Eliza, three months

We’d heard so much about the three month mark being that mythical point where babies calm down and become much more manageable – is three is the magic number? Well, I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point approaching this month, Eliza did seem to get a whole lot easier. We can’t pinpoint it to one thing, rather a combination of her getting older, Alex and I becoming more acclimatised to parenthood, the discovery of Infacol, and her sleeping better – most of the time! – meaning I’m getting lots of sleep too. She’s now much more content and happy, and everything suddenly became a whole lot more fun for all of us.

Here’s three things about our three-month old:

  • The discovery of hands was a revelation for her. New favourite things to grip at the moment are my hair, big handfuls of my skin when she’s happily breastfeeding – ouch – or her little red spoon, a present from Grandma for the beach that she now won’t put down, much to Alex and I’s amusement
  • Our baby is such a smiley joy at the moment. I can forgive her for not going to sleep till 4am then waking up every hour when she chuckles at me (she had a bad couple of nights recently but luckily seems to have regressed back to normal-good-sleepy baby, fingers crossed)
  • She is tantalisingly close to a tipping-over point, and has spent a lot of time over the past few days turning herself around on her play mat, swinging her legs up and launching over to one side with a determined look on her little face. As a result, I have spent a lot of time watching her, even if an ANTM repeat is on TV, it’s that good

Eliza, I’m so excited about everything we’ve got to look forward to; if what’s coming next is even a third as good as what we’ve seen so far, then it’ll be fantastic.

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On the beach

We’ve just arrived home from a long weekend in Bournemouth, where the sun actually shone for us, for a change. We were there to help my brother move house (although my contribution to helping mainly involved sitting around and feeding the baby – the most important job though, right?). Continue reading

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First night out minus baby

Thanks to some strategic power expressing, last week saw the momentous  occasion of my first night out minus baby. The NCT dads in our group have had beers on a couple of occasions, so purely in the interests of balance and fairness – of course! – it was the mums turn this time (the men + babies got to have a cosy night in at one house with takeaway).

We’re very lucky that our neck of the London woods has lots of restaurants and gastro-type pubs to choose from – plus baby-friendly, cake-selling places for during the day – and our evening out consisted of drinks at the downstairs bar at the Exhibition Rooms at 69-71 Westow Hill (champagne cocktails, I have missed you) followed by more drinks and food at Numidie at 68 Westow Hill.

The opportunity to be at home full-time with Eliza at the moment is such a privilege and I know I’m so lucky; however, it felt great to have a few hours off and just go out. It would be a proper new mum advertising cliche to say it made me feel like ‘me’ again, but it was such a brilliant novelty to put on a full face of proper make-up as well as some pre-baby clothes which weren’t selected due to front-fastening features or easy boob access. It was even great to sit on the top deck of the bus up to the Crystal Palace Triangle (which I never thought I’d miss, but is a thing of the past with a pram!)

It was such a good evening; as well as an awful lot of excitement at being out there was a perfectly reasonable amount of phone checking, loads of baby chat, and as always with groups of new mums, some lengthly discussion about childbirth. Eliza and Alex had a great time and she was fast asleep when I got back.

And while I wouldn’t say I was really suffering the next day, I was very thirsty with an ever-so-slight headache. Hangovers, I have missed you not.

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Eliza’s birth story – an unexpectedly quick induction of labour

I thought I’d post my birth story today to coincide with International Midwife day. I received such amazing care from midwives, both in the hospital (despite it being incredibly busy) and from the community midwife team at my doctors surgery (who came out to our house for three weeks after we’d taken Eliza home from the hospital). I’m lucky that I had access to such great care, as I know that so many people aren’t so fortunate.



“I have to tell you; you’re already 10 cm dilated, and your baby will be here before your epidural. You are going to have to deliver her without it,” the midwife said to me to my horror, mere minutes after we finally made it to a delivery room. “Now, do you feel ready to push?’

But before we move on to Eliza’s imminent – and unexpectedly speedy – arrival, let’s rewind back to the start. It actually began with a false start, on my due date, with an induction that progressed as far as the King’s College Hospital labour ward waiting room. At this point I’d had two sweeps and everyone was convinced I’d spontaneously go into labour. But she stayed stubbornly put, so we went in for an induction as planned – but were then sent straight home due to an unprecedented south London baby boom meaning there were no free beds. “You didn’t expect to actually have a baby on your due date did you?” a midwife said wryly.

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Give as you Live with Google Chrome – make charity donations while online shopping

Becoming a parent introduces you to a multitude of new and amazing experiences. And on a purely practical level, it also opens you up to a whole world of new products to buy for the for the baby. Even if you’re lucky to be given lots of things, as we were, there’s still so much you need – or, let’s face it, want – to get. And of course the shopping doesn’t stop when you give birth. There’s all the bits and pieces you didn’t think about or know about, the panic purchases made at 3am when they just won’t sleep, and all those things as they get older. We experienced this again this week, as Eliza’s moses basket is now on the cosy side for a baby who likes to direct traffic in her sleep so we’ve finally got round to buying her a cot. And now we need new sheets, and baby-safe bumpers, and a mobile, and so it goes on.

We conducted a big chunk of our baby shopping online, basically for ease and convenience; as we live in London we don’t have a car, so it’s much easier to get everything delivered to our door than have to carry it home on the train (especially when you’re nine months pregnant and even lifting a magazine is exhausting).

So I was really interested when I was contacted about Give as you Live and the launch of a beta toolbar for Google Chrome. Give as you Live is a new way of raising money for charity when you shop online. When you buy things on participating websites, the retailer will donate a percentage of your bill, on your behalf, to your chosen charity. Once you’ve downloaded the toolbar and set up an account you don’t have to do anything extra or spend any of your money, it’s that simple. The new beta toolbar for Google Chrome sits at the top of the browser and tells you if a website you’re looking at is involved, along with details about how much money it will donate against what you spend. Continue reading

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It’s been twelve weeks…

…yet this balloon still hasn’t deflated (and obviously I’m very reluctant to take it down). Happy nearly three month birthday, Eliza!

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That’s my boy…

Today Eliza and I took a trip back to King’s College Hospital for my final post-pregnancy appointment at the haematology clinic. It was strange being back with a baby this time, especially considering the amount of time I’d spent there before she put in an appearance.

Anyway, here’s a conversation which took place today, with the doctor who had met her pretty soon after she was born:

Doctor – peering into pram: “Oh look at YOU, you’ve changed so much – you look like a proper little boy now!”

Me: “She’s a girl…”

Doctor: ‘I know!”

Mistaking her for a him has been a common theme recently; it happens a lot when random strangers stop and talk to us in shops when we’re out and about (people are so lovely when you have a baby, it is most un-London like). I think it’s mainly because she has a more-than-healthy head of hair, and unless she’s wearing top-to-toe pink people assume otherwise – and I much prefer to dress her in a whole spectrum of bright colours and patterns.

However, following the conversation today at the hospital I think it might finally be time to bring out more drastic measures, such as her completely ridiculous giant hairband (bought from H&M – such brilliant baby clothes).

Poor Eliza, or, as Alex is fond of ironically saying at the moment, “that’s my boy”.

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Our afternoon out with Nick

We’re just back from our Easter break in Bournemouth, which was Eliza’s first trip out of London (she slept through the night twice – it must have been the sea air as she’s not repeated it since).

However, the week before saw a visit from my friend Nick – eagle-eyed readers of this blog may recognise him from such previous posts as this one – and here’s what we got up to, in photo format:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Top left: Nick and Eliza getting reacquainted in my flat (they’d met before when she was a tiny two weeks old, so she’d changed lots)

Top right: View of London and The Shard from the top of Gypsy Hill; we walked up the hill and around the shops, and randomly, the library – shhh

Bottom left: Eliza in her pram pod – we have the Bugaboo Bee + which is brilliant – along with her friend the owl pram toy

Bottom right: We went to the Sparrowhawk pub in the Crystal Palace triangle for lunch, where I had a beer for the first time since Alex and I went to Bruges on our pre-baby break. I’ve had a breastfeeding-appropriate amount of wine since giving birth, so not sure why it’s taken this long to have beer (although, giddy with the excitement, I had a half and drank about half of that)

PS – I’m loving maternity leave, isn’t it brilliant?

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Cow / baby

Eliza in her Cowshed baby towel (from my Shiny Red workmates). Possibly one of the cutest things ever; also, one of my favourite photos of her so far.

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Nine months in bump shots and blog posts

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