A bit of a selfish control freak!

Since having Millie, I’m starting to realise I’m really quite selfish and a bit of a control freak! Well, I always knew both but it appears I’m even worse than I thought or hoped!

After weeks of suffering from a very sore nipple, I wrote a post the other week about slowly beginning to stop and move to formula (Its for the breast). Everyone was very supportive and empathetic with their comments about how well I had done and I had given my daughter the best start, which I did really appreciate, but it wasn’t the fact I was concerned for my daughter about moving from the ‘golden wonder juice’ to the ‘evil fat inducing, disease harbouring’ (not my beliefs but how it is often portrayed) formula. I knew my daughter would be fine, my son survived very well since he was 4 weeks on a completely formula diet until weaning and then cow’s milk at 2ish and there’s not an ounce of fat on him! No, my concern was for myself! I felt like a failure for not being able to get my daughter to feed correctly so that I wasn’t sore and hurting and therefore not getting to experience pain free, convenient feeding!

As it turned out, my nipple finally healed, now, at nearly 9 weeks of breastfeeding! I did replace one feed – the bedtime one – with formula but when I got to a week, when I said I would start replacing one of the other feeds with formula every couple of days, I realised that finally my nipple was healing so I continued as I was, with just the one change in formula. Everything was going well.

BUT!

But then everything changed again!

Earlier this week (already feels like a lifetime ago) Stuart and I (and Millie) went to Torquay for a couple of nights while Callum enjoyed a stay with his grandparents. Millie decided to start refusing the boob. Or would take it and then, confused by the flow, would get stroppy with it and then refuse any more! But had no trouble taking her bottle! At 2 in the morning, this was not much fun!

I worried my milk was drying up. I blamed it on the glass of wine I had that night! Perhaps I was getting too stressed when feeding in public. But, truthfully, I think she preferred the bottle! It was easy, no need to work at it! The breastmilk flow was different and she didn’t know what to do with it anymore and swallowed a lot of air. Problem being, we were staying in a guesthouse style hotel with just a couple of bottles, limited milk powder and a pot of milton sterilised water! I didn’t have the supplies, a microwave, a proper steriliser, a pot of formula – certainly not at 2am! Then the next day in the restaurant for our lunch, she started fussing again and I started getting all self-conscious so I thought I would try when we got back to the car before we left to drive home. Still not interested! I started fretting. Stuart kindly ran to Boots (twice) to get some readymade formula and a sterilised bottle. He got back with the readymade formula but no bottle. Then I remembered I still had a bottle in the milton solution. Millie happily, hungrily drank the ready made formula (well some then a load more when we made a fuel stop). Was it time to admit defeat! Millie was choosing the bottle over me. I couldn’t remember the last time my boobs let down. Was it all over for the boob!

But this was what I originally planned so why was I upset?

It wasn’t my decision this time! It was out of my control! I wanted to decide when I switched from breast to formula not Millie, my boobs or some other force!

By the time I got to my parents to pick Callum up, Millie was hungry again, we had no sterilised bottle ready and I was determined to get her to accept my breast. I tried feeding her in the lounge but the same story – she started breastfeeding then again refused. I decided to go upstairs, out of everyone’s view, in the calm and darkness of a bedroom on our own. She still wasn’t interested so I decided to get tough! I tricked her! I tempted her with a dummy and when she went to suck I pushed her onto my breast. She would feed for a bit then realise and complain so I would do the same again until she finally accepted (she wasn’t happy to just have the dummy, she was definitely hungry).

I then did the same in the night and the next morning until she accepted the breast again.

I made the decision that I had to go back to fully breastfeeding now that my nipple was better and remove the confusion or the chance for her to reject me (no one likes to be rejected!). I was finally getting to the point where I could breastfeed without pain and be able to ‘enjoy’ the convenience, I wasn’t going to give it up yet!

Now she is happily feeding off me again without any trouble. We briefly went to feeding every 3 hours in the night for one night which she has hardly done during the night since she was born, previously going 6-8 hours at night. However, last night she went 5 hours so heading back in he right direction again.

So now, being away from the emotion of it all, thinking logically once again, I wonder whether I should’ve just let her do her thing. She was weaning naturally, I should’ve put my pride aside. *Slaps forehead*

I’m now back to the worry about how my Mum is going to feed her when I do my driver awareness course (naughty girl – speeding – another story!) – there will likely be 2 feeds across the 3 hour course and the time it takes me to get there and back. I guess I’m going to have to express – and she will have to use a bottle to feed! Hopefully, she will just accept it and it wont interfere with breast for this time.

Also, I’m pretty sure I will want to start moving from breast to bottle in a month but will have to start from scratch.

But it will be my choice to do so, when I’m ready. I will spend the next month making sure I have the right bottles and teats etc and I’ll be prepared! Well, that’s the plan but surely it will all change again in a weeks time!

It's for the breast

I've now been breastfeeding Millie for 2 days short of 6 weeks. This is such an achievement for me. I managed 4 solid weeks with Callum then slowly weaned off until 6 weeks and my aim was to do longer this time and I have accomplished that so pat on the back for me. 

But I am at a cross-roads. My right nipple still hasn't healed. I've been treating the infection I have in it for a week and it is still there! To top it all off my left nipple is now staring to hurt when I feed (though no obvious cause for this). I'm told my latch is fine & have taken any advice I've been given but nothing is changing. I started to feel things were starting to improve & felt the pain was getting less but I had also started taking paracetamol for the pain. It was after I forgot to take it for a day that I found myself crying out in pain and in tears in the middle of the night again.

 

I am gutted. I had hoped that I would get to the point that feeding became easy and I could start to enjoy the convenience & both me and Millie would enjoy the benefits. I had expected that stage to have got here by now. I'll be honest, if I had experienced that but still came to the point now at 6 weeks that I wanted to stop I'd have been happy. But I am gutted, so disappointed! It's making me miserable! I've spent too much time in tears this past couple of days that I figure if it is making me so unhappy I have to stop! If someone else had gone through the same experience as me and was as miserable as I am with it then I'd be advising them to stop, it's spoiling the good times they should be having with their baby. Happy mummy means happy baby! So I know I should heed my own advice.

 

So many people on twitter have been amazingly supportive and sharing their own experiences and passing on advice. It's really helped and meant so much. It's an amazing support network.

 

I am actually feeling a bit better about it this evening but put it down to another day on the painkillers! However, both this and the support on twitter (and of course from Stuart) I think I've come to a decision. I am seeing the HV for Millie's 6 week check on Monday and am going to tell her of the trouble I've had and tell her my plan and see what she says or if she has any other advice that might help.

 

The plan?

 

From that evening, I will make the 7/7.30 feed formula (this is the only routine feed so makes sense to start with this one!). I'll leave it at this for a week then, if no improvement, I will start to replace another feed every 2 days. I hope that by the time I am down to 2 feeds which are breast feeds, that my nipple will have healed or be showing a clear improvement in which case I will combination feed keeping just these 2 breastfeeds.

 

There are so many advanages to bottle feeding too.

 

• Stuart can help meaning he can feel included but, most importantly to me, he can do the odd nighttime feed at the weekend.
• I won't be worrying about whether I'll be in a bf friendly place, especially when it comes to the right side!
• I have to do a driver awareness course soon and I'm currently worrying about how this is going to work and whether I can express enough in time that someone else can feed Millie with expressed milk.
• I can start to enjoy some detachment again. This sounds incredibly selfish but sometimes being so tied to Millie and her being so dependent on only me and no one else can feel incredibly exhausting. Again, this is the advantage of others being able to feed Millie for me.

These all sound like incredibly selfish reasons! The reasons I would like to continue with breastfeeding:

• I've lost very nearly all my pregnancy weight with very little (no) effort - now I've got another stone to lose which I'd really like some help with!
• You can't take away the fact that in the middle of the night it is much better being able to whip out a boob rather than prepare a bottle while the baby screams for food
• There's no sterilising of bottles and the advance preparation of bottles to worry about
• The reason I mention above - to experience what it's like to be pain free and enjoy the convenience
• There is a whooping cough epidemic at the moment and this really worries me. Babies can't be vaccinated until 8 weeks and I'm not sure how long it is before they have a resistance against the illness. While I am breastfeeding I hope that I am offering some protection to Millie until she is protected following the vaccination.

But, I have already achieved what I set out to (bf for longer and get to feed off right side), given Millie the best start and enjoyed the convenience without having to express all the time. I should be proud, and I am!

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Baking with a 3 year old

Created from a combination of cooking experiences with my 3 year old!

1. Get 3 year old exciting about cooking
2. Get out cookbooks to look up recipes
3. Find a recipe for biscuits
4. Go to get ingredients ready
5. Realise you don’t have right ingredients/enough quantity
6. (at this point, you could go ahead and make biscuits but to a fewer quantity than recipe adjusting the ingredients but, in my experience, this never works! I’ve tried several times)
7. Look up a new recipe.
8. 7 recipes later…child is looking bored and losing interest in baking
9. Find a cake recipe
10. Get ingredients ready
11. Give 3 year old eggs to break in bowl
12. Me: “A little harder…a little harder….NOT THAT HARD”
13. Fish out bits of egg shell and clear up egg from worktop
14. Say calmly to 3 year old “No don’t eat the egg, you mustn’t put your fingers in it”
15. Weigh out caster sugar
16. Me: “Stop putting your fingers in the egg”
17. Add sugar to egg
18. A little less calm “stop putting your fingers in, stop trying to eat it!”
19. Turn on mixer, 3 year old insists on holding it and turns it up to full power
20. Wipe egg & sugar mix off your face, 3 year old’s face, work surfaces and walls
21. Try the mixing again ensuring 3 year old’s fingers are well away from controls yet still holding the mixer
22. 3yo: “Is it done now” Me: “not yet, bit longer” (repeat times 30)
23. Weigh out and sieve flour
24. Child insists on holding the sieve and shaking it vigorously
25. End up looking like 2 snowmen
26. Wipe off as much of the flour as possible and add in a little extra to make up for what was lost
27. Turn back for a second to put sieve away, turn back to see toddler eating mixture
28. Slightly more raised voice “Stop eating it, leave it alone”
29. Fold in flour
30. Child adds in another spoon of unsieved flour while you are distracted with the folding
31. Child shakes in salt that you left out from gathering biscuit ingredients at step 4
32. Getting a little stressed “NOOOO, we don’t need salt in this recipe”
33. 3yo: “but I want salt”, Me (through gritted teeth): “no, this recipe doesn’t use salt, it wont taste very nice”
34. Wrestle salt off child as he is trying to add more salt
35. Go to get out cake tins – realise part of the tin you need is elsewhere after making a cake and taking it to a relative/friend a year ago
36. Make do with 2 slightly too big cake tins instead
37. [Shouting] “STOP EATING THE CAKE MIX, you can lick the bowl and spoon in a minute!!!”
38. Distribute mix between tins
39. Go to put tins in oven
40. Realise oven isn’t on
41. Set oven to required temp and wait
42. and wait
43. 3 year old starts shaking flour packet
44. You don’t clear it up and resign yourself to the pasty white look!
45. You DO put away ingredient packets you no longer need
46. Oven heats up and you place tins in oven
47. 3yo: “Is it ready yet?” Me “No, I’ve just put it in the oven”, 3yo:”I want cake, mummy, I want cake…Mummy, is it ready now, I want cake…can I have cake now?” Me: “NO, Not until the beeper goes off and when its cool”
48. Get ingredients ready for butter icing – remember from when you went to get ingredients for biscuits at step 4 that you didn’t have enough butter – still don’t have enough butter – use clover!
49. Help child sieve icing & cocoa powder into butter
50. Clearly having not learned from last time – end up now a white and brown marbled snowman!
51. Wrestle fork off child who starts stirring mixture before there is no dry mix left in the butter
52. Beeper goes off for cake, tip out the crispy biscuits (meant to be cake) onto cooling wire
53. “Mummy, I want to see cake, I can’t see cake, Mummy where’s cake, I want to see”
54. Once biscuit/cake cooled, spoon on mix
55. Poor yourself LARGE glass of wine, break off 2 bits of biscuit/cake, sod the cleaning, sit down and consume
56. Go to answer doorbell and wonder why the gas man gives you a peculiar look!

Finding Me Again!

Everyone tells you that being a parent is the hardest job in the world – though often only after its too late and you are up the duff or in the first few weeks of a newborn when you find yourself in a heap on the floor in a mess of snot & tissues trying to remember what it was like to not feel tired – before you decide to have a baby its all, having a baby is such a wonderful experience, you’d love it, having children will complete you…etc etc.

(This is when I ask myself “why am I doing it again?)

But, to be fair, even if they did tell you, you wouldn’t be able to imagine – its tough in ways that can’t be explained and in ways you can never imagine.

For some, its a natural experience – they were ‘born to be mummies/daddies’ and they breeze through parenthood effortlessly producing well turned out, well mannered, well adjusted individuals and share stories and photos of baking, craft work, fun days out that don’t cost a penny but everyone enjoys. Its so hard for us ‘other’ parents who don’t find parenthood such a natural experience to not compare ourselves to them wishing longingly that we were a supermum like them!

For some of us ‘other’ mums, we realise that being a Stay at Home Mum just isn’t for us! But when you come to that realisation that, actually, you’d rather be working than bringing up your children, you question whether you are a failure? Have I failed at the most important job of them all – when so many others can manage it so effortlessly, why have I struggled, why can’t I cope?

Recently, I have realised that I’m not alone! Recently, my twitter timeline has been full of other parents coming to the realisation and confiding in others that, actually, they’re not sure being a SAHM is all they hoped it would be. They are coming to accept that perhaps it is harder work than they ever knew and they need a break…by returning to work (whether it be part or full time – whatever works for them). After all, there are places and people out there that are full of people that ARE trained to look after children all day – they have college years and certificates to show for it so can clearly do a better job than I can and, after all, they ENJOY doing it! That is their job! They chose to do it! OK, so I know I chose to be a parent too but I also chose a career for myself – I also chose my other life which I actually loved very much and never had any intention of giving up!

My friend recently asked me to review an article she had written about being a mum AND maintaining their individual status. It was reading through this article that it dawned on me exactly why I had become so low.

I look at myself now, struggling to drag myself out of bed every morning, scraping my hair back on a Thursday or Friday to take Callum to nursery. I may put on make-up once or twice a week and often when I intend to add a bit of colour to my face to stop me looking tired and drawn, it quickly slips my mind. All my friends are either members of m family or are other mums like me who I only see with their children. I love them to pieces and wouldn’t do without my mummy friends, don’t get me wrong, but occasionally I want to remember who I am aside from being mum. So when it comes to a childfree Thursday when I do not need to clean or study (that’s my joy on a Friday) what do I do? I have no idea! I mope! I’ve no where to go, no one to see who isn’t a mum – no non-mum conversations to have. I’ve no job to go to and no life outside of being a mother. I’ve lost me!

This is not who I wanted to be!

Working gives me the independence I’ve always craved since a 16 year old girl. I moved out of home at 17 because I so desperately craved my independence. Working gives me a life that is my own – not my husband’s, not my son’s, not my family’s – mine! It gives me my own friends. I enjoy being me! I enjoy putting on make-up, wearing a pair of heels and attempting to look good, for me!

Where did all that go?

When I realise who I am now and everything I am not but want to be, the tears start to fall! Its time to admit it, I am NOT a SAHM! Its time I went back to work! Everyone keeps saying, but you’re pregnant now, you may as well wait until after the baby – and then you’ll be raising 2 so you may as well wait a couple of years. NOOOOOOOOOOO! Please! Someone! Tell me this doesn’t have to be the case. I want to work now, pregnant or not! When I’ve had my second child, I want to go back to work! I will look after my newborn baby and will enjoy my time raising him or her for the beginning of his or her life but as soon as I feel ready I want to go back to work! Scrub want…I NEED to go back to work!

I accept it! I’m taking me back! I’m getting my life back! I’m going back to work!

And does that make me a failure? No! I don’t think it does – it makes me a better person for realising what my strengths & weaknesses are and what makes me happy. At the end of the day, we are also always told “Happy Mum, Happy Child” and I know that I can be a better mum, a happier mum and offer Callum & my unborn child a lot more if I go back to work. But this time, I admit, I’m going to try to get the balance right – I’m going to try to do both. I want to work part-time so I can see if I can be a mum and be me!

Time to open a new chapter! Wish me luck!

Erm…..can someone give me a job please…..?

Oh, and going back to the first paragraph, I have to admit, those people who said “having a baby is such a wonderful experience, you’d love it, having children will complete you” were actually right – I may not be good at being a SAHM but I wouldn’t take back having children for the world. You can’t explain the love you feel for your child and the unconditional love they have for you. It is the most wonderful experience I can imagine!