The First Year: Part 2 - In the blink of an eye

As Milly's birthday approached, Elaine and I could remember almost every detail of the week leading up to Milly's arrival.  It had been an eventful week really, so that helped.  It's one of those parental contradictions that while Milly has been with for over a year now, it is hard to remember what it was like without her and yet it seems to have gone past in the blink of an eye.  I remember being at work when Elaine called to say that the midwife was sending her up to the hospital.  I remember where I was, what I was doing, who walked past, and who I spoke to before I left.  On the day Milly was born, I remember what I was doing when Elaine phoned to say it was time.  I remember having to wait 6 hours because Elaine had eaten some Rice Krispies, and this time going really fast.  I remember getting ready to go into the operating theatre and how bright and shiny it was, and I remember hearing Milly for the first time along with the relief of knowing that she was OK.  Of course, I also remember having my first cuddle with Milly and My Girl being on the radio just after 3 o'clock (I listened to that a lot in the week up to her birthday).  

Milly's stay in the hospital seemed to last a long time, yet it was just a little over a week.  I remember being torn between Elaine and Milly while Elaine was immobile (luckily this wasn't too long).  I remember each time I got to hold her, and being fascinated by just watching her move in her little fish-tank.  I also remember the panic over being told that Milly had been moved to the 'Special Care' room, which was apparently a good thing and a sign that she was getting stronger.  I remember the guilt of coming home late one night while Milly was still awake, and phoning up the NICU later to check that she had settled OK. I remember the surprise of being told that if we spent  the night at the hospital with Milly, we could take her home the next day, and the rush to get home, get packed, and prepare her bottles. I will never forget the pressure we felt to get everything right while we stayed in the hospital, to prove that Milly would be safe with us if they let us bring her home, and the score sheet that we had to fill in every time we fed or changed Milly. 

The only memory that detracts from the joy of how well everything turned out is going home on at the end of the day after she was born.  The doctors and nurses were convinced that she would be with her mummy later that evening as she was so strong, so I went home to get some rest and prepare for our first proper day together as a family.  When I think about what Milly had to go through that night without her Mummy or Daddy, it tears me up and I struggle to forgive myself for leaving her alone and sitting at her side through the night.  I am well aware that this is irrational, that there was no way I could have known if the Doctors didn't.  But that is how it makes me feel, and I have promised Milly that she never have to be on own like that again.


Looking at Milly now makes it hard to remember the worries we had in the first few months.  Worries about whether she was gaining enough weight, worries over letting her near anyone with a cold, about how long we should let her sleep at night before waking her for a bottle.  It's easy to say now that she has not been held back by being premature, she is an independent, strong, and intelligent little girl, but is that because of how we protected her in the first few months?  Is it the worry that made us more attentive to giving her what she needed and covering every base?  We may have been that way regardless, but all of the worries are part of the journey that has made Milly who she is at 1 year old, and I would not exchange that for anything.


When it came to Milly's birthday, I'm not sure she knew that the day was any different to all the rest.  She had plenty of fun, but she always does.  On the Saturday before, we had a small party for her with lashings of cakes, jelly and ice-cream.  On her birthday, Elaine and I took her to The Deep in Hull. She loved it!!!  There were loads of fish for her to watch swimming around, she even took it up herself to shout at a few of them if she felt that they weren't moving fast enough.  Of course she got spoiled with presents, we were the biggest culprits in that respect.  Actually, it was probably me.  I kept coming up with reasons for buying a present besides it being her birthday, Charlie tunnel day (the day Elaine went into hospital) and then homecoming day.  Those days felt just as important to me, and while they will not mean anything to Milly as she grows up, I will not let go of them.

In writing this blog, I have tried to avoid the usual clichés that get thrown around when talking about children.  But some things become clichéd because they often repeated as they are true, and if you mean it, it can't be a cliché (that's my rule anyway!!!).  So, as I reach the end of this blog, at the end of Milly's first year, I will share my biggest cliché.  Children are a gift.  They provide pure joy at all times.  They push our limits, and they can make us question ourselves, but they love us unconditionally as long as we keep them safe, give them food, and keep them entertained.  The smile from your child when you get home from work makes the late nights and early mornings worth it.  It's not easy at times, but the best things aren't supposed to be.         

The First Year: Part 1

This is a long overdue post.  It has taken me some time to figure out what I want to say for the final entry of this blog.  I feel like I should reflect on the last year as a lot has happened, and I have learned a great deal.  However, I also need to approach these last few months in the same way as the others, especially as Milly has given me a lot to write about.  Cramming everything into one last post seemed like a big job, so I've decided that I will split this post into two parts (it's obvious really!!!) and sign off in a way that I feel is more appropriate.

Over the last couple of months, Milly has become a speedy little mover, a keen communicator, and a devilish practical joker.  She has really cracked the art of crawling, her elaborate system of rolling everywhere has been usurped by moving on all fours.  It seems like every day she gets stronger and faster.  With this ability to move freely, comes the exploration of once out-of-reach places.  There is barely a corner that has not been examined, or a table crawled under, all seemingly in search of some magical bounty that she has yet to find.  There is also the added excitement of being able to eat anything that she finds on the floor.  We can check all over for the tiniest of specks, yet Milly finds everything and pops it in her mouth without a moments hesitation.  Over the last few weeks, we have fished no end of things from her mouth, but she needs watching like a hawk.  It has actually become a little game that she plays.  If she now finds something on the floor, she will crawl up to it but not pick it up straight away.  She'll keep looking at you, hoping that you look away, and as soon as you do, in it goes.  Quite smart really.  A recent development is her ability to pull herself into a standing position using whatever is near by.  She has even started to try it unaided in the middle of the floor.  She seems to get braver everyday, which isn't doing our nerves any favours, but I don't think it will be too long before she starts taking a few steps.

On the talking front, Milly is doing really well.  She is not shy of letting her voice be heard, happily babbling away to herself, or demanding more attention, she is never short of something to say.  We have also heard some words quite clearly.  She has cracked 'Mum' and 'Dad', and is getting really good at 'Car', 'Ball' and 'Bear' (in fact 'Bear' is so good that 'Old Macdonald' only has bears on his farm!!!).  We also occasionally get a 'Gran' and a 'Hello', but by far her favourite seems to be 'Bye', normally accompanied with a cheeky grin and a wave.  Over the last couple of months, Milly has been getting her tongue around pronouncing 'L'.  This ends up with Milly sat yodelling constantly, which is very amusing.  

As for the practical jokes, we've always known that Milly has a wicked sense of humour from the twinkle she gets in her eyes when she is about to do something naughty.  But she has taken this to a new level.  First of all, there is the sock game.  This is a simple game that brings great amusement, and all it involves is you putting a sock on Milly's foot and her removing it as you put on the next.  This game can last a while!!!  The next is one Milly plays with Mummy.  This game involves Milly dropping her food on the floor, and as Mummy bends down to pick it up, Milly grabs her hair with hands covered in whatever she has been eating (Beans, Dairylea, Chocolate pudding etc.).  The last one she saves for me.  Having taught Milly how to 'Hi-Five', she will readily offer up her hand when prompted for a good old handslap.  But she has developed her own little joke where she will offer up her hand, as you raise yours in anticipation of the 'Hi-five', Milly removes her hand and turns away grinning.  This will be repeated over and over, until she eventually delivers on the promise, leaving you guessing when she will, and won't go through with it.  She loves it!!!

There is one thing that I have found hard over the last 6 weeks or so.  This is Milly starting to know what she wants, and being prepared to make you aware when she is not happy with a situation.  This situation normally occurs when Milly is left with Daddy, as Mummy tries to get stuff done.  If Milly knows that Elaine is around, I have no chance.  She shouts, screams, and gets herself into such a state that the only option is for us to swap.  At times when this isn't an option, she really sticks it to me which hasn't been very enjoyable.  Some days, the really upsetting part is that I'm not even the second choice.  This situation is not helped by the fact that when I return from work Milly is tired, and that over the last few weeks Milly has been under the weather, suffering from teething, colds, and the side effects of the MMR jab.  These have been times when she has just wanted a cuddle from Mummy to make her feel better, unfortunately, I am not an acceptable replacement.  I'm sure that the blame lies with me on this, as much as it's a phase that Milly is going through.  One thing is certain, my old repertoire no longer does the trick, and my window to find out what does work is a very small one.  On a positive note, however, is that this is only a problem on the days when I'm at work.  It seems as if over the weekends I'm around long enough to earn Milly's approval, which is a great way to end the week I think.


More to follow....

Time for Nursery

As I write this latest post, Milly has just started her 4th week at nursery.  We have been quite lucky in the respect that we have been able to get Milly a place in the nursery where Elaine works.  This means that Milly and Mummy are never really far apart, although I'm sure for both of them, the distance is far too great.  

Milly starting nursery has given me mixed feelings.  On the one hand, I wish that we were in a position to be able to look after Milly ourselves, especially for her first few years.  She is not even a year old, and she is having to spend a lot of her time away from Mummy and Daddy.  On the other hand, Milly loves the company of other children, and I'm sure that it will do her good to be in a different environment, learning things that she won't pick up spending all her time with us.  But I do have to admit that I don't like the idea of her being looked after by someone else.  This is not a question of the quality of the care that nurseries provide, rather a gut feeling about Milly being anywhere that we are not in control of.  I'm just putting this down as one of those feelings that we'll have to get used to, as I'm sure it will crop up again and again.

It was one of those coincidences that, just as Milly was approaching 8 months, and Elaine was starting to think about returning to work, Milly started to become aware of when we weren't around, and becoming very vocal in her displeasure of such circumstances.  Having cuddles with various people would often end up with an upset baby and a hurried exchange back to Mummy or Daddy.  While we had expected some separation anxiety, as it is something that all babies go through, it made the prospect of Milly starting nursery a daunting one, especially for Elaine, who would be the one who had to leave Milly and see her face as she did so (I am spared this as I get to bail out early due to the location of my library!!).  While we had never intended to just dump Milly at nursery on her first morning and let her get on with it, we decided that a better approach would be to take Milly in to meet the staff, get used to the environment and leave her for short periods to get used to the idea.  I must confess that this was mainly Elaine's idea, I hadn't really thought about  the practicalities of the situation, and the nursery were really accommodating during this period.  It is actually their preferred method of introducing a new baby to the nursery, and so had a structure in place for Milly's induction (for want of a better word!!).  As with everything else, Milly took to it brilliantly, wowing the staff with her smile, and enjoying the opportunity to play with other babies.  This certainly helped to put Elaine's mind at ease, knowing that if she had to leave Milly somewhere, it was somewhere she could have have fun, and with people that she responded well to.

When I returned to work after my paternity leave, I didn't have too many problems with it.  I had always expected to only have a few weeks off, and the circumstances surrounding Milly's arrival meant that, for me, it was a relief to return to work and start getting things back to normal (the day she was born, returning to work seemed a long way off!!).  For Elaine, however, although she also expected to return to work, she had had nine months of building a routine with Milly, getting to know her, and enjoying every second of it.  I can still remember the feeling of that final day of the summer holidays, dreading the return to school, and hoping for 4 more weeks off.  I can only imagine how Elaine felt (and probably still feels) returning to work after 9 months, something that too, seemed a long way off.  Despite being understandably upset at times, Elaine has coped with it in a way that I'm sure I wouldn't have been able too.  But Milly has been the real star in all of this.  She has those teary moments when being dropped off, but apparently gets over it quickly enough, and gets on with having fun at the nursery.  

It seems that despite all the changes that Milly has gone through over the last few weeks, it is Elaine and I that have had the most adjusting to do, and probably me more than Elaine if I'm honest.  I always came to work knowing that Milly was safe at home being looked after by Mummy.  I was secure in this, and it never caused me any distress.  But this last few weeks have been testing for me.  I always knew that it wouldn't be easy to leave Milly in the care of relative strangers, but I have found little things really annoying about what they do.  The one thing that has really bugged me though is that they think that Milly is a handful, simply because she won't sit quietly playing with the same toy.  Milly is a baby who constantly enjoys interaction, and she gets this at home.  She watches everything that we do and is learning all the time, even when she does sit playing on her own, she likes to look around and know that we are paying attention.  Apparently, this makes Milly a handful...I can think of worse things!!!

Roll over Miss Milly

Over the last few months, Milly has been starting to roll over.  While her efforts have been epic, for someone starting the movement process, they have taken time to yield the rewards of potential freedom and the opportunity to explore the larger world…well, our floor.   For that reason, I have yet to really discuss Milly’s efforts, in the process of rolling over, to any great length in this blog, but now the time has come. 

One thing has struck me in watching Milly work out the right sequence of movements that get her from her front to her back, and that is how easily we take for granted the our ability to move around.  Milly has had to learn how to position her arms so they aren’t in the way as she rolls, but are there to catch her when she gets over; which leg to move in order to pull herself over; how to arch her back to lift her shoulder off the floor; and how to do it all in reverse to get back onto her back.  The other important thing to learn is how to avoid landing flat on your face on the way down.  This, unfortunately is something that everyone has to learn the hard way.  Milly certainly did, but happily she learned this quickly and was soon making controlled landings on her front.  While Milly’s upper-body strength  took a little time to develop,  she would only be able to hold her head up for a little while once on her front.  As soon as she would start tiring, her head would go down on the floor, and she would begin to get frustrated.  Unfortunately, frustration would bring a lack of clear thinking, and she wouldn't be able to roll herself onto her back.  This meant that we went through a period where she could roll from her back to her front, from her front to her to her back, but it would only be on the rare occasion that she could put it all together and position herself how she wanted.

The beginning of the rolling process showed Milly that by rocking herself from one side to the other, she was able to wriggle herself towards anything she wanted.  This caused a few heart-stopping moments when, left safely in the middle of our bed, she would move herself towards one of her toys as soon as we turned around, and we would find her off towards one of the edges.  Needless to say, we have to keep a close eye on her now (I’m sure she already has a few places eyed up for when she is fully mobile!!!).  One of the great joys of Milly learning to roll has been the games we can play with her to encourage to roll over.  Strategically placing her favourite toys out of her reach to give her something to aim towards seemed to yield the best results.  It was also quite amusing to see her working out what was needed to get her to go that final inch.  The first few times that she rolled over, she must have had a cough which jerked her onto her front, because she went through a period of fake coughing when she got onto her side, to help her get over.  Watching that was really funny.  But eventually, as she continued to grow and learn, she has now mastered this art, and gets enormous pleasure from rolling over and over. 

An unfortunate drawback to Milly’s new found ability, is that she has figured out that it is a good way of keeping herself awake.  Almost every bedtime involves a tour around her cot as she strives to stay awake.  A few nights ago, giggling could be heard over the baby monitor, and on inspection, Elaine found Milly at the top of her cot, wrestling with her soft toys, having a ball!!!  Milly has now taken to sleeping on her side, which bought its own problems for the first few nights.  I seemed that Milly would get comfy, fall asleep, and then involuntarily roll onto her back, or her front, which would come as a shock, and she would wake up panicked.  Hopefully she has now passed this stage as she becomes more familiar with her movements!!!

In the last few days, Milly has started to put together the beginnings of a ‘commando’ crawl.  At the moment, it is completely inefficient, and she very often pushes herself backwards rather than forwards, but there is certainly the beginnings of a crawl.  For a few weeks, she had been moving her arms and legs but going absolutely nowhere, but she has started to move her arms and legs together now, and is slowly starting to drag herself forwards.  Her determination to reach certain toys seems to have no bounds!!!  

In other news, Elaine will soon be returning to work, and so we have been taking Milly into nursery to meet the staff, and make the place familiar to her before she starts properly…but that is for my next post!!!

Instinct or the learned way?

Over the last few weeks I have been thinking about the way that we have been bringing up Milly.  This started because of a pair of Peregrine Falcons that have chosen the Newton Building of Nottingham Trent University to nest atop of, and rear their chicks.  They have doing this successfully for the last 10 years, but this being my first year working at Trent, this is the first time that it has really come to my attention.  As some of you may know, the University has installed a webcam near the nest so anyone can see the coming and goings of the falcons, and the development of the chicks, it really does make for compelling viewing, but I should warn that if you watch long enough, you are likely to see plenty of dead pigeons being ripped apart!!!  If anyone is interested, http://www.ntu.ac.uk/ecoweb/biodiversity/falcons/index.html.

As I say, working here has allowed me to see quite a bit of the footage (there is always somebody with it on, and as it’s a University website, we are allowed to watch it, or they can’t tell us not to!!).  It has been interesting watching  the falcons work together to prepare the nest, protect the eggs that were laid, and take care of the chicks as they hatched.  What I found most fascinating was the selflessness of the birds, as they would go off to hunt, and return with their bounty to feed the chicks, taking care to serve each hungry mouth (there were 4 chicks).  Just when you thought that one might be being missed, it would suddenly find its way to the front and make sure it didn’t miss out.  Watching all this unfold made me think of how easy it is to lose touch with our instincts as parents.  When Milly was born, we were given plenty of advice, as I have discussed previously.  We were provided with a book that gave us guidance on what to expect as first time parents, which covers up to the age of 5, and we were assigned a health visitor who told us that we could contact her at pretty much anytime if we needed to ask her anything.  What was clear, is that we had a safety net of information that we could refer to when we were unsure of anything and, as I’m sure every parent does, we used this when necessary.  I would say that 9 times out of 10 what we were told, or what we read, backed up what we had wanted to do, showing that our instincts were leading us towards the right path.  But there were occasions when we felt completely lost and needed that extra guidance.  What I can’t say at this point is whether this was a result of information overload subduing a gut feeling, or whether those particular situations went beyond what our instincts could tell us.  I guess that is something that we’ll never be able to answer.  What I can say is, however, that it is entirely possible to raise a child purely on the advice of professionals, and the plethora of paraphernalia that is available to anyone.  In my opinion, this would not be a good way to go about it, but it could be done.

Being in the midst of the weaning process, it was watching the falcons feed their chicks that I related to the most.  It made me think how we had known that Milly was ready to move onto more solid food, but delayed because everything told us that you had to wait until 6 months, and that we had to bear in mind Milly’s 'adjusted' age.  Yet the falcons just got on with it.  They didn’t care that one of their chicks was smaller than the others, it got fed the same way, and the parents let them all dictate how much they ate.  At no stage, did I see them charting how much each chick had eaten that day, and calculating whether that was enough based upon their weight.  It just made me think that we should relax a little bit, take comfort from the fact that we knew Milly, could see how she was developing, and were getting good at giving her what she needed.  Trust in our instincts.  Elaine and I actually had a discussion about the virtues of relying on instincts, in which I said that humans had raised children in caves for thousands of years, so there must be something inherent within us that makes sure that we provide whatever is necessary.  Don’t get me wrong, we were not discussing a radical overhaul of what we were doing, we just found it interesting thinking about how approaches had changed.

The very same weekend that we were talking about this, was the same one when it rained pretty much constantly.  I remember looking at the falcons on the webcam and seeing the mother sat on the nest looking wetter than I have ever seen a bird (there is a picture on the falcon blog if you select it from the above link).  The next day we found out that 2 of the baby falcons had died due to the extreme weather.  A couple of days later, a third one died.  It was pretty sad viewing over that week, the parents seemed to pick the strongest chick and focused their attention on it, giving it extra food while the other survivor slowly faded away.  All because their instincts told them to do this.  As you can imagine, this gave me a renewed appreciation for raising a baby with the learned experiences of medical professionals, and generations that have gone before.  The advice is there for a reason, there are some scenarios that you can’t be prepared for, and a little extra guidance is needed, like what to do when a six-week premature baby can’t cope with food.  In a world where all we have are instincts, we wouldn’t have a baby and I wouldn’t writing this blog, chances are I wouldn’t have a wife now either!!  I take comfort in knowing that our instincts as parents have often been right, we have been able to give what Milly needed when she wanted it.  But it is also nice to know that we have that safety net behind us, just in case.

Food, Food, Glorious Food...

...Well mushed up food really!!  Milly's first tentative steps along the weaning process have gone very well.  She has moved on from a bit of baby rice in the morning, to trying some fruit and vegetables, to establishing 3 meals a day, to now having proper little meals for her dinner.  She is taking it all in her stride, as she does everything really.  We had been prepared for her to reject the idea of taking food from a spoon, to spit everything out, and to not like anything.  But she has been willing to give everything a go, and eats most thing that we put in front of her.  She obviously has her favourites, but she tucks everything away and always seems willing to have more.  There does seem to be one stand out favourite though.  Banana porridge.  When this is on the menu, Milly gets very excited indeed, and banana porridge seems to have become the yardstick by which everything else gets measured.  There are even some days when it seems as if Milly thinks that every bowl of food contains banana porridge.  She sees the bowl, starts getting excited, opens her mouth ready for the first spoonful, and then pulls a priceless face when it turns out to be parsnip purée.  Don't get me wrong, she likes parsnip purée, but there is a definite moment where she thinks, "this is not what I expected."


We have now reached the stage where we can start giving Milly proper meals mushed up.  We bought a couple of weaning books that are full of recipes, and I'm not joking when I say that she will be eating better than us!!!  Last week, we spent a day making up 4 different recipes that covered most of the bases.  Over the next few days, Milly will be trying Cauliflower Cheese, Chicken and Parsnip, Beef and Sweet Potato, and Salmon and Pea.  The preparation of these meals involved a lot of dicing, slicing, sautéing, boiling, and finally blitzing.  What was remarkable, however, is that no matter what the ingredients were, by the the time they had been through the blender, they were all pretty much the same colour.  It was good fun though, and the food was smelling good as it simmered away, it didn't taste bad either.  Over the last few weeks, it has been great fun watching Milly get to grips with meal times.  She is loving her high chair, even joining everyone at the dinner table for Easter lunch, and watching her expressions when she tries new flavours is often amusing.  However, the downside to all this is the nervous tension created by the smallest cough.  A tiny little splutter and we are anxiously waiting to hear if she is breathing OK, or starting to choke.  Luckily this has not happened, but Milly is clearly a lot more relaxed than we are!!!

Next week, we have to take Milly to the hospital for her 6 month review.  By the time the appointment comes around, she will be 7 months, but that is not important apparently because she is not considered to be a high risk baby.  The review involves watching Milly play so the Doctor can see how she has developed, and determine whether she has any learning difficulties due to her eagerness to be a September child, rather than a November one.  If all goes well, Milly will be discharged from the hospital’s care after this appointment, or they can request to see her at 12 months.  In my opinion, biased as it may be, Milly is doing fine.  She is doing the things that she should be at her age (not her adjusted age).  She is becoming very dextrous, manipulating objects with her fingers and passing them from hand to hand, she can roll over from her back to her front and back again (when she wants too), she is getting closer to being able to support herself sitting up, and she has started to play hiding games.  The hiding game is a new one.  On Saturday she was laid on her back holding a muslin square over her face and then pulling it away.  Each time she did this, we shouted “Boo,” making her smile.  The more she did it, the more we shouted, and the more she smiled.  Endless fun.  According to all the information that we have read, Milly is doing these things exactly when she should be.  You only have to look in her eyes to see how alive she is, and see that she is working everything out.  At meal times, we give her a spoon to play with to get her used to holding one while she eats.  She has already figured how to manipulate it so that she can get the right end in her mouth.  I think that is pretty smart.  Despite all of this though, I still feel a bit nervous about the hospital appointment.  Logically, I know that she is fine and the doctors will see that.  I also know that she is a little show off, who likes nothing better that performing in front of people.  I’ll just be happier when they say we don’t have to go back any more.

Daddy is Still Learning

It is a while since my last blog.  One of reasons for this – aside from watching too much sport on my days off – is that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about.  My initial intention in writing this blog, was to describe the experiences of being a first-time Dad, and relate the things that I have learned along the way.  I haven’t quite lived up to that brief at the moment, partly because I have been keen to avoid clichéd anecdotes, but also because Milly has provided me with plenty of other things to discuss so that I haven’t really had to discuss how I’m finding the transition to fatherhood.  So, as Milly approaches the 6 month mark, I figure that it is time for an assessment of Daddy – I’m not sure that I’m going to come off very well at the end of this!!!

Since returning to work at the end of my paternity leave, the one thing that I looked forward to every night was coming home and having a cuddle with Milly.  Every night, after her last feed, she would lie on my chest, wriggle until she had got herself comfy, and fall asleep.  Needless to say, this was my favourite part of parenthood.  The fact that my little girl felt safe and secure with me felt great, and I used to love just letting her lie on me.  This was our special little routine that we each shared with each other at the end of every day. 

One thing about Milly is that she hates to be confined.  If she feels that she is in anyway constricted, then she lets us know about it.  This was noted when Elaine took her out in the carry cot.  She HATED it!  She screamed, and shook herself!  It was not good.  This meant that as soon as she started to fill her Moses basket, she became less comfortable in there.  So we took the decision to move her into her own room and let her sleep in her cot.  The ease in which she falls to sleep in her cot made us realise that she had been frustrated in her Moses basket for a while.  Despite the move, Milly and I continued our bedtime routine, and when she fell asleep, I would move her to her cot.  This continued until a couple of weeks ago.  The more alert that Milly has become, the more she seems to enjoy our company.  When I arrive home from work, she is always excited to see me and eager for a cuddle.  However, her eagerness to see me is coupled with a desire to play just when she should be getting ready for bed.  The result of this is that she no longer wants to cuddle up and go to sleep, but wants to play.  This makes me the bad guy for not letting her play, and makes Milly cry at the merest suggestion that it is time to settle down.  Her bedtime routine now consists of putting her in her cot under her mobile and letting her fall asleep of her own accord, which usually happens after 10 minutes.  This is good.  We have not made her dependent upon us to cuddle her to sleep.  But I miss our cuddles.  It actually made me quite sad that Milly no longer wanted to end the day this way, but also proud that already she is an independent little girl, that will settle down in her cot on her own, and who just wants to play with Daddy when he gets in from work.

As with all babies, Milly is prone to the odd ‘grisly’ day.  These have become more frequent since she has begun teething.  When these days fell on the weekend, I found myself getting frustrated at not being able to comfort her.  I am not proud of my reaction.  I found myself wanting to hand Milly over to Elaine and feeling sorry for myself because Milly didn’t seem happy in my company.  I know that this is not the case at all, but it is honestly how I felt.  I had been to work all week, looking forward to the weekend and playing with Milly, and it felt bad to be confronted with a baby who could only be calmed by her Mum.  While I knew that Milly was teething, it didn’t occur to me that this was the problem, choosing instead to blame myself for not knowing what she liked to do.  I am happy to say that I did come to my senses eventually, and realised that I just needed to be more patient and learn to listen to what Milly was trying to tell me in her own way.  Admittedly this was helped by a week off work, in which I was able to spend plenty of time with Milly, and figure out how to sooth her when she was unhappy, how she liked to play, when she needed to have a nap, and the difference between her being full and just messing with her bottle.  What I found strange was, that, until my week off, I hadn’t felt like I had lost touch with Milly.  I had seen her in the mornings and the evenings, and we seemed to get on well, but I guess that I had started to miss a few little things by not being around during the day, and these gradually built up until I felt like I didn’t know what to do again.  This is something that I wasn’t expecting, but it is something that I will be prepared for in the future.

Asides from my parental failings, Milly has had an exciting couple of weeks.  She has started to have baby rice in the mornings, which she seems to enjoy, and we have just started to give her some vegetable mush in the evenings.  The vegetable mush has had varying results – the sweet potato went down a treat…the broccoli didn’t!! – but Milly is getting used to taking food from a spoon, and seems to have fun in the process.  We also bought her a high chair, which has gone down well.  She likes being able to sit up and have look around, she likes to know what’s going on and that she is not missing out on anything!!!

Some More Firsts

As Milly nears the 5 month mark, she has started to add a few new tricks to her burgeoning repertoire of cuteness.  It doesn't seem too long ago that this was restricted to the occasional, well-timed goo, or pulling a quizzical face as she was ponders the meaning of the garbage that we speak to her!!  But in recent weeks, her personality has really started to shine through.  She seems to smile all the time now whenever she's with Elaine or I, she talks to her toys, shouts at whichever one of us is sleeping during her feeding time, and points her finger at you to let you know that she is not impressed.  But last week the icing on the cake came when she laughed for the first time.  It seems to really tickle her when Elaine or I laugh, and that sparked a little giggle from Milly.  She first did it for Elaine, so the following day I was prepared and was able to catch a short video of it. Great fun.  What has also become apparent in the last few weeks is just how strong she is becoming.  Her neck is now strong enough that she can be picked up without supporting her head, and she can sit up with support and have a good look around.  Her latest favourite game is being rocked backwards and forwards while having 'Row, Row, Row your Boat' sung to her.  This is definitely a favourite game, because if you dare not to row with her, she lets you know about it by pulling you and moving herself backwards and forwards!!!

As I have written previously, both Elaine and I have dreaded Milly's first bouts of illness.  With all the things that we were told, we had taken precautions to ensure that we didn't expose her to any unnecessary germs.  It even got to the stage where you begin to worry that you're being over protective and actually doing more harm than good by not letting her immune system develop.  This is no longer a concern, as Milly caught her first cold a couple of weeks ago.  It was actually rather uneventful really.  She was really snotty, leading to some colourful sneezes, and she had a couple of days where breathing sounded like it was a struggle.  But it didn't really bother Milly, she carried on regardless and got over it quickly, sharing it with her Mummy and Daddy along the way!  This has been quickly followed, however, with her first tummy bug.  She caught this one off Elaine and I, despite our best efforts to keep it from her.  She has not been so happy with this one, with her feeding amounts dropping, and her general mood not being great.  The tricky thing with the bug is that we are left guessing how she might feel by how it affected us, which means she won't feel great.  But she seems to be on the mend now, however she is just a little more tired than normal.  But that is true of us too.  Luckily the remedy that was effective for us has also worked for Milly, staying in bed watching Comic-book films!!!  I'm sure that those of you reading this with children will not be surprised about any of this, knowing that Milly's first illness would probably not be a big deal.  But no matter how many people suggested that this would be the case, it was hard not to think that Milly could have been in the minority of children that don't have a "regulation" first illness.  I guess that is a feeling that we will get used to!!

Over the last few weeks, Milly has taken a particular liking to chewing her own fist, as all babies start to do at some point.  Her fondness for this seems to be coupled with her  desire to see just how far she can reach down her own throat, which has had the expected result on a number of occasions.  We are hopeful that these are not the first tentative steps towards a modelling career, but actually the first signs that she is getting ready to start weaning.  There have been a few other signs.  She seems willing to put anything in her mouth, she has started chewing, rather than sucking, her dummy, she is drooling a lot, and she is getting close to being able to sit up.  Given that over the past few days Milly has also had really rosy cheeks, it may also mean that she has started teething, although I'm not sure that she is in too much discomfort at the moment.  The whole weaning process is another thing that is giving us a dilemma due to Milly being 6 weeks early (apologies  if I am sounding repetitive!!).  Milly's actual age (20 weeks) is old enough for us to try her on some baby rice.  But her amended age (14 weeks) is too young.  I feel that in this case, we have to follow the amended age because we have to consider the physical implications of the size of her stomach.  There is only so much she will be able to fit in there.  With Milly seeming to be content with her milk, I think that we will leave her a few more weeks.  It won’t be long now though, and I'm sure she will much rather be sat in her high chair at the table with us at dinner time, so she can see what we are all up to and join in with the conversation!!!

A Head Full of Advice

When Milly was weighed just before Christmas, we asked for a little advice.  When Milly was discharged from the hospital, we were told all kinds of things that it has been hard to forget.  “Don’t let her go more than 5 hours without a feed.”  “Don’t feed her for more than 30 minutes.”  “Make sure her temperature is right, if not she’ll burn energy warming herself up, and then be too tired to feed.”  This advice came from the very skilled, and professional staff at the NICU.  And when they tell you something, especially as first time parents, you listen to it, and carry out those instructions as diligently as possible.  At least, that is what we have done.  While Milly was in the NICU, one of the criteria for her being discharged was whether she was demanding food, a very important part of being a baby is the ability to let people know that you are hungry.  Milly had no problem with this, she never really screamed the place down, but always woke up and became agitated around food time.  This was a good thing, and we were told that we could continue demand feeding.  It is here that I come to the first conflict in the advice that we were given:

•          We are supposed to feed Milly when she demands it, but don’t let her go longer than 5 hours.

The problem with this comes when we have to feed through the night.  In the run up to Christmas, it was becoming increasingly difficult to rouse Milly.  As soon as she fell asleep after 8pm, we would normally have to wake her up for a feed, which never really went well as she never really woke up for it.  It is this that we wanted to get some advice on, knowing that at some point, Milly would drop a feed and start sleeping longer at night – well that’s the theory!!

The day before we took Milly to get weighed, she had her second round of Jabs.  After the first time, and the confusion over the Calpol, we asked the nurse about the correct dosage to give Milly seeing as she had been premature and, at that stage, we didn’t know if she was over 4kg.  The answer we got was reassuring.  We were told that Milly was to be considered as a normal 12 week old baby (again, at that time) and we could follow the directions given on the box.  As it turned out, she didn’t have a bad reaction, and we didn’t feel the need to give her any Calpol. 

On the day that Milly got weighed, we asked our question, “Is it ok to let Milly sleep longer at night, and feed her when she wakes?”  We were told that this was OK, and Milly would wake up when she was hungry.  We were quite happy with this , after all it is what we thought that we should be doing anyway.  However, the first couple of nights, Milly didn’t wake up.  She was soundly asleep.  Elaine and I were not.  We lay awake after 5 hours, waiting for Milly to stir and to feed her.  We eventually decided to wake her up at 6 hours because we felt that she shouldn’t go that long through the night without a feed.  At this stage, it was causing us some concern, so we consulted the ‘baby bible’ that every family is given the first time that the Health Visitor comes to check up on you.  In this, it said that some babies at 3 months will start to sleep for 8 hours at night!!  We were quite happy to read this, and actually considered that we were lucky that Milly seemed to want to sleep for longer.  Over the next couple of weeks Milly’s sleep pattern eventually settled, and, on average, she was sleeping for about 6 hours through the night.  It took her a little while to get used to only having 5 feeds also, and the daily amounts that she was taking dropped a little.  But eventually they started to increase, although not to level they had been at previously. 

When we took Milly to be weighed earlier this month, her weight had gone up to 9lb 11oz.  While this was a good increase, it wasn’t as big as it we had expected it to be, or as big as the growth charts said that it should be.  Again, this caused Elaine and I some concern, and we called our Health Visitor to ask if this was ok, and if we were still doing the right thing.  At this point, we were told that ‘early’ babies don’t really grow at the same rate as ‘term’ babies, and that we shouldn’t worry too much about the growth charts.  We were also told that the advice we had been given about dropping a feed through the night, was good, but not really for Milly because she is small.  Apparently we should have been told not to let Milly go more than 6 hours through the night without a feed, or 4 hours through the day.  As an ‘early’ baby, it is important that we keep her calories up, especially as she becomes more active through the day (and she is definitely becoming more active through the day!!!).  So now we get to the second contradiction in the advice that we had been given:

•          We should no longer think of Milly as a premature baby, treat her as a normal healthy baby.  But we should feed her every 4 hours (even if that means waking her up) because she is an early baby.

As I write this, I realise that this blog seems to be a bit of a whinge, and what I am describing as contradictions seem like reasonable exceptions to the advice we had been given.  But I am being honest, and trying to explain how we interpreted everything that we had been told.  As you can see from the pictures that I post along with this blog, Milly is clearly growing, is happy, and is becoming more alert.  So we must be doing something right!!!  Our new mantra is now: “If Milly is happy, then we’re happy.”  Sometimes it is easier said than done though.