Reflux in Babies,

I feel like there needs to be some sort of checklist created to try and make life easier for parents of babies with reflux, because there is advice all over the internet, and there are all sorts of old wives tales, and then there are the GPs and the health visitors who seem too afraid to suggest anything, in case they get it wrong.

There are plenty of products on the market that claim to help, whether it's specific formula milk, wedge cushions to keep baby from being a hundred percent flat or the somewhat ridiculous Baby Up, that is basically a baby carrier on a high chair to hold the baby so the parents don't have to. That might seem like I'm being a bit dismissive, and maybe I am, but I have a baby with reflux, I do know how hard it is, but even if it didn't have a three hundred pound price tag, I don't think I would want to have one to hold my baby, because I know that sometimes when baby's feel unwell, holding them isn't just about keeping them upright, it's about them feeling better because they need you close to them. They need the skin to skin that hospitals and midwives are teaching, because it's about comfort.

When I raised the fact that my son was struggling with reflux, which was partly in response to the health visitor saying he was dipping from the line of where he should be growing, her best suggestion was to visit the GP, and then when I visited the GP the best thing that they could suggest for a baby with constipation and reflux was to give him Gaviscon. Which makes babies constipated. Because that is clearly logical. At the time I didn't have any other ideas, so I just had to go with it, especially since I didn't have any data of when he was throwing up or refluxing things back or whatever they wanted to call it, because it also gets called posseting and exactly what you call it depends on what it is, but it seemed that no one was interested in investigating what it was, even when we ended up in A&E several times.

You might be thinking, okay, well how is a checklist going to help? 

If we had had the data we would have known he was more likely to reflux when he was over a certain amount of hours for a bottle, which meant a lot of them were coming back on his early morning feeds. At that stage, yes, Gaviscon might help, because it settles the stomach acid that's built up over a longer period, but that wasn't every time. We weren't sure whether it was only the formula he was on or if it was also when he was drinking breast milk. As we realised it was far more common with formula we chose to change his milk, but just went for a different 'normal' milk rather than the special diet ones, because they all say about being used under medical supervision, though the doctors didn't seem too interested in us moving onto one of these.

Around the same time we were giving him Gaviscon - which originally cleared the problem of constipation and then made it a hell of a lot worse - we started giving him Infacol, and it took a while to realise that whilst he got better with both, that was mainly due to the Infacol, so we were able to figure out that a lot of the problem was wind, but he's a terrible burper without the Infacol and only slightly better on it. Sometimes, he'd burp when we were burping him, but he would burp with such force he'd bring back a load of milk anyway... 

So checklist: 

Have you tried Infacol? 

I would say have you tried Gaviscon, but it doesn't stop the reflux, it just stops the pain or discomfort associated with it, so I don't know why they prescribe it. How about treating the problem, rather than the symptoms?!

Have you tried a different formula?

There are a lot of different formulas on the market, and at the time that all of this was happening for us, there were a few recalls going on and that made me anxious about what formula to give him. When we initially left the hospital, he was on Cow and Gate, but then that was recalled, so we changed to Kendamil, but that didn't seem to agree with him, and this was what we were only supplementing him with a small amount. We made the decision to go for Mamia, because when I looked into it there hadn't been a recall on Mamia formula, or at the very least it hadn't been recalled because of bacteria contamination. When we looked to change, I read that Mamia formula was most like or very similar to Aptamil, so Aptamil was obviously off the table, and with the fact that we weren't sure if the issues with Kendamil were the bottles or the formula in the early days, we didn't want to go for that either, so we decided to stick to the pre-made formula bottles by Cow and Gate, because he seemed to be mostly okay with those. When we managed over a week without spit up with those we bought the powdered version (and then had a spit up incident with the pre-made stuff), but at least he was actually gaining weight by then.

Have you tried keeping the baby upright?

We tried this so much, because it was all that we could do. We have wedge pillows in the pram, in the Moses basket, in the bassinet and one that moves all around the house in order to make sure Little Man was never fully flat. It helped a little, but at the same time we had to keep everything covered with muslims and over covers because he was still spitting up. 

Have you tried either caramel or baby rice to thicken the milk?

This is basically what special formula is anyway, but you can use it in breast milk if you are combination feeding or feeding exclusively expressed milk. It's also something you can then try without committing to a whole box of formula. It gives the opportunity to try it for a few bottles and see if it makes a difference. We never got to this, or we haven't got to it yet.

Have you tried specialised milk?

Have you tried a different brand of specialised milk?

Honestly, I think I would probably stick to the same brand when changing onto a specialised milk, but if the issue was the brand of milk, that wouldn't help, would it? So surely the next bit is to change to a different specialised milk, whether this is called comfort or reflux, because it changes across different brands. 

Have you tried allergy milk? 

There's a few ways that this is done, whether it is goat's milk or something where the lactose is stripped out, in order to try and eliminate the idea that it's an intolerance or allergy to lactose. I already knew that if we got here, I wouldn't be able to do this for his breast milk, partly because it takes a bit of time for it to clear from your system, so I would have been pumping milk we couldn't use for a period of time, I couldn't produce enough milk to fulfil all of Little One's needs, but also because I've tried being vegan a couple of times for Veganuary and I sucked at it. 

To be honest, I'm not really sure what comes after this. I know that people say 'they'll grow out of it' or 'it'll get better', but it's hard to sit and watch your child not be able to keep the only food and drink that they can have down. We've had issues with dehydration, we've had issues where I know he's hungry and I've not known what to do, because he can't keep things down, and we've had issues because I've felt nothing but guilt for the fact that I can't do anything. Even when the only thing I can do is give him small bottles of food every forty five minutes to an hour, I have struggled, because without setting constant alarms that then drive me mad, I can't keep track of time very well, and I can't stop thinking about how unsustainable some of these options that people suggest are, either for me or for when Little One goes to nursery.

Things That Changed When I Decided To Stop Pumping,

I was going to set this to post today at lunch, like I do for a lot of these now, but I'm kind of glad that I held off, because it all got a lot more complicated than I had originally thought that it would be when I found a clogged duct yesterday and then woke up with pain and leaking this morning which changed the process of getting to the end of pumping after I thought I was already there. It's frustrating, but that's life, I guess.

So I decided to stop pumping recently and you would think, hey, it just gives you one less thing to do in a day... It doesn't just give me one less thing to do, it gives me plenty less things to do. Instead of having to think about how I'm going to plan my day around pumping, trying for every two to three hours because that's the optimum, that's what you are advised to do, planning how much time I needed for pump time and all of the other bits I felt I needed to do because I was trying to build up my supply from being a chronic under supplier, even if I could only get to being a 'just enougher', that was what I was aiming for, and if I could have gone a bit over that and started freezing milk for when my little boy goes to nursery in a scarily short length of time, amazing, but that felt like a dream. Stopping pumping meant that I could take a step back from all of that and just be present with my son. Not to mention I could go back to sitting in the front of the car when I wasn't driving, because one of the easiest times to plan to pump was when we were in the car for anything longer than fifteen minutes, and although I bought myself a nursing cover, they kind of suck, so it was easier to sit in the back letting it all hang out because we have privacy glass on the back windows.

It's not just about being able to be present with my son though, or the ability to not have to plan the way I was trying to, but being able to drop washing storage bottles and sterilising storage bottles, and all of the pump parts as well, of course. It's the not having to try and organise when I need to replace pump parts, or think about charging the wearables when I can't use my 'big' pump. It's not having to think about, plan out and share the system of organising the storage bottles so that we know when things were pumped, that they've been stored correctly (least amount of time at ambient temperature as possible, but definitely less than six hours, and then less than six days in the fridge) and they're used in the right amount of time. Honestly, sometimes the storage of milk took over half a shelf in my fridge and that's not even because I was pumping at high volumes, because I wasn't, we just had more small storage bottles than big ones, so anything over five ounces needed a second bottle. I know a lot of people use bags and then it's easier and more natural to write onto them - you can write the date, the time, anything you need to know like the days I needed the strong pain killers because of the surgery or the back pain I was feeling, I could add that onto the bags, but to me, bags are a real faff.

Tangent, but I think that unless you are freezing your milk, bags just make like a little bit difficult, because they don't stand up well, especially not when you are pumping smaller quantities like I was in recent times, but they also tend to get milk in the seal at the top which is just annoying, and trying to organise them in the fridge is just a ball ache. That's just me though. Since we were using everything out of the fridge we found using chalk pens on the top of the lids of the bottles and then washing the date off each time we were washing the bottles worked pretty okay, except that I tended to only take one storage bottle upstairs for overnight pumps - and yes, we did get a mini fridge for upstairs to keep pumped milk and little man's overnight bottles in, don't hate the idea until you've tried it - they often had two dates on, which meant we were really only getting about five days of storage out of them in the fridge... but back to my main point...

Stopping pumping also changed things in terms of my wardrobe. Before I stopped pumping I as back in the size of jeans I was wearing before my pregnancy, and that might seem obvious because I think I have mentioned before that I didn't gain weight during the pregnancy because of the sickness and vomiting, but the shape of my body did change and I've had to accept that whilst I'm back in my old jeans, they do fit a little more snugly than they did before. Being back in my old size meant I was able to think about getting back into other things I hadn't been able to wear for a while though, like my Oddballs boxers, which pre-pregnancy, and even for a while into my pregnancy, were the most comfortable thing I could wear. They didn't go too well under the bump, had no chance of going around the bump and then when there was no bump anymore, they didn't go well with my C section scar because unfortunately their waistband sits right where my C section scar is.

Now, that's not a pop at Oddballs, because the scar sits where it is as a matter of design by surgeons who perform C sections. The "modern" C section is done in a way that hides the scar in a place where you're less likely to see it, and it sort of "fades into" the fold(s) under your tummy, you know, the little sort of pooch most people get following pregnancy, but that means that most underwear is going to be really uncomfortable for the first few weeks and for some of us, getting out of the granny pants that are about the only thing that don't irritate it can be difficult, because there's always that fear of causing more pain and irritation in a place that has been experiencing a lot of pain and irritation. I don't know what the advised timeline is for when you can start wearing your waistband over your scar again, but I do think it's really different for everyone and some people will probably take a little skin discomfort to feel like themselves again, and others would rather have big bloomer style pants for longer rather than risk irritating the scar again. 

When I stopped pumping I was able to think as well about being able to wear a normal bra again, instead of a nursing bra or a pumping bra, and don't make any mistake, they are two very different things. So I was able to go back to wearing normal bras, or potentially my Oddballs bralettes, and I was also able to go back to wearing normal T shirts and normal jumpers. Prior to giving up, pumping meant that I had to wear something that was either a nursing top, or a spaghetti strap which wasn't great when it was in the middle of the winter, or a big baggy jumper so that I knew that I'd be able to get it out of the way and either get the pump parts underneath it. When I say, get it out of the way, it was more often just take it off entirely, so stopping pumping meant I didn't have to think about stripping off in my house, in my car or anything else. I didn't have to think about whether we had parcels arriving, because some of the parcel delivery guys walk through our garden to deliver the parcels, right past the window of the room I sit in with the curtains open and everything hanging out. It was less limiting in terms of being able to have people over. I no longer have to think about stressing out over not pumping, feeling uncomfortable wearing my wearables with people over, or having to secret myself away in another room and hope no one comes to find me, so that I can get the pumping that I need to do done and stop my breasts from feeling swollen, full and uncomfortable. It's even more important for being out of the house, because I don't have to think about how long social engagements are, having to go sit in the car in the cold half way through - I have set the alarm off on the car multiple times by being sat in it with the engine off and the doors locked so no one well meaning comes and opens the door whilst I'm pumping or attaching or detaching pump parts. I don't have to think about storing milk that I've pumped on the way, in the car or anything like that, though we did manage a successful trip up to Murrayfield with me pumping on the way, in the car park and in a few other places, but we took a camping fridge and had it plugged into a battery pack, to make sure it wasn't just dumped, because undersupplies have a right to be more precious about our milk than oversuppliers. I realise this is something that gets contentious, but it's true. Even if you as an oversupplier are really generous and donate your milk to NICUs or other mamas, it's not the same. I realise that I'm only coming at that from a perspective of an undersupplier, but that means I have had the experience of the mum guilt of not having enough or being enough for your child and it being something you have no choice in.

Not having to think about pumps and breast milk and all that sort of thing just means I can focus more on my child and him meeting people in my life and my partner's life, them enjoying meeting him and all the little things he's started doing like smiling, and learning to laugh and grabbing for things. Okay, I still need to plan out feeding things, like having his bottles and the Rapid Cool clean, or how many bottles he will or might need when we are out of the house, or when his naps should be and how I can get him down for a nap outside of our home and his usual routine, stopping pumping gives me less to think about and far less logistics to manage.

I have been quite specific about the language I've used when talking about stopping pumping, partly because I have to keep reminding myself that I am neither giving up not quitting pumping, I'm just stopping. Quitting and giving up make it feel like a very negative thing, and I'm trying to focus on everything that is positive about it. This was not an easy decision to come to. It was a really difficult decision that I had to make, and to some degree that I wanted to make. I knew that it was coming for a while before having to make the decision, and I wanted it to be something that I wanted to make the decision on instead of it being something that just happened to be me, because so many things during the birth and early days with my son felt like they just happened to me rather than being my decision. It has been a really upsetting decision to make, because it has made me feel inadequate but I'd also been feeling inadequate from pumping for a long period of time because I've just simply not been able to produce enough milk for my son. Part of that is because of my ADHD and the limitations of that, with overstimulation, time blindness and other issues. The ADHD was the reason we were pumping entirely in the first place, too. In the end，it was something where breastfeeding just felt too difficult and too over stimulating, especially when people say it's natural and that means that there can be an expectation that you get it and your baby gets it from minute one and it's easy. It is far from easy. Sometimes, when the ADHD symptoms weren't too bad, I could do it, or if my son was sniffly and ill, and I knew my body needed to get the message that he wasn't well to produce milk that would help him feel better, I would fight through the issues I had with it to do what my son needed me to, to do what was better for his immune system, but as a daily thing, I couldn't do it. It felt like another demand I was having to manage and that I felt incapable of managing.

Pumping allowed me to make sure my son got as much support for his immune system as I could give him, whilst also meaning my partner could give him a bottle if I couldn't do it, or someone else could if we just needed to get some sleep. Whilst we didn't manage to get to the point I wanted to get to - somewhere between the 6 months weaning stage and the 2 years that the WHO advise - we made it three months, which is more than either my partner or I had when we were young (and we turned out fine, apparently!) and more than some friends we know, but not as long as others. We made it past two rounds of vaccinations and through the first few snotty noses. We made it as long as I was capable of doing it, and stopped when doing it was causing more harm to me than not doing it would cause to my son, and one of the biggest things I've realised is that I didn't know before we started how much it would take over my life, and I didn't acknowledge how much it had taken over my life until we made the decision to stop.

The Path to Saying 'I Do' Part 2,

 If you like Bridgerton and haven't finished watching the most recent season, this is your early spoiler alert, but also, come on, it's been out for a couple of weeks now. Even I've watched it, possibly more than once, and I have a baby to look after...

Where did we leave off? Oh yeah, bemoaning invites. 

So, another thing - RSVP dates. They're a nightmare. Because when do you set them for? If you set them too early, so many people are going to forget what they ordered for the food, if you set them too late you end up with the manic job of chasing people for their food options before needing to get them to your venue or caterer six or eight or however many weeks before, and yes, I know that a good option to combat that is have a buffet, but I don't like buffets for one thing, and never really have, partly because I despise sandwich platters, and even if that wasn't a thing, COVID made me nervous about the whole shared food experience. Given that there are issues around another illness now, which I'm thanking my lucky stars my son has had his jabs for (though only just), I don't really like the idea of a large display of food and everyone helping themselves.

Slight tangent - sandwich platters. Most sandwich platters that I have ever seen come with each sandwich sandwiched in next to another sandwich and it's literally impossible to not touch the next one when helping yourself to one. There's also this strange thing of not flavour blocking - keeping everything of one type together - and instead it's like coronation chicken next to egg mayo or something else and in order to not look mean on the fillings, the fillings are oozing out of the sides and it's kind of gross. Not everyone loves eggs, not everyone loves mayo, not everyone eats chicken, but it can't just be a 'tism thing that when there is something disgusting touching the rest of the food you now can't eat it?? Although I'm vegetarian, I'm not unreasonable - or at least I don't think so - but there is a big issue of things from one food contaminating another, particularly because it's been twenty years this year since I knowingly and intentionally ate meat, so trust me, it could make me feel pretty ill if I accidentally ingest it because my body is just not used to it. I know you can get vegetarian only platters but most people or places won't because they still think there aren't that many of us, and also, it is then a 'tism-y thing to think that a lot of the flavours on it are gross because they add marmite or pickle or falafel or something far too spicy because "otherwise veggie food has no flavour"... seriously, bore off with that. 

Anyway, weddings... 

We set a really early RSVP date, partly because my partner said do whatever you like and partly because I want to get this thing planned and then draw a line under it because it's done and I don't have to think about it (such a happy bride, she is) but thankfully that also means if members of the family are busy (or don't want to come - not judging, don't really care) we can invite friends in their place that we had to scoot off the list because we didn't have the numbers. Great right? Except now you're having to send an invite where the RSVP date has gone and they know they were second choice (way to make your friends feel loved) or you have to do another print run of invites and let's face it, they're not that cheap! Also, how many damn times are we going to do that? What RSVP date do we update it to? This is why I made calls and texts to people we were inviting not long after we booked the venue because if they said, sorry, busy that day, I'm not sending them an invite, awaiting a response, chasing them for a response and then thinking, crap, what do I do now? Yes, okay, we're going to have to do the food thing separately, but that's fine.

Hilariously, music has also been a bit difficult.

I love music, my partner loves music, and a lot of what we love overlaps, so you'd think good right? Wrong.

Weddings are an eclectic bunch of people and there is nothing worse than the idea of putting on some random music that a couple loves and everyone else has no idea what it is and therefore no inclination to dance to it. On the flip side, the idea of having "party songs" and general cheese all night makes me feel nauseous. Look, I like what I like and I would have been perfectly happy plugging an iPod in on shuffle, or with a playlist, but I was advised against it (no, I wasn't, I was told no). You can kind of have free reign on a first dance song, but I didn't want to do the same thing everyone else does which is normally one of about ten or fifteen songs, at least five of which are by Ed Sheeran (what did people do their first dance to before Ed Sheeran?) and some songs are just a bit overplayed for weddings. And one of those is what my partner wants to play, and unfortunately it's one of the only bits of the wedding he has particularly strong opinions on, so I kind of have to give him that one and try and not have a sour face on for it. But I want to have a sour face on, because much as I don't hate the song, it feels generic and overdone and so just not me. I argued for another song, but basically no one else coming to the wedding would know it. I don't care about these things, but sadly, he does.

If I had my way then the entire reception would probably be the back catalog of The Summer Set, even though some of those songs are not really wedding songs (most of them aren't) and some of them swear quite a bit and there will be a few kids around, including mine, so we've had to agree on a certain kind of cheese (or what our DJ calls cheese anyway) though I have explicitly told him that I'm banning karaoke. 

I think this is going to become a longer running series which only ends when you find out if my fiancé and I actually make it past the wedding, given that I'm being such a grump about so much of it...

The Path To Saying 'I Do',

If you're someone who reads this blog regularly or even semi-regularly, firstly, hi, how are you? Thanks for coming around... but seriously, it might be worth getting ready for me bemoaning some of the issues around weddings that plague all of us, some of us, or maybe some of them just bug me and not everyone else who is part way through planning a wedding. Who knows? 

One thing I am absolutely trying to avoid is the whole thing of stamping my feet and crying 'It's my wedding day!' that seems to happen a lot these days and has created a whole new stereotype of the 'bridezilla'. (I know it's not all that new, but it seems to be becoming more and more of an issue, and once upon a time it would not have been tolerated like it seems it can be these days.) I'm definitely not one of these, it's my wedding week, month, year types; you get your special day, and I do believe that people should make an effort to make it special for you, because in theory you should only do it once, but it's a day. People try and make it more with hen does, stag does, bachelor and bachelorette parties (I know these are the same thing), wedding showers and all that, but it's just ridiculous. You get a day. And even then, be reasonable about it. For some things, it's reasonable to say, 'It's my day' and for some things, it's just not. This came up recently when we were (correction, I was) designing the wedding invites. 

First off there seems to be a shift towards the use of the phrase 'Together with their families...' at the beginning of the invite, instead of it being the names of the bride's parents, but the whole reason it was the bride's parents' names was because *traditionally* it was the parents of the bride who would pay for the wedding and then host everything. 'Together with their families' seems to muddy the waters a little, so we went for just putting our names (though keeping the tradition of the bride's name being first) invite you to be a part of their wedding day. I also had to cut out the fact that it said 'their beautiful wedding day' because it felt really twee and a bit sickening, if I'm being honest. If I could have got away with giving people a post-it with the address and time, I probably would have done that instead, but I stripped it down and tried to make it something that was pretty, somewhat elegant and just a bit more on theme for me and my partner rather than something gushy and overdone. Don't get me wrong, we can be insufferably mushy with each other and definitely are with our son, but I think that's different.

On the back, we've put in the sort of information you would 'normally' (I'm not sure what normal is in terms of a wedding, because there are so many different traditions and so much that has been added to over the years and it just feels ridiculous) go on the details card, and even that has caused issues. Why are you putting a dress code? Because a lot of our friends are neurodivergent and you can Google a dress code to give you a better idea, which can be reassuring, but you can't Google a blank space to try and figure out what to wear, can you? Why do they only accept cash at the bar? No, a cash bar is just the opposite of a free bar, because everyone can get drunk on their own dime, not ours. Sorry, but weddings are expensive enough without us paying for everyone's alcohol for six hours of a reception. Oh, and we just bought a new house and had a baby so thank the stars there actually is a wedding in the first place rather than bemoaning the lack of free alcohol, maybe?

As if all of that wasn't enough, everyone has their ideas on who should and shouldn't be invited, and sometimes that's coming from a place of who they get on with and who they don't and sometimes it comes from a place of tradition. We've very much said tradition can go in the bin, because whilst it's traditional to only have family at the ceremony and then invite friends to their 'night do' that was never what we were planning. And where do you draw the line with family? There's immediate family, and the family that you actually spend time with, and then there's everyone who you're related to but don't see, or distantly related to, and very often different bits of the family keep in touch with different bits, so you can end up with siblings where one keeps in touch with cousins and the other doesn't, but then it's the question of why you're inviting up to a certain level but then not including their kids, or not including the kids of that person. There's the big question of, is it a child free wedding? If not, does that mean you have to invite the offspring of every person you invite? If it's a pet friendly venue, do you invite literally every person and their dog? It becomes madness. I don't want the whole thing to have the same vibe as a family party I went to where so many people were asking, do you remember me? I've not seen you since you were three. I was about fourteen at this time... I still don't know who the people that were asking me that were. It would feel really weird to me to be hosting a wedding an not know the people we're inviting, or be looking back at the photos even a year from now and have someone ask 'who's that?' and neither of us know.

The big issue I had this evening though (well, the evening when I actually wrote this which was a while ago now) was how the hell do you address the invites to your parents? There seems to be no general consensus on this past that you write the envelope formally - as in Mr and Mrs Whatever-Your-Face, and then the inside you either use first names or Mum/Dad Mom/Dad whatever... I ended up calling my mum, because the last thing I wanted to do was upset her by putting her and my dad's names on it, but then if it's supposed to be from my partner and I, he doesn't call them Mum and Dad, so isn't that weird? I'd feel kind of weird writing the one to his parents addressing them as Mum and Dad, because they're not my mum and dad, but is it disrespectful for him to use their names? Honestly, I'm really not sure... That obviously then also extends to grandparents - do we use their name, or call them their grandparent name?

Bougie Babies,

I can't remember if it was just before or just after my son was born, but my mum and I were discussing changing mats and what she had when we were younger and what we have now - because these are the sort of riveting conversations that early parenthood brings you - and there's something I noticed...

The biggest thing that I have noticed when discussing with my mum and my in laws about what has changed since they had me and my partner as babies is that not everything that changes is an improvement.

The biggest thing that pointed this out was changing mats. I get that babies cry when they get put on the plastic covered mats that people are used to seeing when they're somewhere public, because they're cold, but there are a couple of good things about them, and the best thing about them is that they're so easy to clean. The other good thing is that they are a single item thing. IKEA have produced a replacement for them that is inflatable - which is good because wriggly babies don't bang their little heads on the sides of the table and hurt themselves - and covered in a towel material cover, which stops babies getting cold and means that they don't cry... AS MUCH! But the biggest issue? We own about five of these covers, because we have a boy, and boys like to pee when they're on the changing mat and it goes EVERYWHERE!, and sometimes I can't keep up with washing the covers as quickly as he pees on them or leaves poop-y bum prints on them. Maybe it's good work on the part of IKEA - making a product where I need to buy multiples of the covers for it to function as it should, because there is no way I could wash and dry just one cover every time I need it - or maybe the changed item isn't actually better than the old version, because the problem that it was trying to address isn't that big of a problem. Most babies will wake up when you change them anyway, so the mat being a little chilly isn't such a big deal. In fact, I was told by the midwives in the hospital to change the nappy before a feed because it helps to get the baby to wake up a bit and then they are a bit more alert when it comes to feeding time, which is most important if you're boob feeding, because it takes a bit more effort on the part of the baby.

Maybe the differences are more apparent to me because we have one of each, and instead of being as they were originally intended - one in the nursery and one somewhere downstairs so that I don't have to climb the stairs in order to change the little guy during the day - they are both in the nursery for reasons of that's where they ended up and then they've stayed because the table one hurts my partner's back and the over the cot one hurts mine. You'd probably expect there to be a massive height difference between the two of us from that, but there really isn't. Typically, I have the mat with the towel cover on the table I use, and I have to change the cover at least once a day, but twice is not unfamiliar and three times isn't unheard of, but sometimes mid change I have to jump the little guy, in whatever state of undress he is at the time, over to the other changing table and mat set, because the mess is just too much to deal with any other way. The great thing about the plastic covered one is it's a case of pick baby up, wipe mat down with a Dettol wipe and then some kitchen roll, and hey presto you're ready to go again, rather than pick baby up, remove cover, clean the base as above, then refit another cover - not a one handed job - and then get back to changing the baby. 

There are plenty of other products that have hit the market in the thirty something years between when we were babies and when we had our baby, and there are plenty of examples of things that make me want to bang my head against a wall, but there are also plenty of things which exist now that make my life significantly easier and I really appreciate them. Babies don't come with a manual, so anything which makes it a little easier to get them past the early stages is worth a coat of looking at.

When Things Are Tough,

 When things get difficult, I find it hard to write. It's always been the case, it probably will always be the case, and sadly it's also the case that those are the times I could really use the emotional relief I get from writing things down. Over the last few weeks I've not had the time to give myself some space to write. I've needed as much sleep as I could get and the amount of sleep I have managed to get hasn't been enough and it's definitely putting pressure on me, as a mum, as a partner, but also as a person. The little guy comes first, of course, so I've been focusing on getting his nappies washed, his bottles sterilised, and every other thing I need to do to look after him, and honestly, it's getting harder and harder.

You might think, given that it's been a good number of weeks since he arrived, surely you should be getting better at it by now? Well, you'd think so, wouldn't you?!

When we first brought him home, he was a little dream. He'd take a bottle easily, he'd keep it all down, he would sleep and nap and I'm not going to say it was easy, because it wasn't, but things seemed pretty simple, other than the slight issue of constipation which meant that we needed to attend the hospital with him over the Christmas period. Since then, he's developed reflux and is a bit colicky as well, so we've dealing with him spitting up, which means more cleaning up, more attempts at feeds, and also a lot more cuddles. Cuddles sound lovely, but it's not so much when the baby is uncomfortable and cries even when being held. 

Midwives and health visitors have been focused on whether I'm depressed, which I don't think I am, and whether I'm at risk of harming myself, which I'm not, but what I am is burnt out, and I've been on the edge of burnout for a few days. It's the lack of sleep, feeling "touched out" and just needing to put the baby down and not being able to, and the inability to do anything for self-care, because when do I have the time? Very often the suggestions are to lean on your partner, but what happens when it's happening to both of you, or when they work long hours? What can you really do when there are so many demands on both of your time?

I know this is why people say that it takes a village, but that's not very simple either. (I'd love to make a joke that we live in a village, it doesn't help, but I'm too tired. Although I guess I did it anyway...)

There's Going To Be a Wedding,

Before everything with the house took a whole hell of a lot longer than we originally thought that it would, my partner and I were thinking about getting married at the same venue we went to for our first Valentine's Day together, but by the time we moved it was far too late in the day in terms of the pregnancy, particularly given the number of issues that we had been having, so there was no guarantee I was going to be able to walk, let alone dance, and the idea of having to plan the whole thing was going to be just too much ahead of little man's arrival.

Now that the little guy is here and we're starting to have some form of routine, we have been able to think again about getting a wedding together, and after some chasing around we've finally managed to get a date into the diary with the venue that we want to use, and it looks like we are actually going to have a wedding, and it also looks like it's going to be this year, but obviously that all sounds like it's going too simply, doesn't it?

Except it's not, because I'm suddenly about twice the size I have ever been comfortable being and the problem I have where the dresses I like and admire not being a style that suits me has been amplified even further. I love a good trumpet dress (or call it a wiggle dress or a mermaid dress or whatever you want to call it) but I've always been too short, not leggy enough and now feeling like I'm two miles wide, I would look ridiculous in one and the one thing I would really like to avoid is looking ridiculous. 

My partner, who I love dearly and deeply, (obviously, otherwise I wouldn't be marrying him) doesn't want to see or know anything about the dress or any other attire until the wedding day, which is both nice and traditional, but also a giant pain in the ass. Why? Because we're not fancy event sort of people. We've not really been out together a lot to places where we needed to "dress up" so when we're talking about a wedding, even if it's only a mildly fancy one, the level of fancy where you just know that turning up in jeans is going to get you stared at for being the plonker (and as Amanda Bynes character in What A Girl Wants says, I wouldn't want to be a plonker) and you really treasure that moment when the groom turns around and sees the bride for the first time and you want it to be either a wow moment or just a look of pure love, and not, what the FFFF is she wearing, or a pained expression (27 Dresses did not make this moment, they just made it more obvious and more pressured!) I really don't know what to choose. I want something very me, obviously, but I also want something that is going to make my future husband look down the aisle and think what a lucky, lucky man he is, because I very often remember I'm lucky that he puts up with me, and I'm really lucky that we found each other. We both are, of course.

What I have managed to get out of him is that his preference would be that it's something white (or those white adjacent colours that most men will see as white even if it's called ivory, bone, champagne kissed, blush and all the other colour names that someone in the world is paid to come up with...) and I think from something else he's said he thinks it should have some form of train (which feels crazy since we're not getting married in a church, but I'll go with it, because they do look fun.) I get the impression that if it's traditional, it'll be okay, even if I'll be wearing a veil but not over my face because HOW DOES IT NOT GET STUCK IN YOUR LIPSTICK??? 

I've got the shoes already, an idea of what dress I would like in my mind, and a nail biting habit that I've never yet managed to break despite a lot of attempts and an unholy amount of effort. Sadly the stress of being in the hospital lead to another serious attack on the nails which would have been fine except the fact that little J's newborn photographs have my hands in a lot of them and whilst it might not be glaring to other people, it is to me, so I would much rather our wedding photos don't have the stand out of my nails looking like that of an anxious toddler. Some people hashtag their diet and exercise plans with Shredding for the Wedding, but I'm both not doing that in terms of weightless, but also trying for not shredding my nails in the next however many months, particularly since I know getting gel tips or false nails or whatever you call them is only possible with a certain amount of healthy nail to stick them to.

I'm sure there are about a million and one things I will stress myself out with between now and the actual event, but for now, at least it's happening and at least we have a date.