Baby in Britain

Adjusting to motherhood in and of itself is quite the task. You have those moments where, in the middle of the night after you’ve just fallen asleep after a feeding, you wake up with a start because you think you’ve fallen asleep on top of your baby. You’ve counted endless hours listening to the incessant sounds of the breast pump which you’ve grown to resent, but know that it’s a necessary evil. You’ve listened to many people say “I think you should…” and you’ve questioned every decision you’ve ever made. Let alone the anxiety and worry you feel every time your baby makes an unusual sound or you’ve ventured out of the safety of your own home into the world of germs! 

So, we thought, why not just make our entrance into parenthood super stressful by moving across the Atlantic Ocean so that if and when we decide to have another child, it will be easy! Just kidding (kind of).

But moving with a three and a half month old to Britain certainly has had its struggles. As I type this, we still don’t have most of our stuff from the states, including lots of Asher’s things. We won’t get it until later this week. It will have been 8 weeks since we arrived, and 9 weeks without our belongings. That’s a long time to go without your bed. Hopefully Asher remembers that he liked to sleep long hours in his crib and brings that back to our reality!

Prepping to come to England for Asher was difficult. At three and half months he already needed so much from us that the task of adding additional duties and stresses to our plate to make this transition for Asher as seamless as possible was exhausting. There was a long list of things to consider and figure out before leaving.

1. Breast milk. I did not spend countless hours, partially awake, at all times of the day and night pumping my milk to let it go to waste. I was blessed with a great milk supply. I either had to donate it or bring it with. I preferred the idea of bringing it with because that does give us the freedom to do things without the need to whip my boob out every few hours for our son, particularly on those travel days. But how can I get frozen milk to stay frozen for essentially 24 hours!?! Brian and I both did copious research on flying with frozen breastmilk, and believe it or not, there was NOTHING out there to help. Luckily, I have a husband who reads articles (never books, reading is for research alone in his opinion *breaks heart of his English teacher wife*) about how to do things. So, in case you were wondering, most airlines will allow a small amount of dry ice on board in a breathable container. So, we bought a cooler that could hold most of (not all) my breast milk and the 5 lbs. of dry ice and paid to check it on the plane. That $50 was worth all my time and energy. 
2. Vaccinations. You’d think two advanced countries in the medical world would follow the same vaccination schedule, with the exact same vaccinations. But no. Luckily, we were given a sheet breaking down the differences from Brian’s employer. Hepatitis B is a common vaccine in the states; however, it wasn’t given over here until recently. Babies don’t get the meningitis vaccine in the states, but they do get doses of it here. The chicken pox vaccine is commonplace in the states, but unavailable here through the National Health Care System. Oy. Luckily, Asher was able to get his four month shots just shy of leaving due to the incubation period timeline working in our favor so we didn’t have to stress right away; however, what I’m now realizing is that the Brit’s timeline is quite different. I called to make an appointment to get his 6 month shots and that’s not a thing in Britain. They asked me how many weeks he was (I had to count because I count in months now) and I told them , and they were like we aren’t due to see him until he is one-year-old. Excuse me? I then asked to come to the surgery (that’s what they call the doctor’s office) to sort it out. My kid needs his vaccines and I will see that he gets them. I also talked with a health visitor (these are really nice people who come to your house to check on the baby—I know, right?) and I think we’ve sorted out what he needs. Needless to say, I will be calling the surgery to set it all up!
3. Traveling/Air Travel. It’s not recommended for babies to fly until they’re at least three months old. Now, in my head, I wouldn’t normally fly until after that because the words AT LEAST are present, so you know, my anxious self would probably have waited till he was at least 6, 8, 12 months old. But, we had to do it. And planes are nasty. Like, filled with germs. If it were up to me, Asher would have traveled in a bubble, but Brian said no (only partially kidding). So, on top of worrying about every cough around me, I also had to focus on ensuring Asher’s ears were ok and he was comfortable on the plane. We were able to buy him a seat on the way out, so that was really helpful because we had the car seat for him to sleep in. And, true to Asher’s awesome self, he flew like a champ! I made sure to feed him at take off to help with his ears, and then he fell asleep. AND HE SLEPT THE ENTIRE FLIGHT. I know we flew overnight which helped, but it could have been terrible. I then had to wake up him to feed him at landing. He really did amazingly. We are so lucky. Hopefully he has the same reaction on our flight back to the States at the end of August?!?!?
   1. Side night: Brewski also traveled like a champ. The hardest part about getting our dog here was all of the paperwork and the stress of making sure everything was filled out correctly so that he didn’t get held in quarantine upon arrival. Oh, and don’t fly into the U.K. on a bank holiday. There is always a surcharge of astronomical proportions to do their jobs. For example, we flew in on Good Friday and they charged us an additional four hundred pounds to process Brewski (which they didn’t tell us until less than a week before arrival—they said re-consider flying in that day. Because you can totally change all of your moving plans in less than a week). Anyway, not many people were willing to pay that much so at least his processing only took 2.5 hours as opposed to the 8 they said it could take. Look at the positive, right? 
4. Sleep. Aside from us having to wake Asher up to eat to get rid of jaundice in in his first few weeks of life, he has truthfully been an amazing sleeper giving us almost four hours stretches from the start. He’s been in his own crib and room since about two months. Right before we left our home, he was giving us 9-11 hours stretches each night. He’s awesome right? But, if you’re looking for a way to totally screw up a kids sleep schedule, move them to a different time zone. Preferably one that’s 5-6 hours ahead (depends on daylight’s savings!). It’s hard to determine WHY his sleeping is regressing, but it has. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still normally only waking once, maybe twice, a night, but that’s a regression for him and normally it’s not a brief wake. He’s up for 1-2 hours. Now, the hardest part about babies is that they can’t talk to tell you WHY they’re awake. Is he suffering from the thing called the 4-month baby sleep regression where babies begin cycling through sleep like adults? Or is he teething and it’s waking him up (he’s got all the signs except the actual tooth)? Or does he have gas? At this point, he should be adjusted to the time difference; however, the sleep thing has not been great lately. Hopefully he sorts that out. 
5. Baby Culture: In America, pregnancy and babies are viewed as wonderful. Random people come up and touch your belly (and then later, your baby) to say how wonderful it is and then proceed to give you advice. I admit, don’t really miss that. Although, it appears to be just human nature for people to touch babies (not really a fan of that!). This is somewhat true in Britain; however, we’ve had quite a few Brits more excited to meet Brewski than they are to see Asher. It’s cool. Brewski is a pretty awesome dog. Don’t get me wrong. Lots of people have googly-eyed Asher and talked with him. One local establishment that we came to frequent a lot prior to having any ability to cook would simply just take Asher and walk back to the kitchen to say hi to everyone (we could see him the entire time). Of course, the second he would cry or fuss, they gave him right back to me. Funny how that works huh? But there were also places that simply state: “No children allowed.” There really have only been two pub/restaurants that we tried to enter that said that (one other place said it, but had a side of the bar dedicated to people with children), but I’m sure there are more. Brian and I talked about how we understand why some bars would feel that way, but why not put a time limit on it? Like no children after 7 p.m.? That seems reasonable to me. We got over that fast since many places are totally fine with you bringing your baby in; however, what really caught us off guard is when we were looking for houses. We did expect some places to say no pets—that’s true in the States in many places. But we also saw many places that said No kids or pets, sorry. I thought it was hilarious they said sorry in the listing! But, how crazy is that? That would NEVER fly in the States, but sure enough here, no children is an ok thing to say when renting your home. We saw four bedroom homes listed as no children. What person is renting a four bedroom home without children? Crazy. Obviously we found a nice place which allowed both Asher and Brewski, so we’re good to go. Also, in the states, having your 5-6 month old in bed around 7:30 is normal. Bedtime routine should start around 7. If you were going out to eat with a 6 month old and you left for dinner at 6:30 p.m., you might get some nasty, judgmental stares (you do you!), but here, it’s not like that. Brian and I have worked hard to establish that routine for Asher, specifically in hopes of helping with sleep, so we would go out to eat early, at like 5:00/5:30. There were quite a few times where we were the only ones in the restaurant for almost all, or all of, our meal because people don’t eat that early. I started to think that maybe people don’t bring their kids out to eat, but one day walking back to our temporary housing I saw 5 tables eating outside with highchairs. It was already 7:00; we were running late that day! So it wasn’t that people don’t take their kids out to eat, they simply keep them up later. Since Asher’s witching hour hits around 7:00, we’ll keep to our schedule (for the most part, there are always exceptions!) to spare everyone that side of him! But how American of us to adjust our schedule for Asher, and how British of everyone else to have the kids adjust to theirs. Who knows, maybe we will have to reconsider when he’s a bit older.

While we had to consider all of these changes, it does appear that it hasn’t really phased Asher all that much, which was the objective. While it’s certainly been an adjustment to the expectations of our parenting, it’s been an enlightening experience already. What I have already recognized about myself is that there are certain things (like vaccinations) that I feel pretty strongly about for my kid, and I will ensure Asher gets what we deem as necessary; however, I also recognize that living in this culture can teach us new things like how to help Asher with his ability to be flexible while stressing the importance of routine. It will hopefully be beneficial to him in the long run!

Also, as many of you have requested, I’m working on getting Asher in a few peer groups to work on that English accent, even though even if he gets it, a few years in the states and it will mostly, if not all, disappear! His babbles aren’t quite British yet—I’ll keep you posted!