Last week was a week of survival, Aston was home all week from school with what the doctor originally thought was glandular fever but turned out to be an upper respiratory infection. I ended up having strep throat and Freddie still hasn’t slept a night through.

Let’s start with Aston and get him out the way first. As I mentioned last week, he had his glands bulging out the side of his neck, was lethargic, bags under his eyes, slight temp and a bit virusy. He had a blood test that would tell us if it was glandular or not, he had also complained of a sore ear over night. As we were walking to the doctors on the Wednesday to get the results, I saw his ear drum had burst. Will has had a burst ear drum many times so I knew what it was (leaking ear). The blood test told us it was not glandular but he did have the infection and he went straight on antibiotics. The whole week off school really helped him recover, I have never given him that many days off before and I now know how important the resting is for recovery.

Having him home, even with the nanny I hired for two days, made it impossible to get anything done. He fought with Will all day and I was battling my throat pain and trying to get deadlines done, photoshoots etc, it was a tough week for me. I was so worried that something bad was wrong with Aston whilst waiting for the blood results, I couldn’t stand hearing the boys fight all week long, I had committed to too many deadlines in the one week and then there was Freddie.

Never have I ever felt like running away more so than that week, and I am no dram queen, I soldier on, I roll with things and just deal. I pretty much had to surrender to everything, let the mess be, say no to things and just keep on getting up all night to Freddie.

Freddie did do one fabulous stint in his cot that was a good win for us. He slept for one night only, from 7pm, then dream feed at 10:30 and woke at 3am. I could not be bothered re-settling him back to sleep as I was unwell so I just put him in my room in his basinet (yes, still fits) and he sleeps well until a crack of light enters the room and he is up.

He is so strong, he has been doing push ups, moving off the play mat and rolling from back to tummy. He even can sit up, like a puppy dog for just a few seconds.

Freddie turned six months yesterday and I still cant believe I have him, I cant believe that I gave birth six months ago! I had surgery six months ago! It’s crazy! I keep thinking I want another baby just to have that first week all over again. It was a very anxious time for me but if I take that anxious part away, it was one of the most special weeks of my life and I hate that that might have been the last time I will experience that. I wont even tease Josh about the idea of another, as he would probably give himself the snip as soon as I utter the words “wouldn’t it be nice if we…”

Freddie had his first taste of chicken also last week, he liked it! It was pureed with zucchini and tonight I made a chicken soup and pureed it for him.

Freddie is in size 0 now,  I did a wardrobe cull today for him. He is completely arms out in his sleeping bag and on the 6-18m dummy size. I still wont put him in shoes, shoes on babies freak me out for some reason- they cant walk or crawl! Also, I am sorry, but suits on babies too, each to their own, but I like my baby to look like a baby, pom pom toes and all.

I have some great news, through the week of the wars, the best news is that I have been doing everything I can to help him with his stuffy/congested nose/chest he has had for three moths. With no real verdict from the paediatrician other than: “he will grow out of it when his nose grows” I thought I would do two things myself. I started him on probiotics (I have given him it before but I started to get lazy and forget) so I make sure I put it in his bottle that he drinks fully, usually the last bottle before bed and also I feed him more upright. He is NOT CONGESTED ANYMORE! Look, it could be a coincidence that I started doing these two things, but I am going to keep it up as I think it worked. It feels so good knowing he can sleep soundly without being blocked up, I don’t have to suck his snot out with that snot hose thing (that probably gave me strep throat in the end) and we can give ourselves an opportunity this week, now that everyone is better, to having him sleep in his cot without him gagging on mucus.

What else? We stayed at Crown Towers, kids and all which I will write up in a blog post tomorrow when I have a little more time. I will talk about what I did for Freddies bottles, food, what we did and the best massage I have had there and I have had a few at Crown Spa but this one was next level, I almost cried I needed it so much!

Freddies Routine

5:30-7am (somewhere between there, whenever a tiny bit of light comes in the room or Will comes in our bed and makes noise) bottle

8am rice cereal and fruit

9am (or earlier if I am driving Aston to school or walking Will to kinder) sleep

11am  bottle

12am solids- veg/fruit sometimes chicken (if I forget to defrost something I made him then I will feed a Bubs Organic pouch I have handy)

1pm sleep

2:30 wake him to take him to school or kinder pick up

3:15/30 bottle

(during this time I prep dinner)

4:30pm nap

(finish prepping dinner and serve the big boys dinner)

5:15 feed Freddie dinner

bath

bottle

7pm-7:15pm bed

10:32 (I actually set my alarm if I fall asleep for 10:32pm, I cant explain why I added the 2minutes, I kind of feel like I am getting extra sleep if its just over 10:30, I dunno, sounds cray but I aint’ chaining it!)

any time after- usually 2-5am he will wake, I will put his dummy in and if I CBF (sorry, I am at the point of tiredness that I am letting some sneaky bad language enter the blog) I will just bring him into my room, offer his basinet and if he still wont sleep ,its straight in bed with me and he will sleep like a log, the bugger.