Spending time with a newborn

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to spend some time with my new baby nephew. He is very sweet, very tiny, and he looks a lot like baby Harry did, albeit with less hair. When he was just a few days old I spent an afternoon with him while his parents had some much needed rest. He was quite fractious, and so we spent a bit of time settling him and getting him off to sleep, then he slept for a good couple of hours.

It brought back many memories of those first few days at home with baby Harry. Like all new parents we were completely shell shocked. I remember spending our first proper day at home sitting on the bed in our room, trying out the new nursing pillow and attempting to get to grips with breastfeeding. I didn't find breastfeeding easy and I've always felt that I was never able to feed him properly.

I always blamed that for Harry being such a grumpy baby. He never seemed happy or content, and although he must have been hungry he never wanted to feed for very long or to particularly enjoy it. But to fair, even when I moved to bottles, first of expressed milk and then to formula, he never went for that either. Even when he was approaching a year old I'd watch as other babies guzzled down massive bottles of milk - I'd be lucky to get three ounces into him!

I must admit that I found the baby days with Harry very difficult. He did make up for it - he was a lovely toddler and he's turned into a delightful child. Mia was an easier baby, and of course I found her easier because I had more of a clue what I was doing. So those hard baby days seem a long time ago now.

But what surprised me was my reaction afterwards. When we had left the new parents to it, I felt very tearful, and the feeling lasted for a day or two, not at all something that I've experienced with other newborns in the family. I think that because it was a baby that looked a bit like Harry and behaved a lot like Harry it suddenly brought all those memories flooding back, and they weren't always good ones. Perhaps it was also a bit of relief that those days are behind us, I'm not sure that I could do it again!