Jack with his cousins Josh and Sam

We had a lovely Easter weekend away with our families in Norfolk... Thanks to Marie for sending the pics as I forgot our digital camera. Also apologies for the lack of posts, just been a bit hectic changing jobs at work...

Should have some more baby swimming pics later today as we go to Jack's third session - let's hope he enjoys it more this week. He's also started having some baby food... which is really exciting.

Jack's first picnic on Sunday in Battersea Park

I think this is a gorgeous pic of Charlie and Jack on our first picnic today (1 April). It was a gorgeous spring afternoon and we had a lot of fun chillin' out in the park and stuffing our faces at the same time... Jack is still on the same menu, so his food was still the same as ever... but he seemed to enjoy himself.

Jack and his first dip in the pool - babyswimming

We have just started taking Jack to baby swimming classes at our local group in Balham, south-west London.

Jack's first class was interesting as I'm not sure how much he enjoyed it. There were five other babies there some a bit younger than Jack and some a bit older. While some of the others seemed to cry a little bit, Jack seemed to cry throughout the class.

Even in our first class we dunked Jack - in other words, fully submerged him below the water for a few seconds. It's quite a heart-rendering experience as you watch their little face as you take them under, but it's very safe as babies have a reflex that stops them trying to breathe underwater.

The first class lasts for nine weeks and by the end of it Jack should be able to swim short distances underwater. How amazing is that. It's the next class today, so wish me luck. Hopefully he'll have a better sleep this morning before the class and this might mean that he doesn't cry throughout like last week. More baby swimming pics of Jack on flickr.

Whose that babe with Jack?

The three of us had a lovely day today in gorgeous spring sunshine at Kew Gardens. Jack was on great form and we really enjoyed ourselves walking around the wonderful gardens,and seeing the lovely spring flowers and enjoying the sunny weather. We also managed to grab a spot of lunch at the Kew Grill, which has a great lunch offer of £12.50 for two courses, so as I was on holiday we thought we splash out and take Jack out for lunch! We took loads of photos which I have posted on flickr and this is my favourite.... Charlie looking wonderful and Jack happy and pretty cool in his little baseball cap!

Jack is changing everyday

Everyday Jack seems to be changing - I've put some more photos of him on flickr from this weekend - but everyday he is doing new stuff, or making new noises. It's a really exciting time for all of us.

Is he the coolest baby in the world?

I guess every dad thinks this, but Jack dressed up in his jeans and Baby Gap top, just looked like the coolest little boy ever.

He is now 14-weeks-old and a lot of the lovely clothes that were brought for him when he was born and now fitting him. And as he's not pooing and weeing all the time, dressing him in trousers and tops rather than baby grows is ok and we don't need to change him all the time.

Now he is giggling away and just being much interactive - great for Dads as I think we need the feedback and stimulation that a baby starts to give at this age.

Is Jack starting to crawl?

Jack is now nearly three-months-old and his spending more time on his tummy.... and he's trying to crawl. He's obviously not crawling yet, but he's definitely getting much stronger and he can spend more time on his stomach, which I think helps him strengthen muscles in his back and neck.

Jack's sucking his thumb???

Jacks got really itchy eczema on his face - it itches most along his eyebrows. I guess its no surprise he has it, as I had exzema as a boy until I was about 18 to 20, but I hardly get it at all now. But can we treat it?? It's definitely very itchy for him and irratating especially when he gets tired.

There is some useful advice I've found from this article and this one on the ABC of eczema. But he is off to the Dr next Tuesday, so we'll see what they think he should use and whether there's something that can be prescribed..... Olive oil doesn't seem to be doing the trick at the moment.

Now is Jack sucking his thumb already?? Not sure whether its the thumb or thumb and fingers yet, but he is definitely self-soothing and we hardly ever give him a dummy now at all.

The first eight weeks - how has it been for us

A first-time-dad's account of the first eight weeks of our baby Jack's first eight weeks.

It's hard to distill it all to make sense, suffice to say that while you may not think that you'll ever get a good night's sleep again during the first six weeks of your baby's life... it does as everyone will tell you get better.

I remember the first four weeks, being absolutely exhausting not just because of the lack of sleep, but also as having a new baby for the first time is a stressful experience.

Having talked to friends and family, it's also true that every baby is different. We have probably had it quite easy with Jack, but there have been times when we have been at the end of our tether too, so if you get there, then you are in the same place as many, many other first-time parents.

A quick resume for us would be:

0-14 days - Jack slept a lot, but not at the same time as us.... so we were up a lot at night, probably feeding every two to three hours. This is hard work and your baby seems very fragile.

14-28 days - We were starting to get Jack used to when night and day was, but he didnt want to sleep unless he was cuddled... he was like this up to six weeks old really. However he was feeding better and drinking more... Jack was being breastfed at and Charlie was expressing her milk as well, so I could help out with some feeds. He would still need at least one to two feeds a night. In express milk terms he would have about 30ml in a feed - not a lot.

28 days to six weeks - this was over Christmas for us and Jack definitely started to understand the difference between night and day. He was sleeping better at night, although he was still going to sleep most times when he was held. This is the stage when for us every time he sensed he was near his moses basket and being put down he would scream.... this meant a lot of rocking and singing to get him into a deep sleep so we could get put him down. A lot of the books tell you not to let him fall asleep in your arms and if you can avoid it, then it's worth it, but in our experience this wasn't going to happen.

For us, Jack was being fed primarily by formula and he was staring to drink more - about 60-70ml of milk a feed, but he was still quite small, about 10lbs.

Towards the end of this period we started to feel that he was sleeping better at night - sometimes he would go for a five hour stretch in one go... brilliant. However, he was starting to show signs of collic..... normally in the evening at about 8pm till 11pm. During this time, he would howl and he was hard to find ways to stop him.

So we were getting a better night's sleep, but dreading the evenings, when dinner would normally mean passing Jack from one another around the table as he cried.

Six to eight weeks old - Jack was sleeping better at night, and was generally happy during the day. He started to smile at us... at about four to five weeks. Collic like symptoms still evident at evening time, but we decided it was time to put him down after his bath and feed in the evening at about 7pm.... to start he hated it. We would spend one to two hours singing and rocking him, before he would tire himself out with crying ......and fall asleep.

THEN we found the secret of the hair dryer........ if we put Jack down and put Charlie's hair dryer on he would settle and sleep. It was amazing. He had the odd blip, but generally it worked really well.

He was now starting to eat over 30 oz of milk a day.. and feeding about six to seven times a day. Normally he would have a dream feed - one when he was still just about asleep at about 11pm. In this feed we would try not to wake him at all, so he would only have his nappy changed if he needed it and probably wouldn't need burping... why because when they take a bottle when nearly asleep they don't take in hardly any air.... He would then wake again between 3am and 4am. This was pretty good.....

And so we are roughly where we are now... he's still on a true "Gina Ford" style routine, but a three-hour feed rota as the "baby whisper" recommends and it seems to be working pretty well and we now more relaxed as we get a good break in the evening to have our meal and watch a bit of telly.. what a treat!

He is still sleeping in his basket in out room and the next step is to move him to his own room in the next week.

and so a hairdryer is giving us some piece and quiet

Yep.. you wouldn't believe it, but while this first-time dad was doing some surfing about colic and baby health I found somewhere that said try running a vacuum cleaner to soothe your baby, the low-level humm might help.

Sure enough we tried a hair dryer and yes it has worked pretty well and certainly seems to soothe Jack when he gets irritable in the evening...so far so good.

Of course, he still knows his moments to play up and when his godmother Tamsin came round the other night, he decided it was time to take no notice of the hair dryer and screamm his little head off... and hence dinner was a slightly truncated affair..

Grandma, Jack and his bottle, Sam and Charlie

Grandma, Jack and his bottle, Sam and Charlie
Originally uploaded by joel72.

First-time dads can get really snap happy and I hate to think how many photos we have taken of Jack now.. but they are all worth it. It's like keeping a big diary I guess. I think we have about 60 photos uploaded onto flickr, which is a great website where you can let your friends and family have access to your photos, once you have taken them. We only bought a digital camera about two weeks before Jack was born - definitely worth it if you haven't got one. Particularly as they are so handy and small now that taking them into hospital etc is no hassle and you wouldn'y want to miss the chance of taking those first pics of your little baby.
Anyway must go as ours - now six weeks old - is just waking up. Back to work tomorrow after two weeks off with my wife and son, which has been lovely. We've had a great time and Jack is really changing all the time... it's amazing how fast they do change and I'm lucky to have had the time off work to have witnessed it.

A baby's first month- a first-time dad's view

As a first-time parents this is what we have experienced in our first month:

1) the first three weeks are really hard work.... don't let anyone lead to you believe anything else. For one you don't really know what are you doing and your baby will cry and there is no way you can work out what it is wrong with them. Sleepless nights are a given - we were up every couple of hours to start with and it was exhausting. I'm sure every baby is different, but our experience was that if you could feed them enough - then that really helps in getting them to sleep for a decent length of time that you can have a break. This might mean topping your baby up with a bottle to start with - expressed breast milk in a bottle was a massive help to us in getting Jack to have enough milk. So tip one is to buy an express milking machine to make sure that your baby gets enough breast milk in those first few weeks.

2) Infacol: we have found this really helpful in getting Jack to bring up wind. We have been using it from day one on recommendation from some friends and it seems to have worked really well in helping him burp.

3) A good tip for easy nappy changing that I read was to unfold the clean nappy under your baby so that you can remove the dirty nappy and the clean one is already in place. This helps to speed up the process, which is pretty important if your baby hates having their nappy changed as ours did. And remember if its a boy point his winky down and it'll save you lots of wet baby suits and cot sheets.

4) Try to get them to go to sleep in their cot - and not in your arms when you want them to go to sleep. This can be hard to start with - Jack always preffered sleeping in our arms than the cot. But you have to get them in the habit otherwise they won't sleep without being cuddled.

5) Buy a Baby Bjorn or a similar baby sling so you can you get your baby out in the fresh air. They are so easy to use and far quicker than getting the pram out all the time.

Week one and we're exhausted

I've been a first-time dad for 10 days now and Jack has been home for eight days. Both me and Charlotte (my wife) are absolutely exhausted, but just when you think it couldn't get any more tiring something good happens that gives you a lift. Jack had his best night sleep yet last night after we worked out some things we were doing that he clearly didn't like.

First - we were turning our light off in the bedroom during the night, but we think Jack doesn't like this. So we bought a little 15w bulb to go in one of our bedroom lights and left this on all night - if he needed changing there was no need for us to turn a light on and wake up Jack and ourselves. We had two wake ups last night, but they were fairly brief feeding and changing with Jack hardly waking each time.

Second - we were having problems with Jack's nappies leaking everytime he pees and waking him. We have tried various types of nappies - Pampas and Huggies and vaious sizes but no luck. What we weren't doin was pointing his winky down and so the wee wee was leaking out of the top and waking him all the time. See these responses on yahoo answers.

Third - we put him to bed properly, washed him, fed him, changed him and then burped him and that seemed to help him get off to sleep in a really calm way.