His first experience with a 2 month baby

We went to meet a relative who had a baby boy 2 months ago. It was Betu's first rendezvous with a baby so young. He was quite small himself when Aryan was born so he doesn't remember that bit.

So when we were going I was telling him how young the baby is and what he should not do since the baby is so small. It was really hard for him to believe that there can be a child who is not even 1 year old. He was asking me what all can he play with the baby and I was telling him the baby doesn't even sit right now. He cannot talk or walk or run. He was really amused and laughing as if I was telling all the wrong things. Or as if I was joking. But when he saw the baby he understood. He was trying to do things to make the baby smile. Clapping his hands. Brushing his hand on the baby''s forehead. Cooing with him. It was really cute to see him like this.

Later on the way he told me "Mumma, Baby kitna cute tha na?" and I just smiled and nodded. Here is the pic of him holding the baby in the lap. Sorry the quality isn't great since its from phone and the lighting wasn't proper in the room and I was trying to take without flash.

Joining back work and starting his daycare!

I had been on maternity leave from 1st week of March 2004 since my OBG had expected me to deliver around 1st week itself. But who knew betu had his own plans. So almost 1 month of maternity leave got wasted waiting for the D-Day.

By the time my maternity leave got over, betu was just about 2 months. As I had been working with this company since quite a long time I had accumulated about 40 days of leaves. So we decided that I will use them as well and join back work a month later. All got settled and my extended leave started.

This is the period when we started to try formula feed for betu since I would be joining work full time. From one feed a day for a week and gradually increasing it, betu did just fine and adopted to this other form of milk as well. Although I had to try many a shapes and brands of bottle nipples from Indian makes to imported before he settled on one. It was Avent and only Avent for him. Nothing else. DH used to say that betu doesn't settle with anything but the best! It was around 6-7th month that he started drinking from other shapes also.

Time passed and the day the came when I was to join back work. I was so nervous inside as I had never been away from him for more than an hour and a half. And here it was the question of 9 hrs. Somehow I went to work and got busy and everything settled fine. It must have been 2 hrs since I must have been in office when I heard a baby cry somewhere outside of our office. On hearing it I got so anxious and started to miss betu soo much that at one point I almost had tears in my eyes! I waited for lunch time as I used to come back home during lunch hour to feed him and also as I needed to relieve myself.

This went on for a month and then I spoke to my CTO saying if I could work half day from home and the second half from office. He understood my problem and agreed to this arrangement. I couldn't have asked for anything more. So this arrangement went on for 4 months till November when I decided that I should be working full time now as he had already started on other food items since long.

We started his diet other than milk when he was 4.5 months. We first started with daal and then with rice, banana when he was about 5.5 months and after 2-3 weeks we started his cerelac too. So many a things were added to his meals gradually like daliya khichdi, mashed potatoes, thin soup, suji upma although quite watery and what not. Whatever he liked, we gave. He was particularly not fond of sweets. So all tryouts for various meals for him were salt based.

Most of the times he was quite a good boy and would eat almost everything without making a fuss. And sometimes meal times would involve singing poems, songs and making voices of various animals and birds. That would distract his focus from the food and he would eat fine. When he grew older this method also would not work all the time and then I would put a cheeseling or a rice puff on every spoon of the meal. That used to amuse him a lot!

Till First week of January, we used to drop him off along with our full day maid at my SIL's place and in the evening we would pick him back. But by this time we had had a lot of problems with maids and their unplanned leaves that we decided to look for a daycare. After looking at 2 which were nearest to our house as well as work, we chose one that was walkable distance from my work.

Betu was 9 months and a week when we sent him to the daycare. It was a very tough decision for us to send him to place full of strangers. Handing over our baby to the unknown is not an easy thing. Myself and DH both felt that we had to be stronger at heart more than the child. He would get pacified after a few minutes of crying by playing with other children. For quite a long time everyday at the drop off time he would start crying. Probably crying is a softer word. He used to wail like crazy.

After about 2 months he got adjusted and the cryings would usually happen only on Monday's because of 2 day holiday of Saturday and Sunday. Everything went on smoothly till his ayah at the daycare left. She was quite a good lady and to quite a large extent our feeling satisfied was also because she used to take care of betu. We had built up great confidence in her.

So as things progressed we decided to change his daycare. And we changed it just a few days before he was to turn 2 years. The premises were much more spacious than the earlier one and since he was 2 yrs, we started his play school activities as well. Betu took about 10-15 days to settle down in this new place and then the time came when he would so happily jump off the car and wave us good bye when we used to drop him off at this daycare. Sometimes Monday's would not be as smooth again because of the gap of 2 days and little bit of crying used to happen. But nothing major for us to get disturbed about.

We could see remarkable change in his personality within the month of him joining playschool. That made us feel good that we had taken a good decision. A big relief and satisfaction for any parent I'm sure.

Homecoming and the months after!

My stay at the hospital was for about 5 days. On Sunday, April 4, 2004 we came back home. Hey! It just struck me that it was 04.04.04 the day we came home! So interesting! My SIL had been home with her kids waiting for us. She did tilak and pooja when we reached home.

Few minutes after we came back home, betu decided to do all the nature calls. We all laughed saying he's making everyone realise that there's a small baby home as we had all gotten busy talking to each other.

Once we came home, relatives and friends started to pour in. Not one day went for entire first week when we would not have someone home at least 2 times in a day! Things started to slow down the second week. How time flew, it was beyond me.

I could spends hours just looking at my baby. He was so cute that sometimes I would think to myself, I never expected my baby to be this cute! Hehehe...

Every time I would look at him I would be so amazed at the whole process of having a baby. And it still amazes me. How from a single cell it grows up so big inside and how the baby is delivered. It is just all so intriguing for me.

A week after we came home, his dad and his Majhli Mausi (MM) went to buy a cradle for him. Since betu would not sleep on the bed and would sleep only cuddled up in arms, we thought the swing motion of the cradle would work. And it did work great for him and for us too!
In the beginning, how hard he used to cry at maalish and at bath time. Few days later he started to enjoy the bath as long as you don't put water on his face. He never liked maalish though. Not till he was about 2 months or so.

He would hardly sleep for long during daytime in the first 10-15 days. The reasons were
- Reason 1: The family living on the floor above us had a huge dog (dunno the breed..I think he was a mix). He would be out in the balcony 24X7 and would bark 24X7.

- Reason 2: The neighbours were getting a room constructed just adjacent to our bedroom so you can imagine how much noise that created.

But after the initial 10-15 days, my poor baby almost learnt to sleep with all that noise and would frighten up or wake up with sudden noises only that these construction people were making.

On April 30, 2005 when he was a month young, we all (betu, myself, DH and MIL) went to Jaipur in Rajdhani Express. That was his first train ride! Since my in-laws stay there, the naamkaran ceremony was to be held there. His Dadu was waiting eagerly for him in Jaipur. Dadu had made the bed ready for his betu-ram and had spread up such a pretty sheet. The moment I opened his diaper, he peed right on the sheet. Hehehe...

A day or two later, DH and FIL (father-in-law) went to select a card for his naamkaran ceremony and selected a cute one. The date for the ceremony was fixed for May 15, 2004. We actually took a long time to decide his name since me and DH were anticipating a girl, we had selected a name for a girl - 'Sneha'. So we took a long time before deciding on the name 'Anirudh'. Despite the fact that ranked the first in preference in the list of names I had prepared for both girls and boys.

Till June, 2004, I didn't have a digicam. So we used to use our regular camera to click pictures. I think we clicked about 2 rolls of film. But somehow never got to scan those pictures to keep them on the PC in digital format. So in June 2004, his Badki Mausi (BM) sent a camera as a gift. Although however she justified that it was for her own selfish reasons so that she can get to see pictures of him being so far away (in US), we knew it was a gift to us.

As a small baby he used to love getting his pictures clicked. But sometimes he would get so conscious looking at the camera that he would stop doing whatever he was and just stare at the camera.

Months flew past and Betu grew into charming little baby! He was so much fun! Everyone adored him so much. And he also responded every one's love by smiling at them and laughing and giggling when they talked to him.

Thinking of his milestones that I can remember as of now are

• Betu had started to smile when he was little less than a month.
• In Jaipur he did his first flip - from back to tummy when he was approx. 40 days young. The date was around May 10/11, 2004.
• When he was about 4 months, he learnt to make this funny sound with his lips along with spraying everyone around him! :D The sound was something like "Phurrrrrrrrrrrrrr........" using his lips.
• Betu started to sit on his own by the beginning of 6th month. We had been propping him up since he was about 5 months and a week it was so much fun to see him topple over. I guess it wasn't as much fun for him as he would sometimes start crying if he would fall on his face.
• And just after 2-3 days into his 7th month, he got his first lower tooth. The next lower one and the other 2 on the top followed soon within a period of 1.5 months. But the next tooth took more than 2 months to appear.- The first word that he spoke were 'Papa'. This was when he was about 7.5 months. But by 9th month he stopped saying it. We used to wonder if he forgot it or just didn't want to say it. However we repeated the word but no, he was in no mood to say it. He would only talk the baby talk..the usual gibberish.

The first week!

My first glance at my baby is still etched fresh in my mind! He was all clean and white. You must be wondering what kind of statement is that. Well it was quite different from what I had expected so those were my first thoughts. He was very unlike the birthing and just born baby pictures that I had seen on the Internet. Frankly when I first saw such pictures my first thoughts were if the babies look so gooey just after birth, how will I feel love for her/him? I don't know if any of you first time mommies felt so too.

I even used to feel ugh at the thought of cleaning poop when I was pregnant. Its a different story that I did not even feel 1 millisecond of disgust when I had to do it the first time.

The second picture memory after his birth is when they brought him to me after cleaning up wrapped in a sheet, he looked so tiny, so adorable and fuzzy! And he looked straight into my eyes. After I kissed him on his forehead they took him away for some tests etc.

Once I was moved into my labor room back again, everyone started to come and congratulate me. It was around 10 pm when they finally moved me to my room where I would be staying for the rest of the period till I was healed up to go home. It was quite an eerie feeling lying on the stretcher and nurses taking you through the galleries with me looking at never ending pipes on the ceiling. Everything seemed to whiz past me and was making me giddy so I closed my eyes for the rest of the journey to my room.

Betu was kept in the intensive neo natal care unit for the first 4 days as he had had meconium aspiration. So it took 4 long-decade-like-days before he was given to me 24X7. Before that I would walk down to the nursery, and feed him there itself.

Walking down to the nursery was quite a painful task for me because of the episitomy stitches but I remember how I would wait for the feeding times or would just make excuses to go and feed betu. Just so that I could see him. Betu would never start feeding without spending at least a minute of looking at me. However hard he must have been crying of hunger, he just would not latch on without the look-at-momma time. So I used that time as our conversation time. Many a times nurses would talk to him saying you give us such a tough time wailing so loudly and now you don't want milk? :D

A day or two after birth while going back from the nursery to my room, I stopped at the nurses station and asked them for a weighing scale. I had been reading so much that mothers loose quite a bit of weight after birth and I wanted to know how much have I lost. The scale told me I had lost 8 Kgs.! WOW! I was ecstatic! And I thought to myself..only 6 Kgs to go. But who knew that those 6 Kgs will be with me forever! Those 6 Kgs just refuse to go away.

Betu was quite an active child since birth. That's what all the nurses told me. They said usually after crying for 10-15 mins all the babies sleep most of the time. But he slept quite little. He used to look around and throw his hands and legs in the air quite a bit.

On day 4 when they finally shifted him to my room, it was celebrations time for us. Whether he was sleeping or awake, everyone just wanted to hold him or look at him. I remember DH's expression when he came in the evening from work and held betu for the first time in his arms. DH was grinning from ear to ear and just kept admiring our little one. And the first words he spoke to betu were "Aur Mr. M? Kya haal hain?" We all had such a good laugh at that! (Our surname starts with M). This is his picture on this day when he's is just 4 days young.

I'm 4 days young!

The first night after he was shifted in our room was terrible. He woke up way too many a times and latched for 40-45 mins each time. Because of my stitches it was really painful to sit for long and I did not have my feeding pillow in the hospital. So next day I asked DH to bring it to the hospital and God! It was such a relief!! I guess for both of us as the next night was not as eventful as the first one. I really feel that these small small gadgets/accessories that are now available for mommies are such a boon!