5 Things that I can no longer live without!

Before I got pregnant, I couldn't live without my vast nailvarnish collection, booze and Starbucks. Now that I am a mummy, I have some new essentials.

1. Babywipes. Fastest way to clean baby's bum (they used to use just cotton wool and water when I was a baby, I don't know how they coped!) plus handy for sticky/slimey/dribbly bits elsewhere on baby and your furniture! Plus you can use them on yourself when you're too tired to properly clean your face before bed and freshening up when it's hot. I buy them in bulk and get a bit of a cold sweat when they run low.
2. The Internet. I thought that I couldn't live without the web before. I was wrong. When Isabella was 3 days old, she got the hiccups for the first time outside the womb at 1.30 in the morning. She was getting stressed out, the OH was as useful as a chocolate teapot and suggesting that we hold her nose and I was contemplating whether or not it was too late to call my mum. Enter the internet, like a gallant knight in shining armour! We followed BabyCentre's advice to lay her on one of our chests and breathe deeply, 5 minutes later and the hiccups were gone! Plus, it's a good source of entertainment when I'm doing a marathon breastfeed.
3. Antibacterial gel. Now, I am in now way whatsoever a neat freak. I am, however, paranoid about Isabella picking up bugs whilst her immune system is so immature. I think I use the steraliser about 3 times a day and I'm constantly using Soap&Glory's Hand Maid antibacterial gel. It makes me feel slightly calmer and saner. Each to their own!
4. Biscuits. Simply because breastfeeding makes me insanely ravenous and sometimes I don't have time to have a proper meal. I sometimes joke that I'm on the hobnob diet because I sometimes end up just eating a couple of biscuits instead of lunch. Not the healthiest habit in the world, but what the hey?! I'll improve once Isabella is less demanding. Plus there is no way in Hell that I could have survived the first week and a half without decent snackage because I was up all night and still busy all day.
5. The babygym. I swear, if I didn't have this, I wouldn't get anything done at all. Isabella won't sit in her bouncy chair without trying to make a break for it and the BabyBjorn is good, but there's a limit to how much you can do with a baby strapped to your chest. So now, I put Isabella in her babygym in the same room as me when I really REALLY need to do something, eg hang out washing or clean bottles. I should really use that time to cook myself something healthy, but nowadays baby comes first and unfortunately there's an endless stream of poo stained vests, used bottles and dirty nappies. The joy of motherhood!

There's probably more stuff, but it's quarter past 1 in the morning and Isabella has been waking up around 5am as of late so I should probably get some sleep.
TTFN xxx

Trying to get organised, honest

OK, so right at this present moment, I can't do anything as Isabella has fallen asleep in my arms and she's a bit overtired so I'm worried about waking her. I have however written the list of stuff to take for her for our weekend away to Bournemouth next weekend. I think she's going to need her own case.

I'm also starting to make to-do lists in the evening for the following day. Problem is, I don't get round to half the items and other things keep cropping up along the way! I'm sure it'll all be much easier once Isabella's a bit less demanding and can amuse herself a bit more.
On a positive note, Isabella's feeding fussiness is getting much, much better. The health visitor at the weigh-in clinic advised me to just keep offering boob, even just for a drink when she's not hungry, so since then I've pretty much been giving her boob every hour.
Now, I'm going to attempt to move her without waking her up so that I can get up and get ready for lunch with my friend, Julia. TTFN xxx

Jaysus, I'm blimming tired!

So, after my last post, famous last words! Isabella slept for 15 minutes whilst I wrote the previous post and since has had me running circles round her! Luckily, I took a bottle of expressed milk with us to mum and baby group because she had about 3 minutes boob, then got all hot and bothered and threw a wobbly.
I've spent the whole afternoon expressing and feeding her, trying to cool and calm her down and steralising stuff! I attempted to have some toast for lunch at 5pm, but couldn't grab a spare couple of minutes to eat it before Isabella was off again. It's probably still in the toaster..... In the end, I tried to give Isabella a cool bath, but it was taking so long and she was getting hotter and hotter because she was stropping, so I just grabbed a flannel, dunked it in cold water and dabbed down my poor, boiling baby.
She FINALLY went down for a little sleep at half 8 and since has just woken up for a quick feed, so I'm probably going to be woken up at 5am tomorrow morning, uuuurrrrrrrrrrgh!!!!! I've managed to get some food into me, expressed some milk for the morning and topped up the baby wipe and nappy drawers, so now I can watch TOWIE and get some sleep whilst I can.
This post will probably also turn into famous last words! A mummy's work is never done! TTFN xxxxx

Feeling hot, hot, hot and a bit rejected :-(

Oh em geeeeeee it's freaking hot!!! Isabella woke up at 6.20, went back to sleep until 10 and now she's all tuckered out again, bless her. The hot weather is making her feeding hard as well because she's a- all cranky cos of the heat, b- super sleepy and not wanting to make an effort to feed and c- too distractable, she wants to be upright and see what's occuring. Plus, she's worked out that if she makes a big enough fuss, mummy will give up and give her a bottle, simply because I have to get her fed.
After her initial month and a bit of constantly wanting to nurse, I've since had to deal with a bit of nipple confusion on and off. I had to start giving her a bottle as well as breast to give myself a bit of a break and because when I'm taking her out, there's invariably nowhere with a suitable sofa and quiet area for me to breastfeed. As a result, she started to prefer a bottle when she's a bit tired because it's less effort. Then, every day or so, she'd want a bottle more often. In the last week, she's barely wanted to nurse at all. She'll have her first feed with no quibbles, then she just does not want to know! There's tears and tantrums (and that's just from me!) and then I have to give up and give her a bottle of expressed milk, or formula if I haven't had time to express. The result is that I've been feeling really rejected and redundant, not fun at all.  Your most primal and ingrained duty as a mother is to provide food for your baby and everybody tells me how hard it is to get a baby back on the breast after they've got used to a bottle. I think there's lots of causes. Isabella had her jabs on Friday, they were done right on the sides of her thighs and she lies on her side to feed, so she didn't want to nurse in the afternoon because it was painful, I had to give her a bottle. At the weekend I stayed with my nan because I had a bit of a fall out with my baby daddy, Isabella was distracted and out-of-sorts and I was really stressed, my mum says the stress may have rubbed off on Isabella and the poor little mite didn't want to feed, it was a real struggle all weekend. Then this week so far, it's been really hot so Isabella is cranky and tired, plus she's sooooo interested in everything around her. Touch wood, today she's had 2 and a half feeds straight from the breast with no quibbles, so hopefully she's swaying more towards the breast again.
It's really getting to me now. It's not just the feeling of rejection and redundancy, there's also the stress of extra cleaning and steralising equipment and having to express more milk just in case, in some cases expressing as I go, and the worry that she just might not go back to breast and this is the end of it. That would break my heart because it's my special bonding time with her, it's something that nobody else can do for her and I intended to keep it up until she's 6 months, even if I have to supplement with bottles. Let's see how it goes, hopefully it'll getting better :-) TTFN xxx

5 Things That I've Learnt so Far

1. Having a well-stocked snack drawer will help you no end! I found that being up all night for the first week and a half, plus breastfeeding for 6-8 hours a day (yup, really) made me really ravenous. Plus, I didn't really have time to sit down and eat a proper meal in the first few weeks and was burning lots of extra calories breastfeeding. My sister-in-law made me a load of flapjacks, which were really handy at breakfast time.
2. Dry shampoo is your new BFF. Seriously, most days I feel disgusting! I now bath with my baby and do my make-up in 2 minutes flat. Also, you can use baby wipes to give your face a quick clean or have a whore's bath.
3. They say it's OK not to be perfect, but you are. You and your baby are actually perfect for eachother and as much as people can give their advice and opinions, nobody will know your baby as well as you do. Before Isabella was sleeping through the night, I didn't really mind being awake because that was our special time, we used to have cuddles and little chats and she'd practice her smiling.
4. Stroppy time is perfectly normal. I've yet to find 1 pregnancy book to warn of this! When Isabella was a couple of weeks old, every day when it got to late afternoon/early evening, she would start being stroppy and want to be walked around and nurse for a minute or 2 at a time, then whinge some more. This would go on for at least an hour and I would try everything to calm her down. It wasn't until I started googling it, that I found out that it was perfectly normal and it's just because babies are learning so much so fast and adjusting to being in the world, so at the end of the day it all becomes a bit too much for them. Especially if you have a really alert baby who's interested in everything as they can get overstimulated easily. Luckily, it passes! 
5. You bloody deserve it!!! I tried doing the Special K diet to get rid of the rest of my baby weight, but I couldn't keep it up as I was too tired, plus breastfeeding really takes it out of you! So now, if I want to have a bit of chocolate or have an over-priced latte, I do it because I've been through 10 months of pregnancy, 6 hours of labour, godknowshowmany stitches, been pooed, wee'd, dribbled and thrown-up on (sometimes simultaneously) and I bloody deserve a treat now and then! After all, mummies don't get lunch breaks!

It's not all frappuchinos and baby yoga!!!

Aaaaaaaaaand here it goes, my very first post of my brand new blog! I did start a previous blog where I vowed to bake something new every day for a year, but after a virus that I could not shake and being bogged down with my job (I worked crazy hours) it kind of got left at the wayside.
My daughter Isabella Elizabeth Grace Pemberton was born at 2.15am on the 24th of February this year and in the past 3 months, I've had a lot of ups, a lot of downs, learnt a helluva lot and grown a lot.
At present, she has is just starting to fall asleep in my arms after I've given her a bit of extra hungry milk, she normally goes to sleep around 9, 10ish; any earlier and she wakes up at stupid o'clock in the morning.
Through my pregnancy, I was under no illusion that motherhood wasn't going to be tough, but I really, REALLY underestimated how tough! I had visions of baby yoga and having yummy mummy friends, doing pilates to tone up my jelly belly and still having a bit of time to myself. Instead, I count myself lucky if I get to brush both my hair and teeth. As soon as Isabella falls asleep for a quick nap, I have a split second to decide whether to eat, sleep or get things done.
When all is said and done though, I wouldn't change it for the world. I learnt that you don't just love your child, you fall in love with them.
If there's anything you want to ask me on or get my twopenneth's worth on, email me or message me on Facebook.
Peace out, hope you all enjoy the weather whilst it lasts. TTFN xxx