Oliver is 6 months old!

Today Oliver is 6 months old! I have no idea where the time has gone, for most this is a simple monthly milestone, for us it's a sigh of relief...

The past six months have, in truth, been very difficult, Oliver is loved and adored but he's been a very different baby to Sophie and Joshua due to terrible reflux and colic. We honestly feel as though we've been in a whirlwind, and with severe lack of sleep as Oliver has struggled to settle, unfortunately he hasn't been the most content of babies, therefore it's ben a challenge...Thankfully we are now turning the corner and can see light at the end of the tunnel.

In addition to the 'whirlwind' that is a new-born, we also had to overcome the fear of losing Oliver. Oliver was born at 33 weeks premature, he did brilliantly and thanks to the Royal Oldham Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit #NICU we were able to bring him home on a tube feeding programme after just a two week stay in hospital. This rocky start to welcoming our son brought flashbacks of hospital stays, beeping machines, tube feeding Joshua, etc. It was a very difficult period, reflecting upon this I don't actually think we realised at the time how this was affecting us as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder #PTSD

During the past few months we've also been juggling the development of Jolly Josh and the build of our venue, as you can imagine, it's been tough but we're very thankful to be in this position.

Of course, we have the added emotional challenge of overcoming milestones which have since helped to bring us some relief, by 6 months Joshua was displaying signs that he was very unwell, we're hugely pleased with Oliver's progress and development, as are the professionals and so we may now be able to start to relax (a little) and enjoy our precious boy, without feeling so petrified that history may repeat itself. For example, Oliver's sickness due to his reflux has caused us great anxiety as Joshua presented with reflux and then 'gut failure', hence it has been a terrifying time each time Oliver vomited. Just one of the causes of #anxiety and #PTSD Thankfully, Oliver is thriving, and is now a much happier and content baby, hopefully we can begin to catch up on 6 months of lost sleep, perhaps that's asking too much?

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