all baby related posts from now on.....

I keep trying to start a post and then get waylaid by the little man, such is the world of motherhood I guess - that and one handed typing and the inability to do capital letters cos that involves pressing two different keys at opposite sides of the keyboard at the same time. He's currently swaddled up nicely and asleep in the moses basket but that won't last much longer so I will need to be brief!

All going ok, the boys seem to be over the worst of their colds so we are back to "normality" although we've not really yet had normality after having a few weeks with paul on paternity, then Christmas, the everyone being ill. This is the first week that Paul has been at work all week and I;ve been on my own. The Snow has prevented me from getting our and about but I quickly learned to accept it and have just pratted about the house and played on the internet and watched lots of This Morning (I do like Holly and Phil I have to say :-))

So now Ben is 6 weeks old and he really is a little star. he's a very amiable soul and I can't imagine not having him around now. He has started to smile at us a little (ok so it could be wind but we're taking it as smiling) which melts you heart it really does. The breastfeeding is going ok too which I'm really proud of. We've hit the point where we start to dilemma about "routines" and whether or not we need to force one or allow things to progress naturally. I think we will be taking the half way point of trying to get into some kind of bedtime routine but other than that I can't really see how I can structure the daytime stuff when I am not a structured person myself. The one obvious thing to both of us is that Ben is not a morning person (can't understand why..... being the product of us two!!!!). If we can move bedtime slightly earlier then he may be more of a morning person - and if we are lucky we might get to the point of him sleeping a little more at night. It all went a bit out of the window when he got ill so we've been trying to get back on track this week with variable success - after returning to the swaddling, we had 2 good nights but followed by two not so great nights. Still, time will tell. We've been reading various books and posts on babycentre/mumsnet - and the only obvious answer is that there is no one answer. This we realised quickly in hospital when the doctor who was checking over Ben told us to put a hat on him, and then a midwife 30 mins later told us he didn't need a hat indoors! Everyone has an opinion eh!

So, in light of that, it was interesting to that there has been a debate about Gina Ford in the headlines following Nick Cleggs comments to the Times. It's certainly poles apart from my preferred style of child-caring techniques, thought I appreciate that for some it may work. But all credit to Nick Clegg for actually sounding like a human being and a real parent and actually giving an honest opinion. We've certainly not cracked it yet with Ben so I should be careful what I say in case I have to eat my words but Gina would definitely be a last resort on my list, well after all the other books I have bought from the charity shop/borrowed from the library (and that includes Ginas as I wanted to at least understand her approach).

So, back to Ben - it's not the end of the world that he's not a long sleeper - he's happy and healthy and only 6 weeks old. That said, if anyone has got any tips on how they got their little ones to sleep longer at night I'm open to all suggestions....