William's First Year

I had no idea how much noise small babies could make when they sleep. When William’s deeply asleep (like now), he looks so peaceful and still – and he is impossible to wake up. When we switch the lights on in the morning he’s like a little old man uncurling himself and slowly, slowly the eyes open and he’s back in the room.

But if you watch him dreaming, or in REM sleep it’s a different story, he sounds like a middle-aged, chronic snorer with a weight problem. All you can hear are grunts, snorts and bizarre sucking sounds as he tries to jam both hands into his gob. Eddie is silent when he sleeps (a huge plus in our relationship, along with his complete disinterest in ‘Match of the Day’), but Will is a different story – I’ve never heard anything quite like it.

Today Will had all sorts of adventures, starting with seeing De this morning for coffee and a cuddle and then we decided to make an impromptu stop into the office to say hello to everyone!

I miss you all and it was wonderful to see you and and introduce you to Will at last. He was such an angel (until we got home of course and he realised I was about to attempt to eat something, at which point all hell broke loose and the screams lasted until around 5.00pm)……

Will and I have been unleashed on an unsuspecting World at last and wasted no time in heading out in the car to escape our mini-prison of the past 4 weeks. Today was definitely a milestone – I have, at the ripe old age of 32, finally walked down Newbury High Street pushing a pram. The moment my parents have been dreading for the past 15 odd years (I’m actually a bit of an anomaly amongst all those teenage Mums). I never knew how much fear and excitement an excursion into a town could be. How people manage with babies in London I’ll never know. We managed to survive Sainsburys, HMV and finally, with not a little bravado – Starbucks! What fun to pootle along with Will in his pram and a Latte in my hand. We have arrived.

In the meantime, the routine still needs a little refining, my days are spent desperately trying to keep Will either awake or asleep depending on the time! Today’s foray into town was the only way I could get him to sleep for a full 2 hours – the morning nap was a total wash out. I’m currently sitting on the back doorstep while the baby sleeps in his pram (watching out for Molly, who’s taken a shine to any baby-related vessel she can get into), wrapped up in a fluffy white pram suit and covered with a rain protector. I’ve decided that if fresh air is the only way he’ll sleep, then so be it. The result is that Eddie and I have had 3 nights of uninterrupted suppers in a row, so it’s definitely worth it.

Tonight’s challenge – bottle feeding!! This should be hilarious, Will is an EXTREMELY stubborn young man (he clearly takes after both parents, but possibly more his Mother than Father on that one…) but it’s our ticket to future babysitting and the pub. Priorities, priorities.

This is how we got on with Day 1 of our new routine:

07.15 – 07.49 = fed
08.23 – 08.44 = fed
09.00 – 10.00 = nap
10.14 – 10.35 = fed
10.35 – 11.20 = played
11.20 – 11.45 = fed
11.45 – 14.00 = nap
14.20 – 15.06 = fed
15.06 – 16.00 = played/screamed
16.00 – 16.20 = attempted to put down for a nap x 3. Baby screamed whenever put down.
16.25 – 16.35 = put baby in pram and went round the green. Baby went to sleep.
16.45 – Baby started screaming again. Did a circuit of the drive.
16.55 – Baby asleep in buggy in sitting room.
17.00 – 17.25 = fed
17.45 – Bath
17.55 – 18.22 = fed
18.30 – 19.00 = squeaks – squawks – screams – shrieks.
19.00 – 19.14 = fed
19.14 – 20.01 = tried to settle, but Will screamed every time he realised he’d been put to bed.
20.01 – 20.15 = (gave up) fed. William stayed asleep.
20.30 – Lou pours herself VERY large G&T
22.30 – 22.52 = fed. Baby and parents out for the count

I can’t wait for tomorrow 🙂

A dirty word? Or salvation? In our case we’ve decided the latter – it’s time to start working towards a routine where Will is awake more in the day so that Eddie and I can have our evenings uninterrupted.

Another two expletives; ‘Gina Ford’! Not that we’re taking her word as gospel, but we’re going to give the timings a try and see what happens. It’s Day 1 and so far so good (although we’ll probably have a different story by 6pm this evening). William’s such a good baby I’m sure that with a bit of perseverence we’ll soon be in a pattern that suits everyone.

P.S Lowly – this picture’s for your benefit, one of the few without me in the ghastly grey/pink fleeces. Promise to go on a shop for some decent kit once I get my figure back/scar healed up.

It’s not the sleep deprivation, and I’m not drowning in nappies/rubbish/admin/chores, I just never realised how mentally, emotionally and physically draining it is to look after a tiny baby 24/7. Anne Enright’s book ‘Making Babies’ (which only now makes sense to me) puts it very well, describing small babies as ‘constant need’. I know I’m very lucky that William is so good, God knows what it must be like to have a child who is constantly crying – I think I would have had a nervous breakdown by now.

Yesterday we had a wonderful time, we got the house sorted, said hello to Jim who’s back from South Africa, fed the Alpacas (they didn’t take to apples at all) and the ponies and went on a walk through Heath End and East Woodhay. William is so alert now, he looks intently at our faces and he can hear you as you call to him up the stairs (usually begging him to stop screaming). He loves looking at his Babyshapes book and is now much calmer in the evenings in the sense that he’ll sit with us just watching, rather than being either asleep or crying.

I can’t believe he’s going to be a month old on Sunday, in one sense time has flown and in another this has been the longest 4 weeks of my life.

Check out all the babies together! I think Will’s found a new friend in Jude (either that or they’re squaring up for a barney…)

A wonderful weekend spent with Grandma and Grandad Houghton, Sonya and the boys, Uncle Alexander and Auntie Victoria. Lots of fresh air, tea and (thanks to Sonya’s amazing cooking) cake. William has been so good, Eddie and I even managed to have an entire evening to ourselves yesterday – Szechuan Express followed by Desperate Housewives washed down with (several) glasses of white wine. Perfect.

Oh. My. God. Mastitis strikes again. I woke up shivering all over and feverish and there was no mistaking it. I tried to do the homeopathic thing and tried stuffing cabbage leaves down my bra etc, but just felt appalling, almost unable to stand. Was eventually rescued by De and Mother bearing baby Isla and Paracetamol respectively, before Alexander finally bore me off to the Doctor for another dose of Penicillin. Crawled back to bed and spent the rest of the night there.

Fortnately William was angelic all day and slept pretty much through the day and night. I felt so much better today after just two doses it hardly seems possible I was such a wreck. I even managed to put on ‘normal’ clothes – a revelation! It’s the first time I’ve been out of fleeces and those ghastly maternity trousers in months.

AND, to add to all the excitement, Sonya rescued me from the house and we hit Waitrose with Will. It was fantastic, I spent a fortune on expensive treats, parked in ‘parent and child’ space (well, nearly, they were all full – but we could have done…) and proudly pushed Will around in his special Waitrose trolley seat. Alas all the excitement proved too much for the Little Man, who has been bawling his head off subsequently for about 6 hours now….ah well…the price we pay. Thank heavens for Eddie – nurse, chef and baby-calmer extrordinaire.

A reminder of Will being nice (after relentless screaming I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like!) With his Uncle Alexander – he’s going to miss him when he goes back to Sydney 😦