Silent Sunday

For Silent Sunday.

Oh dear!

I have been really rubbish at blogging lately. I just don't seem to have anything to say or the time to say it? I guess it means I have more important things to do like actually living. Anyway, we'll see what happens, maybe I'll find my voice again soon.

Please bear with me, x

Silent Sunday

For Silent Sunday.

[ . . Wonderful Week . . ] On the way up

I am a little late blogging this week. And I think that is a good thing. I must be feeling better.

In recent weeks I have been using my blog as an outlet to get all the scary and upsetting feelings out in the open. The fact that I haven't blogged is therefore reflective that these feelings are disappearing. Something that I never thought would actually happen.

The past week has seen the formula feeding really take off and we are both so much happier. We have just got back from the health visitor today and at 11 weeks old E is now 12lb 4oz. That's an amazing weight gain of 2lb in 2 weeks! Something is obviously agreeing with him :)

We have been out more and not had to worry about feeding in public. We have survived shops without crying fits and we have had lots of playing.

Maybe most bizarrely I have even been giving advice. Me, parenting advice. Hilarious really when you consider my past few weeks but it really does prove how quickly you can come out the other side.

And I really do hope that this is the start of the other side. I don't mind visiting the dark side occasionally but I don't want it to be home.

Hope you have all had wonderful weeks!

Silent Sunday

For Silent Sunday

The Gallery: Chilled out - some of the time!

A great topic for this week's Gallery - Chilled out.

E has a great knack of being and looking pretty chilled out. In fact he looks pretty cool a lot of the time.
Funny that, he must take after his Dad!

Sorry this is so short and sweet, I used all my energy on last week's gallery post!

Why not look at the other entries for this week at Sticky Fingers. 

CyberMummy meet & greet

Now I am officially a Mum I thought I would finally add myself to Carly at Mummys Shoes meet and greet ahead of CyberMummy in June.

I decided to buy a ticket back in February after umming and arrring for ages. I was undecided due to the cost and having a new baby who would be a maximum of 4 months old. Some lovely folk on Twitter helped convince me I should. So come June the 25th I will be heading down to London town to meet you all.

In preparation and to give you a bit of heads up, this is me...

Name: Lucy

Blog: theprojectlab

Twitter ID: @_lab_

Height: 5ft 6" (I think!)

Hair: Brown - in a short bob type thing!
Eyes: Blue

Likes: Sunshine, design, happiness, Internet, creativity, photography, holidays, new clothes, Thai food, eating out, my iPhone

Dislikes: Inconsiderate people, rain

If you are going to Cybermummy please say hi in the comments. Getting a little bit nervous that I won't know anyone!

Right I really should buy my train tickets now then :)

The Gallery: April - this year and last

April last year was all about freedom and exploring.

We had a wedding to attend and a hen do in Paris. It was also Mr B's 30th Birthday and to celebrate we went on a once in a lifetime holiday to Japan. It was amazing and I have been meaning to blog properly about it for a long time but words can never quite capture what a great experience it was. It is such a friendly country and we were made to feel extremely welcome wherever we went, even when they couldn't speak a word of English!

A fertility shrine - it obviously worked!

So this April was a little different.

It has been all about Elliott. About finding our feet and about family.

April is however for me always about blossom whether you are in the UK or exploring elsewhere...

Photo taken in the bluebell woods April 2011



I am very late (as aways) posting my entry for the Gallery but why not see what it is all about here.

Silent Sunday

For Silent Sunday

[ . . Wonderful Week . . ] Holding on and letting go

This week has been about being honest with myself and really trying to enjoy things. And also letting go just a little bit.

The week started with my first solo outing and first missed feed. So what do I decide to do with my new found independence? Go to a car boot sale! The opportunity to meander around in a field in the sun looking at everyone elses junk. Excellent. I found lots of books for E, mainly story and nursery rhyme ones as I have realised I don't know any nursery rhymes and the only song I can ever think of to sing to him is Little Donkey! Not particularly appropriate for the summer :)

I had a lovely time and didn't miss him at all although it was nice to get home and be welcomed by a smile.

This week as you may have read has also been the start of formula feeding which we all seem to be taking to quite well. I am feeling better and better about this each time we give him a bottle because it really seems to agree with him. There are obviously things about breastfeeding that I am going to miss, like him holding on for dear life to my necklace (see above) so we are doing things gradually.

This week has also been about seeing friends and family and genearlly enjoying our time together. E is playing a lot more and is even grasping some of his toys. He is making new noises all the time and I don't think it will be long until we get a giggle.

Maybe most excitingly, tonight Mr B and I are having our first outing together. We are going out for dinner. Maybe appropriately we have chosen the Thai restaurant where we went on my due date. E is being dropped off at my parents with a bottle and we are all going to have fun.

After all, that is what it is all about. Fun.

An evening stroll

I decided to go for a little stroll with E this evening so that Mr B could have a sleep.

The light was lovely and the birds were singing. Although I wish I had taken the SLR camera with me, time is never on my side so the trusty iPhone had to do the job. Oh and a little bit of Instagram!

Moving to the dark side?

This must be one of the most debated topics of the mummy world but is a newish one for me. Breastfeeding versus formula bottle feeding.

And I am going to be honest straight from the start, we have now introduced formula, so I am no longer exclusively breast feeding. This has not been an easy decision but one we have arrived at finally this week.

I had exclusively breastfed from day one. From E first latching on in the hospital corridor (read more here) we have had a lot of ups and downs. The first few days and weeks were the worse. E would only feed if he was stripped to his nappy and had screamed at me constantly for a good 30 minutes. Even then he would latch on and off constantly, not releasing his grip on the off either! I was however lucky and got a lot of help. Probably the only positive thing about staying in hospital as long as I did. One lady, a feeding specialist actually stayed with me one morning for an hour and a half helping me try different feeding positions.

It was hard going with us both having to learn fast. We got there though and at his first weigh in he had only lost 4oz so we were obviously doing something right. But we were still struggling. The skin to skin we had introduced in hospital to combat the jaundice sleepiness continued to haunt us as he would only feed when I was half naked. Not too much of a problem when we were house bound but it became a bit of a hurdle when we wanted to start going out. We got past this hurdle too but I have never really embraced the breastfeeding in public thing. All my outings to date have been timed around feeds or logistically planned to ensure John Lewis' feeding room or the car is close by for feeding.

Despite the issues we have had I have always been very determined to keep breastfeeding and have worked around them all. Every midwife and health visitor that came to visit checked the latch and helped with feeds, I went to a Sure Start breastfeeding group. I really wanted E to have the best start possible. It has however gradually dawned on me that part of me not feeling myself and feeling constantly anxious is due in part to the breastfeeding. This has been something that is very hard to admit but the thought and suggestion that I could feed him in another way makes me physically stand taller, I feel lighter, I feel free.

This has been bubbling for a while and the last couple of weeks I have tried expressing in the hope to be able to have a few feeds 'off duty'. This seemed like a good solution until I actually came to try it. E is still feeding every 2 to 3 hours so squeezing in an extra feed to express is near impossible and expressing after a feed is difficult due to E's lack of day time sleeping and there generally not being enough milk.

It was however E's first bottle of expressed milk that finally clinched the deal.

He loved it!

Mr B gave it to him, he has been looking forward to feeding him for so long, and as I was preparing to leave the room (following all the advice I had read) E had already wolfed the first quarter down. There was no confusion, no hesitation. As far as he was concerned it was milk and he didn't care where it was coming from.

This was such a pleasant sight as in recent weeks E had been getting back to his old fussy ways of feeding and getting very aggravated. Latching on and pulling straight off again numerous times during a feed, hitting me, pulling my glasses off, kicking and screaming like crazy. Not a pleasant sight when you know your little boy is just hungry. I took it all very personally, he was acting like I was trying to poison him and I would often end up in tears. Suddenly there were a few alternatives.

I had bought some formula milk before he was born (I really never expected to succeed at all) but stocked up on some more at the weekend but was reluctant to give him any before seeing the health visitor this week for his weigh in. To be honest I was hoping for permission. But, I didn't get that, they are only there for advice apparently. Despite this he weighed in at 10lb 3oz which she was happy with and I left knowing I would introduce the first bottle of formula that night.

We did and it went well, despite the initial faff of sorting it out. He didn't hesitate. He didn't get angry. He didn't get as much wind as normal. He just drank it and fell straight to sleep.

Bliss.

So, here we are a couple of days later after two nights of formula feeding. He seems happy. I am getting there. So hopefully this is the future. I am not expecting the formula and combination feeding to solve everything but I do hope it is a step in the right direction.

I am still justifying the decision to myself and I think I will always feel a little guilty about 'giving up' but it is the right decision for us. I feel I have already given him the best start, we have bonded and he has had a lot of the goodness and antibodies already. I am proud that we got this far and that to date his growth has been down to solely me, but it is now time for a little help. We are gradually dropping a feed a day but I do hope to keep one breastfeed a day, whilst he still seems to want it and we both enjoy it.

Only time will tell.

When is a newborn not a newborn?

I am starting to feel the days slip away. E is getting bigger every day, clothes are starting not to fit him and part of me is starting to already miss when he was tiny.

This is quite ironic being as though there have been many days where I have wished the days away in the hope that things would get easier for me and for him. As he gets bigger his colic is promised to get better, which it is, and the distant dream of a better night's sleep gets closer. This is all very appealing.

It is so appealing as there are many things that I have not at all got to grips with. He doesn't sleep or settle much during the day so I still struggle to get anything done. The house is still not as tidy or clean as it would have once been. The food shopping is never done. Numerous jobs remain half finished. And I have no time for myself.

Now this would have all been ok a few weeks ago. Everyone knows a newborn baby is hard work. We had lots of advice that the first few weeks would be a blur and we wouldn't really know what was happening and that was certainly true. I had an excuse for all these failings and feelings, "oh, but I have a newborn baby". But, what about at 6 weeks, what about at 8 weeks?

This week E turns 9 weeks and that doesn't really sound newborn to me. It is two full months. This is just ridiculous. There is no way I have been a Mum for two months. In fact, I still don't feel like a Mum.

We have felt many times that we are just looking after E for someone else but it has now sunken in that we are not handing him back to anyone, he isn't going anywhere. He is here to stay. This is his home and we are his Mum and Dad.

I googled 'when is a newborn baby not considered a newborn anymore' and there are numerous answers ranging from one month to three. So, I am sticking with three months. That feels slightly doable. June. I can cope with that. My baby will not then be a newborn.

Maybe by June I won't be crying at the smallest things. Maybe I'll get some of my brain back. Maybe I won't be needed just for my milk. Maybe I'll be able to choose to do something other than just sleep, tidy or eat. Maybe I will have some time for me.

But I have to accept that I AM now a Mum so it is never really going to be about me ever again. Maybe that is what I am really struggling with. Who'd have thought I could be so selfish. I have a beautiful baby boy and I am still thinking about me.

Frankly though, this beautiful baby boy deserves a better Mum than the one he sometimes has at the minute. He deserves a Mum with more confidence who doesn't shy away from situations, a Mum who is enjoying every single second of his journey.

And, to get to that point, to really make sure he gets the Mum he deserves I do actually need to find my old self. She is starting to make a reappearance, slowly but surely. She actually used to be pretty cool and I think we all miss her.

* I originally wrote this post at the end of last week and it had been a hard week.

I ummed and arred about posting it as things have gradually got better in the past few days but I decided to post it anyway.

This blog is to act as a reminder as much as an outlet. Thank you for putting up with my ramblings x *

Silent Sunday

For Silent Sunday.

There is no linky this week so check out the hastag on Twitter to see other posts here.