Guests and gurgles

[ailbhe]

Gurgles

Linnea is 16 days old today, and was weighed yesterday by my delightful midwife; she is now 10lb 13.5oz, so has gained a pound over her first two weeks. I think that's ridiculous. However, last night she slept over 6 hours in her own bed from midnight to 6:30 am, so that's ok.

I'm only taking about 50mg of codeine a day now, down from 240mg ten days ago. One of my stitches has burst but is healing, and another has come out the normal way because the flesh has knit together again. the gap in my abdominal muslces hurts when I touch it, because I stupidly carried heavy things (the baby, laundry, milkbottles) yesterday because I felt so healthy. Oops.

On Friday, I left the house! We went about 100 yards up the road to the baguette shop and sat at an outside table and had lunch. It was lovely. I can manage Linnea's pushchair fine, though unfolding it one-handed is still beyond me, and the staff were pleased to meet her; they know Rob quite well and saw his picture with her in the paper last week.

She still really likes baths, has progressed to 3-6 month clothes (a very few 0-3 mth things still fit her) and will lie in the sun if we put an umbrella up over her and make sure there's no sunlight reflecting onto her. Warm, breezy shade and cotton romper suits make her quietly contented.

This is partially because I am a failure as a mother and have bought her two soothers (dummies, dodies, whatever your local dialect calls 'em). I hope to make her give them up when I'm able to pick her up without assistance whenever she needs it rather than only a couple of times a day. Meanwhile it's mean to make her lie there crying and unloved when I'm right next to her and should be providing solace. 16 days old isn't the right time to learn emotional independence.

Guests

On Saturday, Mum left and Aoife arrived. Aoife left today. Now Rob and I are alone in the house (apart from Linnea, of course) for the first time since the morning of the first of April. Tonight will be the first night since 31st March that we've been alone, too. I wonder how we'll cope? A lot depends, I suspect, on how Linnea behaves. Tomorrow I will depend on Rob for all the things Mum used to do - lifting Linnea from the moses basket to my lap, carrying laundry, hanging laundry to dry, all that. It's possible that a friend will come and help with housework, though, which would make such a huge difference to my feeling of well-being; I always feel better when I'm not living in chaos.

Rob's mother may come and help one day this week, and my sister arrives on Thursday evening. Hopefully by then I'll be a lot better; it would be nice to get as far as a shop with her.

Comments

Soothers...

[gioiaverdi.livejournal.com]

... may well be a gift from some higher power. They provide comfort, help a child sleep when they are tired and fractious, Are far more hygenic and less damaging to children's teeth than a thumb, and are not difficult to wean a child away from. The only way in which they can be detrimental is dipped in something sweet, or if you let them wander round with the thing in their mouth when they're learning to crawl/walk and I'd guess you're about as likely to either of those as fly.

I wouldn't be in *too* great a hurry to get them out of Linnea's life when you're fitter, since they're a boon for those times when a babe wants to be picked up, and shouldn't be - almost all babies get grizzly and bad-tempered when they're tired, sometimes. Picking them up then can be a genuinely bad thing, and delay the sleep they need to get by making them struggle to stay awake because they're getting Mum or Dad's attention, which they love. A soother then provides them with tangible, comforting (evidence of) care/love without interfering with the natural descent into sleep.

I'm glad to hear you're recovering and hope the improvement recovers apace.