Hi everyone!
This week was my last week of maternity leave! I start back teaching on Monday - online at first given gyms are still closed. It’ll be interesting to see how the timings of classes and everything affects Noah but the beauty with teaching from home is that if I need to deal with a hungry baby, I can!
Thanks to another supermum the pacifier was introduced this week with much better success!
Noah also spent a lot of time lying down on her own which is a big win for a super reflux-y baby. She took naps on her own, lying down and even once fell asleep on her own! We’re making progress.
Training
Managed to do a little more this week which felt great!
Monday
The only training I was able to do today was clock my usual 15k steps. Noah, as you are aware, has discovered her voice and now it’s a distraction. She literally would not stop talk to herself...all day. Which meant she didn’t nap at all. Which meant she was overtired by about 1pm. Which meant my life was great fun today. I managed to get her to sleep for a whopping 45min later on in the day while I carriered her. Why the short nap? She woke herself up of course...by talking. On the plus side, the babbling is adorable and because she was so tired she did go to bed at 6pm and didn’t wake up until basically midnight.
Tuesday
I had grand plans for going to the studio to train this morning but Noah had a pretty traumatic 3:30am experience (inhaled milk up her nose which made breathing a bit of an issue, then she had explosive poo) which meant she slept in later than usual, had a much longer morning nap, and then had a second long nap soon after waking up. So I opted for plan b: 1 hour walk in the morning and then a super fast afternoon miniband/bodyweight session.
3 sets:
A1. 12 Kneeling Push Ups
A2. 15 Single Leg Glute Bridges
A3. 10 Leg Lowers
B1. 12 Seated Single Arm Rows
B2. 15 Standing Fire Hydrants
B3. 10 Crunches
Wednesday
Today was another classic case of a 20k+ steps day. Had a long leisurely stroll followed by a long brunch, finished off by a shorter stroll. Noah was also the nap champion of the world today.
Thursday
I realised today is the last day for a long while where I won’t have something to do or somewhere to go or people to see. My original plan was to walk a maximum of 2000 steps and just veg out. Naturally, because I have a newborn, that meant I ended up clocking over 16,000 steps and not veg-ing out at all. The day was still relatively chill, laughed, we read, she napped, and I even managed to do a bit of stretching!
Friday
Woke up with a determination to go to the gym but with very little desire to go into central so instead I went to the very minimalist gym in our building. Noah wasn’t as interested in the session so it was a very quick one:
3 sets each
A1. 15 Calf raises to sumo squats
A2. 12 Cable Rows
A3. 10 Bicep Curls
B1. 12 Split squats
B2. 10 Push Ups
B3. 10 Shoulder Presses
I then took Noah on 2 strategically planned, 1-1.5hr nap walks so she’d, for once, stay chill during her osteo appointment. For the first time as a mum, my strategic walks worked wonders! She got through osteo with no fuss at all.
Saturday
Still striving for a veg out day, I somewhat got it today! I did go for a 2 hour nap-stroll in the morning but that’s it!
Sunday
After a day of somewhat rest yesterday today we decided it was gym time. Fun moment of the gym: you know the phrase "use it or lose it"? Well, after many many months of not doing a pull up, I've lost it. I have a new goal for 2021...
3 sets:
A1. 12 Deadlifts
A2. 4-6 Eccentric Pull Ups
A3. 30s Kettlebell Swing
B1. 12 Single Leg Hip Thrusts
B2. 10 Kettlebell Snatches
B3. 10 Deadbugs
4 sets:
C1. Bear Crawl (forwards and backwards)
C2. 30s Plank
20min stretch
Mental Health Check-In
Early on in the week I had a mini mental breakdown, Noah was being difficult, I was tired, and I was getting frustrated at the fact that while everyone else got to live their life - I was stuck trying to do everything I could to tame a fussy baby.
Sometimes it feels like I’ve got a mountain to climb and a million things to carry and I’m all alone. I’m going back to work next week and Noah still isn’t taking to the bottle which means it’s impossible for me to get away from her for long periods of time. Luckily "back to work" for now means teaching online but I want to go back full time at some point and now that point just seems further and further away.
I felt very defeated by Wednesday afternoon.
Then I re-evaluated and put everything in her perspective. She’s not giving me a hard time, she’s having a hard time and doesn’t know how to express that or how to deal with the million things she’s still trying to learn. I'm sure she'd prefer if she wasn't fussy too...Then I spent a few minutes just staring at her, watching her, and smiling. Life ain't so bad.
Life in General Noah did a bit of cluster feeding on Monday and Tuesday and was very much interested in only sleep on Wednesday. I also spent most of the week being absolutely famished and very thirsty. So, between those 2 things and the fact that she was super fussy on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. I think a growth spurt has definitely occurred. My suspicions were somewhat confirmed when we did our very questionable version of weighing and measuring her: 5.8kg and somewhere between 61-63cm. Up quite a bit indeed since her 2 month vaccinations in mid-December. All that growth means she’s officially moved out of the newborn setting in the carrier and is out of the newborn insert in her car seat. Also, much more importantly, because she’s gaining more weight her second dimple is starting to come through!
Unfortunately, as is the case more often than not with a newborn, it’s not all smooth sailing...The hysterical and gross game we now play - diaper size 1 or diaper size 2? She’s just slightly too long for size 1 which means she blows out the back when she poos but her thighs aren’t quite chunky enough for size 2 so she tends to blow out of the legs when she poos...I told you it was a gross game. Naturally, because we have this dilemma, Noah has chosen this week and last week as the perfect time to start pooing at least once a day. For her 6-9th week of life she was only pooing once every other day or so but now that she’s in an awkward, between diaper size, stage of course she goes 1-3 times a day. (I’m very aware that 99% of you will not be super interested in my child’s bowel movements but when you have to clean a lot of diapers, you talk about poo a lot. And if I have to talk about it, you all get to read about it.)
Poo blow outs and fussy moments aside, every week brings not only a new challenge but also new adorable moments. For all the strife and all the chaos, it’s so worth it when she gives you the biggest of smiles when she catches your eye. As everyone who has met her can attest to, Noah has an amazing pout and glare but when she smiles her whole face lights up. Now that she’s able to see a little further and her brain has developed a little more she spends quite a bit of time smiling and it’s honestly the best thing in the world.
With that, I hope you all had a fabulous first week of 2021. I’ll speak to you all again next week for my penultimate calibrateBUMPS post!