June 28, 2007 , 8:31 pm by nicky
Leila was asleep when it was time to pick Finn up this afternoon. I was tempted to leave her in bed while I went to get him, but I just know that the day I do that will be the day the house burns down with her in it. So I woke her. And that was my first mistake.
When we got to childcare Leila was drowsy so I left her in the car, since I have no fear of it burning down in the few minutes I’m away from it and I feel bad about shoving the baby in and out of her seat repeatedly. I was a little held up inside the centre talking to the kindergarten teacher, but I was gone for no more than 5 minutes and fully believed the baby was asleep the whole time. That was my second mistake.
The baby was, in fact, screaming her lungs out. And continued to do so on the trip home and for the next half hour until Mark got home.
There were 2 issues: Leila was hungry and she’s constipated. The first would have been easily rectified if there’d been any clean bottles, but there weren’t and the Little Princess had to suffer the indignity of waiting 10 minutes until they were washed, sterilised and the formula prepared. She made sure we knew that this was unacceptable.
The second issue is less easily fixed. The poor poppet has been trying to poo all day and suffering in the process. During one nappy change I watched the it get right to the point of exiting before the pain and effort became too much and Leila stopped trying. Much as I desperately want to ease her discomfort, there’s no quick fix and for the moment she will just have to suffer.
We are trying to help her. The formula Mark gave her was three quarters of the usual strength and later tonight I will try to the old wives’ remedy of some sugar in the bottle. If that doesn’t help I’ll either be on the phone to the maternal & child health nurse or into the chemist to see what they recommend. Afterall, painful poo is no laughing matter.
June 22, 2007 , 1:55 pm by nicky
In the last 24 hours Leila has become a champion sleeper.
Yesterday, after a shaky start, she slept for 3 hours in the middle of the day (after I had abandoned my attempts to nap). And woke up happy!
Then she slept from her 10pm feed last night until 7am this morning. And wasn’t very hungry when Mark tried to feed her!
Currently she’s been down for an hour and a half, but I think I just heard a squawk…
June 21, 2007 , 3:16 pm by nicky
Twice today I’ve tried to have a lie down while Leila was sleeping and I’m starting think that she’s psychic.
The first time I’d been in bed for about 10 minutes when she started to squawk. I tried to ignore her but within a couple minutes she was into full on screeching and I had to get up.
Just now I tried again. I only got as far as the bedroom door before she started to make waking up noises. I looked into her room and she seemed to be stirring so I abandoned the idea of my sleep and came into the study. There’s been silence from her room ever since.
Hello, this is Leila. I’m sitting on my mum’s lap dictating this post to her while she types.
I’ve just worked out how fascinating the computer screen is and I love sitting here looking at the internet with Mum. It’s so interesting that I will even stop grizzling when I’m tired or hungry if Mum sits me here with her.
I sit up well enough now that Mum can use both hands to type and just supports me between her forearms. It gets a bit awkward when I list to one side but then Mum straightens me up and off we go again.
Well I think it’s time for me to go now. I’m getting a bit squirming which means I’ve either got wind or I’m just a bit bored. Bye!
It’s been a bit of a tired and grumpy kind of day and I’d almost forgotten that today is The Little Princess’ 3 Month birthday. But not even the most tired and grumpy day could completely dim the joy that is her little princessness.
In the last few weeks the lights have well and truly come on for Leila and her personality is shining through. She is indeed a people person. She loves it when anyone talks to her and will coo and grin back at them to keep the conversation going for as long as possible. She loves to hang out with Finn while he plays with his trains, or with her dad while he’s on the computer and joins us for dinner most nights sitting in her rocker on the table. The flip side of this is that The Little Princess doesn’t like to think she’s alone. If things become too quiet there will be screeching until we let her know we’re still here.
Interacting more with the world also means playing with toys. Thus far the rings are the big winners, with the bird from her playgym coming a very, very close second. She will play, belting them with her hands and yelling, for ages.
The other good news is that Leila’s chuckiness has subsided and she keeps most of every feed down. I’m feeding her almost exclusively by bottle now and it’s only a matter of time before it’s all formula. I’m a little sad about this because I had wanted to feed her for 6 months, but she feeds best from the bottle and expressing enough to keep giving her breast milk is too time-consuming to maintain. I have no fears about giving her formula, though. Her big brother is living proof that it will be fine.
Our girl also continues to sleep well. Daytime naps are generally no more than an hour at a time. I would love it if she’d have a long nap and give me a couple of hours off, but I’m really not complaining. At night she usually sleeps for about 6 hours at a stretch and we occasionally get 7 or 8 hour blocks of sleep. We’ve got our fingers crossed that she’ll be sleeping through soon, but we won’t be surprised if it takes months to happen.
June 7, 2007 , 5:15 pm by nicky
The tongue perched between her lips and the almost crossed eyes show the effort she’s bringing to bear on this. In contrast her feet seem unconcerned as they rub together rhythmically.
The fingers of her right hand are creeping ever closer to the toy. She almost has it in her grasp until her left arm swings wildly and knocks it away. Her left hand captures her right, resulting in a tug of war. And epic battle ensues and ends suddenly with no clear winner.
Time to chew her fist as she gathers the energy to try again.
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