7 Months Old

I’m doing this update on my phone because I never get a chance to get in front of the computer, so apologies if all the photos come out massive and weird! Anyone who actually reads these super long baby updates is doing a good job! 😘

Age: Augie is 7 months old now and has just been a bloody delight this month. He loves playing, singing, clapping hands and especially loves playing “where is Augie” when we put a blanket or pillow on him and say “where’s Augie” and then he pokes his head out. It is just so cute.

He also loves grabbing our faces (ouch) or stroking them while he has his bottle. He is always reaching out to feel you when you’re holding him or sitting behind him. I hope he’s going to stay a cuddly little boy. Well at least toward his mama.

He loves to shake his head “no” (but he doesn’t know what it means, he just thinks it’s fun). And he is such a wriggler now. It can be super hard to get his nappy on at the end of the day when he’s overtired and super wiggly.

He isn’t really crawling yet, but he does push ups, planks and downward dog all the time. He can move about pretty quick on his tummy, but hasn’t mastered proper crawling yet. He can still get from one side of the room to the other pretty quick. I better get some stair gates ASAP!

He had his 6 month vaccinations and did really well with them. He only cries for a second from the shock and then gets over it. We’ve had a break from teething symptoms this month too. He’s just been such a happy little boy.

Feeding: We are still working on solids, but he is doing pretty good now. We feed him solids twice a day and he tends to prefer the fruits and isn’t so keen on vegetables. I feel ya buddy! His favourite thing is to suck on meat, sorry for that gross visual. I’m not loving how messy this stage is… the food gets everywhere. I really need to bath him after each meal, but obviously I couldn’t be fucked doing that!

We are still doing 5 bottles a day, I’d like to cut that back to 4 bottles and increase his solids, but that will take time. Hopefully we’ll get there this month.

Sleeping routine:So last month was a nightmare and this month has been the complete opposite. As soon as he got out of leap 5 and hit 6 months, he just started sleeping like an angel.

He’s having a quick 30 minute nap at 9.00 am, then a longer 1.5 hour nap at about 11.30 am and then another 30 minute nap at about 3.30 pm. Then he goes to bed at 6.30 pm and sleeps solidly until 7.00 – 7.30 pm. Yay Augie!!!

The best thing for us was him learning to link sleep cycles and have a longer day nap. He has pretty much always only had 30 minute catnaps during the day so I’m loving that he’s having a long sleep and I can get shit done during the day.

In hindsight, I think that I wasn’t giving him the opportunity to self settle himself back to sleep. As soon as I heard him wake up and start playing in his cot I would think, oh he’s wide awake, he’s not going to get back to sleep so I better get him up. Then one day I heard him wake up on the baby monitor and I was busy (having a beer to be honest ha ha) so I let him play in the cot for 10 minutes because he’s really happy in there, then suddenly I looked at the monitor and he had gone back to sleep. Well there you go. Maybe I should have been doing that from that start! Now he just sleeps through and doesn’t even wake up.

Firsts: Augie had his first proper swim in a pool this month and he loved it! We took him swimming in the hotel pool on a little holiday we had this month. Then also to a pool in Sydney while his cousin had her swimming lessons. I was quite scared that he’d spew because he is still spitting up milk a bit. Lucky for us we had the hotel pool all to ourselves both days and he did have a little spit up once so we just splashed it away. Eeeek. I was so worried about grossing out the other guests who were trying to enjoy their break!

He loved swimming so much that I feel bad that I don’t take him more often. I signed him up for swimming lessons, but I cancelled before we even started because they were right when he has his morning nap. It’s a 30 minute walk to the pool and I could just see that he’d fall asleep in the pram on the way and then wouldn’t have his proper morning sleep. He’s just fallen into such a great sleep routine that I couldn’t bear to break it. So I think we’ll just take him to the pool casually for playing and start proper lessons next term.

Achievements: Self-settling. Woo hoo! I’m not sure if it just took Augie reaching 6 months and finding his groove or if I needed to give him more time to figure it out, but he suddenly can self-settle. I used to always need to rock him to sleep for every single nap and sometimes in took ages. My back was killing me!!!! At the start of this month he just started arching his back and basically saying “fuck off mum” when I was rocking him to sleep so I put him in his cot and he just rolled onto his side and hugged his bunny and went to sleep. He will still roll about for 5 or 10 minutes sometimes, but he’s not upset, just settling down. So he’ll pretty much always put himself to sleep now. This is the best!

Things we have learned:Going on holidays with a baby is an interesting experience… Before I went back to work, we road tripped along the coast from Melbourne to Sydney to visit my family. We stopped for a few days in Eden and Mollymook to relax by the beach and eat lots of fish and chips. What I didn’t think about though was what we would do when Augie went to sleep at 6.30 pm. I booked normal hotel rooms with portacots, so he was in the room with us when he went to sleep, which meant that we had to sit in a dark and quiet room all night. Next time I would try and book a hotel with a seperate lounge/kitchen area so that we can put Augie to sleep in the bedroom and still be able to enjoy our evening. Don’t get me wrong, we still had a few beers and ate take out after he went to sleep… we just did it very, very quietly and in a pretty dark room. Also, having a kitchen would have been very handy to wash and sterilise his bottles and prepare his food. I did not think that through very well.

But, we still had an amazing family getaway. I really look forward to more family beach holidays as Augie grows up. I also look forward to him being able to stay awake past 6.30 pm and eat in restaurants with us!!!

Appearance: He’s got more blonde hair coming through and his eyes are blue, but moving toward a bluey/grey colour like his dad. He’s always got a scratch on his face because I can’t control his little claws. Why is cutting a baby’s nails so hard???

Mummy update: Its been a weird month for me going back to work. It’s going to take me a while to adjust to leaving him all day and also to my new role at work. Because I’m only part time, it’s really quite limited what I can do at work and so I’ve had to take a major backseat. I’ve gone from managing the full digital program to just doing website admin. I can’t say that I am loving this new role because I now realise that I thrive in management positions and taking responsibility. I have to bite my tongue a lot!!! I guess this is why so many parents have trouble with balance. I can’t take on more responsibility at work, but then also be able to leave at 5.00 pm and work part time. It doesn’t work like that at my company anyway. So I end up feeling a bit useless at work and I also feel less needed at home too (pity party!). I still think I’ve made the right decision to go back to work, I just need to give it some more time to settle into this new role.

Work It Baby

Well I went back to work last week. I’ll just be doing two days a week to start with and I might do an extra day from home. Oh my god, it was sooooo hard. Even harder than I had anticipated.

The night before I pretty much didn’t sleep at all. I was still awake at 4.30 am and I had to get up at 6.30 am. I just felt so sad to be leaving him for a full day. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the day to day things that I would miss out on. I actually got weepy when I was showing AJ where his food bibs were and I pulled out a new one that I hadn’t used on Augie yet: “Oh, here’s a bib for tomorrow… I haven’t seen him in this one”. Sob. I don’t think I have cried once since becoming a Mum, I’m not much of a crier, so that shows you how hard this was for me.

I knew he would be perfectly fine because he was going to be with his dad. It just felt like the end of our happy little baby bubble and going back to the real world. I think I also felt like I wasn’t needed anymore. I can just leave for the day and he doesn’t need his mum (more sobbing).

Once I got to work I was OK. It was weird to be back in the office and I felt like I was living my old life pre-Augie. It was like being in a bizarro world. Unfortunately a lot has changed at work since I was there and barely anyone I used to work with is there anymore. It was like starting a whole new job. I really wish there were a few more familiar faces around.

I also felt like I wasn’t much use at work either. I have no idea what is going on anymore and the new team have there own groove, so I felt like I was in the way. There isn’t even space for me to sit with my team so I have been put around the corner on my own with all these empty desks and construction in a corridor where people walk through. Super depressing.

The hardest part is trying to get home in time to see Augie before he goes to bed. I only just make it in time to give him his bottle and put him to bed. I’m lucky if I get 10 minutes with him. That really isn’t OK with me.

I’ll just take it one day at a time and see how things unfold over the next few months. I’m sure it’ll get easier.

Back to the Grind

After quite a bit of back and forth, I finally had it confirmed today that I am going back to work 2 days a week in a couple of weeks. I wasn’t due to go back until mid-June, but I decided to go back earlier because I thought it would be a good balance for my family. I also thought it would be nice to wear fancy (clean!) clothes, put on make up and speak to people who can converse back to me. I won’t know myself!

Our family has had a bit of a shake up this year already with AJ quitting his job to run a business from home. He has a lot of flexibility with his hours and so it made sense that I would go back to work a couple of days to supplement our income and give us a bit of breathing space financially. It’s tough being on one salary!

More than the financial reasons though, I thought it would be good for all of us to share care of Augie. I am currently the primary carer of Augie, and with no family around to help, it’s just me and him pretty much all of the time. I worry that this isn’t good for me or Augie and we’ll both end up getting too attached to each other. I think that it’s important to be able to leave him and not worry that he’ll be anxious without me. Obviously I want him to need his mama, but I want him to be a confident little boy who enjoys spending time with other people (as long as I am his favourite of course).

I do feel lucky that I can do this and not have to worry about childcare. I don’t think I would be quite ready to put Augie in childcare just yet (I am too much of a clinger for that, but my niece was in childcare from this age and absolutely thrived). I have complete confidence in AJ to look after Augie all day. Granted, he has never really done it… but that’s because I hover constantly and take over. Which is another major reason I thought it would be good for me to go back to work and give AJ and Augie the opportunity to spend more one-on-one time together. AJ isn’t quite as strict with routine as I am… but I’m sure they’ll have a good time without the fun police.

I often leave Augie with AJ for a couple of hours at a time to get my nails done, hair appointments, shopping or dinner with friends. But, I have never actually been away from him for a full day and I have no idea how I’ll feel about it. Actually, that is a lie. I do know how I’ll feel about it… totally heartbroken. I will need to leave the house by about 7.15 am, which is exactly when he wakes up and then I won’t get home until about 6.15 pm, which is exactly when he goes to bed. We can’t really keep him awake any longer because he is just so over-tired and just done by that time of day.

I honestly don’t know how I’ll cope being gone all day and not getting cuddles and kisses and smiles. AJ said he can bring him into work to visit me at lunch times, but it’s across the other side of town and I don’t want them being stuck in city traffic when they could be out having fun. I mean, how am I going to leave this little face for 2 days a week? Sob.

Despite my little freak out, I do think it will be the absolute best thing for everyone and we’ll all settle into the new routine nicely. I’ll just need a few extra stiff drinks during the week to get me through.