Bernard pulls a face sometimes which we call his ‘M’ face. This involves a certain amount of lip-smacking, slurping, tongue-gyrating etc that means “Feed Me” or, alternatively “Feed Me More”.
[Karen][], when time permits, wishes to write a lengthy article on the problems that we have had getting him to breastfeed, so I will leave that particular topic to her. (Update: it’s [here][])
[karen]: http://uborka.nu/rise/
[here]: http://uborka.nu/rise/2006/07/moo-or-a-week-in-the-life/
In general, we’ve been seeing progress across the board, which is doing wonders for our confidence. With the help of our local midwives and maternity care assistants, Bernard is now breastfeeding with the assistance of [Nipple Shields][], he’s now sleeping deeply in bursts of up to 4 hours, he’s consuming over 150ml of milk per day ((one of the advantages of cup-feeding is that, like bottle-feeding, you can see exactly how much he is getting, rather than having to make assumptions based upon the number of minutes that he spends at the breast)), he’s spending less and less time each day in an aggravated and noisy state (because we are able to respond to his discomforts more quickly) and all of these contribute to the fact that we can love him more and more each day.
[nipple shields]: http://www.medela.com/newfiles/nipshield.html
Bernard seems like a different fella now to the chap who slithered out of Karen’s fluttering love wallet ((thanks to Muffy’s World Of Vagina Euphemisms)) a week ago. He’s more playful, more relaxed, and more likely to stare me in the face for a minute without blinking.
And we have changed too. Initially we spent the whole day trying to figure out how to get him comfortable. We created a spreadsheet to log his daily activities, we bought all sorts of equipment for expressing milk and sterilising equipment. The next stage was that of actually getting him comfortable – Wednesday in particular consisted of a lot of very practical and systematic baby maintenance. Having mastered that, we are now able to spend a good amount of time just talking to him, singing to him, telling him all about the world. We’re all very calm. We’re all very happy.
5 replies on “His ‘M’ Face”
Glad to hear all’s going well, and that you’re both/all calm and happy.
Two people I know well have had babies recently (not counting You and K), and they have said getting their baby comfortable is a similar experience to getting AB- from a rolling stone.
I love reading about babies from a ‘bloke’ point of view, like your description of ‘practical and systematic baby maintenance’. Brilliant. 🙂
Spreadsheet? You had time/energy to make a spreadsheet??
And, I’m sorry, but if ever I used the phrase you used to describe my lovely wife’s lady-parts in public, I think I’d get a slap!
I think Graybo’s jealous. On both counts.
For your information, my trick was to initially suggest a pile of much lewder euphemisms. Fluttering love wallet subsequently seemed tame by comparison, and was actually pre-approved before I used it. I’ve written much worse things in the past.
Matt: I heartily recommend this tome – I can’t imagine a better bloke’s guide to pregnancy (it also contains some small coverage of the initial post-birth stages). It’s a little laddish, and assumes that all men spend their lives down the pub with their mates watching football and drinking lager, but despite this it is practical, down-to-earth and distinctly un-sugarcoated.
Fab.