NZ Baby Blog

The most frequently asked question by far, by those with 1 child already especially, after the usual how is the baby, what is it etc etc, is “How is your older child coping?”. Your biggest fear I think how your older child will react to the newbie. Will they be jealous, will they be mean or upset, testing or unfazed or what?

In our case our older boy reacted about as well as we could expect. He was interested & loving towards his younger sister (helps she gave him a bike as present  to sweeten the deal , and a bit more challenging towards his parents.

Obviously YMMV (Your Milage May Vary), but I think that if you’re expecting, or thinking about it, then a rough guide to how your own child will react can be taken from how they react to other stressful (although not necesarily negative) occasions.

For example, how does your chiild/family cope with going on holiday for a couple of weeks - and if you don’t know then this is a perfect excuse to find out.   Our child doesn’t sleep so good and doesn’t eat so good so tends to get a bit fragile and prone to getting sick.

And how did they react to starting daycare, or kindy, going to stay with Grandma etc - ie getting a bit less parental attention (Ours got a bit clingy, and wanted mum a lot).
That is about exactly what happened when the baby came along, but with the added tricky of mum spending some time superglued to the bed or couch and obviously completly knackered.

Advice from the experts I read included…

• To not “blame” everything on the baby - ie “mummy is tired” is ok, “mummy is tired because baby kept me up a lot” is not so good, “it’s  the babies fault that I’m tired” really not good.
• To spend time with your older child while the younger one is asleep, although that does fly in the face of the “sleep when baby sleeps” advice so there is a balance that needs to be found there.
• Keep to the older childs routine as much as possible - which is good

My own coping strategy for that tricky “feeding the baby in bed in the morning, please don’t jump all over me I just can’t quite cope with you right now on my 4 hours sleep” time, was to play some special games - in our case “cafes” and “making shopping lists” which involve him with a pad and pen, choosing meals and thinking about what we buy, without me needing to move. And singing action songs (5 big dump trucks was our fave), and him doing little jobs like opening the curtains, putting nappies in the bin/bucket, emptying potty, choosing baby clothes, fetching nappies etc etc so that his energy & running around is channeled.

The “jobs” startegy has the added bonus that if you think of a job that they need to do in their own bedroom (fetch clothes, open curtains), with any luck they’ll get distracted by a toy and you’ll get 10 mins peace as well.

It took about 3 months for us to find something like a new equilibrium, which actually went pretty quick.

Yay us. Today was our first “2 nappy day”, and baby is just a week short of 8 months old. We missed some signals I think at lunch when we were at a cafe (so much going on for all of us), but it’s our best day so far.
Infant potty training really does rock, you gotta love no poopy pants to change.

Right now I’m in search of the perfect nappy bag. I’m not having a lot of luck, what I want is….

• A big enough compartment to hold a small potty (about 15cm square although it’s basically a round bowl that looks a bit like a top hat), nappies, change mat, wipes etc
• Weather proof - so a flap over the top is good for that
• Tip over & toddler proof/resistant - ie a zipper top so that everything doesn’t just fall out when it tips over
• A nice colour - for me this would be something bright, but probably not patterned
• Other compartments so that the potty is separate to clothes, snacks etc
• Drink holder on the outside for a waterbottle (but not on the inside in case it leaks)
• Long strap and/or way to attach to the pram
• Durable

My last 2 nappy bags have failed on being a nice colour (both black), and one was not at all durable.

My current one is a nice bright yellow Koha messenger bag, but it doesn’t zip closed so stuff falls out all the time when it tips over.

Things that I don’t need

• Places to put baby bottles
• Built in change mat

You wouldn’t think it was so much to ask for really!

Update:  What I got in the end is an orange leather OiOi Hobo bag. It’s capacious and pretty, the only thing it lacks is the weather proofing flap over the zip but so far so good and it hasn’t leaked.

At 2.12 am on the 18th of June Ms Charlotte Rose Blake joined us in the outside world with a lusty cry to show all was well, and then settled down to see what all the fuss was about - laxing out under the heat lamps.

She weighed in at a very average 3.28kg.

We got started at 6pm ish, phoning Grandma & the midwife around 7pm. By the time Grandma had gotten here it looked like it was going to be another false start, but as the midwife was already on her way to the hospital she said come in anyway.

Off we went, found the birthing unit, and was very disappointed to find we weren’t in a room with the grab bars on the wall, and that we didn’t have a lazy boy either! Si had to sit on the swiss ball in the bathtub!

Things aren’t that exciting when you can read a book while pacing about (Book was the Sari Shop which was OK but sort of petered out at the end).

At 10pm we were looking to break the waters to get things morning along, but as it turned out, they broke anyway themselves.

4 hrs later and full dilation is achieved and then begins the longest 12 minutes of my life complete with a lot of swearing, some pleading, and attempts to negotiate which all failed to impress anyone, but in the end out she came without any interventions.
Then it’s a bunch of drugs to try and prevent an excess of bleeding in me, more gas (mmm good gas), cuddles with baby, checking everyones ok, food for both parties, and finally off to the ward for some rest.

Original Post - Clicker Kid Gets Dressed

As is usual with my training, I can be a bit poor on keeping the reinforcement going, as I do tend to try and fade the reward too early/completely.

However, even so, he is much better about getting dressed most of the time. A few “environment” changes have helped - getting dressed before going downstairs for breakfast is usually better than trying to do it afterwards. He is putting on his bottom halves himself, although still with a quite a lot of prompting so that might be the next thing to work on.

You know you’re getting to the business end of your pregnancy because you start to get more pain! In my case jack-knifing out of bed at 5am with leg cramps.

This is a sub-optimal way to wake up, so I turned to Google in search of answers. What I got was what you often get with non fetally harmful pregnancy conditions “we don’t know why it happens, try eating differently, put up with it”. In this case, try eating more salts & minerals (Potassium, magnesium, zinc and sodium were popular suggestions), walk around to walk it off, put some heat on your leg.

The key here being “we don’t know why it happens so we really don’t know how to stop it happening“. Getting cramps when you’re running a marathon, you can kinda see why you might be a bit short of some vital minerals, and why keeping your electrolites up would be a good idea. Sleeping in bed seems an altogether less strenuous activity (especially when you’re 6 months pregnant), so it’s harder to see why at 5am you suddenly run out of something (assuming you’re not sweating etc in which case removing a duvet seems a good idea).

As it happens, I’ve had general OOS pain issues, and pre-pregnancy had been getting treated at the Southern Cross Pain Clinic in Wellington - but had been discharged. So as I had some hip pain as well I booked myself in to see what could be done that didn’t involve eating my own weight in bananas (Potassium).

Apparently there is quite a simple explanation for why you might get leg cramps in pregnancy. The part of your spine/back where the messages about cramps come from is about a hand width above the small of your back. So your causal options are referred pain (check, pain in hips could do that), and/or just pain from trying to compensate for carrying a 5kg lump out in front - again more plausible than that you’ve had a run on your magnesium store.
Consequently there is some safe treatment that seems to work.

I got saline injections into the area, as well as into my hips, and it’s keeping the cramps under control.  In addition, when I get that “pre cramp” feeling in my legs and feet, I apply a hot wheat pack to my back and it’s meant that so far I’ve had no more jack-knifing out of bed.

The cost of private treatment was about $175 I think, so a bit more than bananas, but worth it I think.

The doctor is Dr Giresh Kanji - a very sympathetic man. If you’ve got health insurance you can probably get it for nix if you get a referal from your midwife or obstetrician (or even GP).

Today I finally got sick of the whole “get dressed do your teeth routine” which takes forever and often involves more manhandling of the child than I can do at the moment, and more tears than is pleasant,  and decided to start clicking for what I wanted.

What a difference - I wish I’d done it earlier but [Insert long list of excuses why not] I didn’t.
INGREDIENTS

1 X 3 year old who hates getting dressed & doing teeth

7 x mini Pebbles, Smarties, M&M’s or similar - about 5mm diamater
1 x container to hold treats

1 x clicker (optional)

1 x parent in the right head space

METHOD

1. Make a show of counting out small treats (mini m&m’s) into container so that child knows you’re doing it.
2. Explain that these are treats for getting dressed and doing your teeth.
3. Ignore pang of guilt as imaginary dentist tells you that giving sweets right after doing teeth is counter productive
4. Tell child you’re off to bedroom/bathroom and that they need to come with you if they want them
5. If child normally wouldn’t do that, and this time they do, click and treat when you get to destination or significantly underway. Click marks that they have done what you want - you want to get a click (or OK or similar) in so that you can do less instant treating in the future.
6. Tell child that they will get one treat per item of clothing
7. At this point my child starts messing around, so I left the room as I was making decision not to “play” our usual game of cajolling him into getting dressed.
8. Child is upset that usual game doesn’t work.
9. Explain that today we are doing clicks and treats for getting dressed, would he like another chance.
10. Yes please.
11. Back to room, child is allowed to wear the clicker.
12. Child steps into knickers on count of 3, gets a click and chooses treat
13. Child steps into trousers (no counting required), gets a click and chooses treat
14. Remove shirt, put on t-shirt (usually a big struggle to get night shirt off and clean one on), Child very happy to comply, gets clicker back too, gets click and treat.
15. Put on socks - click and treat
16. Put on shoes - click and treat
17. Child fully dressed in record time! Mum not feeling cross yay!

CLEANING TEETH & WASHING FACE

1. Again show/tell there are treats
2. Count to 3 was needed for child allowing teeth to be brushed
3. Child stands still, opens mouth etc
4. Praise, click, treat
5. Child stands still with face forward for face wash
6. Click & treat

Again, child is happy, mum is happy, all done nice and quickly.

Once I’ve got this one established, so that we have the idea of a non confrontational get ready embedded, then I’ll work up to putting on his clothes himself, and to putting in a “marker” for the treats like a button or a bead so that particularly the teeth treat might get collected later when I won’t feel so guilty.

We had been doing “you can’t have a DVD until you’ve had breakfast & are dressed”, the problem with that though is that when it all takes such a long time, there isn’t time for a DVD before we go out to daycare or other activities anyway. The no DVD until those things are done will still apply, but I think the direct clicking approach will speed the whole proces up and hopefully he’ll get to a point where he is earning “tokens” which he can then use to “buy” DVD time.

I wish that there was a reliable source of info on good (and bad) cafe’s to take small children to in Wellington.

At the weekend we went to Super (old Island Bay Cafe) in the main shops, Island Bay village on the Parade. The food was good, and they have a nice big “fenced” play area inside, with quite a few toys, and some toys in the “garden” out the back as well.

Our boy is 3, so was perfect for him. If you’re breastfeeding it’s not so good. On a fine day you could get some privacy out the back, otherwise it’s  all open plan and no easy chairs or couch anywhere so you need to have your technique sorted for the unsuported feed.

They do have a kids menu, fluffy was ok, and reasonably quick to come.

As it’s on the main Island Bay bus route, if you have a bus fiend like I do then there is a bit of entertainment out the window as well.

Renovations have this tendency to start off kinda small, and escalate - well mine do anyway. By the time you’ve found that the wall needs rebuilding, and the floor joists replacing (on 2 levels) and thus reflooring must happen in 1/3rd of the house, redoing the whole house seems like a good idea.

Nearly 2 months later and we’re still squatting with relatives (thank you thank you for having us), and wondering why when the rest of us are having to work, tradesmen, or more to the point, tradesmen’s suppliers seem to be able to take the whole of January off.

So we wait for skirting boards to  be run - something about a machine breaking down, and cornice to get dry (plaster cornice takes a week apparently), so that the last week of real work can be done.

In the meantime we show people about from time to time, and imagine how nice it will be to be back in our own house - but I’m not booking the movers just yet!

The upside of the economic downturn is that my builders are free to begin the next phase of our renovation project. The downside of course is that if we need to borrow money it’ll be that much more expensive.

However we’re pushing ahead anyway, working our way through our building consent and we’re up to the last phase of that. We’re making a bigger bedroom for the boy out of the old study & old bathroom, tarting up our bedroom, making an upstairs deck, putting big doors on to the downstairs deck from the kitchen, and reworking the old downstairs bathroom & kitchen into a scullery & kitchen combo.

In the meantime the contents of 3 rooms (including the boy) are all in the front room (bye bye trampoline room you were fun for the winter), and the contents of the kitchen are variously in the lounge, and in the office (bye bye Dean).

Kitchen pack up isn’t quite done, it’s just got to the annoying stage. It’s a little unclear how long we won’t have any kitchen facilities for, maybe only a week or two, maybe a month or two, depends on the plumber among other things.  So we’re accepting invitations to dinner, we’re even happy to cook it