How is time going so fast?!

Today, my baby is 5 months old. I have no idea how because it feels like she just came out of me yesterday. The funny thing about having a baby is that they feel brand new and like time's going fast really quickly, but at the same time it's hard to remember what life was like before them.
Every day, she manages to astound me. For example, today she sat up by herself for a good 6-7 seconds whilst holding her arms out like a tightrope walker, instead of the normal hands on the ground to prop her up. She also pushed herself right up to the crawling position so, considering how adept she is now with the tummy shuffle, I should probably start baby-proofing quite sharpish!
My theory on why time seems to go so quickly is that you spend your whole time blinkered and focussing on getting through the day, so you don't actually notice that getting through the first few days has become getting through the first few weeks and then turns into getting through the first few months. Well, that kind of makes sense in my head.
On a bad note, I think that the lack of rest and lack of time to express milk is finally having a knock-on effect on my supply, so I'm going to try to ease up on the exercise a bit and make more time for expressing. I've been trying to do at least 40 minutes of exercise a day, not including walking or my weekly zumba class. That might not seem a lot, but when you combine it with breast feeding, doing 99% of the parenting and 2 night feeds, it's actually quite knackering. Especially as I normally end up doing at least half of my daily exercising after 11pm as we don't normally have dinner before 9pm and all my time prior to that is doing mummy stuff. Any time after dinner should be chocolate and TV chilling out time, not sweating to some chirpy American woman telling me to feel the burn time!
Isabella has 1 more month before I can start gradually introducing lumps and more foods, such as lentils and small amounts of cheese. It's really exciting in a strange way! I'm going to be researching some nice recipes that I can try out on her.
I'm going to try to squeeze out some more booby juice!
TTFN x

Starting to run on empty!

I've barely had time to blog at all lately, I didn't think it was possible, but I actually have even less time to myself! Isabella doesn't really nap during the day BUT she wakes up for a feed about 6, then goes back to sleep for a couple of hours. Although it's because my baby thinks she's a teenager and then refuses to go to sleep at night, it's nice to get a bit of sleep in the morning. Today, however, my baby decided to keep me on my toes and thought that 6am was a great time to get up and play! I've been shattered all day, it really has a knock-on effect. When she stopped sleeping through the night, it completely winded me.
I've also been trying to exercise daily, which is hard to squeeze in with a baby who refuses to sleep and also writing a few articles for my other half's website to help him out. The website is actually a men's health and grooming website, so I have to try to write as if I'm a man, which is.....interesting.....
All in all, combined with all the other little things I have to fit in, like loads of washing, cleaning and steralising stuff and making baby food, I can't remember the last time I just sat down with a cuppa and chilled out for a few minutes.
The last nearly 5 months have been knackering, but the last couple of weeks I've got to the stage where I'm starting to run on fumes. Oh yeah, and then there's the little matter of getting married in 2 years time on a practically non-existent budget, which I should have started looking into a good few months ago as 2 years is like 2 months in wedding time. On Saturday, I didn't actually get round to eating until 4 in the afternoon, which I could barely handle before, but when you combine with breast feeding, taking a baby swimming and having very little sleep the night before, it's surprising I didn't faint or get so delirious that I started speaking in tongues.
OK, enough with me moaning, I could go get a couple of hours sleep before baby wants a feed, but I have more research to do for the other half's website and the wedding and vegetarian weaning. A woman's work really is never done, bah!
TTFN x

Am I Just a Bit Rubbish?

This is my first post in ages as I no longer seem to have any time for myself. My baby now flat out refuses to nap. Today, it took an hour and a half of trying to get her to sleep, then she only had 20 minutes. AAAARRRRGH!!! And in that 20 minutes, I have to run round like my bum's on fire trying to do as much as possible before she wakes up.  I have long since given up on the idea of catching a cat nip whilst my baby's napping. If I did, I wouldn't get anything done at all. My baby will only nap on her terms, not when mummy decides that she's been awake for too long and takes the fussing and eye-rubbing as a sign that she's getting tired.
Since I had Isabella, people have been telling me to put her down awake and leave her to go to sleep. It doesn't work at ALL on my baby!
The biggest challenge is getting her to go to sleep and stay asleep. She keeps waking up just for a cuddle. Admittedly, it's quite cute, but when you've been on the go since 9am with no time to just sit down with a coffee, it's bloody exhausting and a wee bit annoying. I am now going to shove a Winnie the Pooh toy that I got for her whilst I was pregnant down my bra, so that tomorrow it smells a bit like me and I can put it in her bed in an effort to stop her from waking up for a cuddle.
Everybody else I know seems to be able to get their baby to sleep no problem, but I've been trying for 3 months to get my baby into a routine. Unfortunately, sometimes she does fall asleep feeding, so I have to either wait 10 minutes until she's completely asleep to put her to bed, or risk waking her up.
I know precisely what people are going to say; "Why don't you wake up baby and put her in her cot to fall asleep by herself?" because she won't bloody fall asleep!!! If and when I can get her to fall asleep in her cot by herself, it takes at least 20 minutes of whinging plus me repeatedly having to go to her and put her dummy back in. Plus, if she is semi-asleep, she finds her cot the most interesting place in the world, starts treating the bars like a jungle gym and is more awake than ever. I don't know whether I'm just really bad at this and need to engage in some behaviour correcting techniques (for both of us), or my baby is just stubborn and wants to do everything on her terms. That would be a bit bloody minded considering she fights sleep even when she's quite clearly over-tired.
I know that I need to start encouraging her to get herself to sleep, but it's just so tough! And it feels like I'm abandoning her. I read a couple of months ago that leaving babies only works because they get so lonely and scared, that they fall asleep to make themselves feel safe. That just really upsets me! I feel that I put her in this big, scary world, so it's my duty to make her feel safe and happy at all times. Then, there's the whole controlled crying method, which I am determined not to do. It can cause "Shut down syndrome". Basically, because crying is babies' way of communicating, if they don't get a response, after time, they stop trying to communicate and it can emotionally and physically effect their development. Would you go through that and having to leave your baby to cry just for the hope of a couple of extra hours kip a night?!
I need to go to sleep as I'm absolutely cream-crackered and Isabella's probably going to wake up for a feed in an hour or two, but I think I've crossed the over-tired threshold, plus it's a bit weird lying in bed with a stuffed bear in my bra. If my next entry is just a load of random letters and words forming absolutely no rhyme or reason, you can safely presume that I have in fact succumbed to sleep-deprivation insanity.
TTFN x

I'm soooo going on some form of rampage when I finish breastfeeding!

As much as I like being a breast feeding mummy, there are times when it really feels like being pregnant again in that it makes you really, really ravenously hungry and there is a big ol' list of do's and dont's! Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't stop breast feeding early just to satisfy a few whims, but I thought that once I finished being pregnant, I wouldn't have to check everything I eat/drink/take!
I love writing lists (because it makes me feel like I have some form of organisation in my life), so here is a list of stuff that I've found out I can't do whilst breast feeding.

1. Have laser lipo (the fat cells being blasted releases toxins into your system. I really want it and there's always offers on Groupon, life is so cruel!)
2. Take aspirin, ibuprofen or codeine. 
3. Bleach my teeth.
4. Have more than 200 mgs of caffeine a day, lest I get a twitchy baby.
5. Smoke.
6. Get drunk.
7. Eat a lot of oily fish (I'm vegetarian, so this one doesn't really affect me, but it's one of the things you'd think wouldn't apply after pregnancy)
8. Eat less than 1500 calories a day.
9. Take any form of laxative or diet pill.
10. Do any form of cleanse/detox/juice fast (again, toxins being released and getting into breast milk)

I swear, as soon as I've finished breast feeding, I'm gonna do everything I'm not allowed to do (except eating fish, bluergh) and end up very skinny, drunk, shiney-toothed and probably a bit ill!
TTFN x

It's a Bittersweet Symphony that is being a Mummy

For those of you who aren't children of the 90s, the title is a play on a line from 'Bittersweet Symphony' by The Verve (Remember them?Does anyone know what happened to them?They were great, albeit slightly depressing)
When I found out that I was pregnant, I knew it meant that I would have a little person who was completely dependent on me. What I didn't register was that my helpless little mini-me would gradually need me less and less.
Isabella is now in her third week of solids and wrestles the spoon off me to try to feed herself. Plus now she's getting the knack of tummy shuffling, is determined to get crawling and is getting stronger by the day. I'm eventually going to be resigned to just the food supplier and bum changer.
I took this photo of her yesterday in her "big girl chair"

She looks like she's grown up so much in the past 4 months and a bit, compare to when she was first born and was brand new

As exciting as it is when she learns how to do something new or changes some more, a part of me feels slightly sad that she's slowly but surely ceasing to be my little baby. Of course, at the moment, she still needs me lots, but she's changed from my little bundle of joy who spent most of the day asleep and didn't do much, to this little person who refuses to nap because she's so interested in everything and who wants to sit and move and eat by herself. 

That said, she's been a proper handful today, mainly because she hates napping so much and I had to take her for a long walk to get her to have a decent length nap.

She still sometimes cries just because she needs a hug and sometimes I'm the only person who can calm her down, that makes me melt a little bit inside.

I give it 2 months until she's crawling like a pro and completely refusing to be fed by me!

TTFN x

Ready or not?....

I'm in a bit of a thinking mode this evening. My gorgeous Latina girlfriend Laura came over today, we popped down to the local pub for a cheeky wine and one of the things that came out of my mouth was, as much as I love my daughter to bits and wouldn't change anything, sometimes I do feel as though I wasn't quite ready for a baby and should have waited another year or two.
The age that a woman becomes a mother is a subject of great debate; is it better to be a young mum, so you have more energy and your body pings back into shape like an elastic band, or is it better to be an older mum, once you've bought a home and forged a career.
Last year, the average age of first-time mothers was 29, which sounded quite old to me, personally, when I read the statistic, but nowadays girls are still likely to be partying and traveling well into their late 20's, whereas just a couple of decades ago most women would be married with a couple of toddlers by that age. At the Mother and Baby club that I sometimes go to, I'm the youngest mum by quite a few years and, for my area, I'm considered a young mum. Then, if you look at the rest of the country, "young mums" are actually in their teens or very early twenties.
I've read numerous articles in newspapers, magazines and online about the various pros and cons of having babies in your 20s, 30s or 40s, but then a thought occurred to me- is anybody ever 100%, truly and undoubtably ready to become a mother?
One of the arguments against being a very young mother is the financial issue. It's becoming harder and harder for 20-30 year olds to get on the property ladder and start owning instead of renting and the cost of living is increasing, so some people argue that it's best to wait until you've got a mortgage and are a bit more established in your chosen career path. But then again, with the increase in the cost of living, the price of various baby paraphernalia increases. Plus, there's always something new that becomes a "must have" and babies seem to need a remarkable amount if things for such little people. I found that I was ordering things that I had forgotten to sort out right up to my due date and even then, I felt unprepared.
Then there's the physical issue. Younger mums may have the advantage over older mums in the stamina and energy category, but nothing can quite prepare you for pregnancy and childbirth's strain on your body and the sheer exhaustion of sleepless nights and non-stop feeds and changes. There were times in Isabella's first week that I was so tired, I swear I had an out-of-body experience!
We also have the emotional side of having a baby. Some might argue that older mums are more emotionally mature, but surely that can't prepare you for the raging pregnancy hormones then the larger-than-life feelings of love and devotion for your child. I find it quite scary how my little girl, who was nothing but a bundle of cells just over a year ago, has become my whole world and means more to me than life itself. Nothing could prepare me for how much I'd fall in love with my baby. They don't warn you of that in your midwife appointments!
Then there's the practicality of having a baby. I found out very soon after giving birth that, no matter how much you read and research, no matter what classes you go to and no matter what you think you've learnt from friends and family, babies just don't behave by the book. There's always curve balls being thrown at you to keep on you on your toes. I'm sure that many second and third time mums find that past experience helps, but there's always new things to learn and discover in motherhood.
In conclusion, no matter how old you are and planned or not, feeling ready for a baby and actually feeling ready for a baby are two very different things. But hey, that's all part of the ride that is life!
TTFN xxx