Shoe shopping stress

Walking boy

Ask me the biggest downside to being a Mum and the answer might surprise you. Strangely, it's not the sleepless nights. It's not even the self-enforced social isolation night after night. No, the answer's simple: it's John Lewis. Or, to be precise, the increased frequency of my trips to John Lewis. 

If my American readers wonder what the heck I'm on about, John Lewis is an English department store. Some might say The English Department Store. It's as popular with the British chattering classes as holidaying in Tuscany and voting New Labour used to be. Its London flagship store, on Oxford Street, oozes self-satisfaction, as encapsulated in its motto: "Never knowingly undersold". (Unless, that is, you're shopping online, as people often are these days, when its prices are wildly out of kilter with its rivals.) In fact, the only thing worse than its Oxford Street outlet is its Sloane Square branch, which insists on calling itself Peter Jones, even though everyone who lives outside Chelsea knows that its still just John Lewis, despite its Kings Road address. 

But back to my specific beef with John Lewis. It's just too useful to new parents. From its "nursery advice service" for Mums-to-be, to its stranglehold over the plain white bodysuit ("onesie") market, John Lewis is a one-stop shop for Mums and Dads. Which should be a good thing. Yet I resent it. I resent its very usefulness because it gets me every time. That is to say, it gets me thinking I have to shop there, yet every time I venture into its clutches I have a hellish experience and deeply regret it. Like my trip to buy a nursing bra. Or this week's foray to its children's shoe department. 

Stupidly, I forgot it was half term. Cue half the Mums in London attempting to buy new school shoes for their offspring. Because I hate shopping there so much, once I've schlepped all the way there, and specifically battled my way up to the fourth floor kids' department, I'm damned if I'm going to leave without buying anything. Which meant I had to endure a half-hour wait for someone to measure Louis' feet and, even worse, meant I felt obliged to purchase the only pair of shoes in his size that they deigned to stock. An ugly, clumpish, khaki number by Clarks that won't go with any of his cute summer outfits. 

What's worse is that I fell victim to the Clarks curse that says that once you become a Mummy you insist on your child wearing Clarks' shoes "because they're sensible" even if they're hideous. And to think, I could have togged Louis out in a boxfresh number from Selfridges' ridiculously overpriced, over-labelled children's shoe department. I keep thinking about taking them back, but then I'd have to go back to John Lewis. And then, because I was there, I'd have to buy a stack more stuff to try and ensure that I never have to go back. And then the whole sorry cycle would begin. 

The reunion

For once, few words from me. Just some pics of Louis and Sophie. Reunited at last. Although when Soph had to choose between Louis and her new walker, well, let's just say Louis may have come in second.... (I wanted to add a video but it doesn't want to upload. Check back though because I will keep trying.)                

Soph and Louis in Soph's Grandpa's garden

With the walker...

Sophie

Louis and his girls (the blond is Soph's cousin Esther)

Better than sleep

Browsing the new Mummy books B.L. (before Louis), I remember being horrified when I read that most new parents miss out on between 600 and 800 hours sleep in the first year of their baby's life. Imagine how horrified I'd have been had I'd known then that that figure was actually conservative. I reckon I'm down at least double that amount, if not more. 

Which probably explains the anomaly that the past 360 or so days seems to have aged me far more than they've aged Louis. He only looks one year older; I look.... no, I won't go there. But despite time marching swiftly on, I'm less worried about the coming 12 months than the ones just gone and it's all down to something our friend Colette said during our recent trip to Geneva. (And yes, the Geneva anecdote justifies the pics.) 

She told me that as a new second-time Mum she actually felt older than she'd felt for the past couple of years hanging out with their four-year-old, Noah. Yup, unlikely as it sounds, apparently once you get through the early parenthood stresses it's possible just to relax and enjoy being a young family. With that in mind, bring on the next 12 months. That said, I really can't imagine losing out on another 1,000-plus hours sleep.

En famille by Lac Leman

Bebe plage

Il marche aux quatre pieds - straight into the lac

Walking boy

A young Colette and Noah

Seeking a Third Way

The box says it all

If Barack Obama can do it in the White House, then why can't I in Louis' (alright, alright, my) bedroom? I'm talking about finding a Third Way, a path between left and right, or in Momspeak, a compromise between the ultra liberal, baby-led approach to parenting, and the rigid, cry-it-out-they're-only-a-baby option. Specifically, I'm seeking a Third Way between the frankly unsustainable 24-hour drinking culture that Louis regards as the norm and the frankly unpalatable alternative of a hysterical baby who refuses to fall asleep on his own, no matter how long I leave him alone in his crib. 

The problem I have, as regular BWB readers know all too well, is that Louis is not one of life's natural sleepers. And that's putting it mildly. Even as a newborn, he was barely sleeping 12 out of every 24 hours. Now, at nearly 11 months, he's down to about eight hours a night - and that's only when he treats himself (and us) to a mini lie in. He's barely sleeping two hours at a stretch, which is taking its toll on us all. When he wakes, as he's due to round about now, it isn't playing he's after, but me and as much liquid refreshment as he can slurp. 

Ask anyone (or any book) how to cure him of his nighttime Mum addiction and they'll all say the same thing: I have to leave him alone, to cry, until he realises I'm not coming back and learns to settle himself back to sleep. The common term for finding this baby epiphany is "breaking him", the idea, I guess, being "to break" him of his need for me and my milk supply. Or "to break" him of his habit of using me as his sleeping crutch. But what if I don't want a broken baby?

The problem I have is that I refuse to believe that the only way to teach him to be a man in such matters is to leave him to cry. He hates it, I hate it, end of story. I know all the theories: leave him for progressively longer stretches, popping in in between times to reassure him he hasn't been completely abandoned. You can do this from the doorway or next to his crib but one thing you're not supposed to do is to pick him up. Stick to this brutal regime and, all the books/blogs/websites/parental confidantes merrily assert, it will do the trick. 

But what if I don't want to? What if I simply can't? Can't endure his hysterical cries for more than five minutes at a push that is? What if I want to find another, more humane solution to our plight, a so-called Third Way of parenting that transcends the liberal/fascist Mummy party lines that so many of my co-Mummies seem to follow? 

Well, I'm six weeks into my concerted attempt to find that illusive Third Way. I can do all the back patting and head stroking I like, but as soon as he's anywhere near his crib, he's utterly miserable. He can even be fast asleep on my shoulder, only to wake up the second I lean over his bed. Which means that so far my mission is failing miserably. Where Obama is managing to cross the Democrat/Republican divide, I seem to be stuck in the lefty lactivist camp of feeding on demand and hang the consequences. 

Any suggestions welcome. As long as they aren't just to shut his bedroom door and buy some better earplugs. 

Louis juggling

So, this weekend marks a year since I stopped working. Hard to believe. I'd ask where it went, but I guess the giant baby trashing our house instead of jiggling about in my tummy pretty much answers that one. Scarily this means I have to go back to work all too soon. (I never did take that redundancy cheque.) Which inevitably poses the thorny question of what to do with Louis? 

With Louis-sitting volunteers pretty thin on the ground and nannies a no go because they earn more than me, the options appear to be nursery, nursery or nursery. Or at least they did until we actually went to visit one. I'm trying not to rule it out in my head in case we end up having to dump Louis there, but let's just say I'm less than enthusiastic. Even DJ was barely lukewarm: he took particular umbrage at the fact the nursery styles itself as offering "family solutions". 

What to do? One other possibility would be DJ attempting to juggle his shifts so that one of us would always be home with Louis. Pros to that scenario: no nursery and a whole heap more cash to spend on nappies each month. Cons: DJ and I would be like ships in the night - quite literally. It would be tough, but, as a post on the New York Times parenting blog this week shows, we'd hardly be breaking new ground by sacrificing our time for the sake of Louis. Blogger Lisa Belkin calls the scenario (as highlighted in an article in The Oregonian) "the complex dance [of] modern parenting". 

With nurseries costing up to £85 a day (and that doesn't even include nappies), many families have no option but to seek an alternative when it comes to working out who might look after Junior. You'd think the Government might like to help out a little more - after all, the taxes I pay on my salary help to plug the gaping hole in the public finances albeit in a minor fashion - but apparently not: the childcare vouchers they provide towards the cost will barely cover Louis' lunches. 

As for company creches, dream on. The fact that there are barely any women in senior roles in the media hardly helps but then again most professions are just as bad. Only today a Mum I know told me quite how badly her request to work part time had gone down with her employer, Barclays. And companies wonder why they get stuck just employing men?