First of all, my tiniest boy, Christopher. He was 4 weeks old on Saturday! I can't believe it! Part of me is still on my babymoon. I LOVE LOVE LOVE that tiny boy, and his big brother too of course! It is back to some sort of normality here now, with Jonathan being back at work (starting his third week back after Christopher was born), and had the majority of my family and Jonathan's come to see Christopher. My mum spent a week up here after Jonathan went back to work. I don't know whether it was because she was stressed with everything going on with HER mum, or the fact that PND so far has skipped me by (hurrah!!!), or the fact that she had hurt her thumb, has a brace on it and therefore the amount of practical help she could offer me was diminished, or what, but the week with her around got a bit wearing towards the end of it, and I can totally imagine how she felt having her mum staying with them for so long. Little things that you can put up with if you just see someone for a few hours become very annoying and less easy to ignore! But overall the week made me sure that looking after my two little boys would be completely do-able.
I had one day, the day after we got home with Christopher, where I felt that icky ball of anxiety in my stomach about the prospect of looking after two boys, but since then I have been fine! So I'm guessing I had a spate of the baby blues then, but after that day it lifted, and still thoroughly enjoying my two boys!
At 11 days old Christopher was weighed for the 3rd time, and he'd regained his birth weight. He is now 4 weeks and 2 days old, and he feels like such a little lump to me! His cheeks are puffed out, he's got an iddy biddy double chin coming on, and his legs, which were somewhat wrinkled and skinny, are now much fatter and squishy :)
He has long since outgrown the few "early" or "tiny" baby clothes he had, and is filling out newborn quite well! I'm actually panicking a bit because my mum bought him a load of newborn outfits, which it looks like he's not going to wear very much before he outgrows them!! They still feel fairly baggy on him, but the sleepsuits don't have much room left lengthwise - he seems like a very long baby! And indeed, Wednesday afternoon, Sarah and Clodagh came around (Kieran was in nursery), and we held the two babies next to each other - Clodagh, who was born 8 days before Christopher, weighing over 2lb more, and who has outgrown newborn clothes and now into 0-3 month clothes, looked the same size as Christopher, lengthwise at least! But I'm guessing she was chunkier!! I couldn't believe it!!! Christopher isn't going to be weighed again until 3rd November, which is the second Health Visitor appointment, when he'll be 5 weeks and 4 days old.
Christopher is a very calm baby still, he cries very rarely, only when he's hungry and wants a cuddle. He seems to be a baby who doesn't mind being in a wet nappy, which is good because he pees LOADS.. I change him probably 5-6 times a day, and each time his nappy is quite heavy with wee... if he was more fussy, I could imagine that I'd be changing him 10+ times a day or more! He saves all his poos for maybe 2 nappies a day, when he'll do LOADS in one go haha!
I'm very lucky to have such a good milk supply this time. I do find myself needing a cloth to put on my arm before I feed him, because he gets so much milk, he often pulls off, gulping down what must be a huge mouthful of milk in several smaller gulps, while my milk is pouring out of my nipple and onto my clothes/down his face, plus some leaking out of his mouth as well! I never had that to the same extent with Robert, but I guess tandem feeding means my supply is greater from the get go.
4 weeks on and I'm not even contemplating bottle feeding anytime soon, I think it must be going well. I remember with Robert I was on the verge of formula feeding by 2 weeks old, was pulling my hair out with the pain and the bad latch, and the cluster feeding, which must have been made worse by my PND/PTSD. This time with no pain (although I can tell his latch isn't perfect, and it could be better, and I know when he has latched on perfectly - very rare but I don't mind as he is getting plenty of milk I know, and I have no pain), the cluster feeds can be wearing, as can the lack of sleep (Christopher, unlike his brother who did 5-6 hours at night between feeds from the get-go, is good if he goes 3 hours between feeds), and the cluster feeding and night-time is when I am most likely to lose my rag, although I've never had the want to lose my rag with Christopher, again, unlike with Robert.
I do find myself thinking in a way, it's such a shame I didn't have the knowledge of Robert's breastfeeding experiences, the knowledge and experience of taking care of Robert etc, before having Robert. I almost wrote without having Robert, rather than before having Robert, but that's not true, I don't wish I didn't have Robert of course, but I know that with Robert I had the PND, from what I remember he was a needier baby than Christopher, or maybe everything's just so much easier this time because I "know babies" this time. I feel that I would be so relaxed if it were just Christopher and me, but at the same time, I love the fact that Christopher is so calm and that I CAN do things with Robert while Christopher is asleep. I hope that has made some sense and won't be mis-interpretted by anyone! I guess in a nutshell I mean that I am finding Christopher such an easy baby to take care of, despite the sleep thing and the cluster feeding, it's a shame he wasn't my first baby! But then the fact that I didn't have the experience of babies and breastfeeding might make it more difficult if that makes sense!!
Anyway! Onto the Big Brother! It's becoming easier and easier to think of Robert as such, seeing the two of them together. Every day I look at Robert now and marvel at how tall he is, how grown up his mannerisms are, how cheeky, how scrummy, how BIG he is. When he comes up to me and asks me for "gah-gee", then lays down with his head on my lap while he nurses, it boggles me how only his head and shoulders lay on my lap, and how his body fills up almost the rest of the sofa! And to think he was once a tiny baby who could fit lengthways along my thighs almost completely is just crazy... how sad in a way you don't notice that one day they are suddenly a cheeky independant TALL little boy when they were once a tiny helpless dependant baby.
I often find he has helped himself to fruit from the dining table while I've been upstairs changing Christopher's nappy, or making Robert lunch, or doing household chores... I came in today to find he'd almost demolished an apple he'd got while I was in the kitchen making him a sandwich.
One of the main challenges I will find myself trying to overcome, is spending enough time doing something fun each day with Robert. I desperately want to make sure that he is not being left to his own devices all day every day while I try and stay on top of the washing up, laundry (the only housework I really prioritise to be honest, vacuuming the carpet comes third but everything else only gets done when/if I have time), and feed/change/cuddle Christopher. At the moment it is not too difficult, as Christopher sleeps for fairly long stretches during the day, but I know as the months roll on, Christopher will become more needy, and I will need to find things to keep him entertained at the same time. Last week though I managed to do a painting session with Robert during one of Christopher's naps. He and I both thoroughly enjoyed it!
I think the trick for me not becoming stressed is to make sure I have everything I will need to hand, not only for during the painting, but afterwards, for the cleaning up as well, before we even start. While Robert watched with interest (it was pretty much an unplanned treat - Robert found his arts and crafts box, and I suddenly fancied doing painting with him!) while I set up his table (put a waterproof sheet underneath for paint splashes/dropped implements, covered his table with newspaper), got some white card from upstairs (a handful incase he wanted to do more than one sheet), got a bucket of warm soapy water and put it on the waterproof sheet next to the table, and got a plastic plate, a brush, a foam brush and a foam roller from the box, and then I went and found an old stained white t-shirt, tied it so the neck wasn't loose around Robert's, and then finally set him loose on the paint!
He really enjoyed it, loved using the brush, and in particular the roller, which he called his "car", and loved driving it across the paper!
Several sheets of paper later, I showed him (as his hands were already very mucky) that he could use his fingers and hands to make prints on the paper, which he enjoyed very much too :)
Of course it wasn't long before some got on his face! And when I said "Oh no, look at your face!" he immediately put his hand once again to his face and made it messier!! Haha!
I'm so glad that Christopher stayed asleep for the painting session. Seven sheets of card later, Robert was showing signs of getting bored with painting, picking the roller up and spinning it in mid air to watch the paint flick off, etc. So I got him to wash his hands in the bucket, (I put his "car" in there as well for him to help clean) while I washed my hands, and his face, and gave the plate, brushes and foam roller a quick rinse over as well. He objected a bit to having to stop, but was easily distracted while I cleaned up, and put everything away.
I want to try and make that a regular activity for us to do. And think of more as well! He really enjoys playdough as well, which I did with him in the week my mum spent with us. And we've bought some playdough cutters, a rolling pin, and there's a cutting implement as well in the box, as well as some rolls of "soft stuff" which I wasn't too fussed about - I like making my own playdough - but it came in with the cutters.
I want to try and do some cooking with him too - set out with easy things, like rice crispie cakes, and go on to more complicated things like fairy cakes, rock buns, etc. It's so lovely doing things with him now he's older and more appreciative of activities like that. But also lovely things to do would be nature walks, trying to find and collect things while out and about, which we could then incorporate in artwork maybe!
One thing I'm not looking forward to in the coming weeks is Robert's 2 year review at the hospital. At his 18 month one, the doctor was quite plain in that he thought Robert's speech (and therefore maybe his hearing) wasn't up to scratch. I was confident he'd improve - which he has - just not as much as I'd have hoped. He occasionally uses two word sentences, mainly out of habit though than spontenaity. Things like "tv please" - tv was once "ee-eeeee" and has now degenerated into "YAYAY" (it's usually shouted), and please is "izzzziz". His vocabulary has increased but is still mostly unrecognisable to strangers. His main recognisable words are "car" "more" "mama" "dada" "nah-nah" (for banana) and then his animal noises, most of which are surprisingly accurate!
As most two year olds are capable of saying 3 word sentences, I'm pretty sure that assuming we see the same doctor again, Robert will be referred to have his hearing checked (there's nothing wrong with his hearing that we can tell, he understands everything we say to him) and then possibly speech therapy. Oh, and co-incidentally, Alice, it's not looking good, Robert has less than a month to start saying 3 word sentences before you have to eat your hat! Here's hoping that it won't be long before he is saying more, I'm confident that it won't be too much longer before he's starting on sentences, but I am a little concerned about his pronounciations. We'll just have to wait and see what the doctor says when we see them in less than 2 weeks time.
Anyway, one last photo before I attempt to get both the boys ready and out the house for an hour or so... Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed recording it. :)
