Worry as Thomas develops ear infection

Thomas has gone down with his first illness - an ear infection and is now on antibiotics. He's been quite miserable the last couple of nights and had great difficulty sleeping. Meaning of course, that so have his parents! It's been quite a stressful time, there probably is no cause for concern, but when you're new at being a mum and dad and your little one becomes ill, it knocks you back.

Kate and I have both had two very bad nights' sleep and to compound matters for me, I had a very long day at work yesterday, and we've both been left feeling shattered.

In fact, we're probably suffering more than Thomas really - even though it's he who is ill! The antibiotics seem to be helping him and he doesn't seem as distressed as before. Kate was up with him three times in the night, comforting him and trying to feed him. He won't feed as well at the moment because of his infection and that means he is demanding food more regularly, including through the night.

In the midst of it all, Spatz the cat whines for attention and food and we have to be careful we don't neglect him. Spatz has taken to sleeping regularly on Thomas's upstairs changing mat, almost as if he realises that is where you have to be if you want to be at the centre of things. I've warned our whiskered friend that if he sits there too often, he'll have a nappy put on him one of these days.

So, just over a month in, and parenthood is going reasonably smoothly with many more ups than there are downs. One 'down' for me is that Kate has stopped breast feeding - she finds it too painful as the suckling pulls on her stitches from the caesarean she had. Obviously it's easy for me to say, but I wish she'd continued, because the advice is that it's better for the baby than bottled milk.

I do get black looks when I suggest that she tries to carry on, so perhaps I better take the hint.

The health visitor is coming to see Thomas today and to weigh him again. He's made good weight gain so far - going up from birth weight of 7lb 3oz to 8lb 2oz - a gain of 15 ounces which is pretty good.

His hands and feet still look as tiny as ever to me, but I've noticed his eyes are open much more and he seems more alert and interested in his surroundings.