Little H is Turning One!

Tomorrow Little H turns one and he'll no longer be my little baby!

I still can't get my head around where the time has gone, it feels like only a few weeks have passed since bringing him home but alas a whole 12 months have gone in the blink of an eye! And what a 12 months they've been...

Just a few weeks old...

We've had sleepless nights, at least 10,000 nappy changes, the first smile, laugh, crawl, step and walk and it has been incredible, even if at the time I was pulling my hair out!

So happy birthday for tomorrow Little H, we are so proud of the little boy you are turning into - you make us laugh every day with your adventures and explorations and I can't wait to see what this year brings! Fingers crossed it includes some full nights sleep for Mummy!

...to this!

I'm now off to make a birthday cake for my amazing son!

To Wean Or Not To Wean: Our Breastfeeding Journey

From the point that I found out that I was pregnant with Little H I was determined to breastfeed, I grabbed the leaflets from the midwives at check ups, I was well versed on the benefits and I had studied all of the latching positions, planning for every eventuality.

Then Little H arrived and I was turned upside down.

His birth, a moment that I had dreamed about, was drawn out, traumatic and ended in me haemorrhaging. Because of this we missed out on the immediate skin to skin contact that I had just taken as a given, and for the first night he slept in the nursery and was fed formula while I recovered.

The next morning he was brought to me and our breastfeeding journey began. It was so much harder than I had ever thought it would be and what was meant to be the most natural thing in the world did not come naturally to me. Being on the special care ward meant that I had more one to one care (every cloud and all that...) so I was helped with most feeds, my positioning corrected and when I left hospital I felt confident.

The journey begins...

Arriving home my short lived confidence disappeared, Little H would not settle and I couldn't seem to feed him properly. My breastfeeding battle coupled with coming to terms with his birth soon came to a head when we were told to return to hospital and take Little H to the paediatric ward because he had lost more than 10% of his birth weight. After everything that had happened I felt like a failure.

Then something amazing happened, on my final try before I gave in and started topping up with formula (something I have since learnt can be detrimental to breastfeeding, so beware) everything fell into place. Little H latched on, stayed latched on and fell into his first settled sleep since bringing him home. We were finally on our way.

After our very rocky start me and Little H settled into breastfeeding, he started to gain weight quickly and consistently and every weigh in was a pat on the back for both of us. I only expressed if we were going somewhere as I wasn't confident feeding in public. However due to a longer than planned shopping trip I had to feed Little H in an M&S cafe, trying to get him latched on while an elderly couple cooed over him. At the time I (wrongly) felt horribly uncomfortable, hiding Little H under my, thankfully, oversized cardigan. The experience gave me the courage to feed him in public and I have done ever since, only expressing if I have left him for any length of time. If Little H is hungry I will now feed him regardless of where we are and I'm unapologetic for it.

My little milk monster

We have had our moments though, before Little H got his first tooth there was some biting that very nearly had me reaching for the formula but yet again we persevered and as soon as the tooth broke through the biting stopped and never returned.

We're now at a point where I'm thinking of bringing our journey to an end. I'm struggling with the decision as I love breastfeeding , I love the closeness, I love how far we've come and the experience has been incredible, helping me regain confidence in myself and showing me that if I set my mind to something I can achieve it.

I know that a lot of mothers continue breastfeeding well after the first year and I don't have to stop but I think that for me it is time, although my level of certainty in that statement does change depending on my mood. I want my freedom back, well as much freedom as you can have with a, very soon to be, one year old, I want to give Little H some independence away from me and it would be nice to be able to wear dresses again.

However, every time I think about weaning a million and one reasons why I shouldn't come flooding to mind. The current reason/excuse is that Little H is under the weather and all that he want and all that will comfort him is for me to nurse him. How can I deny him the one thing that is guaranteed to make him feel better?

So, I would be very grateful for any advice on how to wean both myself and Little H off breastfeeding because it is definitely going to be emotional!

The First Weigh In

My weight loss this week is... Drum roll please... 2 pounds!

I'm really happy with that as I have been upping my exercise but haven't been starving myself, or even come close to be honest! I'm sure as I get further along I might have to tweak my diet if I want to continue losing weight but for now I'm just concentrating on the exercise.

I've stuck to my outlined plan and managed to fit in 4 walks and 4 lots of cardio as well. There have been a few occasions where I've had to split the cardio and do 10 minutes here and there rather than all at once due to a certain grumpy teething baby!  I have really enjoyed my walks as Little H will nod off and it gives me a chance to organise my thoughts and make plans.

This week I read that if you do an action 18 times it will become a habit so I'm hoping that I'll get to the point where I don't have to force myself off the sofa and instead just do the exercise without really having to think about it.

I should point out that this picture is not of me, I would LOVE to be this weight!

The weather this week may hamper my walks so I'll be upping my cardio and adding some weight bearing exercises instead, here's hoping I can lose the same again!

Teething

There is little else that will guarantee the groans of sympathy you get when you mention teething. It is an inevitable milestone but one that goes on and on like no other. My personal theory on wisdom teeth is that we get them later in life so the memories of pain are fresh allowing us empathy in those small hours when we've been woken up for the fifth/sixth/seventh time.

Little H is teething at the moment, number 7, 8, 9 and 10 are all coming through at the same time and suffice to say it's taking it's toll on all of us. He is not a great sleeper at the best of times but add teething to the mix and night time has now turned into a combination of feeding, crying, napping and sometimes all three at the same time.

This morning I had to force myself to go on a walk especially when the sofa looked so much more inviting. Little H had a nice long nap but the second we walked through the door he began howling, timing seems to be a special skill of his! He's also had a few naps on the sofa and even the dog seems to be feeling his pain!

Little H doesn't like the teething toys you can buy so the best tips I've been given (so far) are -

Freezing the yogurts you buy in tubes
Keep apple/cucumber/melon slices in the fridge
Use calpol and ibuprofen in tandem with each other (I only do this if it's really necessary)

Above all though I think cuddles and TLC are the best medicine, Little H is more clingy than usual but hey, I just enjoy the extra cuddles!

The very first post...

I have been wanting to write my own blog for a while now, ever since I discovered how much I enjoyed it at my previous job, but I could never find the time/use laptop around the baby/enter generic excuse here. However today two things collided, first of all I decided what my first post would be about and secondly I found I could blog on my iPad (how I didn't know this before is beyond me!)

So what was my aforementioned idea of a first blog... Weight loss! Ta dah! Now bear with me because a) I know there are hundreds of weight loss blogs out there and b) this is not what I want to focus my blog on but I have embarked on Operation Lose A Stone Before My Birthday (OP-LASBMB if you will) and I need an extra motivator so talking about it on here will, fingers crossed, give me that extra push that I need!

I have been using Pinterest to get a fitness board together - unfortunately having the board is only the beginning, you also need to do the exercises as well and two days in I am tired and achy but still riding the novelty wave. I should point out that my birthday is in March so it's not an unacheivable goal and I definitely have the weight to lose. I'm going to try to eat a bit better but to be honest I love food so it's exercise that will get me to my goal weight, not starving myself!

The reason I've started my mission is because Little H is nearly one and I finally feel ready to take on regular exercise. Up until now I've depended on breastfeeding and carrying Little H about but it's time to accept that this isn't enough. I also want to get back into shape as Little H is getting faster and I want/need to be able to keep up with him - I also want to look good in a bikini but that's going to be a long shot! 

A quick rundown of my exercise plan is - 

20 mins cardio 4 times a week
2 mile walk 4 times a week

It's not anything spectacular and I'm sure I'll have to step it up at some stage but as a starting point I think it's pretty good - if you have any tips let me know! 

Every week I aim to do a quick post on how things are going so far and hopefully I'll reach my goal (and not bore you in the process!)