Easter eggs

An eventful Easter holiday for the family Yang.
So far, the controlled crying has been going very well. A typical evening now consists of a 7.30pm feed and afterwards into the cot still awake. A few minutes of fussing and then she sleeps for anything up to 6 hours. Another feed at between 12am to 2.30am and she’ll happily go back to sleep until 5am. Then she cries and we either respond with more feeding or, and this has been our preference – we leave her to cry until she stops and wakes up again – so far not later than 6am. Not too bad and quite manageable.
We have also begun trying solids with a few teaspoons of very dilute baby rice. The first two days were just a messy game, but by day three, she did actually swallow three spoonfuls. According to all the guidebooks, this is very normal and in fact at this age, 2 teaspoons is more than adequate. It’ll take several more weeks of trying and then offering new tastes gradually. What we also found is that her desire for milk has increased also (probably since she now feeds less at night). I’ve bought a nice baby recipe book and am looking forward to the challenge of making new foods.
All was going so swimmingly that we were on a roll, so I thought we should try our luck with controlled crying during the day. Usually, this is a big problem as Aimee is used to being carried on her baby carrier all day or at least amused by a variety of toys and swings. If she sleeps, it is very short naps. But yesterday I put her down when I thought she was tired but the poor mite screamed for over an hour. Finally, Cat could stand it no more and checked on her, only to find a nappy full of poo. Oh boy, did we feel bad.
Not only that, but last night, she woke up at 2am and screamed until 5am, because (a) she expected a 2am feed, but got none, and (b) she thought we would pick her up since that is what we did during the day.
So I am at work, bleary eyed but in retrospect, a successful long weekend.

Fairy Magic

Wow!
Cat ran in to the living room with Aimee (where I am sleeping - or trying to if my neighbour isn;t having late night parties) this morning and shouted LOOK!
I looked at Aimee and sure enough, the tooth fairy had visited and produced a tiny little front incisor on her lower jaw. It was just visible enough to be sure that it had broken through the gum line. amazing - a real pivotal moment in Aimee's development. She also seemed most calm and fed from Cat's breast without any of her usual fussing and whimpering.
I tried to take a photo but it's too small and Aimee too unwilling to cooperate.

I guess out teething honeymoon will be shortlived as she has plenty more to pop through, with the accompanying tetchiness and discomfort. But it's lovely to see her develop so fast.

Cry baby - Day 3

Night 3 of our controlled crying experiment was far more successful. Aimee fed well at 7.30pm and Cat put her down in the cot around 8.20pm. A short spell of fussing and crying and she fell asleep by 8.40pm and calm silence pretty much all night. Apart from a brief spell of fussiness at 2.30am when Cat decided to feed her and Aimee’s gums must have played up as a result. But it was very brief and she fell back to sleep until 7am. So not bad really. If it weren’t for poor Aimee’s teething pains, I’m pretty sure she would sleep ever better, but we can’t complain. This is so much better than last week, where Cat would have to feed her to sleep practically every hour in the night.This morning, Aimee was alert but very distracted with her gums. I placed a cooled teething dummy into her mouth and she chewed on it with gusto. In fact she was smiling as she was chewing which makes a slightly odd face. But other than that, she seemed fine and dandy.

Weight Gain everything

Weight gain despite everything!
Cat just went to get Aimee weighed. At almost 5 months old, she is a goodly 15Lbs5oz (7.03Kg) which is average for her age, not too big not too small. This small piece of news is heaven to our ears. Because Aimee had been such a brief to almost non-existent daytime feeder, we wondered if her health was suffering. Clearly, those nightly feeds were enough to sustain her growth. Now, it is a matter of reducing the night feeds with controlled crying and hopefully, she will feed more in the daytime.
Three comments the midwife made to Cat:
One – she was amazed that Aimee was such a healthy weight for a purely breastfed baby – that’ll be Cat’s rich milk supply again.
The second comment was ‘Oh, your baby is teething’. Well we did kind of suspect that she was teething but the midwife spotted it immediately. She said that was why Aimee only fed for short periods during the day. The third comment was – we should start her on solids very soon. Don’t leave it beyond six months. Blimey – surely this was counter to what many books I have read have said. So we have decided to give a bit of baby rice over Easter and see what happens. A lot of mess I imagine!

Cry baby- day two

Day two of our controlled crying experiment.
We put Aimee down at 8pm, fed and drowsy but not asleep. She cried for about 10 minutes then blissful silence. Cat and I congratulated ourselves for a job well done. Aimee had other plans. At 9.30pm she woke and screamed the house down for one whole hour. We followed out 5,10,15…minute soothing intervals but it was so tough. Every cry, every yell, every scream tore at our hearts. We questioned ourselves at every second. But when she stopped, we looked in and she seemed so peacefully asleep.
We decided that she should still have a midnight top-up feed and I woke her up at midnight. She fussed a bit but fed well. When I put her down, the crying began again. I honestly could not do it anymore and almost at the point where I picked her up, she stopped. It took only ten minutes and she fell back to sleep for 6 hours.
But the instinctive feeling that it is cruel and horrid never leaves our minds. A scan on the internet this morning was didn’t help the guilt with endless debates by ‘experts’ both pro and against the practice. This morning she seemed a bit clingy and distracted but still smiley and ‘chatty’. I hope we have not done any lasting mental harm. I am reserving judgement at the moment about whether it is working. Tonight we’ll prepare for the same. Consistency is the key for any technique, we can’t back out now.

Wah Wah pedal from hell

It's been a tough few weeks for Cat and I.Aimee has been waking up every two hours during the night and we both have been walking around like zombies as a result.Part of the blame lies with me. Apparently I am a noisy sleeper, with my snores, grunts and turning around, it doesn;t take much and Aimee wakes up. So I have been relegated to the futon in the living room. I don;t mind if it means I and Cat get a little more sleep but no, Aimee still wakes up and cannot go back to sleep. So, in order to calm her, Cat feeds her. This was fine until the last week, when Aimee fed so much during the night, she showed no interest to feed during the day. Worse, she now associated her night feeds with sleep and could only sleep whilst on the breast.She would scream and fuss and whinge until she got her feed and then continue to fuss. Cat and I realised, that despite our best efforts at denying her the use of a dummy, she had the next best thing - Cat's nipple!
So last night, out of sheer desperation, we did something we thought we would never do - controlled crying. The nemesis of all parenting techniques. Basically, it means letting your baby cry until she realises she can;t have what she want and makes herself go to sleep. It is not for the faint hearted. Each five minutes or so, you go in to reassure her, but you do not pick her up. Some horror stories talk of 3hour stints of intense crying. Before, Cat and I could not bear to hear her cry for longer than five minutes. When it is your own, you are instinctively programmed to respond within seconds to your baby crying. Last night,we went for it, and after a good feed, Cat put her in the cot and left the room. Of course Aimee started fussing, which
turned to yelling, which turned to screaming, which turned into the final level - BANSHEE HELL CRY!!!! It is awful. But me and Cat looked at each other and vowed to keep a strong front - with her entering every five minutes to hush to her. We were almost at our wits end desperate to pick her up when, after fifteen minutes of heelish cries, she stopped, whimpered and then went silent. She was asleep. I couldn't believe it. Only fifteen minutes?? Surely we had been let off too easily. We sat in the kitchen, waiting for the next installment. But there was none, bar a couple of sleepy whimpers, which was normal.
We have to do this for until Aimee can fall asleep under her own steam without any aids (feeding, rocking, music etc). It can be done, the books lead us to beleive that it almost always works. But it takes resolves of steel. We are hopeful of it working in the average three days it takes most others. But it does warn that it could take seven.
But the benefits are plenty. Mainly, that both Aimee and us get a decent night's sleep. But also that she doesn't use the breastfeeding or anything else as a sleep aid, which could cause us
big problems later on. As a result, we hope that a good night, means a good day with less whingeing and fussing and more feeding.
Hopefully it will lead to a drop of night feeding altogether.
Fingers crossed and hands over the ears.xx

Grandpa Yang says something amusing to Aimee!

Miracles and mayhem

Been a bit slack on the blogging front so apologies first off.

Well, Aimee spent a week with Cat at her grandfolks in MK, leaving me to enjoy a whole week of proper sleep and evenings doing stuff I used to do before parenthood. In MK, it was a good opportunity to bond with her Aunties Janet and Sarah.

Aimee has been back for a few days now and unfortunately, is not sleeping very well - day or night. It could be teething, it could be hunger (she is currently going through a phase of breast-rejection), it could be anything. So far, we have tried every trick in the book and beyond. It is so hard to deal with a very wakeful but tetchy baby at 4am. Anyway, Cat and I think that my snoring is waking her up so I will try sleeping in the other room. In any case, it won;t be long before she is put in her own room and we begin feeding her solids - two things that may help change her bahaviour to more manageable conditions.

But it is not all hard luck news. Aimee is maturing cognitively at an astonishing rate. Her facial expressions and reactions to things - usually me - are a constant source of amusement. Last night, I put her on her belly and beckoned her to crawl. She was in hysterics with laughter and joy. Amazing!

In other news, Cat's mothers-group friend Jennifer called to say that the Gina Ford book (the one we hate so much) we lent her has worked wonders. He rlittle five month old used to feed every two hours - DAY AND NIGHT. This was causing her considerable distress and she asked Cat for the book as a desperate resort. Lo and behold, she called to say the routines it gives worked a miracle and her baby boy slept for 7 hours non-stop last night - the first time in five months he has ever had more than 2 hours sleep. So...miracles do happen. We might have to eat our words soon and resort to Gina and her 7am open the curtains routine.


Image courtesy of Janet's planet

Wide Awake Again!!!

The Little One decided to have one of her manic episodes last night. After a difficult feed, she slept on and off from 10.30pm until about 2am. Then, that was it, screaming, laughing, napping, crying, yelling until 9am. Poor Cat got zero sleep and I decided the living room couch would give me a few hours respite, but it was not to be, I could still hear her and was unable to sleep.It's hard to understand why exactly she does this. It did not help that her routine that evening suffered owing to Cat wanting to meet up with friends in the evening. But I don't think this was it. Possibly, a day since her final jab, her body is suffering with the after effects - although she shows no signs of fever or illness. It could be, that at 4 months old, her emotional development is growing rapidly and when she is overstimulated during the daytime (she finally got to meet her Aunty Janet and there was also a trip to Cat's workplace - all very stimulating activities) sometimes it manifests itself as a night of very noisy wakefulness. Cat and I are resigned to being bleery eyed and foul tempered for the time being until she settles down into the 'pattern' again.

Baby Love

An interesting couple of days recently. On Saturday we met up with my friends Richard and Adriana and their 10 month old daughter. It was really strange picking up their baby cos we are so used to Aimee that it came as a shock to hold a baby that is much bigger and stronger. At ten months, my friends baby can wriggle and fight and reach out for things you thought were metres away from her prying hands. It seemed like you needed to keep an eye on her constantly. But she is really cute and I loved the way she happily takes an interest in books and food and can react when you call her name. Aimee is still a long way away from that phase, but already she is smiling tons more and her laughter is also progressing away from the hoarse grunt to a short chuckle. She also cries and last night, she cried every two hours thorughout the night -it was tough.Today, my work colleague brought her 3 month old daughter in to the office. Again, I was amazed how different her baby is, even though there a only a few weeks difference in age between her and Aimee. This baby has a massive shock of wonderful long black hair. It made for an interesting image as the baby itself was quite small - smaller than Aimee I reckon. Anyway, I helped change the babies nappy much to the amusement of my other office colleagues. But I do adore babies in all their shapes and sizes, maybe I am a softie!

Getting back in shape

The newly installed routine seems to be doing its trick. Aimee has now followed the same sleep pattern for one whole week. After her 7pm bath, there is a cuddle, a feed and down in the cot. She fusses until Cat feeds her again. After a very short nap, she fusses and Cat repeats for a third time. By now, it is usually about 9.30 to 10pm. So far, she has not gone past the third feed of fussiness. She may require one or more nightly feeds, but these are short and no-nonesense. She then wakes us up with her impatient grunting (or is that me?) about 7am and so begins another day.

Yesterday, Cat began her new fitness regime - courtesy of our world champion kickboxing coach - John. He invited Cat to pop down and try one hour private kickboxing session. Poor Cat - no exercise at all for over a year has left her once taut muscles a but wobbly. But her kicks and punches were still there, so hopefully the new fitness regime will get Cat back to shape in no time (actually I think she is in fabulous shape anyway, but I am biased!)

At the gym, I chatted to one man who said his daughter refused to sleep at nights and he had to carry her in the papoose each night until she did. He did this for FIVE YEARS!!!!
So whatever hardship we feel we encounter, there is always someone else who can trump that - then you feel silly for complaining about such as minor thing.

Routines

The past three nights over the weekend were awful. we would put aimee down after her midnight feed
as usual and she would sleep for about 15mins and then scream blue bloody murder for hours!I mean really scream. She is not ill, but something clearly is upsetting her. This happened for 3
nights. Poor Cat was weeping at the sheer hell of not getting any sleep herself. Not only at night, but
at anytime you put Aimee in her cot she screams.A quick consult with the books and other parents and it was suggested that we alter our night routine. Babies apprently, must have routine, above all else. Otherwise you get what we just got.Last night, we started a new bedtime routine. Bath at 7pm, bedtime story (Aimee bizarrely loves
staring at the pages of books), long feed, put into cot, lights down - all of this by 8.30pm.Well, it didn't work - she slept for maybe 45 mins and woke up crying. But Cat comfoted her, fed her
again and put her in the cot. Eventually, Aimee fell asleep and, apart from a quick feed at 1am and
6am, she slept until 8am...Bliss!Clearly, we were letting Aimee get overtired and not enough sleep during both the day and the night.
We were happy to play with her and stimulate her until well past midnight. We realise this is now a
poor way to look after Aimee. We just thought she would sleep when necessary and wake when
necessary, but all the advice says, we must establish a routine to get her to learn to sleep by herself.So, every night, we will continue the routine until she has learned the sleep triggers. God I hope it
works. Both Cat and I could never deal with that kind of torture anymore!

It ain't over til the fat baby sings

Aimee is in the full throes of teething.Of course there is no tooth yet, but her constant drooling, red cheeks and insatiable desire to bite on anything withingrasping distance are obvious symptoms. What's most unpleasant about this phase is that she sleeps for no more than about half an hour at night, causing both me and Cat much sleepless anguish.On the good front, Aimee is now very good with her hand eye coordination, she is able to reach out and grasp for eye-catching toyings that are dangled in front of her. She also plays her 'piano' toy by batting the keys very hard and gaining much pleasure at the result of her actions.But it is all very hard work. Aimee it seems is one of those babies that simply cannot survive without constant attention.
Our friend Catherine came round yesterday.


Here she is playing with Aimee.

Cath is 5 months pregnant and came round eager to learn about life with a young baby. Of course Aimee was on her very best behaviour and Cath left our house seemingly quite happy - despite our horror stories of the things that went wrong during Cat's labour.
We're experiencing a mini-rough patch with the Aimster. We hope it won;t last. I am sure there are parents out there with far worse situations (like my friend Greg's baby who had colic for 3 months and cried non-stop for 4 hours every night). Team Yang will just have to battle it out.

Bjorn Again

Yesterday, Valentine's Day, Cat and I were able to spend an evening out together for the first time since Aimee was born. Thanks to Cat's mum for taking baby-sitting duties. We enjoyed a nice meal and a great time - we felt like kids again. To cap off our great evening, Aimee managed to sleep 6 and half hours last night...sheer bliss.
Yesterday was also the day that Aimee was given the second of her scheduled three vaccine shots. Cat says she took the pain bravely and only cried for a little bit. Aimee's weight, at 12 weeks old is now 13lbs (6Kg) - so she has slowed down her previously phenomenal growth spurt, down to a more average level.
Cat and I were agreeing on how much our attitudes have changed. Before Aimee, we would baulk at the idea of buying needless toys, clothes and hip baby accessories. Now, anything goes. If it helps, we buy it, no second thought. Our latest purchase is a 'Baby Bjorn' baby carrier. These things are the Rolls Royce of carriers but their high cost is I think worth it. Soon as you pop Aimee in it, she is happy and content. The Mothercare one was pants and hurt our backs. This one, is like a second skin. Plus we get to look the part when we wander down Broadway market amongst the other aspiring middle class families with their Quinny prams and Baby gap fashion wear.

Cat just spoke to her friend, who is 21 weeks pregnant. The friend mentioned that her sister in law had SOLD her their second hand Moses basket (for nearly full price). She also tried to flog loads of other stuff, many of it originally given free. Now I'm sorry, but what sick fcuk sells on free second hand baby stuff to their own close relative? One of the things that amazed me and Cat was the sheer unprompted generosity of our friends and relatives in giving us gifts, presents and very useful second hand items when Aimee was born. We hope that we can pass on that goodwill to our friends and relatives with items we think are useful, but we would certainly not sell them our second hand baby gear, that would just be wrong.

Developmental recap: Aimee can now smile in response to your smile, or spontaneously, she can clasp her hands together, she can hold her head up without support, she seems to be teething, she can grip an object for a reasonable length of time, she can reach out and hit a dangling object eg on the Fisher Price toy piano.

Gripped!

It's one of those moments me and the missus refers to as a 2001 moment. You know like in the Kubrik film where the dramatic music in the background as apes first learn to use tools.
Aimee had a 2001 moment when she realised that her hands were capable of gripping and hitting something. so far, her hands have been something convenient to put in one's mouth. But now, Aimee is pulling, tugging, gripping, swiping away with baby abandon.
On the musical rocker, she knows to pull at the strings to get a melody. If you place her down on her back, watch out, she is still gripping your clothing! If you turn away for one second, there, she has gripped onto something which immediately finds it's way into her mouth. Yuk!

As with all things Aimee however, what one gains in one area, we lose in another. While her grip power is now that of a healthy 12 week old, her ability to sleep on her own is that of a nought month old. Perhaps we are to blame - ie no routine, too much stimulation, no sleep 'cues', too much rocking and slinging. No wonder she won't sleep in the cot on her own. She has got used to all the other things except just damn well closing her eyes on her own. But perhaps, she is still a little young and maybe in a month's time, she will be able to go longer at night without waking.
We shall see. I am conforted by the fact that we are not alone in this area, but I fear the controlled crying regime that many recommend for very bad sleepers.
But in the meantime, we shall continue to rock her, sing to her, sway her etc to get her to sleep so we can sleep.

Sleep tactics

Sleep - that precious commodity, so rare these days, so hard to find, but heaven when it happens!
Every parent must have gone through the same tactics and tricks that we have gone through to get Aimee to sleep. So far, we have tried rocking in arms, singing, pop music, swinging in the car seat, walking around in the sling, lullabies - the lot.
All of them work to some extent, but not all the time. You start with one, then guage the reaction. If the Aimee gets more agitated you move to the next one and so on. Until either you or Aimee conks out.
Last night was a new one - white noise. My white noise to be precise. I lay Aimee down and she was too excitable to sleep, staring at all and sundry. If you leave her alone, she'll protest so I stayed there and started making continuous hissing and gurgling sounds from my mouth. Weird I know but it seemed to hypnotise her - it took a long time though but eventually she fell asleep. That was it, off to bed and Aimee did not make a peep until 5am - hoorah!

Aimee has a new trick herself. She can put all her fingers in her mouth and make herself gag. I actually think she enjoys the sensation. No harm seems to come of it and she hasn't actually gone so far as to vomit, but it does look disturbing. She seems happy though.

Won't be long before the dreaded teeth come through.