I was outside for three minutes removing a spot from my front window. Erik was inside own his own but I could see most of his activities from the window. I had locked the door to prevent him from sneaking out and had the keys on me. So I finished and went to unlock the door. No problem, except for the door didn’t open all the way. My dear son had put on the key chain, and there I was with a door 10 cm ajar. You need to have the door nearly completely shut to unlatch it, which makes it impossible to open from the outside. Thus its effectiveness!

I did a great deal of swearing (shut up, never said I was perfect!) and tired to use a metal hangar to unhook the chain. And nooooo of course it didn’t work. I’m sweating and my heart is thumping.

Plan B. I panic and run over to a neighbour two doors down. I wake her up and babble something about emergency and before I know it I’m talking, no, sobbing, to a 999 operator. I know I’m being ridiculous but I can’t help it. Somehow I get the vital information out and she sends a car out.

Back to my front door and Erik is happily playing with his cars. I’m blowing my nose. Two minutes later I hear sirens (! I’m wasting emergency services here!) and I feel like the dumbest mum on the planet. But the policemen are very understanding and soon that wretched chain is cut.

What’s wrong with me? Was my son in an immediate danger? No. Was the house on fire? No. Was there a terrorist holding my son hostage? No (unless you count the creepy spiders under the floorboards). Why am I acting like the world is ending? So, I got locked out, the police came and sorted it all out. What’s the big deal.

Can someone enrol me in a stress management course? Or give me a lobotomy? I feel so stupid.

Or should I just blame it all on my pregnancy??

Take his waking up procedure, for example. Since this kid is jaundiced and sleeps a lot, I have to wake him up every 2-3 hours so he can eat. He returns from dreamland very slowly, lets out a massive yawn, wrinkles his forehead, arches his back and streeeetches his arms. Like waking up from a seven year slumber. And his face goes through a spectrum of emotions: concerned, thoughtful, confused, grumpy, annoyed and then, for the great finale, angry! Erik lets out a couple of coughs that lead to a loud cry, his face turns red, arms are waving and legs are kicking. Finally he’s ready for supper.

He is the loudest eater ever; he moans happily when sucking and swallows hard. Sometimes he will take a short break and let out a burp. Or let out a big fart or a massive poo. Not the kind of kid you would take to the Nobel Prize dinner party.

After eating he will usually drift off to sleep. And even here he makes me chuckle. He makes the strangest noises, snorts and grunts like an 80 year old.

If I can have this much fun with a baby this young, then I cannot wait for him to grow older.

The midwife came today to weigh Erik, and I was holding my breath as he hasn’t been putting on weight fast enough despite my ambitious feeding programme. But I needn’t worry. He has gained 180 grams in four days! I was so happy. This makes me even more motivated to keep waking him for food every couple of hours. And what a cool thought that something that I can provide, breastmilk, is enough to nurture an entire little person. No formula needed. Just mommy’s milk and lots of love.

I will keep this thought in mind that next time he has a bad latch and bites me in the nipple…

Erik is 16 days old and seems to slowly recover from the jaundice. The suntanning is supposed to be good for that. He isn’t that yellow anymore and seems now more alert and interested in interacting with us. He’s still very sleepy durning the day and I need to wake him up very 2.5 hours for feeding. During the night he typically wakes up once for food, so I actually get about five hours of sleep a night. Not bad at all!

I’m slowly adjusting to mummyhood. Physically and mentally I feel much better than last week. All my medication made me groggy and my emotions went from high to low. I was so infatuated with him, yet at the same time I was afraid of the enormity of it all. Will I be able to step up to the challenges of parenting? How will I cope without any family nearby? How will I deal with the practicalities of getting around with a baby? And I was worried sick that I didn’t have enough milk for him (but a day later I had enough milk to supply a whole coffeeshop!).

And in my ‘raw’ state I missed my family a lot and called my sisters, who are both mothers, everyday. My husband has been home these two weeks and he has been very supportive. He returns to work this week by my in-laws are here now to keep me company.

Pictures of our beautiful babe to come soon!

We were so taken by surprise as I thought for sure I’d go for full 40 weeks. The nursery is still under construction. There’s baby stuff all over the house. But we are coping well. Mummy’s smitten with her kitten… He’s so lovely and cuddly and we are already in love with him. Aaaaahhhh…

An amazing journey has begun….

The second episode of Channel 4′s ‘Bringing Up Baby’ aired last night, and again I was horrified by this woman and the methods she promotes. How can Claire Verity possibly think that babies are cunning, that they are forming conscious manipulative thoughts? Babys run on instinct, and cry when they are hungry, tired, want a fresh nappy, or whatever their needs might be. They are not crying with a purposeful motive of bossing their parents around.

Furthermore, Verity only allows ten (10) minutes of cuddle time a day. Ten minutes??? Why even bother having a baby if you are not allowed to love and cuddle it?

She also doesn’t allow visitors to come to the house, and, in particular, handling the baby in any way. In one family that Verity ‘cares’ for, the grandmother made an unannounced visit and came within viewing distance of the baby. She was swiftly ushered away by the embarrassed father. I mean, how dare she go and have a look at her grandchild?

Verity handles babies in seemingly heartless manner, and by that I mean the lack of love and empathy in her movements when touching them. But if you think of her viewpoint, that babies are attention-seeking, manipulative creatures who need to be shown who’s boss, you can understand why.

I must say I have enjoyed our close relationship over the past few months, but I’m afraid it must come to an end very soon. Yes, dear, that means an end to the 24-hour womb service.

Soon it’s time for your to stand on your own two feet, however wobbly. But until then, we need to discuss our current living arrangement to make your parents’ lives a bit more pleasant. Baby, a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T isn’t too much to ask for.

First, I know that your room is getting small, but really, there’s no need to punch your fists and headbutt the walls. This only puts a strain on mummy’s plumbing and sewer systems. Frankly, your shenanigans are sometimes painful and I’m worrying about subsequent leakage upon your departure. And funnily enough, your mad boxing activies often coincide with me trying to relax in the TV sofa at night. 

Also, the amount of waste you create takes a toll on me. I’m up every night like clockwork, emptying the buckets, and it’s a bit tiring by now.

So if you could please have just a little consideration to those living around you, that would be great.

I’m glad we had this talk.

Respectfully Yours,

Mamma Mia            

We talked about breastfeeding at my antenatal class yesterday. From some reason I always thought it looked easy; the baby eating away happily and the mother watching her, smiling. But apparently it is hard work and it can take weeks before mom and baby get the hang of it. Sounds like a hungry baby, frustration and tears to me. What have we signed up for, girls?

And then I’m wondering how it feels like to have baby sucking at your breasts. I’m pretty funny how they are manhandled at the best of times.

However, I’m happy to give it my breast go (ha ha ha). There are so many benefits, and I like the idea of being able able to nourish my baby all by myself.

Besides, boob jobs aren’t that expensive anymore are they? I bet you can have one done at Tesco while doing your weekly shopping.

My husband and I watched, rather wide-eyed at times, ‘Bringing Up Baby’ on Channel 4 last night. The show features six British families raising their babies according to three dramatically methods, each coached by an expert.

Claire Verity advocates the strict 1950s view that children should me made a part of your life, and if the little creatures doesn’t agree with that, too bad. Let it cry. Feeding (by bottle preferably) is every four hours, no matter if the baby is hungry or not. No cuddling while feeding. Instead you should hold the baby away from your body ‘so it doesn’t doze off’. In between feedings the child should be put outside to sleep in their pushchair. You should not tend to him if he cries. Then at night, the baby is put in his cot ( in a separate room from the parents) at exactly 7pm. You do not enter the room except for feeding every four hours until 7am. The happy end result, says Claire, is a baby who will sleep and eat textbook-style, and within weeks the baby will sleep through the night.

And on the other end of spectrum we have new-age mummy Claire Scott who promotes the Continuum Concept which blossomed in the 1970s. These babies are raised as those in Amazon jungle tribes. They always sleep with their parents and they are always carried in a sling with unlimited access to the breast. Pushchairs are simply not used. The result is a happy, confident baby who rarely cries, says Scott.

Dreena Hamilton takes the middle road with Dr Spock’s ‘trust yourself’ theory. Being a parent is about loving and bonding with your baby, in a non-routine sort of way. The parents should adjust to having a baby and should not expect to have their old life back in any way. Dr Spock won fame in the 1960s, perhaps as a reaction to the military-style parenting the decade before?

Let’s start with Ms. Verity. Oh where to begin…. First, how can a newborn possibly be expected only to eat four hours? They have very small stomachs. So how can you possibly ignore your crying baby when you know his hungry? But the worst about this method is that it doesn’t allow for any bonding between parent and child. You feed the baby, change the nappy and put it away, that’s it! Nothing in this world will be able to stop me from cuddling with my baby. They are made for loving, so soft and round and wonderful. If you don’t interact with your baby, you don’t bond with him, and it makes it harder to love and really care about him. And the baby thrives on human interaction, in fact it’s vital for their development. I really find it difficult to believe that Verity’s babies can possibly develop very well. They might sleep through the night very soon, but are they happy babies who are confident their needs are met?

But I don’t like the Continuum Concept which falls in line with the annoying ‘back-to-nature’ theme of today’s trendy mummies. This method might work well in jungle tribes, but we don’t live there now, do we? Woman in tribal societies carry their babies for practical reasons; in order to get their work done they carry their babies with them. A bit hard to fetch water from the well with the baby in a pushchair, isn’t it? Our Western lifestyle is so different to theirs that we possibly couldn’t just apply their parenting style to ours. And if you are constantly carrying your baby around, be prepared to do that when they are older…and heavier.

Dr Spock’s ideas are the most appealing, but certainly not perfect. I think I prefer more structure.

To quote what my husband said last night: ‘This is scary. What have we gotten ourselves into?’

This afternoon I attended a waterbirth workshop at the hospital where I will give birth, and I was reminded that a) labour can be a positive experience and b) the little outcome is so fantastic. Soon I will cradle my own baby in my arms, wow… incredible….

We watched a video of women giving birth in a birthing pool and they had such positive experiences. They didn’t scream in agony; instead they breathed deeply and pushed lots. Some even caught the baby as it popped out. And most babies didn’t cry upon entering this world; instead they looked calm and content and gazed curiously at their mother. Both mom and dad were in the water and the three of them were bonding instantly. So beautiful…sob. (Had to blink away a tear at this point.)

Another great thing about water births is that you are less likely to tear. This has to do with the soothing properties of the water, but also that you will push when it feels right so the perineum stretches gradually. This is music to my ears!

As a side note, if you plan to use the birthing pool, you should bring a sieve so the (lucky) midwife can, ahem, clean the pool once you’re done…

The hospital’s birth centre has only one pool, so I won’t know until I get there if it’s available, and if so, my labour needs to be assessed low-risk in order to use it. In any case, all rooms in the birth centre, and those in the labour ward for that matter, have large bath tubs so at least I can use water as pain relief.

I left with a sense of joy, that no matter how this baby makes a debut, be it in water or via an emergency caesarean, it’ll be alright. I’m in good hands. Can’t wait to see you babe!