Tag: baby

Chloe is now 4 months old ????!!!!!

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

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 😀. 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 mummy😄 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 😄 

Oh and we are going thought 4 months sleep regression 😄

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?😀)  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 !!!

BABY ADVICE, MY BABY EXPERIENCE

Chloe is extremely happy baby. She doesn’t cry very often… Mostly in the evening😄

It started few weeks ago, or maybe always was there but just wasn’t  that clearly visible, or we just can’t remember 🙂 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 !!!!!!!!  

MEETING NEW MUMS …. WORSE THAN DATING 

BABY ADVICE, MY BABY EXPERIENCE

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 😄 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 😄

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 🙂 

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 😃

– 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” 😀. Very often there would be other mums doing exactly this same 🙂 now you just need to have the currage to start the conversation 😉.

This business is worst than dating  🙂 

BABY SLEEPING ROUTINES: WHEN? HOW? WHY?

BABY ADVICE, MY BABY EXPERIENCE

I always was very much against running your life around baby …. My opinion has changed slightly after the first 2 months of having my own baby 🙂
When Chloe was around 12 weeks I noticed that she would only fall asleep on my breast and have a nap whenever she wanted to. This meant not much time at all for anything else in the day, and evening filled with either Chloe crying or Chloe being on my chest 🙂 .
After another evening of Chloe crying whenever we put her in to her moses basket I hit the internet…. Big big big mistake…. you start reading about everything what you do wrong, what you don’t do and you should do, and it just makes you feel like shit !!!! Then you start reading about ways to get you in to this perfect routine and thats when your head starts spinning !!! There is around 100 different ways of getting a good routine !!!  Its crazy and my head is spinning just thinking about it.

FEEDING ROUTINE
From the very beginning I knew that I was against schedule feeding, there is a reason why doctors tell you to feed on demand. How do you explain to 3 days old baby that it needs to wait 25 minutes before getting milk as it’s not the feeding time yet ?????It may work for some parents but I didn’t want to try it.

DAILY ROUTINE
I knew that I didn’t agree with putting a newborn baby on a daily routine as in my opinion they are way too small for it. First of all they need to get used to this new scary word, scary smells, sounds etc and to do so they need to be dotted on. I do believe that in the beginning they know best what they want and when they want it.  Not sleeping, not knowing what comes next it’s a part of having a newborn baby !


Me and my husband from the start have been letting Chloe do what she wanted: we feed her (or shall I say I feed her as my husband doesn’t have a milk coming out of his breast) when she was hungry, she was sleeping when she wanted, we been going out to the shops and cafes, walks etc when we felt like it.

 As Chloe was getting bigger and we have been told by all of the informations we found on the internet that we aren’t doing it right we thought its time to set the routines in place. Apparently the reason our baby cries is because I got her use to sleeping on my breasts, she doesn’t know how to comfort herself and she is also tired because she doesn’t have a daily routine. I asked myself what do I want to achieve and what will benefit my baby? 

For a week I stayed more at home and started observing Chloe. I started noticing when she is tired ( 10:00, 13:00 and 16:00) and thats when I started putting her in to her moses basket for a nap. I would give her a dummy and a comfort blanket, she would snuggle her face in to the comfort blanket and fall asleep. No, it wasn’t as easy and just doing that 🙂 it took us few days to get the routine going. On the beginning she would cry cry and cry then fall asleep. Now I just put her in to her basket and she is out.
I do admit that having a strutter in a day has helped her and me. I finally could predict what will happen 🙂 and when I can do some things around the house :-).

Did it help with her sleeping at night? no.

We always have been lucky when it comes to nights. Chloe would wake up for her feeds and then go back straight to sleep, it’s the evenings which were proving difficult which I mentioned in previous posts.
She still was for a while, quite unsetteld in the evening when we put her down into her moses basket. I think that it was just normal transition which she had to make.Come on its hard to sleep in a basket if you can in the safe place of your mums arms. We changed her evening routine a bit, after bath my husband started reading her a story. We also moved her basket in the evening to our bedroom so she could start falling asleep there instead of being with us in the living room. After a few days she started to fall asleep on her own and the screaming has stopped.

Is routine  good? Yes, it is.
Does it work? Yes, it does but its not an answer to everything.
What routine is best? It depends on you. We have a bed time routine and we have set times for naps and thats it! I still feed my baby when she wants to eat ( which is very predictable now). If we want or need to go out and its Chloe’s nap time then we will let her sleep in the car or pram. I just wanted to have a healthy balance between Chloe’s needs for a routine and having a life.

My advice is yes baby needs a routine, routine which suits your baby and your life. Remember that every baby is different and needs different things, every parent is different and lives different life style….

First day / night with a new born baby.

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

First day / night with a new born baby.
After waiting for 9 months she was her! She was perfect and so beautiful (we all say that😊). Me and my husband were so happy, excited and high on adrenaline that there was no way etcher of us will go to get some rest (let’s remember that we haven’t slept in around 40 hours). We ended up just staring at Chloe who was fast asleep through the whole day.
I remember thinking this isn’t that bad, we are really lucky as our baby doesn’t cry at all …. I couldn’t be more wrong 😊
It all started as soon as we decided that we need to get some sleep after being awake for 40 hours. Chloe started crying so I feed her, when she finished I tried to put her down in to her cot but she would cry. She cried every time I took her off my breast. After 5 hours or feeding or should I say comfort sucking I couldn’t do it anymore, I had to stop or I would start crying. She was crying and nothing except my breast would calm her and I was in so much pain that I couldn’t nurse her anymore. It was a horrible night, I remember very clearly thinking : what have we done? Our baby is a cry baby! Is this how it will be every night? In the morning we found out that all of the mums been in this same situation. But no one tells you that this is normal, that’s what babies do. On my course I been told that Chloe and will be sleeping all the time for the first 72 hours. By the time we got home (best feeling ever❤️)I was sleep deprived but I just couldn’t go to sleep. Like all of us I got home, sat on the sofa with my husband and with Chloe in front of us and we both said: what do we do now? And like everyone we ended up just looking at her for the rest of the day 😊 First night at home wasn’t much better she cried a lot which is understandable : she didn’t have a clue where she was and what was going on. On the positive side we got some sleep here and there as we kept doing turns through the night 😊. At this point we started to worry, is this how it will be all the time ??!! Don’t worry it’s not. After that Chloe has settled a bit. No, you do not get lots of sleep but you get some 😊. Chloe just wanted to be on the chest most of the time, it does make them feel safe. Chloe would feed every 2 hours for the first month. I know that is sounds little but your body does get used to it.

1st WEEKEND AWAY WITH MY LITTLE MONSTER

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

We are in Brighton !!! As part of my Christmas present we came for a weekend away to Brighton. Our first time away from house as a family! 
What is your opinion about taking 10 week old baby to the hotel ? ( if it’s negative I don’t want to hear it 😊).
I found it much easier than I thought it would be. Chloe sleepy in her carrycot and she slept pretty well! It took as a bit longer than normally to get her to sleep but once asleep she was fine. 
We were the one getting up and checking on her all the time (don’t ask me why as I won’t be able to answer). Our meal out last night was a bit of a disaster 😊. We found Jaime Oliver restaurant and decided to have a dinner in there. Once inside we been told that there is around 40 min waiting time for a table. We decided to wait in the bar area … Why? I don’t know. I think that we forgot that we have a 10 week old baby in the pram…or maybe because there was quite a few prams around the restaurant and one at the bar so it made it feel ok…. After 20min both me and my husband just went what are we doing? We shouldn’t be in the bar area with a little baby !!! So we left …
and went eat at the hotel. Fallowing day we just spent walking on the seaside and doing some shopping (Chloe like always has had much more bags than anyone else😄). We stopped for a coffee and to feed Chloe, we just started to leave when Chloe did a massive poo….and I left her nappies in the car! The thing with Chloe’s poos is that they very often leak…. Google when’re is the nearest boots, run to get nappies and come back just in time to find out that there is no baby changing facilities ….. So I changed Chloe’s nappy in the middle of Costa … Sorry everyone but it’s not my fault, there was nowhere else to do it 😁 All in all weekend was a success and Chloe seemed not too bother about the change in scenery….

PARANOID ABOUT BABY SLEEPING ROUTINE 😳

BABY ADVICE, MY BABY EXPERIENCE

Paranoid about baby sleeping routine.
Paranoid is how you can describe what I became yesterday. Why Chloe only falls asleep to have a nap on my chest or with dummy? Why is Chloe crying in the evening before going to sleep? should I let her cry to sleep? is she too small to self soothe ???!!!!!! I was going crazy !!! I was reading lots of different articles on the internet, asking other mums about they experience, reding some more and then driving my husband mad with questions …..
Why do some people make you think that it’s not good if your 2,5 months old baby doesn’t fall asleep on their own and doesn’t sleep through the whole night??? I know that we all do things differently and would bring up our kids in a different ways and that’s fine. What isn’t fine is when you make other people feel bad about the way they choose to do things!! There is nothing wrong with letting your baby fall asleep on the breast, there is nothing wrong with cuddling your baby when they cry & there is notching wrong with using dummy if you choose to do so!!! We all want our babies to sleep well through the night and to fall asleep on their own, have a good sleep routine (whatever that is) but on the end of the day we are talking here about small babies!! There is so many specialist claiming to know best, so many different approaches and opinions on how to put your baby to sleep and about sleeping routines; it’s hard to know what is the best option. Because there is so many of them there obviously isn’t one good way of doing it and noone knows what is the best way !!! Just do what seems right for your baby and what you feel comfortable with!!!!! #baby #sleep #sleepingroutine #newborn #firsttimemum