The Fourth Month: February
15th
You rolled over for the first time. At 14 weeks you were able to reach out for a rattle, keeping yourself entertained while we changed your nappy.
23rd
You laughed today – really giggled as I changed your nappy. P away, skiing in the Dolomites. I’ve been staying with Joanna in Stroud. You enjoyed watching the antics of Jude (5) and Callum (7), jumping on the sofa. You also smiled winsomely when 18 month-old Amy looked at you, examining you closely, stroking your head repeatedly. She tried to do up your cardi buttons and offered you a bit of apple she was eating, much to our amusement.
27th
Time whizzes by; it seems as if T. is no longer a baby, or at least a different baby. He is more wakeful and alert, finally over his cold, and ghastly cough he had since early Feb.
So terrifying at first, coughing at night, and us worrying about it, that we couldn’t help him to feel better. Also, being sick almost daily, having to change our bed sheets at 4am...or his. Once I heard him crying in his cot at 10pm, and he had been sick. He had been lying on his side propped between 2 towels. P had been doing all sorts so that he’s not horizontal, taking the bottom castors off the cot etc. Unbelievably he has been in a cot for the past few weeks. He sleeps with his arms flung out. I still think of him as a little dormouse at night, he sits all curled up after feeding. The last few nights he has been unable to sleep after 4am, or at least has fed sleeping, but then twitched and cried every time I have tried to put him back into his cot. He has a stage of sleep where he twitches in a kind of ‘St Vitus’ dance’ way, throwing back his head, and jerking his limbs.
I feel more exhausted and depressed on the days with little sleep - ‘tired and emotional’. Things have been strained between me and P; my love and intensity of feeling for T is counter balanced by an ill at easeness and occasionally loathing for P. Sometimes I feel he wants to express an opposing opinion for the sake of it. We constantly disagree about how many blankets to put on the baby, whether he has enough outdoor clothes on etc etc. I feel P undermines my way of doing things. In the night he would point out helpful hints on breastfeeding: to hold T with his head higher that his body, not to feed him lying down (he thinks it contributes to wind); suggesting that T’s frequent vomiting is due to over feeding – when T was vomiting a lot, he would tell me to feed him less.
Now T. is 4 months, P keeps asking about weaning and suggests we try him on various things (bits of banana etc). This ended in an emotional confrontation yesterday, with me sobbing “he’s my baby, and I like feeding him.” I felt P was putting pressure on me to start the weaning process. I go upset partly because I realise this wonderful intimate thing I have with him is nearly over, and I felt I wasn’t’ ready for that. I mourned the fact that he is no longer a tiny baby, though still a baby. I love how he is now, and that he is dependent on me. I can’t imagine not having the special bond which breastfeeding gives. That’s why I love having time at home with him, resting in our bedroom in the afternoons, feeding him and reading or trying to sleep, or sitting on the big chair in the dining room on sunny mornings, feeding him and listening to the radio or reading. I know I will miss the breastfeeding. (Although the beginning of solids is n’t the end of breastfeeding, I felt it might be the start of the end of the exclusive relationship we had.)
Everyone I know seems to want to be out and about all the time, but I need time and space just to be with him. I love mornings after he wakes up, just playing, talking and singing. He’s so chatty now, and laughing too. He wakes up and smiles at us, looking around the room with his inquisitive eyes. Sometimes he has a kind of uncertain expression on his face, and I wonder if we are good role models??? Do we laugh enough? The quality of our relationship could be better.
You rolled over for the first time. At 14 weeks you were able to reach out for a rattle, keeping yourself entertained while we changed your nappy.
23rd
You laughed today – really giggled as I changed your nappy. P away, skiing in the Dolomites. I’ve been staying with Joanna in Stroud. You enjoyed watching the antics of Jude (5) and Callum (7), jumping on the sofa. You also smiled winsomely when 18 month-old Amy looked at you, examining you closely, stroking your head repeatedly. She tried to do up your cardi buttons and offered you a bit of apple she was eating, much to our amusement.
27th
Time whizzes by; it seems as if T. is no longer a baby, or at least a different baby. He is more wakeful and alert, finally over his cold, and ghastly cough he had since early Feb.
So terrifying at first, coughing at night, and us worrying about it, that we couldn’t help him to feel better. Also, being sick almost daily, having to change our bed sheets at 4am...or his. Once I heard him crying in his cot at 10pm, and he had been sick. He had been lying on his side propped between 2 towels. P had been doing all sorts so that he’s not horizontal, taking the bottom castors off the cot etc. Unbelievably he has been in a cot for the past few weeks. He sleeps with his arms flung out. I still think of him as a little dormouse at night, he sits all curled up after feeding. The last few nights he has been unable to sleep after 4am, or at least has fed sleeping, but then twitched and cried every time I have tried to put him back into his cot. He has a stage of sleep where he twitches in a kind of ‘St Vitus’ dance’ way, throwing back his head, and jerking his limbs.
I feel more exhausted and depressed on the days with little sleep - ‘tired and emotional’. Things have been strained between me and P; my love and intensity of feeling for T is counter balanced by an ill at easeness and occasionally loathing for P. Sometimes I feel he wants to express an opposing opinion for the sake of it. We constantly disagree about how many blankets to put on the baby, whether he has enough outdoor clothes on etc etc. I feel P undermines my way of doing things. In the night he would point out helpful hints on breastfeeding: to hold T with his head higher that his body, not to feed him lying down (he thinks it contributes to wind); suggesting that T’s frequent vomiting is due to over feeding – when T was vomiting a lot, he would tell me to feed him less.
Now T. is 4 months, P keeps asking about weaning and suggests we try him on various things (bits of banana etc). This ended in an emotional confrontation yesterday, with me sobbing “he’s my baby, and I like feeding him.” I felt P was putting pressure on me to start the weaning process. I go upset partly because I realise this wonderful intimate thing I have with him is nearly over, and I felt I wasn’t’ ready for that. I mourned the fact that he is no longer a tiny baby, though still a baby. I love how he is now, and that he is dependent on me. I can’t imagine not having the special bond which breastfeeding gives. That’s why I love having time at home with him, resting in our bedroom in the afternoons, feeding him and reading or trying to sleep, or sitting on the big chair in the dining room on sunny mornings, feeding him and listening to the radio or reading. I know I will miss the breastfeeding. (Although the beginning of solids is n’t the end of breastfeeding, I felt it might be the start of the end of the exclusive relationship we had.)
Everyone I know seems to want to be out and about all the time, but I need time and space just to be with him. I love mornings after he wakes up, just playing, talking and singing. He’s so chatty now, and laughing too. He wakes up and smiles at us, looking around the room with his inquisitive eyes. Sometimes he has a kind of uncertain expression on his face, and I wonder if we are good role models??? Do we laugh enough? The quality of our relationship could be better.
posted by f at 11:37 PM
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