Yesterday, Pob was 2 months old. She is suddenly much bigger, much more of a little person. She smiles a lot, particularly at me, but has also started to smile without us smiling at her first, which is apparently one of those milestones. I even got a little giggle out of her a few days ago by making repeated "ooo, ooo" noises at her, although she hasn't repeated this trick. If I come into the room and start talking while she's with someone else, she'll turn her head to try and find me. She can't quite get her head to a 45 degree angle when she lies on her tummy, although she can raise it enough to turn it from side to side. Which we encourage since when she's on her back she has a strong preference to look to the right so H is worried she'll develop a flat head.
She is gradually losing all that dark hair she was born with, but still has enough that she doesn't have that total baby bald head. Her eyes seem to be darkening, but still have a bit of blue in them so I haven't yet lost hope that she will have dark blue or green eyes rather than the dominant brown from my side of the family. her skin is quite pink and white, but with yellow undertones such that she looks best in pale pink, much to the chagrin of her father who'd rather she didn't look quite so girly. I am so enjoying dressing her in the multiple adorable outfits that we've been given, although she HATES being changed so I'm limited to one cute outfit and one sleep suit per 24-hour period, unless she does one of her exploding poos, in which case she gets one more chance at the chic.
She is quite the little angel other than the feeding issue. She plays happily on her mat, or sits in her chair and watches what's happening for up to an hour after a feed. She tells us she's tired by yawning and rubbing her eyes. We swaddle her and put her in her moses basket, and she goes to sleep after a few minutes of chatting or grumbling to herself. She wakes up starving hungry, unless I wake her first, which I often do, just to get her to eat that bit more.
We have fallen into a vague kind of schedule, which I need to make the most of by getting up and doing the breakfast time feed slightly earlier. It's just that she wakes for a feed around 0430, which we finish (after breastfeeding, bottle and pumping) at around 6. By the time I've fallen asleep again it's 630 and when she starts to stir at 8 I'm really struggling to open my eyes, so I often let her fall back to sleep for up to an hour. Which then means by the time we've done a feed every 3-3.5 hours during the day, I'm doing the last feed at 2230, which finishes at 0000, which means I only really get 4 hours of sleep, and 2 hours of a nap each night. I know I should count my lucky stars that I have a baby who sleeps, and I promise you I pour libations to the fates every day for this part of her personality, what I'm bemoaning is my inability to sit up and feed her at 8am which would probably get us into a better rhythm all round. The schedule is allowing me to get the 2 of us out for a walk every day, but not to do much else, thank-you notes be damned.
The feeding has got a lot easier. Not in that she's better on the breast, she's the same, but I've stopped minding quite as much. I was quite hysterical there for a while. Now I've figured out how to give her a bottle while I pump, we have quite a reasonable rhythm of breast (both sides), followed by bottle and pump. The whole thing takes just over 90 minutes (including nappy changes, burping etc.), depending on how long I put her on the breast for. She'll happily stay there for hours, falling asleep then waking up and sucking again, but after a while I worry about her getting hungry so we stop and go for the bottle. I'm pumping enough to give her breast milk in her bottle for 4 out of six feeds, and she gets formula in the other 2. I'm not horribly upset by this any more, the stuff isn't toxic, it's the loss of the breastfeeding relationship I wanted that I had to mourn, this fantasy of me nourishing my child in a very earth-mothery type way. Well, I am nurturing her, just not in the way I'd intended and heaven knows I couldn't do more than I have done. I guess some people could do more, but pumping six times a day now is as much as I can do without feeling really angry and tired, so that's what I'm doing.
We had her 6 week check up and jabs today. Yes, I know she's 9 weeks but that's the NHS for you. She's now 10lb2oz and back on the 25th centile for weight, while her head and her height are on the 50th centiles. So that's a relief. The jab experience was moderately traumatic for both of us - she screamed blue murder while I had tears in my eyes. After the initial scream, she abruptly went quiet and looked me in the eye, and I swear had such a look on her face - very much "Mummy how could you do this to me when I trusted you." Absolutely terrifying!
So we're doing well. I don't know how much longer I will pump as it's such a time sink, but for now I'm ok with it and I feel good about the amount of breast milk she's getting. I'm really enjoying her, relishing the little personality which is emerging. And feeling very very lucky, every day.
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