Oh Heavenly...

Oh the wonder of a child that sleeps through the night for two nights in a row! I feel we have finally turned a corner in the life of our precious boy. As mentioned previously, we haven't been sleeping well lately. Say, for the past fourteen months. Things had been particularly horrid of late, with night waking up to four or five times, only sleeping in our bed, needing to be fed to sleep. We have all been exhausted, and to be honest, a little stroppy.

A few weeks ago, John was (creepily, if you ask me) watching Alex sleep one night, and noticed that he was often hitting his head and limbs on the sides of the cot, which then woke him up. We decided to look into cot bumpers, somewhat trepidatiously on my part, due to the big no-no they have from SIDS and Kids. Nonetheless, I couldn't be convinced to part with $100 for a piece of foam that barely covered two sides of the cot. I hence decided to sew my own...

This was ambitious for me, being that my last sewing efforts were in year eight home ec, and they were, quite frankly, shite. However, a cot bumper proved to be quite straight-forward, even without a pattern. Stay tuned for my how-to guide and photos of the end result.

Anyway, the cot bumpers are almost done, except for some prettying up I need to finish, and they have been a revolution. I put them in his cot on Wednesday, and that night, he slept through the night for the first time since he was about two months old (when he slept through the night twice in a row). And again, last night, he slept through. I barely know what to do with myself.

Of course, we have also made some other changes which I'm sure have been of assistance. We've recently switched to one sleep a day, instead of two. I no longer breastfeed him at night; he now enjoys a cup of milk. I read to him and sing a few songs before we head to his cot. We have started telling him that it's "almost sleepy time" an hour beforehand. We try not to hype him up too close to bed time (Daddy's mostly to blame for this...).

So life feels so easy right now. I know I shouldn't count my chickens or eggs or anything yet, but I can't help it.

The sad part is that I have now inadvertently completely weaned Alex from breastfeeding! I meant to have John take a picture of him feeding before we reached this point, but it has kind of happened without me realising. I believe we have gone about two or three days without a breastfeed now, but as I said, it kind of happened without me realising, so I can't remember when I last fed him.

I will miss that special bond we had, but onto the next phase, I guess. On a bonus note, no more nanna bras! I actually fit into my old bras again, and as a result of losing about six kilos in the last two months, I actually fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes. Woohoo! I still have another kilo until I'm pre-Alex weight, and would still like to lose another seven after that, but happy with the hard work paying off right now.

So hoping tonight will be another fabulous night's sleep!

Up on my high horse...

I've been reading a lot in the media of late about encouraging mothers to breastfeed longer, which then brings out a whole bunch of people saying, "I tried, but breastfeeding didn't work for me". The uppity-judgemental part of me can't help but say "slacker". While breastfeeding is such a natural action, it is challenging, but it shocked me to read that only 14% of babies are breastfed at six months. Fourteen percent!! Do people not understand how vital breastmilk is to their child?? How could anyone give their tiny baby something made in a lab instead of the wonderful nutritious milk your body was designed to give them??

So that's my judgemental side. I know every mother has her reasons for using formula, be it returning to work (valid), illness (valid), lack of education (read a pamphlet, bogan), or just pure laziness (see previous comment). I just can't believe more mothers aren't listening to the WHO breastfeeding recommendations. Crazy.

I've been breastfeeding Alex for over thirteen months now, and I do feel the pressure to wean him. People tell me I've done a "great job" to breastfeed as long as I have. That makes me wonder why it's such an achievement. I see it as a purely biological need that I provide for my son. I don't see it as anything special. Baby need food. I have breast that provides food. I give food to baby. That's not to say it hasn't been difficult to keep feeding him sometimes. The first six weeks sucked. I hated that I needed to use a nipple shield, and I guess if I didn't feel the importance of breastfeeding, I may have given up and given him formula. Actually, the thought of giving up never occurred to me, as much as I did end up in tears from time to time.

However after Alex and I both hit our stride, it was fine. We have had a down patch a while ago with the biting, but even that has passed now. I really do understand that some people need to use formula, and I really don't judge them (well, some of them), particularly after bubs are over six months. I just don't think I'm doing anything unusual by continuing to breastfeed.

A family friend (who had given up breastfeeding early and switched to formula) was trying to encourage me a while ago to go to formula so I could regain my independence. That left me thoroughly flummoxed. I gave birth to my child, I am wholly responsible for his well-being. People, including my darling husband, often tell me I should take a break from Alex occasionally. If I had wanted an accessory that I could pass off to someone whenever I was tired, bored, and whatever, I would have gotten a dog. My child's well-being is so much more important to me than my "independence".

My Mummy raised the three of us girls on farms with no family support, and complete isolation. She didn't have the option of "taking a break". While I appreciate the times when I can leave Alex with John or his grandparents, and go shopping by myself, or go out for a nice dinner, I don't see my son as a burden, and I never feel like I need a break from him. Taking care of him, and providing him breastmilk, is my job, and a job I love.

That being said, there does need to be more education for women before they have a child to prepare them for the hard slog that breastfeeding can be. I was chatting with a friend a while ago who is in the midst of research for her PhD on post-natal depression, who said that every single mother she has spoken to, some who had suffered PND and some not, felt like a failure at some point due to breastfeeding. We're led to believe that it is a "natural" process, so it really is shocking to discover it takes hard work, pain, dedication, bleeding nipples, a complete loss of dignity, and the ability to sort through the crap every single person tries to tell you about the "right way to breastfeed".

I think I was shown about fifty different ways to breastfeed before we'd even left the hospital, and none of them worked. I had, however, a sister who used to be a counsellor for the ABA, and who had had her own troubles establishing feeding, so I was pretty prepared for most of it, and knew if I could just get through the horrid phase, it would be okay. I was still in tears by the night we got home from the hospital, because I couldn't feed my son properly.

While I was prepared for the pain and discomfort, it was still disappointing that my body wouldn’t do what it was supposed to. Particularly when I developed mastitis when Alex was two weeks old. I almost felt like a failure that I was too sick to get up and look after my son, and felt the fact I had mastitis was my fault for not being able to breastfeed properly.

I have a little problem that I don’t like to be told how to do things. I like to get it right the first time, and I take it personally when someone gives me advice, however well-meaning it may be. I hence took it personally when the lactation specialist we were seeing gave me a pile of literature on mastitis, and reading through it, I was clearly doing a lot of the things one was not supposed to do. I couldn’t help but feel judged. Of course, one might argue that the information may have been handier before I started to develop the mastitis.

After all of that, I can imagine how easy it would be for someone to quit when the going gets tough. And of course there are people where breastfeeding is so traumatic that it is detrimental to their mental health. I just can’t help wondering that if only there was more education then breastfeeding for more than a few weeks or months wouldn’t be considered a rarity.

He can walk!

Yes, Alex has finally started walking! He has been able to walk quite confidently holding only one hand for a few weeks now, so we knew it wasn't far away, and lo and behold, the other night he finally let go of the lounge and started walking. He's still a little wobbly, and quite often falls forward, but our little boy is definitely not a baby anymore.

The funniest thing is that he keeps clapping himself as soon as he lets go, probably copying us clapping him, but it's quite cute. He frequently loses his balance due to his clapping.

He hasn't progressed much with his speech in the last week or so, but his favourite word is still "go". He loves to shout it when we're stopped at the traffic lights and they turn green, or any time we see anything with Diego on it. His other favourite word is "gone", usually coupled with his hands turned out, and usually straight after throwing his cup/sandwich/dinner onto the floor from his high chair. He is working on "bird", "grandma/grandpa", "pop" and "nan", but at the moment, they're really only recognisable by us.

We're still struggling with sleep, but the last few nights haven't been too bad. The last two nights, he only work once or twice before ten pm, but then slept through until morning. And, shock horror, we didn't have the usual two hour screaming episode before he went to sleep tonight. I feel so much more relaxed right now. I still haven't slept the last few nights, even if he has. I think my brain and body are still constantly on edge, waiting for him to start crying.

We have also realised that one of the reasons he does wake up is because he hits his head on the side or end of the cot. So we have decided to invest in a cot bumper. I want to get one to hopefully help with his sleeping, and potential head injuries, but part of me still has the "cot bumpers are evil" message ringing out, even though they are allegedly safe for over twelve month olds. I guess I need to decide if I can let those fears go, or if I want him to continue getting his limbs stuck in the side of the cot, or constantly bumping his noggin.

I might need to do some more research!