My Bobble-Head Baby: A Bobble-Headed Baby is Born

Dear Bobble Head,

Or should I begin more formally than that?

Dear Alexandra Olivia Grace Harris, to be known to us as Lexi (until you decide otherwise!)

So here you are at last - its been about two weeks now since you finally decided to get yourself born. Like your sister you decided to put things in motion at the last minute, and so the day before my elective c-section, at about ten pm, contractions started. They never got the chance to get that bad because we decided to go with the section.

Considering that you were born at 10lbs 8 that was probably a smart decision, although I think less about your size and more about the fact that you didn't engage even once labour had started. People have delivered bigger babies naturally - I think once you start talking about pushing something that is the size of even the smallest baby out of your lady-bits, a few pounds probably makes very little difference. But I digress.

So the C section wasn't the best experience ever. We thought it would be nicer than the emergency c section we had with your sister. Oh how wrong. I may write about that later - I don't want to write about it now, I'm enjoying starting your blog and don't want to begin on a downer. Suffice it to say that the whole thing was more traumatic and painful than advertised, and then you were taken away and put in special care for three days. Not nice.

On the up side, we got some breast milk into you and you were given back shortly after that. And so I started getting to know you. And one of the first things I noticed was the strength of your neck and the weight of your head. It came screeching to my attention when I picked you up and in response you threw your head back and I nearly dropped you right there in Special Care. Not a great start. But it taught me to keep two hands on you at all times - forget 'support the head' - I DO support your head, of course, but I think more in terms of 'control the head'. And so your nickname was born and kind of stuck - for better or worse you became my bobble-head baby. Hence the name of your blog.

We had been preparing your sister for your arrival for some time, and although it's obvious she feels somewhat marginalised, she's not taking this out on you (so far) but is rather trying to goad Mummy and Daddy into previously unexplored paroxyms of rage. In general we are resisting the urge to rise to the bait - this is facilitated by your generous acceptance of the Gina Ford regime, which we started to implement by the time you were about five days old. This has led to something marvellous - miraculous - it's called SLEEP, and it is a great enabler of not only contented little babies, but contented little parents too. So yay for Gina Ford! (So not the awful, Nazi baby rearing system I was expecting it to be - why is she so misrepresented?...)

Keeping you awake is pretty difficult at this point but you are managing to stay awake a little longer each day and generally you only wake once between midnight and seven am, which is fabulous. Various methods we use to wake you up include undressing you, tickling you, changing your nappy, putting you on the floor (safely), giving you a little blanket bath, putting some baby cream on your peely bits (you have post-mature skin peeling on your legs and feet, which is totally normal but the creaming wakes you up, even if it doesn't actually stop you from peeling at this point) and if we're really desperate, we give you a bath. When you sleep through the bath we know that you aren't for waking and leave it alone.

It occurs to me that you are benefitting from all that we learned while trying to figure out what to do with the baby that was Georgie.

We didn't know that babies needed to sleep regularly, that they would cry for lack of sleep as well as for food, that sleep and food could be regulated in order to encourage you to sleep more at night, that sometimes soothing a baby to sleep would create sleep problems that led to years of interrupted sleep for every member of the family and that babies often wake up and cry for five minutes before going back to sleep on their own.

No one told me that if a baby falls asleep feeding, it hasn't necessarily had enough food and if the child is hungry half an hour to an hour later, then perhaps you should (shudder! gasp!!) wake that sleeping baby (if you can!) Poor Georgie - poor me! We muddled through her babyhood and of course we got there in the end but how much more sleep could have been mine (and how much more milk she could have taken in one sitting if I had been in the know!)

I have not become cruel over the last two years but I am no longer afraid to let a baby cry. What your routine gives me is confidence - if you are crying at it's time to feed, then I feed you. If you're crying and it's time to sleep, then I put you to bed. If you are crying for no apparent reason and I'm pretty sure you aren't hungry or tired, I feel that it's safe to take a step back and see if you can settle yourself. Thanks to the routine I know when it's best to stay at home and when (and how) to go out.

For me, getting through the day with sanity in tact is about organisation and the routine helps me to be organised - mothers are the original boy scout and we are nothing if not prepared. I have seeded my bags, my car, my pram and my general environment with nappies, wipes, toddler snacks etc. so that if I forget one bag, I have back-ups everywhere - not because I'm so clever and wonderful and perfect but because I know I'm NOT! At regular intervals I will be distracted by a toddler tantrum, I will have had a bad night with a teething baby, and I'll forget something small but vital. When that happens, my backup emergency kits that can be found in my handbag, my car, my pram, my back-up pram etc. will save me. And if all else fails, I can prevail upon a passing mother to help me - after all, we all know what it can be like.

Anyhoo...

People keep asking me if I think you look like Georgie, or telling me how much you look like Georgie, or your Daddy and so on. And of course they are right (why are they so surprised that you look like people you're related to?! That always makes me laugh!) You have the same shaped mouth as Georgie and me - it will be interesting to see if you're as mouthy as we are - chances are you will be, but time will tell...

So who do you look like? You have your Gran's eyebrows, just like Georgie. You have a different hairline though, I think, to hers - I'll have to check the photos...You are dark like Georgie was and may well also lighten as you get older. You have different colour eyes - Georgie's were slate grey that went to cadbury brown, like your Daddy's. Your eyes were dark at first but now seem to be going blue, which may mean that you will have eyes like mine (which are grey/green). Or you could end up with eyes of your own original shade. You don't seem to have Georgie's eyelashes, which are dark and thick and long. You may have inherited Nanny's and my short eyelashes - or perhaps yours are yet to come. You have my colour skin, I think, which means you won't burn easily and you'll tan in good weather in about three seconds (I don't care about having a tan but I love how it annoys all those with complexions of milk! :-D). You manage to look like all of us and simultaneously you are unmistakably yourself, and every day I come to understand that self a little bit better.