Thursday 30 July 2009

8 months 1 week old - sleep things and 2nd haircut!

Robert amazed us last night. He fell asleep entirely on his own! I fed him, put him in his cot, and he was still awake, he stood up and played with his cot mobile console (we've taken off the overhanging bit, just left the console there for the music and the light) and as he seemed quite happy (although decidedly UNsleepy!) we left him in there by himself, and went into the smallest bedroom which we use as a study to keep an ear on him. After a while he began to moan... not upset moaning, but the moaning he does when he's falling asleep or playing with a label. Either of which could have been true, so we waited and listened, and after a while it went quiet... a few minutes later we went in, and he was FAST asleep! Absolutely thrilled! His sleep though once he woke up at 1am (a vast improvement, he usually woke several times during the evening as well and needed resettling) was a bit hit and miss, and required feeding at all the times he woke (although the first two times I tried not to fall asleep as well so I could unlatch him and put him down in his cot when his sucking slowed), but I'm hoping it's a way forward at least! I am wondering where his sleep went wrong because he used to sleep really well, but ah well it'll get better again!

I've cut Robert's hair again this morning as it was almost in his eyes again. As you will see when I get the photos up in the next few days, his hair is going dark again! In patches anyway! Hehe. He looks like a right little bruiser now, as I cut it quite short this time! I wasn't nearly as upset about having to cut it this time compared to the first time, as it wasn't his newborn hair I was cutting this time!

Monday 27 July 2009

8 months old - super duper quick turned long entry

I thought I'd better add a super duper quick entry incase anyone's worried about me lol, I'm still here and alive etc ;)

Robert is doing super super well! He is getting so quick now when he wants to! It's so cute though when he's crawling along quickly (usually after the cat, or trying to get through the open stairgate before I close it) he sort of huffs with urgency ;)

I am absolutely beyond knackered these days. With Robert's sleep not too brilliant, and the fact that I have to stay with him for practically his every waking moment now, I am sooo tired. But at least I will have my revenge... ;)

I could not stop giggling at that photo when I first saw it!

Here's a nice photo taken after Robert's bath a while ago. Thought he looked a bit like a jedi!

Talking of jedis...

Here's Robert with his "messy play lunch" of baked beans, it took me aaaages to clean up!!!

This weekend just gone we went to Kent to see my parents, as it was my Mum's birthday on Saturday, and it will be Caroline's birthday on Wednesday (she had a party on Sunday).

These following photos were taken at my Mum's new house

In this one, my Mum was saying "Where's your toes?!!?" and would keep grabbing them to tickle/"nibble" them, after a while Robert cottoned on to what she was doing and when she asked where his toes were he'd lift his feet up to her hands!

These last few were taken at my dad's. We went out to Bluewater on Sunday late morning to buy a few little bits for Robert, these bricks being one of them, as we wanted some proper bricks with letters on!

And eating lunch, the piggy that is my son!

My dad was soooo nice to us! He told us that if Robert woke up ridiculously early like usual, once he'd had some milk to come and give him to them to look after so we could have another couple hours sleep! Boy did we need it, we offloaded Robert at 5.30am lol!

Anyway that super duper quick entry turned out to be not so super duper quick!

And it's time for bed now lol

Monday 20 July 2009

Nearly 8 months old - birthday weekend, changes, sleep issues

So much to update on! Firstly, my weekend has been fab! Fab but tiring. We have seen all the parents this weekend which has been lovely! And I got some brilliant presents including quite a lot off my amazon wishlist. I got a few boxset dvds, namely heroes season 1, and stargate SG1 season 10 (from my dad and mum respectively). I got a film dvd, sims 3 (which so far I am quite impressed with even though I'm not going to get very much time to play on!), a non slip bathmat (mainly for Robert now rather than me but still haha!), some Lush things, and a swivelly photo frame with photos of me with Robert in from Jonathan and Robert. From Jonathan's parents I got a huge picnic blanket with waterproof backing, a jug from mothercare for rinsing Robert's hair (with the squishy bit at the front), and 3 books, one on baby signs, one on the no-cry sleep solution (which I proceeded to read several chapters of practically straight away - for reasons I'll get to in a bit!), and men are from mars, women are from venus, children are from heaven.

We went out to a meal yesterday to the beefeater, and when we sat down, shortly after, Jonathan's dad pipes up "Nicola, I've got some news for you.." So I raised my eyebrows quizzically, and he says "I'm pregnant!" Haha! Then I realised as he must have done, that we were in the same restaurant, with the same people as when I'd announced to them that we were expecting a baby! Only Robert was slightly smaller then, being only 5 or 6 weeks in gestation! Haha!

Anyway - sleep issues! Robert had an absolutely TERRIBLE night on Saturday night/Sunday morning. We are finding it increasingly hard to put him to sleep in his cot, as the second we lower him down he wakes up and screams. And nothing will pacify him but putting him to the breast. I tried to get him to sleep around 8pm on Saturday night, but no joy he started crying and then he woke himself up again, so I brought him downstairs. He tired himself out again and he finally went to bed at 9.30pm. Then woke up at 11.30, then 1.30, then 3.30, then 5am, then wouldn't go back to sleep around then! So we were a bit "urgh"ish! Luckily last night was a bit better, for a start we managed to get Robert to sleep at a reasonable time without the screaming. And he only woke up a few times during the night. So yes I am eager to get this no-cry sleep solution started! First step recording nap, pre-bedtime routine, and night wakings logs.

Another thing I wanted to talk about was how much Robert has changed! I think the last 2 months have seen the hugest number of changes in what he can do, but not only that but I watched one of the videos of Robert from when he was 2 weeks old, and oh my gosh how much he has changed! So cute with his rooting and little birdy mouth and tiny little noises! So precious!!!

It's just so amazing, before we had Robert, or was pregnant with him, how quickly the months flew by. Now, it seems like AGES ago he was that tiny, even ages ago that we swaddled him to go to sleep! (He was 3 months old when we stopped swaddling him) Makes me so broody but at the same time I am determined to lose the weight first (although I have hit a major plateau with regards to that - I keep yoyoing in and out of obese right now! Gah!

Anyhow, I'd better go, Robert is getting grumpy I think he's ready for his first nap of the day. Thank you all for your birthday wishes!

Thursday 16 July 2009

7.5 months old - more photos, weekend (and birthday) plans

Robert is coming on in leaps and bounds! He is getting so big and getting on so well with his crawling and pulling up. I will be SO surprised if he isn't walking by September. You can tell he's already trying to balance, he's constantly holding on while standing with only one hand and is so steady! It is just amazing how fast they progress once they start the rocking thing.

It is my birthday this weekend (I believe you are right, Sarah!) and I am quite excited about it. We have booked some babysitters (my Mum and Dave) who are arriving on Saturday morning around 11am, and after some lunch, Jonathan and I are going to the cinema to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I am thinking about cooking a cottage pie (with Alice's recipe just with beef mince instead of lamb!) for dinner for the 5 of us for dinner, and then on Sunday we're going out for lunch with them, and also the in-laws (where Mum and Dave will be staying the night), and then late afternoon my Dad is coming along. So busy busy weekend!

We got the photographs from Saturday's shoot with Natasha, and they are pretty nice! She got some fab ones of Robert close-up, and some interesting shots as well!

The image at the top of the page is one I made using one of the photos, which I love! The photo was editted slightly to alter the lightness of the photo, which shows I guess that there is some blue in his eyes, although it is hard to see it in real life!

Shame about the drool here, but I guess apart from wiping his chin every 2 minutes it couldn't be helped!!

Natasha's baby is only about 3 weeks younger than Robert, here's one of the two of them she took

"Peekaboo!"

"Let me oooout!"

"...or I'll knaw the bars off!"

One of Robert and I, unfortunately he was a bit grumpy during the shoot at times, this was one of the times!

Love this sequence of photos!

They were so cute together! I love seeing Robert interact with other children, and particularly babies. He's so inquisitive and interested!

We also took a few photos since the shoot, mainly in our garden, where he really enjoyed crawling all over the grass!

And he also enjoyed taking Daddy for a walk! ;)

Last but not least, he's reached that adorable phase of absolutely BEAMING at himself in the mirror! I can't blame him, he's pretty darn cute ;)

Sunday 12 July 2009

7.5 months old - photo entry, trip to the lakes

Ahhh, 5 days worth of news :) I have been waiting til all the photos on the camera were sorted through and uploaded, because it's always so much nicer to update with photos I think!

Before I start off, I'll post the photo we took of Robert asleep in his highchair with the bread roll in his mouth. It was quite funny, bless him! It's the first time he's fallen asleep while eating proper food!

This one was earlier in the day, he's wearing one of the t-shirts my dad got him from France, and he looks quite nice in it!

Robert now is soooo so active! There is absolutely no stopping him, and he has been sporting bruises from toppling over because now he crawls, hawls himself up on anything that will stay still long enough, and he's just SO quick! It's nice in a way because if he wants to stand, he can stand himself up, and he's happy! But also scary how quickly he's become a mobile little person!

Anyway following on from the last entry (or the one before that, I can't remember, we finally got around to ordering Robert a Taggie's blanket (thanks Megan!!! I'd not heard of them before!)and it was an instant hit!

Unfortunately it's too interesting for him for me to use as a finger distraction while breast feeding, he wants to look at it and put it in his mouth as well as feel the ribbons, so I can't use it to stop him from pinching my boobs :( I'm going to wait til after my birthday, and if no-one's bought me one, I'll go and buy myself a nursing necklace for Robert to fiddle with hopefully that'll work!

Anyway, on Friday, Jonathan took the day off work, just because, and we were getting the house tidy for a photo shoot yesterday, one of Jonathan's colleague's wife is an aspiring photographer (and her photos are pretty damn good!!) and she came over to photograph Robert! :) Anyway Jonathan suggested going for a walk with Sarah and Keiran down to the local lakes while he carried on tidying, so off we went, and we had a blast! It was sooo nice, but tiring, as it's 2 miles there, 2 miles back, and probably a little extra while we were there as well.

I just can't get over how lucky I am to have found such a lovely friend only 3 doors away!!! We get on SOOOO well, have so much in common, and we both really enjoy spending time with each other!

Here she is holding Robert during our picnic :)

And here's Robert on the picnic blanket, I think this was just after I gave him a cheese sandwich and then cleaned him up ;)

And Sarah took this photo of me and Robert

After the picnic we took the kids to the center of the lakes, where there's a huge adventure playground made of wood, set in a giant sandpit, and surrounded by a thin moat (!!)

Keiron loved the sand and the big adventure playground structure, we sat with Robert while Keiron went off and played, keeping an eye on him of course, and Robert loved the sand, wanted to eat it, but I wouldn't let him as it's probably got poo in from various animals!

So that was a lovely day! My legs were killing me by the time we got back, and they ached ALL evening, but luckily by morning they were fine. :)

Yesterday then was the photo shoot by Natasha. Her husband (Jonathan's colleague) and her baby girl Alexa came along too, and it was lovely actually, she's a very cute little girl, and while Natasha was taking photos, Jonathan decided to get a few snaps too, which were quite cute. There's only about 3 weeks between them (Alexa being the younger), but the size difference is amazing! I can't believe what a big boy Robert is!

Oh, and here's Robert's first snog (at least with a girl his own age haha!)

And finally, a picture of my very own santa, cutest santa ever I think...

Before I head off I want to say congratulations to Alice, on the birth of her fourth baby boy Benjamin Isaac, who was born on Thursday 9th July. Congratulations!

Monday 6 July 2009

7.5 months old - good week apart from today (!)

Whatta week. Today has been urgh. The rest of the last week has been quite good! Messy play, which we now go to on Wednesday afternoons is good fun, and the last one I went with Sarah and Keiran too. Thursday though Robert was being a pain and didn't settle for his nap until gone 1pm so I didn't go to the session that day. Friday was okay I think. Saturday was great, we had a BBQ with Sarah, Mark and Keiran, I had some drinks! (Smirnoff ice mmmmmmm) And it was soooo relaxed and soooo much fun! Robert fell asleep in his highchair in the middle of eating some bread roll... when he woke up he wasn't a happy bunny, he was in an uncomfortable sitting position with a piece of soggy bread in his mouth... can't have been the nicest way to wake up!!

Then yesterday was a friend's baby's christening. She is 2 months younger than Robert but weighs about the same! There were some other babies there, an 8.5 month old, and a 10.5 month old, neither of which were crawling properly, although the 10.5 month old had started belly shuffling. Crazy! My super duper little man!

Robert is becoming more and more confident with his crawling, he can get quite a pace up and it won't be long before the cat will have something to worry about! He's managed to sneak up on her and pat her tail once, she zoomed off so quick! Hehe! He is now able to pull himself up on practically anything. He's done it on the sofa now, which is quite high up, and he's also done it in his travel cot (which I've been using occasionally as a play pen) which has nothing really to grab hold of there. He does it ALL the time in his cot, which is a little worrying because although it's down at the lowest setting and has been since just before he could sit himself up from laying down, he does sometimes lose his balance, topple down and bang his head! I'm wondering whether those "bumpers" all the way round the cot will help with that?

This morning Robert woke up at 5am, wouldn't go back to sleep, and to make matters worse, Jonathan had been having stomach pains since the middle of the night, which carried on into the morning, and as it happened, all throughout the day and only eased up this evening! He's felt like he could throw up any second all day, and has barely eaten a thing. He ate about 3 bites of a slice of toast I made him for breakfast, and he's had a banana for late lunch, and that's it! And then started aching, so I hope it's not flu and that I don't get it, because if I do I'll just be totally out of it. Robert was refusing to nap today as well, and he was completely knackered, had been screaming for hours when my Dad popped in from his trip around the country to see all his kids and grandkids (Helen in Bradford, Stephen, Nicky and Ewan in Chester, then down to us in Northamptonshire). Robert finally fell asleep in my arms having refused the breast several times, and Dad and I then went out and got some plants for the garden, we got back, totally expecting him to be awake, but he stayed asleep for about 2.5 hours!!

But I didn't deal too well with the 5 hours between Robert waking and my dad turning up very well at all. I was so tired, and once Robert started to get tired for his nap as well but refused to go down I just seemed to lose it and got so angry and frustrated. :( And took it out a little on Jonathan too who'd come down despite being ill :(

This evening, Jonathan rang his parents to ask them to come around and look after Robert for a while so we could both have a bit of a break, I went upstairs and we both managed to get some sleep, it was about 9.15 when we woke up. And Robert went to bed maybe around 10pm finally.

Anyway he's sporting a few bruises on his forehead, where he's fallen over and hit his head while falling over from standing. We're going to surestart tomorrow and he's also getting weighed, I just hope I don't get any funny looks from the HV about those bruises, I'm so paranoid about things like that!! Especially with my PND on record etc.

Well, one last thing before I sign off tonight, and that is my weight is finally dropping again after a 3 week plateau. I'm now overweight rather than obese with a BMI of around 29.8, and weighing about 14 stone. I still have another 3 and a half stone I want to lose before we start trying again for another baby, but it's getting there! 3 stone would be okay, I'll still be well into normal weight range then, and lighter than I have been for about 7 years or so!

Wednesday 1 July 2009

7 months 1 week old - quick entry

Ahhh, hot sunny days.... I don't know whether to love them or hate them! Robert has been finding it sooo so so difficult to go to sleep lately. And last night - jeeeeeeeez I felt like pulling my hair out - literally!! I figured I'd try and put him to bed at the normal time, so I got him in his bath at 6pm or so, and had him out, in his nappy and vest for about 6.30. Put him to the boob, and thought, based on the last few nights, that I would keep him with me until he was well off. Anyway next thing I know, I wake up to see Jonathan sitting next to me on the bed, holding Robert (who was wide awake)! I'd fallen asleep, Jonathan had come home, put Robert in his cot, who had woken up 5 minutes later. So I fed him again, he fell asleep, I put him in his cot, and bam, awake again. Two times later, we decided to just take him downstairs. This was maybe around 8.30-9pm and we hadn't eaten yet, so we heated up some cottage pie, made some salad, and took it into the garden to eat (as it was warm, breezy and lovely out there at 9pm lol!) with Robert in his highchair, who helped us eat our salad.

Anyway long story short, he EVENTUALLY fell asleep at around 11.45pm. With Jonathan and I following behind shortly after. But he still woke up early, so he's had a lot less sleep than usual, and he's already down for his morning nap. And hoping that the crashing of the glass recycling people outside won't wake him up! Damn, it did.... Gah! Ah well, I'll just have to put him to bed really early tonight.

Anyway a busy day planned today - seeing Sarah, my neighbour this morning, staying at her's for lunch, and then we're all going to Messy Play this afternoon! I was hoping Robert would nap til gone 10am today but the stupid recycling lorry people changed that... Grrrr!

Anyway I will have to wrap this up quickly, but here's my clever little man who had pulled himself up to standing here....

And some little videos..



And finally a funny video, of Robert eating his usual lunch ;)