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2008-04-09 - 10.25pm��previous entry��next entry
12 weeks old! And some hormonal doo-dahs
Thank you for the lovely compliments on my sweet boy! :) And Jemma, I beg to differ - my milk is most certainly NOT superior to yours! It does rather fall out of my breasts at a rapid rate which could be a factor (!), but remember I had the same old milk for Matthew and he started at the 50th percentile and steadily dropped down to below the 9th! I had all the usual advice from the HVs - better give him some formula, start him on solids early, etc. Matthew was just built to grow that way, it seems, never mind my milk! YOUR milk hasn't half grown a fab boy! :)
Well it has been a week (ish) since my last entry. Nathan is 12 weeks old, and he turns 3 MONTHS OLD on Saturday!!! It just amazes me how fast it's going, even though (as always) it feels like he has been here for ever.
This week I have tried him sleeping on his back a little more, and he is finally seeming more comfy there. He sleeps on his back next to me at night (we co-sleep exclusively now, he is never in the cot any more at night, which I LOVE, and it's soooooo much easier with the breastfeeding). And a few days ago I decided to put him in a baby sleeping bag instead of just faffing about with blankets and sheets for him, which I had been doing in case I needed to turn him onto his tummy to sleep at any point, should he refuse to sleep any other way up! I had noticed him sleeping the same length of time on his back next to me, as on his front. So I put him in a sleeping bag to keep him warm, and it went fine! The next day I had a go at putting him down for a daytime nap in the sleeping bag, on his back in the cot! He protested for ages, but I persevered, patting and shhing and playing his soft mobile music for a bit too. I also let him use his dummy (pacifier). He would spit that out a lot more often than when on his tummy though. Anyway, in the end he went to sleep! He stirred and needed re-patting, etc, a couple of times, but then slept for about 20 minutes. I watched him, and it was such a relief to see him lying soooo relaxed and unconscious, with his arms out to the sides and his hands open instead of clenched. He is also enjoying smiley, chatty time on his back for long periods, and seems generally comfy in that position. He had his fourth appt with the chiropractor this week, and she was happy to hear he is really improving at last. He will go back again in 2 weeks for another adjustment and hopefully in that time he'll show enough improvement so that he won't need any further appointments.
Next week he has his paediatric urologist appointment for his non-existent hypospadius! ;) That's on the 14th (Monday?). And on the 16th, he has his delayed 6-8 week baby check. The surgery has been on the phone to me a few times, banging on about him getting his "immmms" (his immunisations, said with an unnecessarily extended "mmm" sound, for some reason, hehe!). They used one of those wheely things to see how old he would be now if he had been born on his actual due date and he would be 8 weeks old. So, I am now happy enough about him getting his first round of jabs. Poo. I hate this part! I HAD planned to do another fun family event, like when Matthew had his first round of immunisations - we've delayed Matthew's MMR (he hasn't had one yet), and like we did with Arthur, we planned to get his first one done when the baby has his first Hibb set. But we've missed a couple of jabs for Matthew somewhere along the line. I am not sure which ones he's missing - a Hibb? Pneumococcal? I can't remember. Anyway. Arthur is now due a booster of some sort (hopeless at remembering these things!) and never did get his second MMR, so the plan was that each boy would get jabs at the same appt.
But they are so keen for Nathan to start his vaccinations that even though they have no free appointments for weeks, they told me to just wait in the waiting area after his baby check, and they'd fit him in at the end of clinic. I'm not crazy at ALL about waiting for goodness-knows-how-long with a small baby in a germy waiting area! The more I think about it, the more I'm not happy to do it. I think maybe I'll drive him around in the car after the baby check and go back near end-of-clinic time or something. That way the poor bean might get a chance to sleep a bit. Anyway, so he'll get those jabs on Wednesday, and it won't be appropriate to have the boys there too. Their jabs will have to wait till Nathan's second round, or something.
I can't wait to have him weighed and measured!!!!! I love that part :)
Here's my chubba boy having a catnap in the bouncy chair last week:
And contemplating something or other, also last week :)
Here he is with Matthew (not looking all that impressed, hehe!):
But being all interested in Arthur, as always! :)
The boys love to play "piggies" (or "peebeeeeees!", as Matthew says it!) with Nathan. Actually it's Matthew who is a huge fan of this game (This Little Piggy, usually with toes, but Matthew likes to do it with fingers too), and is always the one to initiate it, but Arthur enjoys joining in too. Matthew must do "peebeeeees!" about a dozen times a day at least, with Nathan! Anyway, here are a couple of rare photos of both boys doing this game with Nathan - one boy on each of his hands, while he lay, innocently trying to learn about focusing on dangling objects under the bars on the playmat! The first photo show them saying about the "peebeeees" and the second is them both doing the "wee wee wee weeeee! All the way home!" bit! Matthew likes to do this under chins, and Arthur prefers armpits ;)
Hmmm, I've just realised that Nathan isn't smiling in ANY of the photos I've posted today! I did post a bunch of photos of all 3 boys together (and a couple of one of the older boys with Nathan at a time) here at my arthursmummy diary yesterday, though. He is smiling in some of those (especially at Arthur!).
I'm trying to get a photo of him to get him a passport at the moment. I think I have got a few that are good enough, by the guidelines at the passport agency. Now if only Matthew would keep still for long enough to get his passport photo, I can send off for both of them to have passports for the first time! Arthur got his by the time he was 6 weeks old as we intended to go to France (but got the flu instead!). We can't go till the little boys have their passports (and Neil's is renewed) so we need to get it done and attempt a visit to see my parents!! :)
Nathan is holding his head up strongly now, and looks around the room with bugging eyes when he gets up from a nap or something, and is eager to "explore". He's very interested in the world around him. If I hold him and walk across the room, his head turns this way and that while held upright now, looking around him as things pass him by, to see what they are. I presume this must mean his eyesight is gradually improving by now? I know by 6 months or something like that, they can see right across a room in focus, so maybe his eyesight is clear halfway across a room? I am guessing. But it's much better than the newborn 12-inches thing now, which is exciting! He is interested in the famous "musical bug" toy that Arthur and Matthew loved. I haven't got any pictures of him being interested in it yet (he has started to move his hands to touch it, but it's still a bit random yet) as I'm always holding him in one arm or on my lap, and the bug in the other, so no hands left for the camera! But I'll try sometime.
He can also kick the foot pads on the "kick and play" part of the bouncy chair and watches the lights on the toy bar. He doesn't watch it with eye-popping eager curiosity yet, but he's taking it in.
He is getting stronger on his tummy still. He can lift his head and shoulders up and look ahead of him, though not allll that high off the bed. He can also try to talk and smile whilst on his tummy, lifting his head to see me! This is a hard combination and his head bobs about with the effort, but he still keeps on trying so hard, bless him!
He is SO sociable and smiley and chatty! His "chatting" is changing all the time. He is practising different volumes now, and can control whether he coos one "word" softly and another "word" loud. He mixes soft and loud up in the same cooed "sentence"! He really does seem to chat in sentences now, a string of different types of coos and skwawks, by which he is REALLY trying his hardest to communicate with me. His eyes are full of urgent meaning as he "talks" to me! It's so sweet! He beams and smiles at the drop of the hat, at least to me and Neil (and Arthur sometimes!) anyway. Sometimes if it's still nighttime and I am changing his nappy and desperate for him not to wake up too much, I am practically ducking down out of his sight as best I can in order to avoid eye contact with the boy! It sounds awful now I say it! A lot of the time I give in and chat with him, middle of the night or not :) I just love him so! But anyway, sometimes I try to hide a little, because he is always searching my face out to smile and coo, never mind the time of day or night, hehe! He's such a sweetie :) It's the very loveliest thing to wake up to - a sweet cuddly baby right next to me in bed, who beams fit to light up the room the moment he sees me looking at him! It's LOVELY. *sigh*
What else is there to say about Nathan? He's arching and twisting a bit when on his tummy, and I know it's the precursor to rolling, so I'm trying to be more aware and vigilant when he's on the bed or sofa. I know it will happen all of a sudden when I least expect it, so I have to be careful with him!
Nathan has developed cradle cap, like his brothers did. Matthew STILL has a tiny spot of his but you'd never know because it's hidden under all his hair! Arthur still had some at 18 months as well, only a very tiny patch. I never checked again after that, so I don't know when it went away for good. My GP told me that it can last up to age 3 in some cases!! Anyway, yuck. I really dislike it when my babies get cradle cap! It looks so ugly and scaley, especially as they start to lose all the nice hair that hides it at first! Matthew had it much worse than Arthur did. So far, Nathan's is looking pretty bad like Matthew's was. But it's not much noticable in photos right now, as it's the same colour as his skin. Matthew's was more yellowy. I'm sure it'll probably turn that colour soon. It also is kind of stinky, and feels rough and nasty. Poor baby! I know they say to rub oil into it, etc. But I didn't really do that with my other babies. If it bothers them I try to remove it, but it's hard to do and leaves them all yucky and oily and with big wet flakes of the gross cradle cap stuff in their hair! It helped a little with Matthew (but I ended up using the moisturising cream that he was prescribed for his mild eczema instead of oil), so maybe I'll try it with Nathan if it gets any worse.
Okay, the next bit needs a sort of line to divide the subject, or something (?!)....
How bizarre it is to still have my diary open for a new baby and be writing the type of thing I usually write when I open this diary back UP again in the run up to another baby!
Really, I just want to write for my own reference - maybe I should put it in a different colour so it's easy for me NOT TO MISS or something?! Anyway. I want to make sure I know for future reference that I CAN have some pregnancy-ish symptoms while totally NOT pregnant! I know I am just the worst for symptom-spotting in the two-week-wait when we're TTC, hehe!
This week I am having a few strangenesses - I think my body is doing "something" hormonal, but I don't think it knows quite what! I've had some mood swings that feel hormonal, and feel extremely wiped out - exhausted by early evening, in a sort of different way to just being tired out from lack of sleep, just the last few nights. Today I have felt actually nauseated, sorting piles of laundry on the stairs, while Neil was frying an egg. The smell really made me feel sick. And I made banana sponge pudding this afternoon, for our dessert after our "family meal". I seemed so sensitive to the smell of the mixture that I almost couldn't bear the smell. It was so queasy-making.
I am also clumsier than usual (good "hormonal" sign for me!), have had heartburn for 2 nights running, and had a REALLY vivid dream last night for the first time in ages! I have been very mildly crampy here and there recently, but somewhat bothersomely today and yesterday.
Now, I want this in WRITING, since I am sooooo not pregnant! It will be good for me to look back on! Or, maybe it won't make a blind bit of difference, but never mind. ;)
I just had a baby less than 3 months ago, and my periods NEVER return before 5 months PP after having a baby, and I'm breastfeeding everyone at the moment too (except Neil, of course, hehe!). I haven't had a postpartum period yet. I did have EWCM and a couple of mayyybe-fertile-ish signs at the same time, a couple of weeks back, which I guess I don't normally do in this period-free zone after having a baby. But I know it's also very common to have that when breastfeeding, in general, without actually being fertile or ovulating. I guess I COULD be getting a period, given that the EWCM was fairly recent, but again I doubt it, because if I did ovulate, I would be about 10/11 DPO right now, and that NEVER happens for at least 4 cycles after I get my period back. My luteal phase is very short for a while, due to the breastfeeding.
But I will make note of it. Mainly for future reference. But also on the teeensy off-chance, given that we did have the first postpartum parsnips 8 days ago with nary a care for birth control (I know! Soooo early for me! Which is a slight weirdness in itself - but maybe due to having less stress given that I have SUCH a lot of help this time with Neil home?). But d'you know? I don't want to ever use that again. I realise this makes me officially "nuts" by the world's standards! But I don't care. I just want to see what God will do for us! He is perfectly able to prevent me conceiving if it's not the right time (has done before, remember?!). Maybe I'll feel differently when I'm obviously fertile and having clear cycles, if I'm not really feeling "ready" to have another baby yet. But I doubt it. Not sure about Neil! But neither of us felt anxious about contraception 8 days ago.
Today Neil keeps giving me nervous looks when I am groaning over the banana cake mixture, or crashing clumsily into the highchair as I serve dinner, or telling him about my vivid dream! He knows the signs pretty well by now, hehe! He says even if we hadn't had parsnips yet, he'd still be anxious if I did those things, hehehe!
Anyway. I write this to remind myself in, ohhhh, about 6 months time, that I can have a BUNCH of weirdo pregnant-ish hormonal symptoms without even having a hormonal reason for having them! ;) Well, SOMETHING hormonal is obviously going on, but I'm thinking my body is shifting about wondering when to ovulate (later down the line), like when a baby's teeth move and push in the MONTHS before the first toothie pops through, causing teething pain. Maybe I'm gearing up to ovulate? But I very much doubt it. These aren't normal ovulation symptoms for me anyway. They ARE normal for an approaching period (or early pregnancy), so just maybe possibly it could be my first PP period on the way? I'd still be amazed if it was though. I'm not expecting to think about looking out for that till about 5 months PP and beyond.
Anyway. So weird to be still writing about my new baby and then drawing a line and writing about phantom pregnancy symptoms and hormonal changes, hehe!
I will be back soon with some more pics of Nathan (I have tons on the camera from the last few days), and I'll update about his appts when they happen too - especially the baby check with his stats! :) Then after that, it will officially be time for me to close down this diary again, till we're onto baby #4! :( I always miss it here when I have to do that. But I like doing it. It makes it all the more exciting to come back again!
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