Sleep...Again

No matter how many issues POBs (Parents of Babies) may have, it always comes back to sleep. If a baby is sleeping well, all those other issues - teething, eating, feeding, breathing - fade into the background. Yes, a good sleeper is the Holy Grail of parenthood.

It makes sense. A rested baby is a happy baby, full stop. Furthermore, a rested baby means a rested, fed, showered and relaxed mum which means a happy mum which means a happy baby. Finally, there is nothing, NOTHING (I said nooooothing!) worse than an overtired baby. A chronically overtired baby is a beast that can only be conquered by the most patient, persistent and heavily wined up of parents.

When Heike was a teeny wee lass of just a few weeks, she was frequently in the chronically overtired category. I cried. Oh how I cried. At one point I actually thought "Please God don't let me be one of those mothers who locks themselves in a room away from their baby - or worse" because I legitimately did not know what to do. It was AWFUL, bloody awful. But eventually we got into the swing of things, and I learnt to get her down before she reached that point of screaming uncontrollably for four straight hours (FOUR. STRAIGHT. HOURS). So I get that sleep is important.

Sleep is also the thing everyone is interested in - "How's the baby, sleeping well for you?". Heck, I even preempt them with a "Heike's going really well, she sleeps through." I suppose since it does occupy roughly a third of all of our lives, sleep is kind of a big deal.

But as important as it is, sleep is sadly the one thing you can never quite lock down, can never file away in the "All Sorted" folder. At least until your child is, say, 15 - although even then you'll be worrying that they sleep too much.

At mother's group, sleep is one of the hottest topics - and I can (gladly!) say that not one of the babies is a by-the-clock, guaranteed sleeper of certain hours. Granted, some are better than others and thankfully Heiks is a good sleeper as far as they go, but no one can really say for sure just what hours their baby sleeps.

One friend:

"Fifi generally sleeps from about 7.30 to 6 but since daylight savings I haven't been able to keep her up, and the other morning she woke at ten past four. She usually has two day time sleeps but if she wakes up early she might need a third, or if she has a short nap she might need a third, or if she is tired, she might also need a third. But she really hates having a third and I can't usually get her down."

Riiiiight.

Heike is much the same. I can never say for sure what she'll do on any given day, and give myself a mental high five if she sleeps past 5.30am. Sleep is the one thing I can't control, and not being in control is scary, especially for a control freak.

Why do we have such high expectations when it comes to sleep? Could it be that everyone over 45 is quick to tell us how their babies slept through by 8 weeks? Beware of these smug creatures - sleeping through can mean anything over five hours straight, not to mention it's easy to remember what your baby "generally" did with the benefit of hindsight - when she's in her cot giggling at 4.45am, it's far easier to forget that she usually sleeps well.

So guess what? If your baby isn't a perfect sleeper - nobody else's is either. It's all good. Take a deep breath, and release. Then try to catch a few z's, while you can.

Z x

A Family Affair

Okay, so I've been M.I.A again and for that, I apologise. I'm still getting the hang of this blogging thing and fear I'll never get the hang of that "being organised" thing that's all the rage among, uh, everyone else but I'm trying my best! And I do have another legitimate excuse - I've been away! We left last Friday for my parents house, in a small coastal town north of Sydney, and I didn't return until Wednesday.

Every Easter a bevvy of folks head to my parents' house, being that they live right on the water and have a boat, and Easter is generally a time for enjoying family and friends. It's also a four day weekend, and my parents cook. What's not to love? This Easter was no exception, with our little family, my sister and partner, my Aunty, Uncle and their daughter and at various times my brother and a host of friends gathering for meals, drinks and laughter. There were nine of us actually staying in the house.

Now, this situation is HIGHLY ADVISABLE for those of you with little babies. I'm not so sure about little children (who generally tend towards annoying let's admit it) but little babies are in high demand. Family, friends and strangers alike will gladly cuddle, kiss and squeeze your cute little baby for up to many hours while you a) sleep, b) watch television, c) go to the pub or d) all of the above. Therefore a house full of family, including one pre-teen who just loooooves babies, is akin to Mums-of-Little-Babies heaven.

Aaaaaah, the hijinks I got up to while leaving my child to the care of others. I went waterskiing WITH MY HUSBAND, AT THE SAME TIME. That's right, one of us was not watching the baby, oh no. That was left to my Mum and Aunty who, I hear, actually fought over her. I then drank a glass of wine while my husband and Mum bathed Heike. The following day, I went to the pub with my sister. We played pool. We drank beers. We laughed, oh how we laughed. Concurrently, I believe Justus was reading a book. On Easter Sunday, Justus and I went to watch a rugby match. Together. Alone. De-lightful.

The utter amazingness of having family around all the time supports my belief that Western society has it all wrong when it comes to rearing babies. Take me back to tribal times, when I would constantly be surrounded by a swarm of women, family and friends, and would have expert advice, cuddles (for me AND Heiks!) and help on tap.  Instead it's just me, Heiks, Google and our favourite friend, the singing moo cow. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

I must say though, as fab as it was having people around the truly best part was how lovely it was to spend the day with my little girl yesterday - just her and I, playing, laughing, sometimes crying (just her I swear!) and cuddling, cuddling, cuddling. A few days without her full time reminded me just how much I do love being with her always. Nawww!

Z xx

Just a Spoonful of Sugar

I've been reading a lot about nutrition lately, as you do when you are still carrying an extra five kilos of baby weight (gah!), and have slowly become convinced that sugar is the root of all evil. Not entirely - that is, if you're going to shove a big spoonful of sugar in your gob, you're probably aware that it's a pretty ghastly thing to do, health wise. So you're privy to it and aware of what you're doing and the next day, you might have a light lunch with that spoon of sugar in mind. No, the evil thing about sugar is that it's hidden - EVERYWHERE.

Bread, yoghurt, the inside of my pillow case - it's all full of sugar and I didn't even know it! Okay, so maybe I sort of knew (I've had that cadbury chocolate stashed inside my pillow case for yonks), but I didn't really KNOW. And now I KNOW! And everything I serve up comes with a big side of guilt.

Okay, so, how does this relate to being a Mum? What Mum do you know who isn't wanting to be thinner, fitter, healthier, have more energy? If you know her, why are you friends with her? I would LOVE to be five or ten or hey, even a borderline anorexic 15 kilos lighter, and yet I'm eating processed sugar every day. That's, like, bad.

So, I'm trying to give up sugar. When I say trying I think you can already sense the failure behind it. I started out cold turkey - absolutely no sugar for seven days. And it was fabulous! Not only did I feel awesome about myself just for doing it, I lost two kilos in the first week! And it's not like I'm so fat that two kilos is a negligible amount (but also not like I weigh 45 kilos and it would take me a week of intense regurgitation to lose 500 grams of fluid). It was fairly impressive. But then, as I always do, I started to feel proud of myself. Accomplished. And slowly, sugar crept its way back into my life.

It started with a piece of dark chocolate that, while dark, was only 45% cocoa. Then I had a "day off" one weekend. I then decided that since I'd had a "day off" on the weekend anyway, I could eat a muffin during the week. And so it went.

But - I am determined. I noticed just by doing it for one week that I felt less sluggish, lighter (potentially because I was legitimately lighter) and could immediately notice an overwhelming sweetness the first time I ate anything remotely sugary. I've just kind of lost my mojo these last couple of weeks and resigned myself to the fact that I may simply look like this forever - until I have another child and look another five kilos heavier. SIGH!

Yet even the act of writing this post has convinced me that I'm going to stick with it. I will be sugar free! Right after I indulge this Easter weekend. Let's call it my last supper.

What have you given up lately?

Z xx

QUICK NOTE

Just an FYI folks, I've noticed that I've started leaving two kisses at the end of each post instead of one. O.M.G I think I've turned a corner and am feeling extra loving! Must be all this seven month old baby business. If you have a new baby, just wait - soon you will have a seven month old and be leaving people two kisses instead of one.

Um, that's it!

Z xx (!!)

Mother's who Meet (and Chat, and Eat)

Is it just me or does everyone have a horror story they've heard about mother's groups? I'd been told a few before I had Heike. Competitive, judgemental and bitchy were just some of the words used to describe one friend's experience with her first mother's group, and they were some of the nicer ones.

You can imagine, then, that I wasn't too confident trotting off to an early mother's group in Bondi when Heike was just three weeks old. To start with, I was mixed feeding at the time and soooo paranoid to admit it that I made sure I fed her just before we left so I wouldn't have a hungry baby on my hands when we got there. On top of that, I was the only one of my friends with a baby so was fairly confident there wouldn't be too many other mums in their mid-20s. I was desperate to make friends and didn't want to be written off simply because I was young.

Much to my surprise and delight, it was nothing like I expected, despite being kind of like an AA meeting for struggling Mums - bedraggled Mums and babies sitting in a circle and relaying their week's failures. Almost all (ALMOST all - there's always one) of the mums were incredibly down to earth, realistic, understanding and generally lovely. One even pulled out a bottle, which literally filled me with joy and hope (perhaps a sign of how hard it was for me to come to terms with not breastfeeding!).

Since that first day, I've made a handful of firm friends from the twenty or so mothers who eventually became my mother's group. We moved suburbs when Heike was 14 weeks old and I was genuinely sad to leave behind the amazing group of women I met in Bondi.

Luckily, I was put in touch with another mother's group in our area, and was fortunate enough to strike another jackpot. My new mother's group is full of honest, compassionate and normal women who aren't afraid to say they have bad days and tell it like it is. Fantastic!

The thing I love most about mother's group is it's the only place in the world where I can talk to people who actually care how many times Heike goes to the toilet a day. And hey, they might even engage - they might provide some feedback on this fascinating statistic! Even Justus isn't as interested in Heike's movements as some of my mum's group friends.

Me and my gal pals, taken yesterday

They also just GET IT. So, you know, I can sit there and explain how I walked up and down out the front of my house in a vain attempt to get Heike to take a late afternoon nap and became so frustrated that my head felt vaguely like it may explode off of my body, and then Heike started laughing at me and it was so funny yet also really NOT funny and actually a liiiiitle bit depressing....and they will REALLY GET IT. Not just nod and say poor you and change the subject.

And anyway, you don't want to tell your other friends those stories. You want to be the cool together Mum who's got it all figured out and can still talk about men (same old one) and clothes (don't fit me) and music (The Wiggles?) so that your friends can still be persuaded into hanging out with you. Hell if you invite them over once the baby's asleep they might even seek your companionship!

So, if you're not in a mother's group I suggest (with a wealth of knowledge and expertise behind me) you find out how to be, stat. Who knows, you may be as blessed as me and find one where baked goods are frequently included.

Z xx

The Week That Was...

Wow I have sooo much I want to blog about and so little time! Over the last week, so much has gone on that I could write loads about, and I've had a few lightbulb moments, but simply no time or energy to get it down.

First of all, we were having some sleep issues last week, both day and night. Frustratingly, whenever I have sleep issues (with Heiks! My issues are a whole different story...) almost everyone tells me it must be teething, while those who don't assure me Heike is going through a "developmental phase". By this stage, then, she should have a mouth full of teeth and be walking and talking. But no, she is still stationary and toothless.  So my personal belief is simply that, like you and me, sometimes she sleeps better than others.

Anyway after being up settling throughout the night and dealing with catnapping during the day, whenever we did get a good nap in I was napping myself last week. The guilt surrounding this was intense. Even though I am an inherently lazy person, I also constantly feel guilty if I'm not doing something - when I'm watching TV I'll also read the news and fold washing, etc. I think this comes from having hardworking parents who I rarely saw relax. But anyway, I had a few long naps last week, and I needed them. I highly recommend it to any parents who suffer nap guilt like myself! You may feel bad about yourself, but you will also inevitably feel like superwoman (or man) on a physical level.

On top of the sleep issues I have started back at work one day a week. And even then, it is only a half day. So basically I need to get over it, but working when you have a child requires a level of organisation I simply can't attain. For starters, you have to have your clothes ironed and your hair washed and your bag packed ready to go. As my Mum told me the first day I worked and she looked after Heike, "It's best to do these things the night before." Thanks, Mum. Stroke of genius there. But for me to have it done by the night before I have to be thinking about it three or four days before. That's just how disorganised I am. So there's that. Not to mention on top of that you have to have your child's (or children's, god forbid you multi-childed geniuses!) stuff organised, so clothes, food, bottles etc. THEN my job requires a decent amount of forward preparation as I have to write quite a bit of copy beforehand, but usually I only realise this the morning that I have to work. The night before if I'm lucky. 

THEN right, okay, I had really bad anger and PMS issues last week. I'm just going to put it out there. I was foul. This wasn't helped by an equally disorganised and hopeless husband who *may* have changed the dates of the holiday I booked under his orders because he had to work and *may* have forgotten his daughter's first birthday when planning a work trip and *may* also be away for work on mother's day and *may* just generally be annoying when I have PMS. So when I finally put Heike in bed after a long day and made dinner, I mostly didn't feel like writing or engaging in life. In fact on one occasion I considered painting my toenails, but decided instead to sit on the couch and frown. It was entirely more satisfying.

Just to finish, I also had a really annoying pediatrician appointment that made me more paranoid than I already am naturally (it was thought impossible, but clearly was not), had a bit of a mothering fail where I turned my back for two seconds and Heike was nearly-potentially-badly hurt (escaped unscathed thank GOD) and cried a few times for no reason. So.  

I DID start a post at one point, which was something I really wanted to get down and will post tomorrow as it will be more relevant then. In the meantime, take solace in the fact that someone was grumpier and more hopeless than you last week. And that person was me.

Have you ever had a really bad week?

Z xx