sausage dogs

the not-baby-shower.

My good friend is having her first baby soon. I was adamant that she have a baby shower, she was less enthused, so we held a 'welcome-baby-afternoon tea'. (It was totally a baby shower, sans games).

The mama-to-be is an amazing gardener/horticulture teacher, so I went with a veggie/gardening theme (love a theme). I had way too much fun. Terracotta pots of lollies, seed packet invites, and mum helped me do the flowers (thanks mum!). 

My friend coped with the whole thing, even when she was given about 10 tubes of Lansinoh, haha.

first birthday.

A year ago today, after a few days of annoying stop-start labour, we met our son. Happy first birthday Gus, you are simply delightful.

welcome babies!

I made some cards for the little flurry of babies who have arrived over the past few weeks. Welcome to the world Lucy, Arthur, Camilla, and Red Hat and Blue Hat (yet-to-be-named twins who arrived well before schedule!). 

it's coming up to that time...

... and this mama is getting nostalgic!

happy father's day.

Gus, you have a wonderful dad.

the sleep edition.

I've been avoiding the blog as we've been having some tough times around here. I'd mentioned before Gus was a champion sleeper until about 4 months when we went to WA. Since then it's been progressively worse. A couple of weeks ago it had got to the point of Tim on the couch, Gus in bed with me, and he was still waking almost hourly and crying inconsolably.

That was kind of breaking point for us. So we did what we never thought we'd do and gave ... controlled crying a go. Sigh, I know. I questioned it all many times, but he didn't seem to be very happy in bed with me either so I decided to give it three nights.

The first night was predictably the worst. But he didn't cry for any massively long periods thank goodness or I couldn't have done it. He just woke up a lot. And cried quite loudly a lot. We went in and reassured him every few minutes. Leaving the room each time was horrible. The next day we were both shattered and I felt like the worst mum in the world.

I wasn't keen at all to continue and took some convincing. The second night was better, he settled after only about 10 minutes. He still woke up a lot but not as much, and was quicker to resettle. I felt very conflicted about it all though, and was thinking about getting through the third night and then chucking it all in. I picked up Sleeping Like a Baby whilst at the shops and read something about how he was shutting down not learning to sleep, and he was being traumatised. I then tried not to cry in the middle of the shop.

On the third evening he surprised me though. We did our bedtime routine, we read books, and then I put him down in his bed dreading the usual protest. Instead he wriggled around happily and smiled at me. I wasn't quite sure what this was about, so I kissed him goodnight and left the room, waiting until he got tired and wondered where I was. But he went off to sleep! The fact he seemed happy was hugely reassuring, maybe I hadn't traumatised him or broken his spirit! I think he made a peep around 2am-ish but was back to sleep before I could get to him.

Our nights have been the same since. He wriggles happily when put to bed at 7pm, then usually wakes at 5.30am when I give him a feed and bring him in with us where he goes back to sleep until 7am ish. 

So... This certainly isn't a promotion for controlled crying. I still don't know how I feel about it. It didn't feel right not going to him when he cried. Not at all. I can't see any evidence that I've traumatised him, but I don't know. I do find it reassuring he's so happy to go to bed though. And I feel so much better during the day after some proper sleep. So I'm neither for nor against. This is just our story.

In other news, at 8 months old Gus has FINALLY graduated from his bassinet to a cot. Papa bear was meant to be "building" said cot, and whilst it was well on the way, Mama bear made the executive decision that it just wasn't going to happen before Gus was 4 or so, and went and bought one. Haha. (This was after the whole sleep drama and he transitioned beautifully).

baby favourites : ergobaby carrier

Back when I was "with child" I was a bit obsessed with researching all the various baby gear, and making sure I only bought stuff that was super practical (and ok, sometimes super pretty). I did pretty well, I think I had only one "mistake buy". So I thought I'd do a series of posts of my favorite baby things. Starting with: 

ergobaby carrier.

Lots of mamas raved about this (none more so than Georgia of Gregarious Peach, that woman LOVES her ergo, check it) (my goodness, she's managed to breastfeed in it, and wear two kids at the same time - that's super advanced ergo-wearing!). So before Gus was born I purchased the performance version (apparently less sweaty) in a nice Tim-friendly charcoal. 

We first tried it down at the beach when Gus was only a couple of weeks old. Fail.
Because he was little and didn't have head control, he needed to go into the newborn insert thingy which is a bit like a little doona that wraps around them then you pop them in. It felt pretty awkward getting him into it, then into the carrier. And once he was in he wasn't that happy and kept trying to push himself away from me. Plus it looked pretty hot in there!

I thought I'd made a rather expensive mistake, and hid it in the cupboard for a while.
BUT WAIT! A couple of months later when he was being particularly clingy and wouldn't let me hang out the washing without him, I tried again. I think he was about 3 months - his head was a bit wobbly but I put him in without the annoying insert. It was totally easy this time. Magic! He loved it! Kept looking up and there was mama right there! Awesome! 

Since then we use it all the time. He loves being close to us, and often falls asleep in it. It's especially useful for the following situations:

• the supermarket - with a pram you can only put about 5 things into the basket underneath. The ergo means I can get a trolley and go crazy!
• travelling by plane - comes into its own once the pram has been loaded, and it frees up your hands for luggage etc. (I saw many an Ergo at the airport)
• going for walks on non-pram-friendly surfaces - the Ergo allowed us to do some of the shorter bushwalks at Wilson's prom
• caving - haha, we even took him down a cave in it (the top right photo)
• when you don't feel like dragging the pram in and out of the car

The downsides would be that the baby can't face forward, but that hasn't bothered him yet. It does hurt my back and shoulders a little bit, but only when I've been wearing it for a while (and you're not meant to wear them for hours on end).

The other good featurers: for older babies you can switch it so you're wearing them on your back, so I think we'll be using it for a while. It also has a handy pocket that I stick my wallet and keys into, and a fold out head-cover rain/sun shade thingy.

So that's my take on it, I hope it's helpful in case you were considering a baby carrier. Anyone else tried an Ergo or other baby carrier?

Gus' room.

Famous! Gus' little room appeared in the latest edition of Little One magazine (busted by Jess). I posted some photos of his room a while back (before his arrival), and miss Jodi asked if I'd like to go in the magazine. Why not. She did an excellent job of making me sound like not too much of a dill, and I love the photos by Louise Treacy. (But even more I love the magazine's graphic designer for cropping out my huge post-preggo thighs in our photo - bless him/her). 

I never did get around to getting a new handle for the drawers..

(He's obsessed with this car!)

The bed where he doesn't sleep very much in..

Thanks Jodi! We're also in good company with Lalie's beautiful room of One Claire Day.

Photos by Louise Treacy for Little One magazine.

zara mini.

Does Zara in Melbourne stock the baby range? My parents are about to go to Europe for a while, they're on strict orders to check out Zara!

Too flipping cute. The girls' range kind of makes me wish Gus was a girl.

Spied these on the online UK site.

solidly confused.

The current official recommendation for starting solids is 6 months - apparently this is the best time to do it, in order to avoid food allergies later on. And then the nurse at the health centre said this hasn't been shown to be true, and said go for it from 5 months onwards. Then this article was on the front page in the Melbourne newspaper The Age on the weekend (I'm just referring to the info about earlier introduction of solids on the article, not the breastfeeding stuff) (though on that - I don't think introducing food would equal weaning off breastmilk sooner?). So it's all a bit up in the air really.

So, like most things with Gus, I'm going with my gut feeling, and what I think he would prefer. And Tim went with the novelty factor. So, 4 days short of his 5 month birthday, Gus tried his first food:

He was super enthusiastic, but not entirely convinced by the flavour I think. I don't blame him, apparently rice cereal tastes gross, but I'll give it a couple more goes until we move onto banana or avocado. I'm keen to try the Baby Led Weaning approach, and just keep it fun.

(It's silly, but this new development made me feel really really sad... I don't know why. Maybe because I'd got him this far all on my own or something. A bit of an end of an era. As Tim pointed out, I'll be hysterical at his first day of school!)