Ruben had a lovely fifth week – some of the same (eating, sleeping, pooing) and a few new adventures as well. He’s been a happy little fella and we’re really starting to get used to hanging out together. He’s getting more and more interactive and chatty and his little noises are getting more and more expressive. At the same time, he’s also starting to enjoy spending some quality time alone, and will happily hang out in his bed gazing at his black and while mobile for a surprisingly long time. He continues to eat like a champion and fart like trumpet and over all is a happy, healthy little guy.
Our biggest mission for the week was to get his birth registered – it ended up being a little bit more of a drama than expected as we’d waited for an appointment at Lambeth only to get there (for a 9am appointment! they seriously expect you to be able to get a baby to a registry office by 9am!) and discover that we were at the wrong registry and we needed to go to Southwark instead. We trekked over there on the bus as they told us we’d be able to be seen that way, but the receptionist at Southwark didn’t agree, so we ended up coming home unregistered and making another appointment later in the week. Second time round we were much more successful and, as well as having made the Registrar completely fall in love with him, Ruben is no longer officially ‘Baby Reichelt’ (as he was up until he was registered) but is now officially a Murphy. Well done, lad.
We had a big day out on Friday, which was when we got registered, as we went to the movies again in the morning (we saw Cloverfield this week) and then after the Registry we headed over to East Dulwich to The Plough for our regular Friday afternoon drinks. He was out and about from about 10am until after 7pm and was so calm and settled and pleasant to be with – he’s a very good little boy. It’s a whole new world of trying to plan feeding and changing whilst being out and about. Fortunately we’re not too shy about it, and we’ve been lucky to be able to find places that are pretty baby friendly, so it’s all gone fine so far. As long as the planning gets done!
On Tuesday we went to the Osteopath, who specialises in cranial osteopathy for tiny babies. The idea is that they can get a little bent out of shape as they’re being born, and osteopathy can help get them back in shape and make them as happy as possible. As it turns out, Ruben is pretty much in perfect working order – just a tiny bit of tightness around the ribs apparently. Amberin, the osteo, showed us a new way of burping him that will help with his ribs (and which has worked excellently), but he’s all good and doesn’t need to go back again. (We will be going back though, as his mum is not in quite so good a shape, and has to go back next week to get some more treatment on her neck and tailbone. Nothing too serious, but the treatment is a little painful!)
We’re without the birthpool now (*sob*) so Ruben and his dad have been having regular baths, which is almost like a swim for Ruben for the time being. We’ve also booked him in for swimming lessons which he’ll be starting on 23 Feb – he’s loved swimming so much so far, so we thought it would be great for him to stick with it as much as possible – esp. for as long as he has his baby reflex not to breath in water, which means that they can be taught to swim underwater. We’ve bought his little swimming nappies and are looking forward to the lessons starting!
This week Ruben started having a bottle of expressed milk last thing at night. Apparently this is a good age for him to get used to taking a bottle, for when that will be necessary or more convenient, and the big bottle of milk late at night seems to give him (and his parents) and extra hour or so of sleep at night, which is much appreciated.
He had a visit from Teresa including a weigh in and continues to pork up, weighing in this week at 4.5kg or 9lb 14oz (up from 8lb 13oz or 4kg at last weigh in). He seems to be a pretty tall guy though, with quite skinny arms and legs and chubby tummy and cheeks. Not sure where he gets that build from 😉
The week wrapped up with an afternoon coffee with some of the girls and babes from our NCT class which was very pleasant and Ruben enjoyed catching up with his little buddies.