Jessica’s blog.

April this year (Jessica’s first, of course) was said to be the warmest one on record. Doesn’t surprise me at all, as we had proper summer weather for quite a while. Made me unsure of how to dress Jessica when out and about. Felt fairly sure she should still be covered all over – though of course not too thickly – but should she wear a hat or not? Only had a winter-style hat for her until my sister sent a few lovely sunhats in the post. But as we’re not exposing Jessica to direct sunlight (my little vampire baby…) as she’s under six months of age, does she still need to wear a hat in the shade? Maybe not when it’s getting really hot. And then we probably won’t worry about covering her all over, rather it’ll be a case of trying to help keep her cool. Not really looking forward to those hot summer nights that seem to be more or less the rule nowadays, due to global warming…

I try to take Jessica out in the pram most days, either for a walk into Reigate, up on Redhill Common or over to the Memorial Park, sometimes to meet up with people and sometimes just to get out of the house. Great with fresh air for the both of us. Last time it was overcast part of the time, so I was able to take the hood down, hoping that she’d at least be able to see a few tree tops and clouds, but I think she slept through most of that. In general, though, she spends more and more time awake in the pram, so will hopefully be able to take in more of her surroundings soon.

And speaking of going out and about, already at barely three months Jessica’s fast approaching the length of the carry cot in her pram. If she’s meant to lie flat until the age of six months, we can’t see that the pram will last – there’s still enough space at the top and bottom at the mo, but we’re pretty sure that won’t be the case in another three months…

Jessica’s great fun in the baby gym – talking, gurgling and emitting little happy shrieks. She quite happily plays by herself, but if she’s starting to get bored, us joining her in playing renews her interest. She smiles at us so often, it’s incredible – she must be such a happy little baby! We both have little pretend conversations with her. (Just so wish we knew what ‘un-goo’ means – when she’s old enough to be able to tell us, she’ll have forgotten all about it…!) She’s putting her fist in her mouth quite a lot now, sucking her fingers – exploring her hand and mouth.

Gabriella

I’ve really enjoyed the last couple of weeks as I’ve been working locally. The luxury of being able to spend more time with Jessica in the mornings, come home for lunch to see the lovely ladies, then be home by half past five, is truly wonderful. Sadly, my secondment came to a premature end (it should have been for four weeks) and I’ll need to start commuting next week. There is a possibility that a permanent job will be available, but that’s probably a few months away, if it does happen. The brief two weeks has made me realise what I’m missing, so I’ll start actively looking for a job closer to home.

Jessica is making more and more sounds, her favourite being “un-goo”. Also, when we were in the hospital two weeks ago, both Gabriella and I heard her make a noise that definitely sounded like “Daddy!”. So, there we have it, Jessica’s first word… (We’re not going to be pushy parents, but if she hasn’t got her first in Astrophysics whilst becoming the world number one at tennis by the age of 14, then there’ll be trouble…!)

Her neck’s much stronger now and she’ll regularly look around her when she’s over my shoulder being burped – though the side-effect of this is that when she vomits, there’s a larger area covered. Floor, settee, Gabriella’s feet, you name it she’s covered it at some point…
On Thursday, Jessica met her morsmoster (great-aunt) Monica who’d come up from Frome to visit. The three of them enjoyed a pleasant day (I joined them for lunch), including taking Jessica out for a walk, which as usual, she slept through.

I’ve added a new link (Videos) to the blog, where you can watch some clips of Jessica being generally cute!

Ian.

Jessica certainly has recovered from her illness – I took her to the health visitor’s clinic today to weigh her again and she’s back on track and a bit above, weighing 6.38 kilos (14 lbs 1 oz). Obviously me breastfeeding her again isn’t doing her any harm. But it’s strange to not have a clue again of how much she’s actually eating. I just have to trust her to take care of that herself and also trust that I can read her signs for when she is hungry.

At ten weeks, I think she might be having a bit of a growth spurt, as she was feeding pretty much every hour for a few hours yesterday evening and also this morning. The latter was a bit inconvenient for me, as I had my post-natal Pilates class today: Jessica fell asleep nicely in the pram on the way there but about five minutes into the class, she decided she wanted food and I spent the rest of the class at the back, breastfeeding her… So that was a bit of a waste of getting all changed into my exercise clothes, rushing to get ready and out this morning. Well, I guess it can’t run smoothly every time. At least that gave me my first experience of breastfeeding in a public place (which was fine, of course, as the class consisted of other mums and a very baby-friendly tutor). When Jessica was nicely full she sat on my lap giggling for a bit and completely charmed the Pilates tutor by smiling lots at her. So at least she scored herself some points in the general PR area…!

Gabriella

Jessica is developing more and more every day – lots of little things, really, but when we look at photos from a month or even a week ago, it seems like she has grown so much. Hard to believe that she is almost 10 weeks now…! She is much more vocal now and I don’t mean screaming, but making all sorts of noises as if she’s having conversations with us (or with herself, or imaginary friends…). She also likes to make the odd little delighted shriek every so often – usually she’s waving arms and legs at the time and looks generally excited and happy. Sometimes she gets bored in our arms or lying on the sofa – she’ll start complaining, craning her neck to look around her, and it turns out she wants to be put in the baby gym for a ‘kick & box’ session. It’s so nice to have an active little baby!

Sometimes when I hold her in my arms and sing to her, she’ll look at my mouth very intently and start to move her lips and make the odd sound, as if she’s trying to sing along. She also likes being carried around upright, looking at things around us over our shoulders – especially windows, light fittings and our book shelves seem to be of interest. Her head still wobbles from side to side a bit but her neck has got much stronger now. As she isn’t three months yet, I suppose she’s still meant to see the world in black and white, i.e. contrasts between dark and light rather than colour. (Wonder how on Earth ‘they’ worked that one out…?) In that case I can certainly see why lights and reflections can be fascinating.

She’s also still a very hiccupy baby… For some reason she seems to mostly be in the baby gym when the hiccups start, in which case she sometimes can keep playing for quite a while without being bothered, but inevitably the hiccups carry on for that little bit too long and she starts to cry. Taking her for a walk around the flat or a dance and song around the living room seems the best thing to calm her down in those situations. (She doesn’t seem to have learnt yet that the hiccups do go away…)

Whereas up to about 3 weeks back Jessica didn’t like having her nappy changed (clothes coming off and back on again, all those damp bits of cotton wool getting everywhere) and usually made sure to complain about it, she now seems to quite enjoy it as an opportunity for social interaction. (Sometimes we actually use it as a trick to get her back in a good mood again if she’s a bit grizzly…) She starts to smile and chuckle at us, waving her arms and legs about as if she’s determined to charm us (which she does completely, as she is adorable…).

The only things she really grabs at the moment are our fingers, or a piece of muslin or strand of hair if they just happen to be there, but none of it seems to be with the intent of grabbing that particular object. So naturally it follows that not many toys have attracted her interest yet – apart from noisy or dangly ones. The toys in the baby gym can keep Jessica entertained for 20-30 minutes. The stuffed toy cow with a music box inside that she got from Anna, Phil and kids attracts her interest when in her pram (I have tied it to the carry cot cover above her head). But the toy that’s really been a ‘lifesaver’ is the rainmaker rattle Jessica received from Auntie Wendy. It’s essentially a plastic ‘tube’ divided into three sections with holes in the walls in between and a load of multi-coloured beads inside: when you turn the rattle over, the beads run through the holes from the one end of the ‘tube’ to the other and the sound is reminiscent of smattering rain. If we turn this over and over about 20-25 centimetres (8-10 inches) in front of her face she’ll stare at it in true fascination, which can go on for a good ten-fifteen minutes (depending on when Mum/Dad gets bored or an aching arm…) – and this is even from a state of seemingly inconsolable crying!

Jessica is sleeping through the night every so often now; actually, she seldom wakes up for a 1am/2am feed anymore, more usually not until around 4/5 or even 6am. Hopefully this will settle and become the norm, so that her Mum gets more unbroken sleep too!

Gabriella

Friday (27th April) was a very exciting day, because that’s when I started breastfeeding Jessica again! Around mid-morning, I went to see the NCT breastfeeding counsellor, who put me at ease straight away with a big smile and a mug of tea. I’d been feeling a bit apprehensive about the whole thing (getting my hopes up but not wanting to be disappointed) and perhaps part of it was a certain amount of ‘stage fright’ too… We chatted for a little bit and when the counsellor asked me about Jessica’s behaviour, Jessica started to grumble a bit in her pram – almost as if on cue – so I picked her up for a practical demonstration.

It turned out to be only a few small but essential adjustments needed to give Jessica the right guidance and help her get in position. Part of it was my own attitude and expectations. But, to be fair, it’s hard when you’ve never really seen anyone breastfeed around you. I’m probably no exception in not having had much exposure to babies during my life – the last baby I held before my own was my younger brother and I was six at the time…! Previous to Jessica, I’d had no experience in taking care of a baby – such as changing nappies or even how to pick a baby up – and several other mums I’ve spoken to in my age have proved to have a very similar (lack of) experience. The counsellor and I talked a bit about how these natural things get hidden away in today’s Western society, to the point that a lot of people feel that they are un-natural.

Seeing how easy it was to breastfeed Jessica successfully with a bit of guidance, I did feel silly having given up on breastfeeding so soon, though – when it was obviously doable and all I’d needed was someone with experience and a bit of time to sit down with me and go through mine and Jessica’s particular situation… I should have asked for help sooner and not assumed that it was a lost cause. But the counsellor said that on the plus side I hadn’t persisted on my own and risked creating a situation where Jessica’s association with breastfeeding could only be frustration – then there wouldn’t have been any chance of going back. Also, I’d kept expressing, keeping the supply of milk going. The counsellor said that as it had been easy for me to express (a lot of mums find they can’t very well), I probably had quite a fast ‘let-down’ and obviously plenty of milk. And when she saw Jessica feed, she said that from Jessica’s jaw movements, Jessica appeared to take the milk in very efficiently, so there were no problems there.

Jessica finished the feed and rested contented on my lap, and it was so satisfying to know that she’d had a full meal without involving any pumps or bottles. If we can continue like this, it’ll save so much time in not having to express, sterilise equipment or bring bottles along everywhere, plus minimise the risk for me of suffering from engorgement (which really isn’t fun).

For the rest of the Friday and the weekend, I’ve so far breastfed – apart from the last evening feed. Jessica gets a bit grizzly in the evenings, when we’ve found it’s easier to feed her expressed milk from a bottle: then we know for definite how much milk she’s had and at which point her vocal complaints are unlikely to be about still being hungry. The added advantage with the evening feed being from a bottle is that Ian’s been taking care of this particular feed for quite a while now, so that I can get an earlier night – a routine I’m obviously keen to stick with…!

Gabriella

Expressing milk to feed a baby is very time consuming. Several people, other mums as well as health professionals, have winced sympathetically and ask how (on Earth) I’m coping when I give them the answer to their question ‘Breast or bottle?’. I guess I’ve been coping because I’ve felt I have to. But the expressing, sterilising and feeding combined takes a huge chunk out of my day (and night) – I’ve estimated perhaps 8-9 hours out of 24… But the worst bit is maybe the fact that I never know whether I’ll be able to express when I need to, as Jessica (naturally) demands my attention as and when without taking her food supply into consideration. And then there’s the issue of appointments and meeting up with people, when I not only have to try to slot in feeding but also the expressing in between. I’ve been walking around aching quite a few times already, additionally worrying that my body will take the ‘lack’ of demand as a signal to start cutting down on the supply.

But a GP, a paediatrician and my health visitor have now (independently) suggested that there might still be a chance of persuading Jessica to succesfully feed straight from the source. I’d assumed too much time would have passed of solely expressing (5 weeks now) for there to be a way ‘back’. But I could so do with freeing up some of that time, plus less of the worry of bringing milk and bottles everywhere for her feeds, making sure we have enough bottles and teats sterilised and ready at all times and not having to worry whether I’ll get a chance to express in time for the next feed. So I finally decided to call the breastfeeding counsellor my health visitor and a friend of Ian’s sister (again independently) had given me the number to a few weeks back.

I spoke to the counsellor today. She wanted to hear about Jessica’s previous behaviour when breastfeeding and was curious to hear that Jessica would first attach properly, then feed for maybe five minutes, at which point she’d come off the breast and become frustrated when trying to get back on again. The counsellor was at first a bit hesitant about the possibility of getting Jessica back to breastfeeding. It wasn’t so much the time passed since stopping breastfeeding that was the issue as Jessica’s age, she said, as up to 6 weeks babies have this instinct to feed from the breast – an instinct Jessica would now have grown too old for. She was therefore very interested to hear that I’d tried breastfeeding as late as a couple of times in the last week (the first one was in hospital last weekend while waiting to see the paediatrician) and that Jessica – as in the past – initially had latched on successfully and fed for about five minutes both times. In that case, the counsellor said, it might actually still be possible.

She suggested that next time Jessica is due a feed, I put her to my breast first and let her feed for as long as she likes but when she comes off the breast I don’t try to put her back on but offer her a bottle of expressed milk instead. This to make it a ‘no pressure’ situation. Before actually offering the bottle, though, I should pick her up and walk her around the room, so that the association ‘going off breast’/’being offered bottle’ isn’t created. Also, she wanted to meet us to study Jessica’s behaviour for herself, so we decided to meet up tomorrow (Friday) morning.

I tried breastfeeding Jessica the way the counsellor had suggested pretty much as soon as I got off the phone with her, as Jessica then decided it was time to ask for food. She latched on and stayed on for 12 minutes (!) and at least for part of that time I could hear proper, gulping noises… And when I’d walked her around and offered her a bottle, she had only about half the size of one of her normal feeds… Maybe there actually is hope for us. (I guess I’ll let you know.)
Gabriella

It’s been a few days again now, so a bit of catching up to do on the blog again. But the last few days have seemed to fill themselves quite well with other stuff and the weekend didn’t turn out quite the way we thought it would – Jessica and I ended up spending Saturday night and most of the Sunday in hospital…

During the Saturday, we noticed that Jessica wasn’t her usual self. In the morning, we just thought she was a bit tired – maybe she hadn’t had a very good night’s sleep, as we thought she’d seemed a bit extra restless in her cot. But as the day progressed our concern increased as she just kept sleeping, seemed to have no energy when she was awake, wasn’t interested in eating much at all and when she cried, her cry was quiet and very tired, sounded more like moans and whimpers. She’d barely wet her nappy during the day either – we presumed because she hadn’t eaten/drunk that much, and it was all very worrying. When we checked NHS Direct’s online checklist for baby health, all of the above were included on the list for when to contact them for further advice. So we phoned NHS Direct, where they advised us to phone the out-of-hours doctor’s service, where in turn we got the advice to go into hospital for further checks.

We had taken Jessica’s temperature at home in the afternoon when it was only 37.2 degrees – the doctor who saw Jessica took her temperature again and it was 38, so she definitely was having a fever and got referred to a paediatrician. The diagnosis was some sort of infection, but uncertain whether it was viral or bacterial. As they’d prefer to be safe rather than sorry, especially when it came to a little baby, they needed to do some blood tests and while waiting for the results of these to come back, they recommended that Jessica was admitted to hospital, most likely for two days(!), and given antibiotics. As her Mum, I was welcome to stay with her. The paediatrician and a nurse put a cannula in the back of Jessica’s right hand, with a little splint on her lower arm for support, and it all felt pretty serious and scary – Ian and I were looking at each other across the bay were we were sat: our little baby really was ill…!

While Jessica and I were waiting for a room to get ready, Ian got a lift back home to get some overnight stuff for the two of us. Just before midnight, Jessica and I were shown to the ward, where we got a room to ourselves with a big cot bed in the middle and a camp-bed next to it for me. Jessica was ‘plugged into’ a heart rate monitor, which made her look even worse… I managed to feed Jessica a bit before putting her to bed. The nurse that took care of us was friendly and very helpful, which reassured me, as I was feeling a bit lost and worried – especially since Ian wouldn’t be able to stay with us.

During the night, nurses came in every so often to check on Jessica and I was asked to let them know when and how much she fed and whenever I changed her nappy, as they were keeping a fluid chart on her. I didn’t sleep very much, mainly because of worry, but also because it’d been near 2am when I finally got ready and settled myself, and then when a nurse came in to check on Jessica at around 6am I decided to try to feed her and so the day had started.

My meals were brought to me in the room, so all I needed to worry about was looking after Jessica. Ian came around to stay with us during the day – he hadn’t slept much either… Thankfully, as the day progressed, we noticed Jessica was getting happier and more energetic, she fed better, ‘talked’ and enjoyed being tickled by Daddy – our little girl was back! Her fever hadn’t returned after the paracetamol she’d been given by the paediatrician the evening before and the two doses of antibiotics she’d been given through the cannula wouldn’t have kicked in yet, so basically she’d got better all by herself. The final diagnose was some sort of viral infection, without any real idea of how she’d contracted it. Jessica got discharged at around 4pm and we all returned home, much relieved…!

At not even 9 weeks old, Jessica seems to already have spent a lot of time in hospital already for someone in such general good health. But – as Ian said – hopefully this means that she’s getting all that kind of stuff out of the way early…!

I think Jessica discovered her right hand today. She stared at it for what seemed like ages before she carefully put it in her mouth. Lovely! (A mum’s proud sigh…!)

Our health visitor came past today on her – as it is now – monthly visit. We talked a bit more about feeding and I also took the opportunity to ask about settling at night, as Ian and I discussed only yesterday about starting to create routines around this. She said that 8 weeks is a good time to start working out routines for sleeping. If we wanted to, we could decide that Jessica’s bedtime is when she has finished a feed at 8 or 9 pm and then put her in her cot to sleep. We should, however, be aware that Jessica’s still young enough to want another evening feed at around 10 or 11 pm – our options are really to finally settle her for the night at the later time or to fish her out of the cot temporarily and treat the 10/11 pm feed as another night feed.

I have some reading to do on the topic still and Ian and I will of course discuss a joint ‘strategy’. But if anyone has any suggestions or tips on how you did it, please don’t hesitate to get in touch! (Something I’ve been wondering is: Do everyone bathe their babies before bedtime every evening…?) We know it’s not essential to establish a routine at this age, but figured we might as well get started so that we have something already in place for when Jessica is old enough for it to matter.

By the way, regarding the times for ‘last feeds’, etc., above: we’re still waiting for that regular feeding pattern to appear, so any regular times for evening feeds are still mainly theoretical…

The health visitor will also get me and Jessica signed on to a baby massage course, which sounded great! I’ll be getting a letter in the post about when and where it’s due to start.

Gabriella

Jessica’s check-up at the surgery yesterday went well. She had her eyes, heart, spine, hips, head, etc., all checked and the doctor was happy with how she’s been building up the strength in her neck. The doctor handled Jessica very well, firmly but gently, but Jessica still got a bit grizzly. I suspected that even though Jessica had had a decent size feed only a little while before we left the flat she was getting hungry again, especially since there had been a bit of a wait before we’d been able to come through to the consultation room… Back in the waiting room, waiting to be called to our second appointment of the day, she started to vocalise her complaints properly, but a quiet song in her ear and my little finger in her mouth reassured her fairly quickly.

The second appointment was for Jessica’s first immunisation jabs. It was a fairly safe bet that she wouldn’t like it, and she certainly didn’t! And the nurse administrating the vaccinations didn’t really help… I ‘d had this particular nurse before myself and she can come across as very patronising, talking to grown-ups as if they’re little children. Now that she was going to give Jessica her jabs, she wanted me to sing a song at the same time as she sang one too, which was all good and fine. But the nurse then promptly wound up this horrid, plastic music box and then started ‘singing’ a completely different tune herself, very loud and without any trace of melody – reminded me of when people jokingly go ‘la-la-la’ with their fingers in their ears, pretending to ignore something or someone…! Don’t know if she was tone-deaf or just nervous. I found it really hard to sing to Jessica in that racket (it was fairly comical, really) but did my best to lean in towards Jessica’s face to try to let my voice and presence block everything else out. Surely it would have been much more constructive to let mum decide what would calm her baby best and leave her to it…? Jessica was wailing away and I really don’t blame her – the noise was getting me pretty stressed and I wasn’t having unexplained needles stuck in me…!

The nurse did do us a useful favour in offering me a quiet room to sit and feed Jessica afterwards and at the end of the feed Jessica seemed to have forgotten all about the jabs. We made our way out of the surgery and round the back to the health visitor’s clinic for the weekly weighing. Jessica is now 5.96 kilos (13lbs 1oz), which actually is slightly over the expected weight increase for her birth weight – very nice and healthy on a diet of mainly breastmilk.

Had been told by the nurse that some babies do react to the jabs and Ian popped into the shops on his way home from work to get some baby painkillers just in case, but I’m pleased to say that Jessica didn’t get a temperature or anything and slept soundly that night. Actually, the night before yesterday she slept through until after 4am and this morning until after 3am, so I only had to get up once in the night to feed her – the next feed was after 9am and 8am respectively. At only two months of age this is of course mostly likely to be exceptions to the rule, but hopefully it means Jessica’s moving towards sleeping through the night and concentrating meal times to daytime…

Gabriella

In anticipation of Jessica’s 8-week check-up tomorrow (wow – time has gone so quickly…!), I took her to the health visitor clinic last Wednesday (11th April) to have her weighed again and her length measured for the first time. Her weight is still perfectly in line with her birth weight and is now 5.63 kilos (12.5 lbs). She measures 59 cm (1 ft 11.2 in), which apparently is in perfect proportion to her weight – so in summary: Jessica is a perfect baby!

I took the opportunity to ask about Jessica’s feeding again, as it’s still all over the place when it comes to amounts and times of feeds, and was again reassured. Erratic feeding patterns aren’t a concern for babies, more for mums who like to be organised… But if I can put up with it, I should let Jessica lead the way. I haven’t been doing anything wrong, it’s only that some babies take longer to settle into a routine than others, so I should forget everything I’d read in books about how soon this ‘should’ happen. (Since then I have also learned from a couple of friends that their babies took even longer to get into that magical routine, so reality certainly is different to the books – but then how do you know if it’s your first baby…?)

I asked how much food Jessica should be having and my health visitor told me that for Jessica’s weight she should have 150-180 ml on average, split across 6 feeds a day. Jessica has many more feeds than that, ranging from 40 to 190 ml. I know since we’ve kept a little feeding log for a while now to get some sort of an overview and to serve as a reminder of how long ago and how big her previous meal was to get an idea of how much milk to put in the bottle for the next one (since we try to mainly give her breast milk we wouldn’t want to offer her a full bottle every time and end up having to throw most of it away if she’s still pretty full from a large feed not long ago). A quick estimate over a few days showed that Jessica gets more or less the average that the health visitor quoted. As with any individual, she’s more or less hungry on different days, but it all obviously balances out – since Jessica still is gaining weight at exactly the ‘right’ pace, she must be doing okay.

Finally, a small acknowledgement of pressies received – Jessica has had so much from people and we are very grateful! I’ve taken another piccie of pressies that didn’t get included previously. I’m well aware that these aren’t all of them either, as for example the pram, baby bath, cot mattress plus bedding and other things were kindly given us by friends and family.

Gabriella