Babe: 3 years and 4 months

Babeling: 5 weeks

Sorry. It’s just that straight after the birth I had an army of helpful relatives doing all the housework, shopping, cleaning and babe care, and all I had to do was breastfeed and blog. Now they’ve all gone away and babyfather has gone back to work and real life barely leaves time for the breastfeeding, never mind the blogging. In fact real life is logistically impossible unless the babeling is asleep, which fortunately is a lot.

Here is the logistically impossible bit: The babeling has mild reflux, which means the top sphincter of her stomach doesn’t hold the milk in too well. Then there is my milk supply, which is very spurty. Once activated (usually by the babeling sucking, but also by random events like having a hot shower or talking about breastfeeding – strange but true) it spurts. When I say spurts, I mean I could probably hit a target at about six feet, if my aim was any good. Feeding the babeling is therefore a bit like filling a very small balloon with a high pressure fire hose. A balloon that doesn’t tie up at the top very well.

I then have to carry said very small balloon around with me, completely upright, or it spills, for some time after a feed. (Usually it spills on visitors, mostly childless visitors with nice clothes on, or anyone who doesn’t believe me when I say UPRIGHT.) If this period of time coincides with the babe refusing to eat her supper, getting shampoo in her eyes, needing her bottom wiped or tearing the stuffing out of the inside of the armchair, life gets a bit fraught.

We tried to go to the library once a couple of weeks ago - suffice to say that getting ready took literally an hour longer than I was expecting and involved a complete change of clothes for me because the babeling was sick into my cleavage followed by a complete change of clothes for the babeling because (having fed her again) I put her down for a second to do up the babe’s coat and she was sick on herself, and nearly involved a complete change of clothes for babyfather because that was the point at which he walked in and I cried all over him.

It’s all worth it though, of course, because this morning after a nappy change she looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Awwr.’ Exactly.