I have a tendency to project. Always wanting to be at the next stage of life, always worrying about what’s next, definitely struggling to live in the now.
Today I sat with Audrey whilst she fed herself a yoghurt and her younger brother napped upstairs in his cot. I took a breath and marvelled at where I sat, how far we have come.
In Rex’s tiny speck of a lifetime (7 and a half months), he has gone from only sleeping in the sling or on me at night, to sleeping in a buggy, cot or sling, sleeping at night (in his Sleepyhead) in a cot from around 7pm to 4 or 5am. He sometimes even settles without a fuss. We sit and eat dinner without the sound of a crying baby and I sleep for one long stretch rather than I’m tiny 1 or 2 hours stints. He is eating well and taking formula happily now the booby is no more. He crawls, pulls to stand, cruises along the furniture, claps his hands and is a happy boy.
Audrey has taken independent steps, continues to amaze us with her language and has an ability to make me cry with joy on a daily basis.
Once upon a time, Audrey wouldn’t eat food off a plate (she was so used to the high chair table). We worked so hard to get her to eat off a plate, but she would only accept one piece of food at a time! I mention this because the other week at Whoopsadaisy I put cheese and crackers on her plate and someone said “She’s having different foods on the same plate now?” And it took me a while to understand what they meant! Because I had forgotten how hard we worked to get Audrey to accept a plate of varied food. Just like I can now give her a spoon and a yoghurt and she just eats (she used to get stroppy and say “Mummy do it!!”).
Audrey asks to use the potty, she often drinks from an open cup. Rex holds his own bottle, he responds well to us signing “milk” and “food”.
They achieve great things and all I can do is think “Yes, but I wish she fed herself every meal time..” Or “Yes, but I wish he was sleeping through until 6.30am…” I need to be satisfied with how far we have come!
I guess sometimes it feels like baby steps (no pun intended), but we are getting there – both of my beauties are coming along and making me proud every day.
This post is not about fighting my mother. Or indeed fighting my mother persona. It’s about being me versus being a mother. Yes I know you can do both. Not so sure I can though.
Women are all different of course and some are better at the “balance”(?) than others. I am back in the thick of being Mummy and not very me. Upon his arrival, Rex reset the dial to “maximum mummy” and I didn’t see it coming which was stupid considering I’d already been there, done that.
I feel like I’m wading through treacle even though everyone bangs on about “how quickly this time goes”, but I want to walk down the street alone, carrying a small handbag, maybe containing a book I’m half way through reading and meet a friend to sit and talk about crap for a couple of hours whilst drinking wine and nibbling cheese.
Instead I leave the house with a baby strapped to me, rucksack of many essentials on my back, pushing another child in a buggy. Often handing out breadsticks, constantly clock checking for nap times, feeding times, nappy changes. Worrying if little people are hot/cold/thirsty/have enough sun cream on. I can’t eat cheese because we think Rex is dairy intolerant (and I’m breastfeeding), I can’t drink copious amounts of wine as I’m told that’s not his thing either.
My hair is brown (with increasing grey) because my usual dabbling with fun colours is too much up keep. My clothes are functional, drool sodden and dull. I’m in need of a manicure, pedicure, wax, eye brow tidy up, massage… a full MOT basically. Yep, I feel a bit like an old car that needs a tune up.
Because I have been here before I know it will all come good. I can have silly hair again. I can wear clothes that don’t require access to my boobs, I can drink and eat what I fancy and I will one day spend time alone again. But it is so hard to imagine getting out when I am here; in the treacle, stuck to one child with another trailing behind.
And of course I see those mothers who don’t have to choose. They have their make up on, they are expressing or formula feeding and they are out and about enjoying themselves sans babies. Kids don’t hold them back, don’t change them. But I personally cannot get my head around it… I feel so very responsible for these mini-humans, they are my responsibility and Daddy is a helper. Yes I know this is stupid, but especially whilst I am on maternity leave, the baby is my “job” and it seems too early in the contract for taking a break.
Plus babies seem to make me a routine-obsessed-control-freak. Yes, I’m that fun!
When the fog lifts and I can be “me” again, I’ll try to enjoy it as best I can. I’ll do a little dance if I get a full night’s (unbroken) sleep, actually I’ll do a big dance. The entire Flashdance routine.
In the meantime I’ll dabble in me… Put on something nice (only for Rex to smoosh banana on it and puke on me). Blow dry my hair only for the wind and rain on a long buggy walk to completely enhililate it. But these are glimmers of hope as the fog lifts… I can almost see the Cos shopping spree and cocktail night somewhere on the horizon…
Photos to follow are a reminder of me before “Mummy” me…
San Fran 2009 and NYC 2012; freedom, hair, jewellery and fun:
I have a 3 year old daughter. She likes to play with my hair whilst she sucks her thumb.
She loves music and dancing.
She adores books.
She gives epic cuddles.
She likes watching Mr Tumble and Justin Bieber videos.
She reenacts ‘circle time’ from nursery at home with her toys.
She loves fruit.
Over-used phrases since she arrived include “I love you”, “You are so pretty”, “You are so clever”, “You make Mummy happy” and “Cuddles!”.
She is everything I ever dreamt my little girl would be and much more. As each day passes I see us together in the future; singing, shopping, scoffing popcorn at the cinema… All these simple things fill me with joy and excitement. My heart swells when I hear her call me “Mummy”.
…And I will just add that I still have to suffer the obligatory tantrums over presenting her with rice cakes instead of breadsticks or asking her to put her jacket on – it’s not all plain sailing.
But oh she is fabulous… Entertaining, amusing, cute as can be and incredibly emotionally intelligent (if she so much as sniffs a crack of upset in my voice she comes over “Y’ok Mummy?” – head tilted to one side in concern, offering a cuddle).
When we go out, I feel like I am proudly presenting her to the world; “Behold! My beautiful offspring!”.
The other night I put her to bed and laid down with my face next to her’s and said “I love you” and she stroked my face and said “I love you” right back. It was pure magic.
I fall more and more in love with her everyday.
Nothing out of the ordinary here, I assume many mums will read this and think, “Yes, sounds like a standard mother-daughter love.” And it is.
It’s just my daughter has Down’s Syndrome. So when she was born, someone gave me some news and some literature and it was like putting a sticker on her that said “This one is going to be a little bit rubbish and not meet your expectations”.
Poor Rex came into this world with Audrey’s footsteps (or bum-shuffle tunnel) to follow in.
We have been hard on him because he’s been hard on us. But at the end of the day (although the day never seems to end with him!), he’s just a baby. Granted, a more difficult one, but still…
People tell us he’s very cute. He’s a pretty boy. What a lovely baby. We say “Yeah he’s alright”.
It is hard to enjoy a baby that is unsettled and waking a lot a night. Sleep depravation has made me snappy and crazy at times. I want to adore him the way I adore Audrey, but I think that’s going to take some time.
Rex is almost 6 months old and we have come a lot way since the “sleeping on me” days, even if we haven’t quite reached the peak of happiness we are hoping for… Anyway, I can say lots of positive things about him, because in truth, he is a bonnie baby (as well as a mighty mighty sh*tbag).
1. He loves a laugh. When he has slept and fed, he is generally quite a happy soul and Rex thinks peekaboo, sneezes, bouncing balls and the door bouncer are lots of fun.
2. He adores his sister. He gazes at Audrey with love and finds her very entertaining, it’s such a lovely thing to see developing.
3. He is very curious about the world. He grabs everything and anything and he loves to explore.
4. He has amazing hair. Like a Muppet.
5. He has excellent leg chunk.
6. He has soft milky white skin like marshmallow.
7. He has my eyelashes (as does Audrey) – these will serve him well.
We love you Rex, you little monster! But you had better sleep better soon!
It really sucks to have two children when you spend 25 mins patting a baby to sleep (because then you’ll be free to focus attention on your toddler) and 10 mins into the nap the toddler wakes the baby up. And then you snap at the toddler for doing this. And then you cry and your toddler says “Y’ok Mummy?”. And then you can’t get the baby back to sleep, so the baby is crying and the toddler wants to play ball, but you snap; “Well we can’t play ball now because YOU woke him up, now Mummy has to see to him and we can’t play together, well done”.
And then you cry some more, because this is just a stupid thing to say to your toddler and actually you’re just so damn tired and now have no idea what to do with the baby. He won’t sleep. But if you feed him he probably will fall asleep on you. Which means you definitely can’t do anything with the toddler and will spend at least 45 minutes telling the toddler to be quiet and play on their own and not wake the baby. But the toddler may go out into the hall and make banging noises and play with things they’re not supposed to and you’ll prioritise the baby’s sleep.
Annnnd breathe.
Two non-walkers are bloody hard work. Especially when one wakes up a lot at night and naps best in a sling when out and about. It is exhausting and upsetting and at times I have questioned my mental health! And I feel pathetic for this. How many woman have had two kids with this age gap? Or even three kids to look after or more. It feels like… It can’t really be this hard, can it?
I’m also amazed at how much guilt I feel when having a “moment” with one and not the other. It’s weird sharing love. Audrey was such a total focus for us and now she’s lost some of that focus because we’ve added a baby brother into the mix. I feel bad about it, even though in the long run everyone will be happier for it.
But in this heatwave it sucks to have a baby strapped to your front and another to push up one of Brighton’s many hills in the buggy.
It sucks when one needs to be awake and the other needs to be asleep (and they often get this the wrong way around).
Or in the middle of the night when the baby has (finally) slept for a decent stretch but the toddler wakes up crying.
There are so many reasons that dealing with these two feels like a giant challenge at the moment, an uphill climb (with one kid attached to you and the other pushed in a buggy!!), but what will it be like once we reach the top? Only time will tell, but I am banking on this struggle having a happy ending. And I’m pretty sure it will. Hey, just look at the way Rex looks at his big sister…
The first decent latch after the tongue snip. Note my messed up hand thanks to a dodgy canula.
Hello, a second post in one week? With two kids?!? I don’t know how I’ve managed it, but I have!
It’s National Breastfeeding Week apparently. Although I do find all these “National Potato Day” and “Dog Walker Awareness Month” type things baffling (OK, I made that last one up), I thought I’d write a little something about breastfeeding since I’ve now done it twice with two very different experiences.
Baby number one (aka Audrey!):
No labour, emergency C-Section, surprise Down’s Syndrome diagnosis – a scary start to motherhood. Looking back I didn’t have time to consider that breastfeeding might not work out since I’d had a C-Section (which I understand can cause problems; your body needs to know it has given birth) and apparently babies with DS can struggle to breastfeed.Neither of these things were at the front of my mind when, around (20?) hours after she was born, I was taken up to try her on the boob.
I love the way Ted remembers this moment. He sees it (rightfully so), through rose tinted spectacles – a memory of a mother falling in love with her baby at the instant she brought her to her breast. There was a lot going on that’s for sure, but I do remember that nerve-wracking moment I was wheeled up to visit my poorly baby to try to feed her… And out came the boob, on went the baby… It worked! It was pretty exciting, although before that point we’d spent a day expressing collustrum in an embarrassing tricky manoeuvre involving my boob squeezing and Ted “hoovering” it up into a syringe. It was a bizarre experience.
And as breasfeeding progressed (in uncomfortable plastic chairs, surrounded by beeping machines, with my baby attached to various machines by wires and tubes), we were “lucky” enough to be thoroughly supervised by a lactation consultant. One who advised we use nipple shields intially to help with Audrey’s latch. This seemed to really help and within 8 weeks we were no longer using them and Audrey was breasfed until 8 months.
I do remember the early stage being stressful and uncertain, but once we found our groove, I could leave the house confident I had a boob, so she would be fine for food. It helps packing light.
Our main issue with Audrey in those days was the reflux – the rivers of puke. They thought a floppy larynx probably caused it, but she couldn’t keep her feeds down and we were covered in milk sick all the time. She was changed (no exaggeration) at least 5 times a day.
And when it came to saying goodbye to the boob, I was reluctant to let it go, it was sad, but then, Audrey was happy with a bottle and literally couldn’t care less at the change. We took away boob, put her in a cot and in her own room – all in the same week and got her sleeping through the night after one night of “training” (Ted going in for comfort when she woke instead of me feeding her). Job done. “Booby finished” as Audrey would say.
Baby number two (Rex):
My memory erased any issues I may have had with Audrey and when Rex popped out, I just hoped he wasn’t a puker and stuck him on. It seemed simple… But my nipples did hurt a bit… Then they hurt some more… Then they cracked and bled, oh joy. I think it was 7 days in that I cried out in pain so much that we decided something had to be done and that the NHS appointment several weeks away was not going to help. We paid for a private lactation consultant to come and snip the posterior tongue-tie and finally feeds were no longer so painful that I lived in fear of each one, flinching as I put my newborn to my breast *shudders at the memory*.
Well meaning midwives had said he latch looked OK and that I should persevere, that the nipples would heal soon, that perhaps he just needed to grow a bit. I’m glad we didn’t give up, but I’m also glad I didn’t just ride it out because a few more days of pain and I would have bulk-bought the Aptimil and sacked off the boob forever!
As it is, breastfeeding Rex is on the one hand fantastic, convenient, bonding, amazing… On the other hand a pain (we think he has a cow’s milk intolerance so I can’t eat dairy!). The funny thing is, I vowed to combi-feed with Rex (as we were eventually made to “top” Audrey up with formula to give her more calories and the bottle turned out to give us some independence), but because we think he’s intolerant, we can only give him prescribed formula… But I can only get the prescription by testing his intolerance by introducing dairy… And I can’t face him being a shit, even if it is just for one night. He basically writhes around with wind and wakes a lot. Which he does anyway, but less so when I’m not touching dairy. It’s frustrating to watch, hideous to wake up to and just a really exhausting aspect of having a baby. This time around I am thinking about switching to formula at 6 months and I cannot wait for Rex to be eating solids. I need him to sit up, get his wind out and sleep more!! Please!!
Anyway, ranting aside, breastfeeding is amazing if you can do it. I look down at him drinking from my body and I can’t quite believe it, it’s pretty magical. However it is also really hard for some (lots of) people and no one should take it for granted. I could so easily be formula feeding right now if we hadn’t paid privately to get his tongue snipped, I didn’t have the strength to keep going in pain, on the promise of midwives that it would get easier with time. The funny thing about time is… yes, 6 weeks is a speck in the scheme of a lifetime, but it’s a bloody long time when you have to keep a human alive by doing something scream-out-loud-painful about 10 times a day.
So let’s celebrate #nationalbreastfeedingweek but also not forget those who wanted to do it but couldn’t because it was bloody hard.
Blogging is actually pretty hard for me at the moment. Not least because for the majority of the day I have a baby strapped to me or feeding on me, but mostly because I am dead on my feet with a foggy brain but filled with things to say. Too much to get out and no time to devote to writing about it.
I want to attempt to tell you what it’s like to have a newborn and almost 3-year-old. Except I can’t tell you exactly what it’s like because it’s different for everyone. For every person that says “oh my God yes Rex sounds exactly like my first child – I had to build a fortress of cushions so that I could sleep with the baby propped on me at night!” there’s another person who says having two is a breeze; the second baby just slept all the time. That second group of people are how we ended up in this mess.
I want to talk about Audrey and how much she has changed. She is literally gaining new skills every day, from crawling and climbing, to more words and confident interaction with her peers. I want to boast about her, talk about how proud we are… But also moan because she’s being stroppy and playing games to get mummy attention.
I want to moan about giving up dairy, because I bloody love cheese and milkshakes and cake and… but I also want to brag about how much it’s helped Rex to settle. He’s a different baby. Oh and even with a dramatic diet change I can find a way to eat crap – Oreos are dairy-free you see and so are dodgy chewy sweets and marshmallows.
And of course Rex settling means I want to finally say – he’s gorgeous! He’s beautiful! Still hard work (babies are), but now we get joy from him and I can see the light at the end of this tunnel – it no longer seems so far. We need to get him sleeping independently, but we’ll crack it eventually.
I want to moan about how much babies age you- I’ve always felt and looked a bit younger than I am. People would generally be surprised by my age. I am definitely 37 now. I have two kids and the dark eye circles to prove it. Eek.
And the mummy guilt, oh the guilt! Maybe I will save that for another post…
So much to cover, all of which I planned to be several long blog posts of my ramblings, but there you have it, I’ve told you in one for now. And I’ve done it all with a baby sleeping in my arms, who has unfortunately woken up because my leg was going dead and I had to move it. Bloody kids.
A friend came to visit Rex for the first time the other day. I was explaining how tough we were finding number two, how his nights were getting better, but still appalling, that he was so rarely chilled and happy, that breastfeeding had been a struggle, that the labour wasn’t great, recovery was a shock, that I never wanted to do this again… My usual rant!
Now, I know this sounds like a depressive visit, but we had lunch and a laugh (promise) and Rex slept on her for over an hour and then fed and slept on me for over an hour, so he appeared to be quite easy.
Anyway, this friend has two grown up children and had easy births, easy breastfeeding experiences, easy babies… She maintains the teenage years are the hardest, so god help us!
Since her visit, something she said has stayed with me. It was along the lines of; “Well I remember visiting you after you had had Audrey and just thinking how amazingly you were coping – because you had a lot to deal with; the Down’s Syndrome, the oxygen, the emergency c-section… And you were taking it all in your stride. Now you have a more common situation and you’re freaking out! This is dealing with a newborn, you’ve handled a newborn with lots of other challenges, this should be the easy bit!” And I guess she’s right. We’ve forgetten what we went through; having a baby in the special care baby unit for 3 weeks and bringing her home attached to an oxygen canister for 6 months, that’s not a standard start. But I know most will consider the shock of a baby with Down’s Syndrome and how awful that must have been. I don’t want to trivialise this, it was like a grieving process, it was rough, but somewhere down the line Audrey became more than Down’s Syndrome. She became our daughter, the one we planned for and made with love and that period of confusion has become so insignificant in the scheme of things.
Having Audrey, learning from her, knowing her, it outweighs the initial upset a billion times over. As a cheesy social media motivational quote would say: You have to experience the dark to appreciate the light.
And so we come back to Rex; we’re in a dark time and hopefully we’ll appreciate him more once we get out into the light?!
In the meantime, I’ll try to remember this is what millions of people are experiencing right now – sleep deprivation and an unsettled baby. It will get better… But please let that be soon.
Well little Rex arrived and turned me into a hormonal exhausted mess.
I couldn’t handle not just the level of care he required, but also the way it took me away from activities with Audrey. Suddenly I can’t cuddle her on demand or sit with her playing all afternoon. I know she won’t remember, but I find it heart wrenching. I love her so much. I love cuddling her.
Having a second child hasn’t just rocked our world in terms of how tiring/stressful it is, it’s made me realise that much of what we went through having Audrey wasn’t about her having Down’s Syndrome. We always questioned it – we couldn’t decide if at the beginning we were reeling from the shock of the c-section or of her diagnosis. We’d never had a baby, so we didn’t know what it felt like, how you bond, how you love them. Film and TV would have you believe the baby comes out and is placed on the mother to immediate love and bliss. Both parents are instantly in love.
This is not our experience. Feelings for Audrey and Rex in the first weeks were quite functional. With both I felt quite shocked just to have a human suddenly on me – it’s quite something to get your head around – bump to baby. There’s relief that they are alive and then you just sort of numbly get on with things in a fog of “what on earth has happened??”.
The love part… Well we’ve found it takes time. You get to know them, their face, their smell. The bond grows slowly and then, when they become a little person who interacts and really shows some personality, wow, the love starts to peak – it’s like you’ve fallen for them after a romance.
It’s no secret I’m not a fan of the newborn stage. They are basically still a parasite but now live outside your body. You do everything for them and what do they give back? Ok, they are cute and cuddly, but they cry a lot. And poo a lot. They puke on you. They wake you up. And if you’re really lucky they might make your nipples bleed. Lovely.
But then they smile for the first time (Rex did last week, hurrah!) and they see you more and coo and almost play… And of course (please achieve this soon Rex!), they go longer between feeds.
So of course I know this love grows and it gets better and better, but oh how hard it is to remember that with an unsettled baby to contend with. Every week gets better, but it’s still hard. Parenting is hard work.
I still remember chatting to a friend who doesn’t have kids, about how she’d like a nanny to just do all the hard stuff – the night feeds etc. And we had Audrey and I told her she wouldn’t feel like that once she had a baby – yes it’s tough losing out on sleep, but ultimately you want to be the one feeding your baby. It’s all part of how your bond grows. Going through the tough stuff together gets you to the fun part! And now I have to remind myself of that when Rex is wide awake for over an hour at 3am or when he’s screaming in pain from wind whilst on my shoulder. I need to do all this, no one else can – what’s the point of having kids? This is my job, my journey and at the end there is a big reward. We are already reaping the benefits with Audrey.
Just think what these two crackers will be like together as best friends!
Look at us. A mother and son cuddling, such bliss. But of course this pic tells little of the realities of having a newborn. I don’t want this to be a negative rant, but I do want to share what we are going through right now… I mean, this blog may be filled with positive Audrey stories, but it’s really about our life and how having a child with DS doesn’t make our life that different to other family’s. So although I share a lot of positivity, it’s not because I’m sugar coating, she’s a joy.
Where we are now: Rex is 1 month old. He only sleeps in the sling (preferably whilst someone is pacing) or on us with some additional pats and jiggles as required. He likes to feed every 2-3 hours and he doesn’t like to lie still on his own for longer than about 5 minutes. He is currently a very difficult newborn and I am soldiering on with breastfeeding despite the early part being incredibly hard. In fact, it’s still hard. But they say it takes 6 weeks to establish breasfeeding, so in a couple of weeks we will hopefully be in a better place. I live in hope.
I recognise that each stage with a baby is a tiny speck of time in context of our lives – one day this kid will be festering in his teenage bedroom and I’ll be dragging him out of bed. But right now, I am dealing with the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do… and I’ve dealt with a surprise Down’s Syndrome diagnosis and my father dying… But this, this is another level – it’s intense 24 hour work.
Of course Ted is a massive help – he is now in charge of Audrey am and pm before and after his full working day and all day on days off. Because very often, it’s only boob that will work for Rex. And that in itself is so hard. I’m striving to make breasfeeding work; to give him the best start in life etc,, increase our bonding, secure his immunity to various things… That’s all great, but oh the commitment to being there for him every 2-3 hours, when it can take an hour to feed and then settle him! And when he can’t be put down – where is the respite for me? I use that word – because with a “disabled” child you are given a lot of leaflets about support etc and respite care comes up a lot. Hey, maybe in the future Audrey will be a handful and we’ll want that option, but so far, no need. A newborn however – can they send over a respite carer for us now??
I guess I also feel robbed. We had a rough start with Audrey, I thought our “typical” baby experience would involve more blissful bonding and time to appreciate the life we created, no grieving, no confusion or worries, lots of gazing at him lovingly. But Rex isn’t letting us enjoy him. He is too needy for gazing. I’m genuinely terrified about how we “crack” the sleeping issue. How will he learn to sleep lying alone and still, when he currently sleeps upright and moving? Even on me in bed I spend much of the time patting him when he stirs (so often my sleep time isn’t real sleep time, it’s like being on watch for enemy attacks and dosing in between).
As I type this post I am pacing the house with Rex in the sling. Audrey is watching kids’ TV with her mouth open. If I sit down to rest, Rex starts grizzling and I have to get up and pace again. I’m exhausted, emotional and can only see a long stretch of this ahead of me… I’m partly documenting this so that in a year or so (whenever the crazy thought arises) I can make a sensible decision about getting broody again; i.e; two is enough! Don’t let me do this again, please!!
awesomeaudreyemily 