What I'm learning more about being a mum is to accept that the Monkey has 'phases'. His car aversion was just a phase. I wish someone had told me this.

The recent 'phase' is to wake up and demand food every couple of hours in the night. Oh boy. This is a particularly trying 'phase' but I have to accept that it won't last forever.

If you don't accept this, then it's very easy to get caught up in the panic that sleepless nights might be a permanent fixture...for the rest of your life. Or that you might be creating a little monster with terrible terrible habits. One such night when this panic set in, I tried to 'train' the Monkey. 'I will NOT give you the boob,' I thought with determination. I will toughen you up and force you to learn about the essential life skill of self-soothing. Needless to say, we had a miserable night. The next day my sister - who has two small boys and survived two years of sleep deprivation - assured me that Tom was just going through a 'phase' and by Christmas things would be better. The next night the Monkey slept pretty well. Harmony was restored.

I think our fear of bad habits is responsible for a lot of agonising and over-analysing amongst new mums. The voices start...
'You know having your baby in bed with you is creating a rod  for your back.'
'If you don't let him cry, he'll never learn.'
'He's got you wrapped around your little finger.'
HE'S A BABY FOR GOD'S SAKE. Chill out and leave me alone!!!

Whether it's a dummy, or the bed, or feeding to sleep, or rocking to sleep, or too many naps in the pram and not enough in the cot, they will grow out of these phases eventually...if you want them too. Your baby won't turn into a dummy-sucking, middle-aged man who demands a boob with his morning paper. So CHILL OUT! Give us a break!! And stop the guilt.

There is no greater pleasure than snuggling up with the Monkey for an afternoon nap in our bed...or sneaking him into it in the early hours of the morning. Yet, a niggling voice makes me feel bad about it somehow. So what if my baby doesn't come with a timetable? So what if he prefers napping in my sling? So what if he needs help to fall asleep? It won't last forever but while it does I'm going to enjoy the cuddles and the closeness that is so precious in these early months.

Habits shnabits.

Driven to distraction

Babies love cars. Everyone knows that. It's the one guaranteed way to get a baby to sleep - jump in the car and drive.

Wrong. It appears we have created the only babe...in history...that hates the car.

We've tried everything. Mummy in the back holding his hand. Turns out it isn't separation anxiety. Mummy in the back jiggling toys. Turns out it isn't boredom. Giant muslin as a sunshade. Nope, not the sun's glare. Soothing lullaby music played at top volume. Big fat fail. A mirror with bizarre animations. £25 down the pan. We even tried playing 'In the night garden' on my Smartphone. Square eyes would be better than tears. Sneaking him in asleep (he wakes after 15mins max). Putting him in right after a feed. Travelling just before a feed. Nothing - nada - works.

Last week my neighbours will have seen me passing, windows wide open, baby screaming and me singing, no, yelling 'Old Macdonald' at the top of my voice. It worked for 5mins so I persisted until I could pull over, hoarse and exhausted.

I've lost count of the number of times Bubba and I have arrived at a destination both inconsolable. It's like a form of torture for a mummy. I can't  bear the look of desperation when you extract him from the seat, his cheeks wet with real tears.

But living in the countryside, you have to get in a car. Or become a hermit.

It got me thinking, could the Monkey be car sick? So I observed him and I am convinced this is the problem. And no wonder. His dad gets terrible car sickness. Maybe he inherited it.

So this weekend we wound down the windows and I sat ready to mop his brow with a cold flannel as soon as he started to look a bit green.  And sure enough the fresh air and tender mopping worked. He lasted 30mins. What he loves most of all is when you have one window open in the back and it makes that god awful flapping noise that hurts your eardrums. Dad is not best pleased with this.

Go bananas

Had my first experience of a baby singing class today. It was a little taster...and boy did it taste good.

I remember my sister turning into a happy clappy nursery rhyme singing diva - a slight manic look in her eye - when she had her first babe. And I would wonder whether this would ever happen to me. Monkey Music sounded like my idea of hell.

But how wrong I was. Nevermind what the Monkey thought, I loved every minute. And it felt like time well spent because I had the chance to double my meagre nursery rhyme repertoire. Now I know the actions to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and have learnt a song about frogs, which includes frog facial expressions. Joy. The Go Bananas song is still my fave. I'll teach it to you sometime. And to think that I used to spend my days in front of a computer and going to meetings. I heart maternity leave.

The Monkey thought it was very funny too. Although he did spend more time flirting with the pretty lady next to me, than appreciating my smooth moves.

Ode to The Boob

Everyone needs a bosom for a pillow

I am a human dummy. The Monkey adores the Boob. He gently caresses it with his malcoordinated fists. Sometimes he takes a dive for it with a hungry grunt. He just cannot get enough of my boobies.

The Boob is the only thing guaranteed to stop tears, or send him off to sleep. Sometimes just having his head resting on my ample bosom - the nipple just in reach - keeps him calm. The Boob is even better than the miracle sling (which seems to be losing its magic touch recently) and comes up trumps against Mummy's Fat Friend's dulcet tones singing George Michael's 'Faith'. Sometimes I catch The Monkey sleep sucking as if he's dreaming of it.

Consequently I have a tendency to shove The Magic Boob into the Monkey's mouth whenever he grumbles. And I think The Monkey may now have an addiction. I swear he gets withdrawal jitters. And he's mastered the art of doing his 'hungry' sign, even when he's clearly full to bursting. I fall for it every time. Like a dummy...

I'm starting to wonder if he'll ever be able to sleep without a quick suckle on the nip. The sensible thing would be for Bubba to suck to his heart's content on a dummy. But, oh no, a dummy isn't nearly as warm and squidgy and comforting as Mummy's boobies. Am I destined to whip the baps out every time he melts down in public? Breastfeeding is one thing. But negotiating the supermarket with a nip poised in wee one's mouth to stop him screaming, is that socially acceptable?

Rock a bye baby

Just had to record this...bubba is asleep in his rocking chair. Shhhhh. No need for 'hush little baby' sung out of key over and over again...No need for pacing the corridors...No need for jiggling him up and down until i get a stitch. Not even any need for dancing madly round the living room to Viva La Vida or swaying seductively to Bob M. The Monkey has fallen asleep to the hypnotic lull of the rocking chair. How long will it last? Right...quick...cup of tea...nail varnish....bathroom cleaner...ikea flat pack. Let's do it all NOW.

Ps have been reading up on sleep and i totally get the whole 'awake' time and the 'window' and not over stimulating wee one. But what happens if he sleeps.for just 45mins. If you've done it by the book, that's 60mins awake time + 10mins soothing, + 45mins sleeping =approx 2hrs. What about that last hour? The Other Book says you're meant to stretch feeds to 3hrs. That leaves nearly 30-60mins or more until the monkey eats. Do we just hang around twiddling our thumbs? Or does the stopwatch on awake time start again and we then rush through Bubba's dinner to try and beat the clock for the next window?? Aaaaah. Can't cope. You know what - sod the book. And instead worship the rocker chair, or the sling, or Coldplay. All this soothing, rocking and dancing cant be bad for the post pregnancy muffin top or bingo wings.

Attachment parenting

Snug as a bug in his sling

Turns out we're doing 'attachment parenting'. Sadly it isnt intentional.
The Monkey - now 8 weeks old and growing bigger by the day - has been stuck to us since day 1. In a sling. On a shoulder. Jiggling on the knee at restaurants.  It's not the monkey's fault. Somewhere along the line we just forgot to put him down. And now he cries everytime we do.
He'll sleep for hours curled on my chest. Put him in his cot and he'll last 15 mins tops.
Secretly i love it. There's nothing better than having his hot bod against my soft belly, listening to his purring and chirupping and kissing his wee balding head with its fuzzy regrowth. Not to mention having a legitimate excuse to snuggle on the sofa and watch rubbish american sitcoms for hours in the afternoon. MIL(mother in law) says she's never seen anything like it. Not sure whether to take this as a compliment or not?
But 8 weeks has gone by and well i need to get off my fat ass and sort my life out. Have girlfriends coming to stay while Mummy's Fat Friend* is on a stag - i need to get it together and create the illusion of having everything under control. Oh boy.

*My husband, the Monkey's dad. He made it  up, not me!!

Daddy's turn...hmmmm, nothing beats a beer belly.

Meet the Monkey*

We've made it past the 6week** milestone so I thought now would be a good time to get back to blogging.
Where do I start?! Well, I'm now a mummy to a gorgeous baby boy.

I won't go into the deets of the birth. Let's just say we got through all the Mars bars and energy food in my labour pack (courtesy of katie - see pic). I also got to test out most things: pessary induction, drip (syntocin), epidural, venteuse, forceps - was v close to having c-section but Bubba finally decided to make an appearance. The only thing i didnt test drive was the thing i wanted - water. But there's always next time!!

*Hope you don't mind me referring to our Darling One as the Monkey. It's something our NCT leader said about how babies have 'monkey' brains until they're 2 years old and empathy kicks in. It kind of stuck.

**Please forgive typos and strangely positioned full stops - I'll mostly be blogging one handed on my phone (with the Monkey inevitably hanging off my boob or asleep on my belly - multi-tasking, don't you love it?) and the full stop is right by space button!

 

Labour of love

I have a confession to make. I'm 38+ weeks pregnant and still haven't packed my hospital bag. It seems that this is a major faux pas - all first time mums-to-be seem to have not one, but at least 2 bags (baby bag and mum bag, of course!) packed and ready by the door, with a list of To Dos for dad-to-be, by 36 weeks. Oh dear. Even my midwife is cross with me.

Confession #2: I can't stop eating mine and Brian's 'labour' food. This is another reason why the bag isn't packed. The Mars Bars are my weakness - I don't even like them but they're sitting in my kitchen cupboard whispering 'Eat me' every time I open it. It seems like such a good idea at the time. Then Bubba gets an energy rush and does La Cucuracha. And I'm left feeling guilty and nauseous. And Brian is left feeling a very hungry boy after 12+hours of labour. Oh dear.

My To Do list is out of control. But, even with 10 days and counting, I'm still working (from home - but it's still time away from polishing floors and cleaning skirting boards, building cots and washing EVERYTHING in non-bio detergent). I'm meant to be having naps in the sunshine and completing 'all the things I've been meaning to do for the last decade' in these two precious pre-labour weeks.

Oh well. Learning how to bake scones is just going to have to wait until retirement.

Catching up

Oh dear. It's taken me seven months to write my 2nd blog post. The shame.

It's not like I've been twiddling my thumbs though. Promise. Over the last six or so months I have mostly been:
Moving from London to Devon
Buying a house
Baking a baby.

I haven't given turning 30 a second thought. So, I'm afraid I never made that list.

I'm now 34 weeks pregnant, so 6 weeks and counting to go. Not sure how the baby can get any bigger - it's running out of room rapidly and yep, I'm waddling. Just call me Jemima Puddleduck.

I don't know whether to scream in frustration at having to wait another 6-8 weeks to meet Bubba - (sorry for the cheesy name but as we don't know if Bubba's a boy or a girl, saying 'it' isn't very nurturing and 'she-he' just sounds like something dodgy on You Porn) - or, panic at how little time I have to do everything. Even just the pile of labour/birth and baby books by my bed is feeling insurmountable, let alone all the other things: painting the nursery, buying all the STUFF, unpacking the house, weeding the garden... Breathe. Even that word sends me into a spiral - when am I going to have time to practise breathing and relaxation for the birth??!

Well, now you're up to date. I will try my best to beat my current record and check back in within the next 6 months...