Mama Who?

I was chatting to Alice about the struggle between being a mum and maintaining your sense of self. She is trying to write a novel and care for Etta and while I’m not trying anything quite so amazing or ambitious I can really understand the feeling of motherhood taking over who you are.

This is by no means something that only Alice and I feel. Rachel Power has written a book about the pull between being a mother and being a creative and there are numerous articles about women feeling they lose their own sense of who they were before they gave birth.

It took 7 months for my identity crisis to surface and it distracted me constantly for a few weeks. Since I breastfeed Frankie and she doesn’t take a bottle I have not been away from my little bundle for more than an hour or so since she was conceived. I have lately been wondering what I used to do in my spare time. I used to have a lot of it and unfortunately none of my old pastimes stand up to much post baby scrutiny. I watched a lot of TV. I read. Knitted. Cooked. Drank. But I wasn’t penning a bestseller or running marathons. It all adds up to a bit of not much when compared to my current job.

Our social life is looking very different now too. Long dinners out have turned into lunches... for now, until babies are old enough to be looked after and until breastfeeding stops restricting drinking to a glass or two. I also have to be ok with the fact that I may get to eat only half of my ordered dish if it is deemed tasty by my mini-me (beef carpaccio for example). 

Some other things that have changed a little include :

Showers have become a one women naked variety show of children’s songs for an often bemused audience. 

Toilet trips are spent protecting the toilet roll from an inevitable unraveling once it has been discovered as part of the most complete investigation the bathroom has ever had (though lately I have discovered that our shower curtain is apparently mesmerizing!)

Movies at home are a complete indulgence, if you dare, knowing full well that the crucial moment will be spoilt by the cries of your waking child.

Movies at the movies? What? They still do that?

Books are something to be dipped in and out of rather than consumed in one sitting.

Knitting and crochet are abandoned mid row if not mid stitch to attend to a child - who will then discover the discarded kitting and undo the knitting and the ball of wool.

Cooking is a complete circus rather than the relaxing pastime it once was. I have become a huge fan of chuck-it-in-a-baking-dish-and-in-the-oven dishes. More complex meals are often made after the baby has gone to bed despite my ‘eat as a family’ philosophy.

I don’t think we need to mention the sleep thing again and that there isn’t much of it - I miss it so much.

Any clothes requiring special washing attention are simply not washed. 

Any clothes that are not comfortable to sit crossed legged on the floor are left hanging in a closet that is fast becoming filled with jersey. My favorite high necked dresses without easy boob access have been left unworn for well over a year.

And these are just the tip of the iceberg. What about sex, exercise (maybe the same thing), actual meaningful discussions with people where they have your entire attention, popular music (Justine Clark doesn’t count), spontaneous drinks, spontaneous anything, concerts, work, and after work drinks, trying to drink a cup of tea without wearing some of it (yep, that was today), space to actually think.

The last one, I’m struggling with. The husband is helping. He is letting me go to yoga where I get to nourish myself a little with some space to sit back, take stock, meditate a bit and just be. 

I love the video below. It is Kemi Nekvapil talking about the importance of taking time to keep your cup full so you can give to the people in your life with generosity. 

Just Peachy

This week has been a tough one. A long dark tea time of the soul kind of tough. A combination of baby-routine induced cabin fever and the realisation that I enter my thirties this week has left me with a sense of melancholy and a very short fuse. 

I thought I might break out of this with a trip into Melbourne on Tuesday, but as those with babies know all plans must be flexible and Frankie’s sudden requirement for a nap at 9.15 left plans ‘fluid’. The day quickly turned into yet another day of homeliness and only further compounded my ennui. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I love being home with Frankie and I love living in Kyneton. But lately Frankie’s need to have nice long naps in her own cot has meant our waking hours are spent within a prams walk; at the park, the shops or just at home in the lounge. The little bundle I used to put in the wrap for a whole day out now wants to crawl, standup and grab and hit things. A once soothing train ride which would lull a baby to sleep in minutes are now spent wiggling on mama’s lap trying to touch other people’s things, or elicit smiles from strangers the way only babies can. It’s exhausting. 

So Wednesday came and I woke up the baby to make the 11.11 train. The hour journey felt about three hours long with all the wiggling and whinging and laughing crying and three nappy changes (in one hour people!). 

Hungry and already feeling ready to go home we made it to the gallery, got some food and enjoyed an entirely pleasant meal together with minimal mess and a cheery baby talking to lots of people on the surrounding tables. Ready for some art viewing, I plonked baby in the pram. Then I got distracted for less than 10 seconds reaching for the fresh nappies, which was all it took for my precious wiggler to launch her unsecured self out of the pram and head first onto the concrete. 

She was in shock, and was a little bit hurt. I was in shock and may have PTSD. As I stood there clutching a wailing baby to my chest willing the hurt to be better, another mother rushed over and asked if we were both ok, patting me on the shoulder and telling me that I probably feel worse than she does so don’t worry - that makes it sound like she was rubbing it in but it was done with tenderness and sincerity which was lovely. The crowd of concerned faces only made me feel worse. 

It didn’t take long for Frankie to stop crying. I coat checked the stupid pram and kept her in the sling, as close to me as I could. The sling was better for seeing her tiny eyes widen at all the art - it was amazing that she was so interested. After a sedate wander through the galleries she fell asleep at my chest. And I kept checking that she was still breathing. 

A day out in the rainy Melbourne air did help shake me out of my home funk. Frankie has a tiny red mark on her head but no egg and I have a greater appreciation for pram seat buckles.

Frankie's photo of the stained glass in the Great Hall at NGV.

ps. the title of this post refers to this article. 

The Quest for Sleep

From our recent Facebook chats it looks like everyone is having a few sleepless nights; change of weather, babies teething or just babies keeping us on our toes. So here is how we all (try to) sleep (though for Tom this mostly consists of trying to stay asleep while a persistent 7 month old whacks him in the face to try and get him to play).

Since all our babies are a little bit older I will skip the early days of our sleep journey that had us experiencing a few nights of  crying for no reason and one night of continuous feeding, which resulted in a desperate mama seeking out solutions from present hippies, reading up on how early is too early for CIO and the strange and frankly disturbing practice of this guy.

After all this drama and a few weeks where we believed that it was the “Rain - Peaceful and Soothing” white noise track that solved our problems (from an album list that included ”Strong Hair Dryer” and “Mellow Womb”) Frankie settled down to being happy to sleep in our bed with me (early nights for me!). I was really happy to do the co-sleeping thing since we all got a good amount of sleep and night feeds were SO MUCH EASIER. Naps were always decided by her (just don't miss a sleep cue) and try as I might I never really managed to stretch feeds out much longer than three hours apart during the day and her longest stretch was 5-6 hours at night. I did read up on "Eat, Play, Sleep" but I wasn't great at settling her without the calming milk coma so that usually turned into Eat, Play Eat, Sleep. 

Around the 4 month mark after small prompts from my mother (‘you were out of our bed by this stage’) and my husband (‘don’t you think she should be sleeping in her cot now?’ *hint hint*) I started to try and move her in to her cot, in our room, for at least the beginning of the night. She had always napped there, how hard could it be? Well, we picked a good time because it was surprisingly easy.... that week. Then we hit a ‘wonder week’. Screaming and rocking and patting and rocking and reassuring and patting and continued screaming became normal for nearly two weeks. This is when I started some bad habits. 

First rule of any ‘how to make my baby sleep’ advice is PUT YOUR BABY DOWN AWAKE. From Babycentre, to the numerous mama blogs, to the French; all say that getting a baby all the way to sleep in your arms/bed/sling/pram and then moving them to their own cot is a BAD IDEA. The analogy that really resonated with me came from Troublesome Tots:

“Imagine going to bed in your bedroom. A few hours later you wake up on your front lawn. Would you simply roll over and go back to sleep in the grass? Or would you stand up and start screaming? Would you demand loudly to be let back into the house so that you could sleep in your bed? Do you think you would be freaked out by the mysterious force that somehow carried you out to the lawn?”

They go on to say that if this kept happening to you night after night you would start dreading going to bed, always wondering if you would end up on the front lawn. I was, at this stage, either nursing Frankie to sleep or cuddling her until she was asleep, counting to 100 and then sloooowly lowering her into her cot. On a good night she would stir and stay asleep. On a bad night she would wake up straight away and we would start the routine again. 

I’m not sure how long I did this for. At least a couple of months. It got tiring pretty quickly and she always ended up in our bed, sometimes for most of the night. When she was about 6 1/2 months old and I hadn't slept for a couple of nights - due to Frankie's new habit of playing with my face and pulling my hair when she woke up in our bed, coupled with our increased anxiety about her ability to crawl towards the edge and the dog - I decided to turn to The Bible (aka Baby Love) as well as some help from the Troublesome Tots Website and try some tough love. 

I finally set a routine for day time naps. I had always just waited for the tired signs (which, admittedly is the advice until about 4ish months old) but now we needed set naps so that she wouldn’t sleep past 5-5.30 and push her bedtime back. A week away in Adelaide helped us transition into a new routine on the return home. Frankie went straight into her own room (cot lowered due to superior baby standing up skills) and nap times were set. 10am and 3pm became non-negotiable times (or 9.30 and 2.30, or 10.30 and 3.30 - totally non-negotiable). I started putting her in a little sleeping bag thingy to stop her kicking her sheets off and letting her know it was time to sleep. I also really did start pausing before going in her room. She embraced new naps and slept longer and more comfortably. 

Nights were a bit harder. The first night she cried for 5, 5 and then 8 minutes before finally sleeping (I think any longer I wouldn’t have lasted). The next night she fussed a bit and SLEPT ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE NIGHT. We weren’t counting any chickens but we really thought we had cracked it. Since then we have had mixed nights. Some nights she wakes at 10pm and 3am like she used to. Others just the once at 5am, others at 4am and she thinks it’s party time, sometimes she does 7pm until 7am. We are persisting and we are getting more sleep. She still cries some nights and I just have to trust that she will settle herself (which she does).  I sometimes break the rules - it's impossible not to when you hear the cries a little more desperate than normal, and go in to find her standing in her cot, beaming at you because she heard the door, and when you pick her up she clings to you like a little koala clinging to a tree, still smiling, because mama came to get her. 

Smimming

Since we are going to head to the pool tomorrow for a swim I thought I would put together all the notes from when I first started reading up on the best way to get Frankie into the pool - and have her enjoying herself.

Swim Nappies:
We bought a reusable swim nappy from here. But you can buy ones from the supermarket. The thing to know about swim nappies is they are only keeping in the solids. You really can't keep in the wees and that, everyone, is why chlorine pools smell :)

There is a good little section in Robyn Barker's Baby Love book - otherwise known as the baby bible in this house which covers the following:

Main aims for babies swimming:

1. Learning to love water
2. Skin to Skin contact with mum or dad
3. Confidence in the water - leads to water safety 

We shouldn't have to worry about sun protection or cold water at the aquatic centre but she suggests limiting swimming to 30 mins for these reasons (though I'm not sure Frankie could do one activity for 30 mins yet anyway). 

I found a video on introducing babies to water: http://www.uswim.com/baby-swimming. I like the 'Name, ready, go' command idea.

We have had a swim with Frankie in a relative's pool but we didn't put her under or try and make her 'swim'. It was really just about getting her used to her bathers, the pool, and her splashy cousins!

Adventures in Baby Led Weaning

I just wanted to write down how much fun we have been having since ditching the puree and stepping messily into the world of baby led weaning. 

After some internet reading of what kind of food she should be having, and a chat to Chris at the Maternal and Child Health centre we started with ‘squishy’ foods. Really ripe mango (more fun to squish than eat), super juicy pears (a HUGE hit and she nearly consumed the whole pear), nectarines (more pear please) and some watermelon (“really mum? you don’t even like watermelon”). We have now broadened out to broccoli and carrot (steamed to mushy), mashed potato, strawberries, banana and sugar free banana bread. The mash potato was such a hit Frankie thought she would share it with Lola our ever attentive staghound by letting Lola lick it of her hands - and she was in fits of giggles. 

A few things to be aware of when you start letting your baby control what goes in her mouth:

1. The Mess. All those other mothers on the internet warning you about the mess really are not kidding, it is A-MAZING how much mess half a strawberry can make. Luckily we have two very eager dustbusters in the form of our two dogs. This helps immensely as the floor cleaning is pretty much sorted - I’m not sure much of the food makes it to the floor as both dogs wait for every discarded morsel. I got Frankie a cover bib like this one from Ikea  which I think will be invaluable for winter when nude eating just isn’t an option.
2. SLOOOOOW. There were times with the puree that Frankie was obviously hungry and a lunchtime could be all done and dusted within 15-20 mins. With her feeding herself and the exploration that comes along with it I don’t expect to have her out of her high chair before 45 mins and really, it’s just until she has either thrown all her food overboard or has found something non food related to do (usually yelling at the dogs or playing with the straps on the highchair). 
3. So Much Fun. Seriously it is so much fun watching her fist trying to grasp the food in her little fist and then the look on her face when she puts the food in her mouth. Yesterday’s lunch for me was smoked trout so Frankie got a taste. Once she had tasted it and worked out she liked it she was like a little animal, gnawing away at her fist with the fish in it and sucking all the flavor out.
4. I eat better. Usually Frankie gets what I’m having (or a version of it). So mashed potato now has less salt and butter, more mashing. I make more vegetables. I actually eat lunch. I eat more fish and WAY more fruit.

Now I’m fairly lucky in that we don’t have many allergies in our family so I haven’t avoided feeding her anything except peanuts (they give my husband a headache oddly and who wants a baby with a headache). I also have been doing some reading about the recent research that avoiding foods can increase the chance of allergies.

Some more reading on BLW:

http://intuitivemamablog.com/babyledweaning/

http://www.simplyrealmoms.com/posts/baby-led-weaning-basics/

http://www.babyledweaning.com/features/gagging/the-gagging-thing-v-the-choking-thing/

http://www.hellobee.com/2012/09/04/getting-started-with-baby-led-weaning/

This post was also published to our community blog: Kyneton Mums