There is hope

After my somewhat unnerving experience at the local childcare centre I set my Facebook status to:

"Lindsey doesn't want to send her baby to a scummy daycare centre."

A friend emailed me a fantastic message that made me feel so much better. She told me how she'd had similar experiences looking for daycare in Ireland for her wee lad. She described the place that she eventually got him into and when I read it I thought, "yes, that's exactly what I was expecting and hoping and want". Hopefully they exist in Australia too. This is what she said:

I really felt happy and safe the minute I walked into the baby room ... The staff all really engage with the babies, they seem to spend most of their time on the floor playing with them or carrying them around if they are cranky. They sing to them, let them play with pots and pans, read stories, listen to nursery rhymes and all the usual things you would be doing at home to keep them entertained and stimulated. They've got lots of bright rugs and cushions on the floor for them to explore and mirrors at crawling baby eye level for them to admire themselves. It feels like a really nurturing, warm environment.

I have managed to get another couple of names of centres to check out which I must do soon. Hopefully waiting until we get back from the UK (as we leave in about 10 days) won't be too late. There is no way I'm putting her in a scummy place even if it's temporary.

So there may be hope yet for childcare. However, I am not sure about the safety of my child with her father. Tonight, after bathing her, he said to me:

"I think we should get some bits of rubber to put around the edge of the bath so she doesn't hurt her head if she falls over."

"Well, she shouldn't fall over because you should be supervising her very closely and should be able to stop her if she topples," I replied (calmly, might I add).

"But I think she needs to learn that falling into water is a bad thing," he said.

Sheesh!

Day Care, Nightmare

I have just started my investigation of childcare facilities and I have to say, it's more than disappointing. I have a very short list of places to look at based upon recommendations from people I know. I started with a local facility heartily recommended to me by two friends (three if you consider a husband and wife as separate recommendations).

I took a friend with me who used to be a Montessori teacher. Phoebe was asleep in her stroller when we got there so I left her outside and my friend stayed with the prams.

At first I thought, "oh this doesn't look too bad. A bit like a barn perhaps..." due to all of the gates to keep the kiddies in their relevant sections. The lady seemed nice enough, although slightly odd. She took me into the baby area and showed me around. It didn't really take long as it wasn't very big. She showed me the change station and explained how they used these particular (cheap) wipes but if my baby has sensitive skin I can take my own wipes in. Then she showed me the charts they fill in to say how many nappy changes each baby has had and whether they pooed, when they slept and for how long and a book that logs what each child has done that day.

She showed me the outdoor area where they play and the sunscreen they use. They're not allowed to go outside without sunscreen. She showed me the room where they sleep, a tiny room crammed with about eight cots, one of which was occupied by a baby playing with a bottle. The rest of the babies were sitting in high chairs. They were quiet, not unhappy but not particularly happy either. One might say institutionalised but that's perhaps a bit harsh.

I think the time of day I visited mightn't have been the best as I was hoping to see games being played, babies being sung to, that kind of thing. It seemed so quiet and unengaging. I asked what sort of activities they do and was given the example of collages and paintings.

The lady who was looking after them appeared to be on her own but there were probably about six babies in there. Sarah said she understood that it was four babies per carer so perhaps the other lady was on her break. The carer seemed nice enough but I didn't really see her engaging the children. She changed a child whilst I was there and I didn't notice her talking to him at all; she just shoved him on the change table and whipped off his nappy without a please or thank you.

It was all just so bland and not at all what I was expecting after the rave reviews. Maybe it's nicer for older children but I just got an icky feeling and didn't really know what to think. I'd had no idea what to expect, nothing to compare it to. I'd been so convinced that this would be the place and all I could think was "this is where Phoebe's going to spend her days? Oh my god!" Talk about mother guilt. The place was tiny, much smaller than the house and far more babies in it and it suddenly occurred to me that she'd be there all day. We never spend all day in the house and if we do we both go a bit nuts and end up going for walk at the end of the day.

Phoebe will be almost eleven months old when I return to work but I've been thinking about putting her into childcare for one day a week from about October when she'll be eight or nine months old. This will free me up to do some projects but will also allow me to get used to not being with Phoebe 24/7. I just couldn't see her being in a place like this at such a young age. It is so depressing to think of her just sitting in a high chair, not being sung to or played with or talked to. I couldn't see where the babies might sit and play and I don't particularly want her wearing sunscreen at least until she's one. Maybe I'm being a bit over the top with that and I'm sure if I insisted they'd be happy for me to take some zinc-based sunscreen in for her. But I suppose that's a minor detail.

When I got outside I felt an overwhelming sense of protection towards Phoebe and just wanted to pick her up and cuddle her and tell her how much I love her. I tried to see the positive side to it. It was a recommendation, it must be good. Then again, if I don't like it maybe a daycare centre just isn't for us. Maybe I should start looking for family daycare instead. I thought Sarah should take a look with her Montessori teacher hat on. She did. The verdict?

"You can't make her go to that place. Tell me you won't put her there. It was HORRIBLE!"

Strangely, I felt relieved.

And yet at the same time I wondered, if that's the place that has come recommended, what on earth are the others like?

Sarah told me that she noticed the babies' bottles in the fridge had no tops on them. She also told me how the carer changed a baby's nappy whilst she was there and whacked his head on a piece of wood above the change table. The baby was screaming and the carer, who was obviously embarrassed said, "oh, I've never noticed that bit of wood there before. We should do something about that." Oh! My!! God!!! She told me how it was worse than the scummy place in Fulham when she worked as a Montessori teacher. Gosh, I really hope this isn't the standard of childcare in Australia but I'm beginning to wonder.

So now we're on a mish to find some decent childcare. Sarah suggested we frequent some playgroups and see if there are any nannies or child minders there. I found a nanny and babysitting service online this afternoon and they charge $165 a day. Holy Mackeral Mother of the Devil! That's almost as much as I take home after tax. I think I'd have about $30 left over for the mortgage and everything else. Hardly worth it really. We're going to check out the number 1 recommendation of daycare facilities next week and just keep asking around for more. And I am considering finding something like family daycare for the first few months. There has to be a better option. And if there isn't I'm quitting my job and selling the house.

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.

Sitting Pretty

Soon after publishing my last post my Little Miss sat unaided for the first time and is now doing it regularly. Occasionally she still topples over, like this morning when I was showing off her new trick to her Auntie Karen and this afternoon at Gymbaroo when she face-planted into her hard plastic treasure bag toy whilst I was temporarily distracted. Isn't that always the way? Baby does something new and clever and consistently shows off new trick to parents for days but then as soon as parents proudly display new trick to someone else baby temporarily forgets how to do it.

Well, here's evidence:

And more:

Yes, I'm ridiculously proud, especially as all the books say she'll sit around 6 months old and she isn't even 4 ½ months. She's very advanced.

We have now set up the little booster seat that Andrei and Karen leant us, which just straps to a dining chair and so she has an alternative sitting option for when I'm doing boring stuff like the laundry or the dinner. I will soon be purchasing various equipment in preparation for her weaning (by which I mean starting her on solids as opposed to getting her off breast milk), including some nice soft weaning spoons and a sippy cup (I figured there isn't much point in persisting with the bottle; we may as well go straight to a cup now) and eventually some freezer pots and a hand blender. Oh, how quickly they grow.

Unfortunately, the poor love, as well as dealing with her millions of injections and learning her impressive new skill, is really suffering with her teeth. Her bottom two teeth are almost through; the bumps are more prominent and when she does manage to let me see her gums (a rare occurrence on account of her love of sticking out her tongue) I am sure I can see bits of white so I'm hoping that they will break through very soon and give her some relief. She's started to bite my boob and even though I don't have particularly sensitive nipples it's a less than pleasant experience.

Just for the hell of it before I go, here's a short movie of her learning to sit:

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:

Height of confusion

So the next night she slept right through until 5.30am! My boobs were so hard and painful that I got her up for a feed before she started with the hungry noises. She seemed pretty grateful.

So that was that. All back to normal again.

Or so we thought!

Last night she was a bit out of whack at bedtime. We did everything pretty much as we usually do: 

1700: walk, sleep in pram

1800: feed

1830: bath

1900: feed

1930: bed

1945: sleep

So far so good, until:

2010: wake up, apparently hungry, therefore feed.

2100: back in cot, sleep again.

And not only that but what would usually look somewhat like:

0600: wake, feed

actually ended up more like:

0100: wake, reswaddled

0230: wake again, hungry, got food this time.

0245: back in cot, happy

0630: wake, feed.

What the???

Then, tonight, exactly the same thing, only last night she was easy to settle after her random post-bedtime 8pm feed and tonight she was a little minx. I think she wanted to stay up and play but we were quite strict and insisted this was her bedtime. You have to instill good habits in them from an early age. And besides, House was on and it was the season finale!

So god knows what tonight will bring but if this pattern continues then we may have to change our tactics slightly although I'm not sure quite how just yet.

I've started using my MP3 player to record her various noises. My sister and I used to love recording our voices when we were young, back in the days of tape recorders; I remember how every now and then the tape would get mangled and either record too quickly or play back too slowly and our voices would be all distorted and we'd scare ourselves thinking we'd recorded a ghost in the room. I was actually disappointed when I figured out what was really going on. I used to love listening to old tapes recorded when we were really young. Clare's voice was so cute. I remember one in particular when we were singing Hickory Dickory Dock but Clare couldn't speak properly and she'd say "Hick dick dock mouse an cock". Another recording is of me reading The Three Little Pigs and getting annoyed with Clare interrupting me. I wonder if Dad still has those old tapes. No one has cassette players anymore; what would we listen to them on? 

Perhaps Phoebe will like to listen to her cute little baby noises when she's older. I also think it might help us interpret her cries, plus it'll be really interesting to hear how her noises change over time. I tried to record her with the camera but that was way too distracting for her. She'd stop talking and just stare at the camera.

Speaking of which, I thought you might like to see a cute little movie of Phoebe playing on her activity mat this morning although to be honest, it's probably only appealing to grandparents and aunties, and of course besotted parents. You'll see her hand-eye coordination is improving as she is actually able to delibrately hit her toy. You'll also hear Toby sliding the outside door open and shut and flip-flopping past between the bbq and the kitchen as he cooks up bacon and eggs for breakfast. Yum!