Back to work.... paid work that is.

Today I was very fortunate that my work ran a seminar about managing the transition back to work. It included some great advice about managing flexible working arrangements as well as some tips from a Mum who is juggling it all with seven year old twins.

On working flexible hours:

• Plan hours that work for both you and your colleagues. If you are hard to work with because you are not available, people will not want to work with you. If this means taking on different jobs to do the hours you want, do that. You don't want to work in a job where deals are regularly done on a Friday afternoon and then not work Fridays!
• If you work in project work try and keep your days consecutive
• If you don't work projects try to either Monday and Friday and whatever other days in the middle but start and finish the week at work or, if you only do three days try and spread them over four making your contact with the office during the week longer. 
• Understand that you will spend an hour in the morning after a day away catching up on emails and work (eg. if you work Mondays, Tuesday and Thursday both Monday and Thursday will have catchup time). Try and have one day with no catchup.
• Arrange one day you work that you do not have to rush home to relieve the nanny or collect the baby from child care. That way, if you have to, you can stay late one day to get the work done. Make sure that your family (including your children) understand this and understand your routine. It is more settling for children to know that Mummy might be home late on a Wednesday than you working late ad hoc.
• Doing both drop off and pickup from childcare is not sustainable and will cause stress. Try and arrange that one of you drops off and the other picks up for at least some of the days or see if there are other mums that can take your children to school. 
• If you have to pick up your child by 6pm anything that comes across your desk from 4.30 is just pressure to you leaving on time, making it through traffic and picking up the child. If you can, start early and get your partner to do drop off then you can leave a little early without the pressure of the childcare 'overtime'.

On working outside work hours:

• If you have to work, schedule it. Pick a time you know that the baby is in bed and start then. Then only work your scheduled time eg. 8pm until 9.30pm. If this time is up turn off the computer. If your work isn't done, schedule more - 9.30 until 10.30. Don't just keep working into the night.
• Only do work after hours if there is work that NEEDS to be done. Don't just log on to check emails and potter about. Your life outside work is important. Talk to your significant other!
• During after hours work be as efficient as possible. That means only working on your scheduled jobs. Don't get lost in your inbox. Turn off email if you are able to.
• Put your phone somewhere you can hear it if it rings but it is not distracting. Don't check your emails outside of work time. Let colleagues know that if something requires your urgent attention they will need to call you.
• You are not a slave. If you answer someones email 6 minutes after they send it they will expect an answer from you 6 minutes after every email they send. People who want slaves don't care who their slaves are - don't let it be you.

On handling the Mummy guilt:

• Be present when you are with your children. That means putting the phone away.
• If you really hate going to watch your kids do a certain activity, find another way to manage that. Don't run yourself ragged because you 'think you should do x.."
• Find a great Mums group and 'share the pain' both with understanding and running around.
• It will not always be fun and it will not always be fair. Understand this and take the wins.
• Let your partner parent. Each parent needs to spend one on one time with children. They will not do things the way you do them and that is OK. (A good example of this is the infamous incident in the Wald household when Alice got sent to kinder with last nights cold chips for lunch while Mum was in hospital having baby number 3 - haha, my Dad has NEVER lived it down).
• You will sometimes need to do inconvenient favours for people in your life. Think of these as credits and don't feel bad asking for inconvenient favours in return.

We then watched a great clip from Sheryl Sandberg - COO of Facebook and were given her book Lean In. I'm happy to lend it out once I've finished. Looks like and interesting and inspiring read so I might save it for the few days before I head back to work.

I loved the bit about not leaving until you leave - I am really guilty of this.

I think this is most of it. I didn't take notes and was Frankie-wrangling so I might have missed some. I was so lucky my work runs these, not only does it take the pressure off returning to work and trying to 'do it all' but it really let me know how many other people in the firm are doing the same juggle - there were over 40 people there including my boss. 

Baby Brain in Action: Travel Post Part One

In Thailand

We had only been together one year when we set off overseas. That was nine years ago. We were young and without responsibility. I already loved him a lot, but I wasn't above imagining that we might yet wave goodbye to one another from some Parisian platform or other and head off different directions. That is the charm of travel, isn't it? That anything can happen?

Obviously we stuck together. In fact, the longer we travelled side by side, the more absurd the idea of parting seemed. Later, we married. I guess that's what people do when they can't stand to be apart.

We were away from Australia for nearly two years; seven months in Asia. We had adventures – some of them I will tell my child while she is small. Some I'll recount when she is older. Quite a few I may never repeat for fear that she'll see them as permission to be as stupid and foolhardy and reckless with her life as I was. At the time I didn't realise that I would one day look back, shuddering, to think that I got away with it all. I was just having fun.

It is a truism to say that life changes when you have a baby, but I think this shift is most apparent to me when I attempt to do the things I used to do when I was childless, and they either don't succeed, or are so changed by the company of this new, small person as to be unrecognisable to me. Simple things like going out for dinner (once a regular pass-time, a favourite, taken-for-granted aspect of our lives) has, in four short months, become obsolete. Showering – no longer a languid, solitary pleasure – is now hurried, a one-woman sing-a-long with suds. Perhaps it is another truism to say that I don't always mind the changes parenthood has brought. They aren't all bad. I wouldn't swap all the long, hot showers in the world for this little girl. In fact, having her has brought new life to the dull things I used to do, changing them for the better. Supermarket shopping, walking, hanging washing on the line: I see the way my daughter looks around her when we are in the world, and I find the world freshly beautiful. Buttons? So colourful! Beautiful! Toast? So crunchy! Beautiful! This carpet? So soft! Beautiful! This grey day? So crisp! Beautiful! We watch leaves falling like rain in our yard and I don't lament the cold, or the work they will make in raking and sweeping and cleaning gutters. I just enjoy how lovely it is to behold so many yellow shapes floating, because she does.

I set out to write all about travelling with a baby, but I seem to have gotten distracted and sidetracked. How fitting. Once upon a time, I might have revised this, or saved it and come back later, determined to get to the point. But I think that, for tonight, I will leave this post here. I will close the computer. I will go into my bedroom and peer into the cot.  I will look at the face of my baby, so angelic in sleep. I will think about how much has changed in my life since I boarded a plane, one-way ticket in hand.
And how much for the better.

Sleep. Glorious Sleep.

Are they sleeping well? Are they sleeping through the night? Are you following a sleep routine? Are YOU getting any sleep? Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. I would say that 50% of your post-baby discussions are around sleep (the other 50% are around food/bodily excretions which I put in the same category, as never before has the relationship between what goes in and what comes out been so clear).

I LOVE sleep. I can sleep anywhere and for long periods of time and when I wake, I am always planning my next opportunity for more sleep. This does not bode well for an expectant mother-to-be. Fast forward to Atticus now being almost 11 weeks old. He doesn’t cry much, generally only has one feed each night and sleeps lots during the day. This means that I too am getting a reasonable amount of sleep (although nowhere near my usual requirement of 10 hours a night!). As I am no baby whisperer and can generally be quite a stressed person, my only explanation for having a chilled out baby so far (mums learn very quickly not to count their chickens) is that we have used the Save our sleep book and routine from day one (I still refer to it every day). Now I know that Save our sleep and other similar baby sleep advice books are highly polarising so I’m definitely not saying that everyone needs to go out and join the “cult”, I just wanted to share some of the things from that book that appear (because nothing is ever certain with a baby) to have worked well for us so far.

1. Following a routine (any routine will do!). Sleep books set out quite strict routines to follow as your baby grows (your maternal health nurse will probably tell you that they are too strict). We have tried to follow the Save our sleep routines since we got home from the hospital. What I like about using a routine is that both Andy and I are on the same page so that we both know what is “supposed” to be happening when. It also has given us confidence to try things like expressing and self settling right from the start because they are slotted into the routines. I also love that Atticus’s bedtime is 7pm which leaves the next three hours for Andy and I to have dinner together, catch up and chill out; and even though we are often talking about Atticus, I don’t feel like our relationship has turned completely into the Atticus show.

After banging on about using routines, I should say that it’s not as if I’m sitting at home every day rigidly watching the clock. I “break” the routine pretty much every day as we are out and about but I do try to generally stick to a few principals (7am up, 7pm bedtime, dreamfeed at 10.30pm and I’ll keep an eye on how much sleep he gets during the day to try to find time for a catch up sleep at some stage in the afternoon).

2. Identifying which cry is which (which is emotional and which is a protest). Knowing from the start to listen out for two different types of cries has meant that we were more confident to let Atticus self settle when we thought he was just protesting. On the other hand, the second we hear what we think is an emotional cry, we pick him up straight away and try to figure out if it’s food, wind, temperature etc. Notice I say “think” because it’s sometimes very hard to tell the difference.

3. Not waiting for tired signs as that’s often too late. This links back to following the routine. When I’m home, I put Atticus to bed during the day in line with the routine rather than waiting for him to start yawning or being sleepy. A few times when we have probably kept him up for too long, he’s been extremely irritable and if he has reached this stage, pretty much the only solution is to feed him continuously for a long time and then we can finally get him to bed.

4. Wake a sleeping baby…. gently. Most people say, don’t wake a sleeping baby (probably cos you’re so damn happy that they’re sleeping so why in the hell would you disturb it?!?). In line with the routine, we wake Atticus up for his next feed (if he’s not already woken himself up). I assume that this is in routines so that they don’t oversleep during the day? But for me, I like it for the selfish reason that it helps me keep track of how much sleep he’s had during the day. For example he’s now on a four hour feed routine which involves 2 hours of feeding & play followed by 2 hours of sleep which is pretty easy for my still in overdrive pregnancy brain to keep track of. I do feel a bit mean waking him up so I just do it very gently by loosening his swaddle and he’ll gradually wake up usually doing quite a humourous, exaggerated big stretch!

5. Self settling tips. Even when we put him to bed fully awake, Atticus is pretty good at just hanging by himself and falling asleep at some stage. At times he protests and we will typically leave him alone to self settle himself (whether this be when we have put him to bed or when he wakes up during a sleep). But if the protesting continues, some of the things we do which seem to help Atticus are: go in and rub his belly or stroke his forehead, if it’s his night time sleep sometimes just switching on a dull lamp in his room works, or we might need to pick him up, re-swaddle him and give him a bit of a cuddle to calm him down.

I think the important thing about being confident with the self settling goes back to my point number 2 about knowing the difference between their cries. You could think that you’re “failing” at self settling because your baby keeps screaming but it might have been an emotional cry rather than protesting for that whole time and so they would never be able to settle (except if they fall asleep through pure exhaustion at all the screaming). So I guess my advice is, only try to self settle when you’re sure they are just protesting, otherwise pick up that baby and give it whatever it needs!

So these are my sleep thoughts at week 10.5. This could all possibly go to hell next week but I hope to god not as I’m still that girl that loves sleep, glorious sleep.

Just Peachy

This week has been a tough one. A long dark tea time of the soul kind of tough. A combination of baby-routine induced cabin fever and the realisation that I enter my thirties this week has left me with a sense of melancholy and a very short fuse. 

I thought I might break out of this with a trip into Melbourne on Tuesday, but as those with babies know all plans must be flexible and Frankie’s sudden requirement for a nap at 9.15 left plans ‘fluid’. The day quickly turned into yet another day of homeliness and only further compounded my ennui. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I love being home with Frankie and I love living in Kyneton. But lately Frankie’s need to have nice long naps in her own cot has meant our waking hours are spent within a prams walk; at the park, the shops or just at home in the lounge. The little bundle I used to put in the wrap for a whole day out now wants to crawl, standup and grab and hit things. A once soothing train ride which would lull a baby to sleep in minutes are now spent wiggling on mama’s lap trying to touch other people’s things, or elicit smiles from strangers the way only babies can. It’s exhausting. 

So Wednesday came and I woke up the baby to make the 11.11 train. The hour journey felt about three hours long with all the wiggling and whinging and laughing crying and three nappy changes (in one hour people!). 

Hungry and already feeling ready to go home we made it to the gallery, got some food and enjoyed an entirely pleasant meal together with minimal mess and a cheery baby talking to lots of people on the surrounding tables. Ready for some art viewing, I plonked baby in the pram. Then I got distracted for less than 10 seconds reaching for the fresh nappies, which was all it took for my precious wiggler to launch her unsecured self out of the pram and head first onto the concrete. 

She was in shock, and was a little bit hurt. I was in shock and may have PTSD. As I stood there clutching a wailing baby to my chest willing the hurt to be better, another mother rushed over and asked if we were both ok, patting me on the shoulder and telling me that I probably feel worse than she does so don’t worry - that makes it sound like she was rubbing it in but it was done with tenderness and sincerity which was lovely. The crowd of concerned faces only made me feel worse. 

It didn’t take long for Frankie to stop crying. I coat checked the stupid pram and kept her in the sling, as close to me as I could. The sling was better for seeing her tiny eyes widen at all the art - it was amazing that she was so interested. After a sedate wander through the galleries she fell asleep at my chest. And I kept checking that she was still breathing. 

A day out in the rainy Melbourne air did help shake me out of my home funk. Frankie has a tiny red mark on her head but no egg and I have a greater appreciation for pram seat buckles.

Frankie's photo of the stained glass in the Great Hall at NGV.

ps. the title of this post refers to this article. 

The Good, the Bad and the Useless

What have you bought that you have found is COMPLETELY USELESS!

I’m sure we are all guilty of buying too much baby stuff, and inevitably there are things you have bought that you have not used. This might be because they weren’t right for your baby’s preferences or just because they were plain useless. Here are mine:

1. MIRACLE BLANKET
   The amazing swaddle that not even Houdini’s baby could get out of. I bought it while I was pregnant on our little spree at Mothercare when the cost looked completely insignificant next to our pram and carseat purchase. Then I was blessed with a determined “arms out” baby who refused to be swaddled under any circumstances. Luckily it has a new home with baby Etta.
2. MILK BAR NURSING PILLOW
   Again, bought while I was pregnant after a conversation with a French friend who said it was invaluable to avoid getting saggy boobs from breastfeeding. “I don’t want saggy boobs, get me a pillow!” I said, running for the internet. I think I have used it maybe twice, quite unsuccessfully, as it is so overstuffed that it would just slip out from under my arm and I’d use more muscle trying to keep it under the baby than just holding the baby. If I spend some time trying to squish the stuffing flatter it it might be ok for baby number two but at the moment it is just an odd shaped pillow on our couch.

I also wanted to have a special category of ‘Things They Told Me Would Be Useless But I Love’ because, much to the derision of my mother and stepmother-in-law, I bought a Tummy Tub (otherwise known as a really expensive bucket). Admittedly, tiny newborn Frankie didn’t really care for being shoved in a bucket however, self supporting 4month+ Frankie LOVES it (she loves pretending to be the little breech baby she was and sticking her feet next to her ears). It uses about 4 litres of water, I can lift it really easily, and I don’t have to worry about her slipping under the water since she physically can’t. 

What are your useless baby things? And do you have something you bought or were given that you didn’t think you would use and you do?

If you want to see the things that I actually do use I made a Pinterest Board for a pregnant friend of all our favorite things.

Gourmet Dishes for the Discerning Baby

When I bought my Magimix Micro I found the most hilarious French baby food recipes.

Sounds fine? Just Eggplant and potato.

Herb Flavoured Zucchini. I think given the popularity of my Zucchini Fritters this would be good.


And then the French go all meat and fruit on us....

Back to some ok sounding combinations. 

And then they suggest to BLEND SALAD!!

Well you get the gist, ah those crazy Frenchys

For the full hilarity and some great adult recipes (like anchovy paste! - I love anchovy paste) here is the PDF

The Quest for Sleep

From our recent Facebook chats it looks like everyone is having a few sleepless nights; change of weather, babies teething or just babies keeping us on our toes. So here is how we all (try to) sleep (though for Tom this mostly consists of trying to stay asleep while a persistent 7 month old whacks him in the face to try and get him to play).

Since all our babies are a little bit older I will skip the early days of our sleep journey that had us experiencing a few nights of  crying for no reason and one night of continuous feeding, which resulted in a desperate mama seeking out solutions from present hippies, reading up on how early is too early for CIO and the strange and frankly disturbing practice of this guy.

After all this drama and a few weeks where we believed that it was the “Rain - Peaceful and Soothing” white noise track that solved our problems (from an album list that included ”Strong Hair Dryer” and “Mellow Womb”) Frankie settled down to being happy to sleep in our bed with me (early nights for me!). I was really happy to do the co-sleeping thing since we all got a good amount of sleep and night feeds were SO MUCH EASIER. Naps were always decided by her (just don't miss a sleep cue) and try as I might I never really managed to stretch feeds out much longer than three hours apart during the day and her longest stretch was 5-6 hours at night. I did read up on "Eat, Play, Sleep" but I wasn't great at settling her without the calming milk coma so that usually turned into Eat, Play Eat, Sleep. 

Around the 4 month mark after small prompts from my mother (‘you were out of our bed by this stage’) and my husband (‘don’t you think she should be sleeping in her cot now?’ *hint hint*) I started to try and move her in to her cot, in our room, for at least the beginning of the night. She had always napped there, how hard could it be? Well, we picked a good time because it was surprisingly easy.... that week. Then we hit a ‘wonder week’. Screaming and rocking and patting and rocking and reassuring and patting and continued screaming became normal for nearly two weeks. This is when I started some bad habits. 

First rule of any ‘how to make my baby sleep’ advice is PUT YOUR BABY DOWN AWAKE. From Babycentre, to the numerous mama blogs, to the French; all say that getting a baby all the way to sleep in your arms/bed/sling/pram and then moving them to their own cot is a BAD IDEA. The analogy that really resonated with me came from Troublesome Tots:

“Imagine going to bed in your bedroom. A few hours later you wake up on your front lawn. Would you simply roll over and go back to sleep in the grass? Or would you stand up and start screaming? Would you demand loudly to be let back into the house so that you could sleep in your bed? Do you think you would be freaked out by the mysterious force that somehow carried you out to the lawn?”

They go on to say that if this kept happening to you night after night you would start dreading going to bed, always wondering if you would end up on the front lawn. I was, at this stage, either nursing Frankie to sleep or cuddling her until she was asleep, counting to 100 and then sloooowly lowering her into her cot. On a good night she would stir and stay asleep. On a bad night she would wake up straight away and we would start the routine again. 

I’m not sure how long I did this for. At least a couple of months. It got tiring pretty quickly and she always ended up in our bed, sometimes for most of the night. When she was about 6 1/2 months old and I hadn't slept for a couple of nights - due to Frankie's new habit of playing with my face and pulling my hair when she woke up in our bed, coupled with our increased anxiety about her ability to crawl towards the edge and the dog - I decided to turn to The Bible (aka Baby Love) as well as some help from the Troublesome Tots Website and try some tough love. 

I finally set a routine for day time naps. I had always just waited for the tired signs (which, admittedly is the advice until about 4ish months old) but now we needed set naps so that she wouldn’t sleep past 5-5.30 and push her bedtime back. A week away in Adelaide helped us transition into a new routine on the return home. Frankie went straight into her own room (cot lowered due to superior baby standing up skills) and nap times were set. 10am and 3pm became non-negotiable times (or 9.30 and 2.30, or 10.30 and 3.30 - totally non-negotiable). I started putting her in a little sleeping bag thingy to stop her kicking her sheets off and letting her know it was time to sleep. I also really did start pausing before going in her room. She embraced new naps and slept longer and more comfortably. 

Nights were a bit harder. The first night she cried for 5, 5 and then 8 minutes before finally sleeping (I think any longer I wouldn’t have lasted). The next night she fussed a bit and SLEPT ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE NIGHT. We weren’t counting any chickens but we really thought we had cracked it. Since then we have had mixed nights. Some nights she wakes at 10pm and 3am like she used to. Others just the once at 5am, others at 4am and she thinks it’s party time, sometimes she does 7pm until 7am. We are persisting and we are getting more sleep. She still cries some nights and I just have to trust that she will settle herself (which she does).  I sometimes break the rules - it's impossible not to when you hear the cries a little more desperate than normal, and go in to find her standing in her cot, beaming at you because she heard the door, and when you pick her up she clings to you like a little koala clinging to a tree, still smiling, because mama came to get her.