Saturday afternoon we made the most of the sunshine to take Nana and Poppa to Otari-Wilton bush for a lovely hour's meander through the native forest. Noah was most entertaining, encouraging us all along the right paths, 'Come on Nana, follow Daddy, this way'. Then he discovered a game which amused him all the way round 'Who lives here?' he would say in each dark nook and cranny, to which Mummy had to come up with an increasingly inventive list of characters, and of I couldn't repeat the same ones twice as he was far too quick to point out 'You said that one already Mummy'! I think we started with 'a dragon' 'a monster' and ended with the likes of 'Mickey Mouse' and 'Tigger' some 45 minutes or so later when we reached the end of the ramble!
Saturday night we indulged in fish n chips and after a brief time together on Sunday morning, it was off to the airport for Nana and Poppa to catch their 10.15 flight home.
Both Sunday & Monday afternoon Noah & Mark caught up with George and some of the other kids for a swim at Karori Pool, Noah having been so excited and proud of his new swimwear that he wore it for most of the weekend before he even made it to the pool (see the pics from the bushwalk etc with his new rash vest!).
I went for my first hour's walk up and down the hills around Karori and Northland on Sunday afternoon. Although it felt good to be out and to finally get some exercise, I certainly felt the after effects of pushing the stroller on my back and knees proving how out of practice I am. Perhaps a more gentle walk on the flat next time to ease back into it!
The past week or so Noah has been having all sorts of fun with coloured baths. I got the idea from a Littlies Magazine and with a few drops of different coloured food colouring added to the bath, we've transformed bathtime into something even more fun! So far we've had blue, red, purple, orange, yellow and green. Think we might attempt brown tomorrow! Noah keeps asking if he can have black but think that might be a bit tricky with just the blue, red, green and yellow pots we have!
Mylo update: Week 5: A Very Awake Baby
We had our first Plunket visit on Friday - and just to put paid to the above comment, Mylo slept right through the visit so we weren't able to weigh him again. It was mostly filling in paperwork etc and didn't especially cover off a lot of personal questions and concerns. That's the last of the home visits though as our next checkup will be the 6-week doctor's checkup and immunisations next week, and then the next Plunket visit will be at the local clinic when he is 8 weeks.
The past week, Mylo's daytime sleep have gone downhill rather quickly, and I cannot remember the last time he slept longer than half an hour without me having to either go back in and rock him back to sleep in the bassinet or alternatively put him in the sling or frontpack to get him back to sleep. I like to call it the 'half-hour twitch' - I have to try and joke about it or I fear I may go a little crazy!
Having looked back at the record I kept of Noah at the same time, it would appear that he is actually as bad if not worse than Noah was at the same stage (it hardly seems possible I know since at the time I rather despaired that Noah would ever sleep long periods during the day!). However, once Noah was asleep in the carseat/stroller/sling, he would generally sleep for a while, whereas Mylo seems to only ever be in such a light sleep that one minute you think he is out for the count, but the next minute he wakes and stares at you with these big eyes. I guess the benefit of this being Number 2 baby is that I know it is not forever and it does get better, so I think 'perseverance and patience' are to be my catch phrases for the next few weeks until Mylo can develop proper daytime naps. This week my goal is to try and stretch him out to 3-hour feeds during the day (from 2-hourly), easier said than done with such short naps so I am trying to find inventive ways (such as using the sling/frontpack) to extend him to the magic 3-hour mark each time.
After a few tough evenings where it has taken us a good couple of hours to get him settled and down for the night, we've decided it makes a lot more sense to start the night-time feed, bath, feed, bed routine at 6-6.30 so we can do it at the same time as we're getting Noah into bed. Hopefully it won't be too long before we can bath both boys together in the big bath which will help logistics too.
I'd love to think that Mylo could start to stretch out his night-time feeds - last night it was 7pm, 11.30pm, 2.30am and 5am, which feels a little like backwards progress after a couple of 6hr stretches from 8pm till 2am last week. I have experimented a little with formula feeds at the midnight feed with mixed success, the worst part of doing so though was having to still express my own milk. This meant I was awake for an hour and a half and it was pretty difficult to get back to sleep afterwards, compared with breast feeding where Mylo will feed for 10 minutes and fall straight back to sleep, which means I can too. It's quite possible if I switched to full formula feeding it would make a difference overall to the length of his night sleeps, but once I make that decision there's no turning back from it, and I'm not sure I'm quite ready to do so!
I was very sad to see Nana go on Sunday, she was such a great help to us all, and I so enjoyed her company, not that we did much during the days but it was just lovely to have some adult conversation to help pass the time, and someone to discuss my thoughts, fears, and hopes re little Mylo's progress.
Tuesday I managed to get into town for a half hour massage whilst Mark looked after Mylo, it was a bit of a challenge to manage given he doesn't have a particular routine, so it was a bit of a risk to just book a time and go, but we all survived the experience intact and it was nice to have half an hour of 'me' time!
Yesterday I had a visit from a lovely friend, Sarah of Chez Lee fame. We have been corresponding over the past few months via Facebook and comments on each other's blogsites (the joys of modern technology!) but it was so much better meeting Sarah in person. I hope Sarah doesn't mind me saying that she was my original inspiration for starting our own blog as she has been a blogger herself for some years, and I will admit to plagiarising a few of her ideas when it comes to layout and setting up photo and video slideshows etc for our own site. Sarah, and Dan (who I worked with at M-co for many years), have 2 lovely girls, with another delivery surprise due in February 2010. The family enjoy some wonderful adventures around Wellington and further afield, and more than once I have gotten ideas for interesting and fun things to do as a family from reading Sarah's posts (such as annual passes to the Wellington Zoo which I didn't even know existed before that!). I know all those who read the blog from far and wide around the world and who appreciate our regular updates will also be grateful that I ever got inspired to start our own blog. So thank you Sarah for the ongoing inspiration!
Tomorrow GeeGee arrives for the weekend, Noah has a fancy dress 4th birthday to go to for Maya, and is going to try out junior football with a few of his daycare friends on Sunday. We may also try to take Noah to the annual model train rail expo if we can fit it in - so it's going to be another action packed weekend for one of us at least!
1 comment :
A bit late commenting - reading older blog posts while Alexander feeds! It is reassuring to know that Alexander isn't the only baby with short/non-existent daytime naps! Hopefully they improve soon :)
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