BLOGTOBER: HOW TO MAKE TIME WHEN YOU HAVE A BABY

Ironically my last post was about advice that I decided to ignore being a new mum and i'm going to completely contradict myself by posting some advice on how i've managed to make time and get things done now that I have a baby. I'd also love to hear if anyone has any tips that they use as i'm always trying to be more efficient!

Shower & get dressed at the start of the day

This may seem like a really obvious one, but there are too many times where it gets to 12pm and i'm still in my dressing gown, the laundry isn't done and i've realised that i've been snacking all morning. Just doing small things like using Mila's first nap of the day to sort myself out are things that make me feel a little more together and less like a tired & stressy mum. 

Set yourself 3 tasks that you want to get done by the end of the day and that's it!

Sometimes I find that it's too easy to set myself a never ending list of things to do that ends up being so overwhelming I practically do none of it. I then get to the end of the day and feel deflated that i've not 'achieved' any of it. By giving myself 3 tasks I end up prioritizing the really important things and ignoring the things that can wait till later in the week. Normally I end up getting more done because I feel more positive about getting those 3 tasks done.

Limit your social media time

I'm really bad at this one. There are too many times that Mila goes down for a nap and i'm like 'right lets get this cleaning done' and then I realise that 30 minutes has passed and all i've done is browse instagram. It's probably one of my worst habits, so I'm still working on this one myself. On my good days I catch up with social media at feed times as it's when I have to be sat down and can't get much else done or in my 'chill time nap' which leads me on nicely to my next point...

Give yourself down time

I sometimes give myself too much down time because I don't plan my down time into my day if that makes any sense. For me it makes sense to try and get things done when Mila is asleep and take things slow when Mila is awake. However most the time Mila goes down for a nap I feel like I must congratulate myself with a cup of tea and take a little break myself. That's totally fine but if it happens at every nap I get nothing done and then I find myself trying to catch up whilst she's awake and find myself trying to split my time which means I don't end up doing either task very well. At the moment Mila takes around 3-4 naps a day so I normally prioritize one of her afternoon naps as one of my 'chill time' naps where I just take a break myself. Also the more that I get done in the day the more I can relax once she goes to bed.

Break up the cleaning

I struggled with this one so much at first. There I was with a 2 week old Mila, Joe had just gone back to work and I thought I'd try and tackle the cleaning in one of her naps. She woke up 30 minutes in and I hadn't even finished the kitchen. I'm the kind of person that once I get into a task I find it hard to stop until it's complete so having a crying baby interrupting all the time was really throwing me off. It took me a couple of weeks to realise that I was never going to have a full cleaning session without Mila waking up, so now I have two main cleaning days in the week that I try and stick to and I whiz round and do the most important things and forget about the rest.

Tidy before you go to bed

This ties into the point above. If I know I want to get a good cleaning session in the next day I try and make sure that the flat is as tidy as it can be before I go to bed so all I need to do is get stuck into the cleaning as soon as possible. I also find that it's great for my mind sight waking up to tidy surroundings.

Get things done when there's two of you

Being the one that is staying at home with Mila I often give myself too much to do. Having a baby is time consuming, tiring and definitely constitutes as a job in itself in my eyes, but because I'm at home all the time I think that by the time that Joe gets home I must have all of this house stuff done. Spending Sunday morning sorting drawers out might not be fun but you can get it done so much quicker if it's both of you. Sometimes it's my sister or mum that come over and just watch Mila for a while whilst I potter around and get some things done that I need to do, I find that works really well as well.

Ask for and accept any help from anyone

There is no shame in asking for help or accepting help. One of the best things I did last month was ask Joe to take Mila out for the day without me. I got things done around the house, washed my hair, did my nails, I even went for a swim and that was all without having to wonder if Mila was going to wake up from her nap or what time she'd need her next feed. 

If all else fails resort to TV/Youtube

Yes I am one of those mum's who said that she would never place her child in front of the TV. I'm laughing to myself about that one now and how unrealistic that was. Sometimes you just HAVE to get things done and I know that if I let Mila watch '5 Little Ducklings' on Youtube for a little while I'll be able to get on with a couple of bits without interruption. That's my mum confession over for today. 

So those are my top tips for trying to make time with a baby. Overall I think the most important thing is trying to do things that save time so that you ultimately make time for yourself and have quality time with your family. 

BLOGTOBER: FOUR PIECES OF ADVICE I IGNORED

Being a new mum everyone wants to give you their advice about how to look after your baby. As well meaning as this advice might be sometimes you just have to go with your own instincts. There are so many things that midwives/health visitors/family/friends told me to do which a lot of the time contradicted one another so today I thought I'd share the main things that I didn't follow peoples advice on and that in the end really didn't matter.

Don't give your baby a dummy

Ahh yes the age old dummy or not to dummy question. Whether it was right or wrong we gave Mila a dummy at two days old. It was our second night home and she had been unsettled all evening fighting sleep and we were both about to tear our hair out when we suddenly remembered that someone had bought us some dummies. We gave it to her and we had immediate peace and she dropped off to sleep. Some babies have a strong sucking reflex that dummies really help with and Mila is definitely one of those babies. Now that she's a bit older we try to only use it when she needs to sleep so she knows when it is time for a nap, it's also been helping for those days where she's teething a lot to divert her attention. So for us despite a lot of people saying not to give it to her so young as she might get 'nipple confusion' dummies have most definitely been a winner in our books.

Don't drink coffee whilst breastfeeding

I've done a lot of research into this and found that food & drinks can transfer through milk, however different babies react differently to certain food/drinks, it isn't a 'one rule fits all'. Of course if I kept eating a certain thing and Mila was reacting to it then I would of course stop eating it, but it's annoying when people say 'ooh don't drink that coffee she'll be up all night!' however well meaning they may be. I don't drink much coffee in general but i've never found that it has affected Mila. Neither have strawberries and neither have grapes - the other two that people love to mention!

Don't give your baby a bottle if you want to breastfeed

Again something that some advised against and others said didn't matter. We were going to a wedding when Mila was 4 weeks old and being so new to the mama game I was feeling quite overwhelmed with my feeding duties and although I loved breastfeeding it was all getting a bit too much. So despite my health visitor telling me not to, I started pumping the odd bottle when Mila was around 3 weeks old, at this stage it was never a regular thing but I remember being worried that I would end up producing too much milk and being engorged. Neither of those happened and I found that it actually helped to regulate my milk flow somewhat. At first I pumped one to test to see if she would take a bottle and then pumped a bottle on the day of the wedding for her to have in the evening. It was nice to have a couple of hours where I didn't have to think about feeding and meant that I felt confident at planning an evening out with friends knowing that Mila would happily take a bottle and go back to the breast when I returned. From that moment on Mila would have the odd bottle of pumped milk until she was around 6/7 weeks old and I started pumping a bit more regularly.

Don't rocked/held/ fed my baby to sleep

Before I had Mila I read a lot of sleep training advice and read all about those magical schedules that will have your baby sleeping 8 hours at night at 8 weeks old. Now I'm not knocking anyone that does schedules or whose baby is sleeping through the night, i'm going to be honest I envy you massively if that is the case! But for me a lot of the 'rules' just weren't very realistic. Advice like, put your baby down in the cot when drowsy and don't give them eye contact & walk away from the cot didn't work for me and I would always resort to rocking or feeding to sleep. I'm pretty sure that this whole 'self soothing' malarky is a myth as well. At 5 months old, I have probably committed every single 'sleeping' faux pas at risk of her creating bad habits, but sometimes you just need to get your baby to nap at whatever cost, because her having a meltdown 3 hours later just isn't worth it for you or her. So far Mila hasn't created any bad habits and if I put her in the cot to sleep at the right time she will fall alseep and have a good nap. So if you're a new mum and you're worrying that everytime you feed your baby to sleep or when they cry - god forbid - you go and rock them back to sleep try not to worry, they'll decide when they no longer need you to do that anymore. On the other hand if it's getting too much and you're at your wits end with feeding to sleep everytime, then by all means be a little bit stricter if that works for you, the point being just trust your instincts, trust your baby and I'm sure that all will work out.

BLOGTOBER: WE'VE MOVED!

 So it's done! We survived the move with a (nearly) 5 month old baby, a flight of stairs and a lot of heavy furniture. It was tough and I was exhausted by the end of the day but we are just so happy to have more space.  I can't take all of the credit though, moving is easy when you have two amazing friends that give up their Saturday to help you and a brilliant mum to babysit. We have lots of exciting plans for our place - nothing too extravagant as we are only renting after all but a lick of paint and a couple of new pieces of furniture will be enough to put our own touch on it. I'm going to do my best to document it all along the way, we might even try our hand at repurposing some furniture but we'll see! I'll leave you with some pictures of the little details in our new place and i'm sure i'll share some more pictures on here and on Instagram over the coming months. 

BLOGTOBER: SAYING GOODBYE

I'm writing this post with boxes surrounding me on a tiny bit of the couch that isn't being taken up from our stuff, this place has been far from ideal but there is still a part of me that is sad to leave. This was our first home together, the place that we brought our new baby home to and will hold so many special memories. It's been a challenge living in such a small place with a baby, we used all of the space saving techniques we could think of, I for one cannot wait to be able to have a bigger wardrobe in the next place. If i'm brutally honest our next place will be harder on us financially and sticking to a budget will be essential, but living in this place has taught us what we're prepared to sacrifice. Most of all Mila needs more space and we want to be somewhere that we can be settled in for a couple of years before *eventually* deciding to buy and that's exactly what our new place offers us.

So despite all of the negatives and at times feeling desperate to leave, looking back this place has been just what we needed at this time in our lives. But onwards and upwards - I can't wait to share pictures of the new place and our journey making it our own.

BLOGTOBER: FOUR HUNDRED RABBITS - South London Gems

Hi everyone! Welcome to my first Blogtober post. This is a bit of a throwback post as I'm currently in the middle of a house move so I thought it would be a great time to upload my long overdue post about Four Hundred Rabbits in Crystal Palace. Having lived South of the river for 6 months now, I cannot believe how many hidden gems there are. Before moving here I rarely ventured over on this side of the river, most of my favourite places being very East London centric, so I was pleasantly surprised to find so many exciting restaurants and things to do. 

We first ventured to Four Hundred Rabbits when Mila was 3 weeks old. It's such a memorable day for me as it was around the time we started venturing out more and it was also the first day that I ever breastfed in public (nerve wracking). Being a new mum I am always looking for places that are family friendly. Questions that run through my mind are, is it an acceptable place for a baby to cry, is it quiet enough that my baby will potentially sleep and most importantly is it big enough to fit in my pram. Four Hundred Rabbits ticks all of those boxes, it has such a relaxed vibe making it perfect for families and an ideal spot for our first meal out.

Four hundred rabbits specialises in sourdough pizzas drawing influence from pizzas found in Napoli, named four hundred rabbits as that is the temperature that the pizzas are cooked at. Not only does the restaurant offer original pizzas, it also serves up craft beer. As I was breastfeeding practically every hour at that point, I enjoyed a Karma Cola - a fairtrade organic coke, coke drinking has never been so guilt free.

We went for the beef and green chilli pizza and it didn't disappoint. The only other sourdough pizza that I have tried is Franco Manca, and whilst it is very different in my opinion it was just as good. What I love about Four Hundred Rabbits is the interesting pizza choices along with a great price, the most expensive pizza coming in at around £9.50. Mila even managed to sleep through the whole experience so I could really enjoy my pizza. So if you're ever in the area it is one that I would definitely recommend. I went back again the other day and this time indulged in a dessert, a salted caramel brownie with coconut gelupo which was all kinds of dreamy, check out my instagram if you would like to see a picture here.

Thought i'd end this post with a picture of Mila after our trip out. Wow she was so tiny at 3 weeks old! Come back tomorrow for my next blogtober post.

BLOGTOBER

So it looks like blogging has really fallen by the wayside over the last couple of months, I've literally just been getting by and getting used to being a parent which (almost) 5 months in I feel like i'm getting the hang of.

So I thought i'd undertake the challenge of Blogtober in a bid to get back into blogging. We have a seriously busy October, which I guess is good and bad - on one hand it means lots of content but I guess that a challenge will be fitting it all in but I'm excited to get back into blogging again. We're starting off October with a house move so expect some interiors inspired posts along with lots of posts about my parenting journey. I'll see you tomorrow for my first official post!

Our first week

So Mila is actually one month old now but i've had zero time to write this post up - well I have had time but I've either been using it to sleep or eat a gazillion biscuits (definitely more of the latter). Anyway I wanted to start a little series of monthly updates for Mila to look back on in the future and also document my own recovery after pregnancy. Personally I don't think there is a lot of content out there in regards to postpartum recovery and when I was pregnant I had so many questions about what happens after you've had a baby, so I hope sharing my experience might  help others.

Looking back the first week was an absolute whirlwind of cuddles, crying and lots of cake (thanks family & friends for the cake, i've never seen our cupboards so full!) but it was also hard. Joe pretty much took it in his stride and was the biggest support to me whilst he was on paternity leave - cooking, cleaning and holding the baby so the I could have a bath and a break from the constant feeding. We also had lots of visitors and were so well looked after by friends and family when they came to visit Mila. I know a lot of people moan about having too many visitors and wanting rest and time with their baby but for me it really helped to see people so I didn't just feel cooped up at home. Plus lots of our friends brought food or were kind enough to cook us lunch or dinner when they came so that we could relax with the baby.

Mila's First Week Update

So firstly I just want to say having a baby is the most surreal thing I have ever done. I spent the first couple of days just getting my head around the fact that 'yes' she is mine and 'no' no-one is going to come and knock on the door and take her away. From day one it really has been mind blowing that she came from me. I'm definitely a bit of a neurotic mother and in the first week I was paranoid about everything, googling every symptom and just generally not being very relaxed. Looking back I wish I had chilled out a bit more but with motherhood being so new to me I just wanted to make sure she was all ok.

Sleep
Now i'm not going to do the whole 'she's such a good baby' because really what is a good baby? But if you're talking in terms of sleep, touch wood, we've been pretty lucky. In the first week she fell into a pattern of sleeping for a 3 hour stretch at night before waking up, followed by another 2/3 hours. On average I was probably doing about two night feeds depending on what time I put her to sleep at. At first I was setting an alarm for every 2.5/3 hours to wake her up for a feed because she wasn't waking up herself. It was taking me so long to wake her up and then get her back to sleep, I was sometimes up for over an hour just trying to get her back to sleep. After getting advice from friends and family, many of them saying 'WHY on earth are you waking a sleeping baby?', I stopped setting an alarm and just let her wake up naturally whether that meant she slept solidly for 4/5 hours.

Feeding
I've chosen to breastfeed Mila, I've not decided for how long we're just seeing how it goes but it definitely took some getting used to. At first my nipples were so sore and when my milk came in on around day 3 my boobs were very tender, but by the end of the first week we were getting into the swing of things with feeds every 2/2.5 hours and with the help of Lanolin cream it wasn't painful to feed her anymore. After 5 days she'd only lost a pound which the midwife was really impressed with and by her next appointment she'd put on 8lbs taking her weight up to 81bs5oz so we were discharged from the midwife. Whoo!

Everything else
As Mila was 2 weeks overdue she was born with really dry skin, so the midwives recommended that we applied olive oil to her skin to help heal the skin. We actually used rapeseed oil in case anyone was wondering and that worked really well. She's also a very strong baby and was already trying to hold he head up in the first couple of days, she loves looking around and taking everything in which means she finds it hard to nap during the day because she feels like she's missing out. When she was 6 days old we had a nightmare day where she wouldn't stop crying and looking back it was just because she was so overtired. I had a bit of a panic when she was 4 days old and her cord started bleeding, in a fluster I called the birth centre to be told that it's all normal and it just means that her cord is falling off. Phew. We've also started using a dummy (reluctantly). I don't even know why I feel so bad about giving her a dummy, but when she's being unsettled it's a god send, I've tried swaddling and much to my dismay she hates it! I had all these romantic ideas of pretty Instagram pictures of her in a swaddle and they've completely been dashed.

My First Week Update 

I haven't yet shared my labour story (it's coming soon promise!) but if you saw my last post you'll know I had a water birth. I managed to get away with one 2nd degree tear - which at first they thought might have been 3rd but thankfully it wasn't. For the first week everything was very sore and swollen, if i'm honest it was like my body had been through a massive trauma, which I guess it had. It was hard to walk and it was uncomfortable to sit as well. Whenever I did walk I felt like I had a horrible dragging sensation and felt a bit breathless and weak. For the first few days my tummy was still quite round - like a mini bump and it wasn't till the end of the first week that it started to go down properly.

What I struggled with the most was the massive change it was having a baby. I suddenly realised that I had this tiny human that was depending on me for everything and being the sole provider for food made me feel like my independence had been taken away a little. It was the strangest feeling and it's really hard to explain, but for a couple of days I felt really down, especially in the evenings and everything was making me cry and be emotional. I'm pretty sure it was because my milk was coming in but even though I was enjoying motherhood so far it was like I was mourning my old life. We ended up venturing to my parents for the weekend in her first week and that really helped as well as just getting out of the flat to go for walks around the parks. I've never really been the best at settling into changes at first, it takes me a little while so it's just time that I need to get into a routine and for everything to feel more normal.

So I think that's about it for the first week update, the next update will be our one month update. If you're reading this and you've had a baby I'd love to know how you found the lifestyle change of having a baby.