I honestly cannot believe Benjamin is six weeks old (well, 6 weeks tomorrow!). The days and weeks are flying by and he is definitely developing his own little personality.

He hasn’t had the easiest start – at three weeks old he was rushed to hospital seriously ill, meaning those few days passed in such a blur. You can read all about our hospital nightmare here. It put a bit of a downer on his first Christmas, but we are drawing a line under it and will treat next Christmas as his first.

Until New Years Eve he had a cannula in his arm for his IV antibiotics, which was then boarded and bandaged up. I absolutely hated as it was a reminder of just how poorly he had been. However, he made us laugh with it by using it to keep his dummy in his mouth and whack me with it. I was so glad when it was taken out though.

The day before New Years Eve a lead health visitor came out to talk about the complaint we are making against the health visitor that ignored the fact Benjamin was ill – they’re being really supportive and are horrified that it was missed. Whilst she was here, she weighed Ben and he had put on over a pound since he was last weighed, on the Friday before Christmas. He weighed 8lb 15oz. I can see why he has put it on – he is drinking 6oz bottles every two hours. The health visitor said this is fine (although I now can’t trust health visitors as far as I could throw them!) because babies use calories and energy to fight infections, which does make sense. Yesterday, he was weighed again and was 9lb 5oz and is on the 25th centile.

Before he went into hospital he pretty much slept all the time, even at night, which in hindsight shows how poorly he was. He’s so much more awake and alert now, which is lovely. It does mean more periods where he is unsettled though – early evening and bedtime are hard work, and I do wonder whether he has a touch of colic sometimes. He doesn’t really cry, just moans and won’t settle anywhere. When he does sleep at night, he sleeps well. Before, he would only sleep on me or cuddled up next to me so I thought we were going to end up with another co-sleeper. In hospital they wouldn’t let him sleep with me, so the nurses made him a little ‘nest’ out of to rolled up towels covered with a sheet. He actually didn’t mind being put down in that, so we have tried to recreate the little nest in his moses basket. He doesn’t spend the whole night in it still, sometimes only two or three hours but we are building up to the whole night (that’s the plan anyway!).He is the first one of the kids to ever have a dummy. Because he couldn’t have a feed on one of the nights he was in hospital, we gave him a dummy, and sice then he has one just at a night to settle him.

He has also had his first shower with mummy – looks like we are going to have a third water baby! He snuggled up to me and was quite happy with the water running over his face, and cried when he had to get out.

He loves some tummy time – my mum and dad bought him a tummy time play mat for Christmas. He has learnt to roll over both ways and this week he showed us his first non-windy smile (at 3am – thanks Ben!). I’m yet to capture it on camera though.

So that’s baby Benjamin at six weeks old. I’ll do another update on him in a few weeks!