FULLY FORMULA FED

At four and a half months Charlotte is now being fully formula fed.

It was not a decision I reached easily at all - in fact I still feel very emotional about it; feeling I've let her down, missing the closeness that I didn't appreciate at the time, and realising a massive part of her being a baby is over.

We started combination feeding a few weeks ago, but just before we went on holiday Charlotte just got fussier and fussier on the breast - so perhaps telling me it was time. I persevered at the start of the holiday, but it got ridiculous, and I simply couldn't express enough to replace those feeds with bottles of my milk.

While giving her bottles of formula was certainly more convenient while we were away, I did get really quite upset about it all. I'm already forgetting what it was like to breastfeed her :(

Before I had Charlotte I told myself I'd aim for at least three months and be really happy with four months, and for most of that time it was easy and went well. Four and a half months of my milk has given her a really good start - and is much more than many manage, so I should be pleased with that.

FIRST HOLIDAY, FIRST TANTRUMS

I can't believe I haven't blogged for almost a month - we've been really busy, and have just come back from Charlotte's first holiday.

We went to Cyprus so she could meet most of my side of the family. She was an angel for the flight there and back - only grizzling when she was ready for a nap. Thankfully, a four and half hour flight worked perfectly to feed her on take-off and landing. The flight home was full so there was very little room to rock her to sleep, but I managed.

She was of course on my lap for the flight, but tried out her own seat for size.

Over there she revelled in all the attention from the family. And most days I really felt like I was getting a proper break as we were staying with my parents who were always willing to help out.

It got rather trickier towards the end of the week though as Charlotte appears to be developing separation anxiety, and we had several massive screaming tantrums with full on tears - particularly at bedtime when she wouldn't let anyone but me feed her. She would almost immediately calm down if I held her, or even came close - much to the understandable upset at first of my OH. I think her Grandma was a bit put out too, as she's usually very good at calming down babies. Hoping this is just a short phase as it's already getting really rather wearing on me, and I find it very difficult to let her cry and cry.

We were also sleeping in the same room as her which meant we never got a decent night's sleep. On top of her usual noises, she was up twice each night and difficult to get back to sleep - possibly because she realised we were in the room with her. The four nights of her properly sleeping through last month seem an awful long time ago and must have been a blip!

However, on the plus side, the holiday also saw a number of big developments. Charlotte's definitely found her feet and can spend ages playing with them - even managing to get one in her mouth! She's sitting with the bare minimum of support, and most excitingly I guess, rolled from her back to her front (and back again), which she's managed a couple of times since we've been back too.

Having her first paddle in the Med

Another significant milestone is that I have finally given up breastfeeding entirely. I feel very sad and emotional about the decision, and there will be a separate blog on this to follow.

But on the whole the holiday was a success, and Charlotte certainly stole the hearts of all the family over there who can't wait to see her again.

FOUR MONTHS OLD

Everyone keeps telling me how quickly the past four months have gone since Charlotte was born - "gosh, hasn't time flown?". No - not for me it hasn't. I don't mean that in a bad way; it's just that I have felt every day of the past four months, it's actually gone quite slowly, and it feels like she's been with us for far, far longer.

I'm sure there will come a point in the coming months when on reflection things might have felt like they've gone past a little quicker. But right now I still have days that feel like a week and weeks that feel like a month. I guess it's just the repetitive nature of looking after a baby. Having said that, when I went to buy her latest nappies yesterday I no longer bought 'new born' ones, and I saw a tiny, tiny baby in a car seat that must have been only days old. It's moments like that when I realise how much time has passed, and that Charlotte isn't a tiny, newborn baby anymore.

She's started breaking her 25/40 minute nap habit over the past few days. We've had a few morning naps of 50 minutes, and even a lunchtime one of an hour and a quarter, which I'm really pleased about. 

But with one issue 'solved', along comes another. She's started to refuse to take her evening bottle from her Daddy. She just screams and screams and gets herself worked up into a right state to the point that only I have then been able to clam her down enough to feed her. It's not the bottle or the formula she's refusing as she'll take both from me - we're wondering if she's just starting to make associations with people. Daddy is for fun and Mummy is for feeding, and she doesn't like any deviation from that. However, right now she seems to be taking a bottle of expressed milk from him quite well, so fingers crossed it was just a brief phase.

IT'S ALL IN THE JEANS

Charlotte will be four months old on Monday, but she's only just growing out of her 0-3 month clothes. However, it's been fun this week trying her in some new outfits that were bought for her when she was born, for her to grow into. I'm jealous - she's got a better wardrobe than me!. She's also managed to fit into her first pair of jeans, and they make her look so grown up!.

Although I've always thought Charlotte looks like a proper little girl, we've had quite a few comments from strangers telling us what a beautiful BOY we have! The jeans won't help that, I guess. And there are moments when I think she does look a bit like Ralph Wiggum from The Simpsons!

We are moving a bit more towards combination feeding now. Partly because Charlotte's becoming fussier and fussier on the breast, and for the same reason we've been giving her a bottle before bed - because her short naps mean a feed and sleep usually collide and she falls asleep less easily on the bottle. I try to give her expressed milk at the early afternoon feed when I can, but not stressing about giving her formula if I have to. It is quite emotional dropping another breast feed after four months of almost exclusive breastfeeding, though.

GIVEN THE ALL CLEAR

We had a hospital appointment to have Charlotte's heart murmur checked out tody. I can happily report the doctor could find no trace, so - as is commonly the case - it's corrected itself over the past couple of months.

It was also a nice change to have a really good experience at a hospital after the conveyor belt and downright incompetence of our ante-natal and birth hospital appointments. The doctor and nurse were so lovely with both Charlotte and us, it was a more relaxed, personal experience, and renewed our faith in the health service a bit.

Charlotte continues to keep us on our toes (that's a polite way of putting it). After two nights of sleeping through from 7pm until just before 6am, she was up at 2.30 last night and nothing worked to get her back down until 4.30am. :(

On the plus side, in among her usual 25 or 40 minute naps she managed a whole hour and a half in the car yesterday. :)

ACTIVE MONKEY

It's been a busy week for Charlotte. On Monday she totally surprised us by lifting her head and shoulders while on her tummy. It came totally out of nowhere, given that for the past three and a half months she's hated being on her tummy for any more than about 30 seconds. I just rolled her over to do up a dress and she was up, looking around, happy as anything for a good few minutes.

So she's been practising that all week - and we tried her in her door bouncer for the first time, too. She took to it straight away, seemed to really enjoy it - kicking her legs in a walking type motion and spinning round. I think she's still a bit too light to actually bounce yet, but it bodes well that she tried to use her legs to walk.

Shouldn't be too long before she's heavy enough to bounce properly - her latest weigh-in with the Health Visitor was a success. A nice healthy 5.5kg (12.1lb) - a steady gain of 500g in three weeks, heading further towards the 25th percentile and away from the 9th. The only change we've really made to her feeding has come in the last week when we've introduced a formula feed before bed. Not necessarily to 'tank her up' - but because she's so exhausted by 6.30 (I don't need to remind regular readers of her poor daytime naps/sleeping), she just keeps falling asleep on the breast before getting a decent feed. She falls asleep less easily on the bottle, and I'm happy to start introducing formula just once a day at this stage. In fact on Tuesday night she slept right through from 7.30pm - 6.50 am, so something must be working.1

And if all that wasn't progress enough, she had her first swimming lesson on Wednesday too. She was absolutely fantastic. Not a single grizzle, even though she was tired, and seemed quite at home in the water on her front and back. We're doing Aquatots lessons, and I really enjoyed it and enjoyed meeting some more new Mums as well. No photos, as with the sad state of society we're forbidden from taking pictures of our own children in a swimming pool, so I'll just have to wait until we're on holiday.

WAKE TO SLEEP?

You could set your watch by Charlotte. Without fail she has exactly 40 minutes for her morning nap, and 25 minutes for each one after.

It doesn't matter if it's in her cot, her pram - even the car these days, which makes for very long car journeys (i.e. the six hours North we did at the weekend), as she understandably gets bored in her car seat for the hours she's not asleep and gets grizzly. And  in my book, 25 minutes is not nearly long enough - averaging out at about 2 hours of naptime a day, if we're lucky.

And she seems increasingly tired and ratty - making for fussy or sleepy feeds, and less happy Charlotte time. So what can I do about it? How can I get her to sleep longer than 25 minutes at a time in the day?

I've looked at the 'Wake To Sleep'  technique - but it goes against all my instincts, despite the fact I think it's worked a couple of times accidentally. For example when I've brought her out of the car just before she's about to wake up and she's stayed asleep for another 45 minutes in the flat in her car seat, or out in the pram when she's just about woken but I've rocked her a bit more and she's gone back down.

The thing I keep telling myself is that 10-15 years ago, Mums didn't have the internet or parenting books to turn to for advice or theories every time they thought their child was doing something not quite 'normal', They just got on with it and accepted that's how their baby is. And that's what I'm trying to do, in the hope that this is a phase that will pass and Charlotte will eventually nap for longer, or prove to me she doesn't need more than 2 hours in short spells every day.

She's also taken to waking at night, usually around 11.30pm, not for hunger. I'm not sure what's waking her - possibly very early teething or growing pains. We tried Calpol one night in case it was either of those things, but despite all other Mums telling me how brilliant it is at knocking babies right out to sleep for ages, it didn't work. For a few nights I ended up feeding her back to sleep, but I know that's a really bad habit to get into. Last night I put her dummy in (she goes to sleep without one usually) and soothed her - and on the third attempt she went back off to sleep for another three hours until she really did wake for a feed.

I have a new mantra to go with Patience and Perseverance... it's Relax and Enjoy. But that's proving harder and harder to tell myself the more she fights her sleep and sleeps on me instead of eating :(.