Just the two of us

Guess what I did today? I looked after Ayaan for the day…all by myself. Would you believe this is the first time I’ve had to do that?

Before you think I’m just a layabout dad, I have taken care of him before…but this was the first day it would be just the two of us alone. Usually I have Mummy A about to do everything help.

Mummy A had to leave the house early, so no Saturday lie in for me. Although…since Baby A was born, a lie in is a bit of a distant dream. Mummy A had given me detailed instructions about his routine (which I had written down…just in case), so I was armed and ready for anything. Unless it wasn’t on the list.

First things first…the nappy change. I reckon I’ve become a dab hand at this, so no problem. I would’ve been quicker if Baby A would stay still for a moment.

Then downstairs for breakfast. He’s not a huge fan of breakfast, rather like me. For once, though, he ate well. Must have decided to take pity on me.

I found it helped to turn on the TV to help distract him. There’s this hilarious children’s programme called Captain Mack, which he watches. All the shows are pretty generic, but each one ends with the phrase “I’ve got to go…my monkey needs me!”. Hehe.

Then…up again for another nappy change – he’d done a poo again. It was very solid and looked like he had laid an egg!

10am (according to my list) was time for banana. I took half a banana and mashed it up in his bowl. It looks disgusting, and touching it isn’t exactly pleasant. In the past it would have made me retch…having a baby clearly  changes all that.

He’s fussy about his banana – only the best will do. Luckily I’d been to Marks and Spencer. He ate well, but it was a struggle to get him to finish. He was too busy falling asleep in the high chair.

I just about managed to feed all of it before he dozed off. In the meantime, I got a text from Mummy A checking how I was getting on. No problems of course….Superdad can handle anything.

The next couple of hours were great – he slept like a…well, a baby I guess. I felt very chilled out. Managed to feed him some milk as well. He finally awoke at midday, so I picked him up…and he stank. Yep, Baby A had just done his third poo of the day. And it was a monster. Where has he got space to keep that much in his body?

My parents dropped by to visit and I took him out for a bit as well – it was a lovely sunny day. Everything was working out nicely for me. For once.

I managed to comfortably feed him lunch (his favourite, mixed vegetable medley), and – shock, horror – he even had dessert. Thanks for looking after me, Baby A.

We had quite a fun day together, playing with his toys and jumping up and down. Well…he jumped, I just held him. Let’s hope all days with just the two of us goes just as well…

Foot in mouth disease

I often have a habit of saying the most inappropriate things. I can’t seem to help it – my mouth opens and I blurt it out. One of my worst ones is where I asked a guy I hadn’t seen for a few months “So how’s the wife?”, only to find out he’d been kicked out of the house a couple of weeks before. Oops. 

Baby A, unfortunately, seems to have inherited this ability…

Rash moment for a baby (part 3)

Some good news! It turns out the health visitor was right – the new wipes we had been using was obviously not good for his skin. We stopped using them on Tuesday and hey presto….his rash is clearing up. How quick was that!

We’ve been keeping his face and legs moisturised, and whilst it hasn’t disappeared completely, his face is definitely looking better. Phew!

Sit down and play with me!

Well, here’s something. Baby A has finally got off his arse and hit a development. He has actually sat up. Er…on his arse. 

Yep, that’s right, he is now sitting up – and without any support from us! Correction: he can’t actually lift himself up yet…he still needs us to lift him into a sitting position. But hey, he is fully unsupported. 

Of course, sitting up lends a whole new dimension to the way he plays. We were worried that he was bored of his play mat since he never wanted to lie stil on it. Now he can sit though….he can lift things up, move things about. And of course…put things in his mouth. Seems like everything has to go in his mouth nowadays.

It means he is able to occupy himself for a little while, allowing us to do the important things around the house. Like watch TV.

Of course, this being Baby A, you can never leave him alone for too long.  He is quite happy to play with his toys for a while…but every now and again he looks around….just to see where we are. If we’re there, he will play a little longer. Or sometimes maybe he’ll call us (“Uh….uh…uh,” means “Come over here,” in Ayaan language). 

However, if we’re not there….put it this way, I’m thinking of sending my ear drums on vacation. Still a bit clingy that one.

Being early days, he does fall over on occasion, but he’s a durable thing and is normally alright. Unless he gets on to his stomach, in which case….well, we al now THAT one. I’ve noticed that often, when he does his “wobbly baby” moves, he grabs his own feet to stop himself toppling over. Clever lad.

 

One degree of separation

We’ve finally done it…we’ve finally left Baby A!

Alright…that sounds a bit too dramatic. We’ve finally taken the big step of moving out of his room and back into our own room. A lot of people told me I should have done this ages ago, as it’s important for a baby to get used to being by themselves. Probably true – Baby A can be pretty clingy. He could see us from the cot when we were in bed, so he often cried to get attention. 

It’s felt quite weird for the last week, not having him in the room. You sort of miss him…even though he is only a few yards away, just next door.

He still cries out at night, often when he rolls on to his belly and gets stuck. We’ve been letting him cry continuously, rather than picking him up straight away, and he often calms down after a while. I have to admit that Mummy A is better at this than me…although to be honest I have become such a heavy sleeper I miss more than half the occasions when he screams! I reckon I could sleep through a hurricane. 

You can sometimes hear him moaning a bit when he is on his belly, but will often settle back to sleep. I don’t like the idea of him sleeping on his face, but I know other kids that do it. It’s risky going into the room, though, because as soon as he catches sight of you, the volume dial turns up a notch! He’s a right little attention seeker, this one.

Rash moment for a baby (part 2)

Just to add to his nappy rash, Baby A has developed a rash on his cheeks, and some marks on his legs. Whatever happened to good things coming in threes?

We took him to see the health visitor today, and she was very helpful. Nothing to worry about, we were told, just make sure to keep his skin moist with plenty of cream or oil. Apparently it’s very normal, what with babies rubbing their legs together, or chewing on tings and dribbling all over their face. Which Baby A is very good at doing.

And what about the nappy rash? Well….had we been doing anything different? Had we changed nappies, or been using something else for cleaning him?

Turns out, the answer was yes. We had very recently started using fragranced baby wipes to clean his bottom (c’mon now, he does get a bit whiffy, after all). The health visitor suggested we try going back to what we used before. We hadn’t thought about that, but hey, it’s worth a try. 

On another note, Baby A is still on the low end of the weight scale. He’s still putting on weight, though, which is the important thing. The health visitor reassured us about it: she could tell that Baby A had far too much energy. He kept trying to steal her pen, and was continuously looking about at the other babies. Other babies don’t move about as much and therefore put the weight on quicker, but he was burning it off ith his over-activeness.

Yep, he has too much energy – is this really my son?! If he can maintain this level of (hyper)activity in his teens, I’ll be very impressed….

Rash moment for a baby

You know, there are lots of things that we complain about when it comes to Baby A. That’s because there are so many things about him that wind us up. Obviously.

Er….I’m joking of course. As if. Actually, I reckon part of the fun about having a baby is complaining about all the annoying things. You get some parents who seem to have perfect babies (“he sleeps through the night, never wakes up; and he drinks all his milk!”), but then you also get those who love to talk about all the problems (“What your baby doesn’t drink milk? Our baby doesn’t eat full stop. And he’s so constipated, you could build a wall with the rocks he deposits in his nappy…”). 

I reckon I fall into the second camp. Well, partially anyway. And before you ask….he’s not that constipated. I wouldn’t say I get competitive about complaining about him (it’s not something you want to get competitive about, now is it?), but there is sometimes a certain satisfaction about talking about the little things he does. Especially as most of them are quite funny.

So, where’s this leading? Well, obviously, I have something else to complain about….and to make clear, it’s nothing to do with something Baby A does or has done. Unfortunately for him, he has succumbed to an affliction I was hoping he had managed to avoid….nappy rash.

Yep, the dreaded nappy rash. You’ll notice this post is devoid of pictures. Not surprising….after all, I’m sure nobody wants to see his spotty red butt. And it’s not a picture I want to keep either…I change his nappies often enough that I really don’t need a photograph permanently burnt into my retina. I already have bad enough images in my head as it is.

Poor chap…the rash looks quite sore – I wonder if this is part of the reason he hasn’t been sleeping well lately? Hopefully it won’t last too much longer – we’ve been using lashings of Sudocrem which is apparently meant to be very good.

There’s always one more thing to worry about, isn’t there?