Conrad’s blog

For today we’d decided that Ian would get a lie-in and I would get up and look after both our little kiddies all morning. The prospect was a bit daunting, but I thought I’d rather try out being on my own with Conrad and Jessica for only a few hours the first time, while Ian was in the house still and could be called on should things go terribly wrong… As it happened, I had a lovely morning (apart from getting up at 4am…!): Jessica and Conrad co-ordinated themselves really nicely for me, so that I never had to be torn between who to run to first.

Conrad woke at 4am, had a feed and was put back in his cot. Then I expressed some milk for his next feed and quickly got dressed, as at about 5am I could hear Jessica stir. As the morning was a bit cool in our house, I snuck into her room and put her blanket back over her without her noticing me, and after a while she seemed to settle again. At that point I was feeling a bit too awake and – to be perfectly honest – nervous about the morning to come, so I started to prepare as much as I could of Jessica’s and my own breakfast, filling the kettle ready to boil water to warm Conrad’s next bottle, putting a load of washing on, etc.

I had a bit of a lie-down again before I, at about 6.30am, fished Conrad out of his cot and brought him downstairs for a nappy and clothes change and a wash. As he started to wake up he realised he was hungry, so I stayed downstairs feeding him, with a hot water bottle warming the carry cot in the living room for him. As we were nearing the end of his feed, I could hear Jessica stir upstairs, chatting to herself, and after a little while I started hearing the thuds of books being pulled down from her bookshelf and landing on the floor. By the time I went to fetch Jessica (who miraculously had decided to have a lie-in until nearly 7am), Conrad was fed, content and snoozing away in his warm and snug carry cot and he didn’t stir at all all during Jessica’s nappy change, breakfast, bath and getting dressed.

I decided to be brave and make today the day for my first time out on my own with the two of them in the double-buggy too, doing some food shopping. It didn’t take quite as dreadfully long to get the three of us ready as I’d feared, though when I changed Conrad’s nappy I had to discard two additional nappies, as he decided to start weeing again every time I thought he was all done. How such a little bladder could hold so much, I have no idea…! Unfortunately it went all over his clean clothes too, me not being used to dealing with a little hose. But once Conrad and Jessica were in the buggy and out of the house, Conrad promptly fell asleep and Jessica was happily dangling her legs and watching the world around her. There were no complaints from either one of them in Waitrose either, though I did make sure to try to be as efficient as possible and the supermarket was pretty empty.

Back home, Jessica happily had her banana and morning bottle of formula and ran around playing while I fed Conrad again and changed his nappy, and by the time Ian made his way downstairs at 10.30am, I had had a banana too, plus a mug of tea (rarely heard of even in the days of only Jessica!), washed and sterilised Conrad’s bottles and the breast pump and even switched the PC on to quickly check my emails. I have a feeling this was all to lull me into a false sense of security… The timing of the two of them is bound to clash sooner rather than later but I’ll just have to deal with each morning and day as it comes and hope I make the right decisions.

Yesterday, Monday (16 June), I took Conrad with me to a Baby Café they have here in Horley for breastfeeding mums. It’s run by a lady from the NCT, who helped me get back to breastfeeding Jessica, and I was hoping to speak to her regarding Conrad (and not leave it as late as I did with his big sister), as he isn’t latching on yet to breastfeed. The Café is more of an informal gathering, housed in the side building to a local infant school, and when I got there (after getting a bit lost on the way, not having checked the address properly or brought a map, so Ian ended up giving me directions over the phone) Conrad and I received a very warm welcome and was ushered in to a small room crammed full of mums, toddlers and babies and bustling with activity, and I was promptly offered a mug of tea.

The NCT lady was very happy to speak to me and look at Conrad’s and my attempts at breastfeeding. It didn’t take her long to spot that Conrad wasn’t really using his tongue the way babies are supposed to. His tongue didn’t seem to reach out far enough, and when she put her finger in Conrad’s mouth she could feel his bottom gums against her finger and at the back it felt like his tongue was curled up – his tongue should be all stretched out to suck. She said she suspected ‘tongue tie’ or a similar problem – if Conrad’s tongue isn’t reaching far enough, he wouldn’t be able to latch on successfully, which would explain his frustration at my breast and why we haven’t got anywhere with the breastfeeding yet.

I got the phone number to an expert, as a professional opinion would be needed. If the NCT lady is right about what the problem might be, the remedy is straightforward and quick, though it sounds a bit drastic: making a slight cut underneath Conrad’s tongue, to allow it to stretch out further. She said it doesn’t really hurt and is very quick, that it could be done straight away after assessment and that I would get some breastfeeding coaching afterwards to help Conrad latch on. I am now waiting to hear back, to see how soon we can get an appointment – sooner rather than later would be best, of course.

Yesterday afternoon, Ian and I decided to go out and do something fun for Jessica, as she’s not been to nursery for a couple of weeks now and might be bored just kicking about our house. We hopped in the car – the first time with the two children in it at once – and drove to Donyngs in Redhill, where they have a big sports hall filled with bouncy castles, slides, an area full of plastic balls to play with, etc. Jessica had a whale of a time running around trying everything out together with Daddy, while little Conrad had a feed and quietly slept in my arms.

Gabriella

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.