Parenting

Loving the long naps and cheeky development!

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Tuesday of last week was a very trying day, but I thought I would share that Tuesday of this week was a looovely day 🙂

To start off we were going to Monkey’s first ever experience of Tumble tots. Now, I love being a stay at home mummy, but I also feel that I need to get out of the house with him most days, if not every day. Otherwise I go a bit stir crazy and also I find that he gets quite bored of the same toys when we are at home all day with no variety. He’s a very inquisitive little monkey and likes people and places and new things.

We spend a lot of our time visiting family and friends and other kiddies but now that he is down to one nap a day we have much more time to fill. This has led me to looking at some mum and baby class type things that we can do to entertain him. Tumble tots immediately sprang to mind. Now he has taken his first steps in the last few weeks but has gone a bit scared with it the last week or so and is very much clinging to mummy to walk again, which is fine he’ll do it in his own time. But the classes at Tumble tots are 6 months-walking and walking to 2 years, so I wasn’t sure which to take him to! The decision was made for me as the nearest location to me aren’t running the younger class at the moment so we went to walking-2. He was the youngest there I would say and couldn’t do a lot of the things but he was really loving it, running around all over the place (dragging mummy with him – he really doesn’t need me just hasn’t got the confidence yet) yelling happily.

I’m always a bit nervous of these places too and the other mummies, wondering whether there is any cliques, are they gonna be judgemental etc, but nope, they all seemed very nice, and the same as me, running around after their slightly more mobile toddlers! There was a few other new mums too and everyone seemed as nervous of each other as I was, but it was all nice and friendly.

Anyway the reason I am telling you about this is that that afternoon, monkey had a lovely long nap. 2 3/4 hours long! It was amazing!! I got so much done!

I baked some lovely oat and raisin biscuits, did some yoga (my latest thing in an attempt to tighten the wobbles) changed our bed, got washing out on the line, hoovered downstairs, perused the internet for a bit, looked at hotels for a girly weekend I am going on in a few months, emailed some friends and on and on and on! It was amazing!!

By the time he woke up it was nearly 4! Most of the afternoon was gone and he was so well rested and happy that we had so much fun! He is such a cheeky monkey though, we sat in the sunshine in the garden for a bit and he kept picking daisies (and trying to eat them, d’oh!) so played a bit of back forth, you know, hand out, can mummy have it, and he was so cute, he’d go to put it in my hand, then snatch it back giggling and shaking his head! So funny, I dunno where he has got that from but such a cheeky monkey.

He’s developed a funny little chuckle this week all of a sudden and now just sits and chuckles to himself sometimes, which is so cute. We were walking along in the buggy the other day and a car drove past, then disappeared behind a huge roundabout and when it came out the other side, monkey had a right chuckle!

Anyway I will stop gushing now! I have also been busy crocheting and made some adorable little booties and a hat for my friend, more info and pictures to follow soon!

A very trying day…

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Urgh, today has not been the best day in my ‘stay at home mum’ journey so far. On the whole I have been enjoying being a stay at home mum, the monkey is very fun and I’ve been keeping us both busy and happy, but today is a real low point.

It started at about 630 this morning, pretty normal wake up time, but instead of a happy chattering monkey he woke up crying for some reason and took a little while to cheer up. After that he was ok, but as his Granny would call it, he has been very eggshelly (fragile) all day and the slightest thing has made him upset. I think I’ve done well most of the day and been understanding that he’s having an off day. We all have them after all!

We had his 7-12 month developmental check this morning too, and although it went well, you can’t help feeling a bit judged being cross examined on what he’s doing, how much he’s eating, what he’s eating etc. I don’t think monkey enjoyed it either, being stripped off and weighed, measured and looked at, then being watched by a stranger while he played. Not today anyway, other days he may have taken it in his stride, but this morning he was pretty grumbly. He was also really tired most of the morning which didn’t help!

We got through lunch, which wasn’t exactly fun, then he had quite a long nap though it was a bit restless sadly, and he woke up happy. Great, I thought, maybe he was just tired? But the afternoon hasn’t gone that well either, reaching a low point at teatime.

Unfortunately after a day of being understanding and coping with the random upsets and crying I am shattered. Going over everything the nursery nurse said this morning hasn’t helped, worrying and feeling guilty over the slightest thing she said, about what cup he drinks from and how we serve his food and just, well, little bits and bobs that just generally leave you feeling like you’ve been scored and given a ‘could do better’ grade in the subject of motherhood.

I thought teatime would go well as he loves the meatballs I make and his steamed potato and peas…. but apparently not today. Today he is spitting everything out, not wanting to know then crying and gagging so he throws up the little bit that he has actually eaten (and he had seemed to enjoy the odd few bites).

At this my façade cracks and I lose my cool. I tell him off and throw the cup he is playing with, rather than drinking from, on the floor. Yeah, I know, who’s the parent here? Throwing things in a tantrum isn’t exactly the best example to set, but how else do you vent frustration to a 10 month old baby who can’t tell you why he suddenly doesn’t want to eat the food that he has liked every other time before? The food that you have spent ages in the kitchen preparing while he sleeps?

I try to tell him he needs to eat his food or he won’t get anything else, that’s all there is, but then I’m feeling awful because I know he’s hungry, he needs to eat. And if he doesn’t eat his tea then surely he won’t sleep well tonight and that isn’t good for any of us.  How do you teach them to eat what is in front of them while still making sure they go to bed full? Is he too young to be worrying about that? Should I just give in?

I realise I have to walk away and take a breather so because I don’t know what to do I give him two of the oat and apricot biscuits (that I made at the weekend but usually try to ration so he doesn’t just eat biscuits all the time), dump them on his tray with some raisins and walk out of the room. I sat on the stairs, text my husband because I needed to vent (lucky hubby coming home to such a happy home!!) and had a little cry. I then go back in, check and yep sure enough he is eating the biscuits and raisins, so not off his food completely. I turn the TV on and walk out again because I can’t be all smiley and serene yet.

Thankfully, hubby is now home to help for the evening and there’s only an hour or so to go before bed.

I know it’s not his fault, maybe his teeth are coming through and hurting, maybe he’s just feeling under the weather. Poor little thing can’t exactly tell me what is the matter. But honestly, days like this are not fun. Days like this are not easy. Days like this make you feel like a really bad mother.

Thank goodness not all days are like this! Tomorrow will be a better day… at least I really hope so!

Naps..when 2 becomes 1

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We knew this day would come, though we weren’t sure when, and here it is, Monkey has dropped his morning nap and we are down to one a day. New routine time! As with everything in parenting, there are many different opinions about routines for babies. From what makes a good routine to whether to have a routine at all. I found early on that routines make both monkey and I happier. I am a planner and like to know what is in store for me. I like to be able to tell someone I will see them at a specific time and know that 9 times out of ten I will be able to stick to it. (Of course babies are people and have off days so I don’t think any routine can be 100% perfect!) He is always happier when he has eaten well and slept well.

I struggled with a lack of routine in the beginning and had no idea how to get in to a routine at all. This coincided with lots of problems with monkey’s sleeping, mainly during the day with between 3 and 5 naps a day. We ended up for a while where he would only fall asleep if he was sucking on one of our little fingers, and well as you can imagine, we couldn’t maintain that forever! When he was born we were initially 100% against the Dr Ferber progressive wait or “Cry it out” techniques but by about 3 1/2 months (after he had finally outgrown the colic) we had changed our mind and though it was horribly hard, it really worked for all of us in just a few days. It really was this that settled monkey to his routine of morning nap, afternoon nap, and bedtime at around 7.

So we have had a fairly solid routine for a good 6 or 7 months now really. I had the feeling that we were approaching a nap change as he had started waking up a lot earlier in the mornings and his naps were both a lot shorter. I was reading articles and books to see if there was any way I could help or make the change or to find out if it would happen naturally. Then one day last week, boom! No morning nap. This sounds simpler than it was as obviously being so used to the routine I went to put him down for his nap but he was chatting and giggling away, so I thought, ok, maybe you want a slightly later nap today and got him up. Eventually after a couple more tries and when he got a bit unhappier about being put in his cot, I gave up and gave him his normal post-nap feed and that was it, no nap until the afternoon.

Apart from one day where he had a very late morning nap, and then a late afternoon nap where I had to wake him up for fear he wouldn’t sleep at bedtime (mean mummy) he has done pretty well on just one nap a day, though he now naps pretty much straight after lunch and is pretty dozy before lunchtime bless him.

In many ways, no morning nap is a good thing. There are some baby groups I would like to take him to that I haven’t before because they were slap bang in the middle of nap time, which we can of course now go to. His sleep in general has settled down, he’s no longer waking up at 530am every day, and he has a good two hour nap in the afternoon. But man, the long awake time in the morning is exhausting! I definitely need to find some new ways of keeping him entertained and I think the baby groups will help, although of course being easter holidays they aren’t on at the moment!

I also need to find time for housework. I know I now have 2 hours in the afternoon but I really am tired by then so don’t want to be spending the whole two hours cleaning! Whereas up until now I have basically had his awake time as playtime, now he is going to have to help with some chores I think, in the loosest sense of the word of course! So far he has stood and helped pull some wet clothes out of the washing machine. Unfortunately when trying to get him to help put clothes in the machine, he would much rather pull them out, but hey it’s a start! He also enjoys a nice ride in the laundry basket with the wet clothes to get to the airer.

When I get the dustbuster out he does like it, especially if he gets a little hoover kiss on his tummy through his clothes. He likes trying to grab it, but so far hasn’t actually helped in any way! As long as he’s happy when I’m dong chores is the main thing as I am going to have to find time to do them when he is awake from now on! My mother in law said that the boys liked helping her do the dusting so maybe when he’s a bit bigger I’ll give that a try! How do you manage to get chores done with the baby awake?