Bernard gets admired a lot when we go out. When he was in the baby carrier I noticed it more because I used to look where I was going, but now he is too heavy and it hurts my back to carry him that way, so I have regretfully started using the pram again. Consequently I walk along looking down at him, and only notice his admirers when they speak. Now that we live in a quiet cul-de-sac rather than opposite a station on the Waterloo line, I have started leaving him outside if he’s asleep when we come back from a walk. Don’t panic! He’s well wrapped up, usually has a fly net over him (but it alarms him when he wakes up, so I have left it off today), and I can either potter around in the kitchen, or otherwise sit where I can see and hear him. No harm is going to come to the little fellow.
Prior to last week, he had some sort of a pattern thing going [we choose not to use the word routine]. He would wake for a feed around 7am, take a nap around 8.30, wake around 9.15 and get washed and dressed for the day before having another feed. His next feed would be between 1.00 and 2.00, after which he sometimes napped – we tend to have a better bathtime if he naps in the late afternoon. Bedtime starts ideally at 6.45, and we bath him every night just for the sake of having a bedtime pattern that he recognises. Then he would feed to sleep around 7.30, and sleep for about 6 hours. After his night feed his sleeps get shorter and shorter, so that I really need to be in bed by 9.30 to get any decent sleep myself; most nights that doesn’t happen.
In the last few days things have gone all to cock, as they say. It all went wrong on Monday when I tried to get him to take a bottle of Expressed Breast Milk (EBM) early in the morning. He simply wouldn’t have it. Pete used to give him a morning bottle every day, but what with one thing and another he no longer has the time to do this, so we stopped with the bottle, and Bernard obviously thought that was ace, because who wouldn’t prefer the nice cuddly warm breast? Our whole week just went wrong after that; my regular baby became a timetable-eschowing [is that a word or did I make it up?] monster [but much-loved, of course].
Yesterday Pete spent the entire afternoon trying to get 2oz of EBM into the baby, who tired himself out with screeching that he didn’t want it, had a nap on Pete’s knee, and then woke up and went through the whole process again. This morning he took 3oz from me in less than 5 minutes, proving that he hasn’t forgotten how to drink from a bottle, he simply chooses not to.
The differences this morning were: the milk was freshly expressed [time doesn't often allow this]; the teat and the bottle were both hot from the steriliser; the room was completely calm and quiet; he was definitely hungry. We now need some sort of system to establish exactly which of these variables was the key. Or perhaps the little darling is just being cussed.
“timetable-eschowing” – It is now, and it’s a fine one too.
I guess another factor is whether he can smell you or not. If you are in a different room at the time it might make the memory/reminder of the nicer alternative less vivid. Just a thought. (Obviously not an option if you are on your own at the time).
Except that yesterday he took a whole bottle from me with no complaint, and the day before refused it from his dad.
My sister used to leave her youngest outside in the pushchair, even in the rain (suitably covered, obviously).
In the interest of accuracy because I know you love accuracy, it’s eschewing. But in the interest of New Mums Are Always Right, it’s definitely eschowing.