It's a peculiar sort of existence living with a newborn. You live in a strange bubble of fear of them waking up but also a longing for them to be awake. It's weird. When they are asleep you want them to be awake partly so that you know they are ok and partly so you can jiggle them around, but also you know that once they are awake there is no guarantee when they will go back to sleep. It has created a sort of terror that hovers over me. Luckily, I have developed a few weapons in my arsenal in the war of Baby V Sleep which seem to be working out pretty well. They don't always work, which is the fun / frustrating thing about a newborn, no consistency, but if they even work once in a while that's good enough for me.
1. eBay rocking chair. A bit hit and miss but there's definitely been more hits than misses. You just have to be careful when exiting the chair that you don't tip too far forward thus losing balance and startling baby. Nightmare.
2. BabyBjorn Carrier combined with pacing up and down. Not for the faint hearted. Works well in principle but can be problematic when trying to transfer sleeping baby from carrier to moses. Sometimes baby wakes up in a worse mood. This is a risky option basically but gives a good adrenalin rush.
3. White noise app on iPad. (Or even an actual real life hoover which I discovered yesterday when I hoovered the carpet for the first time in weeks) Works 9 times out of 10. My weapon of choice.
4. Swaddling. Has a very high success rate but you have to get past a minute or so of extreme baby anger whilst in the process of swaddling before baby realises you are not trying to do anything horrid to it.
So, rather predictably I seem now only able to write / talk about baby related things. I'm hoping that as I am getting out and about a bit more, I'll have other things to discuss soon but I understand now why people that have kids very often have little else to talk about. Although I'm trying hard not to look at Google too much, even my google searches have become baby-fied. The search history on the iPad currently reads:
* Do all babies wake up crying?
* Gripe Water
* Why is my Baby grunting?
* When do babies sleep through the night?
* Baby kicks blankets off, what does this mean?
* How much food should a baby have?
* How many times a week should you wash a baby?
* When does a baby get hair?
* Daily Mail (A guilty pleasure. How else would I keep abreast of the cast of TOWIE?)
I'm ure I used to have a more varied search history once, but cant for the life of me think when that was.
As well as (sort of) sussing out some sleep weapons I also seem to have succeeded somewhat in eating food other than chocolate in the last day. This was only possible because of the BabyBjorn which enabled me to make a ham and cheese sandwich yesterday. The only minor hiccup was when some ham fell out of the sandwich onto the baby's head (cue Google search "Will ham on a baby's head make a rash???) but apart from that it was a triumph. And tonight I have sampled the delights of a Sainsbury's Be Good to Yourself Chilli. I'm not quite sure why it meant I was being good to myself but perhaps by eating actual food tonight I have staved off the onset of Scurvy for another day, which is definitely a good thing.
1. eBay rocking chair. A bit hit and miss but there's definitely been more hits than misses. You just have to be careful when exiting the chair that you don't tip too far forward thus losing balance and startling baby. Nightmare.
2. BabyBjorn Carrier combined with pacing up and down. Not for the faint hearted. Works well in principle but can be problematic when trying to transfer sleeping baby from carrier to moses. Sometimes baby wakes up in a worse mood. This is a risky option basically but gives a good adrenalin rush.
3. White noise app on iPad. (Or even an actual real life hoover which I discovered yesterday when I hoovered the carpet for the first time in weeks) Works 9 times out of 10. My weapon of choice.
4. Swaddling. Has a very high success rate but you have to get past a minute or so of extreme baby anger whilst in the process of swaddling before baby realises you are not trying to do anything horrid to it.
So, rather predictably I seem now only able to write / talk about baby related things. I'm hoping that as I am getting out and about a bit more, I'll have other things to discuss soon but I understand now why people that have kids very often have little else to talk about. Although I'm trying hard not to look at Google too much, even my google searches have become baby-fied. The search history on the iPad currently reads:
* Do all babies wake up crying?
* Gripe Water
* Why is my Baby grunting?
* When do babies sleep through the night?
* Baby kicks blankets off, what does this mean?
* How much food should a baby have?
* How many times a week should you wash a baby?
* When does a baby get hair?
* Daily Mail (A guilty pleasure. How else would I keep abreast of the cast of TOWIE?)
I'm ure I used to have a more varied search history once, but cant for the life of me think when that was.
As well as (sort of) sussing out some sleep weapons I also seem to have succeeded somewhat in eating food other than chocolate in the last day. This was only possible because of the BabyBjorn which enabled me to make a ham and cheese sandwich yesterday. The only minor hiccup was when some ham fell out of the sandwich onto the baby's head (cue Google search "Will ham on a baby's head make a rash???) but apart from that it was a triumph. And tonight I have sampled the delights of a Sainsbury's Be Good to Yourself Chilli. I'm not quite sure why it meant I was being good to myself but perhaps by eating actual food tonight I have staved off the onset of Scurvy for another day, which is definitely a good thing.
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