Jessica’s blog.

Jessica is becoming more and more interactive with us – especially in the last three or four days. I’ve discovered more ticklish spots on her and am exploiting them to full effect! She seems to absolutely love it, smiling and giggling away. Just as well, as it’s a Dad perogative to tickle his daughter…

Today, as it has been such fantastic weather, we went for a walk to Reigate Hill, roughly two miles away. We bought a couple of ice creams and sat in the shade. As Jessica had been in the Baby Björn whilst we were walking, we laid her down on a travel changing mat. She seemed to be fascinated by things around her, the sounds, the smells, everything. Up till now, it’s hasn’t been warm enough for her to lie outside. But I’m sure there’ll will be plenty  more opportunities.  We made sure that she was properly covered up as you can see in the first photo!

We hope to post more details in the next couple of days and not leave such a big gap between entries -it all depends on
how demanding Jessica will be…!

Ian.

A bit of an overview of the routine (or lack of…) in our lives almost 7 (!) weeks on:

It has been a while now since we ruled out tummy ache as the cause of Jessica’s occasional grizzliness. The fact that she hasn’t been pulling her legs up to her tummy for a very long while, coupled with the fact that she can fall asleep very soundly and peacefully just after a short bout of crying, would indicate that she isn’t in that much discomfort… She’s windy sometimes – like all babies, I would assume – so we take care burping her a few more times during each feed, which also has reduced the amount of food she throws up. In addition, we have started to notice a difference when she cries because she needs further burping or when she wants more food. She has plenty of signs for the latter: fist/fingers in mouth, one arm agitatedly going up and down (which makes a thumping sound against her mattress during the night – a very useful indicator for me, as she so far hasn’t cried for food while in her cot during the night, when I have to go by visual signs mainly), craning her neck whilst turning head to the one side with mouth open as if reaching for imaginary nipple, nozzling in against one’s face/cheek when held over one’s shoulder and then, of course, the red, screwed up face to complement any combination of the above and highlight the urgency…!

With regards to feeding patterns, we’ve had the odd ‘text book’ day, when Jessica’s asked for food six times during 24 hours at pretty much spot on 3-hour intervals. Other days have been frustrating, with Jessica wanting to snack constantly, then falling asleep or growing disinterested after only a small amount of food, which in turn ‘spoils it’ for the next feed, which subsequently isn’t that substantial either. Those days we’ve tried to distract her from thinking about being peckish but there’s only so many different things one can come up with (waltzing together around the room, Mum pretending to be a makeshift fun fair ride or Dad using Jessica as a ‘dumbbell’, shaking multi-coloured rattles in front of her, guided tour around the windows of the flat, rocking her on one’s lap whilst singing, etc.). And most of the time she still keeps crying for food until we give in and she gets some…

Jessica’s nights tend to be fairly predictable with a feed around 2 am and one around 6 am, but she has slept through the night twice now recently: a few days back she slept from 11pm to 5am (while her Mum didn’t sleep much at all, since I kept checking if Jessica was okay from about 2.30 am…) and only last night she slept from midnight until just after 6 am. Ian and I had got the impression from baby books, midwives, etc., that babies were meant to nicely fall into a routine by themselves, but we’re still to see evidence of this…! No matter. Jessica didn’t come with a manual, neither for her reference or ours, so we’re all learning together.

Another first took place on Good Friday: Jessica had her first babysitter around, Auntie Wendy, for a few hours, while Ian and I walked over to Reigate to watch a film. Ian and I found it quite a strange experience being out together without Jessica for the first time in 6 1/2 weeks…! I’m proud to say we didn’t sit on edge all the way throughout the film nor text or phone Wendy every five minutes to check that everything was okay. When we got back to the flat, after three hours away, all was well, the house was still standing and both Wendy and Jessica were still sane, so the experience worked out quite well for the four of us. (Must do this again as soon as Wendy comes back from her African adventure…!)

What else has happenend since last? Well, Jessica’s been sitting in her ‘baby bouncer’ or ‘bouncing cradle’ a few times now. I tried to put it together it during the week, hoping to put her in it as a distraction when she was crying, but the assembly instructions didn’t seem to make much sense with Jessica wailing in my ears, so I abandoned that project pretty swiftly… (Don’t knock Mums as people capable of working under extreme pressure – they’d do excellently in the SAS…!) Ian put it together the following day (and very kindly said that the instructions hadn’t been of much use as they confused the issue), strapped Jessica in and reported back that she seemed to really enjoy it. Jessica’s neck muscles are getting stronger (she’s always lifting her head up high to look around when we hold her over our shoulders) so of course we’d like her to sit upright more so she can take in more of her surroundings.

Another fun thing is Jessica’s extended ‘vocabulary’: she’s making more and more different types of noises and it’s great to hear. Her laugh – a happy, gurgling sound – is fantastic!

Gabriella

Apologies for not posting anything on the blog recently, but in spite of both of us being at home Wednesday to Monday there did not seem to be any time left over to report on events, as my Dad and brother, i.e. Jessica’s morfar (maternal grandfather) and morbror (maternal uncle), came over from Sweden especially to meet Jessica. They stayed with Jessica’s farmor and farfar but came to visit almost every day or I, Ian and Jessica were over there.

As Jessica hadn’t seen her morfar and morbror before (and vice versa) a lot of time was of course spent trying to catch up, at least a little bit, on that. So two more people to lavish her with attention and admiration – I guess it’s a good thing babies can’t get spoilt, or we’d have a right little madam on our hands…!

The weather stayed nice for us pretty much throughout. On the first day Dad, my brother, Ian, Jessica and I went out for a walk together, enjoying the sunshine for a good couple of hours. Apart from a few more walks in various constellations (one day Dad took Jessica out in the pram for a few hours so that I got to catch up on some sorely needed sleep – much appreciated!), a day in London for my brother and Ian, an afternoon at Ian’s tennis club for Dad and Ian, and an afternoon of window shopping and coffee for me and my brother, we also managed two family meals over at Jessica’s farmor and farfar: one in ‘aid’ of Ian’s birthday on the Saturday (his birthday sadly ended up slightly in the shade of Jessica, unfortunately…) and the other a roast lunch on the day of my Dad’s and brother’s departure. It was excellent to have an extra pair of ‘baby sitters’ around, and brilliant to be able to take a few hours ‘off’ to catch up with family. Naturally, time went very quickly and my Dad’s and brother’s visit didn’t last long enough…

Regarding Jessica, her feeding recently started to veer off from the routine it was seemingly getting into with feeds at regular 3-hour intervals – during my Dad’s and brother’s stay, she got into snacking between meals and her meal times seemed to be a bit all over the place… However, getting some advice at the Health Visitor’s weekly clinic today, bringing along the ‘feeding log’ Ian and I have kept for the last 3-4 days, it seems the amount of food Jessica is eating is fine for her weight and age. Her weight gain is also (still) perfectly in line with her birth weight (her current weight being 5.34 kg/11lb 12oz), so there were no health visitor concerns that she’s getting the wrong amount of food. They did, however, suggest giving Jessica boiled, cooled water in between ‘meal times’ to try to steer her into getting her fill of milk during regular 3-hour feeds. So we will give that a go and see if it can convince Jessica to adjust her feeding back into a more predictable pattern.

Gabriella

Just wanted to share a few photos from yesterday, including a couple of her smile…

Gabriella

The downside of working so far away from home is that evenings consist of getting home between 7.30 and 8, which depends on trains and whether I need to go food shopping on my way back from the station. Then when I’m at home, I have to eat dinner then prepare for work the following day. This only gives me at most 30-40 minutes with Jessica before going to bed.
Yesterday morning I got to spend some proper quality time with the Milk Monster and I loved it. Gabriella had just finished the early-morning feed and was just coming back to bed at 8am. Jessica was, in her usual adorable way, making snuffling, gurgling and grunting noises and didn’t really show any sign of going back to sleep. Wanting Gabriella to get some more sleep, I carried the little one through to the living room and put her on the settee whilst I prepared even more food. Jessica fed for over an hour in total, but she very kindly allowed to get some breakfast myself, by taking short breaks from the bottle. Once full (it does happen apparently!), she happily laid in my arms looking at me with her big, blue eyes. She’s definitely deliberately looking at people, focusing on their faces (Gabriella and I are pretty certain that she’s watching our mouths) and smiling a lot.
By the time Gabriella got up, after her first decent lie-in in ages, Jessica was lying on her baby gym being adorable. I did shoot some video footage and hope to upload it to Jessica’s gallery on our main website (there’s a link – not surprisingly – under Links on the right menu).
Being keen to show Jessica all the fun bits on the baby gym, I started shaking and pressing things for her amusement. Pressing one particular ‘button’, which, unbeknown to me happened to be a squeaker, was right next to Jessica’s ear, caused the little mite to jump and look really startled. Another lesson in parenting learned here – don’t press things that you don’t know what they do in very close proximity to a small child! No harm done thankfully…
Jessica had her first lesson in IT yesterday. The wireless connection between the two PCs wasn’t working. Keen to introduce her to modern technology, I sat her on my lap whilst investigating the problem. I carefully explained what it was I was doing and why, but for some bizarre reason it didn’t seem to interest her, in fact she dozed off in my arms. I’m sure that was because she’d finished another feed only 15 minutes earlier and was nothing to do with the subject matter…

Anyway, I need to sign off now as Jessica’s farfar and farmor will be here shortly.

Ian.

Just a quick note for today, to say that I called the hospital regarding Jessica’s urine test and was advised that there were no traces of any infection – everything was fine. It’s good that they want to double-check to make sure, but it does make one worry just a tiny bit…

Gabriella

On Tuesday the 20th of March, Jessica was exactly one month old. Wow! Can’t imagine she has been with us that long, though on the other hand I sort of can’t imagine now what life was like before her arrival…

That day the health visitor came around again about lunch-time, for a chat to see how things were and to weigh Jessica again. She’s now 4.64 kilos (for you ‘imperialists’ out there, that’s apparently 10lb 13 1/2oz). Her weight gain is in line with her previous growth so far, all very healthy and steady.

I told the health visitor about my decision to not breastfeed anymore, as Jessica still isn’t taking to it. Jessica either ends up very frustrated (thrashing about, shaking her head from side to side and getting her hands in the way) or simply gets bored and just lies there in my lap looking lost. Either way, she doesn’t get the food she needs from feeding from the breast. So I’ve decided (finally, after much procrastination…!) to skip that part of the process completely and express my milk instead to feed her from a bottle. That way she still gets all the nutrients I am, after all, able to give her but we avoid unnecessary frustration and time-wasting trying to force a way of feeding that just isn’t happening. The health visitor was supportive of my decision and didn’t insist on me persevering with the breastfeeding; something I hadn’t been sure of whether she would or not.

As an additional result of my decision on feeding, I found that it loosened a knot in my stomach that I hadn’t realised before that I’d had… I’d felt stressed and guilty about not being able to breastfeed Jessica, perhaps especially as I’d been so set on it from start, already from the early days of the pregnancy – I’d simply assumed I’d be able to do it. But, as my sister wisely pointed out, the best thing for Jessica is a happy, relaxed (and preferably also, at least slightly, rested) Mum. Whether she drinks her milk from a breast or a bottle is less important.

Jessica and I spent a very pleasant afternoon visiting Anna in Reigate, and on my way back I popped into a newsagents in Redhill to get some biscuits. The newsagents was all dark and it turned out there had been a power cut – according to the lady at the till this affected parts of Merstham, Reigate and Nutfield as well as Redhill. When we got back to the flat nothing would switch on. It was quite a cold day and the flat was getting colder, with no possibility to turn on any of the boosters on the storage heaters. Also, I was very fast running out of clean, sterilised bottles for Jessica’s food (a big, obvious disadvantage of not breastfeeding)…

If it had only been me, I would’ve just wrapped a blanket around myself, lit a few candles and spent the evening snuggled up in the sofa reading a book, but things felt a lot more serious with a little baby, who would need to be kept warm, safe and fed. Ian’s parents were away for a few days but I texted Ian’s sister, who is staying with them at the moment, and she said they were unaffected by the power cut and we were very welcome to spend the evening there. After discussing things through with Ian, Jessica and I ended up spending the night in Ian’s parents house, whereas Ian stayed in the flat to keep an eye on when the electricity would come back on again. I guess in the back of our minds we also hoped that he might be able to catch up a bit on sleep, too…

The power was back on late that same evening, which at least meant that the storage heaters were able to charge up overnight for the following day, when Jessica and I returned to the flat. Events like this makes one certainly realise how ridiculously dependent we tend to be on things like electricity… As it happened, we were of course fine – actually, it was quite interesting staying somewhere else overnight with Jessica and finding out that we were coping fine with that too.

Gabriella

Just a brief note regarding Monday 17th March, as this is the first day we can be sure that Jessica is able to smile with intent now and not just as a result of random facial movements! She’s been smiling pretty much every day of her life so far, so Ian and I weren’t sure at all how we would be able to tell whether she ‘meant’ it or not…

In the afternoon, I put her in the baby gym our friends Roger and Lesley-Anne have lent us and she seemed to really enjoy it! Whether the amusement was from all the bright colours and fun shapes or just the ability to make dangling soft toys swing when bashing them I couldn’t say. But she kicked her legs and waved her arms very energetically and seemed very pleased when she managed to hit the octopus or the little rainbow (well, probably mostly by accident, as I’m not even sure she’s aware those are HER arms and legs…) hanging above her. Her smile was broad and fantastically lovely, showing off the cute little dimple on her left cheek, and when I spoke to and smiled at her she smiled at me too and made little happy-sounding noises (not quite a laugh).

After about ten minutes the excitement seemed to get a bit too much for her and she started to grumble a bit, but it was great fun while it lasted! The photos I took when she moved came out too blurred, as it was a dull day and I didn’t want to fire off a bright flash in her face, but below are a few from when she was having a bit of a rest:

Gabriella

Not even a month old, Jessica got me both a card and a box of chocolates for our first Mothering Sunday on the 16th… I knew that our child is a genius, of course, but that is very advanced…! (The card was lovely and the choccies very nice indeed, so two excellent choices, Ian.)

In the afternoon, all three of us went over to Ian’s parents for tea and cake – Jessica’s first visit to her farmor and farfar (paternal grandparents). As usual, Jessica slept throughout most of our visit. She was passed around the room for everyone to hold in turn without so much as stirring in between laps. Towards the end of our visit she wanted a bottle feed, which her Uncle Tom expertedly took care of, and then a nappy change, at which point her Mum and Dad suddenly found themselves on their own with Jessica in the room. Well, I guess there are certain things only parents are prepared to deal with…

Gabriella

Got a phone call from East Surrey Hospital Thursday (15 March) – one of the paediatricians had had a look at the urine test results from our latest trip there for her jaundice and said that there seemed to be traces of a wee infection. The signs weren’t overwhelmingly clear; it could be a case of cross-contamination from a slightly dirty baby bottom at the time of the test, but with little babies they always want to make sure. If there was an infection, Jessica would need antibiotics and probably an ultrasound test, as her kidneys could be at risk. The paediatrician called my GP to arrange for a urine sample kit to be left in reception for me; then I would have to get a sample from Jessica in the morning and return it to the surgery before 11 am.

Although our surgery is just down the road (it literally takes us a couple of minutes to get from our front door to the reception), with a little baby I suddenly realised things were quite different – I wouldn’t be able to just pop around to fetch the sample kit without bringing Jessica along, which would mean dressing her, as well as deciding on and putting together some type of transport… Decided to call on Ian’s parents to see if they were around and they were very happy to come and watch Jessica while I popped out. As a result, the visit to the surgery was quick (took the opportunity to officially register Jessica with the GP at the same time), and then the four of us spent a few relaxed hours in the flat, Jessica being generally admired and the rest of us catching up on conversation.

The following morning, I spent a couple of hours, in between feeds and nappy changes, gradually getting myself and Jessica ready to go over to the surgery to hand the urine sample in, putting the Baby Björn carrier on and ‘strapping’ Jessica into it on my own for the first time. Now it’s just a case of waiting to hear what the hospital says about the results from the new tests…

Regarding the trapped wind, Jessica hasn’t really complained about that in the last couple of days, which is a bit puzzling. (Maybe that’s only temporaily and she will again today…) Instead she’s been throwing up a lot since Thursday morning. Not a case of ‘projectile vomiting’ and no temperature involved, but it’s meant that regularly during and after each feed quite a bit of what she’s had has come up again, which in turn meant not having a clue of how much she’s actually been able to keep, plus running out of breastmilk and then our back-up supply of formula quite quickly… At 10.30 pm last night (Friday) we were seriously worried that we’d run out of food for our daughter during the night, and after a quick phone call Ian’s sister hopped in her car to give Ian a lift to a 24-hour supermarket at Gatwick for an emergency re-stock…!

From early this morning, though, Jessica has seemed to be able to keep most of her food down, so fingers crossed whatever it was preventing her from holding food down properly has now passed…! A wonderful thing that I want to share with you – although I know this is perfectly normal and to be expected as part of a baby’s development and nothing unique at all – is that Jessica is now spending more time awake not just wanting a feed or nappy change but showing an interest in what’s going on around her. Her big, blue eyes will be wide open and she will, seemingly contentedly, be watching us, our eyes and mouths, and even seem to try to mimic the movements of our mouths when we speak to her. This morning she was following a wafting strand of my hair with her eyes as I was bending over her and when I held her Moomin rattle up and shook it a couple of decimeters (7-8 inches) from her face she watched it with interest. I have already read her the odd story and sing to her regularly (she’s not a very severe critic but seems happy to put up with any kind of singing voice…), and can’t wait until we’ll be able to interact more, play and sing songs together – it’s all very exciting…!

Finally, just wanted to say thank you to everyone who have posted comments on our blog so far – we really appreciate it and please keep them coming! We know of course that our situation as new parents is in no way unique and it’s brilliant to get tips and hear of other people’s experiences. Many thanks for your comment to my last post, Andrea – it’s reassuring to know that you’ve had a similar situation to deal with and obviously come out of it fine: Lilah is lovely. I can see how at every stage of a Jessica’s development everything would still feel new and sometimes a tiny bit daunting to me; that’ll carry on for years and years, I’m sure. But then that’s part of what’s so exciting…

Gabriella