Posted on 17 February 2018
Previously, on Phil’s dad weeknotes..
Last week, I wrote:
Luke’s been having some funny days where he has a much lower appetite than usual. He just eats much smaller portions than we’re used to. But otherwise he’s absolutely fine: just as happy and interested in things as usual, if maybe a little subdued. He’s also been a bit snotty, so we’re hoping it’s just a cold or something.
It was not just a cold. Luke had diarrhoea and vomiting on Monday morning. We called the doctor and were seen the same day: he checked Luke over and said it was a viral infection, and it should improve with Calpol, rest, and fluids, though we should call again if it didn’t improve. Luke slept a lot that day – I think he had 4 naps in total when he would normally have 2, and the naps themselves were longer.
On Tuesday, when I got Luke out of bed and changed him, I saw he had a dramatic rash on his tummy and back. So we called the doctor again, and were seen that morning. The doctor took one look and said it was a typical symptom of a viral infection and that, although it looked dramatic, it wasn’t something to worry about. Luke himself didn’t seem terribly bothered by it: he was more active than on Monday and wasn’t itching at his rash.
On Tuesday night, Luke didn’t sleep well. He was up multiple times, crying in his cot (which we hear loudly through the monitor). A note for non-parents on crying here: babies really do have different cries, and in this case it was the sort of cry which we didn’t feel needed a response from us. Normally he would get himself settled again and go back to sleep. However, this night, it happened several times.
In the morning, we felt he was well enough to take in to nursery. It was almost exactly 48 hours since his vomiting spell, which is the minimum time to wait before returning him to such an environment. Sonia took him in and I had a bit of a break. However, in the afternoon, the disrupted sleep caught up with me. It was a real struggle to keep an eye on him, to give him the attention and interaction that he wanted and deserved. He was still recovering from his illness and was a little clingy; I just wanted to sit motionless and for him to amuse himself. There was a good moment in the afternoon where I put him down for a nap and went and dozed in bed myself.
These sorts of moments are the ones I find the hardest: to be an adequate parent when you’re not functioning well yourself. But somehow we made it through the afternoon.
Luke had his first full days at nursery this week: 9 til 4 on Thursday and 9 til 4.45 on Friday. I thought I would have loads of free time without him, but I spent most of Thursday catching up with laundry, cooking, and cleaning. At least on Friday I managed to get a lunchtime climb in at Vauxwall.
Luke is settling in more and more. One of the things we have been a little concerned about is how Luke’s sleep schedule doesn’t align with the nursery schedule: Luke generally naps mid-morning and mid-afternoon, but the nursery structure has a single post-lunch nap. But the staff have been very flexible about letting Luke keep his existing schedule. And on Friday, he actually slept just the once, just after lunch.
The nursery staff are really good about giving a debrief at the end of the day. When I pick him up, they take me through his day: when he slept, how long he slept, how much milk he had, what size portion he ate at lunch, how many nappies he got through, and maybe some highlights of what he did that day. This has been really valuable to understand how well he’s doing and what he gets up to when we’re not around.
Luke has cow’s milk protein allergy, so we currently avoid feeding him dairy at all. Luke has continued to drink coconut milk with variable enthusiasm. He drank 2 oz (about 60ml) on Thursday at nursery, but only tasted it on Friday. He still eats his afternoon coconut yoghurt, so that’s something.
We are going to start a milk ladder: a structured process of reintroducing dairy to Luke’s diet to see how he reacts. We got the details from the dietician. Step 1 is a biscuit made with a dough that has a teaspoon of milk powder in it, and step 6 is drinking cow’s milk (or formula). The first few steps (biscuit, muffin, pancake) are homemade recipes so that the amount of milk can be carefully controlled. My mum is visiting this weekend and she has kindly offered to bake the biscuits for us.
Since recovering from his bug, Luke has had a phenomenal appetite. We did a vegan vegetable curry which is perfect finger food for Luke, and he wolfed it down. At one breakfast he had 1½ weetabix and wanted bread as well. Today, we had a tuna pasta bake and he basically had an adult portion. We wonder if he’s going through a growth spurt of some sort.
It’s nice that Luke has reached a stage where he is able (and insists!) to feed himself, rather than us having to spoonfeed him. It’s at least one thing that has gotten easier for us.
The NHS recommends babies to have vitamin supplements. We have not been especially good at making this happen every day, and often gone days at a time without giving him his vitamins. But this week, we have managed to get more into the habit.
Similarly, you can start brushing your baby’s teeth as soon as they come through, but we have not been good at doing this every day either. When we do manage, Luke wants to do it himself, with all the enthusiasm and inaccuracy one would expect from an 11-month-old. We were given a tip to have two baby toothbrushes: one for Luke to play with, and one to actually clean his teeth. Watch this space for whether this tactic actually works…
Posted on 11 February 2018
I have successfully finished my fifth week of dadding. You may also want to see volumes 1, 2, 3 and 4.
We bought Luke’s first pair of shoes this week. He hasn’t needed shoes before because he hasn’t started walking yet. He has been cruising for a while now, but this has been indoors. However, now he has started at nursery, and they encourage outside play, he really needs to be wearing shoes.
We already had some hand-me-downs that were roughly the right size, which is what he’s been wearing at nursery for the past few weeks, but Luke didn’t look comfortable in them, and he either pulled them off or they fell off by themselves.
We went to Clark’s and got his feet properly measured and bought a proper pair of crawling/cruising shoes. The difference was immediately apparent: he looked comfortable, didn’t try to take them off, and was happily cruising around the shoe shop bench straight away. I think they’ll make a big difference! It’s just a shame they won’t last long as he’ll grow out of them so soon.
Luke has been progressing at nursery. Again, I took him in Monday to Wednesday to help him further acclimatize. On Thursday he stayed til 3pm again, and Friday til 4 – the latest he’s ever stayed.
He’s been coming home covered in paint, pen, sand, all sorts. I think this shows he’s having a great time!
This week, Luke had his 12 month health visitor check. It was actually one of the more fun appointments we’ve had. There were no needles or physical manipulation of joints. Luke had his weight, length and head circumference measured, then he was given some toys to play with, and the health visitor observed his reactions. The health visitor was clearly someone who loved her job: she was really good with Luke at keeping him interested in the examination and making everything into a bit of a game for him.
Luke’s been having some funny days where he has a much lower appetite than usual. He just eats much smaller portions than we’re used to. But otherwise he’s absolutely fine: just as happy and interested in things as usual, if maybe a little subdued. He’s also been a bit snotty, so we’re hoping it’s just a cold or something.
We’ve still not found a great breastmilk substitute for Luke during the day. He didn’t take well to the wysoy formula (see volume 2) and we suspect he may also have a soya allergy. After taking advice from the dietician, we’ve been trying oat milk, but after some initial hopeful attempts, he’s shown less and less interest over time.
This week, I tried to introduce coconut-based milk instead. Again, there was some early success – he managed around 60ml the first time – but I was struggling to get him to still be interested once the novelty had worn off. I have tried taking a drink from his cup myself, to show him how it’s done and to set an example, with varying success.
Sonia made a breakthrough, though, when she offered him some milk in an open cup, rather than the sippy cup we had been trying. He seems to like drinking from an open cup, though he needs much closer supervision to avoid spilling it all! We shall see if his interest stays high or if it again wanes as the novelty wears off.
Once again, I got out to my Thursday night orchestra. With my new free time during nursery on Thursday and Friday, I managed to meet some friends for coffee and lunch.
Sonia (aka mum) even managed to have three nights out: Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. I’m really pleased we’re able to have some sort of “normal” social life.
Posted on 04 February 2018
Slightly late, here are my notes from my fourth week of dadding. You may also want to see volumes 1, 2 and 3.
I tried two new big-batch recipes, both of which Luke loved: lamb stew with root vegetables, and tuna pasta bake. The pasta bake did the whole family for three separate meals, and the lamb stew made 6 2-portion boxes for the fridge and freezer. I think both will become regular additions to the repertoire!
I spent a lot of time at nursery this week! I took him in for an hour on Monday and Wednesday mornings, to get him more familiar with the staff, the routine, and the environment. Then Thursday was the big test: having had a bad time last Friday when we left him alone, we wanted to do everything to help him settle without his mum or dad there. We brought his pram to sleep in as something more familiar than the nursery mattresses, and we also brought his plushy duck comforter. And fortuitously, one of his NCT buddies started nursery that day too. The effort spent familiarizing him with the place seemed to pay off, and he managed 9.30am til 12 noon without too much drama. They both seem to have helped him settle in too.
However, he was a very hungry boy on Thursday afternoon – eating a bigger afternoon snack than usual, and also eating a big dinner. At nursery he had had a “large”-sized lunch; I wonder if that’s still not as big as what he’s used to at home?
I also learned my lesson from last week, and arranged to do something to keep myself busy rather than having nothing to do but worry about Luke. I went to meet an old friend for coffee and a catch up. She politely tolerated me showing her about 80 photos of Luke, for which I am most grateful. It was also comforting to know that our NCT friends were there for their own baby’s first day.
On Friday, we tried 9am til 2pm. I dropped him off, and again went somewhere nearby and kept busy. He again did well, but he was incredibly tired when we picked him up. He had had 2 naps at nursery, but he had a third nap that afternoon – something unheard of for him! Having him so tired made the rest of the afternoon much harder work, but I still think it’s a good sign that he’s using up all this energy at nursery.
Next week, I’m planning to take Luke in on the off days again (Monday to Wednesday) and hopefully he’ll stay a little bit longer on Thursday and Friday once more.
I’m struggling to find things to write about. The week has flown by, and although I tried to keep notes as it went, I just don’t feel like there’s much of note. There was plenty more routine housework: washing, washing up, that kind of thing. I took Luke to the Tuesday health visitor baby clinic to get some advice on some nappy rash. They also weighed him (he’s 11.10 kg, which is around the 90th centile). I found some time to do some filing, and noticed that our fixed-price gas & electric deal has expired, so it’s time to do some shopping around for that again. On Wednesday Sonia looked after Luke for the afternoon, and so of course I had a raging migraine all afternoon. We managed to do some sociable stuff. Sonia and I managed to go to our respective orchestra rehearsals on Tuesday and Thursday, we hosted Sonia’s book club on Monday, I managed to buy some climbing shoes at get back on the wall for the first time since 2016.
I’m keeping busy, I suppose?
Posted on 27 January 2018
This is my third week of dadding. You may also want to see volume 1 and volume 2.
Thursday was Luke’s first day at nursery. Sonia and I went with him and stayed in the class for the morning, then took him home. Luke is in the baby room, which is ages from 6 months to 2 years. The day has a structure to it: at 9.30am is “circle time” where they sit in a circle and have songs. They then go and wash their hands (the littler ones are helped with this) and sit at tables to have milk and fruit. Then there is some outdoor free play time.
Luke did really well – he seemed happier eating at nursery than he had been at breakfast at home! However the nursery schedule doesn’t align well with his existing schedule and before long he was very tired. We put him in the pram to sleep and took him home again, 45 minutes earlier than planned.
On Friday, I took him in again (Sonia had work commitments so couldn’t join us), but this time I left him there. He seemed to sit down for circle time well. I went to a nearby café in case there were any problems and they tried to call. We had arranged for me to pick him up again at 12 noon.
As soon as I left him, I felt really odd. I didn’t want to walk too far away in case I was needed, but I also knew I wasn’t likely to actually be called on. I still had the feeling of needing to look after Luke and having to think about him and his needs, but I had literally nothing to do. As a result, I kept thinking through whether I had done everything right this morning. Did I bring everything he needed? I had brought his shoes, but I didn’t tell the nursery staff where I’d put them. Would they find them? Would he end up playing outside in his stocking feet? Was that a problem?
After half an hour nursing a coffee in the café and trying to read my book, I admitted there was nothing to do so I went back home. Sonia was still busy with work calls. So I sat on the sofa and tried to distract myself from the ongoing emotional wrench.
Sonia finished her call about 11am, and came through to give me a hug. Having her there was a huge relief.
She wanted to get some exercise, so we arranged that she would go and pick Luke up while I prepared lunch. On her way to the nursery, the staff called her! It turns out Luke had had a tough morning and they wanted to let her know. He had done well at circle time but he was confused by the transitions between different activities. He got tired but managed to sleep in his pram a little. But at lunchtime he was too upset to be able to eat anything.
Luke is only booked in to nursery two days a week at the moment, but it’s possible to take him in on other days if we stay with him. We will probably do this next week to help him get more used to the environment and the timetable of activities.
Luke has started to get angry and upset quite quickly if he can’t do things. For example, the oven door handle is at a great height for him to reach and pull himself up, but we’d quite like him not to play with the oven door. Previously, I could just pick him up and move him somewhere else, and he’d be happy; this week, however, he has found things like this much more upsetting.
He has also been variable at mealtimes: sometimes he will eat as normal, sometimes he won’t eat food he would usually wolf down. We were particularly surprised one morning when he wouldn’t swallow his raspberries – normally a favourite.
We have developed a number of hypotheses about what could be causing this: is it just a new stage of development? Is he slightly ill, or teething? (He has also been sleeping more than usual, which is consistent with this.) Was the nursery visit a traumatic experience for him, which is still affecting him?
Right now, we think it’s most likely that he’s slightly ill, but we will keep an eye on it. We can always take him to the weekly health visitor clinic on Tuesday if we’re still concerned.
Being a man, and an above-average-sized man at that, normal washing-up gloves don’t fit me. When I put my hand on the Marigold width guide, it covers the whole thing up, suggesting that I wouldn’t even squeeze into the largest size available.
Until now, I had just accepted this and washed up bare-handed. That’s fine when you’re doing it once a day, but when you’re washing up 3 or 4 times a day, it really affects your skin. I found the knuckles on my right hand getting drier and drier, and cracking painfully, and the cracks not healing. I realised this was not a sustainable situation so I set out to find some gloves which do fit me.
It turns out that while Marigold don’t do an XL size, some other brands do. And it also turns out there’s such a thing as moisturizing gloves!
So, for the moment I’m using Lakeland Deluxe Moisturizing Gloves in Large size. Large is tolerable for me, but I’m going to try XL as well to see if it’s a better fit. The cracking on my knuckles has healed up well now, and washing up is much less painful.
My mum had a flying visit this week. She lives in Glasgow but often has meetings in London, and she usually stays with us when she does. She came on Tuesday evening, and left Wednesday morning at 11am. It was great to see her.
We weren’t sure if Luke would remember her. He last saw her a month previously, which is a tenth of his whole life so far. But when she came in the front door, Luke immediately had big smiles for his grandma. They had a lot of fun together, reading stories and playing with his walking trolley.
I took advantage of this to do something I had been trying to get done for days: wash my hair and have a shave!
Having a child has definitely changed my relationship with my mum. It’s a joy to see her be so proud of Luke. She really enjoys her role as grandma, and Luke brings out the best in her (as he does with all his grandparents). I also seek her support much more than I used to, and she has a lot of support to offer.
I’m still working out the format. Will this do?
Posted on 20 January 2018
It’s volume two of my much-celebrated dad weeknotes!
We’re trying out SMA Wysoy, a soya-based infant formula. As previously mentioned, Luke has a non-IgE cow’s milk protein allergy. He is still breastfed, but there are times when breastmilk is impractical or inconvenient (for example, Sonia has work trips roughly once a month). We have previously tried expressing and storing milk, with some success but with issues I won’t go into here. We have also tried extensively hydrolysed formulas – these use cow’s milk but hydrolyse the protein until it is no longer a trigger for the allergy. However they taste disgusting and Luke could not get used to the flavour.
As a result, we’re trying the soya formula, so that Luke has something for nursery and for when Sonia is away.
We had our preparatory home visit from our nursery key worker. She will be assigned to Luke, so when he starts nursery this coming Thursday she will be there to welcome him. Of course, Luke slept through the whole home visit so they didn’t actually get to meet each other.
There was a lot of paperwork. It was a pretty badly-designed form: it asked for lots of information multiple times but in different ways, it had inconsistent style (sometimes you sign then print your name, sometimes you print then sign).
This has been a tough week for my mental health. I have suffered from depression in the past, and this week I felt some of those same feelings returning. Being primary carer for a baby, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Also, being naturally perfectionist, it’s easy to be hard on myself when there isn’t time or energy to achieve the high standards I set myself.
What was good was that my wife and I both recognised it instantly and were able to talk about it straight away. We talked about feelings, but just as importantly we talked about beliefs – often, bad feelings arise due to incorrect beliefs. Often I don’t even realise I have these beliefs but they are there, causing trouble. Especially beliefs that start with the works “I should”: “I should always know why Luke is crying”, “I should always have home-cooked food prepared for Luke rather than rely on a ready-made pouch”, “I should be better at this than I am”. When my behaviour doesn’t live up to my beliefs, it’s easy to examine my behaviour, but it’s just as important to examine the beliefs.
I’ve been trying to develop a repertoire of meals that meet certain criteria:
In the past, we have done big batches of soup, which could easily tick all of these criteria. However, Luke is getting more and more keen to feed himself rather than be spoonfed. This week I tried to find some recipes which Luke could eat with his hands. Here are some of the things I tried:
This was from a toddler recipe book. It’s basically garden peas, sweetcorn and diced red pepper, simmered in vegetable stock for a few minutes. It’s good finger food in that it gets Luke to practice picking up small objects.
However, as a whole meal, it turned out to be too much sustained effort for Luke, and he got very upset before he had eaten half his portion. In following meals, we gave him small amounts of the casserole alongside a less demanding main course. By the time we got to the bottom of the batch, we were blending it with a hand blender to make it easier for Luke to eat.
We bodged together this recipe from bits and pieces on the internet. In short:
This felt like a huge amount of effort, even if we got 7 portions out of it. On the plus side, it’s quite easy to do every step before the oven, and put it in the fridge to store until it’s needed. That means you can cook in the evening, when you have time, for lunch the next day, when you don’t.
Luke loved the fish pie. It’s got big enough chunks of fish that he can eat them on their own with his hands, and the mash and parsley sauce combine to make clumpy balls which he can also feed himself.
In principle a roast isn’t a lot of effort: take chicken, put in oven, wait. Makes several portions.
It’s the stuff around it that makes a roast take a lot of effort. We had it with roast potatoes, red cabbage with apple, and gravy. I probably made a mistake doing a red-cabbage-and-apple side dish – that could have just been simply broccoli or peas.
Luke enjoyed the chicken but, with only four teeth still, it’s still a bit much for him to chew up strips of the stuff. He absolutely loves roast potatoes though, we can’t feed him enough of them. Although I thought I had cooked the red cabbage until soft, it was still a bit tricky for Luke to chew properly.
I simmered the carcass for stock afterward, and hopefully we’ll get a good batch of chicken soup out of it.
Sometimes it feels like taking over primary responsibility as a parent is like trying to jump on to a moving vehicle: Sonia can support me and explain to me things as they are, but Luke is developing and changing constantly, so what worked last week may not work any more. I’m having to play catch-up at the same time as anticipating Luke’s future development.