Anyway, her post (about the contradictory, non-specific and generally unhelpful advice given to pregnant women) reminded me of a book I was given when pregnant with L. Called something like How safe is my baby? (or possibly How safe is your baby?) it simply set out the actual statistics for the various risks and let you make your own mind up.
I'll allow you a little gasp of astonishment at such a horrifyingly trusting idea.
I found it rather helpful, as books go, and when I'd finished with it, I posted it to a friend, who never received it.
Some years later, Hannah's post reminded me about it and I thought I'd get another copy to send to a pregnant friend. Only I can't find it. Nothing on Amazon, nothing on google, nothing on the second hand and out of print books sites I frequent.
After a bit of detective work, I identified two likely publishers and sent them both polite emails wondering if it ever had been on their lists, and apologising for the fact that I wasn't absolutely 100% certain of the title.
I got the following (names changed to protect the innocent) in reply:
Dear Ms...
I'm sorry to
report that the title is not ours, so I can't help you.
The best way
to find it, is to get onto the Internet and go to
When B and I got married we (I say "we", but what I really mean is "my mother") had arranged for a bus to take guests back from the reception to the various hotels they were staying at. One couple had come with their then five-week-old daughter. They had planned not to drink and to drive back to the hotel, but one glass of champagne led to another and 1 o'clock in the morning found them (with the baby, an achievement in itself) on the bus back to the hotel. Unfortunately the carry cot, the spare nappies, the nappy bag, and all the rest of the paraphernalia were still in the car at the reception.
They are resourceful though, my friends, and so, finding themselves, a little tiddly, in a strange hotel with a new baby, they ransacked the cupboards for spare blankets, padded out the bath, settled her in and had as restful a night's sleep as you can have with a new born and the beginnings of a hangover.
I find myself repeating that story a lot whenever I read another press release about "Baby Must-Haves", normally shortly followed by "Top Unnecessary Buys for your Baby". Because maybe it's just me but it seemed to me, particularly when shopping for baby things the first time round, that the entire baby stuff industry had, subliminally, one slogan:
If you don't buy this, it means you don't love your baby.
Made me cross then. Still makes me cross now. Because, in fact, as it turns out, there is only one baby essential you can buy.
A car seat. Because if you've had your baby in hospital they won't let you go home without one. The midwives wanted to escort us to our car when we left with M because B hadn't brought the car seat in with him. They did eventually concede that with three other children to control, it was understandable that he hadn't chosen to lug in a piece of reinforced plastic and it was raining so they decided to trust us, but apparently they shouldn't have. Hospital policy: no car seat; no baby.
But that aside, there is nothing a baby needs that can't be fabricated in extremis.
Cot? Bath, drawer, pushchair, blanket on the floor. With a big blanket you can make a double bed for two babies and wedge them in on either side with pillows. I know, I've tried it.
Nappies? Muslin and a nappy bag with two holes in it for legs (not pretty but it will get you down the hill and into the nearest corner shop, where you can rip open an unpaid for pack of Pampers and stick your baby in one of them in the bread aisle. It's not the best look for turning up at your husband's godmother's but needs must.)
Clothes? Amazing how good a look the toga is on a three month old.
You get my drift.
But I've also found, over the last four years, that while there is nothing you need there is plenty that you might want...
So here it is, my top wish list of lovely baby things. None of them essential, all of them delicious. Apart from the breast pads which are most definitely not lovely or delicious, but I wish I'd known about four years ago:
Posh nappy bag. I just bought myself, on child number four, a swanky leather nappy bag. It makes me feel feminine and glamorous, no small feat when your nipples are at your knees and you have sick on your shoulder. Baby Bjorn bouncy chair. Stupidly, stupidly expensive and I absolutely refused to buy one. Then we were lent two for S and A and they loved them and used to wail when I used the cheapy one that we had had for L. When my sister-in-law asked me for baby recommendations I said one of these. She bought one and about six months later I'm borrowing it from her for M. Feel a bit guilty about that...
Sling. Doesn't matter what sort, but hands free mobility is a life saver.
Merino stuff. I'm a complete convert to merino. It's one of those things, along with Napisan, that Antipodean friends raved about and I thought "yadda yadda yadda, yes it's wool, so what", but then we bought merino grow bags for L and they have lasted her, S and A and are now onto M. You don't have to worry about tog weights and they last and last and wash in the machine and I could rave about them all day. And then the lovely people at Nature Shop (who, as it so happens, also sell the sleeping bags) sent M a blanket (although they call it a wrap) (as modelled above) and me a dress and I love them too. The blanket is so fine you think it won't do anything but he's slept wrapped up in it every night since he got it, and it makes a splendid toga too (see above). As for the dress*, well, it's not designed for breastfeeding, but it works (wraparound), and, even better, it makes me look and feel good, and warm, and it goes in the machine. Genius.
Huge muslins. Another kiwi thing (top tip, next time you're having a baby, have it in New Zealand, they appear to have all the best stuff). I have no idea where these came from as a Kiwi friend gave them to me but they're brilliant: muslin, blanket, wrap, tent, breast-hider and picnic rug in one.
Carry cot. Pushchairs are controversial items. They're so eye-wateringly expensive that everyone you ask has to try and convince you that theirs is the absolutely best one, last word, bees knees thing in baby transport solutions. Clearly, the right pushchair for me is not going to be the right pushchair for someone else who has different numbers and ages of children living a different sort of life. (Prime example: the pushchair I have now, which I love, wouldn't have fitted through my front door in London, despite the manufacturers' claims. Top tip: if buying a side-by-side double pushchair, please measure your door first). The one thing I would recommend though is that your pushchair has a carrycot. I love being able to lift M in and out, and in fact he likes his carrycot so much he sleeps in it day and night. I also love the fact that I can get four children into a pushchair made for two, but that's a different story.
Lansinoh breast pads. It has taken a great deal of messy market research by me but these are absolutely the best.
And on the same front, lovely dress above notwithstanding, I am a big advocate of breast feeding clothes. There's something very liberating about being able to feed your baby in public without exposing your post-natal stomach or anything else. There are all sorts of small companies out there making really nice clothes that don't look "specialist" and are definitely worth supporting (pun intended).
Oh, and Anita make underwired nursing bras. Genius.
Reading through this list, it occurs to me, not only that this post has got too long as usual, but also how many of these things are for me, and not for my baby. Now I could, in a spirit of maternal guilt, take that to mean I care more about myself than my baby, but I don't think it's that. Or at least I hope it's not.
In fact, I think I've hit on something more important here than just "lovely new stuff". I think if there's one thing that really is essential for a baby, it's that its mother is, as far as she is able, happy and comfortable in her new life. I think even for those of us who are lucky enough to escape any form of post-natal depression, and even fourth time round, it's a huge adjustment and one in which our own identity can easily get lost. Now I realise that my identity shouldn't be tied up in my physical appearance, but I also know that if I look together, I find it much easier to feel together, and at a time when my identity feels fragmented into disparate parts of 95% harrassed mother and the rest varying proportions of daughter, wife, employee, friend, sister, neighbour, self; nurturing the "self" bit feels like less of an indulgence and more of a necessity.
So perhaps it's not If you don't buy this, it means you don't love your baby, perhaps it should be more If you want to be able really to love your baby, it helps if you love yourself. Sounds like the sort of thing that you'd buy, laminated, to stick on your fridge. Doesn't make it not true though.
* This is not a link to the website of the people who kindly sent it to me, as they seem to have taken it off there, but it is the same dress. Ask them if they can get you one! It's brilliant.
And in the interests of disclosure, Nature Shop sent me the wrap and the dress. They also sent me a really lovely organic cotton baby grow for M. Everything else I mention in here was either bought with my own money or a present/loan from a friend or family.
As I sit here, girls in bed (without too many tantrums), one hand on keyboard, little finger of the other in M's mouth (makes typing tricky but keeps him quiet), I feel, for a brief moment, like I know what I'm doing.
Which is clearly enormously tempting fate, so watch this space for news of an epic disaster (along the lines of the deer that jumped out in front of the car on the A1 last weekend - necessitating a lot of explaining to Direct Line about why offering us a fiesta to get home in wasn't going to work).
That aside, as I have a fleeting moment of confidence, I've been finding myself wondering: as a species, where did our confidence go?
This is my fourth baby, so you'd sort of expect me to know what I'm doing wouldn't you? I certainly expected that I would. But, while I definitely do have more confidence than I did with L, and more time than I did with A and S, I still find myself at a loss more often than not; asking for reassurance, checking the baby bible, reconfirming to myself that if I feed him again, or leave him to cry, or take him out for dinner with my mum, or let him roll off the sofa at three days old (a real low point), I'm not going to doom him, or destroy him, or ruin his chances of getting a proper job in twenty-odd years time.
But if I were a zebra I wouldn't feel like this. If I were a chimpanzee, or a kangaroo, or a mouse, I'd have my baby, or my multiple babies (and wouldn't having fourteen make twins feel like a walk in the park on a sunny day?), and I'd just get on with it: I'd know how he latches on, and that I'm doing it right; I'd know how to keep him warm without letting him get too hot or cold; I'd know, instinctively, how to keep him safe.
So why can't we? Why is there this huge industry around telling us stuff that every other animal knows without asking?
I mentioned this to my sister-in-law the other day, and she said it was about the information - because the information is there, we become insecure and we rely on it. She said if we weremembers of an undiscovered tribe living in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, we wouldn't feel like this; we would still have that instinctive certainty.
I'm not so sure. I suspect that for all a Papuan new mum may not have Gina Ford, or the baby whisperer, health visitors, community midwives, the co-parenting lobby, the nanny state or the breastapo, I bet she has a mother, a granny, an aunt or a neighbour, all regaling her with their stories of dreadful deliveries and breast-feeding nightmares, and all telling her, "We didn't do it like that when you were young" or, "Oh, no, we do it like this now".
I think it's something to do with being human. As a species we no longer have confidence in ourselves. But I'd love to know when it was lost. And I'd love even more to know how to get it back again.
***********************************************
ps Once again I feel like Cinderella. I am not off to CyberMummy tomorrow, due to new babies, small children, builders and the late and not at all lamented deer. Instead I will be heading back up the A1 to home, hopefully in a car which will fit us all. I will however be wishing I were there and sending a big hello to everyone. Have fun for me.
I mentioned yesterday that I'm now a published writer! Admittedly it's only the South West London Twins' Club magazine, but still, everyone's got to start somewhere...
Unaccountably, the SWLTC (ooh, an acronym! Get me!) magazine does not yet have an online publication, so for your (horrified) delectation, here is the nappy-filled story of the last nearly 18 months of my life:
Wherever I go, as I walk down the road there is a chorus of shocked gasps. Every so often someone plucks up the courage to stop me. They invariably start off “You’ve got your hands full”.
Let me explain. There are five of us: me, B and the three girls. L is just three and A and S are identical girls now aged nearly 18 months. There are just over 19 months between them so for four and a bit months I had three under two, and I had three under three for a year beyond that.
Answer to the next question: No, this wasn’t part of the plan. But I don’t regret it for a second. We got pregnant very quickly second time round and then it was (they are) twins. How could you regret that? It’s two wonderful things in one sentence.
Which is not to say that I don’t have my hands full, and that it hasn’t been hard. So here are some highlights (and lowlights) from the last year and a bit, along with some tips for how I (and my marriage) have survived thus far. I’m not sure how much of it differs from the advice I would give someone having twins who didn’t have an older child, but it worked for me...
“Never refuse an offer of help”
My wonderful sister-in-law also has twins and an older child and she said this to me. In fact, I think she threatened to tattoo it on the back of my eyeballs. She was right. For anyone in my position I will say and say and say again you will need help. At the very least for the first few weeks and if possible for longer. You have to decide what option is right for you, but we ran away to stay with my mother-in-law in Scotland for the first four weeks. When we got back (and for the first three days between being out of hospital and going to Edinburgh) we had an utterly, utterly, can’t praise her highly enough, wonderful doula. Angela looked after children, changed nappies, cooked, cleaned, ironed, made me cups of tea, supported me through breastfeeding, talked to me, advised me and generally made life so much easier than it could ever have been without her. Other people go down the maternity nursery route, but, as with so much else in this parenting lark, it’s what works for you. The only thing I can say is that having help will work for you.
Make time for the toddler
A and S are now nearly one and a half. The impression I have is that most children that age are down to one nap a day. They aren’t. I’m hanging on desperately to their morning nap because that is my time with L.
This is even more true when the babies are tiny. Tiny babies need feeding, changing and putting to bed. Toddlers need your attention and time. However tiny and vulnerable your babies are, don’t forget that they won’t notice who changes their nappies. Your toddler, on the other hand, will definitely notice who reads her bedtime story. She will also be feeling confused and probably a little displaced by the arrival in her life of two usurpers. She will need love and attention. In the early weeks, when I was post c-s and therefore pretty useless at picking her up, we found that it worked quite well for B to devote himself to her while I concentrated on the babies. Either way, she needs reassurance and, certainly for us, that had to come from Mummy and Daddy.
Make time for the babies
For the first 12 weeks of their lives, I had all three children full time. Fair enough really, they’re my children. But then I realised that the only times I picked A and S up were when they needed changing or feeding. Otherwise they were left to kick on the babygym, or in a bouncy chair, while I rushed around after an incredibly demanding (although probably no more than most!) toddler.
After much beating myself up about not being a good enough mother, B talked some sense into me and we put L into nursery two days a week. Clearly there’s a financial aspect to this (it’s where my maternity pay went), but if you can do it, I would say it’s definitely worth it. Failing that, a regular play date, some time with the grandparents, even a Saturday trip to a cafe with Daddy.... However you manage it, I think it was really good for the babies to have time with just me, and for me to have time with just them; to remember that I was a mother of tiny babies, and that tiny babies do, occasionally, need their Mummy.
One of the things that I think L had in immeasurable amounts more of than S and A was time just being cuddled. Cuddling a tiny baby is natural. Except when you have twins. When you have twins you find you’re too busy juggling and you feel guilty if you cuddle one, because then you’re not cuddling the other. My time with just them was spent rectifying this: cuddling them, letting them fall asleep on me, or just cooing at them in a silly, besotted mum way. None of which can be done with a toddler around. Believe me.
Make time for yourself (and your marriage)
Every now and then it all gets too much and I lose it in a dramatic (but fortunately not usually public) manner.
When that happens, B has now learned to phone a friend. He shoves me out of the door to have a cup of coffee, or go shopping for clothes that aren’t the size they used to be, or get my hair cut, or something. And it makes a huge difference. It’s only maybe once every couple of months, but I would have gone mad without it.
And on even rarer occasions, we go out together. We get someone to babysit and we go and walk by the river, or we drive aimlessly in the car (sorry environment), and we talk about stuff that matters, and not just our children. It helps. We’re still talking to each other, so it must do!
Believe in yourself
You will find, and I’m sure this goes for twins “on their own” as well as those with an older sibling, that people have all sorts of ideas of what you can and can’t, or will and won’t, do.
You will know, because you’ve done it before, the things that you think you can do, and those that you can’t. Or those that you want to do. Or even those that you’d like to have a go at.
I found that confidence made a huge difference to me when dealing with all sorts of things. From having the courage to ignore the midwives who said that twins couldn’t be exclusively breast-fed to politely disagreeing with the people in John Lewis who said I couldn’t get three children into my pushchair...
Plan, plan and plan again. Then change the plans.
I have found, though, that confidence needs to go with military-style planning. I thought that my days of spontaneity were behind me when I had one child. Now I realise that those were heady days of last minute plans and carefree changes of mind.
At Christmas 2007 B’s brother got engaged to one of my best friends from university. They planned a Christmas 2008 wedding. When we decided to try for another baby in early 2008, the one thing we had in mind was that we couldn’t be so pregnant that we couldn’t go to their wedding.
Of course then I got pregnant straight away. “But that’s ok, because I’ll be 36 weeks pregnant but I can still go to the wedding. It’ll only be a problem if it’s twins”...
Clearly, we could have said “sorry, we can’t come. We’re having two babies on the 11th and you’re getting married on the 20th. In Edinburgh. It just can’t be done.” But we wanted to go, and they wanted us to be there. So we planned, and we planned and we planned. We had contingency plans and alternative plans and more plans. And we knew, at any point, that if we decided to give up and stay at home, we could.
But we went, and I think, having planned it and thought about it and said in my head “We are going to do this” we could.
That said, we do also have a deliberate “Abandon Ship!” policy. If the plans go up in smoke, we are not afraid to run away... (taking the children with us, generally).
Know your limits
Plan. But don’t overreach yourselves. When L turned two, lots of my NCT friends started potty training. We didn’t. We knew our limits, and with four-month-old, exclusively breast-fed twins, potty training was beyond them.
She’s now 3 and a bit and she’s been totally potty trained and dry at night for over six months. We started later but we’ve caught up, and I don’t think she’s been permanently damaged by having a few more months in nappies than some of her friends. In fact, it may even have made her more enthusiastic about the whole process. Even if we’re not looking forward to it next time round.
One last tip:
Measure your car. Lots of them don’t fit three toddler-sized car seats across the back. Yours will need to... We nearly learned that one the hard way.
And the good news
Don’t read this if your twins are your first babies...
When we went to the SWLTC new members evening the room was full of lots of very pregnant women, their scared looking husbands and partners, and two couples looking less pregnant but more tired. We were one of those couples, A&S having been born about eight weeks earlier. Oddly enough, the other couple (hello if you’re reading this!) also had an older child, of about the same age as our eldest. We got chatting and were united in our conviction that we were enormously relieved we hadn’t had twins first.
Parenting a tiny baby, even two tiny babies, is, I am absolutely convinced, much easier second (I can’t comment on third or fourth!) time round. This time round you won’t, I promise
Poke the babies in the middle of the night to check they are still breathing and then wake them up and spend the next four hours trying to get them back to sleep. You’ll know better.
Worry about whether you can/can’t/will/won’t breastfeed/allow controlled crying/wean at four months/give vitamin k/whatever else the media is hyping at the time. You will know, from experience, that the best thing for your babies is the thing that works for you and them and you’ll have worked out that worrying about what the Health Visitor, NCT or Daily Mail says is counter-productive at best.
Refuse to see anyone because they might give your babies a cold, and as a result spend the first six weeks of their lives housebound, miserable and lonely.
Find yourself stranded miles from home with a baby covered in poo and no nappies and wipes. You will, like me, have learned from experience...
And you will:
Know how to change a nappy, get a baby (even two babies) bathed and dressed, make up a bottle, assemble a breast pump, get out of the house in under an hour and a half...
Be a team. B and I muddled around each other for quite a while when we first had L before we worked out who was good at what. Second time round we just knew.
Know what is important to you as a parent, and what things you can (and must) do to stay sane.
I’m sure we would have coped if A&S had been our first but I’m equally sure it would have been a lot harder doing that terrifying new parent learning curve with two babies, and not a mere one...
And the one thing I haven’t talked about
Sibling love.
I haven’t written anything about this, because the honest answer to any question on the relationship between my girls is “I just don’t know”. Mostly they seem to get on, and mostly L has been fine with them throughout. But she has had her moments, and there are still, at least once a day, incidents of hitting, or snatching, or pushing them over. But there are now also moments of real kindness and love that make me melt with pride. How have we got to this point? And how do we encourage the good and reduce the bad? I’m afraid I just don’t know. My guess is that by reassuring L that she is not being displaced and by reinforcing her good behaviour, in this as in everything else with a toddler, she’ll get there in the end. If there’s a magic answer though, I’d love to know.
Once again, I suspect that we’ll be making it up as we go along...
And then we've had it again. And again. And again. With each other and pretty much everyone else we've come into contact with over the last few weeks.
Are we going to have another baby?
It's no secret (if it wasn't before, it certainly isn't now, the amount we go on about it) that I want another baby, and now we're here, and we have the space, and I have no job**, I really want another baby; but B isn't so sure. And where I'm worried about birth defects, and age gaps, and more sets of twins, he's just afraid of a little hard work (and the twins...).
Because it would be hard work, wouldn't it? A baby is hard work. A baby, two toddlers and a three year old would be very hard work. I can't pretend that it wouldn't. All I know is that I want it anyway.
But what neither of us knows is whether it's too much hard work. Of course that's subjective. If I'm a lazy bugger who likes long lie-ins (which I am) and you're a workaholic who enjoys laundry and can survive on four hours sleep a night, you're going to find it easier than me, goes without saying. But what I want to know is, insofar as it is possible to be objective about this sort of thing: is 4 children do-able? Does it get easier each time? Do the older ones ever start to be more of a help than a hindrance?
So this is a plea. Does any of my lovely readers have four children? Does anyone know anyone who has four children? And if so, would you or they be prepared to tell all....?
* and if I can't find anyone, that might tell its own story
** and therefore need something to validate my existence (?). I think therein may lie another post...
One of the nice things about a new house and a new life is you can convince a trusting 3-year-old that certain things are going to be different. Things that, if the truth be told, don't necessarily actually have to be different. Things like "no toys in the kichen" and "we only have apple juice at breakfast". The sort of things, in other words, that I've been trying to change for some time and haven't managed to. Until now. "Things" that in another house might be called "Rules".
I've had rules in the back of my head for a while now. A couple of months or so ago I read an article by a man who had brought up his son on his own (though sadly can't remember who he was or where I read it, sorry). Anyway, he said that one of the secrets of his success (ahem) was that he had a small set of fixed rules which were never breakable*.
Now, if you'd asked me before I had the girls, I'd have said that you have to have rules and you have to be consistent. In fact, if you asked me now, I'd still say that you have to have rules and you have to be consistent. But the thing I can't decide on is what those rules should be.
I know that they've got to be clear, I know they've got to be enforceable, and I know that they've got to be few. You can't have too many rules, it just gets confusing. But then I get stuck. In fact, the only rule on which we are decided, agreed and live by ourselves is that the girls aren't allowed to hurt each other. Hurting each other brings the wrath of Mummy down upon them. But even then the extent of the wrath of Mummy depends on all sorts of factors mostly relating to how thin Mummy's patience is wearing by that point...
But what else? What rules should we have and how should we enforce them? Is no toys in the kitchen a good rule? Is it enforceable? And what about when the rules conflict? If L bites A and then owns up, should I be cross because of the biting, or pleased because of the honesty?
I asked some friends about this, and they said that they had been told that the most important thing was to decide what was important to you, and then to live by it as well as imposing it on your children. In other words, if you think the most important thing is that your children are polite, you must be polite. If you think they should be honest, ditto....
Which just adds another question - what about the times B and I conflict? I'm tidy, B's not. He's got endless patience, I'm not so hot at that. Where should our priorities lie?
Is this just another impossible parenting question, or can we achieve a set of simple, enforceable rules? And if so, how?
*One of these was that when Daddy said "It's time to go" it was time to go. No questions. No answering. No procrastination.
To which I say, in tones of disbelief "How?" Whatever he's got. I want some of it.
I've suddenly realised that my first proper week of unemployment starts tomorrow and that in just over ten days I'll be a full-time mum (we're leaving the girls in nursery on Thursday and Friday next week to allow time for packing ('cos I can pack up my house in two days, easy)).
I've got all sorts of worries about this: will I lose my identity? Will B respect me if I'm not contributing to the family income? Will the girls respect me when they're grown up? Will I respect me when I can't remember who the prime minister is? What on earth am I going to do with all that empty time???
But I've suddenly realised that I've given no thought at all to the biggie: What on earth am I going to feed them?
I'm going to have to provide three delicious, nutritious meals a day, every day. No respite: no "Oh well, they're going to nursery tomorrow, I won't have to think about it"; no "They eat a varied diet at nursery, so fishfingers for the third time this week won't kill them"
So this is a plea for advice.... what do you feed your children? And, more specifically what do you feed them for lunch? Even I can make a piece of toast and put some cereal in a bowl at breakfast and I have a repertoire of things I feed them at suppertime* (it's remarkably the same as the stuff my mother used to feed me) but my brain goes blank on lunch.
I think the problem is that it's so long since I ate anything other than a sandwich or soup for lunch that I can't think beyond that. But somehow I instinctively feel that a sandwich isn't sufficient if you're sixteen months old, and I'm not sure my kitchen floor would survive me giving them soup (even assuming L would eat it). But I'm also not sure if I'm supposed to be giving them a proper hot meal at lunchtime too. Am I?
So, please help! Hints, tips, recipes...any and all gratefully received.
*Things I feed my children: shepherds pie, fish pie, spag bol, Annabel Karmel's chicken sausages (actually I make them into chicken burgers), AK's salmon rosti, the ubiquitous fishfingers (used to be home-made pre-A and S, now I am Captain Birdseye's most loyal fan), sausages, risotto (they actually tend to get that one for lunch), roast dinner if we're all having it (so not very often then), beans on toast, jacket potatoes, eggy bread, erm... that's it. It's not wildly exciting is it?
When I look back, it is with wonder that we survived at all. Yet I also know that there were only a few moments when failure seemed inevitable and, that, wonder of wonders, we did in fact survive; marriage, family and (sort of) dignity intact.
The bad:
A vomiting, copiously, orangely, and without warning, about six hours into the flight out. Not good, although I can't fault the staff, who, despite the fact that they should have been enjoying an extra holiday courtesy of Unite instead of mopping up our puke, were gracious and helpful, and amazingly tolerant of the fact that we'd totally trashed their bassinet.
S screaming. And then screaming. And then screaming a little bit more. For a solid two hours on the way back. For about ten minutes I was nails and stuck to my guns ("ride it out, she will go back to sleep eventually, if you get her out it'll just make things worse") and then the stewardess came and asked if everything was ok, the man next to us offered to see if he could calm her down and my sister glared very obviously at me and I gave in. Mistake.
L refusing, in classic L fashion: body rigid, head back, lungs inflated, to put her seat belt on. Every time.
And to top it off:
Two hours sitting on the tarmac at Heathrow on the way out because it was too cold to take off, only to discover, when we got there, that our bags were still, you guessed it, sitting on the tarmac at Heathrow...
But, as I say, generally, the good bits outnumbered the bad. L was (seat belt aside) amazing. On the way out she sat and watched the tv for about an hour and a half before saying "I want to go to sleep now" and doing just that until I woke her up when we were due to land. And on the way back just the same, apart from the fact that the sleeping was done on the floor rather than in her seat. Quite frankly, if I'd thought I would fit, I'd have joined her. As for A and S, they were pretty good too. It was hardly A's fault she was sick, and otherwise she slept throughout, and as for S screaming, I guess that if someone had offered me two hours of screaming out of two eight-hour flights, I'd probably have taken it. Whether the people around us would have done is, of course, a different question...
So after asking for hints and tips, in the end, none of them were necessary. But for next time, I will know:
Take every single thing you can possibly think of to entertain them. Even if (like us) you never use any of it, you'll be glad you had it just in case.
Ignore the air hostesses except when absolutely necessary. Apparently it's unsafe to let a child sleep on the floor of a plane because the oxygen masks won't reach that low down (the fact that you'd probably choose to pick your child up to put the oxygen mask on her rather than letting her suffocate seems to have escaped them). I said "Oh right, thanks" and did nothing about it.
A whimper is better than a scream. If your child is whimpering, ignore her. If she's grumbling, ignore her. If she's yelping, ignore her. If she's really properly going for it, you might have to pick her up. But until then, just hope. And don't make eye contact. With child or fellow passengers.
Normal rules do not apply, especially over food. L ate what she wanted and ignored the rest. In her case this was yoghurt and chocolate biscuits. I can't imagine that it did her any harm.
But the converse of that is that if babies are in a routine, stick to it as far as possible. We were lucky in that both our flights were evening (ish) so we just dragged out the routine so that A and S were having their bedtime milk as we took off. Cue no painful ears and they both fell asleep during take off, and in the case of one baby each flight, stayed that way until landing.
If all else fails. Drugs. In this case Calpol, but anything else that works would do...
And finally, sadly, don't think it's all over when the plane lands. You've still got the jetlag to come.
Yesterday morning wasn't good. Yesterday afternoon was worse.
We had promised L that we would go and buy her some new knickers and a new potty. So off we went, bundled into the car, for a couple of hours of joy at the retail park. While there we seized the opportunity also to buy L some new shoes. She is clearly a changeling because she doesn't appear to enjoy buying shoes (am also wondering if she's really female) so was bribed into it with the promise of cake (more good parenting there).
So off we went to M&S (this being the only retail park in the Western Hemisphere with no Starbucks) for a reviving coffee and cake.
Picture the scene. B doing the hunter-gathery stuff at the counter. Me and L sitting on the bench on one side of the table, S and A in highchairs on the other side, all waving to each other and showing each other how clever we are because we can clap. I wanted to bottle the scene and take it out in years (or hours) to come to remind me of how perfect my girls can be and how lucky I am.
Until B came back with the food and drinks, unloaded them onto the table and went to put the tray away. And A grabbed the full cup of coffee and tipped it all over herself.
It probably didn't happen in slow motion, but it felt like it did.
And in my head was the voice of my lovely friend SVS, saying to me not four weeks ago "I remember when G (her youngest) tipped a pot of tea all over herself. Fortunately I knew exactly what to do. I ripped her clothes off and charged through the cafe into the ladies and stuck her in the sink and kept her there until the ambulance came. She's fine now".
I didn't know exactly what to do. I had no idea what to do. But somehow I heard SVS. And though I was shaking and crying and yelling for B, together we ripped (literally - we have lost several buttons) her clothes off and B grabbed her and got her in the sink.
The staff called the ambulance and between us we managed to keep the other two entertained, and A's tummy and chest covered with cold compresses until they got there. They took us off to the hospital where the doctor told me that due to our prompt action in doing exactly the right thing, she has suffered no serious damage. Had we not done so it could have been a very different story. We were home again later on the same day. A is now clearly feeling a bit sore at times, but she is (and will be) fine.
So anyway, the point of this post is threefold:
First; to thank SVS for her incredibly timely advice (even though she had no idea she was giving advice at the time) and to thank the amazing staff at M&S in Kew. They were utterly utterly brilliant. We walked away with new clothes for A, a jigsaw to keep L happy, a towel to wrap A in and they even (bizarrely) refunded all the drinks. They also kept a very stressed and worried pair of parents calm with their sensible and friendly advice and approach. I've written to them and to their head office, but I also wanted to say it on here.
Second; because this is what I seem to use my blog for a lot of the time, to revisit that panic and fear and to remind myself, in writing, that it is all ok and she (and we) are all fine.
And, most importantly, third; in the hope that others will read this, and if and when (and sadly it's more likely to be when rather than if where babies are concerned), someone else's child grabs something hot, maybe they too will be lucky enough to have a little voice in their head telling them what to do. And hopefully they too will be fine.
Can't imagine that anyone would want to copy anything off here, but it is all mine, all the words, and (most of) the pictures* so if you do want to use it, please ask. I'll almost certainly say yes.
*and if the pictures belong to someone else I do say so.
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