Cradle cap and the chicken pox vaccine

Answers to questions I didn't know I needed to ask:

1) Yes, the World Health Organization has recently changed its advice about weaning. (And yes, they spell it with a Z, which is annoying and wrong.)

Apparently they've brought it back to four months. They used to advise waiting til six months to introduce solids, but every mum I know who's a few years or decades older than me started their babies earlier than that. We started Logie a bit sooner too. Because he was hungry.

Anyway, like lots of bits of advice that have changed in recent years, it's changing back again. I can't actually verify this because I have left my laptop at home and am on the world's slowest computer, which has a nervy spas just doing a google search. Simply deleting a word makes it freeze for five seconds. So if someone wants to double-check this, knock yourself out. But Felix's paediatric osteopath (with a cool hairstyle that makes you think 'Yes, short hair can look really good on some people, maybe I'll have my hair cut too, and my hair that's always been thin and frizzy will probably magically behave and suit being short') told me this, and says that this will trickle down to the NHS fairly soon.

2) Yes, there is a vaccine for chicken pox. Logie had it last week. It's routine in America, Australia and various European countries. It'll probably be included in the standard national immunisation programme in the UK sometime in the next few years, when they can find the money for it. So one currently has to pay for it privately, but I think it's worth it. It's 88% effective. Should stop him getting shingles in later life too. One injection in the bum, which they can have as soon as they turn one. Then a booster at around five.

3) There is probably a link between cradle cap and reflux. (Felix has both. Logie had neither so I'm a novice in both areas.) Something to do with a hormone and a milk protein. According to the paed hair osteo. See above re my inability to look this up this too.

4) No need for google on this one, because it's the paed osteo's own opinion: it's doubtful that putting babies down on their backs has prevented more than two out of a million cot deaths in recent years. The 'Back to Back' campaign was based on eliminating a number of risk factors, including smoking and co-sleeping, which are now thought to be the main culprits. There is no evidence about sleeping positions on their own contributing to SIDS. But there are a lot more babies out there with flat heads.

Questions I would genuinely like you to answer, so please e-mail me back if you have any suggestions. Or tweet me. Or leave a comment. Forward this to your friends, please - I really need answers:

1) If there is a hidden track on a CD, and you are in the car and you like listening to that track more than the one before it that officially has the number, is there a way to jump to it directly? I refer you to the Bastille album and track 12.

  

2) Why don't more people make underwired nursing bras? Or even ones with moulded cups? I know it'd be a bit tricky, might include a few brains in the workshop scratching their heads, but come on guys, you put a man on the moon, you want your wife's boobs to look good don't you? (I'm assuming that there are zero females in the nursing bra manufacturing industry - or only some kind of weird, misogynist, anti-procreation women.) I usually wear Anita breastfeeding bras, as they're the only make that are underwired.

It's bizarre that there isn't more of a choice. Because our boobs are supposed to be so sore and organic and precious and malformed when we are breastfeeding that we couldn't cope with underwiring, or wouldn't want it? Not true. Because you're not supposed to be bothered about how they look during this time of your life? Even less true. When you have big boobs, are over 30 and on your second baby, you don't want your embonpoint to look like a shelf. A spilling-over, horizontal, hammock of flesh with a line cleavage that looks like a bumcrack.

I've recently started wearing my normal bras with moulded cups, and been - quite frankly - amazed at how good my boobs look. When you are fat, boobs are ALL YOU HAVE. Moreover, when you are fat because of baby weight or being old, the fat is especially wobbly and oddly distributed, so a decent bra is your true friend. You might as well draw attention to the only bit of you that men might appreciate and thin women might envy.

Having to strip to the waist every time I want to breastfeed isn't terribly practical, but occasionally it's worth it, so that when dressed I can look in the mirror without visibly flinching. Or wear something nice, that requires proper scaffolding. Or simply something low-ish cut, as nursing clothing tends to be; all v-necked tops and wrap dresses, at least for those of us too meaty to wear jeans and a tailored shirt. Nursing bras don't seem designed to go with nursing clothing - you can always see the wretched, ugly bra that is unsupportive in both senses of the word.

So. Either tell me where to shop, or take this idea and run with it. Set up a business. It's a gaping hole in the market.

3) Why don't babies' toenails grow anything like as fast as their fingernails?

Reflux and home admin

'Why don't you just...?'


Please don't start any sentences addressed to me with these words. 


Because being a full-time mother of young children is all about the small things. None of them on their own are a big deal, but they all add up. Your life is ruled by minutiae. All it consists of are loads and loads of small things. 


They might seem small to you, but it's insulting to imply that they're easy - you don't live in my world. So adding 'just' another thing to my To Do list is a bigger burden than it might seem at face value. 


I can't just do some extra hippy dippy relaxation shit every time I feed Felix, or hook myself up to the breast pump. Don't insist on my switching off all the lights every time I leave a room. It's okay to leave the telly on standby during the day. I don't want to spend ten minutes dealing calmly with Logie every time he has a tantrum about getting in the car. Time is precious. 


I can't carve out a special chunk once a day to do the exercises for my bad back, or just once a week to jot down features ideas, my blog, and hilarious things the boys have said and done. I'm a mum. I'm on the front line here. If everyone's been fed, washed and only sustained minor injuries in any given day, that's a victory. 


I can't just sleep if their lunchtime naps coincide, because I've got to book everyone's dentist and GP appointments (and argue with BUPA) while I can make phonecalls uninterrupted, then get a birthday card in the post by 5pm. I can't just ignore the mess in the house because I've got to sterilise the bottles and sort out the laundry before the cleaner gets here. I can't just chuck it all in the tumble drier because some of it would shrink. 


I want to be thinner but just 500 calories just two days a week isn't a good idea when you're breastfeeding. It is against my religion to have just one biscuit. 


Once the boys are down for the evening, I can't just have a bath with stupid candles and the thoughtful gift of bath oil that was actually from someone's present drawer, or exfoliate like single people do, because I've got to finish Ocado, package up two parcels and dig out the paperwork for my tax return before I go to sleep. 


One day I'd like to sort out which clothes I can actually fit into, which ones I like and which ones ought to go to a charity shop. Instead of wearing whatever is at the top of the pile and clean. I'd love to just organise the boys' clothes so that I don't come across something brand new and really nice which they'll never wear because it's now too small, having been hiding at the back of a drawer I haven't had time to sort out. 


I can't just fire back an e-mail about which date works best for you because I have three older e-mails that I owe diary management to first.  Don't blather on to me about any recipes that start "just chop an onion" because most nights I can't start cooking til they're both asleep and I like to eat before 9pm.  


I don't want to have just one glass of wine in the evening, because I'm gagging for it by 6pm and it's the only moment of the day where I feel the stress fall away from my shoulders. Letting a baby just cry for a bit isn't an option when you're fraught and tired, unless they are taken completely out of earshot.  


I know that this is what I signed up for. Being everyone's PA, housekeeper and carer. It comes as no surprise and I love my children madly. All three of those jobs get little enough respect (or pay) in the real world, but when you do all three as a 'housewife' you get even less. Because my 'job' consists of tasks that we all do every now and then, some people think it's okay to make suggestions about how I could do them more efficiently. I was prepared for domestic life, but not to be patronised.


I can't just rest on the two days Logie is in nursery when I only have Lix because I've got to go to the post office, get Lix's passport photos taken, wash and dry Logie's smelly animals before picking him up, get a new battery in my watch, pack everything up for the weekend, find a babysitter for next Thursday, order a new chequebook and collect the dry cleaning. Don't you dare use the fucking word 'just' in my presence.


ps Felix definitely has reflux, and the paediatrician thinks that was the primary cause of the rhinitis as well. He's on Gaviscon four times a day, and a new nasal spray. Since a visit to a paediatric osteopath around the same time he's been sleeping almost through the night, most nights. Halleluja! Maybe a bit more sleep will stop me being such a bitch.