Autumn

Autumn is probably my favourite season. I can't think of a better time of year to be holed up at home with a newborn either. Both of my babies are September babies and this time of year will forever remind me of the happy days spent at home with them as tiny babies. There couldn't be better weather to stay indoors with a hot cup of tea and a cinnamon bun, scented candles lit around the house. It's the perfect weather to snuggle down together for an afternoon nap, waking up such as dusk starts to settle.

Equally it's still mild enough to escape the house when we're feeling claustrophobic. Perfect weather for picking blackberries and apples, for hunting for conkers and acorns in the woods, choosing the perfect Halloween pumpkin and wearing warm flannel shirts, bobble hats and wooly gloves for the first time in months. By the time February arrives, the hats are a pain, we long to be able to dash out of the house without wrapping up first. But in September and October, those warm woolies still feel like such a cosy treat to pull on before adventures outside. 

So for the next couple of weeks you'll find us in the woods, my pockets will be full of conkers, our tummies full of warm drinks and blackberries foraged from the bushes. I'll be making the most of pumpkin spiced lattes and PJ afternoons at home, snuggled up with my two little boys, heating on, candles lit. What could be better?

We were together

"We were together, I forget the rest' - Walt Whitman 

Being a new mummy is amazing. It is stressful; there are good days and bad. Days you think will never end and days you never want to end. There are days you laugh all day and days you cry. Having a baby so reliant on you to feed them and to change them and to settle them and to love them is so intensely amazing one moment and incredibly suffocating the next. There are days when you don't want to leave them for even a second and days when you just need 5 minutes to yourself. Days when you mourn the life you had before and days when you realise how empty and unimportant life was back then. Plans you have to cancel, friends you can't see. First smiles, crawls, steps, words, personalities forming. Moments lasting only seconds that far outweigh any long, difficult hours. You love your tiny new baby like no other; a fierce protective love that you've never experienced before. But with that love comes intense vulnerability - the worries, the 'what ifs'. 

These days, the days of 'just us' are perfect. Not the perfect you'd expect - plans have still been cancelled, tears have still been shed, feelings of suffocation felt, nights spent awake worrying. But still perfect. I don't want them to end. The days of just being together. The other details don't and won't matter. We were together. 

A little update

My blog has been a bit neglected over the past few weeks and the reason is simply because having two little children is time consuming! I used to update my blog during night feeds a lot with Henry, mainly because he would be awake for well over an hour at a time and I needed something to help me to stay awake. Luckily for me (but not for the blog), Archie is only ever really awake for 20mins at a time and only twice a night still. We've had a few nights with only one feed which is amazing and he generally does 3-4 hour stretches of sleep at a time (4.5 is his longest so far). I therefore don't need anything to occupy me during those long, dark hours and I often just feed sitting up in bed with my eyes closed until I feel him stop feeding, relax, and then I can lie him down again. 

In fact, as I write this, I had planned to be feeding him his last feed before bed and thought I'd have half an hour to get this written, but he's gone off already, is fast asleep in his Sleepyhead and I'm going to make the most of every minute of sleep I can get. This blog post is being saved in my drafts and will have to be finished at a later date!! 

2 days later and I've found ten minutes to continue with this post!

We are doing well. I feel, at almost six weeks in, that I finally know my little boy. I know what every tiny sound means, I know his cries and I know his routine. Mornings tend to be his worst time, he needs to sleep but doesn't drop off easily. He never fully settles into a deep sleep, having little feeds and dozing a lot. Unfortunately mornings tend to be our busiest time and the times when I need to put him down to make breakfasts, put washing in, brush hair and teeth, dress Henry and myself, pack our bag for the day etc. The list goes on. Anyway, things are considerably less stressful if we move according to Archie's schedule, so we tend to fit all of those things in around his feeding and often hope that he'll have a car sleep to cheer him up when he's over tired and grumpy. I'm going to make more of an effort to have quieter mornings and do things on an afternoon for a few weeks though. It's not great because it means I can't nap with the boys, but it will mean less crying and hurried trips to feed him in various places when he starts to scream in his pram. Luckily afternoons are way better, he basically sleeps and wakes every few hours for a big feed before dropping off again. It's the time to get washing hung out, washing up done, any tidying done and of course, time with Henry to play games and do jigsaws - things that aren't so easy with a newborn baby awake and wanting feeding. We often have a nap all together in one bed for the afternoon too which is one of my favourite things to do. The washing up can wait on those days; my babies will never be this small and cuddly and beautiful ever again. One day they won't want to nap, especially with me, so I'm making the most of those  quieter days too. 

Archie weighs a whopping 13lb as of Monday (5 weeks) moving him to the 98th centile and it also means he's gained over 4lb in his first 5 weeks. The health visitor was really happy with that, reassured me that it's impossible to overfeed a breastfed baby and sent us on our way again. He's getting through his babygrows like nothing else and it won't be long until he's wearing his 3-6 month things and size 3 nappies! I wish he'd stop trying to grow up so quickly. Unfortunately for me, I'm not losing any weight despite his amazing weight gain! I'm eating like a horse and so am just listening to my body for a few weeks because presumably I need the calories. I haven't put any weight on despite the enormous amounts of cake I've been putting away, so that's a bonus. I have about half a stone still to lose and ideally I'd like it gone before Christmas, a year since I found out I was pregnant.

Henry is still beyond anything I ever imagined he'd be when our baby arrived. I didn't know it was possible for a 3 year old to react to a new sibling in the way that he has and we are so incredibly proud of him. He hasn't been remotely jealous since his brother was born, not for a second. He asks me all the time if we can keep him forever, tells me he's so happy he's been born and tells his brother how much he loves him. He seems to have nicknamed him 'Arch' so poor Archie is usually called that or Simba these days! Every morning when Henry wakes up he goes straight to his brother, asks him if he had a lovely sleep and tells him he loves him. Every day. I can trust him to be gentle and careful, if I have to nip out of the room I know he won't wake the baby or hurt him, and he often shouts to tell me if Archie is waking up or if he's crying. Every time Archie cries, Henry translates it for me, "He just needs a little feed" or "He has a little pain". He's just gorgeous. I honestly thought he'd miss time with it just being me and him; after all, we spent all of our time together before, going to lovely places and doing exciting things. And being totally honest, I desperately miss that at times too. But no, he hasn't once suggested us going out on our own or leaving Archie behind. He just seems to totally accept that his baby brother is one of us, a Barker, and he's more than happy to share his mummy and the rest of his family with him. Archie has no idea how lucky he is to have Henry as his older brother. 

This week I've been expressing a bottle every day to give to Archie in the hope that it'll get him used to feeding from a bottle and mean it's easier to leave him in the coming months. I have no intention of having a night away or long periods of time away from him, but I'm desperate to take Henry swimming or to the cinema or to maybe go for a quick meal without having a baby in my arms the entire time. "Me time" isn't remotely important to me this time, I know I'll get it back in the not too distant future and I can absolutely live with that. But what I won't get back is 3 year old Henry - my funny little toddler is changing every day and starts nursery in a matter of weeks, so I'm keen to make the most of my time with him and unfortunately his needs often come second when we have a baby who needs feeding and cuddling and changing, particularly when we're out and about. I feel desperately guilty for feeling this way at times, especially when my 3 year old seems to have adapted  better than I have, and I absolutely love our time all together, absolutely adore Archie just as much as I do Henry. I just really really would like to go to the cinema and eat popcorn with my biggest boy for an hour. How ridiculous. Anyway, he's taken a bottle well all week, sometimes I've only expressed an ounce, sometimes 2 or 3, but he's guzzled it each time and Henry absolutely loved being able to help with the feeding too, it's just a shame he and his daddy aren't quite so keen to do the 3am feed!!

Having said all that about missing time with just Henry and feeling so guilty about it, one of the best times in my weeks at the moment are Wednesday evenings. Another thing I feel guilty for (you'll notice a pattern...welcome to motherhood!) is that I don't spend as much time cuddling and cooing over Archie the way I did over Henry as a baby. Mainly because I'm rarely actually sat down unless I'm feeding! So on Wednesdays, when Henry has been sleeping at my mum's and while Daddy is out at football, that's what we do. We park ourselves on the sofa with the tv remote, tasty food and plenty to drink, and we don't move. I don't put Archie down when he drifts off and run around like a lunatic to do jobs, I just hold him and talk to him, soaking him up in a way that's not always possible when we're joined by the whirlwind toddler. I'm sure I'll post more about our Wednesdays because I love them so much. In fact, Wednesdays might be the best time to blog too! 

So that's it really, I'm sad that the newborn days are almost over, I'm not sure I'll be able to call my huge chunky baby a newborn for much longer. We have so much to look forward to - trips to London, Center Parcs and Spain, plenty of 'firsts' for both boys, cosy winter days at home and lots more. I just need to find some time to blog all about them...

Week 3 - out and about

Three whole weeks old. The week has absolutely flown by and it's somehow Monday again. We survived our first week with Daddy back at work this week. Dinner was still on the table every night, 5 shirts have been washed for the coming week (luckily Marmar is on hand to iron them!) and both boys were kept fed and watered and most importantly, alive. I can't believe how much more laid back it's been this time - I'd love to know what I managed to do with my days when I just had a newborn Henry, but I certainly never had dinner sorted or washing on when Mr B got home on an evening! It's not that we're necessarily doing amazingly this time around, it's more that we don't care as much when things don't go so well. If I don't get a bath on an evening or if we've eaten beans on toast for lunch three days in a row, who really cares?! If the baby's wardrobe still contains all the things he's outgrown and a pile of new clothes to sort through, does it honestly matter? So we're still feeling pretty relaxed, we've been getting out and about more, my poor boobs are out all the time feeding and Henry's still loving life as a big brother. 4 happy little Barkers. 

Weight - Archie hasn't been weighed since last Monday but I can see how much he's growing. He's totally out of all his newborn clothes now (waaaah!) and into 0-3 sizes. I'll probably take him to be weighed next week at the health visitor's clinic. 

Appointments - None thankfully! A nice quiet, appointment free week!  

Milestones - As I said, all the newborn clothes have been put away and we're into 0-3 now. He's lost his newborn, curled up, puffy look too which I'm so sad about. His features are changing and he's stretching out more every day. Why is time going so quickly?!

Personality - He's generally pretty good still. Happy to be put down as long as he's had a good feed and he's awake for longer periods now too. He had a couple of really grumpy days this weekend where he seemed to be in some kind of pain or discomfort, possibly just wind or possibly silent reflux. Like his brother was, he is rarely sick, I think he's once brought the tiniest bit of milk up after a feed but that's been it. Silent reflux does worry me a bit though because Henry suffered so badly with it before we realised what it was, so I'm definitely on high alert for that. 

Feeding - He's feeding well and often still. My boobs have finally toughened up so all pain is gone, except for if he has a long nap and they're really full. He feeds a lot in the day, very very rarely going longer than 2 hours without milk, but will go for 3-4 hours at night still. 

Sleep - Not so good this week but not horrendous either. We've had 2 really bad nights and the others have been okay - he tends to do a 3 hour stretch from 10-1 and then wakes up 2 hourly after that. He's still in his Sleepyhead by the side of the bed and he usually settles quickly in there after a feed. The difficult thing this time around is the fact that his big brother is awake by 7:30 every morning and during the week when Daddy is at work, I obviously have to get up with him regardless of the night we've had with Archie. But it's fine, I'm absolutely nowhere near as tired as I was with Henry when I was often totally delirious during night feeds, waking up in a blind panic about where I'd left my baby etc! 

Days out - We've had a busy week taking Henry to his various baby groups and stopping along the way for lots of coffee and cake too. My brother came to visit for the weekend so we went to Harvest Day at Wheelbirks for lunch on Saturday and then for a lovely Sunday roast at the garden centre too. We've still managed to squeeze in a few naps on an afternoon which has kept us all going and actually, some of my favourite moments have been during those lazy afternoons at home, just me and my two beautiful baby boys. 

Henry is still loving being a big brother and just adores Archie. He's never once been jealous, never asked me to put Archie down so I can cuddle him or play a game with him instead, nothing. He wakes up and goes straight to his baby brother every morning, constantly tells him how much he loves him, helps me change nappies, tells me what Simba's crying about (it's usually because 'he needs milkies' or 'has done a poop', but this week it was also because 'he's sad it's not Christmas yet' and 'he misses Marmar')! 

A week postpartum - I feel good still, tired, but happy. The tiredness is nothing like last time though and we're managing fine really now that daddy is back at work.

I haven't lost any more weight this week, mainly due to the fact that I'm starving ALL the bloody time. Like I just need to eat ALL day long. And that's not to mention the thirst. I'm just going with it for now, I can't even begin to think about dieting or healthier eating at this stage. Hand me the cake!