Relative Effect Sizes

I am feeling horrible. Just a bad cold, but with a horrid cough which means I am exhausted along with the aches & pains, and feeling just plain sorry for myself. Finding self extremely poor company.

Anyway. I have been finding Foxy pretty challenging this morning, clearly because of my state, and not him. 10 mins ago he asked for Thomas, so he is now plugged into the telly. Relief. This has got me thinking about something that I would like to bore you all with. I think the problem with a lot of parenting advice is that it's mostly too simplistic to take into account relative effect sizes.

For example. I could take on board the advice that telly really isn't good for kids. I know this, there's nothing wrong with the research, no arguments there. But if Foxy were not currently plugged into the telly, I would be shouting at him, he would be hanging off my clothes whining, and the only reason he wouldn't be being hit is because I have never had the urge -- I have no self-control today. The poor effect of too much telly today is clearly far less harmful than a day of shouting & crying would be, right?

Here's to grey, rather than black & white.

No pics, sorry mother

WARNING: quite boring detailed parenting post.

Nearest & Dearest and I often ponder what would be more difficult, twins or being a single mother of one. Until now, I have been firmly on the side of single motherhood, but I think 18+ months is very different to the true baby-days. I have been on my own with Foxy for the past 3 days, and we have actually had a lovely time. It's much less tiring that it used to be, and all the militant routine stuff has totally paid off for me. The uninterrupted same-ness would drive lots of people nuts, but I love that Foxy turns off his "In the Night Garden" at 6:25, and marches upstairs eager to get in his bath. Until 4 days ago, I was still doing battle to get him into his PJs after bath, but I finally really thought about it, and problem seems to be solved. I must look like a total loon. I sit with the stuff I need (nappy, moisturizer, PJs) with my back against his bedroom door so that he can't get out. He then runs around like a mad thing (as usual), and I let him know what has to happen next. Then I sit and wait, not looking at him, no nothing, until he comes over. Then I make a huge fuss of him and get as much of the job done as I can before he runs around again like a mad thing. It's working like a charm. I think he needs to do that running around, but I don't need to be a part of it. It is taking no more time, and I am now calm instead of agitated. It amazes me how long it takes me to figure out the simplest things.

The transition to the toddler room has also been a boon. The routine they have there is suiting him really well, so I am adopting it for his at-home days as well. I see now that he has been ready to go down to one nap for awhile. It's just that he can't make it until after lunch to have that nap. At creche he has it 11:30 - 12:30, at home he has 11 - 1. He had been waking 6-6:30 ish in the morning, and I was blaming the light. Now he is going 7-7 like clockwork. This is such a golden era, I'm savouring every minute of it!

I'm enjoying not having some task to work on, like weaning, or getting him to stop biting (he seems to have stopped), or the up-coming toilet-training. It's nice to just BE with him. (He is by no means perfect, he is the messiest toddler I know, but it is just not important enough to me to bother tackling it.) We are doing loads of trip to the playground and swimming at the moment. It's easy & fun. I'm also really aware that it is easy & fun because he is our only child, at least for now. There are certainly advantages!

I must also report that another reason I am feeling so good is that I haven't been drinking. So annoying that it is a poison! I am mostly doing this to try and loose a little weight. I've cut out my myriad of cakes that I eat at work, alcohol, and I'm actually using my gym membership. I don't feel like actually disclosing my weight, but let's just say that my BMI is currently 25, and in an ideal world, it would be 21. As I'm 5 foot 8, that's quite a bit of poundage. We'll see.

Nearest & Dearest is back this evening! I can't wait. Although Foxy has been good company, I am looking forward to real food and adult conversation in the evenings.

New House Rule

So. We have a new house rule. No eating biscuits EXCEPT when watching telly. Yep, we are using classical conditioning to train Foxy to watch a little tube. It's working a treat:



Love that chavvy kid.

Good Morning

What a GREAT morning Foxy and I had! Nearest & Dearest left early for London, and all went SMOOTHLY on my own. Miracle. First, he slept and slept. So I was showered, dressed, tea and his toast made before I finally went and woke him up at a quarter past 7. LOVE that kid. He was super about nappy and clothes, don't know why, and finished every scrap of his 2 pieces of toast & jam. I also ditched the bottle this morning. He had about 100 ml of formula from his beaker! Yippee! Only one bottle per day left to phase out.

We left the house on time, both of looking super, I might add. It was pouring with rain, but even that could not dampen my spirits.

Never mind that single parents do this with say, 3 kids, on a daily basis. I am still happy.

Bad Morning

Strong as the temptation is to present a perfect life via the blog, the urge to get this past morning out of my system is stronger.

I have never been a morning person. I struggle. It was the biggest reward in stopping breastfeeding. I wonder if Foxy is such a good sleeper because he knows that I need my sleep in order for EVERYONE to be happy.

Anyway. Our mornings have been going pretty well, it works well for us all to get ready and leave at the same time. Usually that's possible, but not always. This morning I was not ready in time. On Tuesdays the cleaner comes. Yes, I feel the need to have the house tidy for the cleaner, mock all you want, but she is a CLEANER, not a housekeeper.

Another 15 minutes was all I needed. Foxy could play in his pen, it was going to be no problem. He must have fallen over or something, because he was rapidly NOT happy. And he had done a HUGE messy poop. He is not an easy boy to dress these days. At least not when you are in a hurry. He detects the tension and makes it ten times worse. Then I start shouting and carrying on, it really gets ugly.

I hate myself for getting that way. It is so maladaptive. I need to stop these diatribes I have (mostly yelling at myself for being a terrible mother) before Foxy can really understand them. I really admire Nearest & Dearest. She has NOT ONCE lost her patience with the boy.

We recovered of course, and I was only 30 minutes late. Like it really matters.

Good Times

I had a great evening out with the girls last night -- we went to see Sex and the City. Loved the show, loved the movie. I watched it and dreamed of having a sexy svelte body, inspired wardrobe, & personal assistant. Of course I was eating toffee popcorn and M&M's at the time.

I love my Wednesdays. We start with Little Dippers, and then today I am going to see a friend in London. Train journeys with Foxy are fun! I'm looking forward to meeting T's third(!) baby boy. Most of all I am looking forward to talking detail with a like-minded mother. When your parenting strategy is at the extreme end of the continuum, it's a treat to talk to someone who may be even further along that spectrum. As Foxy is becoming mobile, I look forward to hearing suggestions for containment. Yep, the next plank in my 50's parenting style is going to be a large caged area. I hate the look of stair gates.

Getting Yourself a Gina Baby

So, my sister (JF) has a friend who has had a baby, and JF is giving her Gina's book:

It is CERTAINLY not for everyone, but it did help me a lot. That said, I think it needs commentary. I thought why not just do it here?

I think this book is good if you like order and routine, and it was good for me because aside from having a healthy baby, it was/is REALLY important to me that my baby sleep well through the night as soon as possible. I think by sheer force of will a mother can get their baby to do one or two things, but not everything. What I mean is, if the most important thing to me had been breastfeeding my baby exclusively until 6 months, and continuing to bf for the entire first year, I don't think I would have been able to get Foxy to sleep as well as he does. So different strokes for different folks.

Back to Gina. It's common sense really -- she is all about getting maximum food into your baby during sociable hours, and maximum sleep at night. This means that she recommends waking them up during the day for regular feeding; apparently a lot of people have trouble doing this. This made perfect sense to me, and I was happy to not only wake up Foxy to feed at appointed times, but also to strip him off so he was COLD and would stay awake.

The annoying thing about the book is the tone; Gina is very dictatorial, and also refers to "my babies" which really pisses off some of my mum chums. I found it useful that this book goes ahead and suggests a schedule, and gives you indications of what a normal amount of sleep is for babies at each stage. Most books are all about reading your baby, letting them guide you about when to feed, etc, and that sort of child-led approach does not suit me.

Another common complaint about the book is that mothers can feel like failures if they can't keep to the schedule. I think this is where the tone is unhelpful, because if you really actually read the entire book and not just the schedules, Gina does have advice about tailoring for different types of babies, what to do when things go wrong, etc. Also, I thought of it as the ideal that I did my best to approximate each day, nothing more and nothing less.

I pretty much tried to stick to the schedule until Foxy was about 3 months old, although I ditched the 10:30 pm feed at 5 weeks. (My evenings are even more precious to me than an uninterrupted night's sleep!) He is still on a schedule, but I have tweaked it a bit now. If I had it all to do again, I would do things pretty much the same, but not entirely. I would definitely stick to the principles of doing ones best to approximate the same routine day in, day out. But looking back, I can see that Foxy probably could have done with an extra feed in the day. I think that would have helped him to settle for naps much earlier than he did.

I am also really glad that I took the advice about how to put them to bed, and how to behave at night. Again, I know that this simply wont work for a lot of people, as they find it too cold/harsh. Gina advises always putting them down to sleep when they are still awake. Our first night of doing this (at 3 weeks) it took Foxy an hour to fall asleep, and we went in to stroke him (did not pick him up) every 10 mins. It was hard, but we only had to do this for a few days and have never looked back. For night feeds I was REALLY diligent about not giving Foxy any attention, just the food. I never looked at him or spoke to him.

Previous posts have talked about the most difficult part for me, which was getting Foxy to nap properly. Sometimes it felt like we weren't getting anywhere with it, but I can now say that somewhere along the line it did fall into place. Every day I did my best to approximate the schedule, and I now have a baby that I can simply put in his cot to nap, and I get at least 2.5 hours during the day to call my own.

As I said at the beginning, it is all about what is most important for the Mum. When I get asked what is most important for kids/babies (coz of my job), I say to first take care of yourself, then your marriage, then your baby. For me, this was the best way to achieve those things. For many people, it would not be.

More Guilt

So, yesterday was Foxy's full day at creche. By full day I mean I dropped him off at 9:45 (I let him continue his nap in the car while I worked on my laptop, how lame), had him for an hour over lunch, and picked him up again at 4:30. Still, the longest he had been in previously was 2.5 hours, so this was a big day.

I thought all had gone swimmingly, he was very good natured during his tea, naked noodle time, bath, bottle, stories. Then I put him to bed. He usually just, well, falls asleep. And we start enjoying our evening. Oh no. He cried, and cried, and cried some more. Nearest & Dearest went to check on him because I was finding it distressing. He had been sick, and we decided to just have him sleep in his baby grow. Then he got his leg caught between the bars. An hour after being put to bed, finally he cried himself to sleep.

Now, it was also HOT last night, probably the hottest it has been. So was he crying because of his stressful day or because he was hot? Dunno. In some irrational bid to assuage my guilt, I spent the entire evening making baby food. Even though he prefers the jars, they seem wholesome enough, and I don't even think the cost works out that much more.

This lunchtime I dragged the boy into town and bought a sheet sleeping bag. Hopefully that will do the trick.

Kindness of Strangers

This morning I went into town to buy some clothes. I decided that I needed to accept my size, at least for now, and stop dressing like Britney Spears on a bad day. I picked up a shed load of stuff from GAP without trying on, so hopefully some of it will be alright. I'll post some pics later if there is any improvement to my appearance.

Anyway. We travelled home on the bus, and Harry was not a happy camper, screaming, crying, and carrying on. When he does that it doesn't make me feel SO bad like if he cries in a cafe, because I figure there really is nothing I can do, and this is public transport afterall. Still, it wasn't pleasant, and maneuvering round people to get off the bus was no easy feat. I was glad to be off, and sorting out my bags, etc, when a woman said to me, "Nice calm Mummy. Well done." It was so nice to hear, it made me cry.

Parenting Bliss

Today will be Foxy's first afternoon at the creche. I stay with him the whole time today, apparently it is not the done thing to just throw them in from the doorway and run :).

I have had a heavenly morning packing up Foxy's first school bag. It's so cute I can hardly stand it:



It has in it nappy supplies, two changes of clothes, and his teddy. I ordered a duplicate so he will have the same teddy at home and at creche. In the past hour I sewed a name tape on it so it won't get lost.

I feel like a proper Mum.

Bits & Stuff

Have you been wondering how I got on at WeightWatchers? Well, OK. I lost 1.5 lbs, without dieting so much as allowing myself to get hungry between meals and cutting out alcohol. We'll see if I can loose weight with this casual approach, or if I will need to be a bit more task oriented soon. Slow loss would be just fine with me.

I have been busy & unwell, ergo lack of posting. The unwell part really ticked me off. Whilst trying to switch over to a bottle for Foxy's mid-morning feed, I managed to develop mastitis. I felt unwell for 24 hours, until the antibiotics kicked in. Anyway, I am now officially FED UP to the back teeth with breastfeeding. I am ready to wrap it up, but I see now that it must be a slow process. How tedious.

Because of the whole mastitis malarkey, we had a crazy day on Saturday. Mum and I were booked in for a knife skills class in London that ran from 11 - 2:30. I have the loveliest partner EVER -- Nearest & Dearest came with me to London with Foxy so I could feed the boy right before and after class. What a total star woman she is.

Because of above mentioned class, I can now joint a chicken. I will be doing so later today. Perhaps I will post a picture of my efforts.