It has been a while since my last post so when I found myself with a (rare) childfree house My first priority was to update my blog.
Dexter is now 3 months old and I still cannot believe how quickly it has flown by (I know everyone says that but it's true).
Mothering a baby the second time around has been so easy. The first time I remember feeling quite lost and questioning everything I was doing, convinced it was all wrong. This time, however, my experience has given me the confidence that I so envied in other mums/ friends with children. Dexter has helped in his own way as he is such an easy baby. I know there may be some mums reading this thinking "thanks for rubbing it in" but believe me my first child was an easy baby but I paid for it in spades when she hit the terrible two's (which is a phase she is still in at almost 5). He started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks and this is just getting better each week. We currently put him to bed at 10pm and he sleeps through until 5am, goes back to sleep, has a quick feed at 9am and then sleeps all the way through to mid day. He then stays away most of the afternoon and just laughs and smiles. He only cries when he is hungry but even then I am yet to see real tears and hear a proper cry.
Actually I heard him cry hard last week as we startled him with our loud yelling at each of the three goals England scored against Sweden in the Euros.
I put most of his great behaviour down to our laid back approach (apparently they pick up on the vibes you send out) and his size. He is huge!!! At eight weeks old I took him to get weighed and the health visitor looked at him and asked if he was 21 weeks old! This is a running theme and at 3 months old he is the same size as a six month old (We have actually compared). I have been told that he is going to be very tall and is following the outer percentile on the growth chart. At 5ft 2in and his father not much taller most people would wonder how on earth that happened but my brother is a good 6.5ft so there must be genes in the family somewhere.
Anyway, I was told that bigger babies are much more contented babies and I would definitely agree with this theory. So if you are pregnant and have been told that your baby is on the bigger side look at it as a positive thing.
I think the great sleeping pattern has occurred due to the fact that we put him in a cot and his own room at 2 months which I could not recommend more. That said I can understand how some parents are nervous to let a baby sleep out of their sight but believe me you both sleep so much better.
Maternity leave has felt pressurised. Stay with me on this. If I waste a day doing nothing but watching TV it puts me on a downer and I constantly have a sinking feeling that I have wasted a day. So I am constantly looking for things to do. At first this was fine as my house really could use an all over deep clean so I would take a room a day and get on with it. The only problem is that now I seem to have become a clean freak and get annoyed if people come in and make it a mess which is not good with a 5 year old. I am continuously cleaning which I then started to feel was wasting the day too so I started making plans for at least two outings a week. This was fine at first but now I am on maternity pay I can't afford to do the things I was doing and I am not a fan of walking for no reason so I struggle to find things to do. I probably spend more time trying to think up things to do than actually doing them.
I need a hobby...
I did take both kids swimming a few weeks ago which was great fun and Dexter absolutely loves the water so had a whale of a time and he even fell asleep in the pool. People kept telling me I was brave for bringing a baby so young swimming which made me wonder if I should not have taken him... I get paranoid sometimes.
As the school holiday approaches I am sure I will fill my days easily as my mum will be off work and hopefully some of my other mum friends will be taking time off so I will have plenty of people to see.
My health and fitness has now become a huge priority for me. I started back at bootcamp a couple of weeks ago which I absolutely love and to make it better, a year on, the people attending are the same as before. I currently do this once a week for now and plan to up it to three times a week when I go back to work and can afford it.
Due to the diabetes I had in pregnancy I lost a lot of weight at the end of my pregnancy. The picture below was taken two weeks after the birth and it is an unusually good picture of me. However, since then I started snacking and putting the weight back on again.
Over the last week I downloaded an app on my phone which takes into account your current weight, height, age etc and based on how much you want to weigh calculates your daily calorie allowance. You then enter all the food, drink and snacks you consume through the day which links to the nutritional contents of each and at the end of the day you get an analysis on your consumption that day (reduce trans fats to ... etc). Its great and takes into account any exercise you do and keeps track of the water you consume.
I don't think of it as counting calories as I don't agree with 'dieting' on the whole. It is simply helping me to understand the nutritional value of the things I am eating, keeping a check on my portion sizes and generally makes me think twice when I fancy a snack. It only works if you are honest but it is helping me rethink my diet.
My overall goal is to look and feel fantastic when I return to work in September but it will also form part of my permanent lifestyle change. One day I would like to think I will be in good enough shape to even complete a marathon. Its good to have goals and this one is quite long term but very achievable.
Hopefully my next post wont take as long to complete. I am taking Dexter on his first holiday next month so will be posting how that went.
See ya
xxxx
Dexter is now 3 months old and I still cannot believe how quickly it has flown by (I know everyone says that but it's true).
Mothering a baby the second time around has been so easy. The first time I remember feeling quite lost and questioning everything I was doing, convinced it was all wrong. This time, however, my experience has given me the confidence that I so envied in other mums/ friends with children. Dexter has helped in his own way as he is such an easy baby. I know there may be some mums reading this thinking "thanks for rubbing it in" but believe me my first child was an easy baby but I paid for it in spades when she hit the terrible two's (which is a phase she is still in at almost 5). He started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks and this is just getting better each week. We currently put him to bed at 10pm and he sleeps through until 5am, goes back to sleep, has a quick feed at 9am and then sleeps all the way through to mid day. He then stays away most of the afternoon and just laughs and smiles. He only cries when he is hungry but even then I am yet to see real tears and hear a proper cry.
Actually I heard him cry hard last week as we startled him with our loud yelling at each of the three goals England scored against Sweden in the Euros.
I put most of his great behaviour down to our laid back approach (apparently they pick up on the vibes you send out) and his size. He is huge!!! At eight weeks old I took him to get weighed and the health visitor looked at him and asked if he was 21 weeks old! This is a running theme and at 3 months old he is the same size as a six month old (We have actually compared). I have been told that he is going to be very tall and is following the outer percentile on the growth chart. At 5ft 2in and his father not much taller most people would wonder how on earth that happened but my brother is a good 6.5ft so there must be genes in the family somewhere.
Anyway, I was told that bigger babies are much more contented babies and I would definitely agree with this theory. So if you are pregnant and have been told that your baby is on the bigger side look at it as a positive thing.
I think the great sleeping pattern has occurred due to the fact that we put him in a cot and his own room at 2 months which I could not recommend more. That said I can understand how some parents are nervous to let a baby sleep out of their sight but believe me you both sleep so much better.
Maternity leave has felt pressurised. Stay with me on this. If I waste a day doing nothing but watching TV it puts me on a downer and I constantly have a sinking feeling that I have wasted a day. So I am constantly looking for things to do. At first this was fine as my house really could use an all over deep clean so I would take a room a day and get on with it. The only problem is that now I seem to have become a clean freak and get annoyed if people come in and make it a mess which is not good with a 5 year old. I am continuously cleaning which I then started to feel was wasting the day too so I started making plans for at least two outings a week. This was fine at first but now I am on maternity pay I can't afford to do the things I was doing and I am not a fan of walking for no reason so I struggle to find things to do. I probably spend more time trying to think up things to do than actually doing them.
I need a hobby...
I did take both kids swimming a few weeks ago which was great fun and Dexter absolutely loves the water so had a whale of a time and he even fell asleep in the pool. People kept telling me I was brave for bringing a baby so young swimming which made me wonder if I should not have taken him... I get paranoid sometimes.
As the school holiday approaches I am sure I will fill my days easily as my mum will be off work and hopefully some of my other mum friends will be taking time off so I will have plenty of people to see.
My health and fitness has now become a huge priority for me. I started back at bootcamp a couple of weeks ago which I absolutely love and to make it better, a year on, the people attending are the same as before. I currently do this once a week for now and plan to up it to three times a week when I go back to work and can afford it.
Due to the diabetes I had in pregnancy I lost a lot of weight at the end of my pregnancy. The picture below was taken two weeks after the birth and it is an unusually good picture of me. However, since then I started snacking and putting the weight back on again.
Over the last week I downloaded an app on my phone which takes into account your current weight, height, age etc and based on how much you want to weigh calculates your daily calorie allowance. You then enter all the food, drink and snacks you consume through the day which links to the nutritional contents of each and at the end of the day you get an analysis on your consumption that day (reduce trans fats to ... etc). Its great and takes into account any exercise you do and keeps track of the water you consume.
I don't think of it as counting calories as I don't agree with 'dieting' on the whole. It is simply helping me to understand the nutritional value of the things I am eating, keeping a check on my portion sizes and generally makes me think twice when I fancy a snack. It only works if you are honest but it is helping me rethink my diet.
My overall goal is to look and feel fantastic when I return to work in September but it will also form part of my permanent lifestyle change. One day I would like to think I will be in good enough shape to even complete a marathon. Its good to have goals and this one is quite long term but very achievable.
Hopefully my next post wont take as long to complete. I am taking Dexter on his first holiday next month so will be posting how that went.
See ya
xxxx
I use MyNetDiary too. It's not about "dieting", but simple maths - if you burn more calories than you consume, then you will lose weight. How are you going to do that unless you know the numbers? It sounds to me as though you're doing great and have a really healthy balanced attitude to all of this.
ReplyDeletePS - you could totally complete a marathon. I'm somewhat errrrrm plump and I've done three. You could do it no problem - the main thing is finding the time to fit in the training!
xx