New Baby Advice

This is a photograph of Andy with a five-day-old Presley.

When we had him we were both pretty green.

Well, I say that. We had read countless books and attended NCT classes, active birth classes and NHS ante-natal classes. In fact no one could have been more prepared than us, but it still wasn't enough.

NOTHING CAN PREPARE YOU FOR THE SHOCK OF BRINGING YOUR NEW BABY HOME!

I suppose it is difficult to see beyond the birth, but I had no idea what to do with my darling baby.

On the day that we came home from the hospital, I gingerly lifted Presley out of his car seat. I stood in the middle of the lounge, with my tiny baby in my arms, and said 'what do we do now?'

Over the following days, weeks and months we worked it out.

Andy's sister had her long-awaited baby last month. He new daughter is a beautiful bundle of joy. I don't like to wade in and tell my sister-in-law what to do, but I can share my new baby advice here, on Baby Baby.


When your baby cries check the following:
Is he/she hungry? How long since his/her last feed?
Is he/she tired?
Does his/her nappy need changing?
Does he/she need winding?
Is he/she too hot or too cold? In a centrally heated house you really don't need four blankets!
Are his/her clothes uncomfortable? Check labels in particular as these can rub.
That hopefully covers most eventualities. By the time you've checked all of these he or she will probably be hungry again!

Babies really shouldn't cry all the time. In my experience they aren't exercising their lungs. This isn't what babies do. They are crying for a reason. If you have checked all of the above and your baby regularly cries take him or her to your GP. Cash had reflux and screamed with pain for quite a few weeks before we saw a consultant. As soon as he was treated with Gaviscon Infant he was a different baby. Trust your instincts - you are probably right.

When your baby is tired let them sleep.
Babies need plenty of sleep, it's when they do their growing.
At the first sign of tiredness (rubbing eyes, crying) put your baby down in their moses basket or pram.
It is useful if your baby can learn to fall asleep on their own (although you can rock them to sleep as much as you like, after all who doesn't want to cuddle their baby?)!
If you are swaddling or using a dummy this will be an additional sign for them that it is nap time.
Once you have done this a few times your baby will settle very quickly.
Put the kettle on or go for a walk and show off your shiny new pram!

Establish a bedtime routine as soon as you can.
At around six to eight weeks we started a bedtime routine.
We tried to keep our babies awake from around 5pm.
At 6pm they had a baby massage, then a bath.
Once dressed they had a bedtime story and a feed.
At 7pm we put them to bed in a fairly dark room, away from any noise, but close enough so we could hear them.
If they don't settle, give them a quick cuddle and try again.
After a few days they will get used to this new routine and you can have your evenings back.
Even if you only have dinner and a quick chat with your partner or maybe watch some television (or blog!) you will have had some time to yourself.
We found that our young babies would wake around 10pm for a feed and then straight back to bed again. As they get older they will go longer and longer between feeds at night and eventually you will achieve the holy grail of parenting, your baby will sleep through the night!
Our boys still have pretty much the same bedtime routine and always go to bed at 7pm.

Teach your baby the difference between day and night.
This follows on from the bedtime routine.
It's really handy if your baby understands the difference between day and night.
You can teach them that daytime is for playing and night time is for sleeping.
If you can have them sleep in their pram during the day and their moses basket or cot at night this will help establish day and night associations.
Make night time nappy changes and feeds as low key as possible.
Keep lighting and chat to a minimum during the night.
Enjoy those late night cuddles as they don't last that long.


So that's how we did it in the Calico household.

Do you have any new baby advice? Please share your top tips in the comments.



Disclaimer:
Please note that I am not a parenting guru, neither am I medically trained. I'm just passing on what worked for us.

New Baby Advice

Shall We Have Another Baby?

I'm broody.

I saw a tiny baby at the library this morning, I just wanted to scoop him up, cradle him in my arms and gently rock him. I wanted to nuzzle his soft head and inhale his baby aroma. I wanted to take him home!

Before I had children I didn't pay much attention to them. If a colleague came into the office on maternity leave I would coo politely, but make my excuses when I was offered a hold. Until I had Presley I'd never really held a baby (well, only if a parent placed their offspring into my arms and then took it away again when it cried)!

Now I only have to look at my Anne Geddes calendar and I sigh with longing. Not a day goes by when I don't think about being pregnant again. The delightful fluttering of the first kicks, the awe you feel when you realise there's a little person in your belly, the sheer effort of giving birth, the miracle of life.

I know, pregnancy is not all flouncing around in meadows in floaty maternity dresses, making daisy chains and reading name books... but the wind, spots, stretchmarks, indigestion, cramp, nausea, gestational diabetes, worry, sleeplessness and tiredness of pregnancy are a small price to pay for the end result, a gorgeous new child.

We always said we would have three children, if we were able. That's why we had our first two so close together, so we could squeeze another in before I get too old.

I'll be *whispers* forty in February. The risks of pregnancy increase with age. We have two beautiful healthy boys, perhaps we should quit while we're ahead.

If we do stop at two children I wonder if I will always feel this longing? The desire to have another baby is so strong, it's almost a physical yearning.

In practical terms the move from two to three children would mean changing our car and losing our spare bedroom. It would also be pretty tiring. I'll admit I'm exhausted running around after Presley and Cash. Pregnancy and a new baby would make this even harder. I've only got two hands and two knees. If I became pregnant now I would have three under three, for a little while at least. How would I cope?

I know I have infinite love to give a new baby, but my time is limited. I feel like I'm already struggling to give Presley and Cash enough individual attention, so how will us having another baby affect them?

Perhaps I should just concentrate on the children I have and enjoy them.

Perhaps I should fold up all the tiny baby clothes and take them to the charity shop.

No, not just yet.

Shall We Have Another Baby?

An Unholy Trinity

Presley was a few weeks old. I had just fed him and he'd been sick on me.

Then I heard a little squeak and realised there was some action the other end. As you can see from the photograph there was a lot of action the other end.

As I was changing him Presley peed on me. Thanks mate.

I now had sick, poo and pee on my scrape-the-bottom-of-the-pyjama-barrel pyjamas.

The joys of parenthood :-)

An Unholy Trinity

It's A.... Baby!

Peggy at Perfectly Happy Mum has asked for posts for the next chapter of her parenting blog, A Mother’s Secrets. This time she wants to know if, when you were pregnant, you wanted a boy or a girl and if you found out what you were having before he or she was born.

I’m going to be controversial here, or certainly in the minority. I didn’t want to find out the sex of my babies before they were born. This is my personal opinion. I don’t want to offend anyone who wants to know what they’re having, it’s your choice. This post is about how I feel and about my choices.

So why didn’t I want to know what flavour my babies were before they were born?

You don’t get many surprises in life, why can’t you wait for him or her to make an appearance to find out if you have a son or a daughter? How much nicer for the birth announcement to start with ‘It’s a Boy!’ or ‘It’s a Girl!’, rather than ‘He/She’s here’.

I loved choosing a boy’s name and a girl’s name. We kept both names a secret, even from our parents. I loved buying vests and babygros in neutral colours; creams, whites and lemons.

Your birth partner doesn’t really have much to do on the day, so before they cut the cord, they can identify the sex of the baby. Then they can sit down again.

The scan at around twenty weeks is called an anomaly scan for a reason. Most people say ‘we’re going to find out if it’s a boy or a girl today’. They’re actually going to find out if the baby is developing as expected. When I had my twenty week scans my first question was ‘is it okay?’, and certainly not ‘what is it?’. The sonographer commented that I was a rarity. She said that normally couples ask ‘what is it?’ way before she has finished checking that the baby is okay.

I understand it is exciting to find out what you’re having, but I promise you it’s just as exciting – if not more so – to find out on the day of the birth. I’ll never forget Andy looking at the brand new Presley and saying, his voice choked with tears, ‘we’ve got a boy’.

I had loads of scans with Cash. He was a small baby and the hospital were concerned about his development. I had at least one scan a week from twenty eight weeks. I saw a few disappointed faces leaving the sonography rooms. One man stormed out shouting ‘ it’s a bloody girl’. Charming.

I thought Presley was going to be a girl all throughout my pregnancy, until the last two weeks when I changed my bet. If I’m being honest, I think I secretly wanted a son. Gosh, that sounds terrible now I’ve typed it. It wasn’t a desperate yearning, I just liked the idea of having a son. If he had been a girl I wouldn’t have been disappointed. I believe I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.

When I was expecting Cash I thought he was another boy as the pregnancy was so similar. Again I thought another boy would be lovely as they are only a year apart in age, they will play together. If he had been a girl, I know they would have still played together. Again, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.

If we try for baby number three, and that’s a big if, I still wouldn’t mind what sex the baby was so long as it was healthy. A lot of people have said to us, ‘oh, you must want a daughter next’. Of course, that would be lovely, but so would another son.

All children are lovely. If you get pregnant in order to have a boy, or a girl, you may end up extremely disappointed. If you find out at twenty weeks that the baby is the wrong flavour you will be disappointed for a lot longer. Once the baby arrives, it really doesn’t matter what it is so long as it’s well, so why put yourself through it. Also, these scans aren’t always accurate.

A new baby is perfect whatever the colour babygro.

Photo credit: www.ecotopia.co.uk

It's A.... Baby!

My Baby Smells of Strawberries

As I feed my twelve month old son, cradled in my arms, I can smell strawberries. At lunchtime he scrunched pieces of strawberry into his fist and managed to get most of them in his mouth. The rest fell onto his doggy T-shirt and his pale blue shorts, no longer just pale blue.

I look at that chubby fist now grabbing onto my blouse. I can't believe he is mine.

He has just woken up from his afternoon nap. He's still sleepy. There are pink marks on his beautiful face. He must have slept with his hand by his head. He has been sweating. His hair sits in damp curls against his neck.

Early September sunshine dapples through the trees and dances on his blond head. It illuminates his long eye lashes - wasted on a boy!

He is in a trance, gulping the warm milk. His nose twitches as he drinks, like a little rabbit. I can see the shape of a dolphin in his ear. This has fascinated me since I first noticed it, a few days after he was born.

He has had his fill of milk and pulls away. I gently wipe the trickle of milk that dribbles down his chin. He gives me a gummy, satisfied smile. Two bottom teeth are now visible. He won't be a baby for much longer, but he'll always be my baby.

My Baby Smells of Strawberries

For Crying Out Loud!

Is there some kind of Playgroup Etiquette? If there is I didn't get the email!

After my difficult first time at playgroup and the incident when I ruffled my feathers, today I had a new experience.

Presley is a bit under the weather, hopefully just a little cough and cold. He probably caught the bug from playgroup last week, so I decided to take the boys today. The session started well. Presley had a little push of the trolley and opened and closed the Wendy house door at least fifty times that I saw. He then sat down on the mat close to where I was playing with Cash. Cash incidentally can nearly crawl and likes to stand up holding my fingers.

Presley was playing with all the toys that do something. I'll elaborate, the ones where you press a button and a cow pops up or twist a piece of plastic and a cat pops up. He became quite the expert.

I'd noticed a baby crying and saw he was with his grandmother (she looked like a grandmother, although one should never assume), she was trying to get him to push a baby walker. He was having none of it. So she sat on the mat near us. She took one of the toys that do something and tried to interest the crying baby in it. Again, he wasn't having any of it. Presley did what he would have done for Cash, he showed the baby how to get the flamingo (or whatever) to pop up. The grandmother did not like this one bit. She moved the toy away from Presley. Each time she moved it he followed it. This happened three times. Then she said to him 'Nicholas is playing with this'.

Can you feel my hackles rising?

This was not strictly true. Nicholas was crying and he wasn't actually playing with it. She was trying to encourage him to play with it.

Anyway.

I can see that from where she was sitting Presley was playing with the toy she had chosen for Nicholas, but I didn't think he was doing any harm. He hadn't taken it away from Nicholas, in fact he was playing with it upside down, so the baby had the best view of the dragonfly (or whatever).

Children take toys from other children all the time. The grass is always greener. If another child is playing with a toy it must be infinitely more interesting than the hundreds of other toys at playgroup. I encourage sharing and I'm trying to teach Presley (and Cash too) that snatching is wrong.

So was my little boy in the wrong? Should the grandmother have been so possessive over the toy that does something?

I don't think so, but hey, I didn't get the email!

For Crying Out Loud!

Playgroup Revisited

I hadn't been to a playgroup in a church hall for 35 years, so today was a big day for me and my two boys. I've been building up to this for a while now. I wasn't really sure what to expect so there was fear of the unknown, but the main reason for putting it off was the time 1.15 to 2.45. This is nap time. The toddler (21 months) and the baby (9 months) both have a nap after lunch. It's the only time I have to myself during the day!

I wanted to take the boys somewhere we could all socialise. Having two babies so close together has made it difficult for me to take them both to the same group and I was feeling slightly isolated and in need of adult conversation.

I had decided to go to this playgroup in particular as it is where the boys will go to nursery and it is the closest, only a five minute walk away. So we had a slightly early lunch and headed off. I eventually found the correct entrance and bravely marched in. There were only two women and a child in there (being early is one of my things)! I announced "I'm new" and the playgroup leader gave me a quick briefing, took my pound, then I was left to my own devices.

I'm guessing this is a typical playgroup set up: loads of toys on a central rug, tables of activities, and chairs around the edge of the room. I let the toddler loose and off he ran and started playing. He has been a shy child so it was wonderful to see him getting stuck in, especially when the room filled with adults and children.

Then I had a dilemma - where should I sit? Now I know I'm not alone in this, please read Kim's wonderful blog about not knowing where to stand (and getting a decent haircut). I thought the baby would have a sleep so I left him in the pram and parked it at the end of a row of chairs and sat down next to him. Then I watched all the new arrivals come in and sit nowhere near me. I'm no yummy mummy, but I only have the one head. I realised one group of mums must be friends, dare I say a clique? They all looked like they belonged together; all fake tans, short T-shirts, sleek hairdos and makeup. I have none of these.

Then, hurrah, one mum sat five chairs away, on her own. She looked quite shy too so I made the first move and said 'hi'. She was quite new to the group and we had a lovely chat about children - thank goodness we had something in common! She is nine months pregnant, so she may not be at playgroup next week, but I hope she is. I didn't even ask her name, but her three year old is Eddie, I love this name!

It was time for a cup of tea (or a brew as they call it up here). I realised the baby wanted to know what was going on and did not want a sleep, so I took him to play on the mat. I sat on the periphery of the yummy mummies, hoping to catch an eye, maybe smile at another baby, but this was denied by one of the mums turning her back and closing ranks. Now I don't know if this was deliberate, but it ruled out getting to know her or her friends. At least I had the baby to play with and the toddler to watch.

I was pleased to be there, the boys enjoyed themselves and I did speak to a few people when we sat down at the end for songs and nursery rhymes. I even got a bit emotional when we sang 'Happy Birthday" to one little girl - I don't know why, maybe I was emotional at finally plucking up the courage to start at playgroup.

The downside of course was the fact that the boys didn't have an afternoon nap. The toddler in particular looked shattered and didn't want much tea.

Will I go again next week? Yes I will. It's good for all of us. Now I know the ropes I'll make an effort to talk to the other loners (well everyone who isn't a yummy mummy) and see if I can make some friends. It's easier to make virtual friends in blogging or Twitter than it is in real life, well it is for shy old me anyway.

Playgroup Revisited

Everyone else has got one

So this is it. I'm now blogging.  I hate to feel left out and everyone else appears to have a blog. 

Now I've got one I'm not sure where to start, or which path to take. 

It took a long time to decide on the title 'Baby Baby', I imagine I'll mainly be blogging about my life with my babies.  Who knows where this adventure will lead?!

Everyone else has got one