Sunday 4 September 2011

Amber

I was sceptical, but the amber necklace I bought from Dino-Daisy seems to be working. Daughter hasn't been nearly as croddly since she's been wearing it and those infectious little chuckles are becoming increasingly numerous as a result.

With teething 'on hold', as it were, for the moment, I'm trying to build on the success we had with the Johnson's Sleep Challenge by gently encouraging Daughter to go to sleep on her own. So now, she has a bath, we do the baby massage - which used to be the high point of the evening but is now a bone of contention as it means bath-time is finished - and then I take her to the bedroom for a bottle. I make sure she's awake when I put her down in the cot and keep a hand on her chest, breathing heavily so she can hear me as I do, until she stops grumping, then I say goodnight and sit down to read my book. If she grumps again, I go back and keep my hand on her chest until the grumping stops again but I try to avoid eye contact as I do so and I don't say anything so that she knows it isn't awake time any more.

I don't know if the heavy breathing helps, but I know that if I can't sleep, I tune into Husband's breathing and by concentrating on following that, I soon drop off. It seems to be the same for Daughter but I don't have any scientific or anecdotal proof to back my weird little theory up.

I'm going to have to take her to the health visitor in the next few weeks and I'm a bit nervous. Last time we went for a weigh in, Daughter had dropped a percentile curve and in the 6 weeks between visits, had only gained 600g. Since then, I've started giving her bottles, baby rice and mush, so I really don't know how her weight is going to be when I go back. She's only 18 weeks too, so I'm a little nervous about admitting that I've started with big foods already. Also, the health visitor is the one who encouraged me to keep feeding through my mastitis and was so pleased that I'd managed to keep it up for so long. I know it's her job to advocate breast-feeding, but she really seemed to care that Daughter got the best. And having worked in health-care, I know how hard it is to keep up the enthusiasm around preaching the right, but difficult option - I don't want to upset anyone.

I know I've done the best for Daughter and me by stopping - a rough night of relentless feeding yesterday proved it - but I still don't want other people who've been really supportive to feel that I've let them down. Especially when they clearly care...

Aside from anything else, it's pride that's stopping me from going. I like to learn things on my own - I didn't get on well at school because everything was spoon-fed to me and I found that boring - which, I guess, is another reason I don't like the childcare books. I'm learning though, to take help when it's available. My pride doesn't like it, but every other aspect of my life does!

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