28 Days Later

Saskia's now a month old, unbelievably. It's probably been the most intensive month - both emotionally and physically speaking - of our lives, as we get used to looking after and living with this little person. And although progress of any kind is very gradual, looking back through the blog you can see how she and we have come on since the end of December. Our biggest achievements to shout about now are:

1. She's now only waking us twice a night! OK, I'd have been horrified if I'd envisaged myself bragging about this a few months back, but after the first few days at home when we couldn't even get her to sleep in her cot and then only in two-hour bursts, this feels very sophisticated.

2. If we're really lucky, she might go to sleep on her own about 9pm. We've been aiming for this over the past week and incredibly it actually happened on Thursday and also Saturday when after an hour of coaxing she fell asleep and left her Mum and Dad to have more than an hour of quality time to themselves (of course we spent this mainly glued to the baby monitor or talking about sleep patterns, but what did you expect).

3. As you can see from the picture above, she’s getting much more alert now too and has made her peace with the Activity Mat - as long as one of us is rattling the toys on it like the clappers to distract her from the cheek of having been put down in the first place. She focuses her eyes well and likes looking at the various dangly objects above her – and hasn’t worked out the weird thing in the middle is her own reflection in the mirror!!

4. Finally, we think (but can’t be quite sure) that she has started smiling. There are the usual doubts that this is just as she does a spectacular number two, but it’s happening enough now that we think we’re onto something. A beautiful smile it is too, although fleeting enough that of course I never have a camera around to capture the moment...

After a few days of Nana Weiss looking after us all with some great home-cooking, useful advice and even babysitting while we snuck a drink next door for an hour, Wendy has now been on her own with Saskia for two weeks. They seem to have worked out a nice routine of getting out and about in the pram, and next week there are even rumours of walking all the way into town which is quite an achievement.

Sas is also getting used to being trussed up in the Baby-Bjorn pouch and we ventured up this weekend onto Cleeve Hill with Naomi who was back again for another glimpse of her niece. All went well until I thought I’d let Naomi bond with Sas by carrying her back to the car – little Miss W had other plans though and decided to test the acoustics of the Vale of Evesham instead.

Another change is that she has finally started to fit into some of the zillions of clothes that friends have so generously given or lent us. So last week Sas was able to sport the fetching cardigan/pink trousers combo below (where she's yawning not crying, in case you were wondering!!), and in a flash it was like she was almost a little girl rather than the sleepsuited baby we'd been waiting on for the past few weeks. She's hardly moving into her own place just yet, but it does feel like our little girl is getting older quickly.



Our next challenges are to try to stop Saskia getting so windy and distressed after her feeds (I’m all for taking the easy option and lacing her milk with Gripe Water, but Wendy is sensibly holding me back until we’ve tried to sort it out with the traditional backrubs and slinging her over the shoulder), and to persuade her to restrict her night-time awakenings down to just once. We’ll see how we get on!!

Saskia at two weeks

Another week has gone by in the life of Saskia, and there's been a constant stream of visitors coming to Harp Hill to see her. Last weekend she had three sets of admirers alone: Auntie Naomi (Nay), who made her a beautiful patchwork blanket incorporating 25 years or so of Weiss family needlework history, and helped us make Xmas last just a little bit longer with more presents.



Edmund, Em and Hannah also came on Saturday afternoon, which demonstrated just how far Saskia has to grow in the next six months - Hannah is about twice the size of her! More Xmas presents exchanged, and the Wilsons gave Sas a really luxurious sheepskin-style rug to lie on (see pic below for proof of this). This'll be really invaluable - as long as we can persuade her that barfing on it is not such a good idea...



Tracie, John and Saskia's cousins James and Ryan then arrived a bit later on, so we had a pretty full house for the following 24 hours. Ryan is 8 weeks old so is again quite a bit bigger than Saskia, and James is four now so is from a completely different world where children sleep through the night and are toilet-trained - we hope to arrive there eventually ourselves too... We had a really nice meal while amazingly both the little ones slept, and John and I were even allowed out on good behaviour to the pub for a couple of drinks, which was a healthy reminder that the world is continuing to turn outside our door. More Xmas presents followed between families to round off the festive season for this year at last! On Sunday, after a slightly disturbed night, we went out for one of our longest walks yet - to Sainsbury's!! - where Sas decided to yell herself hoarse round the aisles. Something I've often felt like doing myself, so you can't really blame her.



The week since has been another blur of days merging one into the next, but the good news is that Saskia's continuing to sleep fairly regularly at night - albeit for only two hours at a time - although she has a bit of a beef with the early mornings from about 5 onwards when she starts waking up more often. She's also getting a bit distressed from wind (we think!) which is nigh on impossible to cure her of despite holding her dangling in all sorts of different positions to encourage her to burp. But these are hardly unique problems - Wendy met up with her NCT chums on Thursday whose babies are about the same age and who are going down pretty much the same digestive and sleep rollercoasters.



Monday finally marks Tim's return to work, so whatever routine we've got going now might well come crashing down around our ears in the coming week - but the cavalry is on its way in the shape of Nana Weiss (aka my Mum) to smooth the transition back into "real" life.

A week in the life

Saskia is already a week old!

We've been told that time goes by quickly and before you know it your baby is a toddler running around, and this proving to be well founded so far. Having said that, being with Saskia 24/7 means like we feel we've known her for months already too.

Some of the top things we've learnt about our daughter to date are:

(1) She doesn't like sleeping in her cot (so far...) - being held by Mum or Dad is just fine, thank you very much, but within seconds of being lowered however gently into the demon cot, the siren wail kicks in and another night of fun and games is upon us.

(2) She's got crazy reflexes - particularly the startle one, whereby any movement, sound, change in ambient temperature, leaf falling a mile away etc. causes her to do a sudden kung-fu star-shape with arms and legs. We shouldn't be laughing at her, but it's pretty hard not to when this happens.

(3) She likes singing, even when it's out-of-tune humming by her Dad. It has even been known to send her to sleep if we're lucky.

The past week has been a pretty sociable one for our daughter too, meeting most of her relatives for the first time. Nana and Grandad Weiss (as they now shall forever be known) were first in the queue on Sunday to help us see in the New Year - and celebrate Xmas belatedly too! After nine months of virtuously avoiding half of her favourite foods, virtually everyone has had the same brilliant idea of giving oodles of cheese, seafood and other forbidden fruits to Wendy, so the house is awash with stilton, smoked salmon and other treats which feels fantastically decadent. Saskia now has a wonderful baby gym/activity mat from Mamas & Papas which we're sure will be a huge hit in months to come, although to be honest just for now it seems to provoke a similiar reaction to being in the cot...

Next in line were Aunty Diana and Uncle Matt on New Year's Day, so we managed to make some inroads into the cheese mountain while they met their niece for the first time. More great presents and outfits for Saskia to sport this spring - her wardrobe is growing at a rate of knots. She's very taken by all her new relatives so far, and seems to be happy to sleep in anyone's arms (just not in the cot, of course), occasionally being awake for long enough before she starts crying/feeding/pooping for us to see her big blue eyes.

The Larsen grandparents were next - Granny & Grandpa - the day after, to meet their first granddaughter and keeping Xmas going one day further with a marvellous extended picnic. Saskia gained another outfit, we got some new crockery and reading matter among other presents and a great time was had by all. Once again Sas convinced everyone that she's always brilliantly behaved and surely can't really spend the hours of darkness wailing her heart out. Video evidence is clearly required.

Since then we've spent the last few days trying (semi-successfully) to establish something of a routine in our day-to-day-to-night existence. After one night when she sleeps in the cot in two-hour stints, she will then decide this is too predictable a lifestyle and keep us up most of the night the next. So two steps forward, one step back.

But we're getting there steadily - with the big aim for Sas and the cot to make friends by the time Tim goes back to work on the 15th. To anyone reading this at the office, I will of course be brilliant in my new job. To anyone else, let's hope they don't expect any sentences longer than three words out of me before Easter. Next up is a busy weekend meeting Aunties Tracie and Naomi plus Saskia's cousins James and Ryan, and also Edmund, Em & Hannah who are stopping by.