Amelia is 8 weeks old now. Where has the time gone? I just thought seeing as I have quite a few things to write about, I would group them all together in a little “update” rather than make several posts and then probably forget half of what I wanted to write about anyway.
So, lets start with feeding. 2 weeks ago during the 6 week growth spurt, my darling daughter and I caught mastitis. It was awful, itchy boobs, sore, red, lumpy. painful, oh my gosh, so incredibly painful. I was told to “feed through it” – and the worst thing was, people said it like it was easy. It was the hardest thing I have ever gone through since her birth. She cried, I cried and I felt like we were back to square one with painful feeds. I did feed through it for a few days, not every feed, but as many as I felt I could and as many as Amelia would take. When we got to 7 weeks Amelia started to change with regards to her feeding. She was all of a sudden a girl with her own mind and not somebody who was going to do anything she didn't want to do. So, we began a nursing strike. She would breast feed when and if it suited her and if she didn't want it – she’d let me know. I was disappointed at first, read loads of websites to entice her back to breast, cried to James, felt like I’d failed her as a Mother, blah blah blah and then it hit me – how selfish was I to force my daughter to breast feed if she was telling me she didn’t want to do it anymore or not as much? The bottle is easier, she doesn’t have to work hard for it, its still nice and warm and she still gets lots of cuddles whilst feeding, so which would you choose? The easier option I’m sure – well, this is what she was choosing too and at the end of the day, who am I to force her to breast feed just so I can say “I breastfed for X amount of weeks” I also think it made it easier for me. I wanted to stop several times when we were going through growth spurts or bad phases but Amelia has made that decision for me, for us both and I am more than happy for her to lead me to what she wants. She still roots for me at bedtime and in the morning when she’s a bit dozy I offer her breast too but she pulls off when she’s had enough and cries for a bottle and that’s fine by me. I am still expressing a little each day, to top up her bottles, but my supply is decreasing rapidly so I know I wont be able to do it much longer. Still, she’s happy, that’s all that matters.
So, moving on from feeding, lets move to sleeping shall we? Until this week – I would have told you how great my little girl was at sleeping but last night the little monster was awake from her 8pm feed till about 10.30pm! She is normally asleep well within an hour after a feed! Once she settled down, she slept till 4.30am though, so it wasn’t too bad. She normally goes down between 8pm and 9pm and sleeps till 3 – 4am and then wakes again around 7am but then will go back to sleep till 10am. As soon as we can get rid of that 3am feed, I shall be a very happy Mummy!
The next subject I wanted to just write a bit about is separation anxiety. I think the only time Amelia has been away from me was when she was just a week old and James went for a walk in the sling with her whilst I slept and I was just too tired to refuse. Yesterday, Ian and Helen (the in laws) asked if they could take Amelia for a couple of hours to meet Helen’s Mum, Francis who is 100 years old and had been so eager to meet her since her birth. I felt a bit anxious, a bit scared about her being away from me, what they would do if she cried etc, but they took her, James went to Asda, I had a little cry on my own and they were back within 2 hours, with smiles as big as their faces! They said she was a great little girl, smiled and cooo’ed and had loads of fun and then fell asleep when it was time to leave. I am so glad she was so good to them. I now feel much more at ease at leaving her with them again. James has took Amelia out tonight to a radio club meeting and although again I feel nervous, I know the more I let her go, the better we’ll both be at being separated which is a good thing for her and a good thing for me too.
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