Things I am grateful for #5

Another fortnight and another load of things to be grateful for! This fortnight I am truly celebrating my son. I am so amazed at how these little beings manage to soak up so much knowledge and develop so many skills in such a short time frame. He just amazes me every day. I really love this age, I feel like the fun is really just beginning! Its been an added bonus that the weather has been so great and we had the Easter holidays with our friends and family. 1. More milestones! It seems that our little boy is developing lots of new skills all at once. This week he mastered sitting up. He seemed very pleased with himself!

2.Becoming more adventurous. As Arlo has become stronger he has been able to enjoy more exciting activities such as jumping in his bouncer!

3. Days out. We have enjoyed great days out to the beach, to the farm and picnicking in the New Forest. as its been the school holidays we have been able to share all the fun with all of my teacher friends. A highlight was definitely our visit to Longdown Activity Farm in Ashurst. We got to hold chicks, feed calves and stroke bunnies. Arlo’s favourite thing was riding on the bumpy tractor. He found it hilarious 😀

4. Springtime. Arlo is so much more aware of his surroundings and has been loving our springtime walks in the sunshine soaking in nature through sight, smells and touch. The blossoms are so beautiful at the moment.

5. Beautiful weather. To continue with the theme above the sunshine has inspired us to spend more time in the garden. We bought a paddling pool and garden toys and Arlo has been loving it! We hope to get a sandpit too at some point.

6. Lots to celebrate. April brings lots of birthdays & wedding anniveraries in our family. Which means lots of parties and cake! This is Arlo enjoying his cousins pirate party. Ooo Arr!

Have you been grateful of the weather? What fun have you been having in the sun?

Linking up with #mummymonday

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Weaning off the breast- How we did it!

When the time came to stop breastfeeding I felt really emotional. I worked so hard for weeks and weeks to get it right and many obstacles came our way! Despite this nursing became a really special time for just the two of us to stop everything and just…be. We could be in our own little bubble gazing at each other, feeding, cuddling and resting. However it seems to make sense to stop for many reasons. Arlo has slowly improved since I cut dairy out of my diet so this could mean he has an allergy/ intolerance to cows milk. We are still unsure of this and are due to see a paediatrician soon to fully investigate what is causing the issues. Either way I can’t carry on with this diet as it’s stripping me of energy and there are other reasons to stop including; returning to work and the fact that my supply is naturally reducing as he takes more solids. Plus I am dropping night feeds in a bid to get more sleep! BUT.. it still feels like the end of an era and I am going to really miss it. We had a good run my boy, 7 months is not bad, not bad at all…

Now I must say that I am NOT any sort of breastfeeding expert but I thought I would run though what we did to wean Arlo off the breast. I know from speaking to other mums that babies who have been exclusively breastfed do not take to the bottle very well and many people really struggle to make the switch. It’s actually been less stressful than expected as we have done it really slooowly…

Here are the steps we took:

1. Slowly introduce the bottle with some expressed breastmilk in it. You may have already got your little one used to having a bottle which will really help when switching to formula. We tried to offer EBM from 6 weeks every few days which went well at first but when he hit 3 months he decided we would not take a bottle anymore. 3 months on and we have persevered which means he is starting to get the hang of bottles again. Yay!

2. Offer a little bit of formula in the bottle in the middle of the day when baby is not too hungry and not needing comfort. Timing is everything! If you dive in at the bedtime feed with this foreign milk then your baby is likely to be rather p***ed off! Trying offering the formula when they are relaxed and not starving. Arlo started off by just chewing the teet and getting a taste for it. Soon enough the chewing turned to sucking. Also I will emphasise just giving a little formula. It’s expensive stuff to be wasting if baby is refusing to drink it and you cannot reheat it!

3. Offer the breast first and then switch to the bottle half way through the feed. It’s a bit of a cheeky move but it seemed to work with Arlo. He would suck at the breast for a while and I would gently pull him off and place the teet in his mouth instead.

4. Get someone else to do the feed. Obviously as I am the one with the breasts and the warm milky smell that he has come accustomed to. So, if I try to stick a bottle in there he looks at me as if I am mad and pushes it away. Therefore, we have got Dad to offer the bottles more often than myself and to start with he appeared  to take more of the milk this way.

5. Make sure it’s warm! Breastmilk comes out at body temperature so this is what your babe will be used to. We have found Arlo even prefers it a bit warmer than body temperature. If you heat it a little extra it is likely to stay warm for the whole feed.

6. Get them sleepy. Antony tried rocking him until he almost entered a state of sleep and then gently placed the bottle in his mouth. He happily suckled away in this dreamy state and this is when we finally got him to take a decent amount- about 4/5oz.

7.Mask your scent. When Dad was not around I tried number 3 but I also tried to wear a t-shirt that my husband had been wearing for a day. It smelt of his deodorant and his general manliness so it masked the scent of breastmilk (well a bit anyway).

8. Swap just one feed a day. Slowly but surely we having been swapping one breastfeed for a formula feed each day. I thought if we tried to do too many at once then both myself and baby would get very stressed. We started off by swapping feeds in the day and then more important feeds like the bedtime feed.

9. Go cold turkey. This weekend I went to a hen do. It will be two nights away from the boy and I was so nervous. Nervous about how he would get on with the milk feeds, nervous at how he would sleep and if my husband would cope on his own (we’ve both been in it together so far) but mostly nervous at how I would feel without him! It felt like I had lost a limb it was very strange but I just kept my mind off it by having fun with my girlies. I guess as I wasn’t there then he had to go cold turkey and perhaps that was the best way to wean him off completely.

Since I have returned he seems to be quite happy to take formula off either one of us and has dropped his night feeds which is positive! I am really proud of how well he has adjusted. I have been careful and made sure I have expressed a little milk off here and there to stop myself becoming too engorged as this can lead to Mastitis…. I have heard from others that this is really painful so best avoided!

I really hope this will help someone out there. I have appreciated all the advice I have received from other mums so its time to pay it forward.

Thanks for reading.

Miscellaneous mum hacks

Hello everyone. It’s been a little while since I’ve written a post so I’ve got a lot to blog about in order to catch up but I wasn’t sure where to start. I decided that as I’ve only featured one ‘mum hack‘ on this blog so far so I ought to share a few more. Many bloggers have helped me with parenting tips & tricks so I thought I should pay it forward. The hacks this week are all related to digestion- sorry I know it’s a grim topic! As you may have read in previous posts Arlo has had a few feeding issues so we have had to work tirelessly to work out what causes his vomiting/ diarrhea/ constipation and what can ease these symptoms. Isn’t it hilarious that as soon as you have a baby you become obsessed with bowl movements and talk about their colour & texture & frequency!? #rocknroll …Anyway here a few tricks that have helped us recently.

1. Camomile tea for sore bums and skin! When Arlo was a new born he had a BM after every feed! Needless to say he ended up with a very sore bottom. I found that giving lots of nappy free time and keeping the area dry helped. In addition to this I would put camomile tea bags in his bath and use camomile tea and cotton wool instead of wet wipes. This cleared it up really well. We have used this method since- for example when his bottom has been sore with constipation and it has worked just as well as before.

2. To continue with the theme of bottoms haha Dried apricot puree for constipation. Since we started Arlo on solids he appeared to get very constipated. Obviously it is important to get them to drink lots of water (a battle most of the time) but even with water he struggled to go and dry spells could last 6 days (unheard of for him). He has been prescribed lactulose and I have also tried pureed prunes, prune juice amongst other things but the only thing that has really worked has been dried apricot puree! 

 

3. Apple juice in water. As I said above (and in previous posts) it has been a real battle to get Arlo to drink water. A Doidy cup has worked in getting a few sips in him but a friend advised that we add a few drops of apple juice to give some flavour to the water. It has worked! Arlo enjoys the hint of juice he can taste and I am happy he is getting some more H2O!

Anyway I hope these hacks can help someone out there. I know that sometimes what works for one child will not for another but it’s worth a shot!

More hacks will be coming your way!

Linking up with #SundayStars & #mummymonday

 

We made it!

I can’t believe it but he’s 6 months old this week! Where has half a year gone? It seems it has gone in a flash but at the same time I feel like I’ve known him forever. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster and a massive learning curve but also the most amazing adventure of my life. I have had down days when it has been so hard I’ve sobbed ( I mean proper crying, like a child) and there have been days where I have thought I might combust with happiness. I’m not often proud of myself but during the past 6 months… actually during the past 15 months (including preganancy) I have indulged in a little self respect and pride. I have been amazed at what the human body can achieve and how much we can endure. Here is a list of reasons why I am proud and why other mothers should be too:

1. I grew a human! And it was really difficult at times. Nausea, exhaustion, pain. Pregnancy throws a lot of challenges at you but we overcome them knowing that our babies are growing happily inside. In the third trimester I also suffered from symphysis pubis dysfunction (SPD), swelling and high blood pressure but everything was always forgotten when I felt him wriggle and kick.

2. I went through labour and surgery. I surprised myself during labour. I handled the pain better than I expected. Although it was tough…really tough…. the strongest thing I felt was excitement. I was finally going to meet my baby! I was doing OK and managing the pain with gas and air but was really disappointed that everything came to a standstill at 9cm dilated and my (rather large) baby was back to back. By this point it was going so slow I needed some extra pain relief and I went on a drip to help me fully dilate but after another wait there was no progress. When I was told I needed a caesarian I felt like I’d failed. All that hard work, so close to the finish line and I couldn’t quite make it… not on my own anyway. I’ve got nothing against having a c-section. I think whatever is the safest way for mother and baby is best but going all the way is something I really wanted to achieve and after all that contracting I felt it was my right as a woman to birth my child. It wasn’t to be. Turns out having a spinal block when your contracting is pretty tough ‘keep still’ they said ‘lean forward’ they said. I can’t! I’m in pain and have a massive bump in the way!! Recovering from surgery with a newborn is pretty tricky too. So I just want to say ‘well done body, you tried and we got our baby here in the end!’

3. I’ve fed my child myself. Breastfeeding is exhausting, its frustrating and its awkward but somehow, amazingly I’ve managed to do it for 6 months. I know not everyone is able to breastfeed so I am truly grateful that I can. I wouldn’t have managed without the support of midwives and my husband but mostly I was just really determined. Arlo’s tongue tie resulting in poor latch, oversupply, fast letdown, too much fore-milk, reflux/allergy- whatever breastfeeding threw at us we did what we could to overcome it. There have been a lot of tears but we have really tried. It turns out that Arlo’s reflux could possibly be an allergy (most likely to cows protein). It explains a lot. It explains why feeding has been even more of a challenge than it should have been for us both but we have made it this far and I hope some goodness has got into him even if it has upset his system too! I want to continue for as long as I can before returning to work and I am in the process of cutting foods out of my diet in order to find the allergen. I had already tried eliminating things but chose lactose free products or soya which apparently are not good enough so sticking to oat/ rice/ oil based products instead. I hope I can find out whats causing the problem. I really want my baby to be comfortable and I’m not ready to give up breastfeeding just yet, although even if I did there’s the issue of him not taking bottles- read my ‘Battle of the bottle’ post, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it!

4. I am alive! My baby is alive and we are happy :). I am ssoooooooo tired but I have survived 6 months of motherhood and although there have been a few issues with feeding/ sleep/ illness along the way for the most part Arlo is happy and thriving. Don’t get me wrong there are times when you miss the freedom and  feel like you are going crazy but I wouldn’t change it for the world. Becoming a mother is all I’ve ever wanted. This is just the beginning, there is so much more to come. I can’t wait for all the next milestones and all the exciting things we will be able to do as a family. It’s going to be so fun!

If you are a mother or a father there is a lot you should be proud of too. You are raising a little person and that it amazing. Go you!

Linking up with #HappyDays Linky and #TheList

Things I am grateful for #4

It’s been a very busy fortnight (well ok ok it’s been longer than a fortnight but like I said we’ve been busy) and I’ve not had much time for blogging. If your new to reading this then let me explain. Very fortnight I like to reflect on all the wonderful things going on in our life and why I am grateful for them. You can read about my last ‘gratefulness’ post here.

So this fortnight/ month I am grateful for:

1. Making it to 6 months! Read more about our journey during the past 6 months. We had pretend cake, sang to him and he even recieved a pressie and card from one of our best mates!

2. Arlo’s development has come on a lot in the last 2 weeks. His hand eye coordination is improving all the time which means he is beginning to enjoy finger foods. He is also interacting with toys and people more and just generally seems more alert and aware of the world around him.

3. In relation to point 2 above. He can roll over! He’s only done it a few times but can go from his back to his front and vice versa. He’s also getting so close to sitting up independently. His brain has been very busy at the moment!

4. Another mini holiday! We enjoyed a long weekend in Clacton-on-sea with some friends. We had fun swimming, going to the arcades, bowling, playing in the park and chasing bubbles!

5. Being a big kid. Now we have a child of our own its a good excuse to visit the park and have some fun. You’re never too old for the swings or a climbing frame!

6. Easter! Another long weekend as a family 🙂 yay! Although it’s bad timing as I am not eating dairy currently. As I mentioned in my last post, Arlo has a suspected allergy and we are working out which allergen my be sneaking into my breastmilk. Apparently cows protein is the most common culprit so I have started by cutting that out. However, my lovely husband surprised me with lots of dairy free products including a dairy free chocolate egg so that I wouldn’t feel left out <3.

Hope you’ve got lots to be grateful for and I hope you had a HAPPY EASTER! Have some chocolate for me.

Linking up with Ojo’s World #r2bc & Mummy From The Heart