Bernard was up a lot in the night. “Up” doesn’t exactly describe it, but there was a lot of it, anyway. I think perhaps his molars are starting to appear; he’s very bitey and seems to be in some discomfort. He didn’t eat any breakfast. Some nights and days are like that.
I lurk a lot on the iVillage Weaning Your Baby forum, where I dole out calming platitudes to mothers who are even worse at this thing than I am, telling them not to panic, their child will eat eventually. This, at least, is something I know. It took Bernard a little while to get going, and he still has days when he just ditches everything; but then he also has days when the ravenous beastie really surprises me, and I love that he loves olives.
Pete wrote a rather nice description of bathtime, as it is now, to go with how it was then. Reading it, I thought that this would actually be quite useful for parents-to-be: a series of general descriptions of events at, say one month, six months, one year; just to give a picture of how things change. At first, all seems to be chaos. There isn’t a moment to think. Everything is terrifying and you have no idea how to go about it. Then a routine starts to develop, and things are a bit easier because at least you know what you’re supposed to be doing, and can tell if something is out of the ordinary. Then after a while, you don’t even realise that you have a routine; it’s just what you do.
It might be heartening to know this, in those early weeks. Feeding would be a good subject, to reassure those mums who are feeding ALL the time and wondering if it will ever stop. It diminishes in significance as it gets easier, and one day you find that you can plan other things into your day; and eventually you realise that you have partially weaned without even noticing. There will be new challenges, but at least by now you’re aware of the pattern: what seems awful now will settle, and then just be part of life, the new normal that you have been waiting to get “back” to.
