Parenting aids

Our first visit to the baby clinic this week went well. For a start, the community nurse was great. She gave us lots of practical advice, probably repeating a few of the things said the previous week by the home visit nurse, but in a much more affable and less judgemental way. Zoe peed all over her changing table, but I think that is par for the course when running a baby clinic. The most interesting advice, repeated by absolutely everyone since Zoe was born, was that I should get a dummy. This time I listened. The nurse noted that babies need sucking time, as distinct from feeding time, and Zoe has been having both of these at my boob, meaning that some evenings she has been almost permanently attached for 5 or 6 hours. This has been quite draining, given that when she is in this mood, she is quite grizzly and finds it difficult to latch on. She had also managed to gain 330g in a week, which is apparently well above the average gain expected, so there is no question of her not getting enough milk.

So the upshot is we went straight to the chemist and purchased some dummies. It was pretty distressing giving her the dummy that night, and I cried when she did manage to take it. It not only looked stupid, this big piece of brightly coloured plastic concealing almost a third of her face, but I also felt as if I had somehow failed her, despite never really ruling a dummy out. But that didn't last long, once I realised that in the break between evening feeds I could sit through dinner and even have a glass of wine. Joy. I'm also pleased that in the days since, she doesn't always accept the dummy, so maybe this will only be a short term measure for helping her settle in the early evening? I've also started to use the automatic rocking seat that Zoe's cousin has lent us a bit more frequently; I well embrace as many parenting aids as I can. As well as swinging back and forth, the chair has a ring of stuffed ducks attached that move around above her head, and she seems genuinely enchanted by these.

Thankfully Zoe's dad could come to the baby clinic with us, as it was his rostered day off. This meant he could work out how to fit the pram in my car. We hadn't thought of that [well, I hadn't]. It is a bit tricky. so much so that yesterday I simply took the sling when I needed to go down town. If the baby is fed and relaxed, she's quite happy to lie in there and doze on and off, although we need some more practice getting her in and out gently.

Today we are staying home all day, hoping to re-establish some of the great sleeping-feeding patterns we had going. It seems that yesterday's trip into town might have thrown things off, and as a consequence, we had a much more unsettled night that usual.