When Elliot was a baby, I really enjoyed watching him grow and develop. I spent weeks anticipating and thinking about each new milestone – sleeping through the night, moving into his own room, packing up the bassinet and converting to a sit up buggy, beginning weaning, crawling etc.

I had expected to feel the same this time. After all I’ve done this all before haven’t I? I thought I’d be able to get even more excited about each new step this time around as I wouldn’t have the added anxiety that sometimes hindered me from fully embracing the steps with Elliot. With him, I had worried about converting the buggy to a sit up buggy, and I spent quite a while worrying about when to start weaning.

I know I’m not going to be really anxious about any of these milestones this time around. However, what I didn’t expect was to feel such an element of sadness at each stage.

I packed up the newborn baby clothes a couple of weeks ago and found it a lot harder than I had thought I would. Alexander is now pretty much filling his 0-3 clothes and so I think it won’t be long before they’re packed up too! Really not looking forward to that.

Alexander is also definitely outgrowing the Moses basket in our room, and so really should be moving into his own cot in his bedroom. Elliot was in his own room from about 10 weeks, and Alexander is now 14 weeks old and is bigger than Elliot was at this age. He has been sleeping in his own room during the early part of the night, and up to now we’ve been taking him up to our room when he woke for a feed.

I’ve managed to put off settling him back in his own room after this feed for this long by using the excuse that we are now up in the new attic room, so Alexander would be on a different floor entirely, and I’d have to spend time going up and down stairs in the night, and that could disturb Elliot. The truth is that I’ve just not wanted this stage to happen. I want to keep Alexander in our room, a tiny baby in a Moses basket, as in my head I know it’s probably the last time I’ll have that.

We did think about using the travel cot in our room for a bit, but ultimately I felt that that would just be me putting off the inevitable, so last night I bit the bullet and left him in his own room the whole night (obviously going in to feed him!) He did really well, woke 3 or 4 times, but settled ok in his big cot. It was nice having a proper place to sit and feed him rather than perching on the side of our bed, but it was very odd not having him in our room when I woke this morning. I’m glad that for once Elliot didn’t come upstairs to find us, as I would have stupidly felt like I had to go and get Alexander so that he wouldn’t be “on his own” downstairs. This is, I know, plain ridiculous!

What is going on in my brain? I’m hoping this is normal for mums when they think they’re going through these steps for the last time?

We haven’t “officially” decided that we won’t have any more children. I don’t think I could ever rule it out entirely, but common sense tells me that three children would certainly make life more complicated. We’d need a new car and a new house (probably). How would we ever afford a holiday let alone shoes for everyone? And what happens if any of them want to go to university? My parents helped me with so many things, and I want to be able to do that for my children. Three children would ultimately mean that each child gets less, so in some ways the best thing for Elliot and Alexander would be for us not to have any more. I’m just not sure how I feel about that right now.

Until I do get my head to see sense, I’m putting this all down to hormones, and will console myself with lots of cuddles with my growing-up-too-fast boys, and perhaps some chocolate cake!

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