Conrad’s blog

I almost started to despair last night when Conrad stirred at 1.40am, only two hours after his last night-time feed… The previous night he had woke up and cried – almost desperately – after 3 hours, 2 hours, then 1.5 hours. Nothing else seemed to be the matter, so I fed him, and after each feed he drifted off to sleep again, and in the morning he was fine. But when last night seemed to be a repeat, I worried that we were going in the completely opposite direction of Conrad sleeping through the night… As it happened, Conrad settled himself back to sleep again at 1.40am without a feed and didn’t wake up again until 4.25am. Phew…! (Maybe we are heading in the right direction after all…)

This morning, Conrad only slept for an hour when we were out in the park – by the time we got back home he was wide awake and pretty chirpy. I gave him his next bottle sitting in the sofa with Jessica next to us. Jessica lent back against the cushions and Conrad’s foot brushed her cheek which made her giggle – and she decided to keep putting her face right next to his feet so he’d do it again and again, which of course he did. Great fun!

A bit later, after Conrad had finished his milk and was sitting on my lap to let it settle in his tummy, the siblings were ‘chatting’ to and smiling at each other, and then Jessica gave Conrad a kiss: a little peck on the cheek, the way she has kissed me and Ian before. Adorable! (But nothing they’ll probably thank me for bringing up in future – at least not until they’re grown up enough to not be awkwardly embarrassed anymore…)

Gabriella

Last Wednesday (17th September) it was time for Conrad’s next set of jabs. (He was really supposed to have these at 12 weeks of age, not 14, but I completely forgot to book him in…) Again I wasn’t really looking forward to it, or rather the potential aftermath: Conrad becoming poorly and feverish, or restless and crying all night (or both…). The nurse said that there was ‘no reason to expect a different reaction to last time’, which my suspicious mind interpreted as a very non-committal thing to say, but as it happened, the only bad reaction Conrad had was crying when the jabs were put in his respective thigh (one each side). The night was normal and the next couple of days too.

After the jabs I fed Conrad in a half-full waiting room. A school boy was sitting next to us, watching with interest as Conrad got restless during the feed. As this usually means a bit of trapped air, I lifted Conrad up to my shoulder, and as I did so, Conrad’s burp echoed through the waiting room. I could tell the boy was impressed – and amused…

When it comes to daytime napping, Conrad has fallen asleep quietly quite a few times by now, either in the baby gym or the baby bouncer. Sometimes, when I’ve noticed him starting to drift off, I have put him in the carry cot, which we still have on top of the old gramophone in the living room (although Conrad is almost as tall as it is long now), and even if he’s sometimes cranked a bit, he has settled for a nap after not too many minutes. During the day, he seems to last about two hours before needing his next nap.

Daytime, he divides his time between the baby bouncer – sometimes in front of Jessica’s control panel toy, which he bashes the buttons on (and which he amazingly actually fell asleep in front of the other day, even as he was pressing the buttons…!) – the baby gym and a ‘play nest’, an inflatable ring with a printed fabric cover, which Ian bought for Conrad to practise sitting upright in. For a few weeks now, he’s been trying to sit up when in the baby bouncer or in the push chair. In the ring, he has to be propped up using soft toys, and gets frustrated and cries when his legs start to slide forward so he ends up more on his back, but it’s a good start.

When you surround him with soft toys, like Jessica’s monkey toy Molly or Upsy doll, and put them with their faces turned towards him, he smiles at and ‘chats’ to them. Needless to say, Jessica’s quite keen on the lets-cram-as-many-soft-toys-in-the-ring-with-baby-brother game and can get a bit carried away at times, but Conrad just beams from behind the mountain…

For a couple of weeks now, Conrad has been putting his fist in his mouth sometimes, not for any apparent reason such as hunger or tiredness or anything else that we can see. We’ve not given him a dummy, as we don’t think he needs it, but it still remains to be seen whether he might take to sucking his thumb.

Gabriella

The kids are taking an even bigger interest in each other now, and Conrad’s big sister is showing less signs of jealousy. Almost from start, Jessica would sometimes make cranking noises to copy Conrad when he cried, but nowadays there’s not so much of that – instead she giggles too when he giggles. Like when I ‘hoist’ Conrad up in the air or hold him upside down resting against my lower legs (though gently, as he’s still quite little…), or when Ian plays ‘Row, row, row your boat’ with Conrad on his lap.

Conrad follows Jessica around the room with his eyes, smiles and giggles at her when she looks back and when she talks to him. Jessica keeps bringing things over to him – mostly soft toys (thankfully!), which she sometimes tries to give him to grab with his hand (though he obviously doesn’t) or bury him in, and one of his blankets, though unfortunately she still seems mainly interested in putting it over his head.

We’ve sat Conrad in front of the control panel toy a few times and now he’s getting pretty good at whacking the buttons to start a tune. When the music starts to play, Jessica will sometimes start to bounce up and down to dance to it. Though sometimes she’ll prefer to muscle in to press the buttons herself – being quicker and more accurate, Conrad doesn’t really stand a chance when she does. I can see more situations like that come up in future, with Jessica being ahead and Conrad presumably rather frustrated at times… (The trick will be how we deal with it each time.)

On the 10th September, a Wednesday, instead of Jessica going to spend the day with farmor and farfar, farmor and farfar came over to ours, ‘escaping’ the house while their boiler was replaced and for a chance to see Conrad again. Which meant that Mummy got to go out and get her hair cut while Daddy and grandparents entertained the two kids!

In the afternoon we drove over to Tilgate Park, a bit of a favourite of ours (as you may have gathered…), as it’s not too long a drive and pretty inexpensive. After Conrad having had a feed and Jessica a bit of a run around, we went for a coffee. Conrad and Jessica were having a really good ‘chat’ with each other, with lots of eye contact smiles and noises, great to see!

Yesterday Sunday (14th September), I noticed Conrad watching his hands for the first time. He was studying them really intently, with that baffled look on his face which he so often has, turning them around and grabbing them. Then he spotted my hand too and held a couple of my fingers, watching it with great interest. It was lovely to watch, only a shame that it was at 3am and he was supposed to be nodding off to sleep after a feed…

Gabriella

Time really is going quickly. Conrad’s already three months old – amazing…! To ‘celebrate’ (well, Ian had the week off and we wanted to take the opportunity of making a few family outings) we went down to Brighton for the day.

Ian and I spent a couple of hours sorting out stuff and loading the car in the morning, and realised that with more than one child you definitely have to bring a ridiculous amount of stuff – we hadn’t really believed our friends telling us that in the past, but it really is true…!

We set off and Conrad fell asleep almost straight away. It took us about 50 minutes from our door to having parked up, in a covered car park not too far from the sea front, and Conrad slept through it all pretty much from start – he’s still little enough to be nicely soothed to sleep by being on the move.

First stop was the sea front and then the pier. By the time we reached the sea on foot, Conrad was asleep again and missed the experience of lapping waves, diving seagulls and his excited big sister running around shrieking and giggling at the sight of so much water all in one place… We had our packed lunch on a bench on the pier, and halfway through it, Conrad stirred in his seat at the back of the double buggy, spotted me and then lie there smiling for quite a while, completely forgetting that he was well due HIS lunch. Conrad and I stayed on the bench for his bottle, while Daddy and big sister took a little walk, and my little boy got some admiring looks from an elderly lady on the next bench and a few passing couples.

One of the reasons we had brought so much, was that we took both the double buggy and the bigger, more comfortable of the single pushchairs plus the Baby Björn – the strategy being that the double buggy would do for the morning but after lunch, when Jessica might be very tired from not having had a nap yet, we could swap to putting Jessica in the comfier pushchair and Conrad in the carrier.

As it happened the plan worked out really well. After Conrad had finished his lunch we went back to the car park and swapped the buggies over. Conrad got strapped to Daddy’s chest in the Baby Björn, facing forward this time, and he really enjoyed it! While we walked down the wide street along the sea front he was looking around all wide-eyed and smiley. As it was spotting a bit, Ian had tucked him into his weather-proof jacket a bit, and we could tell from the faces of people we met – first surprise and then smile – that the sight of a little baby’s head peering out of a man’s jacket wasn’t exactly what most people expected…!

The afternoon’s activity was a visit to Sea Life Centre. Jessica was taken out of the pushchair to walk around with Daddy and we lowered the back of the pushchair to make it as flat as possible for Conrad to lie in. He wasn’t entirely happy about being put in the pushchair, but it was a tired grizzle. I kept walking up and down with him, a muslin hanging from the front of the hood to block out any bright lights. I also rolled up a couple of muslins, one on each side of his head, partly to support his head and partly to muffle the noise from other visitors. After five minutes or so, Conrad was asleep.

We stopped at the Centre café on our way out, for a drink and a snack, and Conrad woke up just nicely to have his next bottle. On the way back to the car he was happily bobbing away on Daddy’s chest again (his sister falling asleep in the pushchair) taking in the sights and back in the car again, he slept all the way home.

Most outings and activities will at the moment for natural reasons be mainly for Jessica’s benefit, but we’re so looking forward to when Conrad is that little bit older and can join in. At the moment, the slightest thing can excite him, which is wonderful – he doesn’t need a lot of entertaining, in a way, as a bold pattern, or a face, or something moving, can completely engross him. It’s nice to be reminded of the little things in life.

Gabriella

Sunday 7 September, Ian’s parents – Conrad’s farmor and farfar – came over to babysit Conrad and his sister for a few hours, while Ian and I went out for Sunday lunch just the two of us. Before we left, we tried to fill Ian’s parents in on everything we could think of regarding Conrad, as they had never minded him in our absence before. Then at 4pm – after our dessert but before our coffee – we realised that we hadn’t made up Conrad’s next feed, and with two different kinds of bottles in the steam steriliser, we couldn’t be sure that Ian’s parents would know which teat to match with which bottle, nor where Conrad’s milk was… So Ian stepped out of the restaurant for a quick phone call to his Mum and she made up the bottle whilst they were chatting.

On our return, Ian and I were very happy to hear that all had gone well and our two kids had behaved very well indeed. Conrad had even fallen asleep on his farfar’s lap and snoozed there for half an hour – something he never does with me (in fact, in the afternoon, Conrad finds it hard to settle for a nap, even though he obviously needs it, and I’m not sure yet how to help him there).

Conrad’s started doing a few more little things that keeps us aware of how he’s growing and developing. He now deliberately (if not accurately) bashes the toys in the baby gym, whacks the buttons on the control panel toy to play tunes (when it’s put in front of him within reach, of course) and giggles when lifted up high in the air. He responds well to a few of the rattles we have, when held up in front of or above him – the noise and look of them seem to fascinate him (and can distract him if he’s a little cranky).

And Jessica and Conrad have started interacting more, which is absolutely wonderful to see! Conrad will watch Jessica with great interest, and often when she walks up to him he’ll smile and giggle and make sounds. For a while now, Jessica has brought him toys or a blanket (though she often seems to prefer to put the latter over his head – on the other hand Conrad just laughs and doesn’t seem to mind at all), and liked to rock his baby bouncer for him (sometimes slightly too vigorously, so we have to tell her to go gently) – often when he cries, so it seems like she wants to comfort him.

And the last few days – this is the best of all and makes me so chuffed! – Jessica has crouched down next to him, so her face ends up in front of his, and chatted away. Conrad has responded by looking at her, smiling and making noises too. The siblings are already having ‘conversations’! The best bit is the mutual interest – although there still is the competition over our attention (more deliberately so on Jessica’s part, of course), they enjoy watching what the other one does and to take part in some way.

A few photos from our morning walk to the park (Ian is off this week, otherwise it’s normally just me and the kids):

Gabriella

It’s been ages since he last post now – something I never intended – and it feels like so much has happened…! First of all, I have to let you know that Conrad isn’t colicky anymore, actually not since we had that lovely evening on the 14th (blog entry from August 16). He will still cry, of course: when he’s hungry, bored or tired. (He used to cry sometimes when hiccuping too, but he hasn’t hiccuped much the last couple of weeks.)

We have a bit of a bed-time routine now: after Jessica has gone to bed (Ian puts her in bed every evening nowadays), I change Conrad into his pyjamas and gro bag, warm a bottle of formula for him and then bring him upstairs to our bedroom, where the curtains already are drawn since earlier. The idea is to start ‘night time’ by sitting somewhere darker and quieter, and not too far from his cot, for his bed time bottle. At this point, Conrad’s usually quite tired and it’s a bit difficult to try to persuade him to have at least most of his bottle so he won’t wake up too soon from hunger. I sit on our bed and feed him, and shift position every so often to stir him a little, then after a while I have to resort to more ‘cruel’ methods, like tickling him: under his foot and big toe, on his chin or ear are good spots… When he’s definitely not going to have any more, I wait another 15 minutes, so he won’t stir and throw up, before I put him in bed.

We’ve had a few more nights with Conrad sleeping from 8/9pm to 2/3am, which has been lovely. When he has a feed during the night, he tends to doze off again after having had a bout half a bottle. Like always after a feed, I sit with him on my lap for about 15 minutes before tucking him back in bed.

The last weekend of August, my sister Malin came to visit and became the first of my side of the family to meet Conrad. Malin arrived on the Friday evening, when both Conrad and Jessica were tucked up in bed, but the following day (Saturday 30 August), Malin and I took Conrad with us into London for the day, as Malin wanted to take the opportunity to go shopping in Upton Park while she was here.

A bit of a set up, I must confess – Conrad doesn’t deliberately hold his own bottle, it was kind of placed in his hands…

It was a hot day and the tube and Upton Park area were noisy, so perhaps not the best first experience of London for Conrad. He slept through the journey on train and tube and some of our time in Upton Park, and had a nice, relaxed feed on a bench in the shade while my sister popped into a fabric shop. But Conrad became restless after then – probably bored by lying in the pram and not coping too well with the heat and the noise (some of the shops were pumping out loud music and the streets were bustling with traffic and people) – and started to cry. I walked him up and down the street in the pram, while my sister popped into various shops, but Conrad found it hard to settle more than intermittently. In the end, it was a bit of a relief to be on the train back home to Horley, although Malin managed to get a good amount of shopping done and it was nice for me to be out and about for a bit.

Malin took a few photos of me and the kids while she was here, too:

Gabriella