Father's Day

Happy Father’s day to all the Daddies out there. 

This was Chris’ first father’s day as a father himself, which I find very unfair as I just missed mother’s day and Chris has a birthday next month too. Not that I am bitter or anything, ha!

Chris woke up to Jackson and a few lovely gifts. We brought Daddy a Ralph Lauren polo shirt and a matching one for Jackson, this made for some very cute photos!!!!! He also got some chocolate and a daddy pint glass. My favourite present was a clay foot print that was homemade which was uber cute!

We had a yummy breakfast and had a walk into Marlow with the doggies. Later we went to a local pub for a roast. Overall it was a lovely and relaxing day.

One of my favourite things is watching Chris with Jackson, he is such a natural and the love they share is obvious. He works so hard to provide for our family and even after a long day at work he comes back home and gets straight involved with the care of Jackson. He’s not afraid to clean a dirty nappy, he baths Jackson most nights and gives him his evening feed. We hope, Chris, you enjoyed your day and that we showed you how much we both love you lots and how proud we are of you!!!

Hope you all had a lovely day and spoilt all your Daddies!!! And to all the Mummies who go at it by themselves, you do a fantastic job and this maybe fathers day but you should also treat this as an additional Mothers day.

Love Sophia xxx

To dummy or not to dummy

There is a lot of discussion on dummies and whenever I talk to another mummy  they say ‘I didn’t want to use it but.....’.

As for me, I had no real view on dummies, so bought a pack when I was near the end of my pregnancy just in case.

 It must have been day 9. Jackson had another night of constant eating and still appeared to be hungry after a mammoth feed. All I wanted was to have a shower, so I asked daddy to go and sterilise a dummy. About 15 minutes later he arrived back with this small glimmer of hope. I placed it in to his mouth and he instantly started sucking and fell asleep! Off mummy went with a smile from cheek to cheek for her shower. That morning, I managed a quick 10 minute shower, got dressed and even put on a bit of make-up (it was easter Sunday after all and we had a family lunch to go to).

Day 10, when the health visitor came around, I sheepishly told her we were using dummies and she went on to tell me that they actually reduce the risk of cot death by keeping the airways open. Result!!

I have continued to use dummies for a way to help Jackson rest and help him drift off to sleep. Sometimes he just spits it out and sometimes falls asleep without one. However it is an essential item in my changing bag and on my coffee table.

For anyone that judges mummies for using a dummy have either not been a mum themselves or just can’t remember what it is like being a mummy to a newborn. I don’t believe anyone should or shouldn’t use a dummy but if it helps you, then why not!!!

Love Sophia xx

Pregnancy

After finding out that one of my good friends was pregnant (no names mentioned, wink) it made me think about my pregnancy.

The day that we found out I was pregnant was one of our most memorable days. We both felt excited, nervous and there was also an element of surprise, even though we had been trying.

Its hard to get your head around the situation, as for the first 12 weeks all you have is a small stick showing a positive sign (well in my case 5 small sticks!).

Personally I found the first 14 weeks the hardest, all I wanted to do was sleep. On one occasion I slept most of the day and then went on to have another 12 hours sleep during the night.

I was very lucky and was never sick but I did feel sea sick every evening, starting around 6pm, so my evenings were made up of racing home from work, bath and then bed. And all this from a baby the size of grape, crazy!!!!

The 2^nd trimester seemed the longest but you start to show and feel those magical movements, which never got boring or less exciting!!

By the 3^rd trimester the tiredness returns and the constant weeing starts, 3 or 4 times a night.

I never understood the pregnancy glow, that was until I started my maternity leave. I had time to go swimming, go on long walks with the dogs and take long baths (also managed to fit in a few beauty treatments!) I had so much more energy and can truly say that I really enjoyed the last 4 weeks.

I now can completely understand when mothers say that its all worth it in the end, it really is. It’s only 9 months then you get the best present in the whole world!

However, I am pleased that I am not an elephant who are pregnant for around 95 weeks!!!!

Love Sophia xxx

First night home

After a few days in hospital we arrived home on Sunday at 12:30am, we placed the car seat on the floor and looked at Jackson. We had excitement, terror and love running through our veins.

Due to the fact that it was 12:30am we went straight to bed both tired and drained from the birth and the few days in hospital. All we needed was a good night sleep.

WELL as anyone that has had a newborn knows that we simply had zero sleep. Jackson was awake as soon as we put him in his Moses Basket, wanting to eat constantly. I had expressed what I thought was enough for the next 2 feeds, however this was gone in the first 40 mins.

The night was made up of thinking of ways that I could breastfeed lying down so could could still sleep a little and so Daddy could keep an eye on Jackson. We soon found out that this is impossible, if you are a breastfeeding mummy you need to be sat up and awake all the time as well.

Jackson finally fell asleep at 7:30am, just when we needed to get up and get ready to take him to the hospital for a blood test. 

One thing I have learnt since becoming a mummy is daddies can sleep ANYWHERE . We sat down in the waiting room for about 30 seconds before daddy started snoring!!!

People always say to sleep when the baby sleeps, however when Jackson finally slept we both spent the whole time watching him sleep beaming with pride at what we had made. Of course we are bias and say that he is the most beautiful baby!!!

Love Sophia xxx