Sunday, April 30, 2006

bit of both

I always wanted to be one of those Mums who could breast and bottle feed. With Ez there was no convincing him milk came from anywhere other than a breast despite trying everything. From five weeks to eight months we persevered, and then suddenly he picked his mates partially drunk bottle off the table and began glugging. Typical.
With Seth I aimed for things to be different. He did start out bottle fed as I was otherwise engaged in surgery and sedation and whatnot. Similarly we persevered with at least one bottle a day which became more and more of a struggle, until we gave up completely for a few weeks.
Breastfeeding is great- good for baby, convenient for mum. However, it is a tie when you fancy a few beers, or (in our case) both kids become ill and are up day and night crying and demanding liquid. Its exhausting feeding every hour for days on end with no one to assist, and then running around keeping a toddler engaged during the day.
I decided to take a leap this weekend and reintroduce the bottle to our lives- if possible. I'd read that if you offer only a bottle for two days, baby will learn to latch and suckle from a bottle. A baby will never forget how to feed in his preferred method, and can learn to do both.
So, day one was yesterday. I expressed 24oz, Seth drank 14oz. The first feed was hellish and he sobbed for 40 minutes before falling asleep and suckling 2 ounces in his sleep. Gradually as the day progressed, he was consuming slightly more but each feed was taking an hour or more and he was sobbing most of the time. I don't know how I carried on as my heart was breaking- but I did. Thankfully he only woke twice in the night and I hoped for a better day today. Sadly the morning feed was just as bad as the first, and as I went off to buy more bottles, I was feeling dejected.
Whilst in Boots I discovered a new Tommee Tippee product called Closer to Nature. They are feeding bottles with wide extra wide silicon teats designed to replicate the breast surface, the theory being that baby can latch with a wide mouth. The silicon becomes stretchy when filled with milk mimicking a nipple, and the bottles themselves are short, wide and stout so that you can turn baby to into your body and still wedge the bottle in to feed.
Seth took to it immediately. He has guzzled two feeds happily. I would enthuse more about the bottles but I am too tired. For anyone who is planning to breast and bottle feed- buy them.
My plan is to give him his 7pm and 11pm feed from a bottle and gradually wean him off the breast over the coming months. If I'm successful, I'll see you down the pub for a fair few bevvies.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

6 weird things about me

My main man Moobs has tagged me and now I will reveal 6 weird things about me.

1. I have had abdominal surgery four times. Twice for babies to be born, and two for completely different and incredibly rare life threatening illnesses, all in the last 4 years.
2. When I was twelve I was in a youth dance production about a post apocalyptic world and there is TV footage of a me being interviewed about my views on nuclear war (right on!).
3. I used to go to the same dance class as a Spice Girl. (She was rubbish)
4. My best friend from school was a witch (no, really)
5. I have had a hand in creating quite a lot of the ready meals you buy for your tea.
6. When I was at university my housemates boyfriend committed an armed robbery. I awoke one night to find him getting his old fella out in order to pee on me. Seems the guilt had caused him to sleep walk and assume my bed was a urinal. He was apprehended by the police during a Geography lecture the next day. (not for almost weeing on me, for the robbery)
I will now tag JoJo, and norah as they have nothing better to do.

exchange

My husband and eldest are reading before bed. Whispers grow louder before husband falls out of Ezra's room, gasping.

him: "Where's Marvin's face?"
me: "I don't know, I swear I haven't moved anything"
him: "It was here, right here. Oh no!"
me: "It could be in the hoover"
him: "Its here! Thank god. I found it outside when I was taking out the rubbish. He's been asking for his face for days"

Monday, April 24, 2006

peckish

Following a week long hunger strike, son no.1 is now back on the scran. 20sixers, friends and family will know that Ezra's eating habits have been a source of great stress from the minute he was born. I'm used to feeling hysterical about his faddiness.
Son no.2 has caught a stinking cold from his brother (or 'bodor' as Ez calls him. e.g. "Hello bodor") and is also struggling to feed. I wonder if this is my punishment for my love affair with food. When I dream about dates with gorgeous men in exotic locations, I am usually tucking into something delicious. I wake up and think about dinner.
I should probably explain that in my life before children I worked for a major food retailer (whose ads are not just voice-overed by that irish lass). I won't go into detail, but my job involved reading about, eating and recommending food. The best thing that ever happened to me was when I went on a business trip to Chicago and the minute I stepped off the flight I was chauffeur driven to 6 or 8 restaurants to taste the food. Course after course arrived and I took a bite of each with wide eyed glee. This continued for three more days in the Windy City. Soul food, haute cuisine, mexican, japanese, sandwiches, desserts, cakes, snacks and puddings. Cocktails and beers, wine and smoothies. On the flight home I travelled in business and drank bellini's and ate an aeroplane meal constructed by Gordon, or Brian or Marco- I don't remember which chef, but anyway. I passed out on my completely flat chair bed and drunkenly noted that the trip would be used as one of my most treasured memories.
So, you see- the lads have discovered my achilles heel. And they are prodding it with their empty forks.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

eat, damn you!

Our infuriating eldest is on yet another self imposed hunger strike. Today he ate 1 croissant (a desperate purchase following no breakfast) 5 pieces of chopped mango, a nibble on the end of a banana, a sniff of a grape, 4 snackajacks (please don't mention the salt in those babies, I might collapse from the strain), and two teaspoons of weetabix, (he refused meatballs and spaghetti and fish fingers with lovingly home made potato wedges and peas.)
He looks like he is starving (well, not quite- but is certainly more slender) and has just drawn all over his tummy in biro.
He has also learnt to pull his trousers on and off unaided and has named everything 'MINE!'
Meanwhile, it has dawned on us that the other child might also need a bit of work. Yes, he's happy to observe and giggles quite a lot, but has slickly lulled us into allowing an appalling sleep routine. He woke 12 times the other night demanding a breast.
So, structured naps, a painfully intricate feed-then-cuddle-then-patting-and-shushhhing-whilst-laid-in-the-cot, has yielded a more peaceful few nights.
Gaaaaaah!

Friday, April 14, 2006

guilty conscience

As a child my mum would attribute every nightmare, worry and outburst to my guilty conscience. In fairness, I was always guilty of something, whether I knew it or not.
It is fitting then, that speaking with the counselor has helped me realise just how responsible I feel for what goes on around me.
A psychiatrist would undoubtedly have a field day with my God complex. Seemingly I am in control of, and responsible for almost everything in the universe. The reason I am feeling so awful at the moment is because the births of my children were affected by factors beyond my immediate control (though, if I'd listened to my mother this would never've happened. And if I'd gone for normal hospital delivery first time around, instead of wanting a homebirth, things would've been different- see, I have special powers).
Ezra experiencing his first asthma attack so shortly after I left hospital has further complicated matters (Did I imbibe too much red wine during pregnancy, and this is our punishment? Was it something I ate during breastfeeding? Did I not breastfeed for long enough? Is my house too dirty?)
I feel responsible, yet powerless and this is a relatively new feeling for me. It makes sense that my house is quite clean at the moment. I am trying to control our environment to make us safe.
We ended the session with the nodding counselor suggesting just a few more sessions would help,
"You are the only person who has found you guilty. No one else"
"But no one else's opinion really matters, does it" I replied
And there it is.

Monday, April 10, 2006

we live to sleep another night

Hurrah for wonderous demand feeding. Things have settled down. Seth has grown a foot longer* and he is sleeping through the night again. For now.


*This might be a slight exaggeration

Friday, April 07, 2006

weaner

Its come around far too quickly. All of a sudden (well, for three nights actually) Seth is waking every hour in the night and demanding milk. I can no longer blame his need to comfort suckle. Its gone on for longer than a growth spurt. The chile wants real food. The biggest give away is his drooling, masticating mouth when we sit and eat dinner (he sits with us in Ezra's old high chair) and his delighted giggle when I caught Ezra feeding him marmite flavoured rice cakes. (I did extricate said rice cake before it became a choking hazard.)
He is barely three months old- too young in todays society for solids. I am too old to be feeding him every hour on the hour until he hits sixteen weeks.
What are we going to do? I can hear the baby rice calling from the cupboard..

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

lads

Ezra passed his two year check and can proceed into his second year, as opposed to being held back in his first year for another term. I didn't feel the need to have Ez tested, but my husband insisted on ticking all the boxes. I expect he is currently wandering around boasting about Ezra's block building and three word noun and verb useage to his manly peers.
Ezra's development is one thing I am not currently worrying about- he's been standing on one leg whilst simultaneously feeding icecream to his Bob the builder and Thomas the Tank Engines for a while now.
Seth is also storming ahead. He is learning to manipulate us using a combination of pretend crying and giggles. He has decided that I am the perfect dummy and insists on only falling asleep whilst being held or fed. I would never've let this happen with Ezra, but my attention has been less intensely focused on rearing the perfect child, knowing as i do now, that this is a. impossible and b. undesireable. I'm praying his thumb finds his mouth very soon.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Didn't you know I'd gone mad?

So the twitching woman said to her GP. Humour speckled the consultation and it helped both of us talk about a difficult matter. Well, difficult for me anyway. He scanned my notes on screen and asked a few basic questions, like do I feel like harming myself or my children (no), and am I sleeping (no).
He then offered to book an emergency session with a counselor this week to determine whether counseling will help, and suggested we get together after that to make a plan of action. If counseling isn't the right course, then a referral to psych and medication may be on the cards.
He explained what he thought was happening to me. A reaction to a number of things, both physiological and otherwise. The c-section, the near-death thing and Ezra's hospitalization. Family concerns, chemicals and hormones. Expectations and loss combined.
I felt relieved to be heard and understood. He knows me well enough to know that I am a practical sort, and I need a helping hand to sort things out. He was kind enough to extend one.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Two

Ezra's birthday was a riot. We had a fantastic time at the theme park and all the kids were incredibly well behaved. That evening I brought him his birthday cake, complete with two blue candles and as he blew them out I had one of those moments where you really see what is infront of you. I saw my tiny baby. The crawling menace. Sleepless nights and laughter filled days. This clever little boy, the child and man he will be.