My movie date with the Dude

Since before he was born, I’ve been planning to check out the mum and bub movie sessions, which are run weekly at my nearest cinema. Husband and I love going to the movies and have really missed it over the last 7 months.

The Dude, as you may already be aware, is a freaking full on baby. He doesn’t fall asleep alone, and in fact requires either walking in the ergo or similar, or booby in bed to fall asleep. I think he’s dropped off maybe three times ever without one of those elements, and he’s woken in a few minutes every time. So I’ve not had the guts to go to even the mum and bub cinema session as I know he’ll make such a fuss.

With the release of the latest Twilight movie, Breaking Dawn Part 1, I decided to chance it and head along. Husband saw it the night before with work people and I’ve read the book so I figured I’d be able to follow it even if I have to attend to the Dude most of the way through.

Unfortunately, it’s a 10:15am session, which is perfect for most with young ones, as normal babies wake at the crack of dawn. Not my Dude; he sleeps in, sometimes til past 11am! So this morning I crept out of bed about 9, leaving him sleeping, and showered and dressed. When I came out of the shower he was still soundo, flat on his face, so I carefully adjusted his head so he could breathe. He kept sleeping. Typical. Every time I need him ready to go somewhere he won’t wake up! And when I need him asleep he just won’t go down! I got everything ready to leave, even cut his fingernails, but still he slept. Eventually, about 9:50, I just picked him up and headed out, whereupon he woke of course, but wasn’t totally with it. I made it into the carpark at 10:10 but wasn’t worried as I figured there’d be previews.

I didn’t rush, even bought a shitty cinema coffee and an ice-cream for breakfast (it was either that or a bag of M&Ms) and made it to my very big comfy seat with plenty of time to spare.

By this time, Dude was fully awake and doing his latest routine which involved bouncing up and down gleefully while saying “ngeng ngeng” over and over. He is too cute! The cinema was dark enough but with enough light to see what you’re doing and I had to navigate through a massive traffic jam of prams but that was easy enough with Dude in my trusty Ergobaby.

Most mums (and one dad) were sitting at or near the back, which made sense after a while as they had good access to the exit when bubs inevitably got grizzly. My seat was halfway down. Dude refused to be put on the floor for changing so I just left him in his ridiculously full nappy and propped him up on the seat next to me.

The movie started and it was soon obvious he was tired so I tried to feed him off to sleep but he wasn’t down with that plan and just had a few sips before really kicking off so no one could hear Edward and Bella’s wedding vows. I took him up the back and tried to rock him to sleep, following the example of a few other mums but he wasn’t having that either. Plus he is teetering on the brink of 10kg these days so he’s hard to hold consistently. Eventually I strapped him into the Ergo, hood straight up, and rocked for what seemed like about a quarter of the movie. Finally he slept!

I went back down to my seat and perched gingerly on the edge so as not to wake him. Then I ate my Magnum Caramel, wondering what the hell I’d been thinking buying an ice-cream to eat with a squirming baby! But it was all good in the end, he slept through the rest of the movie and I really enjoyed it. It was very heartening to see other mums working just as hard to get their babies to chill out. The Dude is loud and intense but he is still quite a typical baby in many ways.

I can’t wait for next Wednesday at 10:15, whatever the next movie is, for $8.50, I’m there!

Nearly 7 months

Man it’s tough parenting the Dude! I find it hard to relate to my friends in the same way as I did pre baby, as my attention is so focused on him. And he is full on! I was heartened to read Rixa’s post about her youngest’s night waking antics; not that I rejoice in the suffering of others, but it’s more that I am glad to know even she, who seems so sorted out, has to deal with challenges like that. I hope I don’t have all that to look forward to in two months! At least Inga actually sleeps in her cot though, the Dude just won’t, it’s madness! I want my bed back!

He now has five teeth, the first of which arrived just over a month ago, and the last, on the side of his front top, I noticed just poked through this morning.  He doesn’t seem to be suffering too much with the teething, despite the sudden onslaught, and I think the homepathic chamomilla, nux vomica, placenta remedy, emergency essence and Brauer teething relief have all really helped stave off any real pain.  So far he’s been eating very heartily, and would eat lots more given the chance but I’m not very good at coordinating food for him!  He’s had apples, carrots, mangos, watermelon, rockmelon, blueberries, sweet potato, potato (he grabbed it off my plate when I wasn’t watching!), bread (again, grabbed), avocado, and bananas.  He loves everything.  He’s eating his first teething rusk right now and totally loving it.  I don’t think we’re going to have any eating issues with this one.

I just took him for his six month check up with the doctor (yeah, it’s late, I didn’t book him in until now) and he is a very healthy 9.8kg, so well in the 90th percentile.  I wouldn’t say he’s a particularly chubby baby, but he is really solid, like one big muscle.  He’s very wriggly and is trying to get up on his hands and knees a fair bit.  Yesterday I came out of the shower to find he’s rolled onto his front in his sleep but hadn’t managed to pull his arm out from under himself so he was flat on his face!  I found it pretty funny actually but my husband was a bit concerned.  I just took a quick photo and then pulled his arm through and he slept peacefully on his tummy for the first time since he was a newborn.

The doctor was really not that helpful, but hey, she never usually is, and I didn’t really take him to her so she could confirm he was healthy or whatever – I knew that!  She was immediately concerned about his skin, which is actually not too bad at the moment, although it is a bit flaky and cracked around his ankles, and he has a bit of redness and irritation round his neck which comes and goes.  I am putting coconut oil on it which really soothes but it doesn’t make it go away.  Not that I expected it to, given that his skin issue is constitutional, and therefore the skin irritation is just an external symptom of what’s going on internally, so why would an externally applied thing ‘fix’ it?  The doctor was like, ‘but what you’re doing is clearly not working as he’s still got it,’ and I explained that quashing the symptoms – ie. the rash – is not my intention, and rather I’d prefer to let his body sort itself out internally in its own time.  She didn’t get it and again recommended Hydrozole and Cetaphil, acknowledging that the former has cortisone in it.  I actually purchased them both this time but I’m still undecided as to whether I’ll use them, must research more – stay tuned for a post on cortisone.

Despite the fact that he’s clearly thriving, the doc is still obsessed with the idea that suddenly at six months babies stop getting adequate iron via breastmilk.  She was stupidly obsessed with me having enough iron in pregnancy too, despite the fact that I’ve never come close to being anaemic in my life.  I asked her why and she didn’t really answer me, she just said, ‘I’m just telling you what the studies show’.  She’s such a coward.  How can you, as a professional, recommend products and practices without knowing all the info?  I thought then that I should have become a doctor!  Seriously I swear this woman is a plant by the big pharma companies, she is obsessed with all pharmaceutical products!  She goes, ‘oh, get Cetaphil, it’s a really gentle moisturiser, won’t irritate the skin,’ and I was like, ‘oh, so it’s alcohol free,’ and she goes, ‘oh, I don’t know what’s in it, but yes, it’s very gentle.’  Are you for real, woman?  You don’t know what’s in it but you’re recommending it for a baby?  Yeesh.  Anyway, she says he should be having baby rice cereal that’s fortified with iron, so I did buy him some organic stuff, and will give him a go on it, can’t hurt, but I’m not really fussed, as I think all this obsession with iron is bollocks, frankly.

Anyway, the little dude is thriving.  He says, ‘de’, ‘ghe’, ‘ne’, ‘be’ and a whole bunch of other random noises that often sound like ‘mama’, ‘dada’ and other actual words.  He also understands a lot of what I say.  He knows what ‘boobie’ is, and he knows his full name, nickname, as well as ‘bug’ and ‘dude’ and ‘little boy’.  I am pretty sure he knows what I’m on about most of the time, and his needs are so well met that he doesn’t really need to ask for anything much.  The other week he asked for boobie by opening his mouth and virtually gesturing, and then grabbing my boob when I leaned down over him on his change table!  He then smiled when I asked if that’s what he wanted.  I reckon half the time he is frustrated because I’m not doing what he asks straight away – sometimes it’s because I’m not paying attention to his clear signals, and other times it’s because I’m busy doing something else.

Back to the sleeping thing, it’s really challenged me, just on a patience level.  I now firmly believe that this baby came to me for a reason, because there’s no way anyone else would be able to retain the level of patience I have.  I’m pretty over cosleeping.  Not that it doesn’t work, but the bed is just too small, the Dude takes up a lot of space, as does his dad, and I am sandwiched in between.  I also think it’s a two edged sword in a way.  I think he wakes BECAUSE I’m next to him, and yet he’d probably wake if I WASN’T next to him.  I’ve tried time and again to get him to sleep in his cot and it just doesn’t happen.  He’s not one of those babies who just drops off to sleep with a bit of patting after a bath.  He doesn’t fall asleep with rocking.  He only sleeps when lying down in bed feeding, or when being walked round in the Ergo, that’s it.  And then if I do get him to sleep in bed (usually takes at least an hour), he doesn’t stay asleep.  If I try to put him down say at 7pm, I will be in and out of the room and lying next to him for at least two hours, and that’s if he actually does go to sleep.  So although I’d love to get him in a routine, it just doesn’t happen and we end up keeping him up til 10:30 or so when we go to bed.

Anyway, he’s currently wriggling in my lap needing to sleep so I’m stopping here…

Have child, will travel

After numerous heated discussions and difficult exchanges, husband suggested I go to Melbourne and just chill out with friends for an extended weekend.  At first I was reluctant, thinking about how hard the flight would be with the Dude, who just doesn’t do the comfort feeding thing and doesn’t just fall asleep, but I finally agreed to go and booked some flights on Qantas.  Luxury!  Normally we fly dodgy Tiger but with the Dude I wasn’t taking any chances, and besides, it wasn’t actually much more expensive.  I booked an 11am flight out on the Thursday, thinking that would be cruisy, and a 4pm flight home on the following Monday.  But it wasn’t to be so cruisy!

Firstly, about a week beforehand, husband revealed that he’d volunteered for a day out accompanying some deaf kids into the city to the Botanic Gardens and on the ferry etc. Which is lovely, except it happened to be the day I was due to fly to Melbourne.  And he had to be at the school by 8:30am.  In North Parramatta.  An hour’s drive away.  And my flight was booked for 11am.  Urgh.  We discussed the possibility of him bailing out, but he’d already saved the day as someone else had pulled out and I thought it would be pretty slack to bail at the last minute like that.  So after discussing the possibilities – him taking public transport to North Parramatta (erm, that’s like having a death wish!), me taking public transport to the airport (erm, again, a bit of a death wish, given I’d have the baby and my wheely bag), me taking a taxi to the airport (for $70? Hmm, think again) – and finally settled on a plan.  He dropped me in the city at about 7:45 and I strapped the Dude to my chest, put my nappy bag in my wheely bag, and took the airport line straight through from St James – easy!

A few things to explain here: I decided not to bother with taking a pram as the Dude isn’t a fan and I can’t fathom how one person can possibly handle a wheely bag and a pram at the same time.  Seriously.  How is that possible??  The other thing is that I don’t own a nappy bag.  My nappy bag consists of a rather tatty Target ‘green’ bag.  I have the material at home, just haven’t gotten round to making one, and there’s no way I’m spending $100 on a proper one, what a total rip off!  Plus I’m not a fan of carting round a whole bunch of shit just because I have a baby.  Sometimes I take a nappy and wipes, occasionally a change of clothes, a hat, socks… that’s about it.  So anyway, all I had was my modest wheely bag, my handbag and the Dude strapped to me in the Ergobaby.

The train trip through to Sydney airport’s Qantas domestic terminal was a breeze.  Fast, easy, simple.  The only drawbag is being subjected to extortion when you pay $15 for a ten minute train journey!  Freaking rip off!  But that’s Sydney for you… Anyway, I got there, decided to check my bag, and was impressed with how easy it was despite the fact that Qantas seem to have now gotten rid of actual people to check you in and you do the whole thing yourself: check in and print off your boarding pass and bag tags, attach your own bag tags, then drop off your bags yourself.  Pretty cool really.

I headed through security and grabbed a bacon and egg muffin at Hungry Jacks and a big veggie juice at the food place next to it – yum!  I found a nice seat facing out over the tarmac, finished my food and drink and gave the Dude a feed.  I had a couple of hours still before my flight at 11am, and I planned to get him to have a decent sleep so he’d be cool for the flight.  It was great, I strapped him to my back, then grabbed a coffee, then found a bench and stood rocking him while crocheting and sipping my coffee, too easy!  At 10:40 I went to board my flight; and that’s when things started to go awry.

The flight was delayed 25 minutes, so boarding at 11:05.  I kept walking round with the Dude, gave him another feed… It was 11:30 and we still hadn’t boarded.  Finally we all filed on.  Apparently the flight before had been late in.  I was beckoned to the front and slipped on board first, which was brilliant.  My seat was right at the back and the one next to me was empty, perfect!  The male and female flight attendants immediately flocked to me and took the Dude, who was happy to hang out with them, a total miracle, as normally he screams as soon as I pass him to someone else, unless it’s daddy.  This was going well! And then we sat on the tarmac.  For an hour!  The Dude got restless.  The lovely male flight attendant brought him some baby food, awful artificial Heinz vanilla custard (I read the label enough to notice the second ingredient was ‘sugar’ and then pretended not to notice), which the Dude of course absolutely loved and ate about a third of the tin!  But we weren’t flying anywhere on this plane it seemed, and were soon asked to disembark as the flight had been cancelled due to electrical problems.  I filed out with everyone else and stood in line for 10 minutes whereupon we were booked onto a 3pm flight.  Hmph.

Anyway, eventually we did fly out on the 3pm flight, but sadly the attendants on this flight weren’t of the calibre of those on the first and basically ignored me the whole time.  The Dude had had enough by this point and promptly screamed the plane down for most of the flight, even though I tried to soothe him by walking around and feeding (it only worked for the first 15 minutes during take off).  I finally arrived in Melbourne at 4:35pm and had to wait for my friend to pick us up as because of the delay she was stuck in traffic!  What an ordeal!

Some general observations about flying:

• Baby change area at the airport? This had to be the most impractical place to change a baby, unless the baby in question is completely covered in poo and you need to give him a bath to clean him up… Where is the bit you change them on? I really do need to invest in a portable change mat, as the changing area consisted of a narrow, hard metal bench.
• People that work at Sydney airport – really, this is your career? Reminds me why I want to leave Sydney!  I watched people working behind counters and in shops and thought, damn, what a way to live, how boring and average.  Yes, I am a cynic.  And a snob.
• Are people really that lovely and helpful when you’re travelling with a baby? Some, yes, but judging by the stupid article I read in the Age about flying with a baby, some are just callous assholes who probably wouldn’t have the guts to say to your face what they’d say in an online comment.
• There is a huge difference depending on the flight attendants.  I guess they see a million babies complaining on flights every day, but it made SUCH a difference to have those lovely flight attendants on that first flight.  I personally thanked them both before getting off the plane, and the female flight attendant came up to me in the airport after we got off the first plane to check if I’d been successfully rebooked and commiserate.  So nice.
• Some people are tolerant and understand just how embarrassing and stressful it can be when your baby is screaming and you just can’t do anything.  As I sat waiting to get off the second flight to Melbourne, waiting for everyone to get off first, a smiling guy in a suit leaned down to me and said, “don’t worry, we’ve all been there before”.  I smiled.  Thanks man, I really needed to hear that.

My conclusion? Having kids and participating in mainstream society do not exist in the same dimension! But what’s new right?  All I know is, I did it, I took a flight alone with my baby and it was all good.  In fact he slept for the majority of the flight home – miracle or what!  I can’t say I’ll be doing it again in a hurry but at least now I know I can.

The ‘routine’

“Babies like routines.”  I’m sure you’ve heard that one.  Or even, “babies need routines”.  I tend to agree, now I’ve got a baby.  He has found his own sort of patterns, but the problem is, any change from the outside (ie. if I go to the shop or if something prevents him falling asleep when he’s ready or if his tummy is sore), and all is lost.  People ask me, “how’s he sleeping?” and I always proudly say that he has slept through the night from eight weeks.  But technically what happens is that he wakes a couple of times, has a quick bit of boobie, and goes back to sleep.  This is still pretty good.  And I always found myself telling people that I hadn’t had to get up in the middle of the night with the Dude since he was eight weeks old.  Well that streak has now been broken.

Yesterday was an odd day, I suppose.  But I’ll start with some background.  Since he’s reached the three-month milestone, a few things have changed.  He is suddenly much more aware, so he notices his surroundings and is distracted easily by random things happening around him, especially the tv.  Prior to this, when he wanted boobie and sleep I’d just put him on as I watched tv and he’d fall asleep.  I’d sometimes succeed at taking him to bed to sleep by himself at this point, or most of the time I’d let him stay asleep in my arms.  Suddenly this is not doable at all.  Similarly, we thought he was the most social kid ever, as we’d taken him out with friends to noisy restaurants and whatnot and he’d just fall asleep in the carrier, not bothered by what was happening.  In fact he seemed happier when out and about, listening and watching calmly and then just passing out happily.  But not any more.  We took him to lawn bowls and then out to dinner the other night and he hardly slept at all the whole time!  He even cried in front of our friends, which has never happened.  He’d feed a bit, get distracted, look around, get angry because he was tired but couldn’t just go to sleep.  The only time I got him to sleep was once when I took him outside away from any noise and fed him – passed out in minutes, and then finally at the end of the night he eventually passed out in the ergo, totally shattered.  So in the last week I’ve been recognising when he’s really tired, then taking him straight to bed and feeding him to sleep lying down.  Sometimes I’ve stayed next to him for an hour or so to get him really sound asleep (thank you trusty old iphone for keeping me amused!) and then he will stay asleep at least an hour by himself.  When he stirs I go in quietly and if he is grumpy and still has his eyes shut I just feed him again and he goes back to sleep.  That was great!  I actually got a few things done around the house!

That brings us to yesterday.  I got a text from a new friend who has a little baby as well asking if I wanted to go for a walk and a coffee, as she lives nearby, which was fine, we did that.  As per his recent distracted/alert phase, the Dude stayed awake most of the way to the coffee shop and finally dropped off, only to wake again when I sat down.  He then fell back to sleep on the walk home, and woke when we got inside, although he was trying to settle himself back down to sleep which was great to see – he sucked on his little hand and kept his head down.  He even did this the other day and settled himself back to sleep for another hour with no input from us, it was amazing.  Anyway, yesterday I think I made a bit of a mistake.  I tried to feed him to sleep as usual, but I think I tried to put him to bed before he was quite tired enough because the rest of the evening was an utter disaster.  I guess I had in my mind that if I could get him to sleep and stay asleep by 8pm then if we get up at 8am he’d have had a full 12 hours sleep overnight and that’ll be the beginning of our little routine.  Husband got home at something like 9:30 and I’d just given up trying to feed him to sleep and begun changing him.  I tried again and he wasn’t having it, obviously had his fill of milk without drifting off and just didn’t want to lie down.  I tried walking him around and hung out in the lounge for half an hour or so, but no, still wasn’t having the boobie.  So I relented and put him in the ergo, where he promptly fell asleep, phew!  But that wasn’t the last of it.  I managed to get him out of that and into bed and asleep, and I finally crawled in myself at about 11:30… only to be woken at 2am!  He was trying to feed back to sleep but it was clearly too much and he was starting to cry in frustration.  It was pitch black but I could tell he was awake.  Not ready to be awake, but awake nonetheless.  I tried so many things to get him to settle back down, and eventually he woke husband (who’d probably been awake all along anyway), and, frustrated, I decided to take him out to the lounge before he got any louder.  I was tired. He was tired. I couldn’t do any ergo pacing in the middle of the night, although in hindsight this probably would have worked the best.  Instead he worked himself up and cried for what seemed like forever!  I wrapped him in the warm blanket I’d just finished edging, held him and looked at him and told him I could do nothing more for him.  He looked back at me as he screamed and I think he knew what I meant.  So I waited.  And he screamed and then he began to go quiet.  It must have been four or five times he went quiet and briefly fell asleep but then woke himself up with a sob and started again!  It wasn’t nice to sit through and I did feel sad for him but at the time I felt there was nothing more I could do.  I was despairing, thinking ‘what have I done wrong here? could this have ended up any other way?  is this a sign of things to come? no more night waking, please!’  Finally he went quiet and stayed quiet, falling into a deep, exhausted sleep.  I sat for a few more minutes, just to make sure he was soundly asleep before I brought him back to bed.  He was pretty restless a few times through the morning too, and at one point I got rid of the blanket he’d been wrapped in and he fell back to sleep, obviously that was too hot and uncomfortable.

Anyway, so it was a freaking nightmare, and I’m scared now that it’s going to be that way every night!  Thank god I’ve got him booked in at the osteo on Friday, hopefully that’ll help him settle. I realise he’s going to wake and need comforting during the night, that’s why he sleeps in bed next to me, but I don’t think I can handle him fully waking and freaking out every night.  It’s so much harder now because he has this awareness and he’s so sensitive to what’s going on around him.  I want him to feel secure and relaxed, that’s all.  Genetically, the odds are not on his side in terms of sleeping and relaxation, that worries me too.  My mum seems to think it was all very simple and normal but I didn’t feel like that about sleep.  I hated night and sleep, hated the dark, hated having to quiet my brain for sleep.  I remember tossing and turning night after night, turning the light back on to read, always having problems getting to sleep.  I never had a problem staying asleep, but my dad is and always has been a real insomniac.  Mind you, this was probably heightened by the fact his mother used to lock him in the bathroom to cry as she didn’t know what else to do!  That’s one thing I’ll never do, I’ll never leave the Dude to cry himself to sleep.  No matter how hard it is I will always at least be there for him when he’s upset, that’s my vow.