Enter Sandman and Things That Shouldn't Be Talked About!!!

I'm enjoying the challenge of trying to use song titles as titles!

Well the OH said my blog was getting a bit stale so any suggestions as to how to spice it up would be more than welcome if I'm boring you!

The Enter Sandman title is brought about because T is doing nothing but sleep at the moment!

He's literally lasting no longer than an hour between naps, which I'm finding rather odd, the last 2 days have consisted of feed, play for half an hour, 15 minutes of whinging, 45 minutes of sleep, then repeat.

 Apart from on an afternoon where he's trying to sleep for 3 hours +. I keep waking him up as I'm sure he's not supposed to be sleeping that long.

Bedtime routine has been established, bed now at 7pm, he's sleeping through to anywhere between half 2 and 5, then back to sleep till 6/6:30am.

So if anyone has any ideas on why he's sleeping so much they would be greatly appreciated!

Well I said in one of my previous blogs that I was considering sharing the physical effects after labour, and I've decided that I'm going to do that (anyone squeamish stop reading now!)

I think it's important to know what can happen, I didn't know the problems I would have.

I was extremely lucky in the fact that I didn't put any weight on throughout pregnancy, and lost 2 stone from the day I gave birth, and I didn't get one stretch mark. I don't know how I acheived that, I think regular badminton playing pre-pregnancy may have helped pull me back in shape very quickly, but I used no oils or anything to prevent stretch marks.

The one thing I've suffered with all my life are heavy periods. I mean stupidly heavy, but they were a breeze compared to what my first period, post labour, was like.

Nothing escaped the leaks, I leaked through 3 pads and onto my sofa, within an hour of changing them. I couldn't leave the house, I've never done so much washing in a week. The sofa thing was the worst though, I was so so so so SO embarrassed, I tried scrubbing it out before anyone found out and I was crying the whole time I was doing it.

I need not have feared the OH was so understanding and lovely, I had to sit on towels, sleep on towels, I felt like I was a baby myself!

Since then I've had 3 other periods and they are either ridiculously heavy still, or extremely painful, the only way I can describe it is that my womb feels swollen and tender, and the cramps are just contractions all over again, I literally have to breathe my way through them. I've spoken to the Dr, about testing me for Endometriosis, she's said it's too early to tell if it's just my body settling down since labour or if I've caused some damage through labour.

It's very hard for me to write all that because periods are another thing that shouldn't really be discussed, and because of the consequences of them I get upset very easily talking about them.

The other problem I had/have again is not something widely discussed, the wonders of piles.

Never had them before and mine randomly appeared 2 weeks after giving birth. A lot of people get them during pregnancy and they have my hugest sympathies.

The first time I had a, errrm bowel movement (let's stay professional, poo would just make me giggle, just like I randomly laughed at the word bum earlier, very childish!) with piles, I was in tears, I had it whilst everyone else was asleep (I'm a paranoid pooper, I try to go when everyone is asleep) the sheer pain of it left me in tears, unable to sleep, I was in agony for about 6 hours. I went to the Drs the next day who brutally shoved a finger up my bottom to check it was piles and made me cry, he gave me some cream with some aneasthetic in it.

This did not help, or if it did I dread to think how much it would have hurt!

The agonising pain (for those who've not had it, basically think about passing a knife through your bottom, a big big sharp one, and there's just as much blood!) lasted probably for about 3 months, but it's now eased a huge amount, still slightly sharp pain, but nothing I can't cope with. My GP said they should heal and go in their own time, and I'm hoping that's what's happening!

So that's that all out in the open, I'm going to run and hide in a corner under a blanket and rock with shame!

Drs appointment on Tuesday in regards to PND, so will be interesting to see what she says, seems as I've still not taken my anti-depressents, bet I get a slap on the wrist for that!

Weaning and Weddings!

Well not a huge amount to report on the T front.

He's started on his baby food, and although it says to just give him a little tiny bit, T has other plans. As soon as the food's on the spoon his mouth opens soooo wide, then he just face dives into the spoon.

So essentially the weaning step by step guide has pretty much gone out of the window! So he's so far consumed, creamy chicken, roast dinner and porridge for breakfast this morning!

Cot countdown, is maximum of 3 days. :( I'll miss all the snuffling and him peeking over the top of his basket to see what we're doing though!

Have a marvellous new routine at the moment though. Putting him to bed at 7pm, waking him at 10pm for a feed, putting him back down again and he's sleeping through till half past 6, which is wonderful! Plus means the OH can do that feed as he gets up at 7am for work! Marvellous for mammy.

Measured and weighed him the other day (ourselves as clinic is rubbish, also he wasn't measured when he was born so I couldn't tell you how much he's grown since birth) So T is 66cms long and weighs 16lbs 4oz, I looked this up and he's the perfect weight for his height, however he is well big for his age, off the chart!

Had a busy few days in regards to the wedding though.

I thought I would explain how I've done everything, as I don't understand why everyone spends 6k + on their weddings, maybe they don't realise what you can get on the high street!

I'm attempting to do 2 weddings on a 3k budget, and I'm doing very well. The reason for the 2 weddings is we can only fit 34 people into the registry office, so we're doing a vow renewal the following week.

So we have the 3 suits we needed, the men were clearly over confident about their waist sizes (or Marks and Spencers a bit stingy) so need to take all the trousers back to swap for bigger sizes. So £140 for all 3 suits!

The flowers have been sorted, i'm using silk ones (much easier in my eyes) £80 for a bridal bouquet, 7 bridesmaids bouquets and 6 buttonholes. Thanks to a lovely helpful lady on ebay!

My 2 dresses:
Dress 1 was £120 for a beautiful classic simple ivory dress made to measure from a local bridal shop in Stockton.
Dress 2: Was just good fortune, I have 2 close friends who own a bridal shop, they needed their loft boarding out so I pimped out the OH (a joiner by trade) and they knocked what they would have paid him off the price of the dress, ergo free dress!

Bridesmaids dresses: £130 (for 7) found 5 lovely classy long ones from a designer outlet store for the older bridesmaids and 2 short ones for my neices (the younger bridesmaids)

Pageboy suits: £52 (for 2) online, each consists of waistcoat, cravat, shirt and trousers.

Photographer: Again good fortune, I have a good friend who's a photographer, so is doing both weddings for £100!

So on top of those main bits, using local pub and local hotel for both receptions, both with food and DJ for £1000.

We're getting there slowly but surely!

Alongside all of this my parents have invented the Habitent, essentially an awning for the back of yachts, so I'm dealing with all the advertising and marketing for that for those fancying a nose:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Habitent/124828727585361
Twitter: @Habitent

So full time mother, trying to plan 2 weddings, be a housewife and market a new product and business., oh the days do fly!

Who knew I was such a good juggler!?

Also I'm expanding my social networking skills so:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Yummy-Mummy-My-Journey-So-Far/179685445402400
Twitter: @rainbowbryte

Why's and When's!

Well first and foremost i'm exhausted so bear with me on this one!

T did a double feed again last night half 1 and half 6. Thankfully my OH did the half 6 one as I was pooped!

Why's and when's; why is my baby crying and when is the right time to...

Every question a new mother must ask herself 100 times a day!

My why's and when's of the day are why is T crying?

 He's normally a very chilled out baby, and crying is nothing that, a feed/nappy change/nap won't fix, rarely he cries for a cuddle. But there are times when none of those things will stop him, then what do you do?!

So I'm trying to fathom out his why for the day, when he woke for his half 1 feed, he didn't do his usual increasing whimper, he just did; eyes open, SCREAM. Very unlike him. Woke the whole house up (which makes me feel useless as I faff about trying to get milk sorted whilst trying to soothe him!) once he had his bottle inside of him he settled. Then the half 6 feed followed the normal routine.

He seemed fine throughout the day, and I decided to call some assistance from my best friend in making a homemade lasagna and cake for my OH just to show I love him (bork I know but I do these things occasionally) so had everything timed to perfection, OH came home, ran him a bath and stuck tea on whilst he was in. Then about 10 minutes before everything was due to be ready and everything needed prepping and dishing up, T threw a hissy fit. I'd left him in the front room with The Daughter, and she came through and handed him to me as she didn't know what to do. I did my usual attempts at soothing (making a shooshing noise followed by 7 rounds of Twinkle Twinkle) this was not effective and then the oven timer went off 'serve me serve me!' so palmed T off onto OH whilst I dished up, then fed T even though he wasn't due a feed for another hour. He gobbled 3/4's of his bottle then pushed it away with his mouth pursed and his 'i'm full now mother you may put the bottle down' face on.

Then came the when. The OH and I had a discussion and decided that maybe now was the time to start weaning him onto his baby food. They tell you the baby should be at least 17 weeks old before you start trying him on baby food (T is 16 weeks and 5 days) but to look for other signs that he's ready such as chewing his hands: done that for about a month, showing an interest in our food: again about a month, he's so curious he almost face dives into our plates, licking his lips: been doing that for about a week and that's about it. Although T has been watching us eat and now sits and chews nothing whilst we're eating. So we made a judegement call and decided to have a bash at it.

So in the handy booklet that appeared through the door at the beginning of the week (complete with free spoons and porridge!) it suggests that they have a teeny tiny bit off the end of a spoon and they will mess about with it and most likely spit it out, but it gets them used to the texture. Not T, he scoffed the lot, so we tried a little bit more, scoffed all that, all the while he was giggling his little ass off, obviously delighted that we'd picked up on all the signals he's been sending us.

I wonder now if we should have tried this earlier?!

So back to the why, not long after this milestone, T decided he was tired and went to bed at 7 (hooray we achieved it!) but we can hear that he's having little cries and screams in his sleep. Is he in pain? Is he having nightmares? How do we knooooow!? Back to the when; when he was about 7 weeks old I had to take him to the 24 hour Drs as he screamed for a full day, I had spotted a white lump on his gum and he was showing a few signs of teething, told the Dr this and she laughed at me and said it was far to early. But kindly gave us permission to give him Calpol.

Calpol; is the medicine of miracles. On the most occasions that we have given him it, he has slept through almost a full night. I checked later with my GP who told me a) Calpol doesn't make babies drowsy (I genuinely got concerned that I was drugging my child) if it's pain that's disturbing T's slumber then Calpol obviously removes that therefore enabling him to sleep peacefully and b) that the nasty lady Dr shouldn't have laughed at me, although his teeth may not be cutting, his gums are hardening in preparation and the bones in their mouths move causing them similar pains to cutting teeth. So I was right, HA!

Mothers know best is the cliche to become a new mums mantra, YOU know what your baby is like, YOU know his cries, so YOU know when there is a problem, NEVER feel ashamed of asking for help or feeling like a paranoid mother. I've learned that now.

So we shall carry on with the weaning tomorrow and hopefully T will be a happier boy in the morning!

Sad baby :(

Keep on Rolling baby

I had a choice of two titles for this blog, I went with keep on rolling (Limp Bizkit) rather than Proud Mary (Tina Turner) as Proud Mary goes from Tina Turner to the cast of Glee and then I get the urge to sing, ergo getting side tracked!

Well T has discovered rolling, aged 16 weeks and 2 days.

 Was rather amusing.

We'd bought an end of carpet roll which we cut into metre squares to put on the floor so T can have his 'tummy time' as we have laminate flooring, and it's nigh on impossible to find any kind of play mat that doesn't slip and slide everywhere.

So he was spinning round in circles on his front which he's been doing for a while, then my OH walked out the room, and T did a lovely roll off the mat onto the laminate flooring....and screamed.

It does warn you that they give themselves a nasty shock when they do it, so I cheered and clapped then picked him up and gave him a big cuddle.

Then we got him to bed for about half 8 (woo its getting earlier) and when he awoke at 3am, he was cheekily smiling up at me, which was lovely till I realised he'd obviously rolled over as I'd put him onto his front. So I clapped and cheered again (although he may have thought I was cheering at him waking me up, which would be bad, as I don't know at what point between 11 and 3 he'd rolled over)

After I'd fed him I put him back down in his basket and laid down in bed, and I could hear all this grunting and huffing and puffing, with the occasional pair of eyes peering over the top at me, followed by a bum sticking up in the air. After about 20 minutes of his exertions, I put him onto his back as clearly thats where he wanted to be. Then ensued a further 20 minutes of arms and legs failing about and shouting as T told the animals on the side of his basket all about his adventures.

Then thankfully fell asleep.

Don't think it'll be long before he starts crawling, he can push himself up into the right position, he just hasn't figured the rest of it out yet, thankfully, think operation childproof everything will need to be started fairly quickly!!

Oh what a night!

Uuuurrrggghhh

T obviously decided to get his revenge on me for thinking of putting him into his own room

*in a Stewie from Family Guy type voice*

" What the hell mother, I will make you pay, I shall never leave your side!!!"

(Family Guy makes you look at your own child a little differently, you do occasionally wonder the evil thoughts that go through their minds!)

So T went to bed at half 9, I couldn't sleep, so eventually drifted off at about 12:45 am

T woke up at 1:15am, so I draaaggged myself out of bed, gave him his feed, put him back down again, got up to redo his night bottle, got back to sleep about 2am.

T then awoke again at 5am, so dragged myself out of bed again, but T decided he would like to wind me up. He wouldn't let me put his bib on, he kept pushing against my leg and head diving out of my arms and then came the latest development...

He has now sussed hand eye co-ordination.

This may seem like an exciting development in my sons life, and whilst I am very proud, he displayed his newfound talent to me in the worst way possible at the worst time possible.

After his feed I was giving him a little cuddle, and he gazed transfixed at my glasses, out reached his tiny hand, then....SMACK, my glasses were walloped off my face. Cue much giggling from T. So putting it down to coincidence I put my glasses back on and went back to cuddling, again T got transfixed, out reached his tiny hand then...GRAB, he got hold of the front of my glasses and pulled.

So I took them off and spent the rest of the cuddle blind.

So does this now mean, that when I wake up on a night I should put my contact lenses in to prevent any breakages? Or should I do it blind?!

However, T went back to sleep about half 5, as did I, then about 6:30am he started stirring again. I physically couldn't lift my head from the pillow, I laid there for about 15 minutes as he had a bit of a whinge, started psyching myself up to get up and make yet another bottle, when my OH came to my rescue, and leapt out of bed to fix everything.

I slept in till half 9, mmmm lovely.

Nights like that are such a struggle, i've learned that I need at least 4 hours uninterrupted sleep in order to function, if that gets disturbed I'm a bit useless.

Thanks goodness it happened on a weekend, and fingers crossed it doesn't happen again tonight!

One smile from them erases all the tiredness you'll be pleased to know!

T's big move...

...isn't really happening, lol.

It's too haaaaaaard!

Have tried putting him down in his cot for naps so he gets used to it, but he's only sleeping for exactly half an hour at a time, which is no bliddy good!

So I have a new plan. As my OH is off both Saturday and Sunday next week, I will get T used to his cot with naps all through the week and then we can put him in on Friday night, then if I'm up with him all night the OH can take over Saturday morning so I can catch up on some kip.

There's two further issues with the big move;

Problem 1: T has suddenly decided to become mobile, so you leave him in his cot at the bottom in the middle, and once you go to him when he wakes up, he's at the top, face squished against the bars, arm hanging out the gap. This raises the issue of cot bumpers, they seem very sensible, would prevent him from hurting himself against the bars and preventing him from sticking various limbs through the gaps. However there is then the view opposing cot bumpers, which raises the issues of suffocation. T could pull them off, get tangled in them, squish his face against them too hard and suffocate...usual story of baby advice, loads of evidence for and against and you're left to make your own mind up. So for now we have decided against them!

Problem 2: The noise factor for me.
I had a little practice run this morning, when T woke for his 6am feed, I transferred everything to his cot and popped him in that, laid my head down to sleep with the baby monitor at the side of my bed. So when OH got up at 7am I realised my problem. The nursery is next to the kitchen, and the nursery window looks out onto the dog run. In the nursery wall is a serving hatch which obviously links through to the kitchen. So at 7am, I heard OH, making his cup of tea, next to my ear, washing up next to my ear, tidying up; next to my ear. Then the dogs were let into their run which started with their usual morning barks at the trees, leaves, sky, whatever they fancy....next to my ear.

Urgh.

So it looks like when the big move eventually happens, i'm going to have to get up at 7am, else the baby monitor may be smashed against the wall!

So I will keep you up to date with how that goes.

Other than that it's been another PND ass kicking day, T, myself and my dad went to visit my Grandma this morning, who is losing her memory at a very fast pace.
After asking 'who's is that?!' whilst pointing at T, then us explaining he was my son, and she's met him about 6 times so far, we then moved to wedding talk. This resulted in my Grandma asking my dad what his role in the wedding would be 'erm I'll be father of the bride' said my dad, 'but you're not her father, you've got no kids' pointed out my Grandma. Needless to say there was an awkward pause, whilst we all digested this information (he is my real dad just for clarification!).
We left shortly after, poor ol' Grandma :(

Then T myself and my mum went to town to do some wedding shopping, and I got my other wedding dress (hoorraaaaayyy!) sorted the mens suits out yesterday.
I'm pretty much organised apart from the faffy bits. Am over the moon, we're easily managing to do the 2 weddings on our 3k budget. Perhaps I should write another blog 'Yummy Mummys' Budget Wedding Planning' What do you think?!

Invaluable Advice

Due to the lack of support I received once T was born I decided to follow my instincts and it's not let me down yet, here's some advice that got me through from pregnancy to now!

If in doubt google it: The amount of questions a paranoid pregnant woman/first time mother comes up with is insane, every pain, tingle, cough sneeze is cause for worry. I would have gone crazy with stress if i didnt have google. I googled EVERYTHING, and you know what, everything I googled came back with thousands of posts from similiar people querying the 'silly' things. Reading them make you realise you're not alone, not crazy and there's people who are in the same boat. How mothers 10 years ago coped is beyond me, I would have been at the drop in clinic every day if I with a list of questions as long as my arm!

Do what's best for you: The amount of conflicting advice you receive is RIDICULOUS! You've already got baby brain, the last thing you need is it baffling! Breast v Bottle, Front v Back, Co-Sleeping...so on and so forth. Take on board all the advice you receive, try what you want and stick with it from there. Below is my experiences with those 3 things!

Breast v Bottle: You get bombarded with 'breast is best' from the day you find out you're pregnant, but what about those that can't?! Where's the support for them? It riles me! I breast-fed for 6 weeks, and I'm proud. But only one Dr out of all the people I saw congratulated me for sticking with it for that long, everyone else tutted and said you should have carried on for 3 months. I got no support, no one showed me how to do it, or deal with any problems that arose, so I managed to breastfeed him for 6 weeks then get him onto bottles with just the help of my other half.

Front v Back: This is in regards to how the baby sleeps. Midwives and health visitors HAVE to tell you to get the baby to sleep on his back because of the results of all the cot death studies, and thats fine. BUT, only 20 or so years ago, it was advised that babies slept on their fronts, as it reduced the risk of choking if the baby was sick in their sleep. That, to me, is a much more logical arguement, there has been no actual proof of what causes cot death, just factors that may increase it. I don't understand how you fix something when you dont know what the cause is. I put T down to sleep on his front after about 3 weeks, mainly because he suffers from reflux and I was more worried about him choking, also reflux is like adult heartburn so when you laid him on his back it caused him pain, which at the beginning led to the next problem....

Co-Sleeping: There are logical arguements for and against this, logic says dont do it because you heighten the risk of smothering the baby when you fall asleep. But if you're baby screams in pain when in his cot on his back, he's not allowed to sleep on his front, what's a sleep deprived mother to do when her boy happily sleeps soundly on her chest? So I tried it after lots and lots of researching on the internet, and I had a few wonderful nights of sleep, before his reflux was diagnosed and I made my decision to sleep him in on his front. The research brought up lots of arguements for co-sleeping; Britains one of only a very few countries that is strongly against co-sleeping, I think the rest of Europe it's very commonplace. What sold me on it's benefits was a report I found that showed the biological benefits of co-sleeping; If the baby gets confused with his breathing, he listens to your breathing and makes his the same, If baby gets too hot, mums body cools itself and vice versa. This amazed me, Scientists arguing with nature!
However...!
I did do co-sleeping for a few nights, but after the first two nights I got too comfortable with it, and I would roll over in my sleep, your instincts kick in and he was always placed in a safe position where he could breathe, but I got a bit unnerved that my brain was the reliable whilst I was asleep, admittedly it hadn't let me down but still. Also baby then gets used to falling asleep on mummy which makes getting them in their own cot even harder. So I stopped.

There ends my advice for today, I'm not saying what I have done was right, but it was right for me and my baby, and that's how it should be. Take on board other peoples advice, then make your own decisions. At the end of the day the saying 'mummy knows best' had to come from somewhere!

If you want to sound off using other mums, go to http://www.netmums.com/, great web-site for advice!

Don't be afraid to ask questions, no matter how silly you think they are!!! If it helps you destress then it's good for the baby.

That's all for now.

Some places i found my info:

http://www.breastfeeding.com/reading_room/co_slepping.html
http://kidshealth.org/parent/general/sleep/cosleeping.html
http://www.netmums.com/