Smelly Daddy

Things are finally getting back on an even keel in our house since Map Man handed in his grad cert thesis about a month ago. I still don't have much time to blog as I am now in the process of a bit of a career change which requires a fair bit of study and mental space. I have moved into the client world at work and after achieving my Google Analytics certification I am now the Conversion Optimiser and am studying Inbound Marketing and conversion rate optimisation. But enough of that. It doesn't take anywhere near as much time as Map Man's thesis did.

We were a bit worried about it actually. It was quite long. I mean really long. I think only the bible is longer. But on Sunday night we got the fantastic news that Map Man had been awarded a distinction. Clearly my domestic duties, proof-reading and suggested edits played a large part in this but I'd be lying if I didn't say that Map Man's passion, dedication and hard work didn't contribute in some way. Suffice to say I am currently very proud to be Mrs Map.

Last night we went out with the family to celebrate. As I was getting the kids ready to go I gave them a card to draw on. Miss Chief asked me what it was for.

"It's to congratulate Daddy. Remember how he was working really hard all the time in the garage? [That's where he set up his study so he could lock the door and get away from the kids. Cost us a bloody fortune to heat that place in winter, I can tell you.] Well he did really well and got a distinction."

Miss Chief paused and considered this. Then, "Does he stink?"

"What? Why? Oh no! You funny thing," I laughed.

Clearly confused by my response she then asked, "what's a stinktion?"

Out of the mouths of babes.

Rather that than the nonsense that's coming out of Happy One's mouth these days. I think he might have to be renamed Shouty One or Happy When It Suits Him. Jeez that kid could have his choice of representing Australia or England in the Under 18s (months) Tantrum Championships.

Anyway, he's been really ill. It was awful; croup, coughing, sniffling, temperature, no appetite. Went for about a week and he lost loads of weight. He's been on the mend for about 10 days or so now but he's still waking in the night. And often I feed him to get him back to sleep. Well, my back has been sore - another story - and the other night I took some very strong painkillers that I'd never taken before and knew nothing about but just needed to take something so I could sleep. About 50 minutes after I finally fell asleep he woke up and, after a bit of whinging, started screaming. I refused to feed him and made Map Man deal with it like he did when Miss Chief was young. Thing is she was about 10 months old when I stopped feeding her in the night. Happy Shouty One is almost 16 months and not entirely thrilled about the situation. That night he screamed for about an hour and Miss Chief ended up on the floor of the spare room - the kids share a room now. The next night he woke twice and screamed for almost half an hour each time. We're all unbelievably exhausted. Tonight he enthusiastically nodded when I asked if he was going to stay quiet until 6am. We'll see how that goes then.

Things That Make Me Smile No. 13: Baby asleep at the breast

I wrote this post about 3 months ago and so this is an old photo but it happened again tonight so I thought it was about time I published it. Actually it happens most nights but it's still lovely. One of the reasons I love breastfeeding is how easily you can get a baby to sleep. Or stop a teething baby from crying. Or comfort a sick baby. Sometimes it can feel like a bind or a chore especially as my lunch hour at work is always spent feeding. But as we don't want any more babies I'm not going to rush this. I'll enjoy it while it lasts because I'm sure I'll miss it when it's gone.

Sleeping through?

Last night Ash slept through until 4.30am! Oh My God! That may not sound much for a seven month old (almost, that is) but this is the first time it has ever happened. At least I think it's the first time. I'm so sleep deprived that my memory has gone fuzzy and it's quite possible that this has happened before. But it would be a very rare occurrence, the odd night amongst many, many nights of disturbed sleep.

Ash has generally woken two or three times a night his whole life. Sometimes more. He'd wake and feed around 10 or 11pm, then again 3-4 hours later and then again a couple of hours after that around 4 or 5am. Often he'd decide this is a good time to get up for the day.

And then every now and then we'd have nights where he'd wake every couple of hours. Once he did this for a whole week. Just a few days ago he woke up every 1.5-2 hours. This was the night that we got home after our Christmas break. The night before we'd been up for an hour or so with Phoebe who had a horrible croupy cough, poor bairn. Oh, how tired were we after all of that! It's a rhetorical question (hence the lack of question mark) but the answer is Very!

Sometimes I feed him when he wakes to keep the peace or because I'm too tired to question it and go onto autopilot. And other times I point blank refuse and make Toby get up and settle him. This week he has his two top teeth coming in and the right one is poking through. So if Toby can't settle him then I'll feed him. I figure that's better than paracetamol. (Have I mentioned that he got his first two teeth a week apart when he was four months old?)

So anyway, last night... We went out for dinner with friends and Andrei babysat. Around 9.30pm he heard Ash stir, which he'd done the night before. Only this time he didn't actually wake up and cry. The next we heard from him was at 4.30am. Bliss. Except I spent the entire night worrying, firstly about him and then about my engorged breasts. I sent Toby in to check on him at 1am and couldn't believe it when I woke again at 3am and still hadn't heard from him. Then I became obsessed over my full, sore boobs and couldn't get back to sleep. I finally got up and expressed some milk to make myself more comfortable. No sooner had I got back into bed then he woke for a feed. I'm not sure he went back to sleep after that. Toby got up with him around 5.40am. Isn't that always the way? Baby sleeps all night but parents spend the entire night freaking out that baby has stopped breathing and get even less sleep than usual.

So, a bit of a result but I'm completely knackered. Fingers crossed for a repeat performance tonight that I can actually take advantage of.

Weaning: done!

Why have booby milk when there's chocolate ice cream?

I thought I'd give a quick update on the whole weaning thing.

In my last post, almost three weeks ago, I reported that it had been 45 hours since I last breastfed Phoebe, and pondered whether I'd ever do it again.

Well, I haven't. It's quite amazing. I haven't offered and she hasn't asked. Well, a few times she's made her milky sign but she's been quite happy with a cuddle, or a cup of milk, or a story, or snack. The time was obviously just right for both of us. In fact, dropping the last feed was much easier than dropping the morning feed.

I bought Phoebe a new no-spill sippy cup the other day and she now has a cup of milk at breakfast and supper. She also takes milk to daycare for afternoon tea.

For a week or two after we stopped feeding I didn't bath with Phoebe. I didn't want her to launch herself upon my naked boobies. A few nights ago we had our first bath together since stopping. She was interested in my boobs but not overly so. She cuddled and kissed them but didn't try to feed. It was as though she could sort of remember a relationship with them but not the details. Funnily, she also kissed Toby's nipples when she was in the bath with him. Funny girl.

So that's that and I have to say I'm amazed. There have been so many times that I've stressed about dropping a feed and at the end of last year I was really worried about whether I should try and wean before I returned to work. Then, after weaning all but two feeds, things seemed to stretch out for so long I worried that she'd be breastfeeding until she started school. I probably fed her for longer than necessary as it became such a part of our routine. As a working mother, routine is very important. If I didn't feed her before breakfast then she'd want to feed before I left for work. By this time she was covered in food and I was ready for work. So I'd offer first thing to avoid a messy late-for-work situation.

In hindsight all the worrying was unnecessary. When nature is allowed to run its course things just happen the way they're supposed to. It is difficult to surrender to that in this modern world where we are confined by society's expectations, limitations and schedules. Working may have made it easier to wean as for much of the time we were apart and I couldn't feed her. On the other hand it may have dragged things out for longer than necessary as Phoebe needed it for comfort, to make up for not seeing me so much, and I clung to the routine. In the end it didn't matter as it happened when we were both ready. I never got fed up with feeding Phoebe but I was ready to let it go. And she doesn't seem to have missed it much. It was one of the loveliest experiences I have ever had but man, I'm pleased to have my body back.

More on weaning: record 45 hours since last breastfeed

We're on the home run.

After my last post on weaning Phoebe flicked between one, two and three feeds for a few weeks, but mostly two feeds: morning and evening.

About two or three weeks ago we dropped the morning feed and she started having just one feed, either when we first got home from daycare (or wherever) or after her bath, but generally between 4.30pm and 6.30pm.

Some days were harder than others. She'd want to feed mid morning if we were at home, or she'd have her afternoon feed and then still want a bedtime feed. Some days she'd quite happily have a biscuit and a cup of milk after her bath and others she'd angrily push the cup away from me.

Yesterday was the first day she didn't breastfeed at all. I don't expect that we are finished for good, especially as just three mornings ago she woke at 3.30am and demanded a feed. But it feels like a milestone.

For a while now I've been wondering how and when to drop this last feed. We only dropped to one feed a couple of weeks ago and I didn't want to rush it, especially as the old tetters get a little uncomfortable for the first couple of days. I was thinking that maybe it would just happen when my parents visit in July as there'll be so much else going on.

Then it struck me that I'm having my wisdom teeth out next Friday and I can't breastfeed on the really strong painkillers they'll give me. I figured it would probably happen then... but was also nervous about leaving it until then. The last thing you need when recovering from surgery with a sore swollen face is an angry, demanding toddler climbing all over you trying to rip your shirt off.

The last two days she has been in a gorgeous mood (when not screaming because she isn't getting her way, of course) and yesterday she didn't want to come home from daycare. It's only the second time that's ever happened. She's just getting over a bad bout of teething and nappy rash where she's been a bit clingy so this was a refreshing change. I was able to get her home and actually prepare some dinner whilst she sat reasonably quietly and had a snack. I really expected to have to stop what I was doing and breastfeed her but she was fine.

After her dinner she went in the bath and was still in a great mood. Then we had a change table tantrum. They're quite commonplace at the moment. She just really doesn't want to lie down and put her nappy on. Last night I actually put it on whilst she was standing up. Not easy. It was getting late so I decided to take her to brush her teeth instead of feeding her, fully expecting to have to then breastfeed her and clean her teeth all over again.

But no, she went to bed with no problems. Well, she cried a bit but she's having a little bit of separation anxiety. I almost always have to pick her back up out of her cot and give her a lovely long squeezy cuddle. It's a good thing for both of us and not surprising as we're apart so much these days. The initial placing of her into the cot just lets her know that it's bedtime and I'm leaving soon. Then she stands up and demands a cuddle. She'll still stand and cry after I've put her back again but I left anyway and after a few moments she settled and went to sleep.

She didn't wake up in the night and she didn't ask for a breastfeed this morning.

It has now been about 45 hours since I last breastfed her. I wonder whether we'll ever do it again.

Working Mother: Weaning

So, we're sort of weaning.

I say "sort of" because there's no plan as such, we're not going cold turkey and we're trying to fit it into our lives, which sometimes means feeding when perhaps we don't need to.

For a while now I've been meaning to follow the La Leche League advice of "Don't offer, don't refuse" but on work day mornings this always seems too hard. I just want to feed her and then get on with getting ready otherwise there's a chance she'll decide she wants to feed when I'm sitting in the car and about to drive off. Technically, it shouldn't really matter as by then I'm out of there and it's someone else's problem. But there's nothing worse than leaving your child crying in someone else's arms.

There have been a few mornings when she's had breakfast and then either asked for a breastfeed (using her milky sign) or I've just given her one out of habit and to avoid the aforementioned situation. Which, incidentally, has never actually happened other than in my head.

Yesterday, however, I decided to risk being late and just see what would happen if I didn't offer her a feed. We were sitting having breakfast and Toby's mum was putting Phoebe's lunch bag together. Phoebe saw her get her milk ready and indicated that she'd like some. She drank about 1/3 of a cup! And then she didn't ask for a feed. So I went to work without giving her one.

When I picked her up she'd just woken up from a nap and was quite refreshed. I gave her a rusk to chomp on and she was quite happy until shortly after we got home and she started to fret. She has a funny cry that she makes that's a cross between her excited laugh-noise (she also makes this when we're hunting for Diggedy, her favourite toy, or when she's just about to brush her teeth) and the milky cry she had as a newborn. She just kept making this noise, and, trying to follow the LLL advice I kept saying "Use your signs, Phoebe. Tell Mammy what you want." She was obviously getting frustrated so in the end, knowing darn well what it was that she wanted, I fed her.

Still, I was proud of the fact that we'd missed our morning feed. She didn't have a bedtime feed that night either, which is quite normal for Wednesdays as I go to Zumba and Toby gets her ready for bed.

Then last night, she woke at 1.30am and asked for milk, using her sign this time. I fed her and she still played up a bit but I went back to bed and she settled after a minute or so.

This morning she asked for milk again so I fed her before work. I'd already slept in and ended up being almost an hour late. This work thing is really starting to become hard but I'm scared to resign because we'll be poor.

Anyway, the weaning thing will obviously be a bit up and down - on Monday she asked for milk at lunchtime and had three feeds! There are clearly going to be times that she wants a bit extra and there'll be times when she's tired and frustrated and won't ask for it properly so I'll have to effectively offer it to her. And there'll be times when I'm tired and not thinking straight and I feed her when I probably don't need to. For example, this morning I could have offered her milk from a cup before breastfeeding her.

But yesterday was the first time she'd ever had just one feed in a day. If you can really count it as only being one, given that she woke in the night. And, if it makes me late for work or tired, well, they're just going to have to deal with that then, aren't they?

I'll miss our breastfeeding relationship. As I've said before, it's so special and intimate and is unique to a mother and her child. It's one aspect where a mother can't be replaced even if she's at work and other people are looking after her child. But I think it's about time for us to let it go. We're settling into our work-daycare routine (even if some days are harder than others), she's 14 months, which is a great length of time to have been breastfed, especially as it'll probably be another few months before we've fully stopped. Plus, some days she just mucks around and I think she just has the feed out of habit. I suspect by the time we actually stop I'll be more than ready. And hopefully, so will she.

A beautiful moment

I had a beautiful moment this morning.

I was breastfeeding Phoebe, and Monty (my beautiful big black pussy cat) jumped up onto my lap. The cats are taking refuge from the rain in the house, which they normally avoid due to the presence of the midget cat terrorist.

So there I was, cuddling my baby in one arm, tickling and stroking my feline friend with the other hand. When Phoebe had finished her feed she sat on my lap and petted Monty with me, shrieking with pleasure. Monty purred as he lapped up the attention.

It's nice how a day that starts full of poo can be followed by a day that starts with comfort and cuddles.

The Milk Blister (a.k.a. The Bleb)

We were in the midst of trying to resolve Phoebe's Sleep Issues, which meant encouraging her to nap as often and for as long as possible, and ensuring we got her to bed at her new early bedtime. We were also on our way to a party. This was a logistical challenge. How best to enjoy the party yet still get our little girl home and to bed. She hadn't slept before we left. On the way there we discussed whether to drive around and let her sleep in the car, somehow get her to sleep there or keep her going and let her catnap on the way home.

For some reason we settled on the latter. This involved pulling over and feeding her before we got there. After she fed from my left breast I thought it felt a bit sore and noticed the tiniest bit of blood on her chin which I thought could have come from my nipple. I didn't think much of it but the next feed at bedtime was also a bit painful. It felt like she was biting down but I could tell she was actually feeding. When she woke up later that night my breast was sore before I even put her on it. I found I had to hold it in position and even then it was almost unbearably painful. The pain was most acute at the top of my nipple but my whole breast hurt. This was much worse than vasospasm or cracked nipples in my experience. It was one of the most painful experiences I have ever had, with the possible exception of ear infection. I could have cried. Eventually I fed her from the other breast and when she seemed satisfied put her back in her cot without offering the left side again. I took some paracetamol and went back to bed, still in a lot of pain.

The next morning I was in so much pain I was almost dreading feeding her. I continued to take painkillers and read as much as I could about thrush, blocked ducts and mastitis. I seemed to have some symptoms from all of them but none of them quite fit. I was particularly concerned about the prospect of thrush and having to change my diet to fix it. I couldn't see any obvious signs and Phoebe didn't seem to have any symptoms either. I didn't know what to wear and felt best wearing nothing. All of the advice was to feed through it. Nice. I expressed a little bit as I could then control the suction myself which was slightly less painful. Amazingly I got quite a lot of milk.

Phoebe didn't seem to be enjoying feeding from that side either and would quite often pull off crying. This could have been because I was slightly engorged and was massaging the breast and trying her in different positions so it's likely the flow of milk was irregular and frustrating for her.

Then, on the fantastic breastfeeding website kellymom I found a reference to a milk blister, also referred to as a "bleb" (what a fantastic word that is). Earlier that day I had noticed a white spot on my nipple. It came and went and I'd wondered if it was thrush. But it definitely looked more like the milk blister on the web site. A milk blister occurs when skin grows over the top of a milk pore, perhaps due to a damaged nipple. Recall I noticed the blood the previous day. This can then lead to a back up of milk in that duct and engorgement. Engorgement can then lead to other problems including mastitis.

I treated my breast according to the advice: firstly use a warm compress before feeding, then gently rub at the blister to try to loosen the skin. After feeding I expressed as much as I could to empty the blocked duct and this relieved much of the pain in my breast. I then soaked the nipple in a saline solution before expressing a small amount of milk onto the nipple, rubbing it in and letting it air dry. Finally I applied some Lansinoh. It is recommended that you follow this rigmarole every time you feed but who has time for that? I did it once or twice and continued with the compress and rub until I was eventually able to remove the skin blocking the pore.

The majority of the pain went as soon as the engorgement was released and I felt completely better as soon as the skin was removed. A few feeds later my nipple stung a little bit but other than that I was completely fine.

I called the Australian Breastfeeding Association during this just to get reassurance that my diagnosis was probably correct and that I probably didn't need to see a medical practitioner. It can be difficult finding someone with the relevant knowledge when it comes to breastfeeding as it seems to be a highly specialised area. The counsellor I spoke to said that milk blisters are quite mysterious and no one really knows what causes them but she'd had one that kept coming back. They seem very common yet I had never heard of it. Three friends I have spoken to about it (probably the only three actually) had all had a milk blister but none of them seemed to experience quite the level of pain that I did. For some reason the blister didn't appear until the milk was already backed up and engorged, which is where most of the pain came from, whereas most other people seemed to find an obvious blister first and managed to burst it before any problems started.

Needless to say, as you may have gathered from my other posts, this didn't help Phoebe's Sleep Issues. And now she's Teething. Jeez... there's always something, isn't there?

Breastfeeding

Phoebe is now 4 ½ months old and I'm still exclusively breastfeeding her. That means she gets absolutely no other food or drink (apart from some homeopathic teething tablets), not even water. Some mums I know think it's great that she's still fully breastfed as their babies are now supplemented with, or fully on, formula. Others have started feeding their babies solids. But most of my mum friends are also still breastfeeding.

Long before I was pregnant I wasn't really sure whether I would breast or bottle feed. I didn't know much about either and I'd mainly been exposed to bottlefeeding and had fed a few babies myself this way. I always thought it was lovely that bottlefeeding could involve members of the family other than the mother. I remember bottlefeeding my cousin when she was just nine days old and it is a memory I cherish. I really felt like we bonded during that experience and that our future relationship benefited from it.

By the time I was considering pregnancy I thought I probably would at least try to breastfeed as it seemed the natural thing to do and I was aware that it was the best for the baby, although I still didn't know much about either. I wasn't sure how long I would breastfeed for but I was sure that I wouldn't stress myself out too much if I felt it wasn't for me and I thought I probably would stop by the time the baby had teeth, or maybe even at three months. I certainly didn't want to feed a baby who was old enough to either ask for it or remember the experience.

Once pregnant and the reading frenzy began, I became determined that I would breastfeed for at least the first three months. I also became anxious about the potential difficulties I might experience. I kept hearing awful stories about cracked and bleeding nipples and women screaming in pain, and a friend had a terrible time with blocked ducts and mastitis. Everything I read told me how good breast milk was for a baby and the more I thought about it the more I realised it was the right choice for me as it requires far less preparation than formula and I am an intrinsically lazy person, as anyone who has seen the paint job on the doors in our house will agree. This was particularly appealing when contemplating those middle of the night feeds. However, I didn't want to be the only person able to feed the baby, and I particularly wanted Toby to get involved so I decided that I would express milk.

When Phoebe was born we were relatively lucky with the feeding. Sure, my nipples got a bit cracked but thankfully they're not that sensitive and any pain I might have been feeling was nothing compared to what was going on down below. Phoebe and I learnt how to feed together fairly quickly and our breastfeeding relationship got off to a great start. I think a lot of this was to do with all of the preparation I had done during my pregnancy. As well as the ante-natal class on feeding I joined the Australian Breastfeeding Assocation and received their book Breastfeeding ...naturally. I read forums and talked to other mothers. One of the most useful pieces of information was a discussion forum titled "What do you think new mums need to know about breastfeeding?".

What I wasn't prepared for, however, was the fact that I would actually enjoy breastfeeding. I just didn't see myself as that kind of person but after spending my pregnancy worrying more about the feeding than the labour or birth, it has ended up being one of the loveliest experiences I have ever had. It is so intimate and Phoebe and I have had some gorgeous moments together that I am not sure we'd have had if she was bottlefed. Breastfeeding is my chance to have a bit of time out of a busy day, to put my feet up, read a book and cuddle my beautiful baby. I love the cuddles so much I often sit with her on my knee, playing with her and talking to her long after she's finished her feed.

I feel incredibly lucky to have had such a lovely and easy breastfeeding experience. At times I find it draining. I am constantly amazed at how much I need to eat and sleep and don't even get me started on growth spurts, or using me as a dummy during teething. (Incidentally I do find the phrase "using [the breast] as a dummy" a rather contradictory one. Surely a dummy is just that, a dummy breast, so don't babies use dummies as breasts rather than the other way around?) Oh! And then there's the biting. Yes, teething babies bite down on boobies for relief and it really ain't that nice an experience. I do hope she doesn't try it when she's got teeth or I may be giving up sooner than planned. But all in all it has been a very positive experience.

I was surprised at how protective I quickly became over our breastfeeding relationship. I didn't actually want anyone else to feed her and when she was about a month old and the time came to try her with expressed milk from a bottle it was extremely difficult for me to watch Toby trying to feed her. I actually almost cried. Hormones are powerful things indeed. Although I had managed to get her to drink from a bottle, Toby didn't enjoy the experience all that much and didn't persist with it. Because I had found it so uncomfortable I didn't encourage him to keep trying. After three months the hormones wore off and I didn't really mind who fed her so long as it didn't affect my milk supply and I still did most of the feeding. By then Phoebe wouldn't take a bottle and she still just chews on it rather than drinking from it.

Feeding in the night is certainly fuss-free. Phoebe sleeps in a cot in our room. When she wakes for a feed I get up and bring her back to the bed and either prop myself up whilst she's feeding, or lie back down with her next to me. Sometimes we doze like that for hours. When she's finished I put her back in her cot and she falls asleep again. There is no formula to mix or get to the right temperature and no bottles to worry about afterwards. Even during the day when I'm tired we lie down in bed together and I'll shut my eyes and rest whilst she's feeding. The morning feeds are lovely. She looks into my eyes and sometimes stops and smiles or talks before going back to her breakfast.

The other afternoon we lazed on the bed for quite a while after a feed and she was in a very relaxed mood. I love it when she's like that because she's usually so active. We just looked at each other and smiled and I made silly noises and faces, and kissed her chubby little cheeks whilst she laughed at me. She reached out and touched my face. That's her latest thing, reaching her arm as far as she can and touching or grabbing whatever is there. She often reaches towards my face whilst she's feeding. She touched my mouth and I said "mouth", then touched hers. She touched my nose so I said "nose" and touched her nose. She touched my mouth again. This went on for ages. I thought she'd get bored and I'd have to get up and do something more active but she was happy like that for about 20 minutes after her feed. It was a nice break for me and a lovely little interaction I'll remember forever.

It is a wonderful gift to be able to feed your baby and know that you can single-handedly sustain her. I now plan to exclusively breastfeed her until she is six months old (although I am quite happy for her to try foods between now and then if that's what she wants) and continue to breastfeed her until I either go back to work, she's a year old or perhaps even beyond that. Maybe for as long as she wants, perhaps even until she leaves home. I am joking... the jury is still out on how I feel about breastfeeding older babies and toddlers but I feel less strongly against it and will play that one by ear. To be honest part of it is that I'm not entirely sure how to stop feeding her. Even when she misses one feed, for example sleeps through a feed she usually wakes up for, my boobs hurt and I have to express milk. Gradually weaning her when she's ready seems the easiest way to do it. After all, that's nature's way so it should just happen and shouldn't require too much thought or research, right? Then again, I may get fed up of the whole thing long before she does. Either way, until then I'm just going to enjoy our little moments together and make the most of her being my baby.

Where did the time go?

One month since my last update, four months since Phoebe was born (18 weeks tomorrow)... where did the time go?

Little Miss P has changed so much over the last 4 weeks. Just in the last few days she has taken to sucking her bottom lip (teething, perhaps?) and it totally changes the look of her face. She looks really funny. She cries less and is more vocal, shouting when she's a bit annoyed about something. About two weeks ago at Gymbaroo she rolled by herself down the soft play wedge and has since rolled quite a few times, including onto her back during mat time at Gymbaroo when she got fed up with being on her tummy.

She has also started to commando crawl although doesn't go very far and gets tired easily. Last night Toby put her down on her tummy in the middle of a large floor cushion then went to run her bath. When I next looked at her she was on the edge of the cushion and then she rolled off it.

As well as continuing with her standing fetish, she is now learning to sit and is getting pretty good at doing it on her own although I suspect her cloth nappies may help a bit by giving her a stable base. She definitely has the strength to sit up on her own but needs to work on her balance a bit. She can stay still for a few seconds but then she topples over, which she seems to think is great fun. If she's holding onto something, such as my finger or a toy then she can balance for much longer.

She seems to be over her fear of going to bed. I think we really only get the tears when she's overtired. She is now so long (about 62cm) that when she's in her baby bath she can rest her head at one end and touch the other end with her feet. She can lie there without us having to hold onto her and it seems to really relax her. We follow this up with a massage and a feed and most nights she's asleep or dozing before she even gets to her cot. Other nights she talks or whinges herself to sleep for a while and then we have the odd night where she's really hard work and needs jiggling, suckling and lots of patience before she'll drop off.

Ha! I leave my computer for a few hours and suddenly that last paragraph doesn't ring quite so true anymore. Phoebe had her jabs on Tuesday. That night we went out for curry with my colleagues as Linda was visiting from U.S. and consequently Pheebs had a late night (although she did nap for about an hour whilst we were eating - she's such a considerate baby). Since then she seems to want to fall asleep at the breast in the evenings, only it takes her a while. I have a new rule: three sucks without a swallow and she gets pulled off. Do that three times and tea-time is over. She doesn't seem to like this rule much. On Wednesday night I gave her my finger to suck, which she did and when she was almost asleep I took this away from her too. She happily sucked her tongue until she fell asleep. I smugly put her in her cot thinking the following night she could suck her tongue and fall asleep after I put her in her cot. Only she didn't fall for the finger trick that night, nor tonight. She just cried and tried to find my boobie. It took me almost an hour to get her to bed both nights.

We have now elevated one end of her mattress in case she has reflux. I did this a few weeks ago and it seemed to work but I've no idea whether that was what worked tonight as I tried lots of other things too: "divine drops" to stop her screaming (a "baby yoga" move which consists of me squatting down really quickly to give her the feeling that she's falling; for some reason babies love this and even when she's really upset she can't help but smile); a dummy, which she spat out but which distracted her from her whinging; the jiggle, which consists of me walking around the bedroom in a jiggly manner whilst cuddling her; and the chest pat. Something worked and I don't really care which it was.

She was frantically sucking on her hands whilst winding down tonight and when I put my finger in her mouth she bit down quite hard. With that and the bottom lip sucking I wonder if she has teeth that are bothering her. Perhaps that, rather than her injections, is what is upsetting her.

She was fine after her jabs (other than wanting to suckle all night) but has a hard bruise on her left leg below the point where the needle went in. In Australia the poor wee things get so many vaccinations. Firstly, they get an oral dose of a vaccination against Rotavirus, which causes nasty gastroenteritis. Then, they simultaneously get two jabs, one in each thigh. One includes DPT (diptheria-pertussis (i.e. whooping cough)-tetanus) plus Polio, Hepatitus B and HiB (Haemophilus influenza type b), a throat infection that can lead to meningitis. That's six vaccinations in one injection! In the other leg they get a vaccination against Pneumococcal, which can cause all sorts of nasties, including meningitis and pneumonia. They get these when they're two, four and six months old.

Phoebe still sometimes wakes up in the night. She usually wakes when I go to bed or around midnight and then again at about 5.30am but this varies. Last night she went to bed around 7.30 then woke at 10.30pm when I went to bed and again at 3.30am and then 6.30am when we all got up. I'm not at all used to all this night-time activity so I'm a bit tired and I'm off to bed in a minute. I've given up trying to make her nap in the middle of the day. I just let her sleep when she's tired and hope that it fits in with what I'm doing. She seems so much happier when we're out and about but she doesn't feed or sleep particularly well in public these days. If I can reduce her stimulation by placing her in the pram and walking around with the insect cover over her then she can get a good sleep but she'll generally feed for long enough to stop feeling hungry and then find something to distract her again. I think this is partly why she's waking up at night. Even if we're home in the morning she's already had two really good feeds at night or early in the morning so she isn't that hungry later on.

Phoebe's rainforest play gym arrived and she loves it. We hang all sorts of other toys from it too and change these around so she doesn't get bored. In the mornings she quite likes to watch the lights and listen to the music and when she gets tired she just chills out on it. But in the afternoon she can't bear the lights and music and we often do more physical games on the floor or a cushion, such as "Wash the dishes", a Gymbaroo game which involves Phoebe being turned upside down, the Sitty-Uppy and Standy-Uppy games (which she now does at Gymbaroo too), tummy time, which she's now excellent at and uses the opportunity to do some commando crawling, which I sometimes assist with by holding her feet so she can push away from my hands (another exercise we learned at Gymbaroo) and lying on her back and rolling.

Another exciting new arrival is our passports. Yes, Phoebe and I now have Australian passports and our trip is only 4 weeks away. Phoebe will be trying solids soon too, perhaps when we're away or maybe just before we go so that Toby can be involved. I haven't got any of the stuff yet though and I'm trying to decide what I absolutely need to get beforehand and what I can make do with until we get back.

Right then... I'm off to see if I can sneak into bed without waking the Hungry Hippo.

The Bath Incident

Tonight, whilst I was feeding Phoebe, Toby ran the big bath for us before heading outside to cover the trailer with a tarp. Once or twice a week we like to all get into our huge spa bath together rather than bath Phoebe in her little baby bath. We get just as wet with the little baby bath and it's nowhere near as much fun for us.

I am starting to reduce Phoebe's daytime feeds by trying to ensure that she empties one breast before I offer the other. I'm sure we were doing that anyway but I wasn't very mindful of it. Sometimes this can take a little while, especially as we are just settling down and getting back into the swing of things after Phoebe's mammoth growth spurt. So, after some time spent feeding and still being able to hear the bath water going and still being able to see Toby outside faffing with the tarp I attempted to call him to go and check on the bath. The trouble is I have laryngitis and he probably wouldn't have been able to hear me anyway but as I had no voice there was no hope really. So eventually, apologising profusely to Phoebe who looked at me rather stunned, I hauled myself up off the sofa and trotted off to the bathroom whilst trying to allow her to continue feeding.

I wish I'd taken a photograph, and if I hadn't have been breastfeeding I probably would have; I got there in the nick of time. Suddenly letting Phoebe continue to feed became the least of my worries... managing to hold onto her whilst I hurriedly leaned over the bath to turn off the taps was the new challenge. The weird little indent that looks like a seat at the side of the bath was completely flooded and the sides of the bath were covered in water and about 1cm off going over the edge. And it's a BIG bath!!! Good job our dams are 70% full at the moment. The news stations reported a predicted storm surge for last night... and we nearly got it in our bathroom tonight, I tell ya.

As I returned to the living room, Phoebe back on the breast now the excitement was over, Toby saw me through the window and said something, I forget what but he was obviously enquiring as to why I was breastfeeding whilst wandering around the house and did I need a hand with anything. "The bath," I croaked and his response was something like "oh s*@t!". Indeed.

In other news...

Phoebe is now settling back down and has slept through for the last two nights. Of course I now have to get up to express milk again but hopefully that will pass. I have given up trying to see a pattern in her routine but I think one will slowly form again over the coming weeks and I am trying some new things after reading a book a friend sent, such as trying to get her to take a long nap at lunch time and shorter naps in the morning and afternoon. That might prove more difficult once we're out and about during the week though. I often go out after her morning nap and don't get back until after lunch so unless I go for a walk with her in the pram and put off coming home until later then she will have a shorter nap. I might try getting out earlier or later in the day and see if that works out for us. Another thing I've started doing is giving her bedtime feed in the bedroom with some nice music playing. It doesn't seem to stop her from whinging when we try to put her to bed though but tonight it was more of a winey chat than a scream so maybe she'll settle down over time.

As I get my Australian citizenship this week, and I have decided to have a barbecue on Saturday afternoon to celebrate I would like to have a few beers so we're trying to get Phoebe to take a bottle, without much success. After she screamed at Toby during one feed yesterday I then let her play with the bottle for a while before her next feed when she wasn't very hungry. She was interested but not enough to actually drink from it. Today we just didn't really get much chance to introduce her to it again and I'm running out of time. Every day I express some milk and that gets put into the bottle for her to play with later on and gradually get used to the idea. But I also need to find time to express a bit more to freeze and feed her with on Saturday. Today I didn't get the chance. Maybe I'll have to stick to a light beer or two straight after a feed but that's not very Australian now is it?

And finally, something I got rather excited about... before Phoebe was born I spotted a rather cool looking play mat on my friend's photographs and enquired as to the brand: The Fisher Price Rainforest Gym. When I found it in the shops it was about $120 although at one stage I did see it on special for $90 or $100. But then Lucie told me someone she knew of was selling a Lottie Ladybird mat (worth about $200!) so I ended up getting that, a bouncer and a couple of bits and pieces for $70. 

Since then Phoebe has visited two houses with the Rainforest gym and she loves it. She already has two activity mats as her Nan bought her a different Fisher Price mat (see a photo of Phoebe on it) lately which she also loves. But the Rainforest gym is bigger, you can easily add other toys to it and she seems so much more mobile when lying on it. In fact she wiggled around 90 degrees on Thursday and I thought I'd picked her up and put her down without remembering (mums do that kind of thing) until a few minutes later she'd almost gone full circle. 

So I thought I'd have a look online and see whether anyone had it on special. And what do I find? A local woman selling one second-hand on eBay! I made sure I was home for the end of the auction this afternoon and got it for $61, $1 over my budget but what the hell? I know Toby thinks three activity mats is too many and he wants me to sell one, and I might sell Lottie Ladybird but then babies get bored so quickly and we do have a big house so I can put them in different rooms. Personally I think I got it for a good price and it was something I've wanted for a while so I'm happy. The Ladybird mat just isn't that engaging for her now that she can reach out and bat toys so I think the new one will be good for her development. I'm reluctant to sell it just yet though as perhaps it will be good for her later when she's at a different stage. I'll sell them all eventually. Here's a photo of her with her friends Julian and Hugo, the centre of attention as the only girl. Julian doesn't look too impressed that Phoebe is hogging his play mat though.

I know I said "finally" at the start of the last paragraph but that was before I knew what I'm about to tell you, which is not good news. My Picasa account has reached its limit which means I can't add any more photos to Phoebe's album. And just when she was getting interesting too. I'm going to see if I can persuade Toby to let me purchase a storage upgrade.

So, until that happens, here's one final cute-as photo of my beautiful babe just so that remaining megabyte of storage doesn't go to waste:

And yet more about sleep

Yes, sleep indeed is something that parents obsess over. Sleep and routine, which are inextricably linked. As is food. Do not expect that this will be the last post on the subject.

After almost three weeks of sleeping through the night for periods of eight to eleven hours, Phoebe has behaved somewhat differently over the last two nights. 

On Friday night as we were going to bed around 11pm she awoke and decided she was hungry. We thought maybe she was cold as the temperature had dropped since we put her to bed at 8pm. So we fed her and tucked her up in her sleeping bag and there she remained until 6.45am.

Last night we put her to bed at 7.15pm, around 30-45 minutes earlier than usual because for once she'd actually had a decent afternoon nap for a couple of hours in her cot around 3pm, rather than me having to take her out in the pram around 4 or 5pm to get her to sleep. In fact she'd been napping fairly regularly throughout the day: about an hour every two or three. She surprised us by waking up at 8pm apparently hungry. We fed her and cuddled her for a while and then put her back down at 9pm. She then woke up again at 3.30am. 

I didn't know what had hit me. I am no longer in that automatic zombie mode of getting up, feeding the baby, changing the baby, swaddling the baby, placing the baby back in the cot, going to the toilet and eagerly crawling back into bed. Now I lie in bed listening, trying to wake up, trying to engage my brain, thinking "Why is she awake? What could she possibly want? Is she really hungry? Should I feed her? Should I try to get her back to sleep? Should I ignore her? If I let her get up now will she do the same tomorrow night? How will this influence tomorrow? What happened to her GODDAMN ROUTINE for crying out loud???" Then Toby gently taps me on the shoulder and whispers "Lins, Phoebe's awake," and it's all I can do to stop myself from yelling out "Yes, I know and just what do you want me to do about it?"

Anyway, I fed her and got her back into her cot in about ten minutes, only for her to wake again within three hours. After another feed, Toby changed her, swaddled her and attempted to get her back to sleep in her cot but she was having none of it and so she ended up in bed with us. Well, didn't she look as smug as a bug in a rug gazing lovingly first at Toby then at me like the cat that got the cream. And there we all slept for the next hour and a half.

There are a few possible factors at play here:

• She could be cold. We placed her in a sleeping bag to counteract this but...
• It's difficult to swaddle her when she's in a sleeping bag and she definitely sleeps better when well swaddled.
• It could be a growth spurt, but then she seems to be constantly having growth spurts as any time I can't explain her behaviour, be it excessive sleepiness, excessive wakefulness, frequent feeding, frequent crying etc. I attribute it to growth spurts. The current one has been going for about a week on and off, with different symptoms throughout.
• She could be in the early stages of teething and there are other signs pointing to this, such as her red cheeks (which could also be a sign of good health), her constant dribbing and sucking her fists (which she's been doing for about a month), her transition from sucking my finger to chewing on it (which may be a normal developmental and explorative progression) and her recent afternoon grizzlies (which may or may not be colic or overtiredness - see below).
• She could be hungry, due to not feeding well at bedtime feed, due to colic or overtiredness.
• She could be thirsty. The air has been particularly dry these past few days due to south-westerly winds. I awoke frequently on Friday night with an uncomfortably dry throat and nose, needing a drink. It makes sense that she might feel this way too.
• Perhaps the first awakening led to the next and so on, due to not changing her nappy between times. We don't usually change her nappy at night and didn't want to stimulate her but perhaps she was then woken due to having a wet nappy.
• As mentioned, her nap times were different throughout the day, but her cumulative sleep time didn't seem much different.

Honestly, being a parent, or at least the primary caregiver of a young baby, requires the precision and planning of a military strategist, the investigative skills of a detective and the innate ability to analyse cause and effect, not to mention patience and flexibility. You have to constantly reassess your plans based upon what your baby has done, or how your baby is behaving. If baby doesn't behave as you expected or hoped then you have to do a quick analysis of all the possible causes, alternative courses of action and potential outcomes, and what cascading effect these may all have. 

Consider this: you go for a swim whilst hubby looks after baby during baby's sleep cycle. Baby doesn't sleep. Baby falls asleep in sling (on hubby) whilst you and hubby finish off a coffee post-swim. Hubby then has to go back to work. Do you:

a) take sling from hubby and put it on you and hang around the park until baby awakes, bearing in mind that baby doesn't sleep for long in the sling?

b) take baby from sling, put in car and head back home as per original plan, thus risking waking baby during transition from sling to car seat or on arrival back home resulting in an even shorter nap than had baby been left in sling?

c) gently lay sling in pram and push around the park for as long as baby will sleep, hopefully 40 minutes?

If c) then do you then feed baby and go home, or go home and then feed baby? And so on and so forth. It's like planning your next move in chess.

Anyway, tonight we've ditched the sleeping bag, swaddled her tightly and tucked her in with some very secure blankets (it's all about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) people, and the prevention thereof; there are so many rules). We'll see if that makes a difference. Of course, it could have just been a one-off anyway.

Phoebe's also been experiencing the afternoon grizzlies. Since she's been sleeping through the night the hours from 4pm onwards are something of a juggling act. Trying to time her naps so that she doesn't get too much or too little sleep before bedtime, so that she isn't overtired and doesn't go to bed too early and so that she enjoys bathtime but so that we still get time to ourselves to have dinner and tidy up, is quite a challenge. 

But these grizzlies are more than just managing the witching hour. Twice now she has been inconsolable at really inconvenient times during the early afternoon, such as when out for coffee with friends, or today at a baby shower. I'm beginning to wonder if she has colic as I read yesterday that it starts around three months (right on time, she's such a textbook baby) and on the advice of a friend I gave her some Brauer's Colic Relief, a homeopathic remedy which seemed to calm her. However, I'm sure it's just a case of having too short a nap (usually because we're going out) and that leading to a whole host of other problems. It makes going out in the afternoons really difficult, which is a bummer as I have my citizenship ceremony during the afternoon in a couple of weeks. Hopefully this is just a phase and it will have passed by then, although if it is colic then the same source tells me that it'll last three months.

Firstly, she'll get tired very quickly throughout her next cycle. I don't necessarily feed her straight away because it's less than two hours since her last feed. So if she doesn't get back to sleep, which she generally won't if we're out and about and she's stimulated, then she becomes hungry and tired and she gets confused. I try to get her to sleep. She can't sleep and she screams and screams. Eventually she becomes due for her feed anyway, manages to communicate that she's hungry and I feed her. But she doesn't feed well because she's tired. She pulls on and off the breast, gets easily distracted and gives herself a windy pain. This leads to her being tired, in pain and still a bit hungry, only she can't really eat because she has a pain. So then she gets frustrated too and screams louder, making the pain worse and making it even harder for her to sleep. 

The only way out of this really is to walk her around for a while, change her position frequently to remove the wind, persist with feeding her, and remove all stimulation so that she can get to sleep. Today I spent an hour and a half trying to calm her and get her to sleep at a baby shower (I'd like to say it was a good party but I don't really know as I didn't feel I was really there) and eventually she fell asleep in the sling she was so exhausted. Even taking her into the bedroom didn't help as she was too hot and could still hear all the noise from the lounge. After trying to settle her for some time with her screaming, whilst my friend was trying to breastfeed her baby, she eventually told me she was hungry and I offered her the breast. After a couple of minutes of sucking she stopped. She laid her head back and looked right at me. She looked positively content. And then, the little minx smiled! I couldn't help but laugh at her - how could she go from being inconsolably upset one minute to being happy and smiley the next? I had to look away from her so as not to encourage such cheeky behaviour.

I'm done... I lost most of this post just after having finished it and before managing to publish it. I don't know why it didn't auto-save but my battery ran flat. I'm now tired and past my bedtime so if the post seems a bit disjointed and ends abruptly, it's because it's a rewrite and I've forgotten what I wanted to say.

More about sleep

Did I mention that Phoebe is definitely sleeping through these days?

For about two weeks now, since she was about 10 weeks old, she has slept around 9 or 10 hours a night, the minimum being 8 and the maximum being 11 ½!! It's bliss. The strange thing is I've been more tired since she started doing it. She feeds around 4.30pm then we go for a walk to give her a nap in the pram. When she wakes up around 6.30pm we have another feed, then it's bathtime and usually the three of us climb in the big bath together. It's the best time of day and is a chance for all of us to wind down. Toby loves coming home from work to have a bath with Phoebe. After her bath she'll have a top-up feed around 7.30pm and go to bed sometime between 8 and 8.30pm. Obviously, these are approximate times and they vary from day to day as we're not exactly a strict routine family. I still have to express before I go to bed around 10 or 11pm or, if I go to bed earlier, I often have to get up at 4am to express because my boobs are like watermelons. In firmness, not size, that is. God, imagine having boobs the size of watermelons. What a nightmare. Jordan nearly does, but not quite. That woman from EuroTrash who died of a heart attack... what was her name? Lola, or something? She had boobs not far off the size of watermelons and look what happened to her. They weren't natural of course.

Anyway, it appears I have veered from the subject of sleep to that of boobs - very easy to do when you're breastfeeding. It probably means I should skip the boob pumping and just head for an early bed tonight.

Whilst I am (back) on the subject of sleep though, I'll just finish off. Phoebe wakes up around 6am, feeds, plays the staring and laughing at me game for a while, has a nappy change and then goes back to bed for about 2 or 3 hours! This morning I had to actually get her out of her cot and take her to mums group in her pyjamas! She is the amazing sleeping baby. In the mornings that is. Afternoons are a different story but that's for another post. I'm off to bed before I lose the plot. Goodnight.