Mother's Day

This Sunday will be my first Mother’s Day with J! Last year we were nearing the end of our second IVF cycle. We were waiting to take a blood test to determine if that cycle was a success (it was!) I was hoping that whilst I may not have a child in my arms, that in 2014, I would be holding the life growing inside me (I will be!) Of course I celebrated last year with my furry first born. Dogs are our children too!

 

Mother’s Day is such a hard day for many. The women who long for a child of their own and the ones who are undergoing expensive and emotionally and physically draining procedures to have a child. The women who are hoping to adopt and waiting for someone to choose them to place their child with. The women who have carried their babies for only a short time but never got to hold them in their arms. The women who have held their babies/children in their arms and yet have had them taken from this world much too soon. I know women that fit in to every one of these categories, and they are all the strongest women I know. And they are already Mothers! I can’t wait for this day to hold more positive connotations for them and for them to be able to celebrate with a child in their arms.

Just because you cannot physically see a child, does not mean someone is not a Mother. They may be a Mother many times over. And just because they may be celebrating with the children you can see, does not mean they are not also feeling the loss of a child you can’t. This Mother’s Day, I ask you to please think of these women!

 

This Mother’s Day, I will celebrate the fact that I am a Mother to my almost 4 month old son, just as I celebrate every day. I will not take for granted that this year I have a child to hold on this day. I love being a Mum so much! There are no words to describe the joy I feel. I can’t wait to spend the day with my little family. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world!!!

 

 

 

I leave you with this beautiful video I found on Youtube... Celebrate ALL the Mothers out there this Mother's Day!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MosAkwGMJYM

3.5 Month Update - Slow Down Time!

Where have the last 3.5 months gone? It’s been a whirlwind, for sure. J is growing up so much every day. I want to document so much about him and I feel like I’m never going to remember it all. Sure, I have a bazillion photos (maybe not an exaggeration either), but I’m so worried I am going to forget the way he smells or the look in his eyes when he looks up at me. Things, that can’t be captured on camera or describe perfectly in words. This makes me one very sad Mama!

Things I can document though are…

He had his first shower on the 25th of April, he wasn't sure but he didn't hate it. Second time was much more fun for him. He's too big for his baby bath (cue sad music)!

 

He LOVES reading, OK, being read to. His face lights up and he grins when you turn the page or put on a different voice. His favourite books at the moment are Spot Loves His Dad, Spot Loves Sports and Rainbow Rob. All visually enticing as well, which I am sure helps!

He thinks animal noises are hilarious! Especially quacking. Animal noises and a noise I make with my mouth, which I can not for the life of me describe, make him laugh out loud. Music to my ears!

 

His favourite songs are Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Insy Winsy Spider, Old McDonald Had a Farm (or our version which includes his name), B.I.N.G.O (which we also personalise to B.A.N.D.I.T) and Summer of ’69 (yep my kid loves Bryan Adams, won’t pretend this doesn’t make me happy).

He sleeps like a champ. We got some full nights of sleep. Others he will wake up once for a feed. He is a champion napper though! He is usually awake for roughly 90 minutes at a time. And then I wrap him up, put him down awake with his Snugglemonkey playing soothing music (Fisher Price has done it again!) and his dummy and he settles himself to sleep. He usually lies awake for a little while and giggles to himself and looks around and before you know it, I look over and he’s got his little eyes closed. What I love, is that he loves sleep and can settle himself. He will fall asleep without Snugglemonkey and a dummy too, I usually just give them to him as he prefers to have them. He doesn’t sleep so well unswaddled, with his flailing arms and what not. I’m dreading the day he is too old to be swaddled.

 

He is currently feeding every 2 or so hours during the day, unless he naps through it, then he wakes up STARVING! He used to go 4 hourly but that changed about a month ago. I will be starting him on solids at 6 months. I am sad and excited about this at the same time, but will save those details for another post!

 

He is pulling himself up from lying down. And now that he can sit up (aided of course), he doesn’t like to lie down much. Mr Independent!

 

I think he might roll very soon, maybe even today! We had what looked like some serious rolling potential this morning during tummy time. So video camera is permanently in my hand so I can capture it and show Dad!

 

Cradle cap won this week! He doesn’t have it too bad, but I oiled it and brushed it and it flaked off, taking a whole lot of hair with it! I won’t lie, I cried. I loved his hair. He is still super cute of course, now he just has a frullet (front mullet) surrounded but bald patches. Too funny!

 

He said ‘hi’ this past weekend. Whether it was a fluke or not remains to be seen. He said it twice within 5 minutes and in context too. If he says it a third time, I am counting it.

 

He loves his ‘doggy’. Bandit is too much of a mouthful for a baby so he is known as doggy for the time being in hopes that he will say that at some stage in the future. He has patted Bandit all by himself (without us forcing his hand in a stroking motion) and sometimes laughs out loud just looking at him. Poor Bandit must be getting a complex. But Bandit loves him too. He’s rarely far away and is the first to him if he cries.

He isn’t much of a crier. We go days on end without a single cry. We have had a couple these last few weeks though. Takes a good ten minutes to settle him. Breaks my heart! It looks like teething. He has all the signs, red cheeks, drooling like no tomorrow, the unexplained unsettledness, chewing on everything really hard and swollen gums. Hoping he cuts a tooth soon and isn’t one of those babies that goes months on end without a single tooth erupting.

He hasn’t been weighed or measured in a while, so we must do that soon.

So there is my 3.5 month update on my little man. There’s so much more I could write, but he’s waking from him nap now. So I’m off for cuddles J

I leave you with an adorable turtle baby butt, you're welcome.
 

 

 

 

 

Accidentally Attachment Parenting

I had heard of Attachment Parenting before being pregnant. Heard of it and not really understood it. I thought it all sounded a little hippy and over the top. I never thought it would be for me, that is for sure. But here I am, my baby is 3 months old and without realising, I fit the mould for Attachment Parenting. In fact, I’ve been practicing it for the last 3 months and I had no idea. It was not until the death of Peaches Geldof in the news that I looked in to it further and came to the realisation that I do practice Attachment Parenting and have been since the very beginning.

There are the 7 B’s of Attachment Parenting. The 7 B’s are as follows:

1. Birth bonding
2. Belief in the signal value of your baby’s cries
3. Breastfeeding
4. Babywearing
5. Bedding close to baby
6. Balance and boundaries
7. Beware of baby trainers

Birth Bonding: I had skin to skin contact immediately after birth and for a couple of hours. J was not taken from me until I gave the go ahead for him to get measured and weighed. So, for over 2 hours we laid skin to skin and I nursed him for the first time and then once more in that period. For the next few days after, he was rarely out of my arms or far away from me. In fact 3 months later and he still is rarely more than a metre from me at all times. Just the way I like it!

Belief in baby’s cries: I take J’s cries very seriously. He is crying for a reason. Babies are NOT manipulative and do not cry to annoy their parents. Listening to your baby cry is distressing and I do what I can as fast as I can to help my son.

Breastfeeding: We have been exclusively breastfeeding for over 3 months now, and we love it! I originally wanted to aim for 6 months, but now I want to aim for twelve months and maybe more. We have had our fair share of troubles with feeding, but we have stuck at it and I am so glad I have as I really do love it.

Babywearing: we own an Ergo and J loves it. My husband and I both wear him and love snuggling him close.

Bedding close to baby: J sleeps in our room, in his cot. We plan to keep him there for twelve months. It works for us, as if he wakes in the night for a feed, he is right there. Bed sharing is not something we do in this house, but of course he comes in some mornings and we all have a doze.

Balance and Boundaries: We pretty much go with J’s cues and he runs the show for now. But my husband’s and my relationship has not been compromised because we love our family time and we have the same parenting style. I feel like we have an amazing balance going on.

Beware of baby trainers: I know a lot of people who swear by baby trainers. Training our son is not for us. We instinctively do what is best for our family. It is great when J sleeps through the night, which is most of the time, but I do not want to train him to do this full time. If he needs to feed during the night, you can bet he’s going to be fed. Plus I love the night time snuggles!

If someone asked "what kind of Mum are you?", I would answer that I am the best Mum I can be for my son. I don't love the labels that society put on things. But I definitely identify strongly with Attachment Parenting. I can see it is what I have been practicing all along. To me it has come really naturally and it is second nature to do the things that are characteristic traits of Attachment Parenting. Basically it all comes down to me wanting what is best for my son and I believe what is best for him is for us to have an incredible bond and for him to know that I am always close by if he needs me.

I do not judge anyone else's parenting style or choices. I think every Mother is doing a fantastic job. Attachment Parenting works for me and my family, but what works for others is going to be different and I respect that.

Books, Books, Books!

I love reading! I'm a massive book geek. One thing I want to try and instil in my son, is a love of books. There's nothing sweeter than watching my husband who hates reading, read to our son. It's as if he has found the joy in books again, both in the illustrations and stories they hold.

I was reminiscing last night on my favourite books as a child. There are so many books I loved and wish I had held on to. My mission for today is to find them online and buy them all for J. He has quite a few books already, but I want this kids personal library to be HUGE!!!

Here's a few of my favourite books from my childhood...

What are your favourite children's books? I'd love to hear and add them to my must have list...

Cloth Nappies (Diapers)

When I first told people we were going to use cloth nappies, we got some funny reactions. Here is a few…

“Ew! You’ll have to deal with baby poo” – Newsflash! I’m going to be dealing with poo anyway; someone has to wipe their little butt!

“That’s a lot more work” – From the research I had done I knew this was not the case. More work, sure, but not a lot more.

“Oh good, we used those back in our day” – Not the same ones, they’re called MODERN cloth nappies for a reason”

“Why?” – Well, better for the environment, better for babies bottoms (nobody likes nappy rash), no harmful chemicals, cheaper and the list goes on. So really, why not?

I knew that I wanted to stay home with my baby for a few years. While my husband earns a good income, I knew it also meant tightening our belts any way we could to make this possible. Cloth nappies seemed like a natural choice to me as I would be home to wash anyway. Then I looked in to the added benefits. They were really obvious, less landfill, less chemicals, all round just better.

We used disposables for the first 11 weeks. First they were a little too big around the legs until he got some chunk. Probably could have used them, but didn’t want any number 3’s heading out the  sides. Then J had his vaccinations and one contains the live virus and can be transferred through feces. So we had to delay again. By then I had gotten so used to the ease of disposables, I actually questioned our choice of cloth before we had even used them. My husband coaxed me in to starting one day and I have not looked back. Sure it’s only been 2 weeks. But, it’s all I needed to know it was the right decision for our family.  At the moment we are still using disposable when we go out but I hope in the future that will change too. Just need to order a few more wet bags.

We have 12 Grovia shells with 24 inserts and 6 soakers. I purchased a package from www.piggytails.com.au that contained all of this. I believe it was the Grovia Live package. The shells are adorable! I was aiming for unisex, but I subconsciously bought for a boy with some of them. We have paper planes, planes, pandas, green, red and yellow ones. We also have 6 cheaper ones which are Bumcheeks. We haven’t used those yet, so I will review them once we have. The Grovia are fantastic though as you can just replace the insert sometimes and not the whole shell.

Washing is a breeze. With the 12 shells and 24 inserts, I’ve been washing every second day. One wash and that’s it. I use Earth washing powder and only use half a scoop and that is plenty. They also dry really quick. I’ve been drying them inside as the weather has not been the best. Lots of people worry that it is heaps of extra washing. But what is one extra wash every second day? It’s not hard and hanging them up is easy, it’s not like you have to iron too – blergh ironing!

Leakage wise, we have had none outside the nappy. Just one incident where it was right on the rim. Considering that happened every other day with disposables, cannot complain at all!

J also had really bad nappy rash. It was stubborn and would not clear up with anything. Switch to cloth and voila, it’s healed. Cloth nappies just seem to be friendlier on his sensitive little bottom.

The Grovia nappies are designed to last from birth to toilet training as a one size fits most (OSFM). I just think of all the savings, money and environment wise, that will occur in these couple of years. I read that once you start with cloth, you get hooked. Totally the case! I want to constantly talk about what holds my child’s poo, weird I know!!! Cloth nappies are NOT just for hippies!

A Few Of My Favourite (Baby) Things...

Probably the MOST overwhelming thing in preparation for baby, is the multitudes of stuff you have to buy. Antenatal classes and glucose tests are a breeze compared to the barrage of products you’re faced with. So, I thought I’d share some of my favourite baby items with you. I’ll save the ‘could have done without this’ post for another day.

Baby Jogger City Mini GT

So if you’ve heard that choosing a pram is like choosing a car, it is true! I did a lot of research and decided the Baby Jogger City Mini GT was for us. We went and checked it out, tested it etc. and we loved it! But then looking around the giant sea of prams, we second guessed ourselves. So back to square one we went.

When choosing a pram we were looking for something compact, easy to use and easy to fold up. My husband’s main requirement as knowing me as well as he does, he knew if it was too hard to put up and down, I just would never use it. Lots of the prams were so wide that I knew they would be a hassle getting through doorways and shopping aisles. Then we considered getting one that can attach a toddler seat, but then who knew if we would be able to have more babies or if J would even still be using this when another one came along.

A lot of people require a rear facing pram. This didn’t bother us. We never planned to use it so much that this would be a concern. I read somewhere that forward facing prams tend to see children have poor language skills. This worried me at first, then I got a grip and thought, why is it that these rear facing children are only building language skills whilst in a pram? HA! Are their parents not spending time with them OUTSIDE the pram to develop them? I also read that babies become overstimulated by forward facing. What a load of crock. J LOVES facing outwards and surveying the big, wide world around him.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. We eventually went back to the City Mini GT and haven’t looked back since. We ended up buying the bassinet and paid $249AUD for it. We weren’t going to get it originally, but we wanted somewhere that J could sleep in when we were out. It’s served that purpose well especially at my brother in laws wedding recently. He falls asleep really easily in it. He is almost 3 months now and I think by 4 months he’ll be too long for it. But I still think it was money well spent. However, you could totally get away with not buying it! The pram lies flat enough for a newborn baby.

Baby Jogger has made an amazing one handed folding mechanism. It is just so cool, I can’t rave about it enough!!! One hand and bam it’s folded. It’s also fairly light weight. We got ours in black and I love the black, so chic. But it also comes in a few brighter colours. The GT wheels are excellent and that bit bigger than some other prams, but without making the whole thing too wide. The GT also has a huge sun visor that comes right down over baby and shields them from the sun (and prying strangers eyes in public).

This pram usually retails for approximately $599AUD but we once again waited for a sale (9 months pretty much guarantees you’ll get things on sale) and we only paid $499. Not a huge saving, but better than full price. I would happily have paid full price for this pram though.

If I have one criticism of this pram, it is that the basket is a tad too small and hard to reach when not using the bassinet. However, for what we use this for, walks, quick shopping trips etc. it’s really not an issue for us.  Overall, I love this pram and would buy it again and again. I’m all for ease of use and this has to be the easiest one out there (that I tried out at least – and trust me, I tried thousands).

Lamaze Pond Symphony Motion Gym

When shopping for baby products, my husband and I had no idea how valuable a good play mat would be. We bought a cheap one thinking it would barely get used…so naïve. After a couple of months, someone we know bought this for my niece and J loved it. It isn’t cheap (retailing for $99AUD) but we waited until it was on sale ($49AUD) and snatched it up at Myer.

This mat plays two different tunes. One is a more upbeat, space themed kind of music. Honestly, this one drives me a little bonkers but it’s J’s favourite! The other is a more calming and peaceful melody. It has been known to put J to sleep too on those days he just does not want to go down, score!

The two arms move around so baby can track the arms and the dangling toys as they move about above. It’s almost like a giant mobile. The hanging toys consist of a squeaky duck, a jingling frog and turtle, a butterfly with crispy (seriously what’s the word I’m after there?) wings, a leaf shaped teething toy and a discovery mirror.

The mat itself is a generous size and has some parts that crisp when baby touches them. The batteries lasted 3 weeks for us, and that’s with this being on for hours every single day. In fact, last night the batteries died and we had no replacements and I had a mini freak out because J will be so upset when he wakes up. He really loves this play mat and therefore, so do I. There’s so much for baby to look at and play with and the fact it moves and plays tunes makes for endless hours of baby fun! Personally, I’ve found the noisier a toy the better. J loves noise and I think that exposing him to noise has also helped with sleeping through loud noises, i.e. the vacuuming. I know there are a lot of play mats that only play quiet sounds and to me, that’s not interesting enough.

Mimco Lucid Baby Bag

Hands down, without a doubt, the best baby bag ever! The Lucid Baby bag by Mmco is so practical and also looks amazing (BONUS)! I actually have two. They are BIG! I can fit so much stuff for J and me in my bag. I don’t carry a handbag, just this.

It comes with the change mat, wet bag, is fully waterproof, lots of different compartments and pockets to store things. And it comes in black, beige, leopard print (my favourite), pink and navy. This bag retails for $250, yes not cheap! But I think with how often you use it (EVERYDAY), it justifies itself. I managed to get my second one on sale for $129 as the leopard print was clearance stock.

I like that even when J grows up, I can use it as an overnight bag, or carry on for the plane. I also love that it doesn’t look like a nappy bag, it just looks nice. You might be wondering if it is so big, how do I take it places. Well, I take it most places. If I am going to the supermarket quickly or something, I take a nappy wallet but leave this in the car. Too easy!

Angelcare Sound and Movement Monitor

I had heard mixed opinions about fancy monitors like these. Some said they weren’t needed, some said they caused more fear than anything and others said they were a necessity. Then a friend told me how it saved the life of a baby she knew. So, off I went to get one. We actually didn’t use it for the first 12 weeks. We only used it once J transitioned from Moses Basket to his cot. With J’s Moses Basket, it sat right next to my bed, as in I couldn’t’ get out of bed cause it was in the way. I had to scoot to the end. His cot however, is about a metre from my bed, so just that little distance makes me a little more anxious. I can’t hear his breathing as well. Also, the cot is bigger and he has more room to wriggle. Him suffocating under his blanket is a big fear of mine. But I have slept so well the last few nights knowing his sensor pads are working.

The monitor comes with two sensor pads and two portable parent units. If your baby doesn’t breathe for 20 seconds, it beeps. You have to remember to turn it off when picking baby out of the cot or it can make for a pretty loud and unnecessary morning (or middle of the night) wake up call for anyone else sleeping –my husband.

The monitor also tells the temperature of the room, which I find really handy. It helped me realise that J needed an extra blanket on last night as the room was only 16 degrees Celsius.

I just love the peace of mind of having the sensors there. I hope our baby never stops breathing, but if he does, I feel so reassured knowing the monitor will alert us so we can take necessary steps! I highly recommend this system. It has not made me more paranoid at all! The sound is great, no static or anything and it is so audible. J is 2 metres from the main part of the system and it still picks up every noise. I love sitting in the lounge room and hearing his musical monkey playing and his little cooing in his sleep.

Grovia Cloth Nappies

I’m going to do a post on cloth nappies (diapers) soon, but I have to add these to this list. I ADORE them!!! They are so easy to use and super cute too. Everyone loves a colourful, padded bum right? Stay tuned for that post, especially if you’re a first time Mum or you’re just thinking about making the switch.

There are other items I really love, but these are my top favourites that I use pretty much everyday. I’ll post some more favourites in the future. Hope this helps anyone on the fence about these products or just looking for new items to buy.