We did have a well-deserved break last week though, and popped over to France to see Freyja’s granny and grandad (James’ side). It was a lovely holiday – not too warm (at least on some of the days), and it was very relaxing for us all. We both really struggled to return to normality today.

It was also Freyja’s first plane ride – she was as good as gold! She fed on take off and landing, to try and prevent her ears from popping – she was a true star – much better than all the other kids on the flight. She also had her first meeting with a swimming pool – she didn’t really know how to react to it, with it being a completely new experience for her, but at least she’s been introduced.

The only main problem we are having with her recently is her inability to settle to sleep. It can take hours some nights. She is absolutely fantastic, once she has drifted off to sleep, it’s just the getting to sleep that’s the problem. We have tried and tried, resorting to leaving her to cry it out when we were in France, much to the dismay of everyone. It seemed to be the only thing we could do. We were recommended the Pick Up Put Down method, but I really doubt that will work with her. We have also given the cot a go tonight, thinking it may be because she doesn’t have as much space as she would like in the hammock. I’ve been feeding her lots more today as well, thinking it may be a lack of milk causing her upset. She’s napping fine during the days, so it’s not lack of sleep. She just cries and bawls and whinges for so long, UNLESS we rock her to sleep – I’m sorry, but we can’t do that forever. She won’t be in her hammock for much longer, and we have things to do of an evening!

Even the most patient, mother-earth, of parents need a bit of “Me Time”. We’ll see how it all goes.

We attempted to weigh her on the bathroom scales yesterday (she will be weighed properly on Wednesday at her 12 week jabs – not looking forward to those!), but I wanted to see how close we could get accuracy wise using the bog standard scales at home. They say that she’s 12lb, which is about right.

The other thing I want to quickly write about is baby swimwear – it’s CRAP! We went into town yesterday to try and find a UV suit for her, so that she won’t be confined to the shade when we go to France. They don’t do UV suits in her age group. Which is understandable, seeing as she won’t be able to run around in the sun anyway, and should be with us in the shade all the time. But what if we want to quickly introduce her to the pool? They do swimming costumes for her age group (very cute btw), but they don’t protect her as much as I’d like. And we can’t just slap on some suncream because of her delicate baby skin, which, to make matters worse, I have the gut feeling is like mine. If this is the case, she will have endless trouble trying to find a suncream which doesn’t bring her out in heat rashes. The only allegedly baby-friendly suncream I have seen is sun block, but if she does have skin like mine, it won’t be any good for her. I recommend Piz Buin Allergy by the way – if your skin hates sun block/sun cream like mine does!

So the plan is to keep her in the shade at all times. She can have a quick introduction to the pool, at like 8am or something, so that the sun isn’t too high in the sky and the heat is bearable. Other than that, she’s being a recluse with me!