Baby Baby Baby
Seeing as it is my experience at the moment....
Time has passed swiftly since Owen was born - I can't believe that in 2 and a half months time I'm going back to work, when at the moment I feel like I can barely make it out of the house. (Well, actually I can't make it out of the house - I can't drive due to the caesarean, though I'm not so worried about the driving, the actual issue is getting the baby plus car seat in and out of the car at either end :-) People say it gets better.
Things i have noticed so far about parenting
- Whatever I do I feel guilty for doing the WRONG THING WHICH IS GOING TO DAMAGE MY CHILD FOREVER. Society needs to support parents, not make them feel like shite. It does an exceptionally poor job of this.
- Plunket line is completely unhelpful. When you ring them to say 'my baby is unsettled, these are the symptoms etc, they tell you about the 'feed, play, sleep' routine, and a bunch of techniques for settling the baby which are available from any website in the land. They also keep you on the phone for time that would be much better spent in actually trying to settle the baby rather than talking to plunket line. I was particularly not impressed when I said that we couldn't settle the baby and he'd been awake for three hours, and they told me I shouldn't have a baby awake for longer than 90 minutes. YES I FREAKEN KNOW THAT LADY, THAT'S WHY I'M TALKING TO YOU! Also mega-unimpressed when I said that the baby goes between four hours between feeds overnight and they told me I shouldn't leave the baby to sleep for longer than three hours. AND IF ITS FOUR HOURS BETWEEN THE START OF FEEDS THAT'S ABOUT 30-60 MINUTES OF FEEDING, NAPPY CHANGING AND SOOTHING BACK TO SLEEP WHICH MEANS ABOUT 3-4 HOURS OF SLEEP. They also didn't mention colic. Maybe the 'feed, play, sleep' routine completely eliminates colic. Ha Ha.
- I am currently not feeling very happy or confident with the advice of a significant proportion of the medical profession. There are some who are wonderful and reassuring, and provide assistance, not directions, and a lot who are completely judgmental and consider there is only one right thing that must be done for the baby, regardless of circumstances. I'm also feeling that a lot of the socially constructed mythology around natural childbirth and baby care is bollocks.
La la la, this turned into much more of a rant than I expected. Owen is lovely, he's smiling at us now, and has just started to take an interest in objects, including the elephant that plays a tinkly tune that his cousin sent him from Australia.
I need more sleep :-)
Time has passed swiftly since Owen was born - I can't believe that in 2 and a half months time I'm going back to work, when at the moment I feel like I can barely make it out of the house. (Well, actually I can't make it out of the house - I can't drive due to the caesarean, though I'm not so worried about the driving, the actual issue is getting the baby plus car seat in and out of the car at either end :-) People say it gets better.
Things i have noticed so far about parenting
- Whatever I do I feel guilty for doing the WRONG THING WHICH IS GOING TO DAMAGE MY CHILD FOREVER. Society needs to support parents, not make them feel like shite. It does an exceptionally poor job of this.
- Plunket line is completely unhelpful. When you ring them to say 'my baby is unsettled, these are the symptoms etc, they tell you about the 'feed, play, sleep' routine, and a bunch of techniques for settling the baby which are available from any website in the land. They also keep you on the phone for time that would be much better spent in actually trying to settle the baby rather than talking to plunket line. I was particularly not impressed when I said that we couldn't settle the baby and he'd been awake for three hours, and they told me I shouldn't have a baby awake for longer than 90 minutes. YES I FREAKEN KNOW THAT LADY, THAT'S WHY I'M TALKING TO YOU! Also mega-unimpressed when I said that the baby goes between four hours between feeds overnight and they told me I shouldn't leave the baby to sleep for longer than three hours. AND IF ITS FOUR HOURS BETWEEN THE START OF FEEDS THAT'S ABOUT 30-60 MINUTES OF FEEDING, NAPPY CHANGING AND SOOTHING BACK TO SLEEP WHICH MEANS ABOUT 3-4 HOURS OF SLEEP. They also didn't mention colic. Maybe the 'feed, play, sleep' routine completely eliminates colic. Ha Ha.
- I am currently not feeling very happy or confident with the advice of a significant proportion of the medical profession. There are some who are wonderful and reassuring, and provide assistance, not directions, and a lot who are completely judgmental and consider there is only one right thing that must be done for the baby, regardless of circumstances. I'm also feeling that a lot of the socially constructed mythology around natural childbirth and baby care is bollocks.
La la la, this turned into much more of a rant than I expected. Owen is lovely, he's smiling at us now, and has just started to take an interest in objects, including the elephant that plays a tinkly tune that his cousin sent him from Australia.
I need more sleep :-)