First plane trip

When Charlotte was just 7 weeks old, she had her first plane trip. B's cousin was getting married in Cairns and we made the trip up there to see him get married (it was my first time in Cairns). B, myself and B's dad travelled with Charlotte on the plane and I was really impressed with how easily she made the trip. She sucked her dummy through take-off and landing and showed no sign at all that she was in any way upset or bothered by the flight or what the altitude might being doing to her ears.

Here we are on the plane getting ready to take off...

The wedding was lovely and it gave us a chance to introduce Charlotte to a lot of B's mother's family. His aunts were there and were happy to fawn over Charlotte which was great to see. Unfortunately we don't have a picture of her all dressed up for the wedding, but she made it into the formal wedding photos so soon we'll have a memory of that day when J and S gives us a copy of the photo.

The Cairns trip meant that Charlotte had to sleep in a porta-cot for the first time (provided by the hotel). It was so cute to see her sleep in a 'big bed' (relatively speaking). It made us realise that we probably could take her out of the bassinet at home (thus returning the rental!) and we could start using our own porta-cot in our room. She didn't wake herself up nearly as much because she didn't have anything to bang her arms into like she did in the bassinet!

So from this point onwards, Charlotte started sleeping in the porta-cot. Eventually, when the weather gets nicer, we'll move her into her regular cot in her own room. I'm looking forward to that because the big cot has a proper inner-spring mattress which has to be better than porta-cot mattresses. We have a second foam mattress in the porta-cot but I think it's far too soft for her and when I pick her up each morning I see the indentation where her head has been resting through the night. I think a firmer mattress might actually allow her to sleep more comfortably. But the nursery gets far too cold overnight at the moment for her to be in there at this age, so we'll wait until spring to move her into there. It's the coolest room in summer which will be good, and then next year we'll invest in a good heater for her to use over winter.

We have two more plane trips coming up, a trip to Adelaide in November and then hopefully if I get my paper accepted, a trip to Chicago next July. That's going to be the big one that I'm not really looking forward to but if this trip to Cairns is anything to go on, she should take it all in her stride.

Two months old and still growing!

By the time Charlotte was two months old, she was pretty much completely in 000 clothes - the speed at which she was out-growing her clothes (and still does) completely amazed me. Babies grow fast!! I wish I really did listen to friends and paid more attention to what I read in books when I was told not to buy too much stuff early on because you'll just never use/wear it. How true that is! I have some really gorgeous outfits in Charlotte's closet that she has never, ever worn because she grew so quickly and simply could not wear that many clothes.

It's hard to know what to do with the old clothes. If I were younger or more 'committed' (?) to being a parent, I would probably say to myself "I'll put them aside for the next baby". But in this case, there isn't going to be another baby. But I can't bring myself to get rid of them because I feel they haven't been appreciated enough or looked at enough :-( I could sell them on ebay, but I probably wouldn't get enough for them to really justify the effort (or to reflect what I feel their true value is, in a more emotional way). So for now, the outgrown clothes have been vacuum packed into bags and stored in the wardrobe. Who knows, maybe Charlotte will play dress-up with her dolls one day?

At two months, Charlotte's smiles were becoming more frequent, but still rather random in nature. They weren't always related to something we'd said or done, but it was nice to get the recognition all the same ;-)

One thing I really noticed was how easily soothed Charlotte was by B's voice. Whether it was his tone or the fact that she didn't hear it as often as mine and therefore was more of a novelty, she would almost instantly behave better when she heard him speak. Of course, this meant that the 'devil child' I complained about to B as soon as he got home from work had all but disappeared for him when he started the 6pm feed. Who'd have thought my life would turn into that stereotype - being the harried, stuck-at-home Mum with a crying baby who complains about said baby to hubbie, only to have the bub start to behave perfectly as soon as hubbie walks through the door. That's a picture I really don't find amusing!

We were still having some feeding troubles at this point and at one point I wondered if she was mildly lactose intolerant. But I realised that if she were lactose intolerant, then she'd probably not be quite as settled as she was after her feed and would be quite distressed after each feed. She did show some occasional signs of distress, but certainly not after each feed. So once again, I had to just keep believing it would all get better in time and I should stop worrying and just enjoy my baby!

I had a visit with my friend J around this time who helped me do a feed. It was interesting to hear her say how 'tense' Charlotte felt after the feed, like she wasn't as settled and relaxed as I thought she was. After J pointed this out to me, I realised I had noticed this as well and wondered what I could do about it. Partly I think it was Charlotte 'feeding' off me and my stress with her regurgitation, but I think she might also not be taking her formula as well as I once thought she was. You really could feel her whole body was quite tense after her feed, as she tried to burp and process her food. So I made the decision to move from the cheaper Heinz formula to the more expensive Nan formula and see if this made a difference. In fact, I think it did. After that point, Charlotte regurgitated her food a little less and she seemed to lose some of the rigidity and tension I felt in her body after a feed. Whether it was just me becoming more relaxed or her actually taking the formula better, for what ever reason, I felt we were starting to get somewhere with her feeding problems.

Charlotte being comforted by J after her feed

Six weeks old

I have made things difficult for myself by going back and reliving things with these posts. If I was really smart, I would have been blogging as I went, but unfortunately the transition to becoming a new mum was far too over-whelming for me!

My memory of Charlotte at six weeks was of a baby who was very much starting to respond to her environment. While she didn't yet have the hand-eye coordination or strength to deliberately grab at things, she was certainly making a good attempt. Her play mat (below) become more fun for her as she was able to see the toys better. She also started to see the toys in her stroller better and made half-hearted attempts to grab at them (well, they looked half-hearted but I know that's not actually the case - she just didn't have the capacity to be full-hearted about it!)

She was definitely starting to smile at us, although her smiles weren't frequent or regular. Still, when they did occur, we knew they weren't just wind for a change!

I also remember this period being the time when I first noticed Charlotte starting to get more head control. I couldn't yet pick her up and have her hold her head high, but she needed less support from us while feeding and was able to look around for a few seconds before getting all wobbly. Sometimes, though, the power of the milk was just too strong and her head would need lots of support!... LOL

Unfortunately, Charlotte was still chucking up her food quite a lot at 6 weeks. We were assured that she would eventually grow strong enough muscles (internally) to stop this from happening, but I shed quite a few tears as I watched Charlotte bring up close to half of what she drank at each meal. There was no predicting when it would come up or on what, which made it even harder to cope with. But we were thankful that she was what the books referred to as "a happy chucker", meaning she didn't seem to experience any discomfort or pain. So she didn't have reflux, just "an immature sphincter". It was a nuisance and meant we went through lots of bibs, but other than that, she was feeding well. She was still putting on weight (lots of weight!) and certainly didn't appear to suffer as a result of the regurgitation, so we knew it was just a matter of time.

(As I write this now, some 8 weeks later, Charlotte has all but stopped regurgitating her food. And despite how upset I was about it at the time, I don't actually think I noticed when she stopped! It's funny how these things work...)

It was still over-whelming being a new parent with a 6 week-old baby, but things were slowly getting better and we were slowly starting to develop a routine. One thing I'll always be thankful for was that Charlotte was a good sleeper. While she didn't sleep through the whole night or anything like that, she went to bed at night without much fuss and slept a predictably solid 5-6 hours before needing another feed. So even with the chucking up, I still felt we were rather lucky and had a pretty fantastic baby :-)