1 Year update!!!

I can’t believe I am already writing this blog!!! Where has this year gone? Everyone always says it goes quickly but you don't really appreciate how quickly until it has happened!

This month we have had a 1^st Birthday trip to Odds Farm, our last Baby Sensory class, a trip to Budapest and, of course, Jackson’s first ever birthday!

We are now going to have to look for new classes for Jackson and me to go to, due to Baby Sensory finishing. He really enjoyed it so I definitely want him to do something else to be able to explore and learn new things.

Our trip to Budapest was amazing. It’s so different doing a city break with a baby but still loads of fun. Jackson was so good during the trip and, although he did have he’s moments, I think they were mainly to do with the fact he was not napping as much and not having enough crawling time.

For Jackson’s birthday, we just had a few family members over for a little party at our house. He loved it and got so many presents!

Milestones

Jackson had tooth number 11 come through this month, so he’s been extra dribbly and his fingers have been constantly in his mouth. Overall though, he hasn’t been too bad with it. No sign of tooth number 12 yet, which is surprising as the others have come in pairs in a matter of a few days of each other.

He really wants to climb on everything at the moment, especially the stairs! We normally have the door to our hallway closed and a stair gate up and shut but any chance he has, he is up the stairs like a shot!

He is also really enjoying playing on his own and his favourite toys are his walker, which he doesn’t really use in a conventional way (it’s either turned into a scooter or flipped upside down to play with the wheels!) and his red fire truck which he loves wheeling around and around, occasionally banging it against the TV unit!

Routine

We have finally dropped the day-time bottle and swapped it for a snack which has been a good transition. His day to day routine is as follows:

7:00/7:30am - wake up and bottle

8:00am – breakfast

9:30am – nap for about 1 hour

12:00pm – lunch

1:30-2:00pm – nap for about 20-30mins

3:00pm – snack

5:00pm – dinner

5:45pm - bath and bottle

7:00pm - down for bed

He has 6oz of milk in the morning and 7oz before bed.

Clothes and Weight

He is wearing a real mixture of 12-18 months clothes and 18-24 month clothes now.

I got Jackson weighed a couple of weeks ago and he was 25 lbs 2 oz. He is still on the same percentile but just starting to level out.

Love Sophia xxx

Budapest

We had an amazing time in Budapest. We left Thursday morning and returned on Sunday afternoon. Jackson was so good on the flights and during the day. Doing a city break with a baby is completely different. There were times that I would just have to get Jackson out of the buggy for a crawl around.

I vlogged some of the trip and hope you enjoy it.

https://youtu.be/FUt4EOqz8k8

Love Sophia xxx

Update

The last month has been a whirlwind of mixed emotions. After a lot of discussion and thought, I have made the decision not to return to my old job and have handed in my notice! It all just felt too soon to be leaving Jackson. I enjoyed my job while I was there and it might be something that I will return to in a few years but right now, I want to focus all of my time on my family. I am, however, going to do a bit of child-minding to help bring in a bit of extra money and have recently started the long process of getting Ofsted registered! Some of you may know but in a previous life I was a Nanny and really enjoyed it, so it’s not going to be something completely out of the ordinary for me.

We also started planning for the little man's birthday! I can’t believe that in a couple of weeks he will be one whole year old!!! When I had previously looked after babies, they seemed tiny for so long but when they are your own and you have a tiny newborn, you realise that they are only newborns for such a short period of time. Already I can see Jackson understanding more and more of what I say and each day he shows me more of his personality.

We are not going to do anything too big for his first birthday - just some close family and friends will be coming over to our house for a little party and of course there will be cake which we will let Jackson have some of (something I am sure that we will regret once the sugar kicks in!).

Another exciting event happening this week is our trip to Budapest for a long weekend. Chris amazingly won this through work and due to this, a lot has been organised already for us which is brilliant, especially when you have a baby. I am hoping to do some vlogging when I am there to capture some of the trip. I have to admit that I am a little nervous about the flight this time, as last time he was so little and he loved just having cuddles. This time, he’s a lot older and enjoys crawling around and exploring way more than having cuddles! I think that if he was walking I would feel a lot more at ease as he would be able to walk around the plane but the idea of him crawling on the floor doesn’t seem like something I’d want him to do! The flight isn’t too long though, only 2 and ½ hours, so I will just bring a huge amount of snacks.

I am really enjoying blogging and vlogging at the moment. I love that my family who are not local can see what we get up to and, of course, what an amazing diary it creates to show Jackson when he is older or for me to watch and read back when I am in my retirement home! I am aiming to blog and vlog once a week but I am just going to go with the flow and if I feel like doing more, I will, and if I fancy some time off, I will have a break.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and watch my blogs and vlogs.

Much love

Sophia xxx

DITL

Happy Sunday everyone!

Today I have made a 'day in the life' video, which includes a few hours of my day baby free! Unfortunately I had camera issues so it was mainly filmed on my iPhone, apologies for the poor quality in parts! 

https://youtu.be/6CUYnhnmED0

Love Sophia xxx

Happy Mother's Day

This year I had my first Mother’s Day as a mother myself. Last year, Jackson was born 11 days after it, so I just missed out! I also just figured out that next year it will fall on Jackson’s 2^nd birthday - not sure how I feel about sharing the day with him! Ha!

I had such a lovely Mothers day. I was woken up to a cup of coffee and some lovely presents! Jackson and Daddy made me a lovely personalised poem, which Jackson helped to decorate with little hearts. This was definitely my favourite present as it was too cute. It's funny but a few years ago I would have thought that this was a bit cheesy and would never of thought that I would want to proudly put this up in my house but now my house is made up of all sorts of homemade cheesy things!

Later in the morning, a delivery man knocked on the door and gave me a beautiful bunch of flowers from the same florist that we bought our wedding flowers from, which was such a thoughtful touch (I don't know how Jackson managed to arrange that!).

My mum actually treated the three of us (Chris, Jackson and I) to brunch at 'Bill's', which was very kind of her as really it should have been the other way around, but after having two children herself, I think it was more of a 'well done' for making it through almost the first year! The restaurant wasn’t as busy as I thought it would be and Jackson spent the whole time smiling and waving at everyone that was near to him or that walked passed him.

The afternoon was really made up of looking after Jackson, who sadly had a high temperature due to tonsillitis (we had discovered this after a trip to A&E the night before). I have had it lots of times before and he has been a little trooper by not letting it bother him too much. By late afternoon, he seemed to be a bit better so we decided to still meet with our family for an early dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant. However, it probably wasn’t the best parenting choice that we have ever made as we did have a few tears from Jackson while we were there. He spent the whole time sat on my lap having lots of cuddles.

Thankfully he’s on antibiotics now and is back to his normal cheeky-self!

I am loving being a mummy so much and I still sometimes look at him and can’t believe that I grew him in my belly, CRAZY!!!!! I wonder if my mum still looks at me and thinks that?

Overall, even with Jackson not feeling 100%, it was a lovely day! I hope all the rest of you mummies had a great day too!

In case any of you missed it, I made a little mothers day video too…..

https://youtu.be/9oFv9K-PYmE

Love Sophia xxx

The Dummy Fairy

Jackson had his dummy right from day 10 of his life. In the beginning, he would have it whenever he wanted. Then, as he got older, it turned into something we would only give him at nap times and night-time. I was in no rush to get rid of it and liked having it as an emergency comforter during the day. I always thought that we would use the 'Dummy Fairy' story, letting him post them off so he would understand the whole process of stopping using them.

However, due to the fact that Jackson is probably the dribbliest baby you will ever meet (to the point that means we change his dribble bib up to 4 times a day!!!), the dummy started to cause a rash around his mouth, which lead to eczema. After so much googling and discussions, Chris and I decided it was time for the dummy fairies to come a little early, at 9 months. I read loads of ways of how people had weaned their babies off their dummies, including poking holes in it! We chose just to stop 'cold turkey' and battle through, so we started by finding a few comforts for Jackson to have in his cot instead, which we thought would be good replacements. One was a sheep comforter with teething parts attached.

I was dreading it... we decided to do it on a Saturday, as that would mean Chris was off the next day and we knew we would be in for a long night. For the first nap of the day, I completely forgot and gave him his dummy as usual (great start)!!! For his afternoon one, I did remember and put him down without it. That time was really difficult - I settled him but as soon as I would leave the room, there was some serious crying. Every time I would leave him for a couple of minutes and then go back in and settle him, which went on for about 30 minutes and when he finally slept, it was only for 20 minutes. Not a great nap by Jackson's standards but better than nothing.

That night, Chris put him down to bed. We had set a plan of who was going to go to him between certain hours and who would get to sleep. I would take the first 3 hours and then Chris would take the next 3 and so on.

Well, luckily for us and to our amazement, we didn’t have to use the plan one little bit as he went straight to sleep and slept all the way through the night; we couldn't believe it!!

The next day, naps were a struggle again and we were having to settle him for up to 30 minutes each time. But, after 3 days of running up and down the stairs, he was used to napping without a dummy and went back to his normal sleeping routine. We have had a few rough patches since then but we have not given in and generally he doesn't seem to miss his beloved dummy at all.

His skin massively cleared up to almost no rash in no time, however, unfortunately his eczema has recently returned and seems to have spread over some of his body too but it's nothing a bit of cream from the doctors wont be able to clear up!

I have to admit, I do miss seeing him suck on his dummy when he is sleeping, it makes me realise that it's another sign he’s growing up!

Love Sophia xxx