Lining up the excuses...

Young Mummy

Young & Younger

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Dear Reader

Please accept my apologies. I'm suffering from a drought of blogging inspiration. It's been a couple of days since my last post about friendship, which got some really interesting comments, but I've drawn a blank since then. I have been tagged in a few memes recently, but I'm feeling like my noggin is stuffed to bursting point and my thoughts are a bit like the pureed mush I'm feeding the babies at the moment. Kind of like someone took the hand-blender to my brain. I can't even get my mind round the memes. Then there's Little Film Club and Just Vlog It to do and I haven't a clue where to start.

I can only offer the following excuses in my defence:

1) We've had some sleepless nights this week. Mr A has cut his first tooth (bottom left - woohoo, go Mr A!) and, unlike Miss E, this was not a fuss-free milestone for him. We were up with him most of Monday and Thursday nights. 'Pah!' I hear you cry. 'Only two nights of wakefulness?' But because we've become so used to uninterrupted nights, it's like my normal sleeping state has been all messed up. Some part of brain is now on constant 'baby alert' throughout the night so I am waking every hour, listening for noises from the nursery. I'm guessing this sleep-deprivation is the reason for that foggy feeling I can't seem to shake.

2) I've had the sniffles and my nose has been stuffed up. I suspect it's hayfever rather than a cold as I haven't really had any other symptoms, but it has made me feel a bit under par.

3) And finally, nap-time is all over the place. I'm sure this, too, is due to teething pain, but the babies' usually predictable sleep patterns have become completely erratic. This would be hard enough with one baby, but when two babies sleep at different times it's a killer, because you don't get any respite. I often write my blog posts when they nap, so without this opportunity, it's left until the evening, when I'm totally exhausted.

I can only promise that normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Yours apologetically,

Young Mummy x

The Battle of Bedtime rages on

They lulled us into a false sense of security. They bided their time, plotting their comeback. Friday night was D-day for the swaddling. Young Daddy and I decided to go cold turkey and put the babies to sleep with (shock, horror!) their arms free and untethered. We prepared ourselves for Armageddon and were shocked and elated when neither baby put up a fight. We woke up feeling smug on Saturday morning, patted each other on the back and celebrated our achievement.

Little did we know that Miss E and Mr A had been so quiet all night because they were secretly conspiring against us, and devising a new battle plan. Our happy, cooing babies suddenly became screaming monsters when we tried to put them down for their morning nap, each managing to sleep for a fraction of their usual time. We went swimming (a success for the second week apart from when I accidentally dropped an unprepared Miss E into the water. She was, unsurprisingly unimpressed). Surely they would be worn out from all that physical exertion? But nope, the lunchtime nap was a combat zone once more and so we had two very very cantankerous babies for the afternoon.

Miss E and Mr A formulate their battle plan

By bedtime, Miss E was worn out by all the fighting and surrendered, but Mr A was not about to wave the white flag that easily. He woke at 9.30pm, 10.30pm, 1.15am, 1.45am, 3.30am and finally 6am, when Miss E joined his crusade once more.

We are crushed, down, but not defeated! A couple of months ago we probably would have given up at this point, and those babes would have been swaddled in their straitjackets quicker than it takes me to down a glass of vino but we are determined this time. With our eye on the prize of being able to leave Mr A and Miss E for a stay at Hotel Grandparents we will stick to our guns. Bring it on!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

How quickly has Friday come around again? The weeks seem to be racing by at the moment. It’s been a real mixed bag this week. I’ll get the bad stuff over first so I can end on a high.

The Bad...

I took part in a market research group on Monday night for some (much-needed) cash in hand. This should have been something to add to the ‘good stuff’ list, but sadly the £65 cash (already spent in my head) was swiftly followed by an £80 parking fine picked up while I was being researched. I didn’t notice the ticket til I was halfway home, but my eardrum-piercing scream of rage left me with a sore throat for the next 24 hours.

Woke up on Wednesday morning to the homely aroma of gas in the kitchen, which got a great deal stronger when I opened the cupboard under the hob. Cue an SOS phonecall to Young Daddy (who had left super-early for a meeting). On his instruction I phoned the emergency ‘I can smell gas’ hotline and was directed to immediately turn off the gas at the meter (requiring another call to Young Daddy: ‘What do you mean turn the lever? What lever? Oh, that lever’) and wait in for an emergency engineer to turn up. After a fair amount of swearing (I suspect he thought I was out of earshot), the engineer capped the leak so I still have heat and hot water, but no gas hob. Good thing we haven’t quite started weaning yet, or I’d be a bit stuffed on the puree-making front.

I’m impressed at how hard my local Health Visiting Team work at making Baby Clinic the most difficult and stressful experience possible. They are so short-staffed they have combined the usual twice weekly clinics into one, thus ensuring it is ridiculously busy and the waiting time is huge. I was lucky to have Granny Jill with us (see good points below), so she could share the joy of an hour and a half spent in an overheated waiting room for the reward of ten minutes with the Health Visitor.

The Good….

Granny Jill (Young Daddy’s mum) was with us from Monday until Wednesday and it was great having some company and an extra pair of hands. She hadn’t seen Mr A and Miss E since Christmas so we enjoyed showing off all their new skills, and they performed admirably, giving her lots of smiles and cuddles.

Wednesday was a gloriously sunny day. Miss E, Mr A and I went for an afternoon stroll and it was so warm and pleasant it gave me big happy vibes. It was a little reminder that Spring is on its way and I for one can’t wait.

Mr A surprised us all (including, I suspect, himself) by sleeping through for three nights this week. We didn’t expect it in the least, and the first time he did it I woke with a start at 5am and sent Young Daddy into the nursery to check all was well. At the moment Mr A has managed every other night – what a little star.

I have actually enjoyed spending time with the babies. Now don’t get me wrong, I think they're amazing, but to date, Mr A and Miss E’s waking hours have mostly been hard work (emotionally and physically) with a few highs here and there. But something has changed this week and I am loving their company and have started to look forward to them waking from their naps. They are such funny little characters and regularly have me in stitches. Young Daddy and I are convinced that Mr A is destined to be a comedian (that, or a clown). It’s probably telling that none of the bad points from this week are baby-related for a change….

And the Ugly?
Without question Young Daddy's extreme hairyness. Please oh please get a haircut! And trim that beard. You may think the babies like it, but I most certainly do not!

Project Babysitter

I was always going to be an independent mum. I coud never understand those mums that wouldn't leave their babies with a sitter to have a night out, or shock horror, a weekend away! Fast forward six months and here I am, a mummy who has only left her babies in the care of someone other than myself and Young Daddy for about two hours. How did this happen?! Obviously it's a bit more difficult when there are two babies involved, as I think this is pretty intimidating for a lot of prospective sitters. But I do feel like a bit of a control freak about the whole thing - convinced that only Young Daddy and I are up to the challenge.

With a big birthday coming up in about seven weeks' time, I have realised that we need to take action now to get these babies babysitter-ready so that we can stay out past 11pm. The first main challenge to Project Babysitter is that Miss E and Mr A still have to be fully swaddled to go to sleep. They've almost outgrown their swaddle blankets, and get themselves unswaddled every night (eventually). We have fine-tuned our swaddling technique to address this, but I don't think anyone else would be brave enough to swaddle as tightly as we do.

The second big hurdle is Miss E. Miss E is a little madam extraordinaire, who only likes me to give her her bottle at 11pm. Now this could be because I breastfeed her all day so she can't get her head round being fed by anyone else, but I suspect it's more about her asserting her own character. We've had mixed success with Young Daddy feeding her, and have never attempted to get anyone else to feed her. So if we want to be out past 11pm we're going to have to solve this, and I guess the only way is to get some guest feeders in to give it a go so she gets used to the idea of someone else doing the job.

When I wrote my last post about swaddling, Sabina at Mummy Matters gave me some top tips about getting the babies to go to sleep in Gro-bags. She suggested swaddling them with one arm free for their daytime naps, then progressing to both arms free for daytime naps and then to the Gro-bag. So I'm going for it this week and have had mixed results so far. Yesterday they napped well with one arm free, but today they had a meltdown. I'll stick with it though, as I'm determined to get the job done...

Houdini in training

Mr A has all but outgrown his old swaddle blanket and now regularly gets his arms free in the night and wakes himself up. He woke up every two hours last night - partly I think due to teething pains, but I don't think getting himself unswaddled helps because he then can't settle himself back to sleep. I've ordered some new, larger swaddle blankets - Kiddopotomus Swaddle Me from Mothercare - and one of them arrived in the post today. We tried it out this evening, even though A is not quite big enough for it yet (weight from 6.4kg and A is 6.1kg). By 8pm he had managed to get his arms out three times (and woke up every time), so we have reverted to the old blanket for now. I think his new nickname is going to be Houdini!

The life of Miss E

A while ago I wrote a post about E blowing a raspberry. Well it's now her absolute favourite thing to do! If she finds something funny or amusing she'll blow a big raspberry and some impressive bubbles. It's very cute, although the bubbles and dribble aren't so fun!

The cuteness makes up a little bit for her diva-like behaviour at the moment. She is going through a really clingy stage and doesn't like being held by anyone but Young Mummy (including Young Daddy), which is particularly annoying at this time of year when there's lots of socialising being done. We have also discovered that it's not the bottle she's refusing, it's being fed by Young Daddy! If I give her her bottle she'll feed happily, but the second I pass her to Young Daddy the screaming begins. We know we're going to have to have a big showdown with her sooner or later and not give in, but at the moment, sleep for us is so precious that we can't face doing it.

Another achievement by E this week was sleeping through. On Tuesday night she slept from 12.30 'til 7.30am which was a very very welcome surprise, as for the previous few mornings her wake-up time had been 5.30am, which definitely isn't a pleasant start to the day. This morning she woke up at 5.45am for a quick feed, but she settled back down and slept until 8.15am. Unfortunately this morning A decided that he wanted to get up at 6.30am (despite feeding at 4.30am). Oh the joys of twins!