What a lovely day! A time to celebrate Mummies everywhere! But it’s an increasingly complicated affair in the modern world. In my life, for example, it is not as straightforward as sending a card to my mum. I have one mother, one mother-in-law, one stepmother and one remaining grandmother. I have cross-stitched one card, written three more and organised the children to make their own contributions as well. Today I will be placing orders for flower deliveries to two of them.
I’m sure I’ll get a few cards as well. My two have both been busy making cards at school and nursery. My daughter has produced the usual nursery handprint affair (I saw them in the pile waiting to be sent home to the Mummies). My son is struggling between his desire to keep it secret and the urge to blurt out all the details of the creations waiting to be released from school and after-school club.
He also has big plans for gifts (which he writes in elaborate detail on copious scraps of paper that I rescue from his trouser pockets on their way to the washing machine) – so I am waiting with great interest to see if he has been able to source “a masheen to do the ioning” or “a robot to do Mummys job so she can play with me” or even “magick flowers that stay pink or red and dont go broun”… I’ll let you know…
My (skinny, waif-like) son has swimming lessons every week, which he mostly enjoys. He is doing well. But he has been begging me to stop going because he gets so cold on the short walk from pool to changing room that he can’t actually speak when he reaches me and his lovely warm towel. He is not allowed to wear any kind of neoprene swim suit because that gives too much buoyancy. We tried having clothes next to the pool, but he failed in the struggle to get anything onto his wet little self. We even tried a lovely but expensive pull-over towel wrap, but he was just too frozen to manage it.
Fortunately there is a solution on the horizon. Isobel has been creating again and we are expecting to have our first consignment of ‘Splashas‘ in time for Easter. They are absolutely fab front-opening towelling beach-wraps, loosely based on the popular wrapture design. I have bagsied the first two (because toddler daughter will have to have one when she sees big brother’s, and the twins are already using the prototypes). But you can buy all the rest.
Hopefully they’ll put an end to my son turning navy blue and crying with cold every week.
OK, so I know the problem for most people is how on earth to keep going with the breastfeeding for the 6 months or a year that they originally set as a target for themselves, and I spend a lot of time helping and supporting new Mums with breastfeeding difficulties. But what do you do at the other end of the spectrum, when you want to stop, but your baby just doesn’t?
This is my current dilemma. My happy, healthy, potty-training, chatty 2-and-a-quarter year old WON’T STOP!! And I’m fed up with the whole thing. There is a lot of advice out there on internet forums, mostly to the effect of “Why stop? If the child wants it then continue”, or alternatively the “breastfeeding beyond a year is perverted” school of thought. Neither of which is especially helpful. The WHO advice is to continue to age 3!!
My son lost interest in the breast at 16 months. As a premmie, I kept the feeding going throughout 8 weeks of SCBU (expressing etc), and was keen to keep it up as long as possible. I was perfectly happy with 16 months, and I imagined my full-term relatively enourmous (7lb) daughter would be about the same. How wrong I was!
I was initially a bit squeamish about the idea of breastfeeding a walking toddler, but since she walked at 12 months and was feeding 4 times a day, I soon got used to it. But as time has gone on, and she is now perfectly capable of unbuttoning my top and asking with perfect diction “Mummy sit on sofa NOW please; me want boobie!”, it is becoming a pain.
I have received several suggestions; paint my nipples with the stuff you use to stop nailbiters (!)… pinch her repeatedly when she feeds (!!)… eat vast amounts of garlic to ‘taint’ the milk… but frankly none of these really appeal. So I’m a bit stuck. Any good ideas anyone?
If you’ve read our ‘about us’ page on the website, you’ll know that Isobel and I met over the hot-cots in SCBU at Milton Keynes Hospital in August 2003. My little boy had been born at the end of July, at 32 weeks, and her twin girls were transferred in from Addenbrookes in Cambridge a short while later; they were born at 30 weeks in early August. SCBU is a pretty traumatic experience for everyone involved, and we are asked about it all the time – “How did you cope?”… “Was it awful?” etc.
One in nine babies are born prematurely, or sick, in the UK according to Bliss, the premature baby charity. That’s around 80,000 annually. So I thought I’d write a bit about our experiences in SCBU, as parents, and mine as a doctor (I was a junior doctor in paediatrics at the time) as well. I kept a diary throughout our 2 month stay, but most of it is permanently burned into my brain anyway…
My 2 year old daughter had her first nightmare a few nights ago; well, I say that, but what I mean is that she had the first one that she was then able to put into words as she tearfully explained about the dinosaurs coming to get her. She woke at about 3am, very upset and agitated, and wailing “Go ‘way t-rex!” I was quite surprised (by her extensive dinosaur vocabulary as much as anything else), until my 6 year old dinosaur fanatic told me next day that he’d ‘helped’ persuade her to go to bed the previous evening by warning her that unless she went upstairs right away, his toy dinosaurs would eat her. He has quite a collection of dinosaurs, and had been teaching her the names while I ran their bath. At 3am I heard how “steg’aurus chase me an’ tri’tops bite me an’ me cry”. Her logical conclusion was that she must now come to Mummy’s bed because Mummy would keep the dinosaurs away. I was not really in a fit state to debate this at the time, so we snuggled up together and semi-conscious Daddy grudgingly made room for us.
Three nights later she woke again apparently quite distressed and rambling about dinosaurs, so I allowed her into bed with us again. She settled down within seconds and slept peacefully spreadeagled across at least three-quarters of the kingsize mattress. It was only when I heard her reporting to big brother in the morning that “me slept in Mummy’s bed an’ YOU didn’t” that I realised I’d been had…
I love the baby show. Despite the ridiculously early morning start and having to smile inanely all day, I still really enjoy it. Today (and the rest of this weekend) we have been at The Baby Show at London Excel, our first show of 2010. I have handed out countless leaflets, sold a vast number of hoodies, and happily people-watched all day long. My feet hurt, my mouth is still dry and I keep falling asleep on the sofa as I type, and I feel as though I have done a proper day’s work. I have to say I’m quite relieved that I’m not doing the last day of the show, though; back in the days of just one child I was there with the others for all three days, but it has become rather more complicated of late, so I can rarely manage more than one of two days (a rubbish excuse though, since Isobel and Chris manage it with twins…).
We went to our first baby show at the Birmingham NEC, SIX years ago now, when we were a brand new company. We had a decorators table, a blue sheet and about 200 hoodies all in baby pink, baby blue and beige. Terry Wogan announced on the radio, as we drove up in the van for our first venture into actually selling our invention, that ‘Hoodies’ had been banned from the Bluewater shopping centre. It wasn’t looking good. But then we found our teeny stand, opposite a very large (though sadly now extinct) baby company, and it was lying bathed in a shaft of sunlight with everything around in near darkness. Suddenly we all felt much more positive, and we were right to.
The weekend was a huge success; we sold almost all our stock, and loved the experience. Nowadays, we have so many different colour and fabric options I lose track, we have the wraptures as well, more products all the time and we have become much slicker. The shows are still something we really look forward to – the opportunity to meet our customers face to face – and some time away from the office! So we love it despite the bone-numbing exhaustion.
Love them? Hate them? Not sure? Well despite the fact that I spend most of my life in front of one, I’m not feeling too fond of them right now.
My old PC recently caught a blue screen bug and died, so I replaced it with a beautiful new (red) Dell laptop, which I absolutely adore. In the interim, when I was computerless (at home anyway) I felt bereft; it was like losing a limb. I hadn’t realise how much I depended on the thing. But I could still get my fix at work. In the few lulls between surgeries I was able to check the weather (snow), my back account (ailing), facebook (horribly addictive) etc.
Anyway, my husband was delighted to be seeing more of the real me in the evenings, and since I had a fortnight before the laptop was delivered, I got out of the habit of switching the computer on as soon as the children were in bed, and I’ve been much more restrained ever since.
Today I am not feeling quite so happy with the computer-domination of my existence. I have just arrived to start morning surgery, to find that our patient system is down. This means that I can’t access anyone’s results, see any of their past records, or have any idea in advance of why they might be coming to see me. It also means I haven’t a hope of running my surgery on time, and worse than anything else, I’m going to have toWRITE THINGS DOWN! Years of computer use means I can barely write anyway, and tomorrow, when hopefully the computers will be working again, I’ll have to decipher my scrawl and try to remember what on earth I was thinking, so I can keep the computer records up to date.
Computers are like husbands; often quite useful, but right now I just hate them!
How many times are you expected to exclaim in delight about the poo your 2 year old is proudly carrying around in her potty to show everyone, and absolutely refusing to let go until every soft toy has waved it a fond farewell? “Yes you are a clever girl… yes, VERY clever… shall we flush it away now?… No? Oh right, duck hasn’t seen it yet…” was beginning to be muttered through gritted teeth by the fifteenth time.
Thank goodness for big brothers; “Eeeeuuurrrgh! That’s disgusting! Get rid of it you stinky baby!” did the trick instantly; the very welcome flush was perhaps 8 seconds later. All those earnest moments trying to be suitably encouraging, gently persuading, trying to ‘empower’ the toddler were completely pointless – I think I’ll let big brother potty train her from now on…
Smarties are the absolute favourite with my daughter (closely followed by Percy Pigs from M&S; I convince myself that being ‘all natural’ offsets the fact that they are after all, still pretty much pure sugar). So when Isobel showed me the prototypes of the new ‘Chocolate Smartie’ Wrapture last month, I was pretty sure she’d love it. And now she won’t take the thing off.
Tonight she announced “Me Pincess Marty Pants”, and completed the outfit with her plastic sparkly tiara, precariously perched in her flossy baby hair. As I write, she is asleep in bed, still in this fetching ensemble (she eventually agreed to put on her pyjamas, but kept a tight grip on the wrapture the whole time). It has yoghurt all over the front, so I shall have to rescue it for a wash before nursery tomorrow (thank goodness for machine-washable fur!). I love toddlers.
Not sure why, but last week seemed to be the week for colicky babies. So many of the little darlings came to see me that I began to feel as though all the world had colic. Those poor parents, instantly recognisable by the dark circles and the baffled look of “why me?”, and the little ones sleeping angelically in their carseats, as though they had not been up screaming for 6 straight hours the previous evening, and every evening for the past 3 weeks…
To cut a long story short, I gave a lot of advice, even more heartfelt sympathy, and felt rather lucky to have those days far behind me. But I do still vividly remember the horror of it all. For the suffering parents (the baby will be fine, it’s you I’m worried about), here’s what to remember during the long hours of pacing; repeat it like a mantra…
It’s not my fault
It’s not just my baby that does this
It won’t last forever
The baby will be fine
One day (usually when the baby is about 12 weeks old), they suddenly stop screaming, and start becoming the baby you always assumed you’d get. In the meantime, walking around with the baby cuddled upright against your shoulder helps, as does very gentle baby massage. Over the counter medication for colic helps you feel as though you are DOING something, but probably makes no difference whatsoever to the baby. And the only cure is time. Sorry.
