Week 18

This week the baby's been showing off how well she can roll over. Unfortunately she still isn't very happy when she lands on her front. So we have to lay her down on her playmat and by the time you sit on the sofa she's on her front. The first couple of times she does it she's ok, she wriggles around trying to crawl and getting frustrated and then she starts screaming. The time that she's happy on her front seems to decrease each time she rolls over. It does get a bit annoying when you have to roll her onto her back every minute or so. I tend to get bored of it after a while and strap her into her chair. It does seem to tire her out though.


Over the last couple of days she's started to learn to blow raspberries. She doesn't do it on command and tends to only do it when she's on her own. It's quite funny after putting her to bed she starts talking to herself and blownig raspberries over the baby monitor. She's currently in her bouncer walking and bouncing around babling and blowing raspberries with a load of drool on her chin.


She's definately into the weaning at the moment. She gobbles the food down and gets a bit upset when it finishes and she goes back to the milk. As she's getting older we should be able to start increasing the solids and decreasing the milk soon which I think she'll be quite pleased about.


Mummy broke the pram this week. After nagging me to get a new one we found something cheap that suited us quite well but it is a little tricky to get the pram on and off the base to get it in the car. She was in the road trying to put it in the car when it jammed and she had to force it off which has broken a support. That's got to go back to be repaired/replaced but we don't have the original packaging so we need to try and find a new box. We've had to borrow the buggy from my parents until we get our one back.


She's dancing around in her bouncer at the moment so I'm going to get the video camera out and record it for posterity.

Week 14-17

Wow, it's been about 3 weeks since my last post. That's really beacuase so much has been happening recently. We started weaning the baby, she started rolling over, we've been to see my Nephew and introduced the babies.
So a couple of weeks ago mummy spoke to the nurse when taking the baby to be immunised. They agreed that we could start weaning as the baby has been looking very interested in what we're eating most of the time. So Mummy went out and got a few books on weaning and started to make the purees from the books. The baby didn't take too kindly to this change in her feeding. She likes her bottle and that's the end of it. After a bit of perseverance we managed to get her to start eating. The first day she started to cry when being fed, the second day she discovered that she could push it out with her tongue and then on the third day, Saturday, I had a go at feeding her in bed. She got a big mouthful and sneezed splattering me with carrot puree. From there on though she started to get the hang of it. We stopped following the book more or less and just fed her one or maybe two purees a day. Eventually we've got the hang of it and now the baby can't wait to finish each bowlful, most of the time anyway.


A couple of days ago she started to roll over. She's been threatening to do it for a while now but a couple of days ago she managed to get all the way over. She did it twice just before I got home. Then she promptly decided that she wasn't doing it anymore. Today she rolled over before I got home again and now she's just done it to show me as well. She's still quite distressed when she gets onto her stomach. She can manage a couple of minutes now but she's still a little way from getting comfortable that way.


The weekend before last was a bank holiday so I took an extra day off and we went up to Nottingham to see my brother and his family and we reintroduced the babies to each other.They were a bit reluctant to start with but after a day or so they started to be happy on the playmat together although our baby did start to assert her authority on the playmat occasionally hitting her cousin in the head. We bought them some rattles and the baby was getting to grips with them. I'm not convinced she really associated the noise with her actions but she got a good grip and managed to shake a bit. Sadly sometimes she managed to hit her cousin in the head so we had to separate them for a bit. Generally the weekend went well. We drove up early on Saturday morning, waking the baby up and feeding her so she slept all the way up. On the way back we hit rush hour on the M25 and the baby woke up wanting to be fed just as we hit the traffic jam. Sadly there's no where to stop on that stretch of road so mummy had to keep climbing into the back whever we were going slowly enough to stick her dummy in. That kept her going until we hit the next services.


Generally though the hot weather has been upon us and the baby isn't terribly keen. We can't keep her room at a sensible temperature so it tends to be baking hot when we put her down and then cld by 4 or 5am which then wakes her up because we haven't covered her up enough. Then we have to have a fan in her room as well to keep it cool enough when we put her down but that can sometimes distract her. so I think it's going to be a long summer! We'll have to see what we can do to make it a bit easier for her to sleep.


Anyway, I hear a grizzly teething baby who wants a bath, bottle and bed.

Week 13

For the end of week 12 we went to visit my Gran, Aunt and her children. They all wanted to meet the baby and everyone got a chance to hold her. She took a littlewhile to settle and did scream the first two times that I handed her over to Granny. After about half an hour though she was sufficiently settled to be handed around which she was very good about. It's just a shame that she used to be very happy to be handed around and now she seems to be developing a bit of an aversion.

This week was characterised by mommy going out a lot in the evenings. This wasn't too significant at the time but became significant later in the week. We noticed a few weeks ago that the baby has a small problem with her lower eyelids. There's a small roll skin underneath each one which rolls the lid upwards and causes her lower eyelashes to point upwards and to go towards her eye. It hasn't really bothered her so we assumed she'd just grow out of it. On Tuesday we noticed that her eye was very red and swollen so mommy took her to the doctor who declared her eye infected. After a bit of persuasion she was able to get a referral to a paediatrician to get hte lash problem looked at. So all week we've been applying the eye drops which I'm not convinced has made any difference. Some days her eye looks fine and some days it looks bad which I put down to her rubbing it or not rubbing it. We'll persevere with the drops until the paediatrician visit comes up.


On Wednesday mommy went out to see Sister Act with her friend and got the wrong train home so got in very late. This left me in charge so I had to feed and bathe etc the baby. That was all fine but around this time she took to waking up between 4 and 5 am to have her dummy reinserted a few times. My position on this is that she had been sleeping since 7 or 8 in the evening and so going to 4 or 5 was pretty good. Mommys position is that this is acting out and bad behaviour so she has to be ignored for a couple of hours a day until she learns acceptable behaviour. Either way it continued all week and when mommy got back on Friday very late after going out for drinks she declared that she hadn't had enough sleep all week and wasn't coping because the baby was waking her up in the small hours.


Saturday, the baby slept through solidly until about 7am and the same on Sunday so I guess that whatever we changed in her routine over the weekend worked. Saturday we went out to see some friends. Again when the baby was passed around she wasn't terribly happy about being passed around all evening but I think that's something she's got to get used to. We were out until quite late which meant that the baby had to have a nap in our friends cot. She was kind of OK about that but didn't want to miss out on the social happenings so she wouldn't settle. Eventually at about 9pm she did drop off whilst I was holding her and then slept until we left.


Sunday she's just slept all day really. She must have been tired out after trying so hard to stay awake yesterday. She's woken up to eat and played a little bit but she's mostly wanted to keep going back to bed. We'll have to get her up soon though so that she gets tired enough to sleep through the night properly.

Week 11 -12

Pre-empting week 12 a bit here but I guess it's best to write the posts when I get the chance. Week 10 was a pretty normal week. The baby is developing well, she's engaged and looking at everything, taking it all in. We've started putting her in her doorframe bouncer again which she quite enjoys. She hasn't quite got the hang of putting her feet flat on the floor to bounce so she's a bit unsure about it. She tends to stand on one foot, on the side of her foot, and spin herself around with the other foot. There's some occasional bouncing but generally she likes to swing and move in it.
Week 11 was a long weekend  and my 30th Birthday. The baby was very good on Saturday and Sunday and was actually a bit too sleepy for everyone. She's been so sprightly and active that when she just wanted to eat and sleep for the weekend everyone thought that there must be something wrong. She soon recovered and decided that she wanted feeding at 4am instead of 6am on the Monday which was my brithday present from her I think. So after a distinct lack of sleep we managed to get through the day only for her to do the biggest smelliest poo she's ever managed for me in the evening. After that she was back to her normal playful self.
On Tuesday I had to go out to do some training with the compressor for the diving club which got me in big trouble with mummy because the baby had started to teethe. She's been sucking or chewing her hand a lot and dribbling a lot recently but in the afternoon she started to cry and get grizzly. So I was in trouble for leaving mummy with the unhappy baby all evening. As it turned out she slept all the time I was out anyway, the wonders of Calpol.
Since then she's had a few more incidents of teething trouble but she's generally been very good so far. I just hope it lasts when the more painful teeth start to come through a bit later on. Right now she's fed and gone back to bed for a couple of hours of peace.

Week 9-10

Wow 2 and a bit weeks without posting. Time has been flying by. I think that part of the problem was that everythign was going so well and then we had some friends over for a meal on the Sunday at the start of week 10 when I would have written the week 9 post and the baby was a little out of sorts. The only thing that would console her was being walked around and rocked in her pram. As it was a nice day we had lunch outside with the baby in the shade. This was ok as she sort of slept on and off but she did get a bit upset from time to time. after our friends had gone we decided to take the baby for a walk through town. This usually settles her quickly but on this occasion she was a bit upset all the way and was starting to sneeze. So we did wonder if she was suffering with hayfever. Anyway it became clear that she'd got her first cold. Poor thing.


We did eventually manage to settle her in the evening and then had to start pandering to her for a few days. This generally involved earlier morning feeds and letting her sleep as much as possible. On the Sunday night she was snoring so badly that mummy insisted that we move her out of the bedroom into the hall. This did help and we all slept for a few hours more although moving the baby monitor and everything else out of the bedroom was a bit of a chore in the middle of the night!


We discovered teh joys of Calpol that night although I don't think the baby was too impressed but it does help her sleep. So over a few days she got over it. We also discovered that putting something under her matress to elevate her head helps to stopthe snoring so that helped her to move back into the bedroom. So now we're equipped to handle colds and minor ailments. What was surprising was that it didn't really bother the baby all that much. It did from time to time but not in general.


So that week was sort of spent sleep deprived. Although we only really lost sleep on that first night it took a while to catch up. Last weekend I snuck out to go and do some diving training which was nice but mommy got me back by going out in the evening to see a show with her friend and leaving me in charge. I think this is going to be a pattern as she's now involved in two local shows so I'm going to be left in charge a few evenings a week.


Last time I was left in charge I had to bathe the baby. This is normally ok but on this occasion we had a bit of a disaster. We have  seat to put in the bath which helps to keep the baby stable and you can almost let go of her for a second without her slipping too much. We moved on to use the baby bath instead of the sink a few weeks ago and we now wedge that on the rim of the normal bath. That's also fine as it means thatI don't have to lean over so far. Sadly, on this occasion whilst holding the baby in the bath seat I leaned on the edge of the baby bath which knocked it off the top of the normal bath. It dropped to the bath with the baby still in the seat. Everything was OK but I think she was a bit upset, at least judging by the scream!


Aside from all that we've increased her feed. She was ok on the previous amount but was starting to insist on being fed earlier between feeds which is bad for sleeping patterns. The next amount up was an extra 60ml which is a little excessive and did result in a  lot of throwing up as she wouldn't leave the bottle. She's started to get used to it now and we can make her leave some which has stopped the sickness. The upside is that she can go longer between feeds but the downsides are that it takes longer to warm up and she's full of energy after each feed most of the time which isn't very convenient in the mornings or at night. On the plus side of that though she's increasingly happy to be left on her playmat and talk to the animals. She's also getting very close to rolling onto her front. She can get right up onto her shoulder at the moment. A strong gust of wind and she'll be over so any day now I guess.

Weeks 8 and 9

Missed a post last week because the weekend was so busy. Week 8 ended with Easter and a four day weekend. Godd Friday was spent preparing the house for a small party on Saturday. This involved completing all of the minor jobs around the house like changing the door handle on the hatch to the loft, minor touchup painting etc. Saturday was the party so we spent the morning preparing some food. That of course meant that the oven took the opportunity to break so we were left with just the top oven. It turned out that we had cooked about twice as much food as necessary so there were plenty of leftovers.
The party was reasonably successful. It the first chance for a few friends and family to meet the baby and our first opportunity to meet the new Nephew as my brother and his wife and baby were down for the weekend. The baby was thoroughly spoiled for the day of course with lots of attention.
Sunday was easter so we went to my parents to have  family meal with Great granny in attendance and the new Nephew. So again the babies had lots of attention with lots of photographs and camcorder footage which needs to be edited down.
Monday was a rest day which involved cutting the leftover chicken off the bone and cooking a weeks worth of caserole and curry.
So the rest of the week went as normal really except that I was charged with doing the middle of the night feeding on Thursday night/Friday morning which had typically been at about 4am. Baby decided to be nice to me and slept through until 6.30 for me which upset mummy. Since then the baby has started sleeping through more and more often. During week 9 there were only one or two occasions when mommy had to do the middle of the night feed because she was sleeping until I had to get up for work. That did mean that I was getting a little less sleep because I have to get up at 6 instead of 6.30 to get the early feed done.
So week 9 was characterised by trying to encourage a good sleeping pattern so she'll go through the night. It's been fairly successful but it has been difficult to keep her awake in the evening on a few occasions. Those occasions have generally been followed by the baby waking up early for her feed though so it's definately worth the extra effort.
Right now it's Sunday night and I'm keeping the baby awake for another hour or so before she gets fed again and is then allowed to go to bed. She has been very sleepy today so she should be a bit more active right now. She's been quite happy for us to get on and do our stuff today and just sleep through it all which was quite nice. This morning she didn't sleep through but I think it's because we were too tired last night to keep her awake in the evening.
Today I've been able to get on and mow the lawn and fix the oven from last weekend.

Don't go to sleep yet baby bear!

Day 45-52 (Week 7)

So I think I'll switch to weeks now unless I post in between in which case maybe day of week. It's too much hassle to keep track of days at this stage!


This was an interesting week as it was mommys birthday. We decided to go and see Dirty Dancing in town which meant that the baby had to stay with my mother in law. It's just as well because I got a call at work in the morning asking what to do if the shower was cold. It  turned out that the boiler was broken. I presumed that I'd be able to do something when I got home in the evening but as we were going out that wasn't going to be until very late. It was a shame because I'd been looking forward to a full nights sleep. When we got home I spent about 30 minutes taking the covers off the boiler to discover that the fan was dead. so it was just as well the baby was already spending the night away from home because it was too cold for her to have stayed with us. I did work from home the next day which sort of made up for having a very late night but I had to be around, in the cold house, waiting for the plumber to get a part and he eventually repaired it about 6pm.


Apart from that it's been a normal sort of week really. The baby has started to sleep until 5 regularly which is great except that it creates a bit of a dilemma about who has to do the feed. Mommy normally does the 3-4am feed and then I feed the baby at 6 when I get up for work. With the baby being fed at 5 it means that I can't really feed her at 6. So we had one morning where we made her wait until 6 but the rest of the time it's been 5. This week the clocks went forwards so I imagine that she might possibly sleep until 6 for a few days. I think it won't be long until she's sleeping until then anyway but we shall see.


Today I've been pretty busy trying to get things done around the house ready for the housewarming/meet the baby party next weekend. This of course meant that the baby was going to be restless. She decided to throwup all the time and scream if we weren't holding her. She fell asleep when I held her but as soon as I went to put her down she woke up and started to scream again. Somehow I did manage to get a lot of stuff done without too much trauma.


Otherwise a normal week. Mommy didn't go out on Friday so we spent every evening together. I've been trying to get my study straight, which looks like a losing battle at the moment so I wasn't around as much in the evenings for the baby as I could have been but hopefully after this week the indoors will be ready to roll.

Day 38-44

These weeks are flying by now as we get settled into a routine, although I can hear screaming so I guess someones hungry or craving attention! I don't seem to have been around much this weekend, Saturday I was busy putting together furniture for my study and Sunday I was out at diving lectures and busy putting together furniture for my office. It's all done now which is nice but it does mean that I haven't been around as much as I should have been and I've had to leave mommy to deal with everything.


Only a couple of events to note this week really, firstly the baby went for a checkup with the health visitor this week. Everything was fine, mommy just wanted to make sure that we're ok to leave her if she's screaming in the night after being fed. The only trouble was that the weighed her and she's a bit porky. It seems that over the last couple of weeks she's gained a bit more weight than she was supposed to so they've advised us to give her water if she seems hungry between feeds and to not increase the amount in her feed any further. We've also switched to hungry baby formula for the night feeds which should help with the first problem as well.


The other event was that we bought a new video camera this week so I'm expecting to have to sift through hours of video footage to find the few gems that we can screen on her 21st birthday for maximum embarassement! Otherwise we continue to struggle with getting the baby to sleep through the night. I've abandoned the idea for now, she was just teasing us with that one-off a few weeks ago. We're trying to get her to go consistently until 4am now which would be good if it happens. We're not doing too badly on that score at the moment so fingers crossed.


This week is mommys birthday so we're going out for the evening. Nanny D is going to be looking after the little one and has even volunteered to keep her overnight, the fool, so we should get one good nights sleep this week!

Day 32 - 37

So another week down. This week we had a red letter day on Monday night/Tuesday morning as the baby slept all the way through the night. She was starting to stir from about 5am but managed to go until 6 before properly waking up and wanting her feed. We were pretty stunned I have to say and hoped this might be a sign of things to come. Sadly this seems to have only been a teaser as it hasn't happened since. Part of the problem seems to be that we can't keep the baby awake during the evening so going through the night really means sleeping from about 7:30 through to 6 the next morning with a brief feeding break in the middle. We need to break that habit especially as she seems to be very awake for the 3-4 am slot and doesn't really want to go back to sleep.

We had another go at the baby moulds with much more success. The secret is to get containers that are suitable size. She hated having it done but we managed to get several reasonably good moulds. They need a little work like some sanding and some more plaster to fill some small air holes but they're pretty good.

Otherwise the baby has been pretty good this week. There's been the usual quota of baths which she's getting used to. I wouldn't say that she enjoys them but she just about tolerates them. That's more than can be said for being made to drink water though. From the fuss she makes you would think that it would be an effective torture device!

The baby also started to play on her play mat which is nice. She gets upset after about 10 minutes but during that time she'll lie there and kick about and occasionally punch the animals dangling at her. She's not very interested in the colours, noises or textures at the moment so she still has all of that to discover.

Today was mothers day and the baby got mommy a nice card and a CD. She has very neat handwriting. We had both sets of granparents and Uncle over and cooked them some moroccan lamb which went down well. The baby thoroughly enjoyed herself getting passed around everyone and generally being made a fuss over all day. It has, however, been a long day for me and I've got to go back to work tomorrow. Thankfully I still have that hours commute to catch some extra shut-eye!

Mommys had me helping her with her audition piece for a local musical today so I think the audition for that is next week. If that all goes through I guess it means I'll be spending more evenings on my own with the baby which will be nice.

Day 29-32

So life continues to get back to normal. Or perhaps a better way to say that is to say that we continue to adjust to life with a new member of the family. The baby is getting bigger and developing very rapidly. She's just barely a month old but already there's been a huge change in her. She's up to 150ml in each feed now although the time between feeds is pretty variable. Sometimes she only manages one hour. Right now she's been asleep for about 3 hours. Last night she managed a little over 5. So I think she can manage the full 150ml but we need to get her on a better timing schedule.

Saturday we abandoned the baby with one of mommys friends for the day so we could get out. We went into town and managed to get to the cinema. She was a good girl for her babysitter, eating and sleeping and being generally content. That was good because the cinema was very busy and we were a bit late getting home. We got some more casting stuff to have another go at the and and feet moulds. The plan was to do it on Saturday but because we'd been out we decided we were a bit too tired for that.

The baby does seem to suffer with some constipation which we understand is caused by the formula. We've been giving her water, which she hates, and sugar water, which she loves. That seems to work fine but we were hoping she would go whilst she was with the babysitter on Saturday. No such luck. No sooner had we got home, I was cooking, mommy was taking off her makeup and when we next went into the bedroom it smelled like a sewer. Fortunately I had the excuse of cooking so mommy had to deel with it.

Sunday I went out to do some diving lectures in the morning. I managed to feed the baby in the middle of the night and in the morning before I went out which helped mommy who hadn't slept too well during the night. I also went to get some furniture wood to build some cupboards with while I was out but I couldn't fit it in the car so it's being delivered next weekend. Now it's evening on Sunday and mommys gone out to do some drama/theatre stuff so I'm left in charge but babys been asleep soundly all evening. Hopefully she'll wake up for a feed in an hour or so and then go back to sleep.

So the moulds/torture will be left for during the week I think as next weekend will be busy as well with mothers day and grandparents birthdays.

Day 25-28

So I think that posting just once for the whole work week is probably not going to work for my memory so I'll try and post more regularly if possible. This week I've been designing some shelves and storage for my study so I get home from work, eat and then disappear up to the study to measure, think and draw. This has worked pretty well so far and I think I'm more or less ready to build. It does mean that I don't see much of baby in the evening though. I always come downstairs to feed her in the evening once she's woken up but that might mean that I spend an hour or two with her a night. Anyway, that's finished for now so tonight it should be back to business as usual.

Wednesday was the first time I gave the baby a bath rather than being the assistant. It went reasonably well with no casualties on either side. I was a bit unpopular with the baby for a little while but once I started to feed her she was ok with me again. On that note, we've been giving her water to help prevent constipation. She really hates the water which is quite funny to watch. She greedily takes the bottle in and sucks a few times before she realises that this isn't formula. Then she tries to squirm away from it but even while she's squirming she's so greedy that she can't stop herself from sucking on the bottle. We have been advised to add some sugar to the water if she has continued trouble in that direction. When we do add sugar then she seems much happier to drink it so I guess she's got a sweet tooth or a sweet gum at the moment.



On Tuesday we sat down to watch the TV and whilst I was feeding the baby she managed to throw up over the sofa again so we had to pause it so we could strip the sofa down again and get it clean. Maybe we should just use a tarpaulin when we feed her instead of the muslin squares?

It seems that the 3am feeding is getting more difficult for mommy. The last couple of mornings it's taken over an hour each time which is difficult to cope with when you just want to go back to sleep.

We got some more moulding stuff yesterday so we just need to find a chance to put that to use and see if we can get hand and foot moulds of the baby. She'll be a month old on Friday and she's getting big so it would be nice to do it very soon before she gets too big.

Day 18-24

It's been a while since the last update. The first week back at work is over and the associated weekend. I think the pattern for posting now is going to be once a week for the week days and then daily for the weekends, unless there's something significant to post about.

So the week itself was quite unevenful from my perspective. I was out on Monday night with my parents which left mummy alone with the baby all day and all evening. She coped though. In general she's finding it gradually easier to cope I think. There were some difficult days to begin with and it's getting better all the time. We're starting to get into a routine whereby I feed the baby at 6am before leaving for work and then when I get home the baby should be fed and asleep. So far she's been fed but awake when I get home. So I have to settle her before we eat and then I can feed her in the evening and the last one of the day. Baths currently happen before I get home as they're timed to be convenient for mummy rather than for me. No major dramas during the week this week to report on.

For the weekend though we slept until about midday on Saturday. I could have slept longer but eventually we decided we had to eat. Of course when I say we slept I mean in between feeding the baby who was very good about letting us have a lie in. In the evening we tried to do some baby mould casts of hands and feed. We'd got a kit of alginate and plaster but this turned out to be a lot more difficult that expected. Baby really did not enjoy the experience. There was much screaming and thrashing of limbs. We managed to get one reasonable hand and a couple of nearly there feet before we ran out of powder. We'll give it one more go before handing over to the professionals, if we can find someone reasonably priced.

Sunday we went to visit my parents. Baby was very well behaved and enjoyed getting lots of attention from her grandparents who sat holding her for most of the afternoon. When we got home though she didn't want to settle without being held which meant that it was difficult to get anything done. We did manage to order some more torture powder/alginate and order some photos to be printed though so that wasn't too bad. It did mean getting to bed about midnight, but then I slept most of the way in on the train this morning and I don't feel too bad for it!

As a measure of how tired I was last night/this morning I managed to not only sleep through the baby waking up for her 3am feed, being changed, fed and put back to bed but I only managed to switch off the 3:30 alarm after a couple of minutes of mommy kicking me to let me know that the alarm was sounding. Somehow I did manage to get up at 6 for work though.

Day 16-17

Didn't get much time to write over the weekend. We were pretty busy trying to get stuff finished before my return to work. Saturday saw us heading out to the hospital. As seems to be common with new babies the bes laid plans of how the morning should pan out so that we arrive at the hospital on time went down the tubes quickly. We did make it on time but it did involve a lot of rushing around. We managed to head to Starbucks for a hot chocolate and a cake after the visit as the baby was still sleeping. The checkup went fine and the baby is gaining weight quite rapidly. Mommy has decided that we should up the amount of formula that we're giving the baby now. This has pros and cons. On the plus side she sleeps much better at the moment as she's a bit bloated. The con is that because she's a bit bloated she's more likely to be sick while being burped. This only seems to happen when I burp her so either I'm being more aggressive or she's still got trapped wind from not being burped sufficiently on the previous feeding. Either way, we had a bit of a mishap on Sunday with this. We were settling down in the evening to watch a film and I was feeding the baby to try and get her back to sleep. I was burping her just at the end of the feeding and she was sick all over my legs and on the sofa. So instead of watching the film we had the joy of stripping off the sofa covers and trying to get them clean. I think they're OK but I guess I'll find out when I get home tonight.

Aside from that nothing much of note over the weekend. Much work was done to the house and the downstairs is all but finished.

Day 13

Today we took the baby into town to be registered. She was very well behaved giving mommy another chance to try out the pram before I go back to work. As it was raining we had a chance to get the pram in and out of the car as well which was a bit of a struggle. Given our car isn't exactly small the boot space does leave something to be desired. Anyway we managed it and the baby only woke up when we put her in the car to come home. I had to stop to register with the local doctors on the way home so I had to leave mommy in the car trying to keep the hungry baby amused whilst I filled in endless forms.
Mommy has been reading a book which suggests that formula fed babies are easy to overfeed. It's difficult to know if we're falling into this trap as we've been advised to just feed her whenever she asks for it as she's so small. We've been doing that but we tried her with a dummy yesterday evening and she actually seemed just as happy to have that instead of being fed an hour after her last feed. I think the dummy may be the way to go before we fall into the trap of overfeeding. She is gaining weight nicely and as long as that continues we won't worry too much one way or the other I think.
Meanwhile, work on the house is getting near to completion. I've emptied all of the boxes in my study and I just need to build some storage to put it all in now. Otherwise I think it's just getting the snagging bits of painting done and the odd curtain pole or two and I can call it a day until the weather picks up and I can start doing stuff outdoors.

Day 11-12

Day 11 was time to make it up to my inlaws that they didn't get the baby over the weekend. As Nanny has Tuesdays off work we decided that they could have her for the afternoon. That gave me and mommy some time alone to do decorating and housework and have a bit of a break. The baby was well behaved all day. When we got her home she was pretty hungry so we fed her. It was also pancake day so we thought that as she'd just fed she'd probably sleep for a while. Sadly, that wasn't to be.
The only thing that stopped her crying was being walked around while mommy made the pancakes. I tried putting her on her new playmat to see if that would pacify her but not really. I think the baby has some issues about animals dangling infront of her face as she wasn't very impressed with the ones on her rocker chair either! Hopefully she'll grow to love them. So between pancakes I had to come back to the baby and keep her entertained. Once we'd eaten we fed the baby again, which must have been only an hour after her previous feed. She's still tiny so if she wants to eat we feed her. She's gaining weight very nicely at the moment so it's obviously a strategy that's paying off.
Anyway, the baby needed a few smaller feeds through the evening but when it came 3am and time to wake her up, she couldn't be stirred. She only took half a feed from me. When mommy woke her up at 7 am for another feed she again only took half the feed. By the 10am feed though she was back up to full sized feeds.

We had the health visitor from the local doctors today (day 12). She wanted to come and examine the baby and do the hearing test. Well, for the hearing test the baby has to be quiet. That's great but our baby associates being awake with being fed so once we'd woken her up she immediately wanted feeding. Fortunately you can do the hearing test whilst the baby is eating so we tried that. Unfortunately the hearing test machine wasn't working. The health worker wasn't sure if it was the machine or if our baby has waxy ears. We'll try again next week.
Once the nurse had left we took the baby out for her first visit into town. It took a while to get the pram set-up but we managed it eventually. She slept the whole time we were in town and mommy wasn't very gently with her in the pram either. We met our neighbour on the walk home who stopped to chat and to coo at the baby. That's obviously when she woke up and smelled a bit stinky so we rushed her home only to find no mess. We were starting to get a bit concerned about that as it's been a couple of days now since she left us a present in her nappy.
As she was awake she naturally wanted feeding so mommy fed her. About half way through we heard the tell-tale wet, squelchy sound that means she'd had a poo so mommy went off to change her. I left her to it and for the next 10 minutes all I could hear was mommy moaning about how disgusting it was and pleading with the baby to stop. It seems that as soon as the nappy was off that's when the baby decided she wasn't finished pooing. Mommy ended up holding a wet wipe under the baby to catch what she could. I think the changing mat and mommy ended up with more poo than the nappy. After that she finished her feed and reluctantly went to sleep. They're both downstairs sleeping now.

Day 9-10

Today is day 10 but I've a little more to add about day 9. I was on middle of the night feeding duty last night, as ever (when can I go back to work?) and the baby decided that she wanted to be awake. No feeding and back to sleep for her last night. I was up at quarter to 2 to do the feed. That took about 40 minutes before I decided to change her to try and get the last bit down. Well no sooner had I changed her than she did a big poo and I had to change her again. I did manage to get her to finish the bottle but no sooner had she fallen asleep than she woke up again and decided that she wanted more food. So I gave her a top-up feed. Almost as soon as I'd got back into bed she was awake again. As it was now almost 4 am I made mommy wake up. She changed the babys nappy and sure enough she was fast asleep in minutes. Typical!

Anyway, today was day 10 and it wasn't all that eventful during the day. We took the baby out to visit a friend who had driven mommy to hospital while she was in labour. He seemed very pleased to see us although we had to interrupt his work unannounced so that he could see us. the rest of the day has been spent trying to get the baby to sleep and to feed both of which have proven a little tricky today. I've just come from a big event though, babys first bath. We're seeing the midwife tomorrow so we were intending to leave the first bath until after she'd been but the baby had other ideas. She threw up quite a lot over her bedding and herself and so mommy decided that it was best if we washed her. We tried just using the flannel but she still smelled of sick so we decided to have a go at bathing her in the sink. This was reasonably successful, a decent amount of screaming but she was washed and clean smelling.
We decided that it was more or less feed-time after that so I fed her so that mommy could have a rest. The baby was pretty hungry but didn't seem to be getting much down her before falling asleep. I had a feeling something else was about to happen. Sure enough just as I was thinking I could put her down for a while she managed a big poo. Off I went to change her and no sooner had I cleaned her up than she pooed again on the chaning mat. Needless to ssay, mommy wasn't very impressed as she'd just cleaned the changing mat from all of the sick. Anyway, we got her cleaned up and I handed her to mommy to see if she'd take some more of the feed she abandoned to have a poo. Hopefully she was just making room for the rest of it! I've decided to come to my study to write this post and to upload some baby photos. Any old excuse. I wait with baited breath to see what's awaiting me on my return.

Day 8-9

It's starting to get a bit too quiet here. The baby has really taken to this while formula thing and she's feeding well, sleeping reasonably well and pooing like a champion! Mummy got a bit concerned yesterday that the baby was pooing a bit too much and might have a lactose intolerance but the midwives told her that it's probably not a problem but to keep an eye on how things progress.
We're gradually increasing the amount of formula that we give the baby and dreaming of the day when she can go 4 hours between feeds so we only have to get up once in the middle of the night. Speaking of which, I had the 3am feeding this morning. I changed the baby first to wake her up, fed her and put her back to bed. Well that all seemed too easy. She started crying almost as soon as I got back into bed so I went and picked her up to try and get her to sleep. About 5 minutes later I put her back down and as soon as I got into bed we heard a loud squelchy fart. So I had to get up again and change her. Then the nappy bin was full so I had to change that too. All in all it took about an hour and half or more to do the feed in the small hours this morning so I was not amused.
She is cute though, our little poop factory.

Day 4 - 7

It's been a slightly crazy time here and we're both a bit sleep deprived. The baby was diagnosed with a tongue tie which apparantly is farly common. It's a condition where a small piece of skin attaches the tongue to the bottom of the mouth but it comes too far forwards on the tongue. This has caused the baby problems with feeding as she can't push her tongue forward enough. So we've had to top her up with formula but the combination of that and the fact that mom hasn't been producing milk explains why the babys been constantly hungry and not sleeping. It's amazing that just a small amount of formula made her a lot happier and sleepier. We've been constantly increasing the amount of formula each day and she's doing a lot better now, a lot less dry skinned and a lot calmer.

We had the tongue tie corrected which was just a quick snip that the midwife did at a clinic. It was very quick and the baby seemed more upset about being stripped down and pinned to the table than she did about the cutting. Unfortunately, mommys milk hadn't come in for a couple of potential reasons so even now that her tongue is corrected she isn't breast feeding. We're trying to help things along with expressing but it remains to be seen whether it's going to make any difference at this stage.

Great-granny came to visit today. She has two great-grandchildren now but ours was the first that she's met so far. The visit went well and the baby was very well behaved and so was great-granny.

The trouble we have now is that the sleep deprivation from those first few days and the middle of the night feedings are catching up with us now so we're not getting much done. Hopefully we'll get into our own routine soon and start to be able to do some stuff around the house, maybe even start going out.

Day 2/Day 3

I guess this is going to be a recurring theme. I didn't get to the computer at all yesterday to post a day 2 update so this is combined with today. Mother and baby were discharged from the hospital on day 2, which was great, except that the house still isn't quite ready to receive them. Everythng should be good for Tuesday though so we're pretty close.
The baby had a bit of jaundice when we were discharged but it seems to be clearing up nicely. I think Mummy was pleased to get released from the hospital because most of the other mothers were snoring and farting all night the night before keeping her awake. They both did really well on the first night on the outside. Baby fed well and Mum was patient with her encouraging and we even got 4 or 5 hours sleep between feedings.
Day 3 was a different story though. Baby has still been feeding well but whenever she's taken away from the breast she cries and looks around for it. When we put her back she feeds for a few seconds and then gives up and starts to fall asleep. I guess she's getting enough food but she just won't settle between feedings. That said, she's down at the moment so Mummy is taking the opportunity to catch some sleep. Meanwhile, daily-daddy has to prep the dinner, do the laundry and try to catch up what's going on on the Internet! Hopefully she'll be down for a couple of hours and then ready for another feed. Mummys milk should be coming in soon which hopefully will make the feeding a bit easier.

I'll let you know.

Day 1

Or more strictly the start of day 2. My first baby, a little girl was born yesterday afternoon at 2.30. I missed the main event but only just. Then again, my wife only just made it to the hospital in time. I'm just grateful that the Princess Royal hospital in Haywards Heath didn't lose it's maternity unit otherwise I think she would have been born in my wifes friends car!

The baby's pretty small but seems to be doing well, took reasonably well to feeding and seems quite happy with the wold. As we're in the middle of a house move I haven't found anything to connect the camera to the PC yet so no pictures for a little while.