j4 | 8 weeks

Entry tags:

baby,
parenting

8 weeks

Imogen is 8 weeks old today. I thought I'd be posting a lot more here about what was happening day to day, but it's all been so difficult that I've not really managed to do very much except survive. Those of you who follow me on Twitter will have seen more of the emotional rollercoaster in action (and I've been very grateful for both the personal support from individuals and the general trickle of human interaction that Twitter provides -- I'd have gone mad by now without it).

addedentry has been wonderful (the role of Dad definitely suits him), and my mum has been an absolute lifesaver, staying over for days on end and helping us through the endless nights of inconsolable wailing (from not just baby but me as well).

It's amazing just how much Imogen's changed already in those 8 weeks. She's gone from being a very tiny waily animal (when she cried at first she looked just like a spider monkey) who did nothing but cry and feed and sleep and poo and wee, to being a tiny person with facial expressions (including smiles!) and quite a little vocabulary of noises. When she's not wailing and kicking and screaming, she's wonderfully cuddly; there are few things as lovely as letting her fall asleep in my arms. (Admittedly she still doesn't do very much. Everybody says this time is magical and I shouldn't wish it away, but I'm very much looking forward to a time when she can interact a bit more.)

There are loads of things I want to write about -- from specific things like breastfeeding (though Juliette has written an excellent post that says a lot of what I'd want to say) and nappies (honestly, what is all the fuss about?) to the more general issues of guilt, joy, tiredness, panic, confusion, and love -- but I'm too tired to put words into sentences. I'll write more when I'm next awake and have both my hands free. So, see you all some time in 2012...

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I'd be interested to hear how what you actually feel compares with what you imagined you'd feel, if you ever have the time.

That's an interesting angle on it -- thank you. I will try to compose something coherent.

The main thing that occurs to me is that I thought it'd take a conscious effort to love something that's basically a wailing animal, but it's a totally different sort of love & it kind of overwhelmed me.

I also thought I was prepared for all the negative emotions, & that I had coping strategies for depression, & it turns out I wasn't prepared & my coping strategies all require me to be able to sleep for more than 2 hours at a time. :-(

I am pleased to note that despite all the people who said "you'll totally stop being interested in [everything I was interested in before]", I haven't stopped being interested in other things at all -- I just have very little time/energy to do anything about most other interests (so, to try to give people the benefit of the doubt, maybe that's sort of what they meant...).

The main thing that occurs to me is that I thought it'd take a conscious effort to love something that's basically a wailing animal, but it's a totally different sort of love & it kind of overwhelmed me.

This is what I understand it to be; not having had children (not through choice, but, you know) I've been aware - perhaps more so than many parents - of the unknowingness of this 'thing', this parental love that you have no choice but to accept. It's a bit like a blind person being aware of the colour red. As you have recently gone from a state of unknowingness of this thing, to knowing of it, I thought you might be able to capture the difference between the imagining and the reality.

YOu're the last person in the world likely to turn into a mumzilla! I mean that in a very good way.

I am pleased to note that despite all the people who said "you'll totally stop being interested in [everything I was interested in before]", I haven't stopped being interested in other things at all -- I just have very little time/energy to do anything about most other interests (so, to try to give people the benefit of the doubt, maybe that's sort of what they meant...).

There's a subset of the "you won't be interested in [X]" crowd who just mean "You'll become a selfish bell-end as soon as you have a baby", which really means "I'm a selfish bell-end and I'm hoping people will think it's because I've had a baby".

As for the others, I don't quite know what they meant. As for myself, I never thought for a second that you'd stop being interested in stuff, but I did expect you to sort of mentally and physically check out of things for a while. I thought you'd be too wrapped up in the baby, at least for the first six weeks or so, to think about much else at all, and I was astonished when I realised you were surfing the web, checking Twitter, etc.

I thought you'd be too wrapped up in the baby, at least for the first six weeks or so, to think about much else at all, and I was astonished when I realised you were surfing the web, checking Twitter, etc.

I really hope you didn't mean it like this, but to me this sounds like you're saying I should have been spending more time with the baby rather than faffing about on the internet. :-(

To be honest I thought I'd be too wrapped up in her to do anything else at all, too. What I hadn't really realised properly was that looking after a baby involved spending a lot of time exhausted and miserable, on my own in the dark in the middle of the night, being solely responsible for the survival of a small screaming kicking clawing animal that doesn't even know how to make eye contact, & spending about 12 hours of every day trying to feed said animal (which was - and still mostly is - difficult and painful and stressful). It felt horribly isolating & I was in desperate need of reassurance that there were other human beings out there. I think I would have gone completely mad if it wasn't for Twitter. Going completely mad is still on the cards, to be honest, though things feel _slightly_ easier now that she can look at people and even smile a bit & is a bit more human. Still not easy though, & the knowledge that I have to carry on doing this for another year or so makes me cry with despair most days.

And I don't write much about this because a) I know it makes me look like an even worse mother than I am, and b) I'm now part of the conspiracy that tells everybody how wonderful it is having babies.

I wonder if some of the people who "become a selfish bell-end" when they have kids actually just find they don't have enough energy left over for looking after other people as well as keeping themselves and their child(ren) alive. I guess that's what selfishness is, though, isn't it.

I really hope you didn't mean it like this, but to me this sounds like you're saying I should have been spending more time with the baby rather than faffing about on the internet. :-(

Aaaargh! No! I've only just seen your reply, sorry, because I've been off my computer for a couple of days. No, what I meant was exactly what I said: I thought you would sort of check out of contact with other people for a while, and I was surprised when you didn't. Of course staying in touch with the rest of the world isn't a bad thing for a new parent to do, and I'm sorry if my tone made it sound that way.

My model for what new parents do is (as you'd expect) based on the new parents I've known, and they seem to divide into the holding-court camp and the hide-in-a-hole camp. I thought you would be more on the hide-in-a-hole spectrum because I knew it had been a difficult birth and I'd been warned that you didn't want too many visitors in the early days.

All I was saying is that I had assumptions and you proved them wrong. I'd never say for a minute that it's bad to keep your brain engaged and interact with other people.

OK, I've broken down - have joined Twitter. I'm sorry I haven't been able to be more supportive.

Gaze, it's all in the gaze :-)

You've been incredibly supportive! I'm sorry I haven't been very supportive of you when you've been having problems of your own.

Look forward to seeing you on Twitter (assuming you're the same username there, I've just 'followed' you) and hopefully in real life some time soon as well...? Are you around next Weds?

The gaze is amazing. I still can't quite believe it when she looks at me and smiles. :) :) :)

That article of Juliette's is interesting. One thing though: it doesn't have a date on it but the statement that the growth charts are based on formula-fed babies is not true any more, as the current red books have bf charts. This is something that gets repeated a lot, presumably because it was true until fairly recently, but isn't any more, or not here anyway (I think that someone on Mumnet who also had a baby at the same time as A might have had ff charts).

What's the fuss about nappies? I think that when you get to weaning and the poos change from bf type to more adult type then it matter, or if there's not enough poo or wee and you start to get worried. Was it something other than that?

Will put a date on, sorry, was written rather hastily and mostly one-handed between nappy changes and feeds! Must be pretty recent as was told that our red book (Nov 2010) had the ff charts. It's so hard getting accurate info about this sort of stuff, which is one of the things I found frustrating about the whole process. I'll update the article too when I get a chance to clarify.

Looked into it and they changed May 2009 so have corrected the article (and added a date!) Thanks - good to have it accurate.

My red book (Sept 2010) says it's based on bf children on the fold-out page which is where I spotted it.

Edited 2011-06-03 13:46 (UTC)

I was quite confused about the charts -- thank you to you & Juliette for clearing things up here!

Even if they are bf baby charts, though, the health visitors et al don't seem to realise that if they're based on average sizes, some babies will be below the average, because that's how averages work.

What's the fuss about nappies?

Lots of people seem to go on about how much hassle/mess/ick it is to keep changing nappies. Doesn't seem a big deal to me (partly because I've been so worried about the feeding that everything else has paled into insignificance). I did worry a lot about the frequency (or otherwise) of poo, though.

YB went with almost every feed - a clean but wet nappy was cause for celebration! A friend's baby went on a Thursday afternoon - we met at the GP's baby clinic now and again, which was held on a Thursday, and she was ready...

Lovely to hear from you, and that picture of Imogen is fab. She looks completely "WTF!".

Even if they are bf baby charts, though, the health visitors et al don't seem to realise that if they're based on average sizes, some babies will be below the average, because that's how averages work.

Alex (now 2 1/2) has been somewhere around the 2nd to 9th percentile all his life and has never had anyone questioning his weight (that I can remember/know of). I think the worry comes when they suddenly start dropping off the curve they were following, rather than from being below average per se.

Yeah, when L was born (I did most of his daytime nappies for the first couple of weeks) I was baffled that this was supposed to be a big icky deal. Although admittedly meconium is a PITA.

Re being-interested-in-things: A was talking this week about an academic paper she's supposed to be writing this summer, and worrying that her brain has expired. But when she actually explained to me what the abstract was and so on, brain & knowledge were definitely still there. Now she just needs to work out where to find the *time* for it...

I am glad that the good parts are lovely, and sending good wishes for the hard parts.

I don't find the nappies much a bother really either. They're getting slightly worse now we're on solids, but not much. I do find the constant cleaning up after meals a bit exhausting but I"m gradually getting it down to a fine art. The mess pales in comparison to sleep issues.

With the birth charts, there are two issues I guess - whether you are moving percentiles and which percentile you on. Owen is below the 0.4th percentile but because his graph is the same shape as all the others these days, the docs seem to have decided that he's just genetically small, and apparently has the 'genetic potential' to be because I am. But any baby below the 2nd percentile should be checked to be on the safe side according to my friend's husband who is a paed.

I'm getting a bit fed up that we're still dealing with nappies (or multiple changes of clothes during the day) for the 3.5 year old. The nearly-5 year old "got it" a lot earlier.

Good to hear from you! I hope things get easier for you soon.

*waves* I'm not on Twitter so just thought you'd gone generally silent, which I think is very understandable in these early days. Glad to hear you're surviving, at least.

I know what you mean about "not wishing away these magical days" (ptooey). To be perfectly honest I've liked Matthew more and more as he's got older; every age has been better than the previous, so far. The interaction does very soon move on in leaps and bounds from where you're at now!

What I find magical about Owen is watching him learn new things - don't really miss those first couple of months, although I loved him to him bits (and still do of course).

Yes, it's amazing already watching Imogen learning to smile, to follow things with her eyes, to make noises other than "wahhhh", and to reach for things (she's just starting to realise that things are within her grasp, though doesn't have the coordination to do anything with that knowledge except stare with incredible concentration at them & then flail her arms a bit).

BTW re babies learning things, have you read The Scientist in the Crib (http://brainconnection.positscience.com/topics/?main=bkrev/gopnik-scientist)? It was recommended to me by

vinaigrettegirl and I found it really interesting & very readable (even with preg-brain ;-) I think you might like it.

I actually read it when I was pregnant too and was thinking the other day that it might be worth rereading now that I have a different perspective on things!

We're currently in the learning that objects can interact with eachother phase which mostly involves banging things together. One interesting thing I read was that stuff that makes them laugh is usually on their 'developmental edge'.

I like other people's very small babies very much, and I loved my own too, but he's far more interesting the older he gets. There was a big shift as he learned to talk and there's another one going on at the moment as he starts to express fairly complex ideas.

http://pomes.dreamwidth.org/50547.htm says it quite well for me.

That poem is lovely. Thank you!

I can't wait for the learning-to-talk stage. If I'd just wanted something cute to cuddle I'd've got a kitten instead -- I'm looking forward to Imogen turning into someone I can have a conversation with! (OK, I talk to her all the time, but her responses are currently kind of limited... :-)

every age has been better than the previous, so far

That's really good to hear! :)

Hellooo! I've gone silent on Twitter, really ought to start up again. I'll be in Oxford Monday night to Thursday evening, if you want to meet (union training course again, Tues-Thurs). Seeing my brother and his partner on Tuesday night and obv. busy during the days, but let me know if you're free to do something (even if just briefly - it would be lovely to see all three of you).

Hello! Would love to see you when you're in Oxford -- you'd be very welcome to come here (with the usual caveat that it might have to be a very short visit if things are going badly...) or, if that's not do-able, we can try to get into town to meet you (with the same caveat only more so). Let me know -- we can arrange something by txt nearer the time (you've got my mobile number, yes? if not, DM me on twitter).

See you soon I hope :) Stu's wife Raquel had a baby boy, Daniel, yesterday :)

Hurrah! Please pass on my congratulations to Stu & family. :)

I will try to come into work to show Imogen off before too long! :)

She's filthy cute, isn't she? Just want to pinch those little cheeks!

(Admittedly she still doesn't do very much. Everybody says this time is magical and I shouldn't wish it away, but I'm very much looking forward to a time when she can interact a bit more.)

Be careful what you wish for. It'll feel like five minutes before she's fifteen, slamming doors and wailing "Muuuuuuum!" every time you have an embarrassing opinion.

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8 weeks

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Pome!

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