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Category: MY BABY EXPERIENCE
FIRST TRIP TO WEST END (London)
I go out all the time, mostly for a walk, baby classes or a coffee, but also (once in a while) to shopping centres, to see some of my working friends for lunch ect. Up until now I was very limited in places I could go to because I didn’t want to take Chloe on the tube (I thought she was to small for this). Somehow train or a bus seemed much more “safe” for a tiny baby. You know less people, being able to open a window etc π
Now at just over 4 months I decided that we will go to west end to see my friends and do some proper shopping. Because I was up from 6:30am (yes Chloe still things it’s a great time to start playingπ) it meant that I could get going by 9am , get to the west end , do some shopping, see friends and get back home before it gets too busy. We have had a lovely day :me because I have seen my friends and did some shopping (I love shopping!); Chloe because she loves looking at everything + I didn’t make her have her naps π (I will prabably pay for it later) .
Only problem I had is : stairs ! why is there so many steps everywhere??!!! Don’t they realise how heavy prams are??!! Shouldn’t we have by now better acces to public transport ?
Oh and not being able to carry shopping with the pram, and needing to think about getting back home. This has seriously limited my shopping (thank god for that π)
Advice:
Plan your lunch or your shopping around baby. I always make sure that I have a good plan π shipping is fun but your baby routine and happiness is more important.
1. I leave the house when it’s Chloes nap time. Why? So she sleeps on the journey. I usually wak for 10 minutes before getting on the train which gives enough time in the pram for Chloe to fall asleep. If I travel by car then she would sleep in the car seat as soon as we set off.
2. Plan your lunch or shopping around your baby. I always have lunch when Chloe is due a feed or I make sure that I am in the shop which has a parents room so I can easily feed her.
3. Baby needs some fun even when shopping (I don’t think that at this stage they understand that shopping is a great fun). I always give Chloe brake from the pram. Usually while I have lunch I would get her out of the pram and let her stand, seat, bite or wherever she wants to do. It means that while we are in the shop she doesn’t mind being in the pram. And she loves seeing what’s happening around her !
4. Consider time at which you will be shopping. There is nothing worst than trying to shop and push your pram in a busy shop! Early mornings are the best, being a mum means that we need to get up at ridiculous time in the morning (night more like it) anyway so this shouldn’t be difficult.
5. Make sure you visit more than only baby shops π
6:30 AM BABY ALARM GOES OFF π
I am used to disturbed sleep by now. Getting up every 2,3 or 4 hours to feed my little princess – it’s fine My body knows that nower days we are constantly tired π. What I’m also used to is being able to sleep untill 8am. For some reason 8am was always making me feel better about my lack of sleep, probably because I could think in my head oh it’s already 8, everyone are already at work and I am still in bed (not thinking about all of the night feeds I have done) .
Now Chloe decided to take that away from me as well as good night sleep !!!!!!!!!!! Now Chloe wants to get up at 6:30am and play!!! Play at 6:30am π³π³π³ non of my arguments that it’s to early to play are working π If I am lucky I manage to slee through her talking till 7am …. Good news ? It will all pass …. Soon? Hopefully π
NO MORE BABY SLEEPING PROBLEMS !!!! Hurray!!!! …. How wrong was I π#neverending
So I thought that we cracked the sleeping problem and everything will be now perfect … And it was for a day or two but then Chloe decided that she will go back to being a newborn baby and start feeding every 2 hours!!!!!! How and why??!!! Until now Chloe was eating every 5 – 6 hours at night and was sleeping perfectly in between !!! Why would she change that? π³π³π³
On the very beginning I thought that she is going through the growth spurt, but after a week of it I guessed that this is not the reason …. She can’t be growing so much !!!
It’s been now over 2 weeks and after another bad night I hit the Internet πoh yes again ! I discovered that there is a lot of us with exactly this same problem. Just put on to google: 4 months old feeds every 2 hours and you will have millions of links. My research conclusions : there is lots of reasons it may be happening π (I told you that nothing is ever straight forward with babies)
1. Your milk changes at 4 months and it’s not as fatty as it use to be, because of that baby needs more to stay full or eats more often. That would explain a lot π apparently you should feed your baby more through the day and it will make her fuller at night so she won’t be up so often for the feeds. In my experience it won’t work, Chloe will eat all of the extra on top of her usual π³π³π³ she also poos so much that I don’t think it stays in her belly for very long time π
2. Baby’s are so interested in the surrounding that they eat very quickly so they can explore what is happening. Obviously eating isn’t very exciting so they want to get it done very quickly and eat only the minimum needed to stop feeling hungry. That would be a good explanation as well. Apparently feeding in a dark quiet room should solve the problem.
3. At 4 months they go through sleep regression.
4. It’s normal up until around 6 months that babies wake up a lot and we just need to wait for them to become sleep mature !!
So I will be trying some of it to see if it makes any difference! I will also be begging Chloe to let me sleep a bit more and maybe she will feel sorry for myself and decides to give me a small break.
Chloe is now 4 months old ????!!!!!
i can’t believe that it’s already 4 months !
I can defenitely say that it’s be the most wonderful 4 months I my life ! It’s the happies I have ever been, the most tired I have ever been, the most worried, confused and proud.
Chloe is such a happy and curious baby. She is also a a genius baby – don’t we all say it π. She holds herself very well, she doesn’t want to lay as she can’t see everything. Nower days she is searching or standing all the time, and her head just goes left and right, left and right (just to clarify she isn’t standing on her own (yet)). She is now reacting to her name! She plays with her own mirror image. Everything she can get her hands on goes straight in to her mouth, and if she can’t do it she gets so frustrated (she screams her frustrated scream) this one od probably after her mummyπ She also started teething but luckily her symptoms are mild.
Chloe has laugh out loud for the first time which was amazing. To get her to do it again it’s a very hard work !!!! Almost impossible π
Oh and we are going thought 4 months sleep regression π
On one hand I am very exciting about all of those things she will start doing as she is growing up on the other hand I just want her to stay little … And then I remember about feeding her every 2 hours 24hours a day(shall I say night?π) 7 days a week.
It’s incredible how much and how quickly they change…. It’s also incredible how much happiness they give !
BABY NOT SLEEPING\ BABY CRYING WHEN GOING TO BED- WE FINALY CRACKED IT !!!
Chloe is extremely happy baby. She doesn’t cry very often… Mostly in the eveningπ
It started few weeks ago, or maybe always was there but just wasn’t that clearly visible, or we just can’t remember π After a bath, we would put Chloe in to her crib, giver her dummy and her comfort blanket. My husband would read Chloe a story and she would be asleep within 2-10 minutes (without any crying). Sounds like a dream yes? But only for 30minutes to an hour, after that she would wake up screaming/crying. She would be in such a state that we would have to get the lights on and clap really loud to distract her. Nothing would work to calm her down, this could last from 15 min to an hour (most od the time an hour). After which she would go back to sleep. Very recently this crying has moved to straight after the bath. As soon as We would start dressing her she would start crying so much, it’s almost as if she knew it’s time to go to sleep.
As parents all of us, all the time keep trying to find reasons behind everything. Me and my husband went through all of the reasons why Chloe is doing it. From the most ridiculous ones like: She doesn’t like this room, She doesn’t like her bed, She hates to sleep, She is hungry (after feeding 10 minutes beforehand) through the standard checklist: too hot, too cold, wet nappy, unsettled in new bed (we recently moved he to crib), scared of dark, has nightmares. Nothing seemed to give as an answer or a solution.
Got to the point where we started dreading the evenings, it was heartbreaking seeing Chloe so upset. One of another evenings spend on the internet researching why is my baby crying I came across a theory about being overtired. Ok so Chloe didn’t look overtired (red eyes, cranky, crying) but this “specialist” said that if baby gets less than 3,5 hours of deep in the day it will affect him at bedtime. Until now Chloe would sleep only 30-45 minutes in the day. She would wake up happy and start playing, and I always thought that this meant that she has had enough. Apparently the reason why she was waking up is because her sleep cycle has finished and she didn’t know how to go back to sleep, not because she has had enough sleep. With nothing to loose and becoming quite desperate I decided to try this theory . Chloe already has her set times for naps so now I just needed to make sure that she would sleep 1,5 hour twice in the day and 45min on her last nap. Luckily it turned out to be much easier than I thought. Chloe started sleeping 1,5 twice a day and then 45min in the evening pretty much straight away!!!! Yes she would wake up and be up for 2-15 minutes but with a bit of help. Help being giving her dummy, comfort blanket to her cheek and ssssshhhhhhh then leaving the room; sometimes I would have to repeat it few times but she would eventually fall asleep. Guess what was the end result ???? The crying has stopped !!!!! It has stopped !!!!! Me and my husband have our evenings back, Chloe is so much happier in the evening and a bonus that I have so much more time now on the day for myself !!!!!!!!
Cheeky smileΒ
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MEETING NEW MUMS …. WORSE THAN DATINGΒ
With 4 months old daughter most of my day is filled with : nappy change, playing, picking Chloe up, rocking Chloe , holding Chloe or her toys so she can bite it, entertaining Chloe, tidying up, trying to clean, cooking, Internet sketching for answers to never ending questions and doing a lot of washing. I am doing all of that in an empty house whiles baby talking. Gosh at one point I actually worried that by a mistake I will start doing my baby talk to a grown up, or forget how to talk normally π what I was really craving is a grown up company and being able to talk to someone about what I am experiencing, ideally someone who knows what I am taking about. Don’t get me wrong I love every minute I spend with Chloe but I wanted to be able just for an hour to go out for a coffee and talk to someone else than Chloe.
OPTION 1. MY FRIENDS
I would from time to time meet up with my friends but most of them are working full time which means that I can’t see them when I need it most – weekday in the mornings or afternoons. Also most of my friends don’t have kids. You should see theirs faces when I started talking about explosive poos. But it’s great to see them over the weekend to talk and thing about other things than baby π
OPTION 2. MEET SOME MUMS
– NCT
Best option in my opinion. Unfortunately I didn’t go to NCT course after being told by lots of people that it wasn’t good and didn’t teach them anything.they did however said that its a good way of meeting other mums. Based on those opinions I decided not to do it, what is the point of paying so much money just to meet mums??!! I regret not doing it now! If I knew how hart it was to meet other mums I would have done it. My advice is – do it!!!!
BABY GROUPS
This one is very good as it benefits your baby and you get to know other mums. If you are shy like me it can be hard to move the “friendship” from the class to actual meet ups.
Me and Chloe go to Baby Sensory Classes which are great! Chloe loves them and they are brilliant for her development! I meet quite a few Mums, and it’s something different to do once a week. As I mentioned I am very shy and also most of those mums knew each other already from the NCT Course so I haven’t make any friends to meet outside the class.
We will start now the Baby Massage. Again great for babies but also another way to meet other mums. Ideally I would have started it a bit earlier but couldn’t get free space.
We will also start going to a Play Group now that Chloe is a bit bigger and can actually play not just lay π
INTERNET
There is a lot of different websites and apps. I been on all of them and tried all of them as well…
– Netmums, Mumsnet
Two of the biggest websites for parents. They organise meet ups which you can attend. If there is one in your area that great and you should defenitely go. Unfortunately there was nothing where I live. I am shy but I would always do everything what I can to change something that I am not happy with, I took things in to my own hands. I contacted regional ambassador for Mumsnet and asked about meet ups where I live. Outcome ? I will be organising them now!!! Our first one will be in 3 weeks time … I hope someone will come π
– Apps
There is a lot of apps but those in my opinion aren’t good enough yet. Location is a key when you want to meet other mums and that’s not very specific in most of them. I don’t thing that they are popular enough so the amount of mums on it isn’t amazing.
But it’s worth a try, there are some of them:
– mummysocial.com
– mumamie.com
– mumsmeetup.com
– meet mums now (app)
– parents nearby (app)
NEIGHBOURS
This really worked for me:-). We have moved in to our first house. There were 8 new houses build and luckily all of them been bought by young couples and most of them with kids. Because we were all new, all moved in pretty much on this same day, and we been seeing each other all the time it was really easy to start chatting. For shy person like me it was perfect!
CAFFEES
I go out every day for a walk with Chloe. If I don’t have any “date” with another mum or a friend, after walk I would go for a coffee on my own. It gets me out of the house and Chloe loves it, she is fascinated with people and lights (loves looking out of the window). If Chloe sleeps then I can read a magazine and enjoy my coffee- then it’s “me time” π. Very often there would be other mums doing exactly this same π now you just need to have the currage to start the conversation π.
This business is worst than dating π
My Beautiful Chloe
FIRST TIME
Chloe has laughed out loud today for the first time π I never imagined that I would be proud of laughing but I am .
NEW YUMMY MUMMY 