sleep and visitors

Well we returned to the world of swaddling having bought a bigger piece of swaddling material - and it's having a positive effect. He's still up in the night but its only really once and we're feeling a lot more in control. He was really giggling at times this week which is great. I had a visit from the nappy lady this week - who works for the local authority promoting reusable nappies. She confused me a little and I need to do some more reading up but I now have a pile of different nappies to try out and possibly look to buying some to prevent a landfill disaster of my own making.
Paul's parents came this weekend and were brilliant at looking after Ben and giving us a little time to ourselves.

am getting into the swing of things a little bit more now, and have been out and about doing things and meeting up with people. One thing I have noticed is that Ben doesn't do shopping. He's ok with supermarket shopping but if I take him in his pram into a small shop, he invariably starts to cry, and then as soon as we come out he cheers up. I thought it might be that he gets hot but even if I take off his blanket etc to make sure he is cooler he still grizzles. I think it's something his father has taught him to reduce my spending habits. grrrrr

Ben has really brightened up over the past 10 days and is noticing more, smiling and laughing and interacting with us. It really is brilliant and makes this parenting lark much more fun! He is settling down well in the evening, which means we now have some time to ourselves but unfortunatly this doesn't seem to continue through the night, so we're suffering from a severe lack of sleep. Still - it will pass and hopefully by the time he is 18 he will be sleeping through!

MORE baby stuff

Oh god, I remember a time when this blog contained witty repartie (is that how you spell it?)and tales of international travel and living the high life (ok - the witty 'repartie' may not be entirely accurate but there was a fair bit of travel). Now it's nappies and Gina Bloody Ford. But to be honest, I quite like it like that so either you're going to have to get used to it or you need to delete me from your blog-roll :-)

So - latest is some pictures of Ben are up on Flickr - see the side bar. We've really noticed a change this week in him actually paying attention to the mobile in his room and the dangling "things" that hang from his playgym and his chair/pram. it's weird how these little steps are so exciting, but they are.

Beats interviewing and disciplining employees for a living anyway (for now anyway!)

More dull baby updates soon.

ps....

if anyone is interested I am more keen on the Baby Whisperer general approach which goes by the EASY steps - Eat Activity Sleep You - except Ben seems to have his preference to ESESESESES well, activity is for wimps eh!!

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....

coughing sneezing and wheezing

we've had 4 lovely weeks getting to know Ben and trying to get the hang of this parenthood thing. Still not quite sussed it out and have realised that this will be the case from now on as theres no right answers.
Ben has caught the cold that I had earlier in the week - as has Paul. It's worrying being the parent of a 4 week old as it is, without the additional worry of them having a cold. He's snuffling and sneezing his way through the day, when he's not zonked out sleeping. It's partly nice cos we get to sit with him all day in front of the TV so we can watch him like a hawk but its also shattering as I am so worried at night time. Hopefully he'll get over it quickly and be back to his normal cheery self.

10 days later..... don't read if you don't want the gory details....

Well I imagine that by the radio silence, and the twitter/FB updates its pretty obvious that things have progressed. I did decide to go ahead with the induction on monday, my blood pressure was slightly raised which, whilst not disturbing, gave me the trigger to go ahead, as Paul and I had decided that if there were any medical issues we wouldn't hesitate in going forward with the induction.

Lets face it, things were never goign to be easy on the basis that I had had absolutely NO signs baby was coming, and, as one midwife put it "some people are born to carry babies, others to deliver them - you clearly fit into the former!)

After all other non-invasive attempts failed they tried 3 doses of one method, which didn't bring on contractions but still caused me to have painful cramps during Monday through to early hours of Wed. We spent a lot of monday and some of Tues walking about, hanging around, hoping..... Tues night was difficult and it meant that by Wed morning I was pretty knackered even before anything had happened.

Sorry if this too much info but then they broke my waters - which they had to do with me on gas and air as I wasn't getting anywhere and it was v painful. We'd been watching Midsomer murders and the experience of gas and air turned it into a bit of a kaliedescope of John nettles, plus for some random reason I had huey lewis and the news singing in my head. I was trying to tell Paul that Midsomer was much better with gas and air but couldn't get the words out for giggling.

Sadly the water breaking ALSO didn't work, so a few hours later they put me on a drip which kick starts the contractions - big time. That HURT but a few hours later I was still getting nowhere. at this point they offered me a C section - in all honesty I woudl have happily done it myself with plastic cutlery from the hospital canteen at that point! Things improved vastly from that point on - they whisked me in, spinal injection thingy, Paul kitted out in a silly hat and our beautiful baby boy was safely prised out of his warm comfy home into the wide world at 00.38hrs on 3rd Dec - 16 days overdue.

Benjamin (Ben) Noah Ellis - he was 7lbs 2oz and bloody perfect in every way :-).

I'd like to say that the story ends there - but ..... all went fine, by 5am Paul went home for some kip, 8am i had texted the world our news, had tea and toast and at 10am was wheeled down to the post natal ward. As I was moved into a bay, I had serious cramp, and I had what i now know to be a postpartum haemmorage. Scariest moment of my life so far. I could feel my face go pale white, I started to shake violently and sweat as about 10 medical people surrounded me prodding me, jabbign in needles like they were sticking cocktail sticks into pineapple and cheese and basically trying to sort me out, They stabilised me and we went straight back upstairs to surgery where they put me under a general anasthetic and sorted me out. I had to have 3 units of blood put back in (have since checked and you generally have about 12 units in your body. Probably shouldn't have googled that!).

ANYWAY....anough fo the gory stuff, everyone has their labour tale, that's mine. the important bit is Ben is here, he is gorgeous and beautiful and paul and I are knackered but coping, Its been a week of firsts - first nappy change, first feeding challenge, first night of no sleep, first night of fairly decent sleep, first trip outside, first trip into town, first hour away from him at the hairdresser.... the list goes on! I'd love to write more but I am nodding off tyoing this so will stop for now and hopefully come back soon with pictures and boasting :-)