Dear Darcie,

We are on the bus on the way into town, you’re in your pram gazing around the bus and out the window. Everything is so fascinating to you and all the time you’re seeing things you’ve never seen before. Your amazement amazes me and your wonder is wonderful. Never lose it. (more…)

First off I just have to say Hallelujah!! I am finally beginning to lose those stubborn pounds that have stuck around since pregnancy. (more…)

A lot of advice that new Mums are given revolves around ‘bad habits’, specifically about not creating them. When I first had Darcie she was a very cuddly baby who clearly needed a lot of physical attention to the extent that she would cry as soon as I put her down even when she was sleeping. To be honest this was hard as it meant that the whole ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’ thing went completely out the window, it was just sleep whenever somebody else can hold the baby which wasn’t that easy either as she was breastfeeding basically 24/7. Throughout this time I was told time and time again that I was ‘creating bad habits’ and ‘making a rod for my own back’. The latter became my nemesis, any time I heard those words even when not aimed at me my blood would boil but there was enough going on at that point (the whole having a newborn thing) that I didn’t really dwell on it too much. But nearly 8 months later I suppose you could say I’ve had the time to dwell. (more…)

Today has been a difficult Mummy day. To be honest it has been a difficult Mummy week, today probably wasn’t all that bad in the grand scheme of things but when you’ve had a hard week it all just seems a bit worse, doesn’t it? (more…)

As soon as we started thinking about weaning, we were recommended Baby Led Weaning by the health visitors. For anyone that hasn’t heard of it before, it is basically waiting until your baby is 6 months to give them any type of food and then skipping the purée/baby rice stage and going straight into finger foods and letting your baby feed themselves. This is supposed to have many benefits for the baby such as having a smaller chance of becoming overweight as they in theory will only eat while they are hungry. It also means they learn to chew rather than just swallow and should mean they grow up liking a wide range of flavours and textures. I’m sure that could all be better explained but that’s my basic understanding of it. (more…)

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about how much we expect from our children. We expect them to be hungry at a time that is convenient for us, we expect them to want to sleep at a time when we want to sleep and we expect them to like certain toys and games. But the thing that has been bothering me recently is how babies are expected to show us how happy they are in the form of smiles and laughter, all day, every day. From the moment that they first show us that gorgeous smile they are suddenly expected to smile on demand. Every stranger that pokes their head in their pram is looking for that gummy grin and every well meaning relative that brings them a new toy wants the acknowledgement of a giggle. But what if the baby doesn’t want to smile at a stranger? Or what if they are tired and don’t want to laugh at a new toy or a game of Peek-A-Boo? Quite often that child will be branded as shy or even thought to not be a happy and content baby. I think that people forget that babies are people too, they all have different personalities and likes and dislikes. (more…)