Tuesday, December 3, 2013

It's too manic to do organic and other time savers

There's always one isn't there? The woman lurking on the online forum who has an answer to everything, designed to make you feel the size of a nappy pin with a few deft clicks of her keyboard, as she waxes lyrical about her on the dot four hour feeds, amazing breast feeding capabilities, and thinks that formula milk is second only to rat poison in something you'd put down your baby's throat.

Her child only has organic, home made meals. Her child only wears organic cotton baby grows. She only bathes her baby's skin with organic body wash, while you let yours play recklessly in synthetic bubbles. Her baby picked up signing at the drop of a muslin. Hypnobirthing worked for her. She has the latest pram. And she was back in her skinny jeans a day after that baby popped effortlessly out, as whale music played and her husband ran through the relaxing script they'd prepared. I bet she's the kind of woman who always has a store cupboard full of stuff to throw together an "easy supper for friends" at the drop of a hat, in her tidy house. I am deeply distrustful of anyone this organised. Or maybe just a bit envious. Because I'm not. As far as weaning goes (and so far we're two days in) all the signs are that I am just too manic to be completely organic.

Though I am waiting on my gold medal after pureeing an apple for my daughter today, which she seemed to mildly enjoy, though not as much as hurling the spoon to the ground every five seconds and watching me grubbing round on the floor for it. As time goes by I look forward to her hoiking up some of my hastily prepared creations all down my clothes. It's always fun to fit another pile of laundry in to add to the general giddiness of the day, isn't it?

Weaning aside, I've made a pretty good job of carving more hours into my day by doing next to nothing organised. Basically, if it has the word "baby" in front of it, or starts before 11 am, or is perkily billed as 'a great chance to meet other mums' my rule is generally. not to do it. I've got my NCT buddies, they're all the mums I need, and they're fab. So, so far, Baby J has not experienced the following, which some mums fret about getting to, and are made to feel like they're compulsory. If you enjoy them, fab. If you don't, don't go. My list of non-attendance so far includes:

  • Baby yoga (but she grabs her toes)
  • Baby sensory (but I took her to the supermarket and she stared at the food and the lights)
  • Baby massage (but there's a lavender bag in my car which smells quite nice)

I'm even a bit hesitant about playgroups, only because one of the few I have sampled was nothing more than a comparison session, where worried mums tried to look cheerful on 2 hours sleep, before a talk on car seats. "Now" boomed the playgroup leader. "Let's go round the group and see what your baby's achieved this week. This is your chance to boast about what your baby's been up to." Luckily I was at the end of the row, and had time to think of a story to thrill everyone with, which was the fact that Baby J had just got back from holiday, and, along with mummy and daddy, had  survived the flight between Jersey and Guernsey, and got to stay overnight at Stansted at the Holiday Inn Express. Big news eh? I think they were after something more developmental, but I was out of ideas after 12 people had talked about sleep patterns. This was followed by all the babies in the group rolling and grabbing toys, while Baby J drank some milk, sighed happily and promptly fell asleep without rattling a single rattle, or drumming a single mini drum.

I've got pans at home. She can bang those, and watch This Morning at the same time while I sort the washing. Does feeling a clean pair of socks count as baby sensory? Discuss.

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