Ten weeks and five days

I'm really struggling to read novels at the moment. It used to be that I'd go to the library, take out five or six books (all fiction) and read them all within a few weeks. And I never stopped reading half way through, even if the book was a bit crap. But since Alice was born I find that pretty much every other book I borrow is incapable of holding my attention and I've given up on half of them, while the ones I do persist with take me ages to finish. (I've also run up £16 of library fines but that's another story.) Partly I suppose it's the nature of looking after a baby - what I have heard described as the endless 'interruptibility' of motherhood which means it's rare that I can settle down with a book for any stretch of time. And then because time is so precious I'm unwilling to waste it on mediocre novels any more.

Not that I'm on a diet of high literature either - fiction generally isn't floating my boat the way it used to. I can handle humourous or genre type novels if well written, but anything purporting to emotional/social realism may as well stay on the shelf. I suppose it's fairly obvious why - my own life is quite emotionally real enough just now without seeking out vicarious experiences as well.

Ten weeks and four days

I must admit, I still don't feel like someone's mum. Walking round the park with Alice, I look at the other women with their buggies and think of them as Mothers, whereas I'm just somebody who happens to be pushing a baby. I'm just acting the part of 'mum', and even then I'm just the understudy, it's not my JOB or anything.

In fact I'm only just starting to emerge from thinking that Alice represents some sort of exam in which I'm being graded on how successfully I can keep her fed, clean and quiet while remembering to sterilise enough bottles, make up enough formula and wash enough nappies to prevent chaos descending. With bonus points if I can manage to have a shower, get dressed and eat three meals a day at vaguely normal intervals. All of which carries the assumption that it's a finite project and when I've completed it, I will be returning Alice to wherever she so miraculously came from. But as the practical tasks become more automatic and less time consuming, it's gradually dawning on me that she's a person, rather than some sort of Tamigotchi-style challenge. She's not going anywhere. And I AM a mother. And suddenly things are much more scary, and much more wonderful.

Ten weeks and one day

24 Hours in the Life of Alice:

1800: big feed from dad, followed by sleepy cuddles
1900: bath ( still not sure if this is nice or nasty) then story, swaddled and put to bed
1930 - 2000: not ready to sleep yet, has a bit of a cry
2000 - 2030: sucking on dummy only thing which stops her crying
2030: still crying, v tired now though and falls asleep on her own (dummy removed as she can't keep it in by herself and I'm not going to hold it in her mouth all night)
1030: fast asleep but has 60ml 'dreamfeed' - bid to get her to have her long sleep starting from now instead of waking up at 0200
0145: damn, wakes up for a feed
0215: nappy change and back to bed
0230: won't settle, wide awake then crying
0300ish: eventually grizzles herself to sleep after a bit more food, shushing and pacing from dad, and rocking her cradle
0645: wakes up for a feed
0730: no more sleep just now thanks
0845: awake but quiet, comes into the bathroom with me while I have a bath
0900: crying again, nappy change
0930: decide to give a feed
1000 - 1100: dozing after feed. I manage to have breakfast.
1100 - 1200: grouchy, alternate crying and sleeping, nappy change
1215: sucks on dummy for a bit, grouches a bit more, falls fast asleep
1300 - 1315: still pretty much asleep but stirring to cry briefly once or twice
1330: not fully awake but not quite happy either - time for lunch (takes 120ml)
1345: face wash, new lip strapping and nappy change
1350 - 1425: little bounce and then play on floor mat and in chair with dangly toys (loves this - can follow toys with eyes but not yet reach out for them)
1425: yawning but not ready for a nap yet - we listen to some Classic FM
1430: leave A. with the radio while I wash and sterilise her bottles and hang up the washing
1445: crying and sleepy - has a suck on dummy
1450: after shushing, rocking and dummy, falls asleep
1520: unsettled unless sucking dummy
1530: dad gets home, briefly distracted and happy
1535 -1550: still won't settle, hungry AGAIN?
1600: feed (110ml)
1620 -1645: cuddles and play, alert and happy
1700: adult dinner time
1745: very sucky and grumpy so we go for another feed
1900: goes suddenly to sleep listening to Jocelyn Pook and doesn't wake up until 0200!

Nine weeks and five days

Have just returned from the doctors, where Alice had her first immunisations in the form of a giant needle in each thigh :(

But they're confounding creatures, babies. The nurse advised me that she might be grumpy from the pain and have a temperature later on, so I stocked up with Calpol and braced myself for a crying jag. But although she screamed for all of two minutes when she had the jabs, she then fell immediately and peacefully asleep in her buggy and shows no sign of stirring yet. Whereas for the past two days, when she's had no particular reason to cry - at least not one that translates well into adult language - she's been constantly grouchy and clingy and waking for an extra bottle in the night. Sometimes I wish so much that she could just tell us what's wrong, for all our sakes...

Mind you, given that her face is only about three inches in diameter she can certainly convey a lot of expressions with it: surprised, delighted, suspicious, entranced, blissed out, miserable, cross, shocked, concentrating (ie. pooing), interested, indifferent, yawning, coughing, sneezing, hiccups, dreamy, excited, worried...

Eight weeks and five days

Further dispatches from the 'people be interfering' frontline of parenthood: went to the clinic for Alice's weigh-in today and she started crying while we were waiting. The woman next to me confidently leaned over and told me 'she's hungry'. Why do people DO that? Even though I KNEW that Alice was crying because I'd woken her up and taken her out of her buggy into a noisy, hot room, and food wasn't really what she wanted, I ended up giving her a bottle just so a stranger wouldn't judge me.

Eight weeks and four days

Just had a sudden pang while reading a book where a mother with a five week old baby was quoted. Alice will never - never! - be that age again. Already she's passed through so many stages, so many firsts, and she's not been alive two months yet. So even though I'm far from keen to repeat the experience of giving birth just yet, I do now understand why most people have more than one child - the miracle seems to be that they can usually stick at just two or three!

I'm just looking at Alice sleeping and considering again the issue of a 'routine'. I'm torn between letting her dictate when she wants to sleep, when to eat and when to play, and trying to establish some sort of pattern. We're told that babies respond well to routine and find it reassuring, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's really *parents* who need it. I would certainly prefer it if Alice slept peacefully and for long stretches at night, rather than in the day, and I'm worried that I've ruined all our chances of achieving this by not keeping her more wakeful during daylight. But it's a vicious circle - if she and therefore I have been up half the night, I am usually only too grateful for a long sleep in the day for both of us. And in any case, the amount of sleep and spacing of feeds in the day doesn't seem to affect her sleep or feeds at night - the whole thing is entirely random as far as I can tell.

Should I allow the randomness to continue and trust her to find her own routine in time? Or is it time to provide guidance? (I also can't figure out the apparent contradiction between the advice to always 'feed on demand' and the advice to establish a routine. How can we implement 'bedtime' rituals like feed-bath-story-cuddle-cot when we don't know when she'll want her evening feed ?)

Eight weeks and three days

Just got back from five days holiday with my family. Alice's first experience of many things including snow, squirrels, deer, ten pin bowling and snooker. (Embarrassingly, I am only marginally more skilled at the latter than she would have been.)

We ditched the dental plate halfway through the week after phoning the cleft nurse for advice - although Alice had more or less got the hang of feeding, the plate had given her a huge ulcer on her tongue and when it started bleeding I couldn't bear to make her keep it in. We may try again once we see the orthodontist in Brighton, but the surgeon has said that if it's really distressing her (and us) we don't have to continue.

It's funny, until now I don't think I really believed that a seven week old baby had a defined personality. They might vary in their sleeping and crying habits, but basically they were still blank slates. But since observing the change in Alice brought about by the dreaded plate, I've realised what a strong character she already had beforehand.

Seven weeks

Alice is still far from convinced by her plate. She's managing just about enough of her feeds now, although still fitting in one or two extra bottles a day, but her sleep is very disturbed - she keeps waking herself up at intervals with pitiful little cries, then dropping off again. And of course this plus the more frequent feeds means OUR sleep is still disturbed.

The cleft nurse came to see us today and was able to tell us that it's normal to react badly to the plate, especially if feeding has been well established for a while. We just have to persevere, and the more she wears it the sooner she'll get used to it. But although it's reassuring to know it's normal, it doesn't really help us.

It's funny, although to some extent I do want the health professionals to be reassuring and tell us that Alice is normal and the tiredness is normal etc etc, part of me would like them, just once, to say 'oh my god you poor thing that's TERRIBLE, nobody should have to cope with that, it's just much too hard isn't it?'

It's a fine line between 'normal' and 'yeah yeah tell us something we don't know'.