I had a normal pregnancy with Olivia, no issues.
Because of my age, the consultants wanted to induce at 40 weeks exactly. I held it off for a few days and that turned out just enough to go into labour spontaneously. Olivia was born at the birth centre just five hours after the first contractions started at 40 wks plus 3 days. Apart from some local anaesthetics for an episiotomy I took no pain medication and the experience could not have been more different from my labour with her brother. She weighed 8 lbs 8 ounce and nursed for 2 hours immediately after birth which made the midwife comment that she was ‘putting an order in’.
I breastfed her exclusively and still breastfeed her now at 21 months. She was on the 91st percentile from birth and has always fed well. We had no issues with breastfeeding, no reflux, no food intolerances. I co-slept with her until she was about six months which worked well for both of us. We have never used a dummy with either of the children (they were both not interested) and Olivia never took a bottle. She simply refused to take bottles with expressed milk.
We introduced solids at 6 months and she has been a good eater from the beginning. She eats everything, really enjoys eating fruit and vegetables, and also eats chicken, meat, egg without any issues. It does not happen often that she doesn’t finish her meal.
We have not had any real health issues. She did have an inflammation of her gums at some point (September last year) which was very painful for her and caused her not to eat much for several days. She did breastfeed without issues throughout it so did not go hungry.
Our nanny started in September last year and Olivia has been happy with her from the start. Olivia is generally easy-going; she likes to joke around and she copies her brother in everything he does and says. We intend to raise her tri-lingual (Dutch, Spanish and English) just like her brother although she has not had much exposure to English, apart from hearing her brother speak it and hearing us speaking English to each other. She has picked up English surprisingly well though and understands and speaks all three languages. She is keen to learn new things and quick in understanding things. I do think that this last year with the lockdown and all the classes and playgroups being closed has made her cling to me more and she has not had as much opportunity to interact with children her age as we would have liked. She plays with her brother a lot and goes to the park with him and his best friend from nursery on most days.
6:30-7:00 – wake up. This may also be earlier. Some nights she wakes up at 5-5:30 and I can’t get her back to sleep.
8am – breakfast. She normally has cereals but does not eat much for breakfast because I still feed her at night and when she wakes up.
9:30-11:00 Monday to Friday if weather allows outside in park or playground. In the weekend we tend to take it easier and go out later.
Mid-morning – snack, often fruit and a cracker
11:30 lunch She will have a protein (fish, chicken, omelette), carbohydrates (rice, pasta, couscous) and vegetables. She likes her food (loves raw red pepper) and is generally a good eater.
12:00 nap time. Monday-Thursday the nanny puts her down for her nap. She needs to rock her and walk around with her to help her fall asleep, usually also with some white noise. I don’t feed Olivia during the day so also don’t do that when I settle her for her naps on Friday-Sunday. I also need to help her fall asleep by rocking her. Lately there have been days where she would not go to sleep, or only sleep 20 minutes and was then very tired in the afternoon.
13:30-13:45 Wake up from nap.
14:00 She eats a snack (usually again some fruit or yoghurt)
14:00-14:30 playtime
14:30 start preparing to leave for her brother’s nursery pick up at 3pm
15:00-16:30 Monday to Friday out in the park if weather allows with both children, and usually with her brother’s best friend from nursery who lives in our street. He has a snack while out in the park and usually Olivia will also eat something. Can be (part of a) peanut butter, or cream cheese sandwich for example, sometimes something sweet depending also on what the friend brought as they often share the snacks.
16:30-17:00 back home
17:30-18:00 dinner time. Similar menu to lunch. Again, she normally eats very well and finishes her food.
18:00 bath time. They take their bath together. Dad takes Olivia out first to put her in her pyjamas. I play a bit longer with her brother and then take him out and brush his teeth before putting his pyjamas on.
18:20-19:00 play time and video calls with grandparents
19:00-19:20 I read stories for them in bed and we brush Olivia’s teeth.
19:20-19:30 sleep time. I stay with the children in their room and feed Olivia. Sometimes she falls asleep feeding, sometimes I need to put her in bed and pick her up again several times, I usually end up rocking her to sleep. It sometimes takes me an hour to get her to sleep.
Olivia wakes up several times per night and then demands to be fed. I have tried not feeding her but she screams and keeps asking for milk. She now says ‘can I drink milk’ when she wakes up at night as soon as I come into the room. As an example, last night she woke up at 1am, at 3am and at 5:15am. It was difficult to get her back to sleep at 5:15 and I had to take her into the bed with me (and her brother) to settle her. I only do this if it is really difficult for her to settle and usually what happens then is that we put her brother in bed with his dad so he can at least sleep. Olivia often wakes him up and then I have two children to settle back to sleep. Olivia does not care much about the night-light, but I sometimes use white noise to settle her. She has a little bunny that she sleeps with but is not really attached to it.
I hope that we can – gently – break the milk sleep association that she has and get her to sleep through because she really needs more sleep (and so do I!).
