We’ve been practising for the last few days, having to come in and settle her, and taking up to 45 minutes to get her to sleep without holding her. Today she has managed to sleep each time without having to be comforted. It’s taken her about 15 minutes the first couple times, and the last two naps took only five minutes before she fell asleep! It’s still early days as she will cry as soon as you put her down, but things are looking good. She’s getting heavy so the less we have to settle her in our arms, the better!

Also, we are finally settled into a routine. Abby goes to bed around 10:30pm, and wakes up around 7 in the morning (sometimes 8 or later if she’s extra tired). She feeds every four hours, four times a day, and a top up before bed if need be. Her daytime naps are still inconsistent where she might sleep for 3 hours, or it might be for only half an hour, but she definitely needs to nap in between feeds or she becomes Crabby Abby again.

Tasty teether

Abby is very interested in things around her, and her little hands are always searching for things to grab, including my hair. She’s at the stage now where she may start teething so we have bought her some teething toys to knock out two birds with one stone – keeps her hands and her mouth busy.

My Battle of the Boobs is going well also. I’m trying to express only three times a day (every eight hours) and only doing 5 or 6 minutes each side. I think my body is starting to get the message and milk production seems to be slowing down a little. It sucks that we are going to have to buy a can of formula each week once she’s comletely off breast milk – that’s almost $20 a week more than we had to spend up to now. Still, I am going to be much happier and I’ll be able spend more time enjoying Abby. Can’t wait to get back some of my freedom (sleeping in any position I want is one of those things as hard heavy boobs means I only sleep on my back these days).

Our first PIN (Parents in the Neighbourhood) group is next Thursday. Should be good to meet up with some other parents and have adult conversations! Abby is going to be an angel for mummy… lol!!

Cute couch potato

It might sound selfish but I need to feel like myself again and not like a milk truck all the time.

It’s depressing enough that Abby won’t breastfeed straight from the boob, so to have to spend valuable ‘free’ time expressing into a bottle, on top of the time it takes to feed her the bottle, it’s more than I’d like to deal with for much longer.

Question is – how do I stop?

I’ve been reading online and have tried to skip a feed (or in my case, an expression) so that I only expressed three times a day. I also reduced the time I spent expressing by limiting to 10 minutes each side (but I know I have to reduce this further).

This was fine for the first day but because the last expression of the night still left milk in me, I was so swollen and sore by 4am that I had to wake up just to express. Then, the next day I found myself back to expressing four times a day because I was carrying around extra milk from not emptying them properly each time.

I am guessing that I have to put up with the swelling and pain for a while before my body starts reducing the milk supply.

To those mothers who have stopped breastfeeding – tell me your story and give me some advice!

Talking of sleep, Abby has been sleeping about 8-9 hours each night for the last month or so. It’s so good to have a normal night’s sleep again! She’s also getting into a day time routine of staying up for a couple hours then having a nap (and a cry before the nap). Her first nap of the day is usually two hours long, but unfortunately the others are short half hour ones, if that.

However she did wake up at 5am last night with a very snotty sounding nose and kept on choking so I got her out of bed to check her out. Her cousins were staying in the weekend and one had a cold, so I thought she might not be feeling well (I have a sore throat now). She had a small feed, some Pamol, and got really grumpy before she fell asleep again. I hope that hasn’t broken her routine!

Abby noms with her friend Charlie

It’s amazing how they grow (she is three months tomorrow!) and change in what seems like overnight.

Apart from her hands, Abby has started to put everything she can get a hold of into her mouth, and when she can’t get what she wants she grumbles. I hope we don’t have a tanty-thrower in our midst.

She kicks a lot as well and I think the next thing we get her is going to be a Jolly Jumper. I’m sure she’s going to love it.

In her purtie dress

One of her new things is to pucker her lips and make sucking sounds, like she’s sucking on an invisible dummy. Another reason for Grandma to think we’re not feeding her enough!

She definitely tries to have conversations now, and has had quite a few belly laughs when we play with her. It’s oh so cute!

Oh and another thing, I’m back to my pre-pregnancy weight! Got a bit of extra wobbliness around the tummy to deal with but that’s about it. Yay!

Iced coffee

Go to a Vietnamese restaurant, or my mum’s house, and you can get a refreshing iced coffee done the Vietnamese way.

Sweetened condensed milk is used in place of milk and sugar. I assume this is because Vietnam isn’t known for its dairy so fresh milk is hard to come by. The condensed milk also sweetens the drink and gives it a caramel taste, so it’s all good!

The way I make it is to dissolve 2 teaspoons of instant coffee in a couple spoonfuls of boiling water, stir in 2 tablespoons of condensed milk and fill the glass with ice and top with cold water.

You can stir the drink before you serve it, or do it the traditional way and serve with a straw so your guests can do it themselves.

Ooh I just read wikipedia’s entry on condensed milk, and recall mum giving us sweetened condensed milk on toast when we were kids. I never thought so before but it sounds weird now!

Being summer, I thought a cocktail-inspired cupcake was in order, so I came up with the Pina Colada Cupcake. It has chunks of pineapple baked into it and topped with buttercream laced with Malibu.

The recipe is once again based on the awesome Scout’s Cupcake, tweaked for this variation.

Like eating a cocktail!

Abby at 9 weeks 6 days

She doesn’t just stare at her toys when she’s on the playmat, but whacks them and coos and gaas and laughs as she does it. Her face lights up when we come to say hello. She loves having ‘conversations’ with mummy and daddy, and also enjoys watching television which can be distracting when she’s feeding…

She may be going through another growth spurt at the moment. We’ve noticed that she’s drinking less but more often – having some now, a little nap, then the rest later.

Chub chub

Abby is now 6kg. She’s a rather chubby baby but a good chubby. And she’s long. I haven’t measured but she fits into some of the Pumpkin Patch clothes in the 3-6 month size. Definitely has daddy’s height unlike mummy who is only 5 ft tall. Abby will be reaching things for me in a few years!

Even though I sometimes still don’t get to shower until daddy comes home, I have more time to do things during the day. On most days she seems to be happy playing by herself if she’s not napping, and cries when she actually needs something.

Tummy time (before she started crying)

It might be because she’s older, or we may be used to what she wants, or we aren’t too worried about letting her play by herself, but she’s getting easier to handle and we’re enjoying her more.

Now she just has to have a reliable routine so I can plan my day and do things like bake cupcakes again!

(She also had a number 3 the other day – a poo explosion that went up her back and through her clothes. Another milestone, lol!)

Satay India, located on Allen Street in Wellington city, often does two for one deals during the week – as long as you purchase a naan bread with each curry, you get the cheaper curry free.

I have to say that they make the best butter chicken I’ve ever had. It’s creamy, tangy, and has a sweet caramel taste to it. And it’s not too sweet like most butter chickens can be. It’s just divine!

The naans are always fresh and delicious too. They make the stretchy bubbly type of naan unlike the floury bready stuff we got in the UK. In fact, our two experiences of UK Indian wasn’t that great. The butter chicken was a specialty at the restaurant we went to in Wales, but was not like any butter chicken we get here in New Zealand. It was certainly buttery, but not the right colour, texture or taste. It just wasn’t right. All I could think about was how much I missed the butter chicken at Satay India!

Aside from the butter chicken, their other curries are also very good – according to friends. I’ve had a few of the other curries but I like the butter chicken best. I’m not too sure about the vegie ones though – they always seem boring but maybe that’s because I like my meat!

If you are into your beers and curries, Satay India offers Kingfisher Strong in a 650ml bottle. For about $12 a bottle and with an alcohol content of not more than 8%, it’s not a bad deal at all.

They do takeaways which I’ve been told is great value for money too.

The only complaint I have is that you can’t take home any left-overs if you have the banquet. Something that isn’t obvious when ordering. Also, they forgot to give us our poppadoms that time too – boooo!

• You will be extremely tired. More tired than when you did an all-nighter out partying, or for us geeks when you stayed up studying for exams… You might be less tired in the second trimester but then you’ll get tired all over again towards the end. You’ll be even more tired when it’s time to have the baby so rest and eat when you can before going to the hospital!!
• You will miss eating, both in terms of types of food as well as the amount. Pregnant ladies love food but usually it’s less more often rather than lots at one sitting. Going out to dinner isn’t so fun when you can only have half your meal. And you can’t just buy sushi when you want it. Also giving up the drink is another downer (although I admit to taking a couple of ‘tasting sips’ on occasion).
• You will get bored. This happens once maternity leave wears out its novelty. When you’re really big and really tired there isn’t much you can do for entertainment except maybe watch TV. Even then the Food channel repeats become tiring, especially when you know you can’t be arsed trying any of the recipes.
• You will get big. Obvious yes, but worth mentioning because simple tasks can became quite difficult – like putting on shoes, shaving legs, moisturising, hanging out washing, even lying yourself down to sleep. Your belly also gets wet washing dishes and hot cooking dinner!
• You will ache in places you’ve never ached before. This is even before labour begins.

Having said all that, I’ll quote what my wise sister-in-law once said about pregnancy- “You hate it and love it at the same time.”

And look what cuteness comes out of your troubles!

She only started getting tears in her eyes a couple weeks ago but just today they made it out of her eyes – all because she hates feeding from mummy. We even visited a lactation consultant at Plunket to see what help she could offer. I now have a milk drip contraption that you tape to your boob so you can give expressed milk at the same time as breastfeeding to give Abby what she wants straight away. Haven’t tried it yet. The main problem is that Abby gets upset as soon as I try to breasfeed… *sigh*.

So, breastfeeding is still not going well and expressing then bottle feeding is the way she rolls at the moment.

We're off to see The Wizard!

Abby and her cousin Bridget had a little photo shoot yesterday. It’s the thing to do when you’re only a day apart. They were very cute – two little babies with uncontrollable limbs and facial expressions. Bridget noticed Abby was next to her but Abby seemed oblivious to Bridget’s company. Very cute indeed.

Abby is getting more interactive and definitely trying to communicate. The hubby is sure she says a mumbly ‘Hello’ back to him when he greets her.

She’s still a lot of work but I think she may have a routine sorted. Holy moly she even managed to sleep through the night on several days this week! Unfortunately I still have to get up in the middle of the night to express but it’s better than feeding as well. I’m beginning to feel like a normal person again.

And now I know why she’s crying (most of the time) and that she sometimes just wants to be awake and play, it’s not as stressful as it used to be. We may be making progress yet!