Paddington's Week

As we were leaving nursery one day last week, we were handed a very special bag... Paddington was coming home with us for the week!

He came in a bag with a diary for us to fill in, a story book and a few other bits.

So here's what we did with him:

On his first night we were a little unprepared, so he slept on the sofa and came upstairs for some cuddles in the morning.

It was our day off, so S and I tried to come up with some fun things for Paddington to do.

First Paddington and Ted sat and played with MegaBloks with S.

We walked into town, and S and Ted sat on the checkout in M&S while I paid for our shopping. There was a cheese straw involved because that is the best way to get my child to be even vaguely amenable when shopping.

Paddington showed us the trailer for his latest movie. We were impressed. He's very down to earth, for a movie star.

Paddington and Ted watched S putting pom poms into a bottle. She was very good at it because she likes to do it every day (and then Mummy has to get the pom poms out with her expensive eyebrow tweezers so they're ready for the next day)

We made a special bed for Paddington, using the blanket a friend knitted for S when she was born. He loved it and slept a lot more soundly than S. (perhaps it was the blanket... perhaps I should consider putting her to bed under this blanket tonight...)

On the days S went to nursery, Paddington stayed home and played with her toys. When she came home, he watched her playing all sorts of fun games. In this picture, she is putting pipe cleaners into a bottle. This wasn't as popular as the pom poms though, so she didn't do it again.

S enjoyed reading stories to Paddington and Ted. They enjoyed the stories and the animal noises that went with them.

Paddington tried a piece of orange. I thought he'd like it because that's what marmalade is made from, but he wasn't so keen. I hate fussy house guests.

On Saturday we went to Nana's. She was out, which was handy. We used the time to make a mess of her house and leave hundreds and thousands all over the sofa. Paddington and S attempted a puzzle, but ended up just leaving the wooden blocks in cleverly irritating places.

While we were at Nana's we found a very old Paddington. His hat and coat were the wrong way round, but he was still smiling.

After Nana's, we walked to Auntie Lou and Uncle Lew's house. They have children who are just the right age for playing, and the sort of garden that's perfect for such things. Paddington and S commandeered her cousin's old trike and rode around the garden like cool dudes.

When we came home, we read a book about Paddington going to the beach. Paddington was very good about keeping the ending a secret.

Paddington, Ted and Fluffy Bunny (a present from Kit) enjoyed watching S sort coloured pasta into different pots. Considering how long it took Mummy to paint the blummin pasta, we really thing S should have enjoyed it a little more.

Paddington and Fluffy Bunny enjoyed sitting in Paddington's bed together while we ate tea. I think they were getting a little too close though, and I dread to think what the children would look like - so they were separated at bed time.









Paddington was a little gutted not to be allowed to share S's bath, so we sat him on the toys in the corner to watch. He got a bit bored though, and fell in... so he had to go to bed instead. Naughty Paddington!

Magic Moments: Dear Zoo...

Aaaaages ago, when S was still too small to pick books up by herself, someone on Facebook was selling a pop-up copy of Dear Zoo. I bought it, thinking I could keep it for when S was older. I have a nice pile of books "for when S is older" in the corner of the room.

A little while back, when I acquired a nice shelving unit for S's toys, I put some of the books on the shelf. Dear Zoo ended up standing on a shelf, hidden almost completely by soft toys. It stayed there for a good few months while S was so busy playing with everything else, she didn't anything there.

Last Tuesday afternoon, I wandered into nursery to pick S up, and found her sitting in the book area, reading a small copy of Dear Zoo... I vaguely remembered that we had a copy of that somewhere at home, and thought perhaps I'd hunt it down next time I sorted through her toys. Then I promptly forgot, and went about my daily life.

Wednesday was our day off together, and because S has been rather poorly lately (and I wasn't feeling my best) we spent most of the day at home. She happily played with her toys while I pottered about, occasionally joining in with the playing. Towards the end of the afternoon, I noticed she was playing with a book... It was Dear Zoo.

On Thursday, she spent her time before and after nursery demanding that I read her Dear Zoo. We read it in my chair at the table, on the sofa, on the play mats, on the other sofa.

On Friday, more of the same.

Ditto for Saturday.

On Saturday evening when we went upstairs for bed, Dear Zoo came with us and we read it three times before bed.

On Sunday morning we read it together, and then S sat and read it herself. Then she demanded I strap her into the old buggy (currently in the bedroom for when S can't sleep; she can be rocked back and forth and sleep more upright to help with her cough), and she sat there and read Dear Zoo while I had a shower.

On Sunday evening after bath time, she read Dear Zoo while I put her nappy and babygro on. Then we read it together. Then she read it again. And then she had to have it in the cot with her when she went to bed.

This is what I found when I went up to check on her later:

For those that can't tell, the book next to Tigger is... yep, you guessed it. Dear Zoo.

This is a big deal for me because although S has enjoyed many books before, and there are other books she's attached to or enjoys reading, they have all been books I have chosen for her. When we go to the library, I pick out some books while she enjoys pulling them all off the shelf. If we buy a book, it's usually me choosing some while she sits in the pushchair or sling and enjoys looking around or playing with the book attached to the pushchair (it makes a noise). 

This book is the first one she's clearly just decided she loves. She reads it at nursery, and then she comes home and reads it here. I didn't try to get her to read it, or even put it in front of her - she went looking for it.

Why I Will Never Leave S to Cry.

The other day I posted a status on Facebook that S had gone to bed but cried when I got my dinner, so I had a cold dinner again. It seemed to attract several comments (not on the status itself, but to me personally via texts, emails and in person) telling me I was doing the wrong thing by going to her when she cried. This is my response to those statements.

Babies cry in order to get their carer to help meet their needs. Babies, certainly those under a year of age, do not know how to manipulate, and cannot be spoilt. The can’t say, “so sorry, I’m feeling a bit crap, I’ve woken up suddenly and it’s dark and I’m alone and I don’t like it; could you just give me a quick hug and help me get back to sleep?” They cry instead; it’s their only way of letting us know they need us.

A baby’s cry is supposed to be loud, and grate on your nerves, and make you feel emotional, so that you will want to make it stop – by doing whatever it is the baby is crying for, not by closing the door and turning the TV up. Evolution did not make babies cry in this way so as to make you ignore it until it stops; surely if a baby’s cry was meant to be ignored, it would be easier to do so?

In the 1970s, Mary Ainsworth and Sylvia Bell conducted a study into how mothers responded to their babies’ crying and how this affected the child’s later behaviour. They found that the more quickly a mother responded to her crying infant, even if she wasn’t able to stop the child from crying very quickly, the less the child cried later. They also found that “close maternal contact” was the most effective way of stopping a child from crying. The more responsive I am to S’s crying, the less she will cry in future. For me this is evidenced in the fact that actually, she cries very rarely.

There have been numerous studies into attachment theory (different from attachment parenting, which is an approach to parenting; attachment theory is the study of relationships between humans), and the overwhelming finding is that the more responsive a parent is during the first year of a child’s life, the more securely attached the child will be, and therefore the better the relationship between parent and child going forward.

These are the specific references to back up what I am saying here:

• Bell SM & Ainsworth MSD. Infant crying and maternal responsiveness.  Child Development (1972); 43: 1171-1190.
• Ainsworth MDS. The development of infant-mother attachment. In BM Caldwell & HN Ricciutti (Eds.), Review of child development research (1973) (Volume 3, pp 1-94); Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Egeland B & Farber EA. Infant-mother attachment: Factors related to its development and changes over time.Child Development (1984); 55: 753-771.
• Isabella RA & Belsky J. Interactional synchrony and the origins of infant-mother attachment: A replication study.  Child Development (1991); 62: 373-384.
• Isabella RA, Belsky J, & von Eye A. The origins of infant-mother attachment: An examination of interactional synchrony during the infant’s first year. Developmental Psychology (1989); 25: 12-21.

Many will say that the “cry it out” technique works – after a few torturous hours of screaming the baby “learns” and no longer cries. But what has the baby learned? Most probably, the baby has learned that crying does not work, and nobody will come to help them. If you view a baby as a creature trying to manipulate and trick you, then you would see this as a success. But it has serious implications. This is a psychological term called learned helplessness. Once infants have learned that they do not have control over their surroundings, they stop trying to affect them in any way; they stop interacting. Acting as if a child is trying to manipulate us when it’s crying removes the child’s control over their situation and risks their losing interest in interacting with the world. Studies by Dr Kevin Nugent of Boston Children’s Hospital have found that babies whose cries are routinely ignored show symptoms of depression. There is also evidence that leaving a baby to cry can impede their development. I don’t know about you, but if I’m stressed out, I’m not really able to concentrate on learning new things.

This Guardian article discusses how leaving a baby to cry can result in developmental damage. And here is another post about how excessive crying is harmful to infants.

I am not telling you that what you are doing/have done for your child/children is wrong. What you do is your own business. But stop telling me to leave my child to cry, because you are wasting your time. I know that when I am crying and need some support, I don’t like to be ignored. I know that if I feel shitty, I can ask a friend for help. My baby can’t speak yet; her only way of communicating that need is by crying. And yes, sometimes it is tiring and draining, and I’d rather be sitting downstairs eating a hot meal than spending my evening running up and down the stairs to console a crying baby – but that doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore her for the sake of a hot meal. What I do now affects what will happen tomorrow, and I’m happy to have a few cold meals if it means my child will be happy, both now and in the future.

Short version of this post: don't tell me I'm doing the wrong thing and expect me not to answer you with facts and studies. 

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We love books!!

Considering she is only 6 months old and cannot read, S owns a lot of books. Perhaps even too many books, some (illiterate idiots) might say. We also borrow library books on a regular basis.

At the moment she has three cloth books and three board books on her play mats, and we have three library books as well, having recently returned a book we loved so much we kept it for two months!

My favourite book at the moment is called Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus. It’s fairly simple, as you can imagine: the bus driver tells you, “I have to go over there, please can you keep an eye on my bus and don’t let the pigeon drive it…” and then the pigeon spends the whole book trying to persuade you to let him drive the bus. As with all the best children’s books, it’s a completely ridiculous premise that works precisely because it’s so ridiculous. The pigeon tries bargaining, bribing, pleading and trickery to get you to let him drive the bus. At the moment, S is too young to do much other than listen to the words and look at the pictures of the pigeon looking sad, but I can imagine in a year or so it will be one of those books she will get endless enjoyment from, shouting at the pigeon that it can’t drive the bus!

The book we borrowed from the library for a good two-month chunk is possibly the most simple, straightforward book I’ve ever come across: Orange Pear Apple Bear. I used to read it to my ex’s four year old, and never understood why she loved it so much. S also seems completely mesmerised. There are five words in the entire book, repeated in different order. I know children love repetition, but I didn’t realise something so simple could be so enjoyable. An orange, a pear, an apple, a bear. An orange pear. A bear that looks like an apple. And so it goes on, and S sits and watches the pictures go by.

Another library book we kept a little too long was Peace At Last. I chose it mainly for sentimental reasons: I can remember reading this book when I was at school. S seemed to enjoy it though, I think because of the repetition. Mr Bear can’t sleep, and goes from room to room in his search for peace, always ending up saying “Oh no! I can’t stand THIS!” There are lots of opportunities for making silly sounds: Mrs Bear’s snoring, Baby Bear’s aeroplanes, the fridge, the cats outside, the cuckoo clock, and the illustrations are traditional and quite beautiful.

I bought a copy of Yak Yuk on a whim in Waterstones the other day, and immediately fell in love with it. It’s a board book, so I know I can give it to S to play with and look at the pictures without having to worry about parts of it getting torn out (library books are a worry on that front!), and there are very few words – typically two to a page. The story is basically about a yak and his friend, who is a duck and likes to jump in muddy puddles. The pictures are bright and colourful and because the words are so simple you can make the story as complex or straightforward as you like. And then S can sit and use it to practise turning pages and look at the pictures for herself.

When I bought Yak Yuk, I also bought a board book of Each Peach Pear Plum. This was another one I used to read as a child: the original Where’s Wally book. You start off looking for Tom Thumb, and then on the next page a short rhyme tells you who you’re looking for next. At the moment S is not really old enough to do that side of it, but she enjoys looking at the pictures and listening to the rhymes. I’ve always loved the Ahlberg books; the stories are enjoyable and the illustrations adorable and instantly recognisable. It’s hard to believe Each Peach Pear Plum is now 34 years old!

One of my favourite books of all time is a children’s book I owned long before I was even pregnant. I have loved Where The Wild Things Are since I was very young, and always enjoy reading the book. Spike Jonze recently made the book into a movie which, while definitely staying true to the look of Maurice Sendak’s original illustrations, was nowhere near as amazing as the book! It’s about a little boy who is naughty and sent to his room, from where he sails off to a far away land where the wild things are. At the moment I don’t think S is really old enough to understand it, and the pictures are a little dark for her right now, but I can’t wait until she’s old enough to read along with me.

Last, but most definitely not least, is another book that will have to wait until S is a little older. I borrowed Don’t Put Your Finger In The Jelly, Nelly from the library when I was still with S’s father, and would read it to his two youngest children. They loved it and quickly learned the words by heart, shouting them out as I turned the page. In the end I bought them their own copy for Christmas, and would often overhear them reading it to each other – a sure sign of a hit. In my experience any book which allows the reader to interact, with flaps to lift or holes to poke, is a winner with young children, and this book comes out on top of that pile. The first part has a big picture of a jelly and tells you not to put your finger in it. There is of course a hole for you to poke your finger through, and when you turn the page your finger is waggling next to the jellyphant, who is upset. The book goes on like this: don’t put your finger in the cheese Louise, pasta Jocasta etc, until the last one – which I won’t tell you, because I don’t want to spoil the ending for you.

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Buddhism for Mothers?

You know when you have an argument with someone, or they’ve irritated you in some way, and you just don’t feel like talking to them? So you don’t. Because you don’t have to.

Having a baby is a whole different kettle of fish. The other night, S was clearly knackered, but would (could) not sleep. I was also knackered so in the end, tired of the draft coming from her flapping her gro-bagged feet in her bouncy chair, I took us both to bed. I would have fallen asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow… but S had other ideas. I tried begging, I tried pleading, I tried rocking her, cuddling her, feeding her. I even tried putting her in the cot I’ve finally installed at the end of my bed (whatever made me think that might work, I cannot tell you – sleep deprivation causing dereliction of mental capacity probably). This sort of situation tends to make me panic. Not in the way you might think, though. My panic has more to do with the fact I have no control over this situation. Usually, if I do not like the situation I am in, I can get up and walk away – and I normally do. When I can’t just remove myself from something that I don’t like, it makes me quite agitated. When you are a single parent, you are often stuck in situations you have no control over, and no immediate way to resolve. There’s nobody to take over the rocking and cooing so that you can go to sleep; you just have to suck it up, pretend you’re not mortally tired, and get on with the rocking.

This is yet another of those things nobody warns you about. I don’t mean the tiredness (though really, no amount of explaining can prepare you for that); I mean the whole idea that you are no longer your own person, you can’t just go to sleep when you want to, or go for a walk when you feel like it, spend all day in bed, whatever. Obviously, single parent or not, your life changes dramatically when you have a child. But when it’s just you looking after them, the change is that much more noticeable. If the baby is crying but you need the toilet, you have to make a decision: do I comfort the baby, and hope she calms down before I get to the dangerous stage of needing the toilet, or do I leave the baby to cry and hope she doesn’t get to the house-screaming-down stage of crying before I flush, wash and return? S spends a lot of time sitting in her Bumbo seat in the bathroom doorway.

As I’ve jokingly lamented in a previous post, you can’t reason with a baby. You can tell them, “I’m just going to get a drink, and then I will feed you” but they won’t understand; all they see is that you are walking away, while they are very hungry. Similarly, the other night when S was clearly very tired but not sleeping, it was very frustrating for me not to be able to explain to her that if she just went to sleep we would both feel a lot better. I couldn’t say to her, “fine; you stay awake and play with your toys, but I’m going to sleep.” I also couldn’t say “for the love of God would you just close your damn eyes, I’m dying here!!” – tempted as I was. Also the next day, when my eyelids felt like sandpaper and I was far from on top form, there was little point in my saying to S, "sorry mummy is not moving quickly enough for you; perhaps if you had let mummy sleep last night..."

Every evening, I put S to bed upstairs and then creep quietly back down. Lately she has taken to waking again within an hour, and I have to go back up to her. Sometimes she takes 10 minutes to settle back down; other times it can be an hour, or she doesn’t settle at all, and bang goes my evening. It’s hard to do, but I find that if I just go back up and lay there with her, and don’t look at the clock or think about the dinner I could be eating or the TV show I could be watching, or the mountain of washing up that’s waiting, or the clothes I need to put away or the million other things I could be doing – it doesn’t feel so bad to be stuck there. I sometimes even enjoy laying there quietly for half an hour in silence, with no distractions. It’s an exercise in just accepting things as they are, without fighting against something I am powerless to change.

When I first had S, I downloaded a lot of parenting books onto my Kindle. One of them was called “Buddhism forMothers.” I think perhaps I should read that one.

Strength

I read a quote on the internet today: 

you never know how strong you are, until being strong is the only choice you have.

I’ve been thinking about that lately. When I found out I was pregnant, I was scared to suddenly be responsible for another being. For me, that responsibility began the moment the line appeared on the stick; I came off my medication and started trying to take care of my body now that it was housing another being. I spent my money on books about pregnancy: What To Expect When You’re Expecting, memoirs of pregnancy, books on foetal origins. I read articles about pregnancy and childbirth, decided I was probably going to be a bit of a hippie. I was going to have a water birth with no drugs, even toyed with the idea of home birth. 

From about my 12^th week of pregnancy I slept only on my left side or sitting up; never on my back, never on my right side. I played music to my bump, read it The Cat In The Hat, talked to it when it kicked me. 

And the whole while, I was absolutely petrified that I was doing it all wrong and would continue to do so for the rest of my life. That I would be responsible for producing one of those people you see on a talk show and wonder aloud just how the hell they’ve been raised so badly. 

When S was born, that feeling intensified. I knew how to change a nappy; I’d changed my sisters’ nappies when they were babies, and other babies’ nappies since, but suddenly the prospect of changing my own baby’s nappy paralysed me, and I had to go and get one of the assistants on the ward to help me. I was scared to dress her, scared to undress her, scared I was feeding her wrong, that she was too hot, too cold, in the wrong position, her head wasn’t supported enough, she was sleeping too much or not enough, I was somehow unknowingly causing her irreparable damage that would blight the rest of her life. 

In a way, I was lucky we were kept in the hospital for nearly 2 weeks; the whole time we were there I knew I was doing ok. S’s temperature was checked several times a day, people came to check on us. I knew there was little danger of me accidentally damaging her with so many people checking. When we went home, the panic really set in. When someone else was there it was worse; I became clumsy when holding her, worried the midwife was watching me whilst trying to remember the phone number for Social Services, convinced she must think I was totally inept.

When her father left us, I was distraught; after 8 months of pregnancy where I avoided every single thing that might have caused an issue (seafood, alcohol, blue cheese, anything close to its sell-by date, the medication the doctor kept suggesting I go back to, Ibuprofen, all the things they tell you to use “with caution”), now I was to be left to my own devices with nobody to look over my shoulder and correct my myriad mistakes. This baby would surely not fare well if left with me. I cried to the Health Visitor that I was certain I couldn’t do this alone and she said, But you already are.

I remained convinced of my ineptitude, until S’s father took to shouting at me in the street that I was not a fit mother. And then a voice in my head answered him: Fuck You. I am a good mother. She is healthy and happy, she’s developing well despite being born 5 weeks early. I am devoted to her. I am good at this.

Over the past few months, so many people have said to me, Oh, I couldn’t do it on my own/you’re so brave/you’re so strong or variations on those statements. I don’t feel strong, I don’t feel brave. But I find that I’m capable of a lot more than I ever thought possible. 

It occurred to me this morning that I have not had a full night’s uninterrupted sleep since before Christmas 2011. I have gone from spending the majority of my time alone, to spending all of my time with my baby. I have gone from panicking about not knowing how to change a nappy, to using washable cloth nappies. I’ve gone from being scared to bathe her, to getting in the bath with her and having a good old splash together every other day. I’ve gone from gingerly putting her down in a moses basket propped up at one end to avoid vomit, to having her lay on a blanket next to me in my own bed. I do everything with my child, and I find it an alien concept when people ask me about having a break. Why would I want a break? I don’t see this as strong, I see it simply as the way things are. 

The fact of the matter is that I can’t imagine doing this whilst trying to maintain a relationship; there is no room for a man in our bed, in our routine, in our lives. I am sure that sometimes S does miss out on certain aspects of life from having only one parent; when I go to the toilet and she is crying, nobody cuddles her until I return. If I want to nip to the shop to buy something, she has to have her coat put on and come with me. There is only one person cooing at her when she masters a new skill or just smiles in an extra-cute way.

When you are faced with sink or swim, and sinking means taking someone with you who relies upon you entirely, swimming really is the only option.