After our failed attempt at a holiday in Dorset back in March (when Alex refused to sleep at night), we were somewhat apprehensive about a week in the Brecon Beacons.  But we needn’t have worried – Alex (mostly) slept very well and our hopes of regular family holidays are alive again!  We spent the week based high above Abergavenny, on the slopes of Sugarloaf, in Holly Cottage.

We chose the Brecon Beacons as it provides such a fabulous base to visit our friends and family out West.  En route to Wales, we popped in to visit our friends Amy and Jim (and their gorgeous daughter Isla) in their new home near Bath for lunch – a welcome respite from the M4.  Alex enjoyed the opportunity to get out of his carseat, and he quickly caused havoc by pulling over a big plant all over Amy’s new carpet – whoops!

On our first day in Wales, we crossed the Brecon Beacons to visit Matt’s Welsh family in Nantgaredig.  We loved catching up with everyone and introducing Alex for the first time – whilst enjoying one of Muriel’s legendary roast lunches.  Alex was entertained by his second cousin, William:

In the rainy days that followed at the beginning of the week, we discovered the joy that is soft play.  It turns out there are loads of soft play centres in Wales, so for a couple of quid, we enjoyed playing in the toddler areas with Alex.  He loved the ball pits, sensory rooms and many many different toys.  Here he is looking nervous about sinking into a rather deep ball pit!

Thankfully the weather improved dramatically, so we spent most of the week enjoying the gorgeous Welsh outdoors (regretting that we didn’t pack shorts!). We got plenty of use of our baby backpack – although given how heavy Alex is getting, we did some really quite short walks, usually involving pubs to rest Matt’s back!  I think Alex enjoyed being outdoors more than this picture suggests…

Since our cottage was located just above the Sugarloaf vineyard – we took the opportunity to pop down regularly and sample the pretty decent wine and scrummy lemon curd cake.  We enjoyed several bottles over the week after alex was in bed – it really did feel like a proper holiday sitting watching the sunset over a glass of Welsh bubbly 🙂

We cycled along a section of the Brecon-Monmouth canal, stopping at some waterside pubs along the way.  Don’t worry – Matt didn’t cycle into the canal after this picture was taken!

We spent our last day enjoying a pub lunch with our friends Luke & Laura (and their growing bump!).  Alex looks a little concerned here that he’s dangling over the water…

And on the way back to London, we continued the theme of visiting friends and family by dropping in on Eve, Stuart and their girls in Cheltenham, as well as Matt’s parents in Crowthorne.  Phew – what a busy week!  And so reassuring to know that Alex is more settled in his travel cot, so we can get on with planning some more trips as a family 🙂

And if you want even more photographs, here’s a slideshow of photos from the trip (including the obligatory Welsh sheep pictures!)

After Alex being on fabulous form as he turned 8 months old, he’s had a tough couple of weeks.

Things started OK, with a fun weekend in Herne Hill visiting the Dulwich Festival Fair where Alex experienced his very first morris dancers! I guess I should have known from that that things were going down hill!

He’s had a bit of a cold, which understandably makes him a bit grumpy, but then woke up about 10 days ago with a spotty rash behind his knees and on his forearms.  This gradually spread to his hands and face so he looked pretty bad and I’m sure wasn’t very comfortable.  The doctor didn’t think it was chicken pox as apparently the distribution of spots was all wrong, but most people who’ve seen him think otherwise!  I guess I’ll find out next time chicken pox does the rounds!

But the result of this was that he couldn’t go to Jacqui’s which meant poor Alex had to spend over a week hanging around at home with Matt and I – and we had a to juggle work with looking after him.  Quite a challenge!

It hasn’t all been bad though – we enjoyed a wonderful visit from Matt’s Auntie Joan who spent a weekend with us whilst visiting the UK from San Francisco.  It was the first time she’d met Alex, and I think he loved having someone else in the house to smile and chat to him. And her visit was a great opportunity to organise a visit of Alex’s uncle and three of his young cousins as well as a lovely dinner with our American friend, Joanna – so we had a very full house last weekend!

Thankfully, Alex got better pretty quickly – just in time for his next swimming lesson and our second attempt at a family holiday!  We arrived in the Brecon Beacons yesterday and, as long as Alex doesn’t forget how to sleep again, we should be here for a week.  Expect a full report from Wales when we get home…

We can’t quite believe it, but Alex turned 8 months old this week.  And he’s been on top form to celebrate – full of smiles and giggles.  Jacqui (childminder) says he’s been an absolute pleasure to look after!  Feel very proud – it’s like a glowing school report!

It’s been a fairly quite couple of weeks since we last tweeted.  We’ve enjoyed lots of catching up with friends after the multiple bank holiday weekends.  Here’s Alex with his friend Freddie last weekend.  We were out for lunch with Freddie’s parents – and the two boys spent the entire time stealing each others toys and snacks and generally smiling at each other.  So cute – I love seeing Alex interacting with other babies!

Last weekend we also had David, Bergin and Emmett over for Sunday lunch – Alex tried his first roast chicken, veg and gravy – as well as his first blackberries (most of which ended up all over him!)

I’ve enjoyed some catch ups with my NCT friends – we’ve had a couple of lunches with our boys which are always great fun.  All the babies are growing so quickly and at such different speeds – the youngest of the seven boys is the biggest of them all!  A couple are already crawling, and a couple can barely sit unaided.  Yesterday we spent hours sitting out in the garden with the boys happily playing on mats – it’s the first time they’ve been really interested in each other.

One of the highlights of the week was an NCT night out WITHOUT the babies!  All the mums left the dads in charge, and headed out for a fabulous Thai dinner in Herne Hill involving much wine and gossip.  Such a treat!  Matt and I also enjoyed a proper date this week – we hired a babysitter to watch Alex (who didn’t stir all evening), and headed out for a lovely meal in Dulwich Village.  We had such fun, I think we’ll try and do it regularly.  We used Sitters to find a local babysitter which was excellent – a great service for people who don’t have family close by.

Just to close – here are a couple pics of Alex underwater which were taken at his swimming class last week.  Not quite the Nirvana album cover, but cute nevertheless!

Also worth checking out my mum’s photos of Alex from her trip last month:

I’m sad that the long Easter weekend is over – although we don’t have to wait too long until the next one!  Thanks to William and Kate for two extra long weekends in a row 🙂

We started our long weekend early with a bit of a grown up treat.  Matt and I both had the day off on Thursday, whereas Alex had the day with Jacqui – so we had our very first day to ourselves since Alex was born. We made the most of it with a trip to a couple of fabulous exhibitions at Tate Modern (Miro and Orozco), a leisurely lunch with cava at Tapas Brindisa (with no highchairs in sight), a wander around Borough Market and some quiet time in our garden at home.  It was an absolutely fantastic day.

The following four days were much more family focussed and fabulous fun! We kicked off Friday with the first of many firsts for Alex – we did our first trip on a bike with him.  I put him on the back of my new bike and we did a little local ride to see what he thought.  He seemed to quite like it (although I think he hated the helmet) – but I did find it a little bit strange to have little feet and hands fiddling with my belt throughout the ride! Here is is looking rather cool:

Following the cycling theme, we visited Herne Hill Velodrome’s Open Day on Friday afternoon to see some fun racing and Alex tasted his first ice cream and tried on some sunglasses for size (he wasn’t much of a fan):

Saturday was hot and sunny, so we met our friends Tim, David and Bergin and little Emmett for a picnic in St James’ Park.  We spent a relaxing few hours supping champagne, eating vast quantities of food and munching cream eggs.  Here’s Alex getting into the bubbly like his mummy:

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And here’s Alex chatting to his friend, Emmett:

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[Thanks David for the pictures!]

We headed to Surrey on Easter Sunday for another first – Alex’s first Easter Egg hunt at his Uncle Richard’s house!  Seemed a bit daft given he shouldn’t really eat chocolate yet, but he managed to find a few eggs and we came away with a vast quantity of chocolate that Matt and I are gradually working our way through 🙂  Check out Alex with his rabbit Easter egg basket:

We all had a wonderful time in Shere (in the hottest part of the country yesterday) – Alex got to see his cousins and their lovely dog, Monty and we got to catch up with Richard, Margaret and lots of other members of Matt’s extended family.

And here he is looking cute – what you can’t see is Monty the dog walking by which is what made Alex grin like this:

After all that excitement, we’ve spent Monday a little bit more quietly, sticking to sunny Herne Hill.  After breakfast at the Lido Cafe, we’ve spent the day in the local park and the garden.  Alex had fun playing in the garden in his new paddling pool (currently filled with plastic balls instead of water):

All in all a top weekend – roll on the next one.  Wonder if Alex will enjoy the Royal Wedding?!

p.s Bit of a monumentous occasion this weekend that I really must log here, even if it is perhaps a little bit too much information. Yesterday, I finally finished breastfeeding Alex.  After his months of refusing a bottle, I never imagined reaching this point, but since he’s taken to his bottle so well, I’ve gradually been reducing the amount I feed him.  And for the past two days, he’s just had a bottle – even at bedtime, and he’s still managed to fall asleep!  Phew!  Feels quite strange to have stopped, but it also feels like the right time 🙂  Now I’m free to go out for the evening 🙂

We’ve had an exciting week with the arrival of Grandma!  My mum’s been visiting the UK from Michigan for the first time since Christmas – so it was a big treat for her to see Alex.  I think she was a bit shocked at how much he’d changed in the past few months!

Alex was certainly spoiled for the few days mum was in London – he’s never had so many cuddles!  Now he’s more independent from me, it was fab for mum as she could feed him his milk and food, and help with nap and bathtme.  We had gorgeous weather, so spent most of the time outside, visiting Borough Market, Dulwich Village and all the local parks.  Alex is really strong a sitting now, so he’s happy sitting in the sunshine on his blanket playing with all his toys.

He’s teething again and spends most of his time trying to get things into his mouth – he’s latest trick is attacking our ears, necks and faces with his mouth – ouch!!

Here he is enjoying one of his many Grandma cuddles!

It was lovely having Grandma here and we were all sad to see her go.  My mum and dad aren’t back in the UK until July.  I wonder what Alex will be like by then!

What a fantastic week!  My return to work was brilliantly timed with the return of good weather!  It’s been a stunning few days of sunshine and warm weather.

My first three days in the office were a pleasure – it was fabulous catching up with all my friends and colleagues, and particularly nice enjoying lunches outside every day.  I must admit, I’ve been easing myself in gently – spending this week finding out what’s been going on and what I need to focus on over the coming months.  I’ve not done much actual work yet, but the “to do” list is beginning to grow, so I’ll have plenty to do next week.  It does feel strange sitting at a desk all day, not talking about babies – but I rather like it!

But as I head home after work, I look forward to getting back to being a mum.  Alex had a fab few days with his childminder – he’s been all smiles when I’ve gone to collect him.  The sunshine has meant that all the children have been spending the day outside – so Alex had his first experience of sun tan lotion.  Here he is having fun in her garden (if you look carefully, you’ll see that despite being surrounded by toys, Alex is choosing to eat his socks!).

Alex and I enjoyed our day together on Friday.  We had lots of our NCT friends and their babies around for a leisurely lunch in our garden.  We spread blankets on the grass and let the boys play together (mostly managing to prevent them eating too much grass)!

With the wonderful weather continuing throughout the weekend, we spent as much time as possible outside.  On Saturday, we headed up to London for a picnic in St James’ Park:

The picnic was closely followed by a late afternoon bbq at our friend Charlie’s house.  And today, we drove over to Chiswick for a long lunch with our friends, John and Sladana (and their gorgeous girl, Sasha).  Quite a bit of food was consumed this weekend!  Alex ate his first meat today – sampling some chicken casserole.  And he had great fun watching Sasha – she’s 9 months older than him, and he watched her very carefully, laughing and giggling whenever she was.  So cute!

To close, here’s a quick movie of Alex enjoying his door bouncer:

I can’t quite believe it, but my maternity leave has reached an end, and tomorrow morning I’m back to the world of digital media and communications at Imperial College London.  My sandwiches are made and my workbag is packed – and Alex’s food is prepared and his nappy bag ready – it’s going to be quite a challenge to get us both out of the house, fed and dressed, by 8am in the morning!

The past seven months have flown by (although sometimes it feels like I’ve been doing this forever!).  Maternity leave certainly hasn’t been what I expected. I had visions of lovely days cuddling up with Alex whilst he fed, lengthy walks with him on bright, winter days and plenty of time to myself whilst he napped to bake, cook, read and enjoy all the box sets I purchased in preparation for the months off!

In reality, it’s been exhausting, incredibly hard work and often quite boring.  Alex likes to do things super quickly – so he’s always eaten his fill in 10 minutes and napped for no longer than 30 minutes at a time!  Not much time to myself (especially since he refused a bottle for so long!).  And the weather has been so rubbish this winter, that we’ve ended up tucked up in the warm house a lot of the time.

I haven’t loved it all – and I admit, I’ve missed my independence and freedom, but so many things make me realise how lucky I am to have such a happy, healthy little man – my friend losing one of her beautiful twins, Matt seeing a 12 year old girl killed by a bus and knowing people struggling to conceive.  I can’t wait to see Alex grow up and become an individual.  He’s already nearly seven months old and changing so quickly. I really should be jotting down where he’s at in his development so I don’t forget.  So here are a few things to remember what he’s like today:

• He’s sitting up by himself and able to balance pretty well, leaning all around to pick up different toys and reach for things
• He’s rolling like a pro – he can turn 360 degrees as he rolls and make his way right across his big playmat.  He’s not figured out crawling yet, but he’s getting close.  We’re starting to look around the house and spot all the things we’re going to have to tidy away pretty soon!
• He loves standing up – I spend a lot of my time holding him upright!  Thank goodness for the door bouncer to save my arms.
• His repertoire of noises is growing by the day – his current favourites include a high pitched excited scream, a pterodactyl like screach and a long, low shout (like he’s having a conversation)
• He giggles at the strangest things – today’s most amusing thing was me whistling.  He also likes monkey noises, tickling and blowing raspberries on his tummy.
• He’s getting better at eating solids.  He LOVES pears, apples and mango, and like his mum, doesn’t seem to like banana.  He still prefers bought food to my cooking!
• He loves bath time – now he can sit up, he can play with toys and splash more
• He’s increasingly interested in his surroundings – he enjoys running his hands through plants and bushes, smiling at his reflection in the mirror, stroking different textures and playing on swings
• He still loves lights – we have our Christmas tree lights in a vase for him to look at!
• Thankfully he likes singing – we go to weekly music class with lots of songs, and I sing a lot to him.  He particularly likes The Wheels on the Bus, Row Your Boat, Grand Old Duke of York – and anything from Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music and Jungle Book!

Today was my first Mother’s Day as a mum! Was very impressed that little Alex managed to coordinate a beautiful bunch of flowers, thoughtful card and delicious breakfast out in the cafe at Peckham Rye! Thanks to his daddy for helping out with logistics 😉

It’s been a gorgeous, sunny weekend – so there have been a few trips out to the swings and a glorious walk around Peckham Rye this morning. Alex looked particularly fetching in his sunhat and cardi combination!  I’m loving not having to squeeze Alex into his fleece suit all the time now it’s warmer.  Fingers crossed Spring will actually last.

We’ve also been having a lot more fun around bathtime.  Now Alex can sit up by himself, he’s been playing properly in the bath with all the fabulous toys he’s been given, including a floating glockenspiel (which he prefers to try and eat rather than play at the moment) and an England Rugby rubber duck.  Matt won’t let me take photos of Alex in the bath (trying to protect his modesty!) – but I’ll try and sneak one soon.

Well, this week marked my final full week of maternity leave – and what a wonderful week it was! As part of his final settling in with Jacqui, Alex did a full three days with her – which meant that I had three full days to myself. What an amazing treat – and what a lovely time I had! I spent a wonderful day on the King’s Road stocking up on some new clothes for work, I had my hair done and got a massage and I spent some lovely quiet time at home with my feet up.

But you’re not reading this to find out about me doing very little – what was Alex up to? Well, it seems he was having a lovely time with Jacqui and his new friends (who seem to love him – every evening when it’s time to go home, he gets kisses from all the older children!). He’s been to lots of parks and baby groups and eaten lots of new food (in fact, Jacqui says he “eats like a horse”). And he’s getting really good at sitting up on his own. He seems really happy with Jacqui and has settled in brilliantly – I am so relieved to have no concerns about returning to work. Hoping he’s on his best behaviour next week as Jacqui is being inspected by OFSTED.

I was a bit nervous on Friday about how I’d manage to keep Alex entertained all day after his three exciting days with Jacqui and his new friends.  I’m not sure Alex would define what we did as entertaining, but it was certainly productive.  After his first nap, we got the bus to Camberwell to pick up a parcel, do a spot of shopping, and most importantly, to get Alex his first passport photographs.

It was quite amusing as the photo shop owner held Alex up to the backdrop and tried to encourage him to look at his assistants camera.  With a lot of shouting and toy waving, we managed it – and here is the result.  With the stripey top and serious, guilty look – I think he looks a tad criminal (but then I guess most people look like that in passport pictures!).  Alex seemed to really like the shop owner – he had a very stubbly beard which Alex kept stroking!!

In other news, Alex is STILL sleeping through the night – we continue to be amazed by this!  I have no idea why he suddenly decided not to bother waking up, but I am loving it!

We’ve had a lovely few days since getting back from Dorset, despite Alex suffering from a cough and cold.  We stopped off in Crowthorne on the way home to visit Matt’s parents – and much to Alex’s enjoyment, their dogs!

We had a quiet day on Thursday, enjoying the sunshine in London.  Alex and I had a lovely lunch with our NCT buddies and their baby boys whilst Matt had some quiet time.  Alex is now, finally, taking formula from a bottle, and this afternoon his daddy got to give him his feed.  Great for Matt, and a fab break for me 🙂

The weather was so beautiful on Friday that we jumped in the car and headed to Box Hill in the North Downs.  Matt’s brother and sister-in-law joined us for a gorgeous walk and lunch.

Alex tried out his new shoes for size – very cute!

Saturday was mostly about eating!  After Alex’s swimming lesson (which sadly involved a lot of tears this week – hopefully because he’s not feeling right rather than the fact he didn’t like the pool) we stopped in at the Brockwell Park Lido cafe for a scrummy breakfast outside by the pool.  Amusingly, a 3 year old girl at the table next to ours got very excited about seeing “baby Alex” – we and her parents were a little confused, until we realised that they share the same childminder!  So Alex already has new friends!

After breakfast, we then met Catherine & Charlie (and their children Phoebe and Henry) for lunch in the Herne Hill creche – AKA Pizza Express.  I have never seen so many children in one place – the staff were amazing!  Certainly not somewhere to go in the daytime at the weekend if you’re looking for a quiet date!  Alex’s weekend food adventure was the discovery of yoghurt.  Some of this did go into his mouth:

The absolute highlight of the weekend though was the fact that for the first time in Alex’s life, he slept through the night – twice so far!  We’re still in shock, and it’s probably because he’s slightly under the weather, but it was incredible waking at 7am having slept uninterrupted for over seven hours!  Woohooo!  Keeping fingers crossed for tonight…

To close the weekend, here’s another giggly Alex video:

Well, we’re back in London after our first family holiday.  It was mostly a success, although we snuck back home a little bit early (more on that later…)

We booked a week in The Cowshed – a stunning barn conversion in a pretty village in rural Dorset.  It was a fabulous place to take children and I’d highly recommend it – everything you could possibly need was provided, including a cot, pushchair, feeding stuff, toys, bathing equipment and more.  And the village was gorgeous – thatched cottages everywhere and surrounded by fields, woods and footpaths.  Heaven.

We packed plenty into our five day trip.  After visiting an old school friend of mine in Bournemouth, we took Alex to see the sea for the very first time! He seemed intrigued by the waves, although it was a little too chilly for him to have a dip!

He was slightly less inspired by Stonehenge:

But was more intereted than we expected in Salisbury Cathedral (although he pretty much ignored the Magna Carta and concentrated more on the local cat who’d taken up residence in the chapel where it is housed!)

We visited a couple of farm parks where Alex stroked a goat and tried out our new baby backpack to go on a lovely hike to a country pub for lunch:

And Matt and I had a bonus treat – our very first night out together for over 6 months!  A lovely local lady babysat Alex (who behaved perfectly and stayed asleep all evening) whilst we visited the stunning Museum Inn for a delicious meal.  We even managed not to talk about Alex for the entire time!

But despite all that fab stuff, there were a couple of disappointing aspects to the week!  First big disappointment was my discovery on Sunday evening that Longleat Safari Park was closed during the week throughout March – so I missed the chance to show Alex the animals (and to stalk Ben Fogle!).

The second, most amusing disappointment, was the “Woodland pram walk” we signed up to.  One of the local nature reserves promoted an “active families” hour long walk in the woods for buggies, so we eagerly turned up with Alex in his pushchair to be guided through the beautiful Dorset woodland.  The organisers seemed a bit shocked to have a father in their midst as 15 mums and babies got ready for the weekly stroll.  We were a bit shocked to find that we didn’t actually go into any woodland and spent an hour walking around the local housing estates – apparently one of the babies in the group was a “bit floppy” and they didn’t want to go far from a major road in case there were problems.  All very bizarre and not quite what we had in mind!

The final, much bigger disappointment, was that Alex decided that he didn’t really like sleeping in Dorset.  We’re still not sure what the problem was – he’s still teething and has a bit of a cold, and perhaps he wasn’t a fan of the travel cot and the new room – but by the fifth night he was waking every hour or two super upset and taking ages to settle back to sleep.  We were getting so tired, and getting so desperate to get him to sleep that we were breaking all the good sleep habits we’d taken months to establish, that we decided to head back home and enjoy the rest of Matt’s leave in London.

And I’m glad we did as Alex slept through the night for the first time last night – so looks like we didn’t break too many habits in the end!!  And we’ve still got four more days till Matt’s back at work 🙂

And for me, one week left of maternity leave to go.  More from Family Agar soon…

x

p.s. Completely unrelated comment, but something just made me chuckle.  The day my maternity leave started in August 2010, Season 5 of Grey’s Anatomy was released on DVD much to my excitement (I know, it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure!).  It is now March 2011 and I’m about to return to work – and I have just taken the shrink wrap off the DVD case to watch episode one.  That’s a very clear demonstration of how wrong my expectation was of what maternity leave would be like!

This week has been quite a watershed for Alex and I, as he spend his first days with his new childminder, Jacqui.  I was obviously pretty nervous having spent pretty much every minute with him for 6 months – but I needn’t have worried.  Jacqui has been fantastic and he’s had no problems settling at all.  He’s been out and about to various play groups, enjoyed the Spring sunshine in local parks, managed to successfully take all his milk from a bottle and eaten lots of new foods.  And the other children Jacqui looks after like to kiss and cuddle him, so he’s getting plenty of attention!  I think he’s going to love his days with her (probably more than with me!).

Phew!  To help keep my mind at rest, Jacqui has been emailing me photos of what he’s up to during the day.  They’re not the greatest photos as they’re from a mobile phone, but it was such a relief and a pleasure to get them!  Here are a few:

And here he is exploring a “baby sensory” zone at the playgroup he went to this morning:

And finally, Alex completely exhasted from all the playing:

Knowing that he’s OK has meant I can relax and enjoy my sudden spare time.  I’ve read a book, enjoyed a long bubble bath, been out shopping, finally watched some DVDs and even popped into the office for some catch ups.  It’s been a good week.

Tomorrow we’re off on our first family hoiday – a week in Dorset in a little cottage. More soon.

This weekend marked Alex turning six months old! I really can’t believe he’s been here for half a year already.  Although sometimes it feels like forever – it’s hard to imagine life without him now!

We kicked off Alex’s half birthday weekend with his second swimming lesson.  It wasn’t quite as successful as last week as he was in need of a nap – so he got a bit tearful after his three submerges!  But I think he enjoyed most of it – especially playing with a toy crab!

We had planned to celebrate the big day with a champagne lunch in a new restaurant in Dulwich Village, but it seemed that half of South London had also planned the same thing – so we ended up in Pizza Express across the road.  It was such a lovely mild day, we sat outside and enjoyed the fresh air.  Alex sampled some avocado from my salad which went down very well (and rather messily!).  Here he is playing with his favourite teething toy over lunch:

Today, we headed off on a family excursion to the Horniman Museum to visit the aquarium so Alex could look at the fish.  He seemed pretty interested – although it only distracted him for about 10 minutes before he got a bit restless.

So, after stopping to listen to a fabulous live wind ensemble who happened to be performing in the museum (we made a quick exit when Alex decided it would sound better as choral music!), we wandered around the lovely gardens.  Alex is now sitting upright in his pushchair and I think he enjoys being able to look around more.

And as a special treat, here’s a silly video that Matt did this evening as Alex was eating his pears, apples and baby rice.  Please ignore my silly commentary!

This coming week is going to be a very important one as Alex starts settling in with his new childminder on Tuesday.  After a few days of Alex finally taking a bottle of formula, we started weaning him properly yesterday.  So he’s managed two full days without being breastfed at all between 8am and 6pm (which is the time when he’ll be away with Jacqui, his childminder).  He did surprisingly well, drinking plenty of bottled formula, and eating more solid food than normal.  I’m so relieved as I’d been really worrying about his feeding when he was away from me – I’m sure it’ll still be a challenging time as he settles in, but at least I know he can do it!  Phew!