Babywearing

I'm new to babywearing but I love it more and more every day.

I bought a newborn Mei Tai before Indy was born so that I could mainly carry him everywhere (I ended up buying a pushchair as well though as sometimes it's just easier!)

And I have recently found my local sling library so I can hire one out whenever I like.
Yesterday I brought home a Girasol Rainbow. I've not really even used a stretchy sling with Indy before so going full woven was a little bit scary. (they're harder apparently!)
But as I had bought a stretchy before and sent it back because I just didn't like it, I thought I would just jump right in at the deep end.

And.It's.Amazing.

I want to wear him in it all the time.
He looks so comfy and it's so warm too.

It does take some practice though. At the moment I can only properly wrap him if i'm looking in the mirror so I can see everything going where it should be. My Mei tai is a lot simpler to wrap so is ideal for when I'm out driving somewhere and I can do a quick wrap and get going.

I'm going to be convincing the hubs to buy me a woven before long though!

Getting Lost

I have always loved getting lost.

I moved around a lot as a child and one of the first things me and my brothers would do (after fighting over who gets which room) is we'd go and find our way around, which meany getting a little lost first!

My parents would arm us with snacks and drink and expect us home around dark and we'd be off for hours looking for local woodlands, parks and where the shops were to go get the morning paper for dad.

I've lived in Plymouth for a while now (since I was about 14) so I have discovered most places, but it's always nice when you come across a little charming area to go and get lost in.

It's not much and it was only a little detour but Indy and I find a neat little path to go and have a little walk through.
It's the little things :)

The Loneliness Of Motherhood

I forgot just how blinking lonely it can be with a new baby!

It's half term at the moment so I have both of them at home with me and i'm exhausted. And it's only half way through the week!

I do have friends obviously. I'm not a leper. But It's quite hard to see them when half of them live 100+ miles from me and those that are close, still technically live quite far.
It's not too bad as the crow flies but because I don't drive, it means a trip to the city centre and then another bus to wherever they are.
(To get to my mums driving, it's 7 minutes, to get there by bus, it's a little under 90 minutes!)

So, I'm glad I've found some mums on Netmums. A website with all the info and convo you could get your hands on.
I hate to say it but Plymouth is one of those more...chavvy areas.
I'm not a snob. Not really. I'm common as muck, but I just can't have a real conversation with someone who uses "lyk" or "innit".

Anyway, hopefully i've just made a few more friends to have a chat and a cup of coffee with!

2 Months Old

Indy is two whole months old today.

I have no idea where that time went. It's gone by in a bit of a blur, as I'm sure the rest of his childhood will do also.

He's not that little lump that just lays there and cries and poops and eats anymore. He's smiley and interactive. 

His big brother is getting massive as well. He comes up to my bust these days. And he's asking Santa for a television. I've been fighting him and his dad for a little over a year on it now. I don't want him to have a tv in his room. He's 5!

But with parental controls on tv and xbox I can put a timer on these days. So I ended up giving in.

It also means we're having to redecorate the boys room in split themes. Oscar gets one half of the room with his geekfest, and Indy gets the other half in his woodland theme and I'm converting the wardrobe into a story corner with a little canopy and everything.

Things are just settling into place nicely :)

These boys need to stop growing up, right this instant!

Indy loves

bouncing

me singing to him

tummy time

upside down mummy game

his anna banana toy

babywearing

chin tickles

Salt n' Pepa - Push It

Breastfeeding

So, this topic was bound to come up wasn't it.

Now, before I start, I just want to say I have absolutely nothing against bottles. Infact, my 5 year old was bottle fed. I breast fed him my colostrum because I knew it was good for him, but ultimately, at the age of 20, I didn't want to be handing my boobs over so soon. I wanted to feel like me as quickly as I could. As far as I saw it, my body was for me and my partner, not my baby.

Looking back, I do wish I'd have tried breast feeding a bit more but I know I wouldn't really have had the patience or support to do it.

Nobody I knew had breastfed. Every woman I'd ever known had always used bottles, so it was a bit of a strange thing to me back then.

This time, I live in an area where I get loads more support and i've spoken with mums who are breastfeeding or who have in the past, so at least this time I kind of had an idea going in what it would be like.

Nothing prepared me for how hard those first few weeks are though. Nobody told me just how close I would feel to wanting to give it up. When I was surviving on pure adrenaline the only thing that kept me going was the guilt I knew I would feel if I switched to bottle. I knew I was giving my baby the best there was and I also wanted to prove I could do it to those I knew doubted me.

I got an email a couple of weeks ago, asking if I was interested In doing the christmas shifts at work this year. I work on a temp basis so they randomly let me know when they need me and I can take or refuse the work. As it's christmas, and we're not exactly well off, If we're to give our boys some decent presents it means me going back to work for 4-5 weeks. But the type of work I do, means I'm unable to express while I'm there. I'm not really into expressing as it is. It makes me feel like a cow and it's already hard enough for me to switch between nurturer and wife at the click of a finger.

So we've opted to partially wean onto formula. It's not something I really wanted to do, but I would rather be able to spoil my well behaved boys this christmas and feel a little guilt than stay at home and feel even more guilty that I can't provide financially!
I chose the lesser of evils.
I started Indy on one bottle of formula a day in the morning and now we're up to two. I have ended up loving breastfeeding now so I'm quite gutted when I have to give him formula but at the moment it's for the best. He'll be on his formula just for the mornings though as I should be home from work a little after 1pm and then we go on to pure breast for the rest of the day and night.
I'm hoping that it's possible for me to re-establish those feeds in the new year though i'm not sure how it works. We'll see.



I wrote a post some time ago that I was planning on breastfeeding and that there was a lot of people around who didn't want to see mommies feeding their babies.
I first had to breastfeed outside a while ago now, but I was really nervous and was paranoid everyone was looking at me!  I was in a Starbucks in the corner and nobody even noticed what I was doing except one of the staff members who saw but didn't say anything.
The next time I had to feed him, I was nowhere near any cafe and didn't know where to go for privacy.
I ended up feeding him sat outside of a McDonalds reastaurant!
Barely even anyone took notice, and those that did were generally women who just smiled at me as they walked by.
I also breastfed at a party last weekend, but people were just calling me 'Earth Momma', especially when I then put him in his Mei Tai!

So, so far I've not had any bad experiences. It's still early days obviously but I do think that perhaps there shouldn't be so many of those stories in the news for mums-to-be to read as I can see how it may put off many women who would otherwise have breast fed.

TL;DR
I'm glad I persevered and breastfed my ickle babes

Differences

From day 1 that Indy was born, we've been comparing him to his big brother. As babies, they both look very similar. Very much like their Dad, but with my cornflour blue eyes.

Oscar is on the left and Indy is on the right. There are some differences obviously. Ozzy was born with a ton more hair. Indy has a smaller forehead, but everything else looks very much the same! 

Although they might look similar, already we're noticing that their personalities aren't.

Oscar has always been very loud and active ALL THE TIME. Just this week I was chatting to him and noticed that I'd stopped paying attention, "you talk a lot", I said to him.

"I talk a lot?!" he replied. "do you talk alot?"

"no"

"does daddy talk a lot?"

"no"

"is it just me who talks a lot?"

...that went on for some time. Whereas Indy is a bit more relaxed, already we can see that. When Oz woke up from naps he was straight away crying, looking for a hug or some kind of attention, but Indy is very happy to just sit and look about, give smiles and be content whether it's in someone arms or in his moses/bouncer/cot etc

Sometimes it's good that Oz talks loads. It makes him social and he says the craziest, funniest things sometimes. But to be honest, i'm hoping Indy stays being a quieter one because I don't know what i'd do with two chatterboxes!!

Getting back into shape

I can't really say it's a huge priority for me to get back into my pre-pregnancy shape but it would certainly make me feel better.

After I had Oscar, I felt huge, delicate and unsexy, so it took me a long time to feel myself and it hit my relationship with Andy pretty hard. We struggled for about a year and a half to find where we both fit again and now we're closer and more in love than we've ever been. The last thing I want to do is lose that again.
So getting into shape, though not a priority RIGHT NOW, is still quite important to me and my family.

When I met Andy I was an unhealthy (as in it didn't suit me) size 8. After Oscar, I went up to as large as a size 18. I worked hard to get my body back down to a size 12 which i achieved just months before I got pregnant with Indy.
I admit, I was worried about getting back into my size 12 jeans ever again. I was planning on waiting until Indy was at least 3 months old before I started to seriously get back into good shape, but after only 6 weeks I feel like I'm already back on track without even trying.
Seriously, i've been stuffing my face full of cake and biscuits to survive the day!
I'm still going to start going to the gym in a couple of months but for now, i'm pretty proud that I'm already looking like this

First

Being the one who's usually taking the photo, and the fact that i've looked -and felt- like rubbish for the last few weeks, i've only just had my first picture with Indy taken. There's loads of all my boys together and even more of just Indy pulling funny faces. So here's our first picture. And our first family picture.

On my lonesomes

Andy started back at work last night.
He's been off since Indy was born (bar two nights where he had to go to work), so I've not really done a whole lot on my own.
He helps me keep my cool when i'm getting stressed and takes Indy when I need 10 mins for a cup of tea. So now i'm juggling everything, including school runs and making my own tea, and doing it while breastfeeding on demand is the hardest part.
We're trying to partially wean at the moment so I do get a couple of feeds where he'll take a bottle of formula and I can get on and do what I need to. Sometimes he can take an age to finish on the breast. He only has morning bottles though as that's when I'll be working, I want to keep breastfeeding through the afternoons, evenings and nights as i'm actually starting to enjoy it.

I digress.
I'm a bit nervous to be looking after two little ones by myself now instead of just the easy one. And Ozzy was very easy. He can wash and dress himself and apart from making sure he's fed and watered and has some form of entertainment, he could pretty much do as he pleased. He's rarely naughty so I don't have to hover over him with every little thing.
He's started getting a little cheekier now Indy's here so I do have a bit more work where he's concerned.

I just need to get into some sort of rhythm now!

Indy James

Indy James

Born 28th August '13

weighing 9lb 1/4 oz

at 2.52pm

Here's my birth story. So if you're a bit squeamish then I suggest you avert your gaze!

When I hit 37 weeks, I started getting a lot more braxton hicks and false labour. I would wake up in the night so often with pretty painful contractions. I was convinced It was going to happen "any second now" for about 2 weeks!
At about 11pm on 27th Aug, at 39+3weeks, I had another bout of what I thought was false labour, so I just went to bed and tried to get some sleep but I woke up at 2am with the pain much worse. I was in denial that it was labour though so I bounced on my gym ball for about an hour and watched some television.
The pain started getting pretty intense though so I called the labour ward and they suggested I have a bath, which is where I realised that it was for real. I stayed in the bath for about 3 hours...mainly because I couldn't move!
After I managed to crawl out, I bounced a bit more, called the labour ward again and they pretty much told me to man up and wait a bit longer!
I ignored their advice and turned up an hour later once my mum had arrived to take care of Oscar.


Once at the hospital, just a quick 5 minute drive away, I was put onto a monitor and the midwife checked to see how far along I was (which she had to check during a contraction?! yowch!). I was 6cm! (good job I ignored that advice eh?!) further than I thought I would be as I was fully expecting for her to tell me I was only 2cm and to grow some balls.
I got taken to a room with a pool but by this point I was already pretty pruney and just wanted to sit on the bed for a while so Andy could rub my back. All the pain was in my back so I chugged the gas and air and even got the midwife to rub me when Andy had to take a break. (apparently I was annoying him a lot by dropping my water bottle every 5 mins).

Many hours later and I hadn't progressed very far so I had my waters broken and just minutes later I was pushing. As I'd had an epidural last time, the experience was completely different for me and 20minutes later at 2.52 Indy was born!

We had a feed and some cuddles, got a quick bath in the pool, packed up the bags which were mostly unneeded. And just 3 short hours later we were headed home. (Well, we stopped for a quick KFC on the way back)

We chose the name Indy from a website we found with unusual (but fairly realistic) baby names. We were going to name him Indiana (after the great Indiana Jones) but with his middle name being James it sounded too close to us being crazy fans, so we kept Indy. We've found it's what I like to call a Marmite name...people either love it's uniqueness or think i'm cruel and strange. But we love it and he Looks like an Indy so I'm glad we chose it.

His big brother Oscar loves him, though is pretty rough with him sometimes when he's trying to hug and kiss him.


Indy loves tummy time, his legs being stoked and his ear/neck raspberried.
He loves laying in his bouncer with me looking at him upside down (upside down mummy game!)
He likes falling asleep to loud music, or me singing and bouncing him.
He's breastfed but am partial weaning so I can go back to work for christmas (where i'm unfortunately unable to express)
He's given us a few smiles which I'm SURE wasn't wind, it's a cute smile.
We all love babywearing wherever we can but he's also snug as a bug in his pushchair.
He really hates bath time but likes top and tail time because he loves having his butt out!
Daddy is the burp and swaddle king! I feed him then Daddy gets the wind out and wraps him like a pro.
His bouncer is his favourite place to be, after being in someones arms.
He's an absolute star (which I'm going to probably regret because it's nearly bedtime and no doubt he'll start being a pain cos I said that!)