Time for Little Miss Sunshine!

It's that time of year - we have just entered Daylight Savings so we now get an extra hour of sunshine each day!  I am still fairly new to this concept, having come here from South Africa where it wasn't a thing, and so it still gets me every time we need to change clocks forward or backwards, and now we have to ensure Emily's body clock changes too!

I followed the Sleep Store's suggestion for Daylight Savings routines for little ones and it worked well.  I found the hardest part remembering each day leading up to Daylight Savings (well, Thursday, Friday and Saturday) what time Emily's routine had to be actually!  Plus I had to set an alarm to get up each of those mornings as everything was a little earlier than our usual timings ... a slightly foreign concept to me at the moment!! 

But it worked well and she seemed to have a good night last night, even though she was chatting from time to time in her sleep.  Usually, once she is asleep, we don't hear a peep till morning, but there was a little bit of chatter going on last night.  However, she woke just before 7am this morning and that was the main goal of the exercise!

Around lunchtime though today, when she usually has a fairly Epic Baby sleep for 1.5-2hours, she was pretty unsettled and I wondered if it was Daylight Savings catching up with her, as we have technically lost an hour?  I have certainly felt tired today!  

But I think it was her teeth!  She already has one bottom tooth, and a second bottom one is coming through now too, but I actually think it may be a top tooth too!  One of Emily's baby friends has suffered with his teeth, poor bubba, so I got a feeling of that today.  It is awful seeing your baby in pain (or thinking they are in pain) and not really knowing what to do.  I tried a little Bonjela (teething gel, tastes like toothpaste) which is meant to temporarily numb the gums and that seemed to calm her down, phew!  And after a walk and a snooze in the pram she was her usual smiley self again thank goodness.

There is something new to learn every day!

Happy little bubba! 

10 things I never thought I'd say / think / feel / do / wear since having Emily

It is amazing what having a child does to your life.  You go from a loving couple, who had plenty of disposable income and could do things at the drop of a hat without a thought for anyone, sometimes even for each other; to becoming a loving couple of parents, 100% committed and responsible for this new life that YOU have created.  

It is SO adult!

It really got me thinking as to how different things are now, and the kind of things I think, do and say now that darling Emily is in our lives.  I wanted to share a few with you... thank you for reading!

10 things I never thought I'd say / think / feel / do / wear since having Emily.....

• Say:
• "Chris, come and look at her poo!!  Look at her poo!  It's the biggest she has ever done!"  Surely all parents are this proud of their child's achievements?!
• Have entire conversations with my mummy friends about our babies.  Their sleeping.  Their eating.  Their pooing!!  We literally talk of nothing else.  It is so sweet when I tell Chris about my day and he asks if we talked about our husbands when I saw my friends, and I honestly have to tell him "No, all we talk about is babies"!

• Think:
• I can't believe how I worry about Emily.  Is she warm / cool enough?  Is she happy?  Is she full?  Who will look after her if I'm not around?  The worry is constant.  My Mom told me that and I didn't believe her.  She was right!
• All I want is another baby!  Isn't that crazy!  I have one amazing, Epic Angel baby... and all I want is another one.  Right now!  I never thought I would feel that way and so soon after Emily arrived.  I probably started to think about it when she was 8 weeks old!  

• Feel:
• Immense, bursting, crazy, mad, incredible, unreal love and amazement every single day that this little being was created by me and Chris.  And that she looks at us with such awe and happiness.  It is truly breathtaking!
• Amazingly overwhelmed when looking back at the videos and photos we have taken, with how far Emily has come.  From a tiny wee pink blob, to a real little person.  A little girl.  With personality!  How has this happened so fast?  How can I freeze time, or go back to those mad first few weeks and relive it.  Every second.  I miss it.

• Do:
• Use formula - it all began when we started solids.  At my Plunket course, the teacher was adamant that you could only add breast milk or formula to baby rice cereal.   I was in a panic.  Emily is NOT having formula.  You don't know what's in it.  She needs me, she needs MY milk.  But I wasn't interested in expressing milk.  Hmm!  However we decided to try formula, and blow us down, she gobbled her first taste of rice cereal up like it was her last meal!  
• Use a bottle!  I had envisioned I would breastfeed Emily until whenever, when we decided to stop and then she would drink cow's milk.  However, when she goes to The One (her carer), she will need to drink something during the day - not cow's milk yet - and as I wasn't too keen on expressing, we tried a bottle of formula recently.  Again, our little Epic Baby surprised us and took to it almost immediately!  So easy!  So she currently has one bottle of formula a day, but soon I will increase this to 2 bottles a day, while breastfeeding her morning and evening.
• Express my milk!  When I decided to give Emily a bottle of formula at the 10.30am feed, I didn't really think or realise what what happen to my boobs!  They are used to being fed from, and needed some help to go from 7.30am - 2.30pm with no feed in between.  So I used a friends' pump and expressed a teensy bit, just to help my boobs cope!  It worked really well, I think I only did it 3 days in a row for about 10mins a time, and now all is well.  I will need to do this again when I drop that 2.30pm feed.

• Wear:
• My work clothes and pre-pregnancy jeans so soon after having Emily - yay!  It feels great to wear normal clothes again!
• Trackpants quite so much.  I am a firm believer of looking nice even when you are at home, why slum it when you can glam it?  However, no one is looking at me except Emily, and it is SO comfy in my trackpants!  So why fight it :)

I'm sure there will be many more of these to come, every day brings something new in this household!

Magical Moments

On our daily walk recently, I thought it would be fun to write a post about the interesting things I have done while being on maternity leave.  They always bring a smile to my face...

• Starting this blog!  I am really enjoying writing it - so thank you for reading!



My Angel

• Reading my Woman's Day mag while breastfeeding, in my bed, in the 'early days' at all hours of the night

• Not worrying about anything other then Emily, thanks to Chris and all of our support network, for at least the first 3 weeks, then I surfaced from the 'baby fog' and begun to focus on life again

• Attending my first ever coffee group with my very first mummy friend and her baby at a midwife's house

• Emily being very, very unsettled the night my Mom left to go home (after being with us for a week!), and we wondered what on earth had happened.  Chris and I tried to give her gripe water through a syringe but nothing seemed to help.  Wonder how much sleep we got that night?!  Actually it happened the next night too!

• Going to the Family Centre to get help with Emily's routine / day sleeps, along with my first new mummy friend and her baby.  A really useful day out and such helpful Plunket nurses, full of interesting advice and information

Playing with Lucy, thanks Nana!

• Attending both my Plunket and SPACE courses and getting to chat to other new mums about the same things I was facing with Emily

• Lots of walks to help baby sleep initially, then it just formed part of our daily routine, helping me get fit and move towards yummy mummy!

• Getting caught in the rain on more than 1 occasion on a walk - the worst was probably over the Easter weekend when Chris was working, and Emily was only 2 months old and I had to take her for a big lunchtime walk to help her sleep and I got totally drenched!  2 people stopped in their cars to ask if I was ok!  Lucky it wasn't all that cold!

Loving her food, in the highchair!

• Both my Mom and mother in law spending heaps of time with us all, buying and making us things - dinners, knitted jerseys, toys, books, baby food, nappies, wipes etc!  We have been truly spoilt!

Loving Dumbo - 7 months

• Always having a load of washing to do!  Especially using cloth nappies, and then there is always the folding of it all!

• Being invited to join a second coffee group and meeting such a wonderful group of mums and babies

• Attending 2 baby photo shoots, to allow my friend to take baby pics of our coffee group

• Going to Wriggle and Rhyme with my new friends at the local libraries



Our little cupcake - 6 months!

• And then there are the firsts... that first smile is probably my most precious moment, apart from seeing Emily for the very first time... I will always remember that day!

• Having to deal with my first poo explosion while out and about!  I ended up changing Emily in the boot of the car as we were about to head home when I realised what had happened!

• Starting to knit Emily a blanket - and heavily relying on my Mom and YouTube for help!  I think I have pulled it out 6 times, but it's looking good - just in time for Summer haha!


• Mine and Emily's recent roadtrip to Paihia to see the Grandparents - what a relaxing, special week that was!

Me and my roadtrip buddy on our way home from Paihia

Let's go Mum, I'm ready!  Sophie is too!

Operation Carebear - Update!

So ... after a few weeks of visiting home-based carers and daycares, learning all the ins and outs of them both, we have found The One!  

We have decided to go with a home-based carer, but she only looks after one other wee baby girl who is around 4.5months old, and then Emily.  As she is an older lady, she doesn't have children at school to drop off / pick up, and with the babies she doesn't go to the activities provided by the company either, so - it's perfect!  The One also gave us loads of confidence that she would keep Emily safe, secure and loved, plus the opportunity to get to know the other little baby too!  Baby friends, yay!

I am fortunate also to work 2 days a week from home, so Emily will only be with The One 3 days a week in November and December, and 2 days a week January to October as Chris is off on Mondays during that time, so they will have have  beautiful Daddy / Daughter days together :)

We are really thrilled and now I can get back to my enjoying leave!

Ahh Carebear, you are sorted :)

Operation Milkies

Another little project that Emily and I are working on right now is Operation Milkies... getting her to drink from a bottle in preparation for me going back to work and someone else feeding her during the day.  Emily has never had a bottle till 2 weeks ago!  I guess I have just wanted to be really selfish and feed her myself, and haven't been that keen on expressing milk or using formula either.

However, needs must, and so we attempted this recently using formula at the 10.30am feed.  When I went to buy the bottles at the Baby Factory, one of the staff said it would be very hard for Emily to take the bottle as she has never had one and now is an 'older' baby (older??  But she is still my little poppet!).  Oh dear I thought.  How hard is this going to be?!  I had not anticipated having any struggles at all, Emily is such a darling and nothing has been hard for us with her.  We feel so lucky about that!

But, blow me down, she was intrigued by it all and even on seeing the bottle's teat in the kitchen, separate from the bottle, she opened her little mouth like a little bird, ready to eat!  Phew I thought, hopefully we won't have any trouble.

Mmmm... Milkies!

And amazingly, she accepted it fairly willingly!  There is definitely a fair bit of mess with it all but she is drinking around 100mls a time, which seems to fill her up enough to last to the next feed, so we are thrilled about it!  I definitely felt much more relaxed about her going to a carer/daycare as she drank so well.  In fact, I initially started this post as a draft a week ago or so, and Emily is hungrier now and recently drank 150mls 3 days in a row, like her life depended on it!!  Which is great news, so we are really relieved it's all working well. 

I am also giving expressing a go..... so strange!!  And expressing a little, around 50mls, at the 10.30am feed, to eventually drop this 'breast' feed altogether, and manage to go from the 7am breastfeed to the 2.30pm breastfeed without breastfeeding inbetween.  I'll probably express for a few more days and then I plan to drop the 2.30pm breastfeed in the same way and replace it with a bottle of formula, again in preparation for returning to work.  So far so good which is great!  Well done my Angel!

Operation Carebear

We are (unfortunately) at the stage of considering who looks after Emily when I go back to work and so we are in the throes of visiting both daycare centres and home-based care providers.  

It is a funny day when you realise that nothing, no matter how good it is, will actually be good enough for your little poppet, that is for sure! 

I have met with 2 home based carers from different companies and am not convinced on the model they use.  The carers often have their own children, and so, school drop offs and picks are included in the general day - all while taking all of their own children along for the ride, but of course the children they are looking after too; plus they usually go to an activity provided by the company a few times a week (some go out to these most days).  And so it means a lengthy car ride for Emily from our home to the carers' home, and then a lot of to-ing and fro-ing during the day too, and then that same lengthy car ride home at the end of the day.

We have been pretty home-based while I have been on leave, hang, the first time I did the grocery shopping with Emily was when she was almost 6 months old!  And we went away overnight for the first time when she was 5 months old!  And there are many days (in a row even!) where I don't drive, and so Emily doesn't travel in the car very much at all, only when necessary.  

So you can see the reluctance we have with all the driving she may do, while at a home based carer. 

So we are also thinking about daycares.  Something we thought of ages ago and then discovered the home based care option, so we went off daycare and all the little bugs that the children generously pass onto each other!  But it seems we are back to daycare now just to keep our options open.

I have visited 2 so far, and plan to see another one next week to be able to compare properly.  It has been a very interesting experience, not having ventured into a daycare before! 

So watch this space for an update!

Operation Sandman

Since having the Baby Sleep Consultant over last week to chat to my coffee group, I have started Project Sandman ... AKA Spaced Soothing / Verbal Reassurance with Emily to work on the length of her lunchtime sleeps.  Previously, when she went down, if she squeaked after say 45mins or an hour, I would simply get her up and keep going with the day.  But that sometimes meant she was awake from her 'lunchtime sleep' at 1.30pm, and then you have the rest of the day to get through too!  And she can just last for 2 hours of awake time between sleeps, so that is a LONG afternoon/evening! 

But you are apparently meant to get this sleep to 2 hours, or even better yet, 2.5hours. 

Waking from a lovely sleep!  Ready for play time!

Using the Spaced Soothing method, when you hear baby wake up you give them the chance to settle for a few minutes, and then go in and say a phrase/quietly sing to them and basically reassure them they are ok but that it is still time to sleep.  And you try not pick them up unless they are very upset as it can make things worse!  Easier said than done that is for sure!  

Then you leave the room, wait 2mins, and then go back in and do the same thing, increasing the time you are out of the room by 2mins each time, up to 10 or 15mins, depending on what you are comfortable with.  I have made it to 10mins so far!! And hopefully baby goes back to sleep.  Hopefully.  And you should try this for 40-60mins.  Sheesh that is a long time!

Hmmm....  Well I said I'd give it a week and this is what has happened:

• Saturday lunchtime: Slept for 1.5hours, and I attempted my technique for the first time.  It took 40mins for Emily to go back to sleep and she slept for another 45mins - yay!  It's working!  I must say I had not imagined she would end up crying, but she did, having woken up happy, and it's very hard listening to her cry and kind of just leaving her, at these intervals, but it did work so I am still keen to give it a go.  Hang in there Mummy!

• Sunday early morning: she woke at 6am and you are meant to encourage baby to wake at 7am, as an early morning wakeup can really affect the whole day, bringing all sleeps forward and making the evening routine time tricky.  I was definitely too hard on her, poor baby, at this time, as I tried until 7am to get her to go back to sleep, with no luck.  And she had slept through the night since 6.30pm the previous night with no wake ups, so was probably genuinely hungry, poor baby!!  I think I mustn't be too strict with this routine!  And on reflection I am sure by 'early morning wakeups' they are much more referring to those little poppets who wake up ready to face the day at 4am, argh!

• Sunday lunchtime: She only slept for 45mins and I tried my technique for about 45mins (stressful) and then she slept a further 30mins, so not such a great sleep.  Daddy was at home this day and she must have known it and not wanted to sleep!

• Monday lunchtime: disaster struck.  Emily and I went grocery shopping for the very first time together and we were out for about 20mins too long.  She fell asleep in the car on the way home and woke when I got her out of her car seat, most unimpressed!  I put her straight into her cot and while she was quiet for about 30mins, she didn't sleep.  I tried my technique for about 40mins before deciding she is not going to sleep.. and she was getting truly hysterical at this time.  I hate to see her so upset from being tired!  So we went for a big walk and she was practically asleep before we hit the top of the driveway!  And we ended up walking later that same day too, at the time when we usually walk, so it was a let's get Mummy fit day!

• Tuesday lunchtime: Epic Baby (EB) strikes again!  With no help from me at all, she slept from 12pm - 2.15pm!  Wow!?!?  Let's hope it continues every day is your only thought!  But during her sleep time, I also constantly clock watch, thinking 'I wonder how much longer she will sleep', and my heart skips a beat when I hear any peep from the monitor!  It's actually kind of stressful!

• Wednesday and Thursday lunchtime: Epic Baby strikes again and sleeps from 12pm - 1.50pm with no help from me... this I can handle!  Now, what to do during these lovely long lunchtime sleeps :)  Knitting / scrapbooking / cooking of some kind anyone?!

• Friday lunchtime: She slept for 1hour and then woke up.  We had to go out at short notice in the morning and so we didn't have time to do milk and then solids, only milk, plus she fell asleep in the car on the way home.  5mins from home.  Argh!  I think she is hungry but  I attempt my technique for 30mins and then get her up.  No point in dragging it out!  I don't think this will work every single day, will it?  I guess you are aiming for a point where baby just goes to sleep and stays asleep!  I know we are making great progress.

• Saturday lunchtime: Emily slept from 12pm - 2.15pm without any help!!  I am thrilled, surely she is in the zone now?  Yay!  It's been a week now!

• Sunday lunchtime: Epic Baby strikes again, sleeping from 12pm - 2.15pm, even while knowing her Daddy is at home!  Last week Sunday she did not really want to sleep much, nor the Sunday before that, and I am sure she knows Daddy is home and wants to play with him!

So, a successful little project, and a happy well-rested baby and Mummy - phew!  Well done Emily and thank you Baby Sleep Consultant for all the tips on how to tweak our routine!  Let's hope it long continues. 

We have a new project coming up (2 projects actually) so watch this space!  Sweet dreams!

Happy little baby!