Who knew?

Banana stains don't come out of baby bibs in a 60 degree white wash. Britain's favourite fruit, you surprise me.

And as for 'poly-cotton', well 'easycare'? Schmeesy-care. Once you start weaving plastic thread in with good old honest cotton, you get more wrinkles, not less. Give me 100% brushed cotton any day.

That is the end of the laundry bulletin.

-C

Inappropriate raspberry action

Last night Mr Hugh woke about six times to feed. I said, look Mister, this is getting ridiculous, but he paid no heed. I tried to spoon baby rice and banana into him today, but he still looked puzzled and bemused and hasn't quite bought into the concept of food-swallowing yet.

I took him to view a flat (we are considering purchasing one in the longer term with the generous help of my parents). I felt patronised by the owner who talked me through the location of every plug socket and pulled out hefty maintenance and council tax bills while Hugh was wriggling in my arms in semi-irritation. The owner offered to hold 'the baby'. I said no thanks and then he started blowing slevery raspberries on Hugh's wee hands. I mean watery, noisy raspberries. Hugh tried to eat his finger. No, Hugh, refrain, my love, refrain!

The owner then told me about the offers they'd turned down and I decided instantly that I could take this no further and said so in polite language. He still insisted on showing me the back yard on the way out. He was wittering on about the recycle bins and I thought, didn't I just say no thanks? Do I need to get tougher?

-C

Holiday Photos

I'm just back after five days in England visiting my sister and my nieces. Niece Maddy (5) said Hugh should be called Mr Googly Eyed Hugh, as his eyes are always so wide open. And to think we struggled to choose a middle name. Nice Man is still working hard in the US of A.

-C

Monkey Mothering

I've been thinking about monkey mothering. I haven't come to a theory yet, but thoughts of monkeys are in response to my ongoing confusion over conflicting baby-care advice. I'm still getting frustrated at the list of 'Don'ts'....i.e. Lists of Ooh, Beware! points. Beware - if you feed baby on demand or feed to sleep, you'll 'spoil' baby and make him / her demanding / stroppy / a heroin addict when they grow up. They don't say that last bit, but it feels implied.

Mr Hugh is struggling to get to sleep without feeding first. He feeds and feeds. I try to latch him off (moments) early to 'teach' (?) him to settle himself in the cot and he keeps crying. So I repeat the whole sequence again... and then again and, yup, again. And then several times in the night.

But I also think of the monkeys and all the other mammals that snuggle and feed so naturally. Nobody tells a monkey to put her baby in a separate cot and teach it a stiff upper lip. For its own good! Hmm, where does that leave me? I don't know. Clarification and illumination, readers. They elude me. Cute monkeys though.

-C

Some headline about humble pie and tossing cookies

Geeze. I'll eat humble pie, if I could just get my cookies to stay down. So maybe Hugh's 24 hour vomit-athon was a virus - and not a reaction to the injections - because, guess what, I'm joining in now. It is truly horribilus and wretched. Just have to wait it out. We are a house of lurgy. Isn't there some sort of service that can rescue us and make it all better?

-C

Back to the Starship, Captain...

'The screens please, nurse'

I promise this blog won't be all about baby stuff and nothing else. But we've had a rough couple of days after Mr Hugh's third immunisations (4 month injections) so that's uppermost in my mind.

The wee soul wasn't able to keep milk down the next day after the 'jabs'. Through the night he just stopped feeding and started writhing in pain. He projectile-vomitted over land and sea (okay, duvet covers and bath towels) for 24 hours. Oww. I ended up trying to feed him 'cooled boiled water' with a syringe to try to avert the real risk of dehydration.

The GP said it was probably 'a virus' and not linked to the immunisations. Call me an old reactionary cynic but I wonder otherwise. Hugh also went through a rough stage after his injections at 3 months (more crying in unexplained pain) so, you can imagine how I'll be looking forward to any future needle action...

I think there is a 'yellow card' office somewhere, where you can report after-effects to add to the collected data. Surely somebody keeps a record of these things nationwide?

I'm rushing off to try and grab sleep now that Mr Baby Anger has zonked out - in his pram. Sleep training? Ha. By hook or by crook, it was, tonight.

-C

PS. for US google searches, I'll spell immunizations with a 'z' too. So, tagging - baby immunizations, 4 months, reactions, vomitting.

4 month sleep regression, you say?

Well, shut me up and call me a smug daftie as Hugh is now waking about 4 or 5 times a night to feed and his naps have become a battle. I don't regret dropping the dummy (soother / pacifier). Not for a minute. But I found this website / blog - www.askmoxie.org and it's a consolation to my tired eyes.

Readers, you know I can get too 'heady' and tie myself in knots trying to follow 'best practice' from whatever baby book I am reading. I have just about given up with the Baby Whisperer. There are so many rules that seem unfair to me - eg. feed only every 4 hours (at 4 months). Blimey, I need to eat every 2 or 3 hours, so call me a hypocrite. All the rules make me doubt myself. Pah.

The Moxie blog pointed out that there is a recognised '4 month sleep regression' associated with leaps in development. Baby brains are so busy developing, they find it hard to shut down for sleep.

So here you find us, Mr Hugh watching BBC news and gurgling in a bouncy chair. Me sitting in my dressing gown, sleep deprived and reporting from the front line of the babydom trenches. Ah well, it's a phase, a phase, I say. A bit like life.

Ah, I just had a phone call from a dear friend who has a young baby too. It's good to bond over all the minutiae. She said her bambino followed the same patterns - staying awake most of the day in one phase about this age. Now she's surfing the teething wave. We had the rant about babies being baffling, exhausting and amazing, and then I resolved to follow her in 'going with the flow', whatever that means. It sounds simple...

-C