Elise's Old Blog

Well, it is already much better today. I moved the baby gym into the bathroom, so that I could have a long bath with a cup of coffee and the New Scientist. Thomas behaved impeccably. Then I thought I’d try feeding him some solids before his first nap, and he sucked up the puree’d pear with gusto, so that I had to heat up some more! This was apple, and though he made a face on the first mouthful, he continued to gulp it down.

Now we are just tackling the sleeping-in-cot lesson… by the sounds of it, this isn’t going swimmingly, so I’d better go!

People have commented on how alert Thomas is, like I’m sure most babies get, but he’s so bad that I can’t even turn the tele on without sound while breastfeeding him, as even the noise of the static across the screen makes him stop feeding and turn around to look. Also, yesterday, I took something off him that I was worried he might poke his eye out with. He has just started complaining a bit when he doesn’t get his way, so I substituted one of his favourite toys to distract him. He did stop complaining, and dutifully mouthed the toy, but his eyes followed the thing I took off him to its resting-place on the table! He looked like he was saying “just you wait til i’m mobile and can reach it!”

We are starting to try and make him take naps in his cot from now on. He used to just doze in his bouncy chair, but now that he’s 5 months, and starting to get a bit of a pattern for sleeping, we think it’s sensible to give him a sanctum sanctorum to relax in. However, I think Thomas will take some convincing. I am putting him in the cot after he has closed his eyes for sleep in the bouncy chair, sometimes with a cosy feed in his room first, but then he spends the next hour wide awake, grizzling on and off. Finally, when he gets really fed up and tired, I feed him again, and try to catch the microsecond between being very-nearly-asleep and asleep, to put him in his cot. I tried it just now, and he did let out a few cries when I put him in, but he was so asleep already, he didn’t even open his eyes!

So at the moment, it feels like we are either learning to eat, or learning to sleep, with not much fun in the meantime. Thank goodness for baby massage, as it’s becoming the one thing everyday that feels nice for both of us.

Still, I think today is just a particularly bad day, and I know it’ll all get easier.

So thomas had his first haircut! We carefully photo documented it, in case he lost any ears or facial features along the way!

Before:

Here we go: (he looks a bit worried now!)

Just the finishing touches:

And finally… the new look:

He looks fairly resigned to the new style, but he didn’t complain at any stage, so we were happy. For those who like technical detail, it was a grade 3.

I got some pictures developed – yes – the old-fashioned way – and this lovely picture of Thomas with his Oldemor (great-grandmother) appeared. There were quite a few good ones, so I’ll make a gallery and post them.

So we are starting our 2nd week of weaning. Today Thomas had some sweet potato. He seemed to like it, but didn’t eat very much. He was very tired, actually, and fell asleep straight after, so that could’ve been the problem. Also, he is starting to hate sitting in his bouncy chair – he won’t lie back in it any more, and keeps trying to sit forward, so he looks like he’ll fall out of it any minute. Unfortunately, the two things we have for babies that are almost able to sit up are still too big for him – I guess because he’s quite small for his age. He can hack the bumbo for a bit, but because he’s a bit small for it, he sort of folds in half and looks very uncomfortable!

I’ve really enjoyed making purees for him – unexpected! I’m hardly a domestic type. He does get a bit grumpy while I do it though, so I’ve taken to sitting him in the kitchen so that he can see what’s going on:

He’s very tired in that photo – you can see the bags under his eyes, poor little chap!

So Thomas had his first apple today. To be honest, he didn’t seem that impressed, but I think it’s because he was too hungry. I mixed a bit of breastmilk in with it, which got a few mouthfuls down him. Then I fed him properly (i mean a breastfeed) and then he did have a couple of mouthfuls of apple afterwards.

I feel a bit sorry for him as we are starting to try to get him to sleep in his cot for his afternoon naps. He seems to have two definite sleeps during the day now, even if they only last for 20 minutes each sometimes! He has also started to really appreciate his winne-the-pooh bear, and give it a big squeeze and a smile when you pass it to him. Well, I’ve just read him to sleep. The Just-So stories work a treat! I haven’t read him to sleep since he was about 4 weeks old, so that’s a bonus!

As for routine / patterns, apart from the two sleeps, one morning, and one afternoon, which is only just becoming regular, the evenings are all still a bit hit-and-miss! He does need another nap between 6pm and going to bed time, around 10ish, but when that is, is anybody’s guess. He does have a definite bedtime between 10 and 11, regardless of whether he has been asleep between 9 and 10 or not!! As for eating, well, I’m hoping that a sort of routine will develop around 1pm for lunch. But I don’t know how many feeds he has during the morning.

His Dad put him to bed for the first time last night – feeding him some expressed milk last thing. It seemed to work, although he woke up an hour later inconsolable, so I breastfed him back to sleep then. I think it was a good step towards me having an evening of my own. I’m dreading going back to work though. Don’t get me wrong, I love _being_ at work, but the thought of having to negotiate breast-pumps, and pots of breastmilk at work terrifies me! Still, that won’t happen for very long, as he gets weaned.

Well I’d better go- better using Thomas’ asleep time for householdy things, rather than blogging!

So, day 5 of weaning, and Thomas had a little bit of pear today. I think he liked it. I was supposed to mix it with baby rice, but little Plans wasn’t in a mood to hang around.

In fact he’s been a little fractious today. He has patches of dry skin all over his body, which I don’t think is a rash, but I wonder if he’s a bit itchy. We went to our first baby massage session today, and the health visitor who takes it suggested I keep at it with olive oil, or maybe get some cream, which I can’t remember the name of! I plan to take him to Child Health Clinic on Wednesday to get it checked out. Meanwhile, i’m washing his clothes with just Fairy non-bio in case there was some fabric conditioner, or a “bounce” tumble-dryer sheet that was put in with his wash. It could have been the chlorine from when we went swimming on Friday, or the BabyOil I doused him that he reacted to.

Anyway, he was in quite a bad mood this afternoon, it took about 10 verses of Old Mac Donald to calm him down, I was running out of animals and voice by the end (hoarse for the horse, if you like!) but then he became riveted by all the junk that we try to conceal behind the sofa, which kept him quiet for a good 10 minutes just looking at it! Then in desperation I put him in the babybouncer, and he’s been ecstatic ever since! Thank God for whoever invented such a mad thing, and of course thanks to the person who passed it to us!

Oh, I’ve bought some “environmentally-friendly” nappies for him to try, as a friend in my baby group likes them. Oddly, there wasn’t a size for babies between 6 and 7 kg, which is exactly what Thomas is, so I got him the size from 7kg up, which are a little big, but he’ll grow into them. Strange that it appears to be so hard to make eco-friendly nappies?! You’d think there would be a massive market for it, and pampers and huggies would jump straight on that bandwagon. Even the ones we’re trying are only 70% biodegradeable. We are starting to use the Terrys nappies for when he’s just sitting around the house.

I leave you with a couple of pictures of him sleeping.
1st in a grown-up bed:

and 2ndly in his dad’s arms:

Strange. I was just looking back at some of my posts, and I note that on the post where I say “12 days to go” we had just been canoeing the day before, and as Thomas was 8 days early, that means we were canoeing 5 days before he was born. No wonder he likes bouncing! Next time I’m going to sit still for the full 9 months, so that the baby doesn’get any fancy ideas about being rocked constantly.

Also, I notice how I refer to him as “the baby”. I mentioned to someone the other day that somehow I can’t associate Thomas with the baby I was pregnant with, as if the end of the pregnancy occuring around the same time as Thomas’ arrival was pure coincidence!

Humans are so strange.

So, this is occasionally a record of what Thomas and I are exposing ourselves to with regard to tv, music and books.

I have just read The Time-Traveller’s Wife, . I didn’t like the first 25 pages, as it starts off like a mushy love story, but then it starts to get a bit more gritty, and then you can’t put it down. I sobbed for the last 3 chapters.

I’m now reading “Thud” by Pterry again (for the 3rd time). David pointed out that I must feel like I’m missing out on all the books I could be reading every time I re-read a Pratchett, but actually I can’t contain all the books in my head, so I have to read them periodically to remember all the little things.

On tele, CSI is still the favourite, the Simpsons every day, obviously, and I quite like “House” at the moment, though it feels kinda disturbing that I’m starting to find Hugh Laurie sexy. Thomas has introduced me to “Doodle-do” on CBeebies, which I love! The best bit is the website where you can design your character and then play a game with it: paint-pot picker We both like the theme tune too!

Musically, I mostly play things to Thomas these days. He’d being “fed” St.Peppers (Beatles), Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians” and “A-tisket a-tasket” by Ella Fitzgerald. I also happened to play him Sk8ter Boy by Avril Lavigne, which he liked a lot! He still gets his fair share of Aphex Twin, and of course his dad plays him all sorts of stuff.

As for actually playing music, he is really into the tabla at the moment, which he mostly plays while in his baby-bouncer. This could make for some pretty strange associations when he’s older, but for now, it’s just a really good laugh! I’ll try and get a picture of that at some point.

Well I leave this post with a question. Do all mini-daffodils smell awful, or is it just our bunch? I can’t even tell if Thomas has a dirty nappy, as my nose is overwhelmed by pong of the mini daffodils! Phewee!

So Thomas had his second ever solids yesterday, which was still baby rice, but it was thicker this time, and it felt a bit more like the real thing. I’m hoping to get around to carrot puree today or tomorrow, but shock horror, my ice cube tray doesn’t fit in the sterilliser! I’ve bought some smaller trays which will at least fit in a saucepan to be boiled, but – what a pfaff! I’m going to look for an ice cube tray that is less than 24cm long today! I’m still planning to follow Annabel Karmel, more or less.