Week 2

2nd - 8th January 2005

Caroline's Entry

I'm not exactly sure if week two was better or worse than the first week. It was nice that the visiting died down a bit and we were able to get used to a new life of three, but it was also hard dealing with Evans ever-increasing crying.

Evan grumbling at having his nappy changed

It doesn't matter how many books you read, or what advice people give you, every baby is different. I kept reading how babies need to be calmed when they are crying by gentle rocking and speaking softly buy none of that worked with Evan. Quite the opposite in fact. I found that he seemed to like quite vigorous movement and the more he cried the more I'd have to bounce him around to stop him crying! One of the things we bought to help Emma with the labour was one of those exercise balls. Pacing around the room trying to bounce Evan around vigorously was very tiring so I tried just sitting on the ball and bouncing while holding him. To my amazement, it worked so that became my new baby-settling routine!

Before we knew the sex of the baby I wanted a girl because I didn't really want to have to deal with "boys bits" :-) Now that he's here I wouldn't change him for the world of course but his little bits certainly do have a life of their own at changing time! I'm not sure how many times he's peed on me, or himself, or the carpet but I had the delights of being poo'd on this weekend! My best friend had come to stay and we were happily chatting away while I was changing Evan and suddenly his bottom just erupted and he squirted bright yellow poo all over my hand! Lovely :-)

Caroline

Emma's Entry

Jump to Caroline's Entry

After the crazy hectic first week at home, most people we knew had managed to see Evan and the daily visits had died down. I had been warned in pregnancy to expect my washing machine to be busy and I am starting to see that now. On average we are doing 2 loads a day when before having Evan I'd only have the washing machine on 3 times a week! I just hope my washing machine survives the extra workload as even before Evan I noticed it was starting to groan lots.

The long hard nights started this week and Evan was becoming as regular as clockwork with his "rattyness" starting around 7pm. We'd struggle to settle him for most of the evening, bed time being the hardest. It doesn't help that he really dislikes lying on his back, his favourite position being upright against my chest with his head nuzzled under my chin.

This year was the very first time that we spent Christmas at home together in 7 years. Usually we are at either mine or Caroline's mums house but seeing as I was heavily pregnant, we decided to stay at home. We were hoping Evan would arrive early and then we could have a Christmas dinner with him so we stocked up on everything, turkey, vegetables and we even planned to make a nice Christmas dessert. All of this ended up in the bin when we returned home from hospital but we weren't to be deterred. We bought a new turkey and Caroline cooked us our Christmas dinner this week. It was lovely and I'll never forget how funny it looked when Caroline was trying to rinse out this huge turkey in the sink, holding its legs in the air. I found it incredibly hilarious that I filmed it on the camcorder, unfortunately I didn't take any static photos of this particular event.

One of Evan's cute little expressions! "Hello mummy!"

We had an early appointment this week to get Evan registered and of all the nights where we really needed our sleep was the night before this day. We could not get Evan settled at all, he cried so much it made me cry too. We tried rocking, singing and cuddling but none of this would settle him at all. We were really concerned that something was seriously wrong with him and this night we called the labour ward for advice. I had to take the call in another room and the midwife could still hear him crying. She put it down to a bit of colic and said that we needed to stay strong, give him a bath and to maybe put him on the boob every time he became distressed to calm him. The feeding turned out to help hugely, though it was really rough for me and my boobs. We took it in turns to pace the room cuddling him as well as the feeding trick. We managed to get around 3 hours sleep that night and amazingly we were able to get up, washed and dressed in time to leave the house at 9am. I think Evan and I slept in the car, but poor Caroline had to do the driving.

As soon as we returned with his birth certificates we took turns looking after Evan whilst the other got a good earned rest in bed. I found it very hard to sleep without Evan nearby, so my sleep was very broken with me continually waking because I missed him.

Emma