A Milestone?

Well here we are at the six week mark. Kathleen is growing big and healthy and now weighs 4.3kg. She is no longer considered a newborn and has been discharged from the midwife's care. By far the biggest issue we have had with Kat over the past few weeks is with her not sleeping and being overtired, and as a result crying and screaming all evening.

Everyone has said to us that the first six weeks are the hardest (and they have indeed been very hard), but what does that mean?
* Is a sudden change going to come over Kathleen today?
* Or am I just going to become used to being a parent?
* Or is my brain going to implode in on itself?
A bit of all three I think......

* A big change did come over Kathleen recently. All of a sudden her eyes came into focus and she was able to see and react to things and people. We have been getting some of the biggest smiles from her now. And she has started making the cutest little baby noises :-) It is great to see her responding to you when you talk to her.

* Being a parent is a lot more difficult than I expected. When they say it's a 24x7 job I didn't realise that meant feeding and rocking and carrying and cuddling and pram pushing 24x7. Literally! Apart from the hours between 11pm-approx 7am when she is sleeping (although she will wake up once during this time for a feed). Who needs the gym!

Kat's sleeping problems came to a head a couple of weeks ago when we had several days in a row of her screaming continuously all evening. She was so over-tired but was so worked up she could not sleep, and nothing seemed to calm her down. Our grocery list that week consisted of only two things - Panadol and Whiskey! I sought help from Plunket and have also enrolled in a class at North Shore Hospital (more to meet other mothers than anything else). Both of these have been an enormous help to us and we have learnt some strategies to cope with Kat's sleeping issues.

The first lesson was learning to recognise Kat's tired signals, and to start winding her down and putting her to bed as soon as they appear. She is a social baby who wants to take everything in, with the result that she becomes over-stimulated very quickly. One of the keys is to remove the stimulation before it gets too much.

Lesson two is to be consistent and have a routine for putting her to bed so that she learns when it is time to sleep. I.e. swaddle, cuddle and sleep. Eventually we want to get to the point where she can fall asleep in bed by herself once she is drowsy, but for now we are just trying to teach her to fall asleep. This means rocking her until she falls asleep. It can take a week or more for a new thing to become learned so it will be a long process.

The third lesson was to be persistent in what we do and not give up after five minutes if something isn't working. She's not going to fall asleep instantly just because she's tired - I don't, so why should I expect her to. So that means rocking her for five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever it takes until she dozes off.

The frustrating part is when 15 minutes becomes 30 minutes and 30 minutes becomes an hour and she still hasn't slept. And then she's starting to get hungry again and I still haven't gotten done the things I wanted to do an hour ago because I've been rocking her to sleep (things like having lunch or going to the toilet). And then I know that if I feed her it will be at least another hour before I will have the chance to do those things. The hours in the day go by very quickly - but the minutes drag!

* And having said that, yes some days I think I am going to go insane.

Here are some links to some recent videos of Kat, showing her dual personalities:
Angel Baby.mov
Devil Baby.mov

Now don't get the wrong impression, Kat's not screaming because she's alone on the changing table. She was doing that before she got put down for the video and continued after she got picked back up again as well.

-Megz

PS: As an update to the last post, I have to take back what I said about Kat disliking having her nappy changed. She now loves it because she can look around at everything and there is SO much for her to look at. Her eyes get so wide these days just taking everything in, all the time!

Three weeks

Kathleen is three weeks old today. She is growing so quickly, she has already gained 400g on her birth weight. It has been a very long three weeks but at the same time it feels like just yesterday she was born. But of course I have had her for 21 days AND 21 nights so it does feel like a long time. Every day is different, yet every day is the same as well - consisting of feeding her, trying to get her to sleep, trying not to wake her up, and washing masses and masses of nappies.

Peter has been great and has helped out so much. Especially last night when he fed her overnight so that I could sleep and he then slept during the day today. Looking after Kathleen is so much harder than I thought it was going to be. Everything sounded so much easier in theory than it is in reality. Of course everyone has different advice and it's now a matter of trying everything until we find something that works for us. Some myths that I have found:

Myth: I'd been getting Braxton Hicks "practice" contractions since early on in my pregnancy and I thought 'If this is what contractions are like it won't be so bad'.
Reality: Braxton Hicks contractions are NOTHING like real contractions.

Myth: If they're tired, put them to bed and they'll go to sleep.
Reality: If she's tired she'll let you know by screaming and crying and kicking and wriggling and fussing and grizzling. In fact she'll do everything EXCEPT fall asleep.

Myth: All newborns do is sleep, eat and pee. If she's crying it will because of one of the above.
Reality: She cries if she's tired. She cries if she's hungry. She cries if you change her nappy. She cries if you put her down. She cries if you don't cuddle her. She cries if you DO cuddle her.

Myth: They will feed until they are full and then stop.
Reality: Yes she will feed until she is full, or until she falls asleep, whichever comes first. Most likely she will fall asleep first and then wake up 15 minutes later still hungry. And tired. And grumpy.

Having said all that, I am exaggerating a little bit. She doesn't cry all the time, but she certainly isn't shy about letting you know if she doesn't like something. In three weeks I have learnt a little bit about what Kathleen does and doesn't like.

LIKES:
- Cuddles
- People
- Going for walks
- Showers
- Daddy

HATES:
- Being put down
- Being left alone (i.e. in her cot)
- Having her nappy changed
- Baths

She is very good at nighttime though. Yes, she still wakes up in the middle of the night wanting a feed, but she will usually go straight back to sleep afterwards for a few hours. It's only during daylight that she doesn't want to sleep and then gets over-tired. She likes going for walks though and they usually put her to sleep. In the last couple of weeks I've walked around Beach Haven more than I ever have in the four years we've lived here. And have met more neighbours than I ever met in the last four years as well. And they all look at her and say "Isn't she beautiful. You forget how small they used to be".

More pics have been uploaded to Flickr in the last couple of days.

It's a Girl !

Introducing Kathleen Isabel Hamilton who was born at 1900 hrs on Saturday 21 January 2006 at North Shore Hospital in Auckland, weighing 3.135kg / 6lb 15oz. She was scheduled to be induced the previous day but this got put off until Saturday at 1130. The labour was mercifully short and all the gory details can be read about in Peter's blog.

As I write this she is now 5 days old and we are starting to learn about each other and enjoy all the new things together. Right now she spends most of her time either sleeping or eating, and is very well behaved. I have never been particularly clucky over babies but I have to say she is the most gorgeous little angel and I can't believe how beautiful she is. We have heaps of photos to be uploaded over the next couple of days so keep an eye on Flickr.

Big huge thanks to our midwife Taanya for helping to bring Kathleen into this world; to Lou and Peggy for their support before, during and after the birth; and of course to Peter for his love and support and for being there always.

No news yet

Just a quick update to advise that there is no news yet. Baby was due last Friday but is obviously too comfortable where they are to come out yet (or is too stubborn or procrastinating if they take after their mother at all!). We have been scheduled for an induction tomorrow, Friday. The reason for this is apparently something to do with my size and baby's growth and the midwife doesn't want to let it go longer than 41 weeks. So look out for an update on hamiltonz.net over the weekend.

We had another scan last week so that they could check on baby's size and make decisions about inductions etc. This time we actually got some printouts. Copies can be seen at Flickr. Attached is a copy of my favourite picture. If you turn your head to the right almost 90 degrees you should be able to make out eyes, nose, mouth and a little hand against the right cheek.

Season's Greetings

A big Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my friends and family. Although I caught up with some over the holiday period I was too slack to send out individual Christmas cards or emails this year. So if you're reading this I hope you had a really good Christmas and New Year.

Peter and I drove down to Palmerston North on Christmas Eve to spend Christmas with my best friend Lou. The traffic was surprisingly good. We had a really lovely Christmas Day, with Lou cooking a wonderful lamb roast (which I suspect she is still eating the leftovers from even now, as there was so much!). We all got some good pressies, with Nooboo being very spoilt indeed. Peter being the alpha-geek had the photos up on Flickr within half an hour of all the presents being opened!!!

Boxing Day we drove down to Wellington to catch up with my old friends for a picnic in Days Bay in the afternoon, and with Peter's friends for an evening of pizza, beer and board games. Was looking forward to playing Cranium as I thought it looked quite good, unfortunately it was a bit too easy for us. Perhaps it would be better played drunk! Definitely a good family game though as there's something for all ages.

Next day, being Tuesday, we drove back to Auckland on the commute from hell. Traffic crawled all the way from just north of Plimmerton all the way to Waikanae, taking an hour to travel that distance. And the politicians say Auckland's roads are the problem!

Before we knew it, it was New Years Eve and we had no plans. We had considered going to Gisborne (as neither of us have ever been there) but in the end decided it was just too far to drive. But we didn't just want to sit around the house, as we may not get the chance to go out and celebrate New Years for the next few years. So we ended up at the Copper Room in Takapuna where there was a live band playing and no cover charge. Music was great, atmosphere was great. Didn't dance but we still enjoyed ourselves and saw in the New Year in the traditional way.

Now it's a week into 2006 and Peter's mother Peggy and sister Mardie have arrived from Texas, back to live in NZ. Today we took them to Kelly Tarlton's to see the penguins and sting rays and sharks, followed by a stroll along Mission Bay eating ice cream in the hot sunshine. Can't get more of a Kiwi summer afternoon than that. And followed it up tonight with fish & chips for tea.

I'm now 39 weeks pregnant, so officially less than a week to go although I'm expecting it to go a bit longer. The whole pregnancy has gone really well and I have nothing to complain about. In fact I'm still enjoying it and aren't too uncomfortable (except when lying down) and can't believe it's almost over. Based on other people's stories I was expecting to feel fed up and exhausted by this stage but I don't. Everyone keeps commenting I look really good and very small. I still have heaps of energy (thank you Iron pills!) and apart from some swollen feet haven't really put on any extra weight at all.

Last week Peter and I went out and did a whole lot of shopping, and now have everything we need, at least for the short term. As time goes by we will find we need things we don't have, but at least for now we have all the big important purchases made.

So with the big day drawing close we will be sure to let everyone know the news as soon as there is anything to know. Expect photos to be posted on the web pretty much straight away!