Thursday 16 October 2008

Little uns and friends

Toughie this. I saw a friend who's Little L is about a month younger than Little C - it hadn't been easy for the pair of them, from pain to bad advice to medical persons discussing what to do infront of her and not talking to her. Then Little L had tongue-tie, and lost a lot of weight due to this. Now I'm no expert but I watched my friend bottle feed Little L and really felt like pointing out that the poor little bit wasn't getting a good amount of milk because of the way Little L was being held. Now I'd lay any baby across my lap with their head in the crook of one arm and tip the bottle up so there was no air in the teat - Little L was being held sitting upright (legs being held between mum's) and the bottle was being held pushing Little L's head back but only around half the teat was full of milk- and winding was not attempted for very long as Little L was crying.

And then when it was nappy time the pair disappeared for 20 minutes or so and once when they returned I was informed that Little L had put her feet and hands in the nappy and spread the contents around. I used to watch my mum doing changes and she'd hold the baby's feet inbetween the fingers on one hand and change/wipe/etc with the other. But how do you pass these tips on without making a new mum feel even worse - plus Little L is (apparently) quite a wailer, enough so to drive my friend to tears. I can understand if Little L is constantly crying if its hunger because more air is sucked in than milk and winding is not very good. But how can you tell someone this without upsetting or offending? 

Monday 6 October 2008

Bedtime

What is the right time for bed?

I was reading my e-mails and there's one about "Now your baby is 2 months and 4 weeks old"...... erm not that that's the right age, but don't 4 weeks make a month anyway? Perhaps they use some other calendar where 5 weeks maketh a month.  "...you'll be in a routine. You will find you're baby sleeps:...... 8-12 hours a night with  two sleeps in the day. To help your baby sleep you need to have a routine:... they should be in bed between 7:30 and 8pm" erm fraid not. If Little C went to bed then my day would start at 4am! 

Mind you Little C had 2 hours kip and has been up since 9:30 tonight, which is quite usual for Little C. Fingers crossed that if we can get Little C to run round the block I wont get too many wakeup calls in the night...(ok so Little C's legs aren't quite up to running but the Little C fidgets so much we might as well start running). 

Closet parenthood

Huh? What? Ya know it's like sooo long since I actually did anything other than update my reading list here that there are changes afoot which I know nothing about.

It's been a bit of a struggle that I'm not sure how others manage kids, house and... well some could say "the big kid" too. In fact sometimes I catch another parent doing things that I should be happy to do in public with my child but I'm a closet parent. Nought wrong with that I guess, Little C is loved even if I'm not big on public displays. And anyway Little C gets enough public attention and is (usually) quite content with grinning madly at strange people, particularly blondes who'll coo over her.