Winging it as a parent

In my eight short months as a mother I have come to realise something very simple; every baby is unique and as such, every parent has a unique style of parenting. There is a seemingly endless amount of information about how best to raise your child. Since becoming a mum I have discovered that there are experts (or as we often like to refer to them 'police') for everything! There's the breastfeeding police, sleep police, routine police, nap police, weaning police....I could go on. But at the end of the day do we really need all these experts? I think a lot of us a just winging it as first time parents. I know we certainly are. I have no prior experience and DH has always been very baby averse, so we're just figuring out as we go what to do with a rapidly growing and changing baby.

When I was expecting, I asked a lot of friends who were already mothers for their top tip and a frequent one was 'follow your instincts'. I was slightly concerned that I wouldn't have any instincts, but I soon realised that it was relatively easy to just do what we wanted, which is a bit like following your instincts. Although, in the society we live in I think most people's parenting instincts are well informed and researched (I know that sounds like a bit of a contradiction). In my first few months as a mother I'd heard people mention something called weaning...what the hell was that? I genuinely did not have a clue, I clearly had no instincts about it so I had to ask my faithful friend Google. I then found that there were different methods of weaning, so once I'd done my research I chose the method that I thought would best suit me and Little Bean and that's pretty much been the pattern of things over the past eight months.

Although I may scoff at our so called 'parenting police' I have actually found them quite useful. In the early weeks my phone and tablet were an integral part of my being. I spent  A LOT of time breastfeeding throughout the night and at 3am in a dark quiet house with a baby dangling off your boob, there's very little else to occupy your mind. So having the delights of Google, Facebook and Whatsapp at my fingertips was a Godsend. With my new found mummy friends all experiencing similar things with their newborn babies, we would keep each other company and ask for advice about everything from how to soothe a crying baby to what nipple cream to use. We'd find useful links to forums and websites and share them with those we thought would find them useful. 

Sleep is probably the most widely covered topic of parenting. Everyone has an opinion about sleep! It's usually the first topic of conversation with pretty much anyone. Thankfully Little Bean has always been a fairly good sleeper (although I fear I may be cursing that now by sharing that statement so publicly!), whether that is linked to what we have done or not, I have no idea, like I've said already, we're just winging it. I read an article fairly early on about the pitfalls of getting your baby to sleep and sleeping through and how to avoid them. In the first couple of months I didn't care, he was so little that we just let him fall asleep however and whenever he wanted, which was usually on my boob at around midnight. I would then delicately make the transfer from breast to basket, treating him as if he was a fragile piece of glass that might just shatter if I breathed too hard. I digress, the article said that you should not feed your baby to sleep, but put them down drowsy.....err......now that may work for some babies, but not this one - I think this was the beginning of my epiphany about babies being unique. However the article did make a lot of sense, apparently everyone sleeps in cycles, even adults, and we all wake in the night. Adults being experienced sleepers just fall straight back to sleep and remember nothing of it in the morning. But at around 5 months old babies' sleep patterns change, or habits develop and they wake up fully at the end of the cycle (or something along those lines, you need to remember I was reading this article in the middle of long sleep broken night) . The theory is that if they have only ever been fed to sleep they will think this is the only thing that will get them back to sleep. This made complete sense to me and I am grateful to the friend who sent me the link to this article as it encouraged us to start thinking about instilling some sort of bedtime routine (we prefer the word 'pattern' as routine just sounds far to formal and structured for our lifestyle) to help Little Bean sleep. Until very recently he has always needed some sort of help in getting to sleep. We started a routine but after a few weeks we realised we'd simply replaced feeding him to sleep with cuddling him to sleep. By chance we discovered that the hair-dryer sent him straight to sleep. So for a few months we would follow our pattern, put him in his bed (where he would scream instantly) stick the hair-dryer on and inevitably within 20 seconds he'd be fast asleep. This method lost it's impact after a few months. We then found that letting him suck on a finger had the desired effect, then eventually I resorted back to feeding him to sleep which was the one thing I'd been trying to avoid for the previous 4 months! When I am out and DH has to put him to bed he simply allows Little Bean to fall asleep on him. Doing this has not made a blind bit of difference to his sleep habits, he's been sleeping through since about 4 and a half months and thankfully he still is. 

Our approach to parenting has been very much 'do what feels right for us'. So yes, I may follow advice that I've read on-line, but I only chose what I like. In the early days I read a lot about how vital it is to get your baby into a set regular routine with naps and feeds otherwise they will never be able to sleep through and will fail to thrive ......blah, blah, blah. Little Bean has never had two days the same, there is far too much I want us to do with the day to be restricted by when he needs a nap. He has his naps on dog walks, in the car, in the pushchair, on the bus and occasionally in his cot. In fact the same is true of his feeds. Yes, I do sometimes just leave him in his cot with a bottle in his mouth, it's proven a very easy way to get him to sleep (I do go in and remove it soon after). This lack of routine has meant that it has been incredibly easy to take him on camping trips, to the pub and even to Glastonbury.

In your first few days as a new parent it is hard not to follow the advice of everything you read. When Little Bean was only a week old he developed a really bad cold and couldn't sleep on his back as he couldn't breathe. The only way he would sleep was when he was lying mine or DH's chest. For a few nights I enjoyed falling asleep with a baby on my chest, but then read an article on SIDS that stated you should never fall asleep with a baby on your chest. That was it, I took it as gospel and vowed never to allow myself to do it again. So the following night I set an alarm every half an hour from midnight to 8am to ensure I didn't fall asleep! Luckily he got over his cold fairly quickly. 

I now know a lot of babies and mummies and I don't know of any two that have followed the same patterns or routines. Some babies have moved into their own rooms at 8 weeks and some have co-slept until 8 months, some have done entirely baby led weaning and some have done only purées, some have done controlled crying and some have never been left cry, some have a set routine and some are entirely haphazard - but at the end of the day all these babies and mummies are happy. Despite all the experts out there there is no 'one size fits all'. Every baby responds to things in different ways. Our methods of getting Little Bean to sleep and our laissez faire routine would cause others to have an epic meltdown. Whichever way you decide to do things you will find an expert who advocates it and another who completely opposes it. I think that unless a parent is struggling and asking for help, then no-one else has the right to chip in with their opinion/advice - if it's not a problem for the parent then others should not feel the need to make it their problem. Ultimately there is only one expert for your baby, and that's you.

Fear and doting in mass vagueness - a guest appearance from DH

Hello?...

Hello?...

Is there anyone there?...

Oh, hello, it's you! Good. It's my first time in blog world and I wondered who I might find in here - there are some weird sorts around you know.

So, apparently my name in here is DH. That's not my name. It's not even my initials (although I have been called things with those initials before) but it seems that there is a different language here, with strange acronyms for otherwise simple concepts - seemingly to protect the innocent. I do feel that I should try to speak in the local dialect (and should certainly protect the innocent) but am entirely ignorant as to the correct acronym for the correct innocent - so I'll make up my own as we go.

Still with me? Good.

You're probably wondering when things changed. It's true that things have always changed and will always change (so you could, quite legitimately, pick any point in time as your answer, close this blog and go look at some videos of cats acting suspiciously like they always have, and always will, know more than they're letting on) but some changes are bigger than others, more significant, more unexpected.

This particular change started with a dream - a dream that MOOB (Mother Of Our Baby) had leant over me in the early hours of the morning and told me that her waters had broken. Being a dream, I was somewhat detached from the emotions of such an announcement. I should have felt abject terror and shortness of breath - the sort of panic usually reserved for the split second when you realise that the seat that you're expecting your backside to land on isn't actually there and that a hard, painful crash to the ground is both imminent and inevitable. Instead I just felt a mild sense of confusion, which is a state I am familiar and comfortable with in equal measure.

I awoke from this dream shortly afterwards. MOOB was also awake. She was jibber-jabbering at me. Although the conversation was difficult to pick up due the length of time it takes me to make the journey from sleep to full consciousness, it was clear that she had been jibber-jabbering at me for some time. It wasn't long before she told me that her waters had broken. She wanted to know why I wasn't listening the first time she told me. Thankfully I had just practiced this - mild confusion was the answer, no need for abject terror. Regular readers of her blog might have already worked out that she's pretty chilled out about stuff, so it didn't take us long to agree that labour takes time and that the best thing for everyone concerned was for me to go back to sleep and save my energy for later. The change had begun. The abject terror I had expected and prepared for had been replaced by mild confusion and 'everyone concerned' suddenly meant more than just me and MOOB. Soon there would be an ODBOJ (Our Darling Bundle Of Joy).

I won't go into the details of labour - suffice to say that, from this side of the fence at least, it was relatively painless. It did end in theatre though and, because it ended in theatre, when ODBOJ was born he was thrust into the arms of MOOB for the briefest of moments before being whisked away to be checked by one of the army of blue gown wearing onlookers. As the only remaining parent who still had the use of their legs I was soon summoned over to 'say hello' to ODBOJ. There he was. He was quiet. The initial screams had lasted less than a minute. This is good I thought, not being a fan of screaming.

So, what do you say when you're confronted with your own son for the first time and MOOB, who's supposed to know what to do in these situations, is busy trying to demonstrate the YMCA dance with her legs? I went with something like this...

"Hey, little fella. Welcome to what we call 'The World' - sorry about the entrance. Don't worry, it's not as scary as it looks. I'm called Daddy and I'll be your guardian and your guide."

ODBOJ looked mildly confused. We already had something in common.

As the days and weeks went on, we began to realise that ODBOJ was either the perfect baby (particularly for someone as baby averse as me) or everything everyone had told us about babies was a lie. He rarely cried - and when he did it was quickly remedied by a visit to the boob lady or a brief rendition of the nipple and boob song (the lyrics are very simple). He slept remarkably well, allowing MOOB to maintain her good humour and me to throw my energies into inventing silly songs. He also shunned the concept of pooing, except when absolutely necessary, going for days at a time without creating any undue unpleasantness. It turns out this is quite normal for a breast fed baby. Either way, three of the things I'd been looking forward to the least were not even an issue thanks to ODBOJ.

Then came the smiles. The start of the end of the change (at least this particular change). A full two weeks before he deigned to smile at anyone else (and I mean proper, full on ear-to-ear smiles), he smiled at me. Mildly confused had become extremely happy and I couldn't help being dragged along for the ride. It was infectious. It still is, and he smiles a LOT every day. Fear and worry has become joy and silliness (with a particular emphasis on the silliness). Now a boring trip to a department store is actually a trip to a pram racetrack - complete with chicanes, hairpins and, to the confusion of other shoppers, the odd round-about.

And there you go, that's when things changed. What advice would I give to expectant fathers? Here's my top tips, in no particular order...

- Embrace the silliness. This is actually your chance to act like a child and do stupid stuff whilst onlookers think it's good parenting rather than self indulgent madness.

- Expecting the worst isn't actually a bad thing - you can only be pleasantly surprised.

- Traditional nursery rhymes are evil. They'll infect your brain and slowly eat away at your soul. Check out Rockabye Baby for some nursery rhyme versions of proper music.

- Sing. Sing a lot.

- You still need to do your own thing. The start of a new life isn't the end of yours and no-one's going to thank you when you end up resentful and twisted because you sacrificed all the things that you enjoy.

OK. Right. Well, nice to see you but I've got to run - the tickle monster has an urgent appointment with an ODBOJ :-D

Transition to parenthood

We are now one month in to our new lives as parents and in a nutshell, we love it! There is so much I could write in this blog post, I don't quite know where to begin. I guess a good starting point is how I feel, although anything I write simply wont do that justice. One of my fears before giving birth was how DH would cope with the inevetable 'neglect' due to the amount of time I would be giving to little bean. I suppose I'd always assumed that I have a finite amount of love to give and once little bean arrived I would have to take a chunk of love away from DH and share it. Happily, I was very much mistaken. I never thought it would be possible to love my husband any more, but somehow our little bean has acted like an amplifier of love. The strength of my feelings for my husband and son (and even the dog, when he's not trying to steal food) is so intense, my heart could burst.

The bond that develops between mother and baby is so powerful, I have never known or felt anything like it. It is something that you can only comprehend and understand when you become a parent yourself. I find myself 'wasting' a lot of time staring at my baby in my arms, simply feeling the pure love that envelops us. I say wasting time, but it really isn't. I want to savour and appreciate every moment with my son. If I want to spend hours every day staring and cuddling my baby, then everything else can wait, to me there is nothing more important.

Having entered this new chapter of our lives, clearly a lot has changed, but in all honesty little bean has made the transition easy. I think a combination of the unconditional love I have for him, the fact that he is a pretty chilled out little baby and that it was the Christmas holidays, all contributed to our first month being happy and relatively hassle free. I had thought that Christmas would be really bad timing for a baby, but on the contrary, it was perfect. We had an incredible first few weeks showing off little bean to all of our family and friends and the excitement of Christmas helped keep me on a high and carry me through when by all rights I should have been exhausted. So far little bean only cries when he is hungry and being as I am breastfeeding it is easy for me to just stick him on a boob and hey presto we have a quiet baby. I have been both surprised and amazed at how well my body has adapted to the demands of motherhood and how it has coped with the lack of sleep. I must be sleep deprived, as on average I am surviving off 3-5 hours broken sleep per night, yet somehow I am not really feeling the effects of that. I must be running on hormones.


Apart from the general awesomeness of our little guy, the most overwhelming thing of all has been watching DH become a daddy. He is incredible. He has taken to fatherhood in a way that I never even dared to dream. DH is smitten (it's hard not to be in my biased opinion). Both of us had fears about how DH would react to the reality of having a baby, but any concerns I had melted away the moment little bean was born and I saw DH gazing at him for the first time, He has taken to it so naturally and his confidence as a dad is astounding. He has happily taken little bean off on his own for dog walks and trips to the supermarket, to allow me a bit of respite. Without his support as a husband and father I don't think I would have coped with a newborn baby. I've not yet found motherhood a real strain, and that's down to the fact that DH has been there doing everything I need him to; he makes sure I have time for nice long hot showers, he cooks dinner and cuts it up for me when I'm nursing, he tells me what an amazing mother I am, he brings me drinks and anything else I need when I'm sat on the sofa breastfeeding, he gives me foot massages late in the evening when I'm restless and angsty because little bean has been feeding for the previous 3 hours, but most of all he makes me happy and makes me appreciate the life we are lucky to have.