Tough day at Plunket

Sorry took a while to update yesterday. Ingrid was too knackered after a long day at Plunket. They tried to completely change Sophie's routine because they thought 4 hour feedings weren't enough???...so plunket proceeded to wake Sophie basically all day long to feed the poor thing. Sophie wasn't impressed and neither was Ingrid. Both had a complete shitty day and Sophie played up all last night too.

We've decided to ignore them and stick to what is working (providing Sophie is gaining enough weight).

Apart from that everything else is all good. I am missing bubs wickedly during the daytime though...

Brad

Ingrid and Sophie on their own part 2

Gift from Sally at Brads work - she stitched it herself, very cute.

As Brad mentioned, we spent our first Mother and Daughter day on our own yesterday...I think Sophie could sense we were 'alone' together and that perhaps I was a little apprehensive as she decided to play up a bit and be a bit restless after giving us three really good days, so needless to say I was in bed by 7.30pm! Poor Brad, it was his first day back at work and came home pretty exhausted and he had to do the late night feed - isn't he just the best! I think just between us though, he missed his little girl like crazy and she missed him too...

Today has been a very good day though, we managed to sleep without too much grizzling through the night and she was very well behaved at our mother and baby group this morning, so more days like today would be awesome! Spending most of tomorrow at Plunket so they can just watch her feed and sleep and give me some more hints and tips, although knowing my luck she will be the perfect baby in their company and tell me that I have nothing to worry about! Will update and let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Ingrid

Ingrid and Sophie on their own

This is what Sophie is supposed to be doing lots of!

I went back to work today which was pretty tough doing a full day after bugger all sleep and Sophie decided to play up for mum on their first day togther [after she's been soooo good these past few days]..(Ingrid can finish this off later)

Brad

Brad caught sleeping with someone else!

Charlie looks way impressed at his new sleeping companion!

I’m going back to work tomorrow so I’ve decided to sleep in the spare room for a week or two just to get back into the routine of sleeping the entire night through so I don’t drift off to sleep while at work!

Charlie thinks the spare bed is entirely his now since Sophie’s been here. He even grunts at me when I come into to update the blog! – so god knows how he’ll cope for the next couple of weeks!

I must admit it’s going to suck going back to work and missing lots of Sophie’s ‘first-times’ at everything. Although I did get to see her first smile a couple of days ago, that was pretty cool and hopefully Ingrid can bring her into work a few times too so Sophie can see her old man during the daytime.

Brad

Sophie's first grand final

Sophie with her supporters gear watching the game!

Sophie watched her first Rugby final tonight…afterwards she filled her pants with disgust at the score-line..(I was upset too so I made Ingrid change her)

On the bright side, Sophie has been sleeping a lot better these past two-days. We seem to have her down to a pretty good 4-hour pattern now. She takes a little bit to drift of to sleep afterwards but certainly nothing like she was a few days ago when we simply let her cry herself back to sleep.

I’ back to work tomorrow and Ingrid’s mum is coming up for a couple days through the week which should be good.

Brad

Plunket Day

Mother and daughter

We went along to Plunket today to try and find an answer to the million dollar question “How do you get babies to sleep?” But yet again we were told something completely different from all the other so called experts. The Plunket chick said that we shouldn’t let Sophie cry for any longer than 10 minutes, then go into the rock and rock her bassinet for 5-10 minutes and repeat the procedure 2-3 times mixed in with the odd pick up and ‘winding check’, if she’s still crying after all that then she’s obviously still hungry.

So far so good, little Sophie has slept well this afternoon after 30 minutes of rocking and more burping and has gone to sleep this evening without any hassles. Too early yet to say this will work all the time, but it sure does seem a far more civil way of getting her to sleep than allowing her to scream for hours on end until she does eventually drift off.

Lots of other conflicting advice we were told too regarding waking them for feeding, keeping them awake etc. The one common factor everyone does say though is ‘do what’s right for you and what works best for baby’...no kidding, we would have never thought of that...


Brad

3 weeks old today

Sophie is now 3-weeks old! It’s kinda strange though, it feels like she’s been with us for way longer than that.

The last couple of days I must admit have been a little tough. Sophie now cries constantly when you put her down to bed, day or night, and leaving her to cry herself to sleep, has to be one of the hardest things around I reckon….but obviously it’s got to be done. (I’m playing the bad cop on this one as you can tell)

Next week I’m back to work fulltime so hopefully by then, Sophie’s sleeping habits will be a little more consistent and Ingrid won't be on tender hooks everytime Sophie goes to bed.

Brad

Sophie's cool Rock Chick all-in-one present from Tracey D and Ashley

My BIG Wednesday Sleep

My big sleep today!

(I know it's a photo from last week..but .daddy took stink photos of me sleeping today, so he used this one where I look cute)

I wanted to get enough sleep today so I would be in tip top condition for the first State of Origin match tonight. I slept for well over five hours today (for the first time ever!) and I and woke up just 10 minutes before kick off. Daddy tells me the team in 'Blue' is way better than the other team, so I’ll be 'gooing' and 'garing' for them for sure.
Gotta go now the game is just about to start...

Lots of love Sophie xx

"Core blimey what was that??..must have been something mummy ate for dinner tonight! "

Sophie goes to class

Come on Sophie, Smile for the camera!

Ingrid and Sophie went along to their first ‘Baby and You’ class today. It’s basically a weekly discussion group with a bunch of new mothers and babies to discuss anything and everything about babies.

I was a bit concerned about Sophie sitting through a two hour couse with Ingrid, but I didn't need to worry at all, she farted just once, and only made 2 rude gestures behind the tutors back…Sophie must have been embarrassed surely, as all the other mothers were so well behaved! All in all though, it was a worth-while class. The tutor gave them some good advice when it comes to the sleeping and feeding patterns of both girls, but most of all, gave them some much needed reassurance that everything we’re experiencing is absolutely normal.

Sophie and Ingrid got home around 1pm just in time to see off my two sisters Nicky and Rochelle - the both of them were heading back to New Plymouth after a fleeting 24 visit, it was great for them to meet Sophie though. Mum and bubs then had a HUGE sleep in the afternoon which gave me time to get some work stuff done. Sophie finally awoke after more than 4 hours sleep and we both thought – "you beauty!" she obviously took something from the class! As it turned out, she was simply teasing us, as it then took an additional three hours to get her back to bed again…babies aye.

Brad

Auntie Nic and Rochelle with their new niece

Sophie's new toys

Auntie Nic and Rochelle's hand made creations

Sophie’s aunties came up to Auckland today to visit their new niece. They made her some very cool ‘Winny the Poo’ wool displays to hang on her wall…Sophie was well impressed.

Mum bought her a porter-cot too which will come in very handy for caging her in when she’s being naughty… (whoops, did I write that?) I meant when we take her away to visit family and friends. Got to say too, a HUGE thanks to both families for the wonderful gifts we’ve received for little Sophie, she’s certainly a lucky wee thing.

Ingrid and Sophie went along to the docs today for a standard check-up. From all accounts Sophie is doing really well and has put on some much needed weight in the past week. Ingrid though, is still finding it a little difficult to sleep, particularly during the day at the moment (you don’t realise how noisy day-time actually is until you try and sleep during it!) Hopefully before I go back to work next week we can all get mum and bubs into a good working routine.

The dodgy ol’ doc was pretty harsh too from what Ingrid was saying…she said “you guys have to make the routine stick, if Sophie feeds and then won’t sleep for up to three hours afterwards - then let her cry for three hours solid, she’ll know next time that crying does her no good” – I think that is taking things a little bit too far to be fair. I can understand 20-40 minutes maybe but 3 hours?...we’ll sort it out between the three of us though, it has only been 2 and bit weeks.

Ingrid and Sophie are off to a ‘Baby and You’ ante-natal class thing tomorrow with all the other new mums and baby’s, from the course - she’ll let you tomorrow how that all goes.

Brad

A new toy for Sophie...it's taken a shine to Charlie

Sophie throws a wobbly

Sophie thinking about eating pumpkin when she gets bigger

Sophie has been a little angel these past few days. She’s also been sleeping pretty well and sticking to a good routine.…but all that changed today when we brought her home from a visit with the relies…

Normally a bath settles her down, but on this occasion I think it made her worse (could have also had something to do with the baby’s bath tipping completely over in the big bath…lucky I had a pretty good hold on though…very lucky...)

She didn’t even want a bar of her new play-mat with all the dangly toys and mirrors we bought her - and then she cried her little heart out for what seemed like an eternity after we put her down to bed. All this after we’ve been telling everyone she's been really good and has found a good routine.

You gotta love Murphy’s Law.

Brad

Has Sophie Found Her Routine?

Sophie's new play-mat...she lasted 2 minutes before she got sick of it!

It appears as if Sophie has finally found a routine that isn’t too bad. Her last couple of nights she has fed around 11pm and slept till 3am, fed again and woken up around 6am.
Hopefully (touch wood) this is the start of a settled cycle for her.

Ingrid and I managed to watch a DVD on the big screen tonight and Sophie didn’t wake up at all during the movie!...although, we both did sneak upstairs on the odd occasion to double-chek she was ok...sad aren’t we.

I think Sophie is feeding a lot better these past few days which is settling her more at night. Ingrid is managing to sleep a lot better now too in between feeds which is great.
I am doing the last feed at night now, which could be anywhere between 10pm-1am. It gives Ingrid a decent break between breast-feeding, but more importantly, it allows father and daughter to watch a bit of late night sport together...you beauty!

Brad

Sophie looking beautiful...

Friday Night Football

Sorry, I was far too excited by the Hurricanes win Friday night that I forgot to update the blog.
Sophie watched a little bit of the game too, she was really impressed that so many Taranaki players are in the Hurricanes team and you can easily tell she's really looking forward to the NPC this year...good on ya Sophie.

Brad

A day at The Rock

The excitment of The Rock studio is written all over Sophie's face

The weather in Auckland today was stunning, so I thought it would be a nice idea to give Ingrid a couple of hours to chill-out and enjoy some time to herself.

I packed up the little one and went for a drive (Sophie does enjoy hanging out with her dad and going for little drives) We decided to pop into work to say hi to a few people and pick up some bits and pieces as well. I even took Sophie into the studio and showed her around and explained how everything works. You should have seen her, she was absolute riveted and didn’t want to leave (as the photo shows)

After all that excitement I decided to take her home to see her mum (who couldn’t sleep anyway because she was kept awake wondering ‘did she need changing? Was she hungry? Is she warm enough?”). She didn’t need to worry, Sophie slept from the moment I put her into the car to the moment we arrived back home safe and soundly. It was pretty cool though, seeing Ingrid’s face light up as soon as we got home.

Ingrid and I ate dinner together alone tonight, which doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it is, you fully appreciate the small time you do manage to have together.

When Sophie finally awoke after a good sleep, her cry sounded a little more agitated than normal, so I said to Ingrid ‘I’ll grab her’…as soon as I entered he room and picked her up, I’d realised I’d opened my mouth way too soon…

It must have been the excitement of hanging out with her old man all day. Sophie had literally exploded from the waist down, with more force than a grade 10 hurricane, and unlike a Kinda Surprise, this time sadly...I knew exactly what I was getting.

No baby wipes could do the trick, and after 5 minutes I faltered and had to yell for backup. The both of us however, managed to do a great job restoring her back to the beautiful, pristine wee thing she once was.

I’ll certainly think twice again about taking her into The Rock though …the place obviously gives her the shits.

Brad

She was a bit too shy to go on-air

Chilling out after an eventFULL night

Charlie

Here is a photo of Charlie, as you can see Brad still likes to torment him and as he is terrified of Sophie, he has put a screen saver of her on the computer where Charlie likes to sleep, just to remind him who the boss is. I am surprised he hasn't packed his bags and left home to be honest, poor thing.

Busy day yesterday, hence the post not being done until today, but yet not a lot to report, except being in Farmers (store) yesterday where there was a power blackout, I told Brad to grab and run, but his hands were too full with Sophie...(just kidding Mum, Dad and in-laws), when we left the mall we had to get the lift out to the car park along with a few other people and of course Sophie chose that very moment to fill her nappy with the loudest most explosive farts you could imagine - the embarrassment to the parents has begun!

I must say that Brad is doing the most awesome job as Sophies daddy and helped me out tremendously last night by giving her her late night (midnight) feed which gave me 5 whole hours of sleep - yippee! Can't wait until Sophie can sleep that long by herself...how many more weeks? She had her awake period from 4am this morning, feeding, sleeping for an hour and then wanting more, in the end I brought her into our bed to save our sanity at 8.30 this morning and fed her there where she promptly feel asleep and is still sleeping now at 11.30am. (This all happened on Thursday).

Till next time
Ingrid

Grandma comes to Visit

Grandma came up to Auckland for work and was gagging at the bit to see little Sophie (Ingrid and I had put a two-week curfew on family coming up…aren’t we mean aye?) We really wanted the first couple of weeks to ourselves so the three of us could all learn together.

Anyway, it was good to see mum and she was over the moon to see Sophie. Ingrid went along to coffee group so bubs and I went to the airport to pick up mum…mum was ‘goooing and gaaaaing’ all the way back to our place.

Sophie slept a lot better last night but she is still determined to be a night baby, no matter what we do.

Went along to beer group last night with the ante-natal lads, all bar 2 couple have had babies now.

Brad
A happy mum and daughter

The beer group boys

Mummy finally updates... (Part 2)

OK as per the previous post, I got called away to duties by my new boss – gosh she is demanding! And I get pretty crap pay too – didn’t read the contract terribly well did I!

Anyway, got to the hospital just after midnight on the 4th May in what I thought was quite a bit of pain, and hoping I was far enough along to get some of the good drugs that the hospital provide to labouring mothers, only to be told that I was only 1cm dilated! How could that be, I had been in labour for hours and only 1cm! I felt so stupid, like I had no pain threshold at all and then I was told that they would have to send me home until I was further along – probably by about 7am she said I may be ready to come back, we then asked how we were to know that it was time to come back and she said I would be in excruciating pain (compared to where I was now)! However she did give me a shot of pethidine and some sleeping pills to take.

So off home we went. Luckily the drugs did take the edge off the pain for a couple of hours but by about 4am I was in agony, but didn’t want to go back to the hospital too early. I was pacing the house every couple of minutes as a contraction would crack through my back and then decided to jump in the shower and use heat as pain relief – was fantastic for half an hour until the water ran cold – the worse thing is that we are on gas and shouldn’t run out of hot water – bloody lying gas company, must ring them and find out what that was all about! Finally rung the midwife at about 7am to say that we needed to come in, luckily we are only a 10 minute drive to the hospital, but still managed at least four long contractions on the way making the whole trip feel like an eternity.

By this stage I was sure I would be a lot further along, but once the midwife did the exam she said I was still only 1cm! 12 hours of active labour and I still wasn’t dilating. Luckily the obstetrician came in and managed to stretch the cervix to a three and ordered up some drug that would make me dilate twice as fast, luckily that meant I could have the epidural as labour was going to be incredibly intense with this drug. So this is where it gets a bit boring, the epidural went in, the other drug went in and I went to sleep as did Brad in the lazy boy – I think by this stage it was about 9am.

"Far out man, these drugs aren't bad..."

By 4pm I was fully dilated and ready to push – but our darling little girl was in the wrong position and didn’t want to come out – so the obstetrician decided to prep me for a caesarian and get the theatre ready where she would try the ventouse to turn Sophie into position and try and get her out, and if that didn’t work then we would be in theatre ready for the C section. Her little heartbeat was slowing down, so it was imperative they got her out quickly.

I must admit it was pretty freaky being wheeled out into theatre with a dozen people I didn’t know hanging around looking at me in all my glory as my feet were put up into stirrups, they were right at ante-natal when they say you leave your dignity at the door!

Brad took some pretty graphic photos of her birth, but needless to say we won’t post them on here! Anyway it only took about half an hour if that for Sophie to come into the big wide world – luckily the ventouse worked and she was out (albeit with a bruised head) in two pushes.

Great result in the end and the staff at the hospital were absolutely fantastic.

Mummy finally updates...well sort of.

First update as a mum.

Hello! Finally after 10 days I have found a bit of time to put pen to paper or more like fingers to keyboard.

Where do I start! Firstly I would like to say a HUGE thank you to everyone for all the wonderful gifts, cards and best wishes that have been sent, Sophie has been very spoilt and loves everything! Also, thanks for the wonderful comments that have been posted here too, it’s really lovely to get such positive feedback. I would also like to just say that if you have been trying to ring and not getting any answer its probably just that I am trying to get some zzzzzzzzzz’s and have turned the phone off – really sorry, but with feeding every two hours or so I try to catch up with as much as I can during the daytime. Hopefully I will be able to take calls soon and have a good catch up with everyone.

Well I would really like to share the labour and birth of Sophie with you all, but it seems I have almost forgotten! At the time it seemed like it would never end, but now it is a distant memory – anyway here goes with what I do remember…

Woke up at midnight on the 3rd May with what felt like mild stomach cramps, these carried on every two hours for the next 12 hours or so, didn’t really think too much of it, so didn’t bother to tell Brad as I really wasn’t sure if it was the real deal or not – so I went shopping during that day, and thought I had better get some rest just in case. As the day progressed the pain got a little sharper and closer together, but still nothing too bad. Brad came home from work and I told him that things seemed to be happening, but it could just be a false alarm and that he should go and play indoor cricket (I know how much he loves the game!) however by the time he came home, I was pretty adamant that this was the real deal, so we timed the contractions and thought we would just see how it goes and ring the midwife once they were more intense and only five minutes apart – this happened fairly quickly and by midnight that night I was pretty uncomfortable so we rung the midwife. She was pretty keen to see us, so off to the hospital we went.

Now this is where it really begins to suck!

You can tell Ingrid loves working with books, she paints the picture, gives you a taste of what's about to happen, then leaves you wanting more. (Actually Sophie woke and Ingrid never got round to finishing...stay tuned)

"I'm upset 'caus daddy couldn't even put a pair of matching socks on me!"

Sophie's New Game

Sophie crashing out in the grown-ups bed

Sophie is sleeping a lot better at night now that she’s getting a nightly formula top-up. She also has a brand new game she likes to play, it's called ‘I’ll bawl my eyes out as soon as you put me to bed” It’s crazy, she can be in a DEEP DEEP sleep after feeding, cuddles, drives in the car, whatever, but as soon as you put her down in the cot…World War 4 begins.

The hard part is deciding how long do you leave her in there to cry it off? I think Sophie is slightly up in the battle so far by about 60/40.

Ingrid and I had our first dinner last night without Sophie awake and we almost managed to watch an entire movie together too…although it’s pretty hard to relax completely when you know she will be up and ready to go any second…and she was.

Ingrid starting writing a novel yesterday for the blog but got distracted by Sophie and never finished, hopefully tomorrow she will get time between feeds and sleep to post something for you all.

Till then
Brad

The Friday Top-Up

The Friday night top-up...this better work.

Sophie had hardly slept in 24 hours and was crying constantly, we decided to give her some formula milk as a top up tonight. (I’m writing this first thing Saturday morning and I'm more than happy to report she slept for 5 hours in a row. Sophie woke around 4:30am, so Ingrid breastfed her, puit her back to bed and she slept for another 4 hours – yay!!!!!)
Ingrid managed a decent sleep in between feeds too for the first time since giving birth.

It's a cracker day outside and I’m just a bout to take Sophie for a walk in the stroller.

I spoke too soon...I have just spent 20 minutes getting Sophie ready, popped her in the stroller, closed the front door - and it started pissing down...Auckland weather rocks.

Brad

A happy Sophie (and dad) after a good nights sleep

1 week old today

Sophie and dad writing today's blog

Little Sophie is one week old today. It’s hard to determine whether the past week has gone quick or not…I do feel 10 years older since the birth if that’s any gauge.

It feels like Sophie has hardly slept at all within the past 24 hours. Ingrid the poor thing was up for most of the night feeding her, at one stage she had just fed, and was bawling her pretty little eyes out around 4:30am so I grabbed her, changed her nappies and laid her down on top of me, she grizzled a wee bit then crashed out, Ingrid still couldn’t sleep because she thought Sophie would roll off me and do a face dive to the floor!

Hopefully Ingrid is getting some sleep now, we put bubs down around 9pm and Ingrid hit the sack straight away, then good old Sophie started screaming about 20 minutes later, as much as I tried to leave her to cry herself to sleep, after 15 minutes I had to go and pick her up. Another nappy change and 'Brad sing-a-long' to her and she fell back asleep draped over my shoulder (I took the photo of the two of us at the top of the page using the self timer on the camera, and I’m writing up today’s blog with her still there just to prove that guys can actually do two things at once…even if it’s taken me 2 hours to do so!)

At The Rock : Katie, Jono, Hollie and Chappelli

Cruisin' down Ponsonby Road

We also popped into The Rock today to see the team there, Sophie was out for the count for the entire trip, but the guys looked well stoked to see her anyhow.

Had a coffee at Starbucks and ran into a woman there who also had a baby that was born on the same day as Sophie, she also had a two-year old and thankfully told Ingrid that things do get a lot easier…thank Christ.

I dropped the girls off at home then popped off to do some Mothers Day shopping and bits and pieces. I must be getting tired too because I forgot where I parked the car at one stage and spent 20 minutes trying to find it and I got real shitty, real quickly...you should have seen me at the supermarket when the foreign check out operator didn't know how to work the till properly...

For all the sleep deprivation and short tempers we're experiencing…Little Sophie is worth it a ca-zillion times over....and more.

Brad

I decked out Sophie's door today

Chill out Wednesday

What chu looking at Willis!

We all spent the day chilling out today, I’m pretty sure I didn’t even get dressed till around 5pm…life is good. I mentioned in an earlier post, but it is quite a mission even leaving the house with a 6 day old baby, in saying that, we all had fun at home today doing sweet F.A.

We did have a visitor today though, the midwife came around and she was more than pleased with little Sophie’s progress, she could do with putting on slightly more weight, she said - but all in all, she flew through her exam. We were however, told to feed her ‘on demand’, which made Ingrid shudder a little, even if that meant feeding her every hour all day long… and after today’s marathon feeding effort, I’m sure she'll either put on a huge amount of weight, or leave us a monster surprise in the morning…I’m picking the latter of the two.

I’ve gotta say too, I have this napping changing thing down to an art form, I keep trying to beat my previous times and so far 4.5 minutes is the best – that’s including a complete clothing change – full nappy change (of the number two kind) clean up and full baby wrap! – I'd hate to think how secure the nappies actually are but I haven’t had any major disasters yet (and if one does happen, I’ll just blame it on Ingrid and say she ‘you must have done it during a sleep deprived nappy change babe’)

Played indoor cricket tonight, I left my two girls alone at home for the first time. The good news is - we won!….oh and they girls coped fine without me too…bugger.

We're taking Sophie into The Rock tomorrow to show her off – I’ve got to prove she’s not a ginga like they’re all saying…


Brad

A good day to chill

My babies

Sleep..what's that?

A relieved Sophie after feeding
The big adventure...going out for coffee

Sophie and Ingrid didn’t sleep much at all last night, she certainly is the product of a couple of night owls that’s for sure. Little Sophie is feeding a lot better today though and doing plenty of number two’s, which is a good sign, but she simply doesn’t want to sleep at night. I’m going to have to be the big bad meanie tomorrow and wake her up during the daytime and keep her awake for as long as possible, then hopefully she will be buggered at night and give all 3 of us some sleep (whatever that is)

I went along to beer group tonight (that’s a class set up for all the blokes from the ante natal class’s we took) – 11 out of the 13 couples have had their babies so far and the tally so is 9 girls and 3 boys - (someone had twins incase you were wondering why the numbers didn’t add up?) – anyway I digress, a lot of the babies seem to be sleeping pretty well over night and most couples are waking the babies during the day and stimulating them long enough so they only wake one or twice during the night. We’ll try that tomorrow and Thursday to see if it works…I bloody hope so.

The three of us went on another adventure today, no, not the zoo, or Kelly Talton’s – way cooler than that: We went out and had coffee!!! It's incredible how a simple thing like going out for a coffee seems like such a massive achievement. It's well worth getting out of the house at least once a day I think, just to give back a little sanity. I might take Sophie along to work later this week too and show her off.

Thought I’d sign off with an email from my good mate Ben – it appears he and his wife Laura (from Finland, near Chernoval) have also had a new addition –the following email from Ben after I informed him we'd had a baby...

BradThe Rainey’s sadly announce the new and rather startling arrival for Ben and Laura. Um...Amid fears of contamination from Chernoval in the 80's, the couple remain hopeful the facial hair will eventually fall off and that maybe the teeth will whiten with age. Both parents are undergoing psychiatric evaluation and being tested for extensive drug abuse from their past.

Sophie's Big Day Out

Isn't she a cutie

Day 4.

We had the midwife come around today to check to make sure everything was okay. Sophie is a little dehydrated and that’s about it, Ingrid was concerned that she wasn't getting enough food so the midwife recommended we get some formula as a top up to the 'odd feed'. That is very reassurrng to know that we can do that to ensure she's getting enough food. So we packed the little one up in the car seat and headed of to the mall, Sophie’s first Big Day Out.

She was a little trooper – I don’t think she woke from the moment we put her in the seat to returning home At one stage, Ingrid went into the chemist so I sat with Sophie on one of the mall couches while she slept oblivious to this new world around her. Lots of people walked by the two of us and made comments like ‘ohh what a cutie’ – I was chuffed and then told them to look in the stroller ‘cause Sophie wasn’t bad either…

I had great intentions of helping Ingrid overnight when she got up to feed – just so I wouldn’t look like a greedy guts for getting all the sleep…it didn’t work, I sleep like a train and hardly stirred the 45 million times Ingrid had to get up and feed. I have a brand new admiration for mothers, it’s pretty damn tough on them, Ingrid is simply amazing.

I gave little Sophie a bath again tonight which is my new found high…she LOVES the water and hopefully it will give her a better night’s sleep. Fingers crossed aye.

Dad

My two girls ready for the trip to the mall
Sophie with all the toys at Farmers

Ingrid and Sophie's first day home

Picked up my girls this morning from Birthcare, unfortunately Ingrid got a crap sleep again; it appears we’ve spawned a night owl. The nurses did say if she moved around a lot at night when Ingrid was pregnant, then chances are her body clock is set for playtime at night, more specifically between 8pm-6am…lovely.

Good to have them home though – at least I can take Sophie away and let Ingrid try and get some sleep. Ingrid slept for a WHOLE hour and half today, so I took bubs into the spare room and just laid her on my chest – we both slept for a good couple of hours like that. She absolutely loves the feeling of skin on skin and just crashes out.

I tried to time dinner tonight so we could both sit down and enjoy it together …not bloody likely thought Sophie. She had just been fed and changed and had been asleep for 15 minutes – so understandably as Isoon as dished up dinner, she started squawking louder than I’ve heard before! – I ended up holding her strategically in one arm and eating with the other.

Sophie’s room is fantastic too – I think during the daytime it‘s quite calming in there with all the birds and wildlife busy outside the window in the jungle!

Anyhow – that’s about it for the day – we might venture out tomorrow in the stroller.
Brad

Staring at the trees in her new room

Ingrid feeding Sophie in her room
She loves being held like this and spun around...or at least she stops crying