Hi Everyone,
Just put Darcey down for a sleep, and have read through everyone's posts.

Trace & Ilyena - yes, sometimes Darcey is the same. She can sleep very lightly during the day, and the only way to get her to sleep more deeply throughout the day is on my chest, or across my knees. Across the knees is actually a little more convenient, b/c at least I can use my hands to do something....like the thousand thank you cards for all the lovely cards, gifts etc that are still arrriving daily.

Darcey's sleeping patterns have got into a nice little routine. One thing I found that helped was to ignore everyone else giving me suggestions: keep her up more, only let her sleep when ....etc etc. Saying all that though, bathing her at night (somewhere between 8.30 and 9.30pm, just before that feed) has really helped. Last night, I fed her at 8pm, she had a play, and a sleep for around 45 mins, and then fed at 11pm, put to bed around 11.45pm. She woke up at 6.15am this morning! unbelievable! She was hungry, which was just as well, as it was a tale of two boobies. Normal, engorged, and OMG out of this world engorged, hadn't been emptied since 8pm, 10 hours prior.

Generally, she sleeps from around 11pm to 4/4.30am, then I feed her and put her straight back to bed again for another 3 hours of sleep. I feel pretty lucky so far.

She's also smiling and cooing a lot. When my Mum comes around, Darcey tells her stories, oohing and aahing and smiling. I can just imagine them in the years to come, thick as thieves. It makes my heart melt looking at them together, such a nice sight.

As for weight gain, well, she's finally hit the 4kg mark, she's now between 4.2 and 4.3kg, will have an update on Monday. I've had to retire some of her 00000 and 0000 clothes, but she's still some weeks off being into 000. It feels very satisfying to think that for 9 months, she was sustained by me, and now she is 6 weeks, 3 days old, and still fully sustained by me. I wouldn't say that bf'ing is 'enjoyable', b/c the nipples, engorged boobies, the first minute of her attachment etc are not fun, but the reward of seeing her develop and grow, plus the very close time with her, are certainly worth it.

Happy Birthday Leah. Sorry about the birthday money disappearing into payment of the rego. Bummer.

To all of you who have toddlers and older children, WOW! You must be 'Super Mums', I'm just getting by, looking after Darcey, DH, two dogs and myself (albeit with lots of help from DH). You mums must be exhausted right about now. So Well done, is all I can say, I really admire your strength.

OK, sorry about long post. Got to go and hang washing out now. Take Care,

Petal