Silent Sunday: Engrossed

Tiny One Has A Cold (again)

Tiny one has a cold (again) and isn’t sleeping very well. Well worse than normal. She was up every two hours last night and it got me thinking about when children sleep all night. From almost the moment they are born we, as parents, get bombarded with the “are they sleeping through yet?” question but are children this young meant to sleep all night?

I have had 3 children that slept through (i.e. from 7pm til 7am) from about 8 weeks old and one that at 21 months still wakes up at least twice for a feed. This has been a bit of a shock to the system but it’s just part of our life now. She goes to bed at 7pm and I know she will wake about midnight for a feed and usually again at about 3am. Then she sleeps until about 7 when we’re all up for the day. She has taken to napping at about 3pm for about an hour and I know this isn’t helping but it’s the walk to school that does it and there’s nothing I can do about that.

So are babies meant to sleep all night and if so when?

Having read this article - http://naturalparentsnetwork.com/why-nighttime-breastfeeding-so-important/ I have realised that no they aren’t really meant to sleep all night & if you’re breastfeeding then it’s really important to your milk supply if they don’t. Also if you are co-sleeping and therefore feeding in bed then you will get more sleep, as you will probably nap while baby feeds. I do this occasionally, especially if she decides to wake at 5am instead of 3. I am sure that these night feeds, or lack of them, are what led to my other daughter’s shortened breastfeeding time and the weight loss but I can only ponder on that with hindsight and I suppose I will never know and it’s not worth losing sleep over. She’s healthy and happy and that’s all that matters now.

I have come to the conclusion that if you have a baby that sleeps through quite early then you are lucky but if you don’t then you are lucky as well. Ok so the mum’s of sleepers get some extra sleep but we get extra cuddles.

7 Things You Don't Know About Me

Ok well thanks to Joanne at http://www.ukbabyshows.co.uk/ tagging me in her & Things You Don’t Know About Me blog http://blog.babylovesshopping.co.uk/?p=124 I suppose I now have to reveal 7 Things You don’t Know About Me. I think I’m going to struggle to think of 7.

1. I have 4 children, 1 boy and 3 girls. All were born by c-section but that’s another blog. There is a 16-year gap between baby #2 and baby #3 though.

2. I hate clowns. This is from watching the film version of Stephen King’s It. They scare me and I can’t stand to watch them. I won’t take my kids to the circus in case there are clowns there.

3. I met my husband on a sort of blind date after going out with a friend to “hold her hand” and asked her date to bring someone along. We’ve been together 13 years, married for 6 1/2yrs and have 2 children.

4. I once took the nursing entry exam because I wanted to be a midwife. I passed but couldn’t have lived on the £4k a year they were paying student nurses. Now I want to be a breastfeeding counsellor. I’m part way there having just trained as a breastfeeding peer support worker.

5. While we were on honeymoon in Thailand, I went white-water rafting.  Despite the fact that I have a fear of getting water in my face oh and ripping half my toe nail off I absolutely loved it, especially when we saw the wild elephants.

6. I lost my granddad on 08/09/10 - can’t forget that date can I. He was 95 and still very active and happily driving his car. I miss him terribly and think about him every day. These pictures were taken just a few days before he died.

7. I am related to Lord Byron (the poet). We are directly descended and I suppose this answers a few questions about my personality. We are allowed to use his coat of arms but that’s about all that’s left of his estate after he squandered all his money on drugs and young boys. Maybe I'd best keep quiet about that though, lol.

Breastfeeding Is.....

When asked recently on http://www.facebook.com/BestForBabes to describe breastfeeding in 3 words the replies were extensive but certain words kept cropping up again and again – normal, lovely, the best….

So what does breastfeeding mean to me. Well for me it means lots of things but watching my little girl feeding herself back to sleep last night it was just beautiful. She was calm, contented and well…..just so beautiful. I really wished I’d taken a picture but that would have woken her up again and spoiled the picture.

Don’t get me wrong it’s not always this picture of blissfulness. We’ve had our tears and battles. At 21 months she’s still not sleeping through the night. I don’t mind most times but when she takes forever to go back to sleep it does wear me down but I can always offer her another feed and this calms us both down. Oxytocin is a wonderful drug.

To my little girl, breastfeeding is so much more than her needing food. She will feed whenever she needs any sort of comfort, just fancies a cuddle or wants some mummy time. She knows that I’m always there to offer her whatever she needs and whenever she needs it.

So breastfeeding is lots of things to us both.

Road to breast-feeding success, lined with sharp stones (or in my case acrylic beads)!

This post was previously featured on http://curlyandcandid.blogspot.com/ but seeing as it tells the story of how I got to where I am now I though it was a good one to start my new blog with.

I have got 4 children now and have breastfed all of them with varying degrees of success. Kevin, my first, was born when I was only 19 and despite wanting to breastfeed I was also very self-conscious about it and sadly gave up after only 2 weeks. I think it was my fear of feeding in front of other people especially my ex-father in law that caused me very quickly to switch to formula feeding Kevin. He’s 23 now and it has obviously not done him any harm. When Kevin was 2 ½ & I was 22 I had Sarah. Breastfeeding went a little better this time and I managed about 4 or 5 weeks but this time I think it was my fault for stopping. Bottles seemed like an easier option especially when I had a toddler to look after as well, how wrong I could have been.

Move on 16 years and I found myself re-married and expecting baby number 3. Isabel was born in 2009 and I was now a much older and worldly mum of 41. I had also found a great bunch of ladies on an Internet forum that were a veritable mine of information and advice – thank you all of you. Breastfeeding was one of the things I wanted to get right along with how she was born. I’d had 2 previous c-sections and was determined to have a natural birth this time. Well unfortunately that didn’t happened and there I was having c-section number 3. I’d learned about how important skin-to-skin contact was and getting that all-important 1^st feed in so kept asking the staff as soon as she was born when I could have skin-to-skin with her. I was so frustrated when I was told it wouldn’t be until we were in recovery. I thought it would be too late and my ability to breastfeed would be ruined. How wrong I could have been. Isabel was great and knew just what to do but it was short lived and by day 3 & 4 she kept me up all night screaming the ward down and me flooding it with tears. We had a lovely midwife that sat for ages with me and got her sorted. We didn’t look back and carried on, not without the odd problem though, for another 4 months. Sadly she started loosing weight – gain 1 week but back again the week later and so the only advice I got was to top her up with formula. I cried buying the carton of milk and cried even more as I gave her it. Mixed feeding was not something I wanted to do but it worked for another 2 months until one day Isabel turned away and refused to breastfeed.

So it was time for baby number 4 and I was more determined than ever to breastfeed. Yet another c-section loomed and despite hearing stories of mums struggling to breastfeed after a c-section I knew as long as we had skin-to-skin contact as soon as possible and she got in that first vital feed we should be ok and yes we were. Had a blip on day 2 so luckily I’d had the foresight to take my Kari-Me wrap in with me so I despite it being the middle of the night I popped her in and off we went for a walk down the ward to get a drink and some toast. Luckily we’ve never looked back.

An idea emerges!

 Don’t get me wrong – it’s not been plain sailing. I’ve shed many a tear but I knew that we could get through it. I had tremendous support from my lovely hubby and my online friends too. Without them I wouldn’t know half as much as I do or have had as much conviction to do a lot of the things I do. That’s where the idea for my business, Booby & The Beads http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Booby-The-Beads-Nursing-Necklaces-Reminder-Bracelets-more/157477778613, came from too. At B&TB I make and sell a range of aids, designed to be both attractive and useful when it comes to breastfeeding, be it helping you remember which breast you fed from last to necklaces which keep babies interested on the job in hand, well boob but you see what I mean and can help avoid the inevitable scratching or pulling at hair, clothes, glasses etc. I’d never heard of nursing necklaces until they were mentioned in a thread in the Baby Talk Room of Hitched http://www.hitched.co.uk/Chat/forums/36.aspx. I did my research, bought a sample one. When it arrived I looked at it and decided I could make them and actually do it much better than the one I’d bought!

From the first necklace, the range has erupted....! Reminder bracelets were a natural progression, then came the children’s version, just because I’d had several little girls asking for one just like their mummy’s. I adapted one of the children’s bracelets to add in a mobile number so it became a safety feature if the child ever got lost. Recently, I’ve realised they would work for dementia sufferers too and only the other week I took an order from a gentleman that wanted to wear one while he was out on his bicycle because he never took any id out with him. The dummy/toy clips started with one I made for Charlotte to save me constantly having to pick up her toys (she doesn’t have a dummy) from either her pushchair or highchair. Key rings are a recent addition and my latest project is Baltic Amber Teething Necklaces, that help calm and relieve teething pain. Clearly there is a lot of truth in the saying “No rest for the wicked!”

For me, achieving breastfeeding success was not easy and looking back I am grateful for not only the support, but the wealth of helpful hints and tips I was given. Many of these have resulted product ideas.

To find out more about my products, view the range, see where I’m exhibiting next or to buy then visit...... http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Booby-The-Beads-Nursing-Necklaces-Reminder-Bracelets-more/157477778613 or drop an email to boobyandthebeads@talktalk.net