One month of motherhood

I’m not entirely sure what I expected motherhood to be like, but I don’t think I imagined it to be like this. So much washing (how can one baby dirty so many clothes?) and so much time spent feeding (which is the thing I find most restrictive, as I am used to being able to multi-task more than I can now). There are also so many precious times, such as holding your little baby as he snuggles sleepily into you or searches for a non-existent nipple on your shoulder, or having a nap with him. Sometimes I feel that I don’t ever want to put him down.

Cooper and I have spent a lot of time at home during his first month, but we’ve also been out and about doing our shopping, visiting friends and family, going for walks, and going on trips to Melbourne and Ballarat (each one nearly an hour away from us, one east and one west). We’re using the routines in the Contented Little Baby book, and apart from one night when he had a snuffly nose, Cooper has only woken once a night since coming home from the hospital, and has even slept right through from 11.15pm to 7am a couple of times. Despite that, I still feel pretty tired most of the time since Adam needs to be in bed by 9.30 each night before he works, which means that I get about 6 hours sleep most nights. Napping when Cooper naps has helped, but I am constantly tempted to do chores around the house when he’s asleep, which eats into my nap time.

As with most babies, Cooper sometimes ends up in a number of different outfits in any one day. For the most part, he does not like getting changed, and constantly rewards me by peeing on the outfit I have just changed him into. He also rewarded Adam the other night with number ones AND twos whilst he was being changed. I was worried that Adam was going to scare Cooper with the loud outbursts that I could hear coming from the bedroom

August 2008

I love watching the joy on Adam’s face as he holds his little boy and talks to him. At Cooper’s 2-week health check-up we received a bookmark about communicating with babies, and it mentioned that you should use different tones of voice. It makes me laugh whenever I overhear Adam repeating Cooper’s name, first in a deep, gruff voice, then in a high pitched voice, trying to get Cooper’s attention. It doesn’t matter how many times I explain to Adam that he should talk normally to Cooper, he still keeps doing it.

Over the last week Cooper has started to hit the mobile toys under the play gym. He doesn’t look at them, but knows that if he lifts his hands they will hit something that makes a noise. He likes to lay with his head predominantly facing the right, and we are working on getting him to lay the other way, to reduce the flat spot on his head from laying the one way.

Cooper is such a good baby, and when he was having an unsettled night the other night and wouldn’t sleep properly from 7pm – 10.30pm, my Mum commented that he is turning into a ‘real’ baby. The people at church adore him. When he is not asleep there he is very content and everyone comes up to say hello to him after the service. He’ll be baptized into the congregation there on 14 September.

Hope you enjoy the photos for this month. Cooper is changing so fast!