Another 2 weeks down! Nathan is now doing lots of rolling, though so far he only rolls from his back to his front by rolling over his left arm, and back using the reverse. When he’s on his tummy he wriggles his legs as if he’s desperate to crawl, and sometimes he even gets his bum off the ground, but so far no proper crawling. He just continues to inch around the mat, but with a little rolling as well, he can move a little bit.

Nathan has also started to giggle occasionally, but rarely for as long as the first time which was a mixture of giggling, hiccuping and squealing.

Nathan’s become more tolerant of car travel and being in the pram, though he still doesn’t like spending a lot of time in either. Andrew bought a great toy to go on the pram, and Nathan just loves it! It’s a dragon on elastic, but the dragon is made up of a lot of different coloured wooden pieces and bells, and Nathan loves to chew/suck on them. And my secret weapon in the car is to sing ’10 green bottles’ as loudly as I can. I don’t know why that song makes him stop crying (as long as it’s not a scream) or grizzling, but it has successfully worked several times on many different occasions now. Eh, it will be something else in a week or two, I guess.

Nathan has also started to suck his bottom lip…he does it quite regularly. We haven’t a clue why he’s doing it. And finally, he’s been a bit more wakeful at night, and can wake up screaming (that happens day or night). It’s not a nice way for him to wake up, and not nice for Andrew and I either. The hammock is still working quite well, and those nights when Nathan won’t feed to sleep, he always succumbs to the bouncing hammock. Unfortunately it can take up to half an hour to get him soundly asleep, and by that time I’m falling asleep myself!

Hmmm….what’s this?

Ooohhh, tasty!

Oh yeah!!!

Me? I’m not doing anything Mum.

My grandparents were dairy farmers, my aunt and uncle were dairy farmers, so when I was growing up I spent a bit of time in a dairy.  I’ve put the cups on the cows teats and have seen the milk flow, suctioned by vacuum and fill up the refrigerated vat.  So I guess I’m a little surprised that the same doesn’t hold true for me.  I have a type of cup, a pump that delivers a vacuum, so why doesn’t the milk flow??

I want to learn how to express milk so that I don’t have to give up breastfeeding when I start work.  It is still a couple of months away, but I like to be prepared.  The problem is that it doesn’t work!  I get one squirt, then drop after precious drop and then nothing.  I reposition and try again and I get some more drops.  I turn the vacuum up, I change the number of suctions per minute, I look at photos or video of Nathan, or even Nathan himself, I try ignoring the pump and concentrating on reading or playing on the computer, I try expressing before Nathan feeds, after Nathan feeds, even during a feed, and nothing works.  I probably collect an average of about 10 ml of milk in a session, with my maximum around 20 ml.  At this rate it takes me days to express enough for 1 feed for Nathan!!

After 3 weeks of trying to express, I have little to show for my efforts besides tender nipples and about 200 ml of milk in the freezer.  I’m coming to the heartbreaking conclusion that unless it all clicks soon, returning to work will mean weaning Nathan.

Swinging at Gabe and Julie’s house

Nathan is 4 months old tomorrow….already! Julie weighed him on her bathroom scales on Sunday and he came in at 6.8 kg fully clothed and holding his taggy blanket, so I guess he’s around 6.5 kg. He is an absolute delight, although there are always moments…usually late at night…when I might think differently for just that moment. He is quite strong in his back, neck and legs now so that he sits well in the Bumbo and even sat well for a gentle swing on the weekend. He is so very interested in everything that goes on around him, just as you can see the concentration in his face in the photo below. Old MacDonald is a regular at bath time, which is great except I’m sure that Nathan will grow up thinking that sheep are blue with bright pink faces. lol.

Old MacDonald had a farm, E I E I O. And on his farm had had a pig, sheep, chicken, horse, cow and duck. E I E I O.

Nathan is quite happy to play by himself for lengthening periods of time. We set up a corner of the flat for his play mat and toys, and we got a baby gym so that he could play with toys hanging above instead of always having toys beside him. It takes a lot of effort and concentration to grasp the catterpillar hanging from the baby gym, but dissapointingly (as far as Nathan is concerned) it just won’t go in his mouth! The baby gym itself has become a toy…he lifts it and pushes it around. Nathan also wriggles and rolls around on his rug.

Nathan is very vocal when he plays with one toy in particular. We call it his ‘squishy’ since it has elastic and you can pull or squash it however you like and it goes back to it’s original shape in an instant. Every end of the toy has to go in Nathan’s mouth. The only thing I worry about is that when one end is in his mouth, some of the other ends are very close to his eyes, and often hits his eyes with the toy. Still, he talks and talks to it, for the entire time he plays with it. I can’t work out if he’s grumpy with the toy or not! Andrew says he’s having philosophical discussions with his Squishy.

Playing with ‘Squishy’

Nathan is still not a great sleeper during the day. I’ve spent many hours walking while he slept in the Ergo carrier, or sitting on the couch holding him. So many people shake their heads and tell me I should just put him in his cot and shut the door and let him cry to sleep, but both Andrew and I think that’s an awful thing to do….it is essentially deliberately upsetting him and then not going to sooth him. Personally, I would hate to be so upset that I cried myself to sleep and had noone to give me a hug to make me feel better. So, in an attempt to find a way to get Nathan to sleep without being held and without leaving him to cry, we bought him a hammock. It’s not the total solution to these sleep issues, but I think it’s fantastic. When Nathan is tired I pop him in the hammock and bounce it (really hard) for 10 – 15 minutes and he’s alseep. I do need to keep it bouncing for quite a while, so I can’t leave the hammock for really long periods of time, but it gives me a sort of freedom to do things other than hold the baby. The Ergo carrier is still the best way to get Nathan to sleep….when I go shopping he puts himself to sleep when he needs to with no effort from me (except I have to carry him), and he sleeps best there, but the hammock is certainly working well. Nathan still has about a 30 minute sleep cycle and he often wakes and won’t go back to sleep after 30 minutes, and he also has violent ‘starts’ that will often wake him as well. I hope he grows out of them soon, as I find them very frustrating.

Nathan asleep in his hammock

So all in all we are just loving parenthood, and Nathan gets more fun to be around every day. And even though I was never planning to co-sleep with Nathan, I love that I can feed him without getting out of bed (sometimes, doesn’t always work) and I simply adore Nathan’s smiles when he wakes in the morning and we spend 5 minutes (with Daddy as well) smiling and chatting before getting up for breakfast.

An exciting thing happened on the weekend…I was in the car with Andrew and Nathan, and I travelled in the front passenger seat. That hasn’t happened since Easter!