Eventful week...
We have had an eventful week. On Tuesday the NCT girls all came round (gingerbread was much enjoyed, and the house was as tidy as it ever has been!) They all fitted in which was good as I was worried they wouldn't. On Wednesday I went to a coffee morning run by Sarah who was our NCT course leader and met a lady who is really into natural parenting and things like that which was nice - I got chatting to her because I thought she looked familiar and it turned out we had met at the home birth group! She had managed to have a successful home birth and we had a chat about that and we swapped numbers and are going to meet for coffee some time.
But on the way back from that (Suzie was giving me a lift) we were on the dual carriageway and had to slow down suddenly and a van hit the back of Suzie's car. It was complete panic as both babies woke up and screamed but they were both fine, luckily. We went off in an ambulance to get checked over and were stuck in A&E for three hours which was frustrating as we were sure they were fine after the initial shock had worn off, but it was good to know they had been checked by a doctor and I much prefer the waiting around to if something worse had happened :(
Then James decided that he wanted to go up to Chester for the weekend (we have friends there who have a daughter 3 months older than Ryan) and I worried a lot about the car seat but really the impact was not much more than an emergency stop - the seatbelts didn't even lock - and we used it anyway. I did get a compromise out of James though and we have bought a Stage 0 + 1 car seat, which does from birth to 4 years - we were going to get one for 9 months - 4 years, which is Stage 1, anyway at some point - but the Stage 0 + 1 seats go both forward and rear facing and so on long journeys Ryan can be rearfacing even after he has outgrown the infant seat he has now. We managed to get a reduced one in an old fabric colour as well and it was only £99 so I think definitely a good buy.
In Chester Ryan was very unsettled the first night and I got about 4 hours sleep as I literally spent the rest of the night pacing around with him upright - he was very snuffly and finding it hard to breathe lying down, but he's not used to sleeping in our arms any more so it took ages to get him to sleep and then I had to go upstairs, kneel on the bed, sit down and finally lie down and roll him gently onto the bed on his own or sleep with him on my chest which he is getting a bit big to do comfortably. And then he would wake hungry or uncomfortable after about an hour or so and I had to go through it all again. The second night was much better - I don't know whether it was because he'd already slept in the room once because he seemed just as snuffly, but we put him in a travel cot with one end propped up which seemed to help.
Our friends' daughter Megan is 8.5 months now and it was lovely to see her crawling and really interacting with everything, I think she is probably a bit of a faster developer than Ryan will turn out to be but it was nice to see what we have to look forward to in the next few months - she was really like a little person, I know that sounds odd but I think I will see it more in Ryan as he becomes more mobile. He also tried out her Jumperoo and loved it which is good because we have ordered one from ebay for him! He has started doing a new noise - I made a "brrrrr" (as in brrr it's cold) noise for him and kept changing the pitch of it which he thought was really funny and now he lies on the floor or sits in your lap playing with his feet happily going "brrrrrrr brrrrrr brrrrrrrrr brrrrrrrrr" and sounding like a telephone! It is very cute!
Anyway today my friend (who we stayed with) got a phone call from her sister saying her son had come down with chicken pox... meaning her daughter may have caught it which means Ryan might have caught it too. So it is just a wait now to see whether or not he does come down with it and in the meantime I can't take him to any baby groups etc. I won't go to NCT tomorrow anyway because I feel rough myself now (with a cold) so at least I get to have a rest.
But on the way back from that (Suzie was giving me a lift) we were on the dual carriageway and had to slow down suddenly and a van hit the back of Suzie's car. It was complete panic as both babies woke up and screamed but they were both fine, luckily. We went off in an ambulance to get checked over and were stuck in A&E for three hours which was frustrating as we were sure they were fine after the initial shock had worn off, but it was good to know they had been checked by a doctor and I much prefer the waiting around to if something worse had happened :(
Then James decided that he wanted to go up to Chester for the weekend (we have friends there who have a daughter 3 months older than Ryan) and I worried a lot about the car seat but really the impact was not much more than an emergency stop - the seatbelts didn't even lock - and we used it anyway. I did get a compromise out of James though and we have bought a Stage 0 + 1 car seat, which does from birth to 4 years - we were going to get one for 9 months - 4 years, which is Stage 1, anyway at some point - but the Stage 0 + 1 seats go both forward and rear facing and so on long journeys Ryan can be rearfacing even after he has outgrown the infant seat he has now. We managed to get a reduced one in an old fabric colour as well and it was only £99 so I think definitely a good buy.
In Chester Ryan was very unsettled the first night and I got about 4 hours sleep as I literally spent the rest of the night pacing around with him upright - he was very snuffly and finding it hard to breathe lying down, but he's not used to sleeping in our arms any more so it took ages to get him to sleep and then I had to go upstairs, kneel on the bed, sit down and finally lie down and roll him gently onto the bed on his own or sleep with him on my chest which he is getting a bit big to do comfortably. And then he would wake hungry or uncomfortable after about an hour or so and I had to go through it all again. The second night was much better - I don't know whether it was because he'd already slept in the room once because he seemed just as snuffly, but we put him in a travel cot with one end propped up which seemed to help.
Our friends' daughter Megan is 8.5 months now and it was lovely to see her crawling and really interacting with everything, I think she is probably a bit of a faster developer than Ryan will turn out to be but it was nice to see what we have to look forward to in the next few months - she was really like a little person, I know that sounds odd but I think I will see it more in Ryan as he becomes more mobile. He also tried out her Jumperoo and loved it which is good because we have ordered one from ebay for him! He has started doing a new noise - I made a "brrrrr" (as in brrr it's cold) noise for him and kept changing the pitch of it which he thought was really funny and now he lies on the floor or sits in your lap playing with his feet happily going "brrrrrrr brrrrrr brrrrrrrrr brrrrrrrrr" and sounding like a telephone! It is very cute!
Anyway today my friend (who we stayed with) got a phone call from her sister saying her son had come down with chicken pox... meaning her daughter may have caught it which means Ryan might have caught it too. So it is just a wait now to see whether or not he does come down with it and in the meantime I can't take him to any baby groups etc. I won't go to NCT tomorrow anyway because I feel rough myself now (with a cold) so at least I get to have a rest.