Photo 366 challenge – week 8
28 February 2012 2 Comments
A little late with this one, but we’ve just returned from a long weekend down in Skåne, southern Sweden, with Husband’s family. The week has been a bit of a mixed bag with a terrible start and then the enjoyment of introducing Baby E to his grandparents, uncle and cousin.
Day 51:
Photo © English Mamma
I really didn’t have a good start to the week. On Sunday evening, I felt some pain in my left breast but thought nothing of it, as I could not feel any lumps that would suggest blocked milk ducts. But by the time we went to bed, I was in some pain and struggled to find a comfortable position to sleep in. I woke on Monday morning, checked my temperature and saw it was 37.6°, so higher than it should be but not too high but then it started to rise and rise and it became clear that I had mastitis. I won’t repeat myself here; you can read all about it in my post Two steps forward, one step back.
Day 52:
Photo © English Mamma
Tuesday was a bit of an odd day as I tried to clear up the mastitis. I spent an hour of so in the evening with the unenviable task of sorting out my receipts – urgh…
Day 53:
Photo © English Mamma
The next day, as I was feeling so much better, I had lunch with a colleague and then, as we had lunched right next door to the office, she and I headed back there and I caught up with my colleagues, which was fun.
Day 54:
Photo © English Mamma
This is Little O sitting and watching a DVD in a crate – surely the best place from a toddler’s perspective.
Day 55:
Photo © English Mamma
Elephants are all the rage in 2012 – Baby E’s new elephant comfort blanket, to join his pink elephant rattle.
Day 56:
Photo © English Mamma
Baby E in the car seat waiting to go on an adventure with Mamma and Pappa. We left Little O in the safe hands of his uncle and cousin to undertake adventures of his own (a trip to the local rubbish tip!), while we took Baby E into Malmö. Seeing as he only turned five weeks old that day, it was a sleepy adventure for Baby E and he snoozed through shopping and lunch.
Day 57:
Photo © English Mamma
The anti-colic brigade! Baby E has the Minifom before every feed and then also has the Semper tummy drops once a day. Plus I have cut back dramatically on dairy in my diet. I’m not sure which of these has eliminated much of his discomfort as I am loath to stop one of them and have the poor little mite screaming like that again. So, for now and until the colic “period” is over, we’ll rely on the boys in this photo!
Two steps forward, one step back
21 February 2012 13 Comments
I’ve been a little quiet online for the past few days because my body decided that now was as good a time as any to get mastitis. Oh yes, and what a delight that has been…
On Sunday evening, Little O, Baby E and I came back from another second birthday party and I started to feel a little sore on my left-hand side, spreading down from under my arm. I could not feel any lumps so I did not think anything more of it. However, by the time I went to bed that night, the pain was worse and I could not turn over in bed. I spent the night sleeping on one side with my hand cupped underneath my breast as that was the only thing that reduced the pain.
Each time that Baby E woke for a feed in the night, I asked Husband to check my forehead (it’s like he has a thermometer in his hand and can detect a fever at ten paces) but there was nothing. By the time I woke on Monday morning though, I felt rotten – like I had the ‘flu (aching limbs, headache, feverish) but without any signs of ‘flu in my nose or throat. When I checked my temperature (with a real thermometer this time), it was at 37.6°, so high but not that high.
I read a couple of books to check and see if it was mastitis (Baby Whisperer and the brilliant What to Expect When You’re Breast-feeding by Clare Byam-Cook, which I highly recommend) and it looked like it could be, although I had no lumps and no red streaks, both of which are typical signs. Both books stressed the importance of consulting your doctor if you suspected mastitis, since it can be fixed without antibiotics if caught early enough.
I decided to call the health information line for Stockholm, where you can get advice from a nurse. The woman I spoke to said that it might be mastitis (mjölkstockning in Swedish) but that I should not bother to go to the doctor as my fever was not high enough to justify it and I should wait and see if I got worse.
I find this reaction from healthcare providers here in Sweden so frustrating. It is just like the reaction I got from the lactation specialist about Baby E’s colic-type problems – that you don’t really have a problem, your case is not that bad and that there is someone worse off than you. Yes, that might all be true but when you’re going through a situation like this, it is very hard to be told each time that you’re making too much out of it. I asked Husband why this is the case and he said that he believes it because too many people go to the doctors, ask for antibiotics and then don’t finish the course of tablets, meaning that the bacteria become immune to the antibiotics. All fair enough, but I still believe it odd that given it is a condition where you are advised in books to head straight to your doctor, they put you off doing just that here.
Anyway, during the day I felt worse and worse, my temperature got higher and higher and the sore area got redder and redder. I defied the health line and called the doctors surgery. Unfortunately, it was too late to get an appointment that day but they helpfully gave me the number to the local drop-in clinic at the hospital a few blocks away, and I arranged an appointment for 6pm.
I was so glad that I made the decision to do this as the doctor I saw there confirmed that it was mastitis and said that it was good that I had come in at that stage as if I had left it longer I would have needed antibiotics. She told me to empty the breast using a pump and showed me a massage technique to do at the same time to try to clear the blockage. I left there so pleased that I had a way to try and solve the problem, that I had managed to avoid having to take antibiotics and also just a little bit pleased that I had been proven right (take that, Vårdguiden!) – childish, I know…
So, I did as the doctor said and hoped for a better night. Unfortunately, I had not managed to avoid the worst of the fever and an hour later I had a fever of 39° again and was wrapped up in bed in pyjamas and a fleece dressing gown with the duvet over me and a wool blanket over that. And a couple of hours after that I was drenched in sweat and kicking all of these off.
But I woke this morning feeling much better and with no fever, so I hope that the pumping, massage and pressing a hot, hot flannel against the sore area when I am feeding Baby E have all helped towards solving the problem.
As they say, things can only get better!
Photo 366 challenge – week 7
19 February 2012 10 Comments
A bit of a mixed bag of photos this week from me – some of Little O and some of the things I have seen. It has been a strange week really. Husband is coming to the end of his intense working period, which means he will finally be able to take some leave, for which I am incredibly grateful. Baby E’s first four weeks have not been the easiest, but I just glad that it was like this with him and not with Little O. I cannot imagine how I would have coped being largely on my own for four weeks with a first baby!
Day 44:
Photo © English Mamma
I’m trying to psych myself up to filling in this form to apply for Baby E’s Swedish passport. We have a slot booked at the police station to hand the forms over and get his photo taken on 5 March. So there is only so much procrastinating that I can do. (And then there is the joy of the British passport application after this…)
Day 45:
Photo © English Mamma
Not sure that they should really be recommending that people do this. (Although it has worked out well for Husband and I!) I got my Valentine’s wish today. I phoned Husband as he was on his way home and begged to know, over the sounds of a screaming Baby E and wailing Little O, when he would be home. He was two minutes away but planning a detour to buy me flowers. The flowers idea got shelved and he walked in the door two minutes later to rescue us – the perfect Valentine’s gift!
Day 46:
Photo © English Mamma
On Wednesday, I finally found the time to print out, write and post the thank you cards for Baby E’s gifts. I know I really should have done this sooner, but people will forgive me won’t they? After all, life can be a little, shall we say hectic, with a toddler and a newborn.
Day 47:
Photo © English Mamma
About an hour before I was due to pick Little O up from preschool, I had a call from them to say that he had a fever of 38 degrees and please could I collect him a little earlier. I bundled Baby E up in his snowsuit, into the stroller and jumped on the bus. By the time I got there, it was only half an hour before I would normally have collected him and it was snack time. We already knew that Little O loves his food but I really found out just how much. Despite a fever, he sat and ate three sandwiches and drank two cups of milk, while I waited for him, sweating in my winter coat. Two other little boys also had fevers and were awaiting collection; they both flopped their heads down on the table and one sobbed quietly. Not Little O – by the time he decided that he was ready to go home (at the time I would normally have collected him anyway), he also decided that he was well enough to run round and round the cloakroom seven times… Not too feverish then! Given how well he seemed, I took him to the hairdressers for a long-overdue haircut, as you might or might not be able to see in this photo.
Day 48:
Photo © English Mamma
One of Little O’s more unconventional sleeping positions!
Day 49:
Photo © English Mamma
As part of the toddler tantrums that have started recently (poor thing, he gets so incredibly frustrated that he cannot make us understand him), Little O is also showing his willpower. And this is what Little O was determined to wear yesterday afternoon. The fire engine/police car vest was something that he had grabbed in H&M and refused to let go of. We then had a little to-do at the till when, after explaining 12 or so times that he’d have to let go of it so I could pay for it, I had to wrestle it from him for an interminable 30 seconds while the girl scanned it and removed the security tag. I had not realised until yesterday just how loud Little O could scream. (He woke this morning and brought the same outfit to Husband to have put on him. Oh joy…)
Day 50:
Photo © English Mamma
Little O loves to return Baby E’s little pink elephant rattle to him if he has dropped it. It is moments like these that I cherish, when I see Little O being so gentle with his baby brother.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
Take a look over at The Boy and Me’s site and see what she and others have chosen as their favourites of the week:
Siblings
14 February 2012 8 Comments
I’ve actually had this post saved as a draft for a couple of months now – just a few little comments to remind myself what I was thinking about and to act as a prompt to write it up. And then today I saw this week’s Parentonomy prompt.
So, siblings…
In the last few months of pregnancy I become increasingly worried about the effect that the arrival of Baby E would have on Little O. It is also something that I had no experience to draw on, being any only child, and looking at Husband’s family did not help matters as there does seem to be some favouritism by his parents. I kept on going round and round the worst case scenario in my head: Little O feeling that he was being overlooked with the arrival of Baby E. I could imagine the tears, the sadness and then the resignation. It was something that I was determined that he would not feel.
To combat this, I did what I always do in these cases: I read, I researched, I read some more. One great book that I downloaded on Kindle was The Second Baby Survival Guide by Naia Edwards, which covered topics like sibling rivalry, attention-seeking behaviour by toddlers and gave tips on how to juggle life with a toddler and a newborn. And a quick google search reveals many helpful websites, including this page on Gurgle and this one on kellymom. We also bought a few books about babies to read with Little O (two by Rachel Fuller (Waiting For Baby and My New Baby) and There’s a House Inside My Mummy by Giles Andreae), which we read with him in the last weeks before Baby E’s birth.
On the day that we came home from the hospital with Baby E, we found that Little O was almost beside himself with excitement about meeting his little brother. Over the next couple of days, this turned into a little bit of resentment about how much attention this little interloper was receiving. I think part of this was because our initial approach was to have Baby E shut in our room when he slept, which meant Little O only really saw him when Baby E was feeding and that created some bad feeling – to him it must have seemed that Baby E was getting lots of cuddles. I consulted the book again and changed strategy and had Baby E sleeping in his carrycot out in the main part of the apartment. Little O was then very keen to stroke him, but often a little too heavy-handedly. Through trial and error, we found that if we encouraged him in his stroking and removed him from the situation and distracted him with toys when he became too aggressive, we could create some harmony. I say through trial and error – we had a few incidences when Little O realised that if he hit Baby E or poked him hard, he got a reaction, albeit a negative one, from us, and so he would do it over and over. Simply distracting him with a new game or a new way to play with his toys stopped this negative behaviour though.
In one way though, the opposite of what I had feared has happened and sometimes poor Baby E has to take a backseat. If both of them are crying and it is just me with them, then Little O is the one who I attend to first, in most cases, simply because he is the one who would understand and be hurt by me focusing on his little brother over him. From what I read this is the best way to handle this situation and can actually help the newborn be less fussy and grow more independent.
Now, three and a half weeks in, Little O already seems to adore his baby brother, always comes in to our bedroom in the morning to say hello to him, wants to cuddle him and to help with changing his nappy. Of course, there are still, and will continue to be, moments of discord and rivalry, but I feel much happier than I did in late pregnancy. I just hope that their closeness in age will translate into closeness later in life. Excluding, of course, the many battles that we’ll see between them – they are little boys, after all!
In brief: English, living in Sweden, with my Swedish/Hungarian husband and our sons, Little O and Baby E, and trying to juggle all the different aspects of my new life - the me I was before, the me I am now and the me that I would like to be... 
