Being Brave & breastfeeding

I am being brave tonight. I have taken the decision to not breastfeed my son before he goes to sleep. I have been doing this almost every night for the last 22 months and 6 days.

Since he has been 13 or so months we were down to just the morning and night feeds. I took the decision to cut out all day time feeds and gradually replaced the afternoon milk feed with a cup of cows milk after he had turned one. I chose not to let my little man have mummy milk in the daytime and one the rare occasions he asked for it and said no, it only comes at morning or night. That way I could feed him in bed where it was warm too!

I was going to push onto 2 years as per WHO guidelines, however recently I've not been enjoying it at all. Little man has started calling it "mummy gig" not a problem but it just doesn't feel right anymore.

We also want to conceive another baby soon, we might even have one in there now! I have read that your milk supply stops at around 17 weeks and then starts up again. Either way I didn't want to be feeding a newborn and an almost 3 year old. I know some people do keep feeding their children beyond a new baby and well done you - I have decided that it's not for me.

So with little man's recent interest in farm animals I dug out a sippy cup he's hardly used. It was a freebie in an Ella's kitchen lunch bag I cost on special at Tesco ages ago. I warmed up some full fat cows milk in a pan (our microwave is in the shed and it's too cold to go out there) and we gave it him in his bed. Before this happened I showed him the empty cup and he can all the animal names on it, well he gives them his names anyway.

It was successful and I told little man the mummy milk had all gone and he was having special milk in his farm animal cup now.

I cried after I left his room, he fell asleep well and very quickly which helped as he wasn't screaming for "mummy milk". I don't know how I'll feel as time goes on. I remember dropping from 2 feeds a day to 1 and how my hormones went mad and I was very weepy for a few days. We will have to see, I expect engorgement will happen but all depends how the next few nights go.

I am very pro breastfeeding, I think it is a wonderful lovely thing to give your baby/child and the benefits for you and them are a great bonus. I understand that some people have problems at first and that it is not easy. Yes it hurts, your nipples will get cracked, bitten, sore, blistered but you have to brave and persevere. Get help from anyone you can if your midwife or HV isn't too great on breastfeeding as not all of them are trained in this area. I was lucky - I didn't need any help this time and next time I hope to BF again.

I am not having a go at anyone who formula fed their baby for whatever reason. Everyone makes their own choices for their own reasons.

baby holiday

We've had a fantastic week in Scotland with our friends from West of the Pennines, their parents for 2 days and another couple and their toddler came for the first 3 days also.

The babies as we referred to them had lots of fun, taught each other new words/sounds and baby signs.

Little man has picked up the baby signs for car and chicken and learnt to say baa and moo! He knows which animal makes these noises but can't say their names yet.

They bathed together, kissed and cuddled both in the bath and out of it. Of course there were many squabbles over toys, the sit on car, toy teapot and dolls pushchair being the favourites. Little man was showing his first signs of being naughty by pushing his little friend, something we need to watch I think.

The grown ups enjoyed looking after more than one toddler at once whilst mummies went to have showers and daddies slept, lots of wine, more wine, evening meals being cooked for us (we took it in turns) and having company. It was lovely to chat to everyone and we all got on great. We swapped recipes and adapted our own to meet the contents of the food cupboard or simply to enhance an existing dish.

We had lots of lovely fresh air, walking in the woods, going to various secluded beaches and the thing I love the most about Scotland - the quietness of it and being the only people there. We went to shops, looked at castles, went on a small boat trip to Threave Castle and

We had a great trip to Mabie Farm Park where little man and Sir Whingealot had a fantastic time and we will highly recommend it to anyone with young children. I must admit that my husband, our friend from West of the Pennines and I had great fun jumping on the "air pillow" I will put a picture here later to show you all us having just as much fun as the tots did.

Communal living worked well, everyone was very amicable and my initial worries were quickly erased.

I loved cooking on the aga and the warmth it provided in the farmhouse style kitchen. I also want to try the recipes my friends showed us, a slightly different bolognaise sauce to try, husband wants me to make a prawn frittata ala Jamie Oliver but minus the chopped chili and we've already tried the tuna pasta with cheese on top for lunch today!

We will definitely do it again, already thinking of a possible location - can we go next week??!!!

Definitely becoming Scotland addicts and been looking at the property for sale in the area already! However that is a different subject altogether.

Fish

or wiiisshhhh if you are 1 and 3/4 and can't quite pronounce it properly yet.

We have just watched Something Special and it was the one about sea creatures and all things underwater. Little man loves fish and really enjoyed watching it! We sang the under the sea song. We must have seen this one about 10 times since little man was born. We did the signs for the animals but little man wasn't bothered about them.

He is now tummy crawling round the room shouting "fish fish" and making growling noises - I can only assume he's pretending to be a scary fish. He's got this from "Hooray for fish" by Lucy Cousins, we both love that book.

Its very cute anyway, I though pretend play came much later on but he seems to be getting into it a bit.

Now we are off to tumble tots so I must tell my little shark that it's time to be a tumble tot!

Long time no post again!

Yes it's been a while and for some reason I have been unable to make my brain function in a way which would give you all an update from Mummy land.

Now little man doesn't sleep during the day (most days anyway) unless we go out in the car. This is quite rare at the moment, partially as we are very lucky to live near to a big lovely park and can walk there without crossing a road. We can also walk to the local supermarket although it takes longer to cross the roundabout to get into the entrance than it does to do the complete walk. We rely on nice motorists to let us across. We can walk through the park into the town centre and it keeps me fit with uphill and downhill sections both on the way there and on the way back. Also we are lucky to have an excellent children's centre 500m away at the local primary school.

The children's centre is great. They run several playgroups and baby groups and we currently go twice a week. We have had lots of support and freebies and we have met other mums who live locally. We even got a free trip to an education centre nr Nelson the other day! Thanks to Sure Start we also have been offered a "positive parenting" course and a "mini mend" healthy eating and exercise course. I have turned down both of these because part of the session involves little man being looked after by the centre staff whilst it goes ahead. I don't think either of us are ready for it yet plus he's still very little.

On the home side of things we are slowly getting our house a little more de cluttered which is helping. We have banned toys from the lounge and are making that "our" room whilst the dining room is the new playroom.

Little man is happily stringing two words together quite frequently. He still has his own language and quite often uses a nonsense word for something. e.g. diggy for spade. He doesn't seem to be making any attempt to copy words or phrases. Thankfully his obsession with the word "duck" meaning stuck has passed somewhat.

Right now he is helping Daddy fix a squeaky floorboard and roll up the landing carpet, whilst messing around in Daddy's assorter box full of screws, he wants me to go help too now.... bye bye!

Emotional rollercoaster

Well after an emotional week of trying to convince myself I was pregnant or not, I have reached a few conclusions:

1) Definatly not pregnant
2) Feel awful and having the worst period ever
3) Spent far too much time on farm ville as a distraction
4) spent too much money on pregnancy tests
5) Gone off the idea of trying again ever
6) Either am coming down with flu or am allergic to pregnacare.

Little mans achivements are brilliant, we have had a couple of weeks of complete babble and now we have sentences!

Mummy go, Mummy stop, bye bye daddy, bye bye Mummy, and this classic "I want one" which is now said frequently. On Tuesday he saw fish in a tank and he said "want one", he saw a toy monkey on an advert this morning and made ooh ohh ahhh aahh noises at it! Then he said "want one"! The he saw diggers and said Daddy, daddy, I want more didis!!

He tells me which way to go when I am driving the car and throws a mini strop if we don't go his way.

He shouts go when we are stopped at roundabouts/traffic lights. He also knows when vehicles are slowing down and shouts stop!

He is a very noisy boy and anything with a light on the top is classified as a nar-nar. Anything bigger than a car is a didi, this includes lawnmowers and tractors but excludes the most important thing of all ROAD ROLLERS! They are roll-rolls. Aeroplanes and helicopters get aaaaaaaaaaaaaa whilst pointing at the sky and trains are choo choos which go ch-ch-ch and woo-woo!!

His favourite word is still "duck" but it means stuck - he can't say duck but he can quack. He can't say chicken or monkey but he can make the noises for both.

He currently takes delight in calling ladies mummies, men daddies and older ladies mar-mars. He hasn't mastered Grandad yet so old men get away with being called "Duh"! He also decides which ducks are the mummies, daddies and babies and calls the little fish at playgroup "babies".

He's been saying some of these words for ages now but all of sudden they've all come together and he's putting them together. He still uses a lot of his words instead of the actual word so I am trying to teach him train, digger, tractor and aeroplane!

He's wonderful and I don't feel ready to let him go just yet, despite 2 offers of free courses with included creche, I don't think he's ready for it neither am I for that reason!

Feel much better after 2 ibuprofen so off to have a hot bath and an early night.

Do we know too much?!

I'm very tired, I have tender breasts which suddenly hurt a bit when feeding again. I have been very hungry and I can't sleep at night and I'm waking up in the morning boiling hot?!!

All the above could be put down to various normal everyday life style activities/problems.

Although I am hoping they are a sign of something else, those Mummys out there might have twigged by now.

The other opinion is we know too much about things and I am imagining symptoms which are just nothings in reality as I want something to happen.

I have to wait until next Weds really to do a test and find out if I am right or just convincing myself something is there - ARGH! I feel extremely sorry for all those people who have had to struggle for years with having this same dilemma every month.

Wet welsh week!

Well last week we took ourselves to Wales, Dolgellau to be precise about it. We had the very generous offer from the in-laws, they would pay for a cottage and we could come for free. Plus they would help us out with little man. Woo hoo - can't refuse.

The cottage was very spacious and had a big dining kitchen which I thought would be terrible but it was great. Little man ran straight into the room with bunk beds and demanded to be put into the bottom bunk and refused to get out! He slept in the proper sized big bed absolutely beautifully all week. We used a bed guard to stop him falling/trying to get out. After only 1 week in a toddler bed at home we were pleasantly surprised.

The area was lovely, the cottage had views to Cader Idris and was halfway up a hill, very secluded but only 10 mins walk from the centre of Dolgellau. Unfortunately the weather wasn't kind so we spent a lot of time going to the many narrow gauge railways in the area. Little man loves trains, he is now obsessed with trains!

We also went to the Centre for Alternative Technology which was very unusual but very interesting. Fantastic lasagne in the vegetarian restaurant, a great way to get more than your five a day in one huge portion! Very scary water powered funicular railway to get in though!




We spent lots of time outdoors in the fresh air, picked blackberries down the lane from the cottage and had them for tea. Showed little man how to pick them which he loved apart from when he got prickled!

Got a nice day out together and went for a slap up meal in a nice hotel all on our own. We walked back to the cottage together and it was lovely just like a first date.

We got to the beach on the last day and got blown away and sandblasted. Little man made the most out of it by digging and building sandcastles with Daddy but he didn't like the ferocious wind so we didn't stay long.

We also decided maybe it was time to try extending our little family a bit more!