Yahoooooo!

We've definitely broken the "NO BOTTLE" rule. He had 270mls for his first feed yesterday and to make sure he would take it at any time, did another 180mls for his evening feed. That is SOOOO exciting! AND Chris gave it too so he doesn't get used to it always being me. Horray for Caelan! Horray for feeding from a bottle! Horray for a tiny bit of freedom! Now we don't have to go through the freezer and throw all the milk away when it's over 2 months old. That was a crying shame in the past - really made me wanna cry. I did want to give it to the cat or dog cause I invest so much of myself to get it - Chris thought it was gross though. hahahaha He was probably right! So down the drain it went as I shed a tear ;) I don't wanna think about how many litres have be wasted BUT now there's no need! Huzzah!! I'll continue to express every day as I have been since the year friggin DOT it feels like HEHE and I'll express whenever he misses a feed (when I'm able to of course, I wont be whipping out the pump in a restaurant or the movies or anything!) to keep my supply up. Anyway enough about my boobies!

This morning we had a bit of training... check out the photos! Ok so it might be an overkill, one could have done the job - but he's my boy, shut up! And they're all so damned cute!!

Finally!

We had a breakthrough this morning. Every day for the last 2-3 weeks we've been trying to get Caelan to take the bottle. It's been a LONG, HARD road with a LOT of crying and point-blank refusing. Once a day it would end in him completely hysterical and thinking I was trying to poison him. It took a lot of patience and persistence!! We'd bought a sipper and replaced the teat with that which he seemed to think was a little better, he have a few sucks from it before chucking a fit. I kept doing this each day, trying the sipper and the teat, I would even put the boob in his mouth and when he was sucking swapping it for the other. This worked for a while - sometimes 10-20mls before he'd scream and not take it back. We even had Chris trying in the weekend and me being out of the room and completely quiet. It seemed he did better taking it from me - perhaps because I am feeder??? Not sure. It goes against everything we'd be told anyway - we were told the only way to get them to accept it if there's a problem is from someone other than breastfeeding mummy. What do "they" know?!?! hehehe

Anyway, I kept going and slowly he'd started taking a little bit from the bottle, it progressed to a bit more with Monday and yesterday being about 100mls. Then he would refuse all together and that would be the end of it - and 100mls isn't near enough for a feed! ANYWAY this morning I stabbed heaps more holes into one of our teats and gave it another go. It's always a bit of a fight to begin with, but he started drinking and because he was able to get more with each suck HE DRANK 260mls!!! I was sooooooo excited! What a good boy. Yay for him. Well really - yay for me!!! We may be a step closer to me being able to get a break again and not have to starve the boy to do so. I'm pretty damned excited about it.

It seems a little odd to struggle so hard to get your baby to take the bottle and then have to express 260mls and freeze it - a long, painful (literally!) process but it's worth it! Now we have to start offering the bottle at different times, I've been doing it for the first feed of the day as he's more hungry then after his long sleep. Now I've gotta move it around in the day. I'm so excited!! And I just can't hide it!!

19 weeks and 4 days old

Shit the time flies! Caelan's nearly 5 months old - I know I do this every time I write about his age, but oh my god it really does blow me away! It goes sooooooo fast. Yesterday was another calmer day - ssshhhhhh, don't say it out loud though, it may wreck it. I'm always so scared after a particularly bad patch to mention when it gets better again. But it really is - he's interested in toys again and is happy, he sleeps when it's sleeping time and wakes up happy after that. HORRAY!!!

On the solids front - he's really enjoyin' em. It took a while to get used to the non-sweet taste of vegetables but now that he has he loves them. He has cereal and pears with his losec for breakfast, vegies for lunch - its pumpkin or kumara at the moment (or both combined sometimes) and dinner is vegies again with pears and losec for dessert. He loves it all! After every meal of solids he has his glass of water which is heaps of fun - the mouth opens wide, takes the water and gargles it before swallowing or shooting from mouth at speed. It's a great game! hehehe It still doesn't beat the Jolly Jumper though - that's the favourite. He loves it so much that he's constantly jumping when being held - damned sore and annoying after a while!

What a bumbum!

Last week was hideous. We don't what was wrong with him but we sure do know we didn't like it! The weekend was okish, Saturday was hell - happy 9 monthiversary for us! He couldn't even be considerate so we could have a nice time to celebrate 9 months of being married. Rude little boy! Those are the joys of having kids I spose :) We were hoping to get out for a while in the evening to spend a bit of time together but it just couldn't happen. Maybe next month! Things were much calmer yesterday thank god, he fed a bit better and he didn't scream all day. YAY! Hopefully he continues to get happier and better.

He's got a new game

Well actually it's a old game that seems to have come back into fashion. It's called 'Let's see if I can drive Mummy completely insane'. Dunno what the hell is wrong with him but am over it! Can ya tell??? hehehe He's been really unsettled for a while now. He nearly won the game yesterday too - woke at 7am and pretty much screamed all day, feed at total of 10 minutes for the whole day and when he wasn't screaming he was grizzling (which I've discovered is nearly as bad!), he wasn't interested in any toys and certainly wasn't going to sleep. It was horrible and I wanted to die - I shouted at him once and then later on apologised while crying with him. To feel anger and then the following guilt for ones own baby is a horrible, horrible thing. Here's hoping he bores of the game soon cause if he keeps playing he will win!

Gettin' better

The bronciolitis is much better now - he's hardly wheezing at all, just has the odd bout every now and then. Just has the cough left which apparently will be here a while but he's so much better. YAHOO! His sleeping is poos again though, he's been waking between 3 and 4am every day since Friday which aint fun. This waking in the night is hard to get used to after such a good run of sleeping right through. We'll get there again though. He's loving the Jolly Jumper, he has such a good time in it - leaping about doing his monster noise. Super cute!

On the roids

Caelan's cough and wheezing got worse so we called the Healthline, the nurse asked a whole lot of questions and got us to count Caelan's breaths in 20 seconds - which was too fast and combined with the wheezing and coughing fits, advised us to take him to get looked at. So off to the Ascott A & E we went. He's got bronchiolitis and we've been given a short course of steriods to ease the wheeze and if he doesn't improve or gets worse we're to take him in again. Poor little guy. It sucks, our doctor told us babies can tend to catch everything and it's really hard for them to shake colds and viruses. Well that's definitely proving to be the case with him! Hopefully he gets over this quicker than the last 2 week cold! One of the babies from our coffee group is in Starship with a servere case of bronchiolitis - been there overnight and looking to be there a couple more. Poor wee thing, she's got tubes for oxygen and feeding. Hopefully he doesn't get that bad! He's just woken so gotta go.

Four months old and full of snot

Caelan's sick again - poor little bugger. He's blocked up and has a horrible cough again. Last night it got worse and he was really miserable and wheezy. It acutally sounds like he's got asthma when he breathes - real wheezy and whistly. Chris thinks he has asthma as at one stage he was really out of breath and doing short quick wheezy breaths. It settled down and he was breathing normally again but still really wheezy. Oh god I hope he doesn't have it! That would suck. Chris is really concerned cause he knows how horrible it is to have and doesn't want Caelan to go through that.

This means that the night sleeps are up the poop again. He started waking at 5am when he first got it but now it's 4am - horray! He's not sleeping well either, constantly coughing and choking in his sleep which ends in crying. Poor little boy. Hopefully he gets better soon. If he's still this bad all day and as wheezy he'll be off to the doctor.

Apart from the cold everything is going really well. He's exactly four months old today as well - it's odd, it seems like we've had him for ages but that he was just born yesterday all at once. Makes no sense I know! hahaha On Thursday we're going to the Plunket Family Centre for his four month check and weigh - horray! Can't wait to see what he is - that's always fun. While there we're doing the Introduction to Solids course which'll be good. Ohhh and on the solids front - he HATES his vegetables now. Thinks I'm trying to poison him. It started off that he was a bit confused by the new taste, the confusion gradually turned in "UGH!", with the "UGH" turning into "I hhhaaaaaate this! I haaaaaate you! What are you trying to do to me?!?!? HELP! They're killing me here!". So after a week of having vegies for lunch yesterday he finally refused completely and really wasn't happy about it all. We think it's because he's only eaten sweet things since he was 10 weeks old when he first started the apples and pears. That's a long time to get a taste for the yummy sweet fruit. Now he thinks the vegies are awful! I'm considering mixing a bit of vegies with some fruit and gradually reducing the fruit so he gets used to the vegie taste. But yucko - apple and carrot!? Pear and potato anyone? No thank you!

Chris' parents came over to watch Caelan so we could get out for a while and do our groceries. It was nice to spend a bit of time just the two of us - we haven't been able to do that since my birthday so we were REALLY looking forward to it. Especially me as getting out of the house these days is damned exciting! hehe We had some lunch and I had a coffee - ohhhh it was nice! I haven't had a coffee for yonks as I don't wanna drug Caelan up with caffeine. Ahhhh no feeding for a while so coffee it was for me - and a STRONG one at that. Well Caelan had a different idea! No way was he drinking out of the bottle!!! No way hozzay! Chris' mum called saying that she'd tried and tried and he didn't want to know about it. Thanks a lot! So home it was for us without any groceries as we were just on our way there when we got the call. Little poo bum! I tried again today with his medicine dispenser and paracetamol and no way! NO TEAT! Don't want it. Bugger. So I'm pretty much poked which makes me wanna cry!! He's bound and determined to make it so I can't do anything but tend to him. hehe We're gonna get a sipper bottle and try that, can't go this week though as the weather is horrible and he's too sick. Hopefully that works when we get it though.

Chris left us

But we survived! :) Chris went snowboarding and spent last night in Ohakune - poor thing. We were fine, I considering giving Caelan a bath with me but had visions of me attempting to stand with him and slipping over, cracking my head and passing out ontop of the poor thing. Needless to say - I didn't have a bath with him! I decided to be lazy and just change his clothes and put him to bed. The bath can wait! hehehe Anyway he's screaming and has been for 20 minutes now! Don't think we'll get a sleep out of him before the next feed at 7pm. Sooooo I shall go.

Food is good

I cooked up some carrot and potato for Caelan yesterday and he had carrot for lunch. Ate it all - yummy scrummy! He was a little confused to begin with I think but kept on eating - he had about five teaspoons which is a pretty good amount for such a little tummy (well let's be honest it's quite big!). I gave him a bit of potato that couldn't fit into the icecube trays and he ate that too. What a good boy! So he'll continue having his pear/apple in the morning with the losec and vegies for lunch, then pear/apple at night with losec. We haven't dropped his dosage yet - it's just too damned scary. Perhaps we'll let him outgrow that dose and see how it goes... We'll see, we may get brave. The amount of vomitting has decreased too like Dr Phillips said (he's magic I tell ya!), he's still Mr Chucky but not as often. Horray! :)



Carrot is yummy!




Holding my new toy.

And the little one said "Roll over! Roll over!"

Caelan can roll over by himself now - yay!! Yesterday I put him on his tummy to play, I went into the kitchen to put some toast on and when I came back he was on his back. Clever little boy! I was soooo bummed that I didn't see it, so back onto his tummy it was with Mummy not taking her eyes of him. Waiting. Nothing. Waiting. Nothing. Toast popped - went into the kitchen to get it and yep, when I came back cheeky little thing was on his back again. Dammit! Determined to see this I put him on his tummy again and stared, scared to even blink! hehe AND HE DID IT! I scared him with my excited praise too. He did it another couple of times and then I stopped, didn't wanna use up my quota and for him not to do it when Daddy got home. But he must have wanted to show Daddy too because he did a few times later on. Our clever little boy!

He's still really good, everything is so much nicer for us and painless for him, oh and nicer for us, did I say it's nicer for us? He had a really bad day on Friday which consisted of no sleep all day (nice one!), completely disinterested in feeding (a total of 10 minutes for the whole day) and much, much crying - totally inconsolable. No amount of cuddles, feeding, playing, leaving him alone would help. But one day out of how many? I can handle that and I'm sure he can. Saturday was pretty yucky in the afternoon and evening as well but by Sunday he was much better and yesterday he was back to the delightful baby we now know as Caelan.


I got a visit from my Great Grandfather and Merl yesterday morning and I'm so clever that I turn to look at the camera when Mummy calls me.






Hanging out with Toa.