Saturday 4 November

I woke up at 6am and thought Rosemary was waking up too, but she was just stirring slightly in her sleep. I couldn't get back to sleep, though, so got up and let the dog out, made some Lemsip and took Rosemary's chair up to the office ready for when she would wake up. Then spent a bit of time catching up on the Internet. I heard her surface at 7am (Chris was still asleep in the bedroom, so I didn't leave her alone!) and went down to get her.

We had a feed, then a play in her chair, then changed her and she had a good long wriggle (maybe 15 minutes) on her mat and then she had her day clothes put on. We then came back upstairs and had some more chatting in her chair, another feed and some more chair time, then another nappy change, as she had done her daily poop. No leakage again, today, which was good, although it was bigger than yesterday's. Then came upstairs for another quick feed (drink?) and she fell asleep at about 9am.

Today Granny Jenny is coming to watch Rosemary so I can get lots of work done. We have a Monday deadline, which requires me to do pretty much a full day's work, because I was too ill to get anything other than responding to a few emails done yesterday. Hopefully Rosemary will play happily with her Granny and only need a feed every few hours. And hopefully I'll be able to stop myself from runnung downstairs every 5 minutes!

Rosemary woke at 9.30am after a half hour nap and Granny arrived at about 9.40am. Rosemary was crying by 10am, but she would be wanting a 'proper' feed about then, so that's why. She fed for about half an hour and then was happy again for a bit, but crying again at 11am, fed some more then she slept from 11.30am (as did Granny). Woke again at 12.30am. Had another feed, then went down on her mat under play gym with Granny watching. Grumpy again about 1.30pm, had another feed and about an hour's sleep, then played happily with Granny for a couple of hours. They read books, sang songs and walked around looking at things. I was a bit worried that she'd roll over or do something else new while I was upstairs, but she didn't.

Granny went home about 5pm, after I managed to get in a long shower (and shave my legs for the first time in a while - not that you really wanted to know that!). As always when I can't hear Rosemary (e.g. in shower, while kettle is boiling, when the hoover's on, etc.) I could hear her screaming the whole time. When I turned the shower off I couldn't hear anything, though and then when I was dressed and went downstairs to check it turned out she had been perfectly fine. Of course. I had to pop out to the shop in the evening without her (didn't want to take her out in the dark after the last time and it was easier for me to nip out than Chris) and I had the same problem. I was OK while I was on the phone to my dad, but as soon as I hung up my head was filled with Rosemary's cries. And again she had been perfectly fine. I think this is something else that goes back to her being in SCBU. Or maybe it's something that all mums experience. It's horrible, anyway, and I don't know how I'll ever be able to leave her for longer than half an hour.

Rosemary and I spent the evening in the living room, chatting away and singing and smiling and cuddling. There was also some feeding (of both of us) involved at some point! Chris was in and out as well while he made his dinner, although he did have to go back upstairs to work later. We went upstairs at about 9.15pm and she got changed into her night clothes. (All wet nappies apart from the dirty one in the morning, incidentally, so it definitely looks like she's settled into one poop per day.) She then had a bit of time lying on the bed and a feed. She was looking like she was falling asleep, though hadn't completely done so at about 9.50pm, so I thought I'd put her in her crib and see what happened. She fell asleep and was fully asleep by 10pm. She didn't wake up until 4am, when she had a 20-minute, one-sided feed and went back to sleep until 5.45am. Then she was having a lot of trouble with a snotty nose, so I brought her upstairs for another quick (other side) feed and to sleep in her chair, where the uprightedness would help with snottiness.

So, Saturday was quite successful, in that I got more work done than I would have otherwise, Granny got to spend some quality time with Rosemary and I had a little lesson in trying to let go. I have to say that I'm extremely grateful that we work from home and that I'm not going to have to go off to work and put her in a nursery or something similar. Because I really don't know that I would be able to.

Friday 3 November 2006

Rosemary woke at 7am. We came upstairs to the office, where I fed her while catching up on the Internet. I then changed her and she had a wriggle on the changing mat and was quite talkative. Over the last few days, she's started doing these little squeals of joy (at least, that's what they look and sound like!) while she's talking. They are so adorable and fill my heart with extra love every time I hear them (which is odd, because I always think that I couldn't possibly love her any more, but then she does something new and/or particularly cute and suddenly there's even more love - sorry, sappy tangent there). We'll have to try to capture them on video for you. She got changed into her day clothes then came upstairs, where we had a bit more of a chat until she wanted some more food. She then fell asleep while feeding (very quick feed, too, so may have been more thirst than hunger) and went down in her chair at about 8.30am.

I have a feeling that she will do a lot of sleeping today, as it seems that this is the pattern for the day after she has a 'non-sleeping' day. Of course, the fact that I've identified a pattern means she will almost certainly do something completely differently to keep me on my toes. (It's 9am as I type this paragraph, so she's been asleep for half an hour - the longest she slept for during the day yesterday. We shall see.) She's slept through me sneezing loudly a couple of times and I just risked blowing my nose (though probably not quite as forcefully as I usually do) and that hasn't woken her, so that's promising. Usually when she has a sleepy day, I manage to get lots and lots of work done. Don't know how much I'll manage today, though, as this cold is a bad one and all I really feel like doing is going back to sleep myself. Will try and get some done now, though, at least for a bit.

She woke at 11.30am and also had another nap of about an hour and a half in the afternoon. The rest of the time she was awake, alert and pretty happy. My ER Season 7 DVDs arrived in the post, so I allowed myself to be ill on the sofa and watch them. Rosemary spent most of the day in her chair in the living room, though she did also spend some time on her mat under the baby gym and walking around in her dad's arms talking with him.

She did lots of chatting and cooing and smiling and giggling. We read some books and sang lots of songs. She also had quite a lot of nakedish wriggling time on her changing mat, as she likes to chat to Nappy Monster or look at the painted animals on her toy box.

I thought she was going to go to sleep early, as she fell asleep while feeding at 8pm. I carried her upstairs and put her in her crib, but she woke up again immediately. So we stayed in the bedroom and she lay on the bed talking to my leg for a bit (!) and she kind of rolled onto her side. She didn't really do it again, though. I think she'll be full-on rolling fairly soon. We had some more chatting and singing (the poor girl is bound to inherit her mum's tone-deafness as I sing to her all the time) on the bed. She did a bit of standing between my legs and then tried to crawl up me. Tried putting her down a few more times when she showed signs of sleepiness, but she went down properly at 10pm on the dot.

I then had my dinner (!!) and watched an episode of Teachers on Trouble before going to sleep myself at 11pm. She woke up at 2.30am for a feed, back down at 3.15am and slept through to 7am.

She only did one poop again, but this was quite a small one - though nice healthy yellow, which is good. This is, I think, a good sign as, from what I've read, the less poops and the yellower and thicker they are, the better the baby is metabolising his or her food. It could mean she's putting on weight at a faster rate, or it could mean she's just taking the nutrients out properly instead of wasting them. Or could also mean that I'm producing healthier milk, though I don't think my diet has really changed much, so that's less likely I think.

The other new thing is that she's started moving her individual fingers a lot more. I think she'll be properly grasping things soon, as before she would generally open and close the whole fist at once. I've seen her with her actual thumb in her mouth a few times now, rather than sucking on her knuckles, too.

Thursday 2 November, 2006

Thursday was Rosemary's non-sleeping day this week, it seems. (It's been on another day for the last few weeks, as I recall.)

Rosemary woke at 7am. I managed to let the dog out, feed him and bring Rosemary's chair up to the office, while she gurgled happily in her crib. Then she came upstairs and I fed her while catching up on Babyworld posts. We then went and let the dog out again and then changed her and put her day clothes on.

We came back upstairs and sung some nursery rhymes. We need to get Tia Eva to teach us the actions to some of the songs, as I don't know them all!

She then had another littlish feed and went to sleep at about 9am. She only slept until 9.30am, though. She then had a chatter and a giggle for half an hour or so and seemed pretty wide awake, so Chris came and played with her while I showered. They talked, played with her rattle (which she was reaching out for, though not actually managing to grasp) and then listened to some music on her toy bar.

She then had another feed and slept from 11.30am to 12 noon (another half hour nap). She was pretty wide awake again, so we went into town to get some shopping - though mostly just for the walk, fresh air and stimulation. It's quite good for Chris and me that Rosemary and I go into town pretty much every day, because it means we can get our vegetables and other food when we need it and fresh. This means we are a lot less wasteful than we used to be.

She was awake all around town. She got a bit upset and wanted food shortly after we got in, so I went into Costa Coffee to feed her (of course, that might have been more a case of my subconsciously interpreting her cry as needing to feed so that I could have hot chocolate and chocolate cake - though, to be fair, we did try a circuit of town first, to see if she would go to sleep or be interested in chattering to me, which didn't work, so I think she did want a feed). She fell asleep while feeding, but only lasted a couple of minutes before waking up again, and seeming pretty awake, alert and happy! She got a little grumpy again in Somerfield, but only really when we were standing still at the till, she was happy again as soon as we were moving.

She had a change when she got home, which was her poop for the day (she does seem to have settled into one big poop per day) and she had to have her vest and tights changed, but fortunately, it hadn't had time/strength to go through to her trousers, so they were still OK. I think we could do with a few more long-sleeved vests. She has two drawer-fulls (her little canvas drawers, not adult-sized drawers!) of short-sleeved vests, but really needs the long ones now the weather is so much colder. I'm going to have a little root around the clothes we have for the next size up to see if any of them will do and, if not, I'll buy maybe a pack of three. Don't think any more would be a good idea, as I think she's likely to be moving up to the next size in the next month or two. (Which reminds me, if anyone is thinking of buying her clothes for Christmas - 3 to 6 months size, please, or even the next size up, that she can grow into, just in case her growth speeds up even more.)

She then sat in her chair while I had a Lemsip and chatted and sung to her. She also had another smallish feed and fell asleep but, again, only lasted a few minutes. My cold had really come on strong by this point and I was feeling pretty horrible, so decided to go down to the bedroom (around 3.30 or 4pm) and watch TV and see if she might be more inclined to sleep in her crib. We spent a good few hours in there going from smallish feed to very short (2-5 minutes) nap, to smallish feed... interspersed with a little bit of chatter, but mostly she was just very grouchy and I was pretty sure she needed to sleep, but I think I may have been wrong.

I decided to come upstairs around 7pm (after changing her and putting her night clothes on), so that I could have some dinner while feeding her and so that I could try her sleeping in her chair, in case that's what she needed. Chris brought my dinner up to me - vegetable stew, and I had two largish bowls of it, so definitely a cold not the flu - while I was feeding her. I then put her in her chair and she was really happy and chatty. We sat there for a couple of hours chattering away, singing, and so on. Chris was working in the office, so he came over and joined in now and again, too. It was really quite pleasant, apart from the fact that I really wanted to be lying down!

Anyway, we went back downstairs at about 9.30pm and I watched the last half of Tru Calling and the first half of Bones. She had a good long feed and went to sleep at about 10.30pm. I transferred her to her crib and she stayed asleep with no problems at all, until her early morning wake-up for food at about 4am (fed for about 45 minutes then back down until 7am). So, it was just one of her days to not sleep. I feel guilty now, for taking her down into the bedroom and trying to get her to sleep. She clearly just didn't need it yesterday, and if I wanted to be somewhere where I could lie down, I should have gone down to the living room and taken her chair with me. She could have sat in her chair or on her mat under the play gym and been stimulated and chatted to me and so on, instead of being bored in the bedroom. I think it's also quite possible she would have had more of a sleep if I'd done this, as she would have perhaps been more tired from the stimulation.

I need to try to learn to recognise when she's having a non-sleeping day, so that I can adjust things accordingly and not get all het up about trying to make sure she sleeps.

Wednesday 1 November 2006

Rosemary woke up at 6am. She had a good feed until about 6.30am, then I tried putting her back in her crib to sleep, just in case. I thought she might actually sleep there for a bit, but she got more snuffly and awake, so she came out. She obviously did a wee while back in her crib, because she had a large wet patch, which wasn't there when I was feeding her. So we went and changed her and put her day clothes on. She then said good morning to Chris for a bit, while I fed the dog, made tea and changed the battery in her bouncy chair. We then came upstairs to the office where she had a bit more of a feed - more of a drink really - then went in her chair and had a quiet suck on her hands before falling asleep at about 7.15am.

She then slept until about 10.30am. Had a feed, change, feed, change (thought first change was poop, but just wet, then second change was huge explodey poop!). Then we went into town to get some shopping, and supposedly to take the DVD back, except I forgot it. She was awake most of the time, but got grouchy near the end and almost screamed the veg shop down. But as soon as we were moving, she fell asleep and slept all the way home, including stopping into Sunshine for bread and stock cubes. She woke up when we got home, though. She was awake then until 2.20pm, when she had about an hour's sleep, then woke up and had a change and a feed and a little play, then went back to sleep at 4pm and slept until about 7pm.

She then had a good feed and we went back into town to take the DVD back. It was very cold, so she was bundled up in a furry jacket - so bundled that her hands were well inside the sleeves, meaning she couldn't suck her hands at all - and a fleecy blanket. It would appear that she is scared of the dark, as she cried whenever we were out of the reach of a street light. Or, of course, it could have been separation anxiety from not being able to see me.

We came home and sat in the living room watching West Wing DVDs (that's me, really, not Rosemary) and playing and singing and reading, with a bit of feeding mixed in, while Chris watched the footie in the bedroom. Chris very kindly missed the last 15 minutes so I could watch Atlantis, which was a bit of a silly episode, really. Rosemary got changed into her bed clothes during the second ad break and I ate my dinner (vegetable stew, which I cooked while she was sleeping earlier in the day) in bits between feeding her - the last bit was stone cold.

We went upstairs at 10pm, where she lay on the bed and chatted to her reflection in the turtle mirror for a while and played with Chris, while I put out the bins. I then fed her some more and tried putting her down at about 10.30pm, she surfaced a couple of times and had some more 'snacks', then was properly asleep by about 11pm. She did wake at 4am and fed until about 4.30am, then went back to sleep until 7am.

Tuesday 31 October 2006

Happy Halloween!

So Rosemary was up at 5.30am after 'sleeping through'. We came upstairs at 6am-ish and she went to sleep in her bouncy chair until about 7.30am. She then had half an hour of chattering with me (and loads of gorgeous smiles and giggles). I then changed her and put her day clothes on (and she had a naked wriggle while I let the dog out and then fed him) and that was followed by more chattering and singing, a littlish feed, then some calmer chattering until she fell asleep just before 9am.

And woke up at about 10.15am. She spent some time with her dad while I had a quick shower, then we went off to postnatal class. Today's class was on resuscitation, which is a scary but obviously very useful topic. Got given some nappies, too. One of the mums had brought in some nappies that her boy had grown out of, specifically for the mum of the 7-week-old baby. The 7-week-old baby is now bigger than Rosemary, though, having had a huge growth spurt (he looked pretty darned tiny last week). So Rosemary got them. I didn't really do much talking. Talked a bit to a mum of a 9-week-old girl - who's probably about the same size as Rosemary - at the end and obviously talked to the mum who gave me the nappies. But other than that it was mostly just nodding and saying hello. It's the last week next week. Although, I didn't go to the first few weeks, so might go along to the first few weeks of the next round and maybe meet some brand new mums. I overheard some of the mums swapping mobile numbers and arranging to meet up later in the week. Ah well. I should really be proactive. Maybe if I go to the first few weeks of the next round, I'll do better. Or maybe not. Or maybe I should wait until Rosemary's at school before I expect to make friends with other mums!

Came pretty much straight home after class, via the Co-op, and Rosemary sat in her chair for a bit, while I ate my lunch, but got hungry while I was eating it, so I fed her at the same time. She spent an hour or so nodding off, then waking up and being alert, then nodding off... Had her nappy changed as it was quite damp, though no pooh. I have a feeling she's getting into a one-huge-poop-a-day habit, which is not going to be good for the washing machine!

I finally got her to go properly to sleep by sitting next to her, rocking the chair every minute or so. I think it's important that she has a decent chunk of sleep in the day, as it helps her to sleep at night. But she can sometimes find it difficult to stay asleep - or to fall into a deep enough sleep, more to the point. So, if I need to rock her chair or take her for a long walk to help her get that chunk of deep sleep I will. It's not always necessary, she does it on her own too. So, she went to sleep properly at about 3.30pm.

Workwise, I responded to emails in the morning while she slept, sent out invoices in the afternoon while she went between dozing and being alert and happy and then made a start on some PowerPoints while she slept in the afternoon/early evening.

She woke up again at 7pm. Had a feed and a nappy change - and got her bed clothes on, as it was dark. Then had a little bit of time with daddy and then played in her chair with me for a while - mostly just chattering and giggling. Had another feed at about 8.45pm and fell asleep in her chair at around 9.10pm.

I carried her up and put her in her crib at about 9.40pm and she didn't wake up then, nor until 2.30am. She woke up then and had a decent feed and went back to sleep in her crib at about 3am, not to wake up until 6am.