Fatty boomba baby and a visit from the grandparents

Zoe had her fortnightly weigh in on Friday and it was fantastic news. She had gained a whopping 500 g in two weeks - incredible! I was just so happy to have such a great result. She now weighs 3.8 kg and is 56 cm long.

This pushes her up to about the 7th percentile, so much better than where she was previously. The nurse was really pleased and we talked about various ways to wean Zoe off the bottle top-ups. In the end, she said I should decide myself how best to tackle it as I know the times of the day when my milk is at its most plentiful.

The options are either to reduce the amount in each bottle progressively, or drop certain bottles progressively. In the end, we've decided to do a combination. The first change is to drop the bottle top-up she gets in the middle of the night. I usually have loads of milk then, so we figure it is the best one to let go.

Hopefully, the result will be that I produce as much milk as Zoe needs at that time over a few days. We will stick with this change for two weeks and then weigh her again to see what the effect has been.

I will be weighing her myself in the waiting room at the child health centre, rather than making an appointment because I think the nurse was keen to let us have some more control, rather than being watched over so closely.

LH is keen for Zoe to keep having such big weight gains so she moves up the percentiles faster, and I agree but I am also keen to cut back on the top-ups. I would like to keep one a day in place so that LH can feed her if I'm not around and so she maintains her comfort with formula and bottles.

This weekend we had a visit from my parents and one of my sisters. It went really well and of course they were just entranced by our beautiful girl. It was lovely for them to meet her. They weren't any more certain about who she looks like than we are, but Dad did think she might look a bit like his mother (my grandmother). Since I only knew her as an old lady, I pulled out a family photo of her as an 18 year old girl, and there perhaps is a resemblance around the mouth and eyes. I think Zoe's looks will become more apparent in a month or two. At the moment, she just looks like an adorable little elf :-) Mum even managed to coax a smile out of her - something I haven't managed yet but she must be close.

Mum and Dad were very understanding of how things are going, even though I felt very self-conscious about how much crying she was doing. I really get a bit stressed when she cries a lot when others are around because I think they will think I'm not coping and I really need to get over it.

But Mum and Dad have had 6 kids and they are well aware of how much babies cry, thankfully. Zoe was particularly fractious yesterday and I wondered whether it was because there were many more people around holding her and looking at her. Perhaps it was a bit overwhelming and she reacted by being a bit cross and tired.

Fortunately, she was a little angel at night so didn't disturb everyone's sleep.

We are working on a new routine based on Tizzey Hall's book 'Save our Sleep' so I will post on how it is working out soon.