Due to the type of delivery BB had, the Health Visitor recommended that BB be seen by an Osteopath. BB had her first appointment at 10 weeks as I was also concerned that she might have had some residual tension or pain in her head from the use of the forceps. Sure enough this was confirmed by the Osteopath (as well as a slight twist in BB's pelvis) who recommended four sessions to relieve this. In fact the Osteopath thought that BB had coped with the tension pretty well by the sounds of it, although I had to admit that it had been quite difficult to put BB down for her daytime naps as as soon as you lie her down she starts crying and that often, when she does have her crying tantrums she does hit her head with her little fists.
The first couple of sessions were
pretty tough. My mum came with me to the first appointment and waited
outside the treatment room. Unfortunately, BB found the experience
quite uncomfortable and cried through most of it and at one point my
mum came flying through the door to check on what was happening –
Granny to the rescue! It was upsetting to see BB like this but I had
been warned that she could react this way. I was told to indulge her
over the next 24 hrs or so and to give her lots of cuddles, which of
course I did. After the first two sessions BB relaxed into the
treatment and after the fourth she was discharged. I do hope that the
treatment has alleviated the tension in her head for her and I must
say that putting her down for her daytime naps is much quicker and
easier now and she doesn't seem to cry half as much as she used to.
Of course, this could also be partly due to her simply growing out of
it.
On the development side we were
particularly excited to witness BB rolling onto her sides. This was
at 10 weeks + 6 and we were both there. Mr B had taken the day off
from work and had BB on her play mat whilst I was catching up on
emails. As he looked away for a second I noticed that BB was on her
side. I asked Mr B if he had placed her like this, which he denied.
We were both a bit perplexed as BB hadn't really shown much interest
in rolling over just yet. So we rolled her back onto her back and
played with her a bit more, thinking it might have just been a fluke.
But just a few minutes later we both witnessed her rolling onto her
other side. We were both overjoyed by this but BB seemed far
more chilled out by the whole affair than we were. I was so pleased
that Mr B was there to see it too.
Tummy time has never been a
particularly fun game for BB but I do try to do it every so often
(tummy time is simply putting the baby on their stomach so as to
help strengthen their neck – it also helps them to get ready with
pushing themselves up on their arms, rolling over, sitting up and
crawling). Most of our tummy time sessions are pretty short as BB
tends to cry after just a few short minutes but by 12 weeks + 4 I
notice she has a much stronger head lift and that she is a generally
more confident baby on her tummy.
All our friends who have children told
us during the early weeks that once you hit the three month mark
everything gets easier. At that time though, three months seemed a
very, very long way off and I wasn't sure that we would still be sane
by then! But as the days and weeks wore on BB's sleeping pattern did
seem to settle more and more. I had got used to waking 2-3 times a
night for changes and feeds but at 10 weeks + 2 we had our first
night of just having 1 feed. This made a massive difference but we
couldn't help but worry a little that BB would be starving!!
A week later we had our first
Waterbabies session. BB seemed rather shy at first and would bury her
head into me as we sat on one of the chairs watching the class before
ours. I think the noise and the new environment was a bit
overwhelming at first but once in the water she coped very well. So
well in fact that she went on to sleep through the night for the
first time! We, of course, didn't. We kept waking up at BB's usual
wake up times to check on her and expecting her to wake up for a feed
any minute, but she didn't. She was fast asleep, dreaming of what
ever babies dream of.
Over the next couple of weeks we
noticed that when she did drop off to sleep in her basket her arms
would bang onto the sides and wake her up again. She was also able to
kick the bottom end, so thoughts turned to putting her in her cot.
Our room is not quite big enough to have the cot in with us so this
would mean putting her in her own roo. The advice given by the
experts is that babies should stay in their parents' room till around
6 months, so we were rather torn. But at 12 weeks we decided to try
BB out in her cot and in a Grobag. We allowed some time to settle BB
in her room, but as we use it to change her all the time she was
already familiar with and went down pretty easily.
Strangely enough, I was more affected
by the fact that BB would no longer be in our room and was actually
quite happy in her cot than when I try to get her to feed from a
bottle. This change of room for her, which she took in her little
baby stride, was a massive change and leap for me. I suddenly
realised just how quickly BB was changing and growing up.
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