The Twilight Zone

Elodie is 8 weeks old now and we have both been officially discharged from the various medical people. Things should theoretically be settling down but although Elodie does seem to be able to sleep longer at night, it still seems to take two to three hours of feeding/soothing/ putting her down/picking her up to settle her. Which means a typical evening will go like this - feed er around 7.30pm, bath and baby massage at 8pm, another feed after that between 8.30pm and 9pm. At this point, sometimes she will drop off for 45 minutes, then we have more feeding, interspersed with periods of putting her down then picking her up again. It's like a puzzle I'm trying to solve. I've been keeping a feeding and sleeping log to look for patterns. So far it hasn't helped.

Since my mum went back home a couple of weeks ago, I've been trying to get out as much as possible. I've joined a postnatal group and a bumps to babies group - but haven't got anyone else's number yet. But my quest to meet other mums continues.

Things change all the time. Elodie's first cold heralded a few sleepless nights. Her first smiles, however, brought the power to enchant - she will grin up at me mid feed and all is forgiven. She slept for 7 hours straight a couple of weeks ago. Sadly, that feat is yet to be repeated. She is now allowed to take her harness off for three hours a day - but cries when it is put back on, then forgets all about it, She gets stronger all the time, lifting her head up and pushing her arms and legs against anything that provides resistance.

She remains a gorgeous, beautiful little mite and sometimes I'm so overwhelmed with love for her it brings a tear to my eye. And when she has woken me for the umpteenth time and I'm exhausted and losing my patience, she looks at me with her big blue eyes and all is forgiven.

Yummy Mummy

Not the current meaning of the expression, implying as it does Nigella Lawson/Denise Van Outen/Jools Oliver sashaying around in Boden (whatever exactly Boden is) and preparing perfect cupcakes while looking stylish.



No, I think yummy mummy is a much better description of my baby's relationship with my breasts. As the weeks go by (6 so far), I become increasingly thankful that booby and baby seem to get on rather well together. I could not imagine the fadge of faffing around with making up bottles using 'cooled boiled water' and constant sterilising stuff. With breastfeeding, you never run out unexpectedly, nor can you forget to bring dinner with you, and it's always at the right temperature.

As well as all the advertised benefits (the pro BF lobby are really quite dogmatic), there are other rather nice things - as the source of dinner, Elodie follows me round the room and her eyes light up and her sobs quieten when I whip a boob out. And when she's feeding she looks up at me with impossibly deep blue eyes thinking 'mmm, yummy mummy' it's just magical.

Not withstanding the fact I accidentally melted my breast pump the other day (since replaced). Ooops...