Back on Night Duty

Adrian's knee went again on Saturday. Not only is this a bad thing for him (it hurts), our holiday (to France on Friday), his work (he can't get in) but it also means that I have to deal with Freyja at night again. Bah. So far it seems to be fine - on Saturday night I didn't go in at all and last night she just needed a quick cuddle and her dummy at 1.30am and then slept through. I don't think it has quite sunk in yet that I am no longer having to get up in the night to feed her and that she is pretty much sleeping through.

Crumpets

Freyja enjoys a crumpet for breakfast:

BLW - Highchairs

Today we did the annual trip to Ikea - up early, 95p breakfast (I wouldn't bother...), then a quick whizz round completed without arguing once (counted 3 couples having a tiff though). We bought the famous Ikea highchair - £14.99 for chair and tray, owned by every restaurant in London. It is great - has made BLW a whole lot easier now Freyja can chase the food round her tray without it all falling on the floor. And just look how proud she is in it:


We have put our lovely Babydan highchair to one side for now - it will be great when she is a bit older but no tray, a round dining table and BLW just don't mix at this stage.

Jinxed!

Oh dear, I jinxed it. She didn't settle well after her 10pm feed and Adrian was up with her 3 times before she finally gave up and went to sleep at about 2am. Still no feeding though - hurrah.

No More Night Feeds...(for now...)

Since my last post Adrian and I have tackled the sleep issues and finally she is going through from 10pm without feeding! Adrian has been off work with a bad knee (hurt playing cricket - Freyja loves his crutches!) so it was a good time to sort it out. The first few nights we agreed a time that I would feed her and any wake-ups before that, Adrian would deal with. It took a lot of crying and a lot of getting up, but even on the first night it was obvious that it wasn't actually hunger - when I finally went to her she hardly fed at all, just suckled, so I put the dummy in and she went to sleep until the morning. The same thing happened on the next 2 nights then on Sunday night, she woke at 12am and 3am, both of which Adrian handled and I haven't been in since! Right now, she is needing settling once, at around midnight, but other than that is sleeping with only a few grunts and whimpers, which haven't needed dealing with. I feel totally shattered - I think my body is just not used to getting this much sleep!

I just hope I haven't jinxed it by writing this.

Need more sleep....

Freyja's sleeping is getting worse and worse. She has never been a good sleeper and has only slept through (10/11pm-ish to 6/7am-ish) about 5 times. She still feeds at least twice at night and over the last few months has needed feeding earlier and earlier in the night - when she was around 3 months old she used to go from about 10pm-ish to 3am or 4am consistently. I dream about that now! I try not to feed her before 2am though she usually wakes up before then. Last night she woke at 12am, 1am, I fed her at 2am she woke again at 3.15am and was awake until 4am when I fed her again and finally she slept. I really didn't think I'd still be doing this at 8 months! What makes it worse is that none of the other mums are going through it - their babies all sleep through and have done for months. I keep saying 'oh it's not that bad! At least she knows it night time and does sleep a bit'. But it is just awful.

I wouldn't wish a poor sleeper on anyone!!!

Downward Dog

She now does a very good Downward Dog, but still no actual hands & knees crawling. Not that it hinders her at all when it comes to getting around - she's doing fine commando style.

Breastfeeding

Okay, I started to get a little bit suspicious about this whole breastfeeding lark when I was handed a stack of leaflets in the hospital that turned out to be breastfeeding guidelines, helplines, emergency numbers, counselling...hang on, don't I just point her in the right direction and away we go?

Well maybe some people do, but not for me. Ouch! I spent the first few days panicking that my milk wasn't going to come in. Then on around day 4 they suddenly started going rock hard, which is them filling up, but I still wasn't convinced all was well.

I soon however stopped worrying about whether there was any milk there (I am, shall we say, more of a Kate Moss than a Pamela Anderson in the breast department and while I know that size doesn't matter I couldn't help worrying. Although, once the milk came in, boy if I hadn't turned into a Pamela Anderson, complete with a rock hard pair of very round implants!) because after seemingly having no problems getting Freyja latched on, I was in agony.

Time and again the midwife checked the latch, and time and again she said it was fine. But I was sick with dread at every feed and particularly the right hand breast was agonising. Freyja was a very sucky and hungry newborn - she feed frequently from very early on, so no sooner had I finished a feed than I was already starting to dread the start of the next one. I was fine once she was latched on, but getting her on was horrendous. I had a laceration across the right nipple that was excruciating. I spent those first 2 weeks walking round with my breasts out getting air to my nipples. Dressed, I had to wear a supportive bra, not because my breasts needed the support but because my nipples were so sore I couldn't have any material rub against them. And don't even ask about having a shower. I'm sobbing just thinking about it.

My saviour was the discovery of two things. First for the nipples, Lansinoh Nipple Cream - the only one of the many types I tried that actually worked. It will be on my top 10 list, when I get round to doing that.

Secondly, it was discovering the Kelly Mom website, where I found out how breastfeeding actually works and that it is completely normal for a newborn to feed very frequently, and that it wasn't a problem with my supply and I didn't have to consider giving her a bottle of formula (thank you very much, Health Visitors).

The pain lasted about 2 weeks, but the constant feeding went on a lot longer. I said I would give it to 6 weeks and then reassess. Everyone says that things settle down after 6 weeks. I originally thought that something miraculous would happen to the baby at 6 weeks but I realise now that it takes 6 weeks for you to fully adapt to your new life, and you can just deal with it all better. In the early days she used to feed frequently during the day and then from about 5/6pm would be attached to my breast until 11/12pm. If she wasn't on my nipple she was crying - I used to eat my dinner with her feeding at the same time. By 3 months I was still often feeding her every 2 hours in the day and it didn't really settle down into any kind of pattern until she was established on solids. I found this the other day. It is a little record I noted down of Freyja's daytime feeding:

January 18th

8.00 - fed for 45mins
9.00 - crying
9.45 - fed for 15mins
11.00 - fed for 15mins
11.30 - 12.50 - slept
1.00 - fed for 20mins
1.30 - 3.30 - slept (Jenner Group)
3.40 - 5.00 - fed on & off
5.50 - 6.30 - fed

I am glad a held out. I am proud that I breastfeed Freyja, one of only a few mums I know who does. I don't really have anything against formula - I was formula fed myself (much to my horror when I found out!) - but I feel I have given her the best start in life.

And it's free - Hurrah!

Miffy Stacking Blocks

I've bought some great stacking blocks for Freyja from Ebay. She thinks it's magic when I unstack them so that 1 block becomes 10. Here she is playing with them: