6 month update—becoming mama

I realised while I was writing all about what Gus has been up to lately that there is another person in this relationship that has been doing a lot of learning and growing in recent months—me! Sometime in these past 3 months in particular, I’ve really settled into this role of mother. I certainly don’t have it all figured out yet, but I’ve started to feel like I know what I am doing. I am no longer a new, inexperienced mother who feels thrown in at the deep end with no idea what is going on. I am a cool, confident mama who has a bag of tricks and a growing stock of experience to call upon when things are tough. (Okay, I don’t necessarily feel cool or confident when I am trying to figure out why Gus has been screeching and screaming for 20 minutes, but at this moment, while he is lying next to me, peacefully sleeping, I feel very cool and confident.)

When did this all happen?  I read or hear stories about mothers’ difficult early days with their babies, and I know, intellectually, that this happened to me, but it is so far from my life now. Not that it was all hard then—we are blessed with a very easy-going baby—but I remember spending an unusual (for me, but probably not for the average new mom!) amount of time crying and can’t remember why. Gus is only 6 months old; you’d think I would be able to remember back that far. And it also makes me a little sad that I am already forgetting those little details—if I can’t remember now, what hope is there of remembering in the future? I know it’s cliché, but this all goes so fast!  I think I do a passable job of living in the moment, I just wish some of these moments moved at a slightly slower pace.

Another thing I have become aware of recently is that this is who I am. Amy: mother. Many women worry about losing themselves and their identity once they have children. For me, motherhood has gradually subsumed me over the past six months, in a lovely and exciting way. I feel like I can, if I try, trace the path backward to my old self, and it makes sense, but I can no longer imagine who I would be without Gus. The flip side is that I get confused when I think about the future and realise that someday I will no longer be a mother to a baby. I obviously will never stop being a mother, and hopefully we will have more babies in due course, but there will be a day when *this* is not my life. To someone who is just getting used to this new identity, it is strange to think that it will not last forever. It will ease away just as seamlessly as it came, till one day I wake up and realise I have changed yet again, without knowing when or how.

I don’t think I have ever been as reflective about my life as I am now. I don’t know if it is because I am at home all day so I have time (ha!) to think about these things. Or maybe it is beause I have this blog—don’t they say something about how recording an event can alter that event? Or is it merely the nature of parenthood? This life-changing event happens so quickly (I know pregnancy lasts 9 months, but how much can you really prepare for everything that a baby will bring?), you need to take time for your brain to catch up.

So this is me, as a mama. I don’t think I have mentioned yet in this post how much I love it. I guess, for me, that is just a given. I am so blessed to have such a lovely baby and an amazing husband to parent with. I, thankfully, am pretty much back to my laid-back self after worrying about every little thing for weeks and weeks after Gus was born. But one thing that hasn’t changed in these intervening months is how my heart feels like it could burst when I think about how much I love this kid.

St Monica, pray for us, that we may mother our children in a way that brings them wholeness, happiness, and life in our Lord.

Quick Takes (volume 9)

Today's takes are really quick: just pictures spanning Gus's life.  Hope you enjoy! 

And don't forget to check out Conversion Diary for more quick takes.

two days old:

one month:

two months:

three months: 

four months:

five months:

six months:

Reflections on Gus’s third month

I have been feeling a bit sad these past couple of days—I feel like Gus is just growing up too quickly!  And he is still just a baby. Imagine what I am going to be like as he passes even more milestones!

This has been a really good month. I think that we are really settling into a routine and figuring stuff out, more or less. We have had our hiccoughs, such as last week’s growth spurt that threw me for a bit of a loop. And I still worry way too much—is he sleeping too much; is he sleeping enough; Jon, do you think he has a temperature; ad nauseum. Do you think that ever goes away, or do the specific worries just change? 

He has grown out of almost all of his 0-3 month clothes.  It is funny, because I don’t realise how much he has grown, then I look back at photos from his first week, and I can’t believe how much he has changed!  My friend knitted Gus this great hat (thanks, Lilah!), and I put it to the side when he was first born, thinking it was impossibly big. I came across it yesterday, and he has almost outgrown it—doh!  We’ll have to squeeze a lot of wear into these next couple of weeks J

Gus continues to roll onto his side from his back (he really started that just as he turned 2 months old, I think), mainly to get a better angle to suck his hands. Which he is doing constantly at the moment. For a couple of weeks now, he has been chewing his hands all the time, gnawing on our fingers (he’s got a strong bite!) and drooling a lot. We tried to explain it away, but now we can’t really come up with any other explanation—we thinking he is teething. Or at least pre-teething. He generally doesn’t seem too bothered about it. Here’s hoping it continues that way!

One of his favourite things to do is stand. It is so funny, because he has loved to stand up, with us holding him up under the arms or holding onto his hands, since he was about two weeks old. Other moms are often really impressed, but I didn’t realise it was out of the ordinary! It means that he has developed really strong muscles in his neck, back and legs. Plus, he looks so cute while doing it! Apparently Jon never crawled as a baby and went right to walking. Now, I don’t expect Gus to start walking anytime soon, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he skips over crawling like his pa did, seeing how much he likes to be upright at the moment!

Just this week, he has developed / is in the process of developing, a new skill: he is starting to grab at things. This is very exciting! It started with my hands, where he would touch them and play with them and pull them to his mouth (I think I helped them get to his mouth, to be honest). Jon has been trying to get Gus to hit the rattles in his play gym, which he occasionally does, but we weren’t sure whether it was intentional or accidental. But in the past two days, he has definitely been grabbing toys and pulling them towards his mouth. He isn’t very proficient at it yet, and he doesn’t always even try to do it, but it is pretty neat to watch.

He also seems to be getting very independent, or at least as independent as a person who can’t move under their own steam or talk can be! He loves sucking his thumb. Which I feel I should be happy about, but sometimes it just breaks my heart a little bit, especially when he chooses to suck his thumb instead of nurse.  I believe that nursing should be for more than just nutrition, so I feed on demand, whether it is for hunger or comfort or to help him sleep. The first time he slept for 6 hours at night (which he has only done a couple of times), with his thumb going into his mouth as needed to help him stay / fall back to sleep, I felt so dejected:  he doesn’t need me anymore! And the other night, for the first time ever, he fell asleep on his own, lying next to Jon and I, but without any help (i.e. nursing, rocking, etc) from us, just sucking away on that thumb of his. Yay?

He is just so little. Obviously, he needs Jon and me for just about everything still, but sometimes it feels like he is already growing away from us. Granted, it is absolutely adorable when he lies in his baby gym, talking to the butterflies and birds that hang down from it. Part of me could just watch for hours, and part of me wants to run over there and scoop him up, hug him close and never let him go!

I feel like I am being melodramatic with all of this. He is only three months old. He is really not independent, and the little things that he is doing are good and necessary to help him grow into a mature and healthy person.  I can’t hold him back and keep him from growing up. But he is already passing through stages, growing out of things. I did not expect this to happen so soon and am just not ready for it. Luckily, in most ways he is still my little tiny baby. Maybe not a quite a newborn still, but my son, who needs me.  Maybe I need to work doubly hard to cherish all these amazing little moments!

Some posts from fellow bloggers that I really identify with at the moment:

On growing up, from Code Name: Mama

On thumb sucking, from It's all about the hat

Health Visiting Fail

I went and got Gussy weighed yesterday—he’s at a very healthy 14 lbs 4 oz, which is in the 80^th centile!  He is now the biggest of all the babies from our antenatal group. My arms could definitely tell that he was growing quickly!

While we were at the clinic, I decided to ask the Health Visitor about some changes in behaviour that Gus had shown this week. For about five days, he had been eating all the time (i.e. even more than usual!), dirtying his diaper constantly, and not sleeping very well—napping for only about half an hour at a time and waking up more often in the night. I assumed it was just a growth spurt, but I though those usually only lasted a day or two, so I wanted her opinion on the situation, just to make sure that this was a normal variation rather than indicative of something to worry about .  Big mistake.

The HV just started going on and on about how he should be napping for 1.5 hours at a time in his own bed, he should be sleeping 8 hours without a feed at night (!), how I should just comfort him when he wakes up at night instead of feeding him, and how I shouldn’t be picking him up and/or feeding him every time he fusses because he’ll learn that he only needs to cry to get attention (as if that is a bad thing—he is learning that his parents will attend to his needs!) and I should instead pick him up when he is “good” (and we know how I feel about that terminology).

I was so annoyed. I tried to just smile and nod, hoping she would stop talking quickly so I could just leave. But I disagreed with almost everything she had to say! She didn’t seem to grasp that his naps and night sleep had been more regular and had changed.  Furthermore, I was happy with the way things were going, even with the extra wakings at night, as long as he was healthy. Maybe I hadn’t explained the situation properly, but once she started talking, I wasn’t interested in discussing it with her. (Except when she said Gus should be sleeping in his own room. I pointed out that the official recommendation is that babies should sleep in the room with parents until 6 months, to reduce risk of SIDS. She said, “Oh, I meant for naps.”)

Talking to Jon about this last night (probably better described as ranting to Jon about this), he pointed out that the advice that the HV gave isn’t unusual. Just because we have made a conscious decision to parent differently than that doesn’t mean that others don’t make a conscious decision to do the exact things she mentioned. It is true, sometimes I wish I could put Gus down napping in the afternoon and guarantee that he will stay asleep. But most of the time, I am more than happy to let him nap in my arms or in the Moby wrap. He is only going to be this little once, and I want to savour these moments. One thing the HV said was that if I lived in an African village where there were lots of people around to take care of me, then I could just sit around with baby all day, but we live in the real world. I just felt she was missing the point. I would much rather sit around with Gus than clean the house all day, and not just because I am lazy! She kept talking about how she was giving me goals to work toward. It is easy for someone like a health visitor to talk about goals, but I want to live in the moment. I don’t want my interactions with Gus to mainly be focussed on goals to achieve, unless that goal is to help to bring him up to be a loving, compassionate, secure person in this life and a saint in the next.

The thing that really bothered me about the HV’s advice was that I felt really undermined in what I was doing. I’m sure that wasn’t her intention and she wasn’t to know my beliefs.  But as I thought back on it over the course of the day, I just felt bad. I didn’t exactly doubt that we are making the decisions that are right for our family, but my confidence was shaken. And it makes me sad that a health visitor can make a mother feel this way. I am lucky that I have such a supportive husband to reassure me and that I know that the way we are parenting is a tried and true approach, even if different than the things the HV described. But it is so easy, as a new mother, to feel the guilt about what you are doing, and that should not come from the health visiting service, although several people I have talked to find that they do leave the HVs with guilt. Health Visiting has the potential to be, and in many cases is, such a valuable service. I have met a few HVs that can give you advice and reassurance about your child’s development and health while also giving you confidence in your ability as a parent. I just wish I had spoken to one of those yesterday!

In the end, I was reassured about Gus’s sleeping habits the old-fashioned way: by talking to other mums. Gus and I had some friends from the antenatal group over for coffee yesterday afternoon, and it turns out that all four of the babies have started waking up more in the night this week. (And one woman was told by her HV that babies only wake up in the night at this age when they are hungry—thanks for the contradicting advice, HV services!) Also, Gus slept much better yesterday and last night and is eating on a bit less frantic schedule, so it must have just been a long growth spurt.   I probably will go back to the HV clinic next time I have questions or concerns, but I’ll try my best not to take the advice quite so personally—and maybe avoid that particular Health Visitor!

Reflections on Gus’s 2nd (-ish) month

I thought since I wrote a reflection on Gus’s first month, it might be nice to continue that month by month, or at least on a semi-regular basis.  I just thought of it this week, though, one week after the two month mark. Oh, well, close enough for government work, as they say.

I feel like the main theme for this month has been oscillating back and forth between feeling like I am really getting the hang of this whole parenting thing and feeling like I have no idea what I am doing. I think a big part of that is because the month was dominated first by Jon being home sick for a week, throwing off our routine (don’t you know you are not allowed to be at home, Jon! ), and going to the USA for two weeks at Christmas. On top of that, I think Gus was (is?) still at a stage where his schedule was a bit wobbly—it would seem like he was getting into a certain routine for a couple of days, and then it would abruptly change again.

The most exciting thing about the month was that he is really breaking out of his shell and interacting with people more.  There are days where he will be awake for quite a few hours and really engage with you. It is so neat to see him so curious about the world.  We got a set of black and white books as a gift, and he loves them!  You open up the book to a page that, frankly, looks pretty boring to me, but his eyes just light up.  He’ll start cooing and his arms and legs start going.  It is so funny to watch. 

Another thing Gus has picked up this month is the desire to be rocked all the time.  It seemed to start when we were in the USA. Luckily, there were lots of people around to take a turn at the stand-up-and-hold-Gus-for-hours-on-end duty. He would just stare over your shoulder, entranced by whatever happened to be back there.  And lick your shoulder.  Yum, sweater.  I don’t know why he started wanting this all of a sudden, but I find myself spending ages every day just rocking him. Sometimes during the day I’ll just put him in his wrap and do some chores or whatnot, and he is happy enough. But when he is awake at 11pm, I usually just spend an hour or so walking around the bedroom with him in my arms. My arms are getting really strong!

He can be so much fun to be with, although I do get tired before he does a lot of days. He’ll usually only be awake for about 90 minutes to 2 hours at a time.  This includes time spent changing diaper, feeding him, and trying to get him to fall back asleep once he starts to look really tired! I have found that I feel really guilty when I don’t engage with him for the rest of the time.  I figure, it is only a relatively short amount of time, I should be able to play with him for that long.  Plus, I worry about two things: that if I don’t engage with him all of the time while he is awake and alert, he won’t develop properly (!), and secondly, that if I leave him to play by himself for 5 minutes on Monday, I’ll just become a lazy parent, and by Friday he will be left to his own devices all of the time, because I can’t be bothered.  (I have similar fears about using a pacifier, that I will get to the point that I just shove it in his mouth whenever he fusses, rather than actually attending to his needs).  I don’t know where these fears come from, as I don’t think either (any) is likely to happen.  When we were in the USA, my dad pointed out to me that Gus actually sometimes likes to be by himself and doesn’t want to be held 24/7.  It is true: he is starting to play really well by himself (when I let him!), kicking his feet, and gnawing on his hands or sucking his thumb.  He is a real sweetheart.

The other thing that stuck out this month was that it is still really hard to let other people have him. When we were in the USA, there were so many people that wanted to give him kisses and cuddles, play with him and hold him.  And I loved it, that so many people love him.  In theory.  In practice, I had to really work hard to convince myself that he was okay when other people were holding him. After a day or two, he started to become more fussy than normal.  I had no idea why he was being like that or what he wanted.  I decided that he must miss his mommy, because he is so used to just being with me all day every day, it was hard work being with all these other people so much.  Or maybe that was just how I was feeling! We had a great time with all the family, but I made a more conscious effort after that to be sure to get my own cuddle time in with him!

One way that we can guarantee good cuddle time is at night.  Gus does have his own bed, and sleeps at least part of the night almost every night in it.  But I do love having him next to me to cuddle at night. Some of my friends with babies Gus’s age are trying to get the babies out of the parents’ bed. I really am not ready to do that!  Part of it is that he just seems so little, too little to expect him to be on his own all night every night. Especially if he needs us with him, I’m not prepared to deny him something that he needs. But I think I probably need him with me more than the other way around!  As a family, we are still all really happy with the arrangement we have, so I think we’ll keep going like this as long as it works for us, and not worry about anything that says he must be doing x because he is y months old.

I think that is month two in a nutshell.  A lot more calm than last month, and less emotional—I feel like I am usually in control of my feelings now.  The overwhelming love for this little guy still hits me strongly, but I hope that never goes away!

Reflections on Gus’s first month

Gus is one month old already! I can’t believe how fast the time has gone.  Here’s what I think so far about this whole parenting business.

-1-

Parenting a newborn is both easier and harder than I thought it would be.  Some days it feels so natural and easy—even bouts of fussiness are easy to deal with, emotionally if not physically.  And other days, I feel like I have no idea what I am doing, nothing seems to work, boredom and frustration are the main themes of the day (both for myself and Gus, I think!).  Hopefully the ratio of easy to hard days is in my favour, although the first week had a surprisingly high number of good days.  The first week Gus and I were home on our own probably had a majority tough days, but that was at least partially due to being stuck in the house from the ice and snow.  Change of scenery definitely helps make a day smoother!

-2-

I have never worried as much in my life as I have in these last four weeks!  The first night Gus was born, I was so physically exhausted, but it took hours to fall asleep.  Part of that was because I was just in awe of him and didn’t want to stop staring, but part of it was the feeling that he would only be okay as long as I had my eyes on him.  That feeling hasn’t yet completely gone away.  I am sure I will never go completely back to my previous laid-back self, but I do hope that the knot in the pit of my stomach when he is not in my line of vision will go away sometime soon!  The first car journey, I was almost sick worrying about what all those horrible other drivers on the road might do to us. Going out of the house in general is not completely okay unless I have the little one firmly in my grasp.  No one can be trusted to with my Gus except for me—not even Jon!  And every little odd thing Gus does—sleeps too much, doesn’t sleep enough, makes a funny face or noise—is evidence that we have somehow irreparably damaged our precious little boy.  Of course, all these thoughts are my emotional brain talking; for the most part, I let my rational side calm me down and convince myself that every is and will be okay.  And I have noticed that the frequency and severity of these worries are diminishing slowly but surely (I think!).

-3-

It is amazing how much difference a little bit of sleep can make. Evenings are so much harder when I am tired, whether due to not enough sleep or too much activity in the day. And even a small amount can make a huge difference.  I remember waking up one morning—a rare day when Gus actually woke up in the morning instead of sleeping till 11—and thinking how I would feel human if I only could get half an hour more of sleep. And other nights, begging him to fall asleep for even a short while so I could replenish my energy a little bit. Most days, both Jon and I get a reasonable amount of sleep of sufficient quality.  But the days where we don’t? Worst. day. ever.

-4-

Hormones are crazy, crazy things. I feel like I am on an emotional roller coaster, and the above three things are definitely influenced by the hormones.  Again, there are fewer days where I feel the influence now than at the beginning, but still find myself crying at the most ridiculous things.  The first three weeks, I think there were more days where I cried than not.  But now, most days are tear-free, or at least tears are mostly shed over things like television commercials, not about my uselessness as a mother or the myriad dangers that my little one faces and my inability to protect him. 

-5-

I feel like a one-trick pony in my interactions with Gus.  Whenever he is upset, my first reaction is to nurse him. On days when he has been nursing 2 hours straight or he cries while latched on, I feel like maybe I should add some  more tools  to my parenting belt.  And I also wonder if maybe I am comforting him, but not really solving the problem that he was upset about in the first place.  And don’t get me started on when he is awake and alert.  I have never really known how to interact with babies, but figured it would come to me when I had my own.  Yeah, not so much.  I am okay for about 10 minutes, talking and singing to him, playing with him. But then I am out of ideas—and tired!—and think, aren’t you ready to nap again? Roll out the all-purpose breast again!

-6-

I am pretty sure my house is never going to be put together properly again.  Not that it was very tidy or organised before.  But now, I consider it a good day if I manage to put a load of laundry in the machine (but rarely take it out and hang it up) and get my lunch dishes into the kitchen (and never clean them) before Jon gets home. I just cannot figure out how to get anything done around the house during the day, and I am too knackered in the evening to do much more than dishes and dinner (and finish that pesky load of laundry!).  Gus sleeps pretty well in his crib at night, but during the day, he seems to only want to sleep while being held, and you can only do so much with him in the sling. I’ll sort it out one of these days. Hopefully.

-7-

Newborn growth and development is amazing.  I love watching Gus grow and change before our very eyes.  You can literally watch him get bigger—his little hands and arms get chubbier, clothes fit more tightly than they previously did.  The new skills he learns are equally obvious.  I could tell as his eyes were focussing more on various objects.  This week, he seemed to add a whole host of new sounds to his vocabulary overnight.  Really adorable sounds, too :)  Exciting times we live in!

-8-

It is a cliché, but it is astounding how much you can love someone. And how quickly he captured my heart!  One of the reasons he is held so much while sleeping is that I love to just hold him and look at him—could do it for hours.  Everything about him is beautiful and wonderful and makes my heart hurt.  If I am away from him for too long, I literally feel an ache—and not just in my over-full breasts!  And away from him can mean just a couple of hours of other people holding him. He is just so precious to us!

So that is parenthood so far.  Things do change quickly, though.  Even as I was writing this, I wanted to use the phrase “used to”, but how can there be a used to when we have only been doing this for a month!?   We’re ready for month number two!

Paternity Leave

I have been thinking a lot in this past week how grateful I am for Paternity Leave.  I have always thought that providing (paid!) time off work for new fathers was a good thing.  I figured it must be so important for fathers to have time to get to know and bond with their new babies.  In some countries, fathers and mothers can share out the leave, so fathers can take up to a few months leave in the first year of their child's life; this is good for female employees, since there is less disparity between mothers and fathers taking time off for children, which makes employers more willing to hire young women. (Aren't I great, I think about everyone!)


But now I see how vital paternity leave is for new mothers as well, if my experience is similar to most, anyway.  Jon has two weeks off work for his paternity leave, and it was able to start the day I went into labour. And let me tell you, I do now know what I would have done without him here--being a new mother is wonderful, but can be overwhelming! Gus is actually a really good baby, but it is so helpful to have a partner in full-time parenting during these first weeks. Jon has been able to sit next to me and provide moral support when Gus's latch wasn't quite right and it was painful to nurse him.  It was really good to have at least one person not in tears!  And even when the breastfeeding is going well, it's good to not have to choose between letting Gus eat undisturbed and getting something for my own insatiable thirst.  Plus, Jon has done almost all the diaper changing!

Even though I love cuddling my little one and generally hate to put him down, there have been times when all this constant contact can just get to be too much.  This usually seems to coincide with the times when Gus won't settle without being held, and Jon is there to take up the reins and get some cuddles in for himself.  Even the simple fact that when Gus wakes up in the middle of the night, Jon offers his support, however I need it, and I can take it up based on my and Gus's needs, without any of us worrying about how Jon will be able to get up in the morning if he helps at night.  Obviously, he will be going back to work shortly, but it is so good to have this time when we are all learning together and sorting ourselves out.  


A couple of days before Gus was born, I read an article in which the author said how necessary it was to hire live-in help the first few weeks of a baby's life.  To be honest, I found the idea rather revolting. I think a lot of that revulsion came from the tone of the article (or that tidbit, anyway) and the privilege that she exhibited without any awareness that this option would be feasible for only a small section of our society.  But from this side of Gus's arrival, I can see where she is coming from. If a father can't get the time off work and there is no other family around, I can totally see why people would find this a necessary expenditure, even to the point of making other financial sacrifices.  The sanity and well-being of a new mother--in some cases, I imagine this could literally be the things that prevents the baby blues spiraling into a more serious condition--is worth quite a lot!  


I am doubly lucky, because my parents arrive for a week's stay the day before Jon goes back to work, so I will have an even longer time with full-time support.  Plus, Jon's family aren't too far away to come over and help out for a couple of hours when needed. But I have been so happy this past week to be able to spend all of my time with the two men in my life as a newly expanded family.  I think all three of us have gained so much from this time together.


But I am interested--what do others do / have done?  Does daddy find some other way to stay at home? Does mom get support from other family, or just soldier through on her own? Any thoughts?