8-14 October 2006

This is Tasha posting.

We had quite a full week.

Don't remember what we did on Monday.

On Tuesday we went to post-natal group and learned all about weaning. As usual (well, it happened the same the week before which is the only time we've been so far), I didn't manage to get there until 11.30, so only caught the talk and not the whole chatting to other mums thing. Which may well be a subconscious thing, as I'm not really good at talking to strangers - though I'm a lot better at talking to strangers now that I have a Rosemary to talk about! The health visitors were quite happy for people to be weaning at 4 months or so, despite the WHO's advice not to start until 6 months. I've been reading a bit around the subject and am inclined to do something along the lines of baby-led weaning. It seems to make a fair bit of sense, anyway. That said, we might just end up going the more traditional route of pureeing vegetables one at at time and gradually introducing other things. I have read that you shouldn't introduce dairy until one year, however, the health visitors suggested only leaving it until six months if there was an intolerance/allergy in the household. They seemed to be suggesting that introducing vegetables and fruit before six months was fine, but to leave the potentially problematic items until six months. Rosemary does seem to be showing an interest in food already, to a small extent.

On Wednesday we went to see the physiotherapist, who was happy with Rosemary and doesn't want to see her again until she (Rosemary) is walking. On Wednesday night Rosemary would not settle in her crib at all and ended up sleeping the whole night in with us. However, she did settle in her bouncy chair on Thursday morning about 5.30 am and that meant I got to get a decent amount of work done - she slept for about 3 and a half hours.

On Thursday we went to Costa Coffee in the morning to have coffee (well, hot chocolate and chocolate cake, actually) with Sasha and Nicky. We managed to get there pretty much on time - 10.15am - so we obviously can manage it when we want to. Of course, that was helped by Chris playing with Rosemary while I had a shower and, more to the point, Rosemary not crying for her mummy (otherwise known as crying for milk) while I did so. She was ready for a feed shortly after we got to Costa Coffee and spent the majority of the time feeding, though not all. Rosemary was very interested in Sasha and had a little cuddle with her, until she was ready to burp when I got her back. We also got to try out Costa Coffee's Baby Changing facilities, which were very good and were in the handicapped toilet, rather than the ladies, so allowing dad's to change babies there too, which is good. Nicky is expecting her third baby in 5 months, so we talked a bit about scans and stuff like that. It was nice to talk to some people I know already about baby things, rather than trying to talk to new people!

We actually went into town again later on Thursday, because I had a couple of things to post and our local post office is shut on a Thursday afternoon. After her first sleep in her bouncy chair, Rosemary hardly slept at all throughout Thursday (apparently taking after her father who apparently used to stay awake all day on a Thursday when he was a baby). She had maybe a couple of half hour naps in the buggy and dozed for 10 minutes here and there. She then fed for a large chunk of the evening, with little breaks sat in her bouncy chair, lying on her playmat or sat on Chris' lap. She went to sleep, in her crib, at about 10pm though, and slept through until 5.30am.

She then fed and then slept through until 7am and then had a quick snack and slept through until 8.30am, while I was upstairs doing some work and she stayed in her crib - Chris was in the room at the time. She had lots of alert time in her chair, alternating between amusing herself and being amused by me, while I got some work done.

She had three changes of clothes in the morning. She was damp when she got up first thing, then she did a huge poo while feeding that managed to escape the nappy and then she was sick all over her top so had to change that. I'd had her in her lovely dungarees to start with (after she came out of her bed clothes) and ended up taking her to the health visitor in the exact same clothes as she'd worn the last time we were there.

We went off to the surgery to get weighed by the health visitor at midday. She has only gone up to 8 lb 4.5 oz, which is just a 4 oz gain in 2 weeks. The health visitor didn't seem too concerned, though. It does mean she's on the lowest centile, but that's unadjusted for her prematurity, so she'd be higher if it was adjusted. She's gaining weight, rather than losing it, anyway, which is a good thing. As the health visitor pointed out, too, there could have been 3 oz in the huge poo she did Friday morning, anyway! As long as she has plenty of wet nappies and some dirty ones and is developmentally OK, then it's not too worrying that her weight gain is quite slow.

On Friday evening we went for another walk into town, this time with Chris. This was lovely, because she hasn't really been out with him like that for a while as he's been so horribly busy with work. She spent almost the entire walk in watching him and smiling up at him, which was so lovely. When we went into Blockbusters, though, she got quite unhappy. I took her outside, where she seemed happier, but after a while she got upset again. We think it was probably because it was early evening and she's used to feeding quite a bit at that time (according to the paedeatrician, that's when the milk is at its weakest, so it's quite common for babies to feed a lot in the late afternoon/early evening) so was wanting some food. She also needed her nappy changed. When we got home she quietened down and had her nappy changed and fairly big feed. She then spent lots of time with her dad while we watched A Knight's Tale. She was sat on his lap for quite a while, giggling and chattering away and then she was in her chair interacting really happily with him. It's lovely to watch them together when she's in a happy mood. It's so frequent that Chris ends up with her when she's unhappy because I need him to hold her while I do something like have a shower or grab a bite to eat. And quite often the timing is all wrong and she gets upset because she needs feeding.

She didn't get to sleep until about midnight last night, but she was in her crib again. She woke up at about 3.30am and fed until 4am, then slept through until about 7.30 am. She came upstairs with me so that I could get some invoices sent out, but she didn't really go back to sleep. She was in her chair, but not content for very long without some full-on interaction from me. Which is unusual, though will probably get more usual as she gets older, of course. It was clear that she wanted and needed some sleep but wasn't settling down at all, so I took her into town around midday. I walked round and round without going into any shops until I was confident she really was sleeping deeply, then did the little bit of shopping that was needed. She's still asleep now, so has been asleep for about four hours. She's probably going to wake up shortly, or so the milk machine is telling me!

Hopefully we'll have another pleasant evening together in the living room with a happy cheerful baby. I got Chris some nice (presumably) sausages from the farmers market to go with his jacket potato and salad. We had jacket potato and salad last night, which was delicious. All the salad vegetables (though unfortunately not the potatoes) came from the organic market stall and were really tasty. Rosemary's timing wasn't quite right, so my potato was luke warm by the time I got to eat it, but it was really nice, nevertheless

[I'm not sure whether I/we will be updating this weekly, daily or what. It may be some of both. However often if it, it will almost exclusively be ramble about Rosemary, her sleeping habits, her feeding habits and, of course, her pooing habits. If none of this interests you, you should really go read some other blog!]