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2006-01-20 - 11.54pm previous entry next entry
Weigh-in today, and first PLAYGROUP!!!
Thank you all so much for the sweet notes and messages!!! This diary DOES feel so much like "home"! I miss writing here so frequently, so I'm back as soon as I could get time! Yay! Hopefully I'll be able to write a bit more frequently now. I do love to offload here!
Heather, thank you so much for your long message about the sleep thing! It's sort of good to know there are other mothers out there who know what it is like, but at the same time, awful that there are other mothers going through it (or having been through it in the past)! I think we have ruled out our movements disturbing Arthur, because his wakefulness is just the same in the evenings when we are not in the bedroom, and for the past couple of months since I have been symptomatically pregnant (weird description!), I have been sleeping in the spare room most or all of the night. Neil either sleeps in the bed with Arthur, or on a makeshift mattress on the floor next to the bed (which is a mattress on the floor anyway). So a lot of the time, Arthur actually has the (KINGSIZE!!) bed to himself!! This is a crazy arrangement! ;) We have noticed a few times that Arthur seems way more settled once someone is in there next to him, and he has his feet against them or some other contact. But his sleep doesn't seem better or worse with any change of situation, unfortunately.
The advice I was reading was for a co-sleeping, breast-fed-at-night toddler, so I was really confused to see it tell me that he would be sleeping through the night by now!
But we have a plan!!! Yay! So I feel way less hopeless about it. Also he is starting to sleep better some nights, so that helps too. The other night he slept from 8pm (when he fell asleep) till FOUR THIRTY AM!!!! Woohoooooo!!! Other nights he has done 7.30 or 8pm till say 2.30am. But he has this new clockwork thingy going on at 4.30am and 6.05am (on the DOT!). I have no idea where that came from. I don't nurse him when he wakes at 4.30 and he is pretty much quick to go back to sleep with me next to him. I can't sleep next to him at the moment because I am finding it hard to sleep comfortably now that I'm halfway through my pregnancy. I'm not UNcomfy, just fidgetty and unable to get into my cosiest sleep positions for easy-dropping-off, and I have horrible restless leg syndrome in any case. So I need the spare bed these days. So I go back there, and he wakes at 6.05am. Then I nurse him in bed, and when he is done, he climbs over me to snuggle with Neil, and then starts pointing at the door and making his, "Let's go!" shouty sound (!!), so that's when he gets up for the day. With Neil :) I go back to bed till Neil has to get ready for work an hour or so later. It's such a blessing to be able to do that!
Soooo things are slightly better with his sleep. Some nights he wakes a couple of times in the evening, maybe every 2 hours, and then sleeps 3-4 hours till 4.30am. So that is now a typical "bad" night, which is a VAST improvement on our old bad nights! So that is encouraging :)
Also - the plan! We DO plan to transition Arthur to his own space before the new baby comes. We have been planning this since before I got pregnant, as we knew it would come up eventually. I don't think I would sleep well with two little ones in bed with me, as I don't do that great with one! Also I think Arthur would get disturbed by the wakefulness of a newborn. I know I couldn't cope with TWO night-waking babies on a regular basis! So he needs to transition. We decided that we don't want him in his own room though, unless the new baby is just disturbing him TOO much at night and something has to change for Arthur's benefit. The books I have read about transitioning a co-sleeping toddler when a new baby is on the way, all say that it is best for the toddler if they can stay in your room, not go into their own. Otherwise there are usually problems when the new baby has arrived and is sharing the space they have always shared, and they are suddenly relegated to another part of the house. I fully agree with that idea in any case, and we have no intention of putting Arthur in another room. I like my little ones close to me at night, and don't like the thought of them being out in another part of the house all night long. I know, that's just me, but that's how I feel.
So, the plan was to transition Arthur to the toddler bed (the converted cot-bed that we bought a while back but never used). I figured he would be old enough to manage a real bed. He needs to complete whatever transition we make by 6-8 weeks before the baby is due, as any later can cause problems with association for the toddler. Yeah, I have done a LOT of reading on this!! ;)
BUT, I don't think Arthur will transition that easily to a toddler bed. He has always slept his whole life in a kingsize bed, and he is used to the space. To put him in a toddler bed would be sooo restrictive. I know he would get used to it, but I don't think it would be that nice - I wouldn't like it myself, and it could take a while of many night disturbances for him. So I did a lot of reading on AP/co-sleeping boards online and finally found a couple of posts where mothers in my exact situation were asking how they should transition their toddler out of the bed before the new baby came. The replies were great because they were all from mothers who had been there and done that. The ideas I liked best involved a full-size single mattress on the floor. One lady put guard rails round it like a bed, but on the floor in their bedroom. Another lady put a single mattress next to the big mattress on the floor, but seperated it with a full-length body pillow.
Neil and I both immediately loved that idea. I have two full-length body pillows (one of which I will definitely need for the remainder of my pregnancy before too long!) and we have enough space on the floor for a single mattress to go alongside our Kingsize. So I think that is what we'll do. I have the single mattress picked out to buy, but we have to wait till Neil gets paid before I can order it. It's really cheap - I searched for hours to find the cheapest ones out there that are still good quality. And free delivery too! So I think that will be quite an easy transition for Arthur. If we want to, once he is used to his own mattress, we can start moving it that little bit further away from ours, until he is against the wall on the other side of our room or something. Then if all is working well like that, he can stay there, and we can put the mattress onto a bed eventually, and move him into his own room as and when he is happy with that idea.
I hope it works! But I feel optimistic about it.
Sprout is kicking me :)
Okay, so that is the sleep thing. I always seem to have so much to write about it, and I'm always glad to get it over and done with! But it's stuff I know I'll forget all about when Arthur has been sleeping like a log all night for months and months, or years, and I know I will be fascinated to read how it used to be eventually. Plus it's a big thing going on for us at the moment, and I want to document how it's going from time to time. But it's long-winded and dull of me! Sorry! :)
Onto other things! Arthur cut his 7th tooth, next to his two bottom middle teeth (the right one), three days ago. I am so excited to see the new little gleamy thing emerging more and more each day! It has been ages since he got a tooth so it's all the more exciting after all this time! He is still working on his two top molars, especially the right one. He has had some horrible poo, and nappy rash like he never gets outside of bad teething episodes, and he is drooling like CRAZY. He bangs his mouth on things on purpose and then cries, so I know it must be bothering him. I give him teething powder or gel when he does that, and that fixes it for a while. We have been giving him Calpol when it seems really bad, and he's a whole new boy once that kicks in, poor love. Today after his nap, he was really bothered by his ears. He kept stopping in his tracks while walking around, and making a face and poking his fingers in his ears and whining :( I wanted to take him to the doctor this afternoon just to rule out an ear infection, but they were fully booked and to be honest, I am sure it's all to do with teething. If it gets dreadful for him over the weekend then we can phone the emergency clinic or something. I gave him Calpol when he did that with his ears earlier, and he seemed cranky and bothered by his ears for 20 minutes and then was completely different and happy :) He seems fine this evening, just a bit red in the cheeks. He felt overly warm on the forehead yesterday afternoon and I kept taking his temperature because I felt sure he was feverish. But he wasn't, every time. I guess it's teething. I hope those molars hurry up! It would be awful if it was dragged out for ages. I know they are nasty ones to cut though.
I took Arthur to the baby clinic this morning to follow up on his weight, as he had lost weight at his last check up in early December. At 10.5 months he weighed 23lbs 13oz, and then at 13 months he weighed 23lbs 5oz. They said not to worry because he was eating well, looking healthy, and had started walking (and night-weaned) since the last weigh-in. They were sure the night-weaning and walking had contributed to the weight loss, and said it was normal. But they said to come back in January just for peace of mind. So we went this morning, and he now weighs 23lbs 12oz! Yay! He is gaining weight absolutely fine, and is following the curve of the 50th percentile (which is what he had dropped to last time) - the same percentile as he was at birth. I had him measured this time too - he is 78.5cm (31 inches), between the 50th and 60th percentiles :) So he is doing great. I asked them to measure his head circumference too, but they said they don't do that after 12 months. They don't have charts to plot it on or anything. But I really wanted to know, because his head seems so big to me! He only fits hats that are age 2 now - we have had to go back to the shop to exchange the 12-18 month hat we got him before Christmas! Now that he's much slimmer, his head just looks big on his little body to me. So I wondered if that was okay. The health visitor measured it for me anyway and it's 47.5cm (the two-year-old hat said 48cm). She said he was fine, and not to worry at all. My dad has a pretty big head actually, so perhaps he has inherited Daddy's head as well as his curly hair! The curly hair probably adds to the impression of head size though, as it stands out! I love his sweet head though :) I just wanted to be sure he was growing right, or something!
So all went well. I don't have to take him back ever again if I don't want to, apparently! There will be no further baby checks for Arthur now. There used to be one at 18 months but it got scrapped in this area. The next developmental check will be at school I think! But I asked them, if I was at the baby clinic with the new baby, would they check Arthur too? And they said of course they would, so that's nice :) They love Arthur! But he always charms everyone there, so that's probably why :)
Ohhh I know what I meant to write about!! A week ago, Arthur and I went to the ladies' fellowship group at church (well, at one of their houses) one morning, like we do every couple of weeks or so. It's the one that is really a mother-and-toddler group, as all the ladies who are around to meet in the day have pre-schoolers or babies! There are only 5 or 6 of us which is nice and cosy. I am much happier in small groups than with lots of people. Especially in someone's house rather than a big venue. So I really enjoy the fellowship group. Anyway, while we were there, my friend Katie (the one who is pregnant and due 2 days after me) said that there was a mother-and-toddler playgroup that she has been wanting to try out, really local to me, and asked me if I would like to take Arthur along too. Katie has been taking Joshua (18 months) to mother-and-baby groups literally like 5 days a week, every week since he was 5 months old! Plus swimming and goodness knows what other social activities. She is a really active mummy. I feel so.... incompetent next to her sometimes. We are just so different though, that's all it is. She is outgoing and active and sociable, and I am, well, the opposite of all those things, by nature! I find social settings SO hard. I literally have to drag myself to do them, it's so hard. They are always the LAST thing I want to do, and I get nervous and think of excuses why I can't go, and often MAKE the excuses too, and don't go.
But I know Arthur NEEDS to start socialising more. He is reaching a developmental stage where he needs to interact with other children his age and learn through playing with them, etc. He needs it. It would be good for me too. But I have been dreading it all along. I fear that I have been shielding him too much from bugs and viruses, by not socialising with him very much. He has been pretty healthy so far, but I have always been kind of scared that when he DOES start to socialise more, he will catch every bug going. I know that not all children do, but still. I also know that's a NECESSARY thing, for a healthy immune system, and I am not doing him any favours by holding him back from social settings. I know, I know, I know. But I still find it hard to actually take action on it.
Anyway, Katie saved me because the playgroup is literally around the corner from my house. We can walk there (Arthur too). And I have absolutely no excuse not to at least try it out. Katie was going to go whether I did or not. I felt a little better knowing that I would have someone there I'd know, but also a little intimidated by the idea that she would probably just strike up friendly chat with 5 nearby mums and I'd be left feeling shy and foolish, given that she's an absolute pro at all this playgroup stuff! The playgroup is a very popular one, and I heard it is big. It meets from 10am to almost noon.
So on Wednesday (2 days ago), we went to Playgroup! Ooooh how nerve-wracking/exciting!! It was HUGE. I mean, bigger than I imagined. There were between 100 and 200 toddlers and babies there! Running everywhere, busy playing and doing things. My eyes were bugging as much as Arthur's were as we walked in and made our way amongst the clamour, looking for Katie and Joshua. There is a big carpeted foyer area which has blankets and things laid down for babies, with toys and things. And lots of chairs for mums to sit on! There is a kitchen area (no little ones allowed!) which had trays ready on tables with 200 plastic sippy cups ready for drink time! They had two side rooms with different activities going on - crafts and playdough in one room, and rocking toys, wooden train sets and toy farms (all floor toys) in the other. And a big toilet with baby changing facilities. And then a HUGE sports hall at the back, with big climbing frames set up, and those plastic stand-up kitchens with all the utensils and plastic food, etc! And millions of tricycles and sit-on cars! I never heard so much noise in my life, or saw so many toddly people all at once! I know Arthur hasn't either!
I wasn't sure how he'd take it, firstly being his first real playgroup experience, but secondly it being so big and noisy, and having so many children running and toddling around. I knew he would be likely to get knocked over now and again with all that activity. I sort of didn't expect him to be shy and clingy because he has never been that way inclined. He seems perfectly secure with me usually, no matter the setting.
Well, we eventually found Katie (chatting with mums as expected!) and Joshua in the big sports hall playing in the toy kitchens. I sat on a tiny chair like a bit of a lemon, and Arthur set right to it with plastic food at a little plastic table, with a little girl called Alice :) He didn't cling, hold onto me, look over at me, anything. He was wonderful!
I talked with Katie after a while, and just marvelled at the scene all around me. Joshua cried a lot, which isn't that unusual for Joshua. Arthur found a toy iron and ironing board, and you SHOULD have seen the look on his face!!! He had the most delighted expression I ever saw! We have been talking about getting him one of those for ages, as he is so keen on household chores (!) and particularly loves watching Neil iron his work clothes every morning. "Iron" is even one of his first words :) He started "ironing" with the iron on the ironing board without hesitation :) It was the cutest thing. He had such a big smile on his face the whole time!
Eventually we got called through for drinks and biscuits, and found that long tables had been put out for the little ones to sit at, all with those miniature chairs around them (not for adults at all!). There was a sweet little basket of biscuits at each table, and each table seated four children, happily swinging their legs from their chair and drinking from plastic beakers and munching biscuits. There were no free seats when we arrived (there were SO many kids!!). I took one look and thought, "This is too "old" an activity for Arthur. I don't think he would even sit at the table, let alone drink on command!" I knew he would eat a biscuit if he was given the chance, but I didn't think he'd sit there or drink from their beakers. I got him water in a cup without a lid - a bit of a first for Arthur! And when a seat opened up, I sat him on it and tucked him in at the table next to a 17-month-old called Natalie. And then I backed away to watch, and I'll be darned if he didn't look like a real grown-up boy along with all the other children, swinging his legs under the table, drinking from his cup with minimal spillage (with my help though), and munching on his biscuit!!! I felt almost tearful watching him with the other children like that. It was like a wake-up call of how he is growing up. I was soooooooooo so proud of him at that moment! He took to it all like a duck to water, and looked so grown-up. He did so well!
The idea at this playgroup is that you can let your child go wherever they want to, and play with whatever takes their fancy. I LOVE that. Arthur loved it too. After drink-and-biscuit time, he just darted off this way and that, stopping a lot to just stare at other children as they walked or ran past him. One little girl stopped near him and just jumped and jumped on the spot, you know how little kids do when they are just bubbling over with energy?! Arthur squealed with joy and clapped his hands at her every time she did it, hehe! I know he would LOVE to jump like that. He loves it when other people do and always claps and squeals and looks so thrilled!
He got knocked down twice and banged his head once, enough to get a red mark on his forehead, but he never once cried or got clingy. He just got up and kept going! He went to the wooden railway and took it apart, and stacked the pieces of tracks! He built some bricks. He went on the small slide three times (with my help) and loved it! He has never really done slides and stuff before, so I didn't know how he'd be with it, but he just loved everything and took it all in his stride. He went on a rocking horse and liked that. He kept on disappearing and I had to follow him, as he never once looked to see if I was still there!! He is so confident and independent. I am so proud of that :) One time he had gone off somewhere, and I found him in the room with the toy farm. When he saw me, he walked towards me with a plastic hippo (on a farm?!) in one hand, and a plastic horse in the other, beaming from ear to ear as he approached me and holding them out for me to see. Such a sweetie! He approached other children a few times, and once he gave a toy that he was carrying (a toy frying pan) to a baby younger than him, and then took it back again - much to the baby's distress! I gave the baby something else to play with and followed Arthur. I just wanted to be near him that first time. More for me than him really.
After a while, one of the ladies running the playgroup got out the hoover and started to vacuum up the crumbs from the biscuits, and lots of the children stopped in fascination to watch. Arthur was right near the hoover while it was running, and stopped dead, staring at it. I know he is terrified of the hoover at home and he hadn't looked back at me to see where I was for a good five minutes, so I made sure I was nearby in case he wanted to find me for reassurance. But he was okay. His expression said he wasn't sure about it, but I guess it was a different setting, and he saw all the other children being interested and not scared, or just ignoring it and carrying on with their activities, so that helped. When it stopped, he looked over at me and didn't seem to sure about things, so I sat with him on my lap for a couple of minutes just so he could touch base with me. He soon slid off and toddled off to do something else though!
Katie took Joshua home before the end because he was just crying a lot and cranky. I never thought I would stay beyond when she did - I had even said I would only stay an hour and then go before she did! - but I was enjoying it and Arthur was enjoying it, and they said it would be song time soon, so I wanted to stay! Yay! Song time was great. Arthur picked a shaker to make noise with, and had fun with that. We sang action songs that he knows, and the singing was so wonderfully full and loud with so many many voices (nearly all mothers and no children though, with them being so little! They were busy focusing on the actions!). I sang my little heart out! :) Arthur loves songs and singing and music so he was happy. There was a song they always finish with, called "Hop Little Bunnies" or something like that. I didn't know it, but I do now! All the children lie on the floor and the song starts out about bunnies sleeping and how still they are, and then you all clap and shout WAKE UP NOW!! And they jump up, and then the song is all bouncy and you sing "Hop little bunnies, hop, hop, hop!" over and over! And the little ones jump up and down till the next verse starts, when they all lie down and pretend to be sleeping again! I love it! It reminds me of songs we sang at nursery school. There were some like that.
Anyway - too old for Arthur, thought I. He can't jump yet, and I can't imagine he would lie down on command! He watched for the first verse on my lap with eyes boggling! Then, I was so surprised - as the second verse started and the children all lay down on the floor again, Arthur slid himself off my lap and lay on the floor! He lay perfectly still and stared at the ceiling!! But he was slow to get up, and only just got there before the jumping bit finished, bless him! For the other verses, I picked him up quick, and put my hands under his armpits to help him jump! He LOVED that!
And then it was the end, and we came home! I was on such a high after Playgroup, I was so surprised at how much we had both enjoyed it, and how it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be, and how EXCITED I was to be going back next week! Yay! We are sooooo going every week from now on, unless we can't because Arthur is in plaster casts or we have an appt or something. He loves it, and I love seeing him love it. It's perfect timing for him I think. He seems absolutely ready for something like this now.
So that is great news! :) I am so happy about it. We'll just have to hope we don't catch too many bugs! They meet on Mondays as well as Wednesdays I think, but we'll just go on Wednesdays for now, with Katie and Josh. And we'll see in a while, if it feels right to start going twice a week. Anyway I am so happy about that!
It's so late now! This diary entry has taken ages to write! Oh I meant to say also, a week ago, a couple of days after my last entry, Arthur was sat playing with his bricks, and I got a good flat surface for him to build on (he normally builds on the carpet which isn't that stable), and when I looked over, he had built a tower of SEVEN bricks!!!!!! He knocked that down, and just built tower after tower after tower, all with eight or nine bricks!!!!!! He just amazes me. He tried a tenth brick but the height made it wobbly and it fell down every time. He loves to build a tall tower :) We were so excited that we got the camcorder out and filmed him building tall towers for a while, hehe! We have to use "candid camera" these days, smuggling it into the room and hiding it amongst cushions on the sofa or something! Arthur has a fascination with the camcorder these days and will stop any and every activity the moment he sees you with it, to investigate. It is so frustrating, as we only ever get it out when he's doing something really worth filming, only for him to stop! Tsk! So we have started trying to hide it. It does make for weird footage sometimes, with things in the shot that we didn't intend to be there, etc!
Anyway. He is also now able to put Duplo together, just these last few days. He sticks two pieces together and roars with delight, and then claps and claps and looks round for us to show us his two pieces stuck together in outstretched hand! He knows he is a clever boy :)
He climbs EVERYWHERE, urgh. He climbs on sofas, boxes, toys. We have even caught him with his leg up against the washing machine, trying to use the washing machine doorway as a foothold! Yikes! I can see this stage leading to some new bumps and bruises for him. I try to discourage him from climbing but he just does it more if I insist he stops! I try distracting him instead, which works better usually.
He has also started climbing into laundry baskets and his activity ring and lying down in them! He gets stuck and ends up having to call me to help him get out, funny boy! Here he is in his ring yesterday. I was busy being all nesty and pregnant, sorting through a ton of papers that have been festering and cluttering things for YEARS, and he was such a good boy, keeping busy with his toys. When I looked over he had climbed into his ring (the same one as in the photo at the top of my diary! He looks soooo different in there now!) and was casually lying in it, putting two mega blocks together and pulling them apart, over and over. He loves doing things with blocks and Duplo, etc.
When he saw me, he did this - I think he was saying, "No pictures!" (hehe!):
This afternoon he called out from the kitchen, not distressed at all, but just a call that I recognise as him saying, "Um... a little help here, people?!" And I found him like this:
The poor boy had to endure me running for the camera and snapping his picture before being rescued, hehehe! He is so patient with me though ;)
Another new thing he is doing, which he started doing quite by himself one afternoon while I was tidying in the kitchen, is STACKING PLATES in the dishwasher!!!! I swear this child has not inherited this tidy-homemaker thing from me! He stacks them so carefully, and in order too. They were clean plates that I was about to unload - I wouldn't let him near the dirty ones! All the plates at the front are ones he had just stacked!
Well I don't know if I had more to write, but I'm tired out and need to go to bed. I have a couple more photos to post, which I will finish with. They were taken a few nights ago. Arthur was in the middle of being changed for bed, and if we do that downstairs (on the rare occasion that he doesn't have a bath and get changed on the bed afterwards) then he is apt to jumping up when you reach for a nappy/sleepsuit/wipe, etc. and toddling off at his fastest walk (which is really starting to resemble a slight run - more of a race-walk now) to the kitchen to take one last look at his favourite cupboards! His current favourite is the one with all the saucepans in. He loves to look right to the back and see all the pans and lids on the top shelf. One night when this happened, I took a photo of him doing it, because he looked so cute all standing on tiptoe to see right in at the back. Then he turned round and saw that we had caught him (Neil was there too), and he gave us such a scrumptious excited reaction that I had to take another photo :) So here they are:
He is just so delighted with life in general, and so DELIGHTFUL in general! The last photo shows an expression/reaction he makes to things VERY frequently. I love this little boy sooooooooooooooooooooo much. See how his legs are so much slimmer now?! And what the heck is up with the inside of that cupboard door, yuck! Things like that are standing out to me like crazy these days - I am nesting like a mad woman, even though I'm only halfway through my pregnancy so far! I obviously need to tackle those doors. Yuck-o.
Anyway, for now I need to go to BED! I will update again when I can! :)
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