Advice to a new mum

Quite a few friends and colleagues are having babies for the first time, and I've thought often about what advice I would or should give.  Here's where I've got to:

1. Take all advice with a pinch of salt.  Everybody wants to give a new mum advice - I'm writing this blog!  You don't have to follow it.  There are many many "correct" ways to bring up children.  As long as you love them, you can't go far wrong.  What works for some families won't work for others, what works for some children may not work for yours.  Muddle through, make mistakes, find what works for you.
2. Nearly all the baby paraphernalia that they try to convince you to buy is a complete waste of money, and you don't need to fit out "the nursery".  Mostly, baby won't spend any time in its nursery unless it's with you or asleep, so it won't care two hoots about the carefully picked out colour scheme and wallpaper with rabbits on.  Paint a calm neutral colour and wait until it begins to show some interest in stuff as a toddler to start accessorising.  As for the rest, it needs a car seat, a buggy, a cot, bottles if you're bottle feeding, nappies, clothes and that's about it.  Muslin squares are the exception.  You need muslin squares.  Get a pack of ten, you'll use them as a sun shade on the front of the buggy, to mop up baby sick, to lay on the floor if you need to put baby down somewhere clean and many other uses I don't remember.  I just remember they were very useful.  We also bought a very cheap baby bouncer from a car boot which we cleaned up and was great so you could put baby down and they could still see you.  And a friend made a lovely blanket for the floor for when baby had tummy time, and later when they started playing on the floor. 
3. Find other mummies, preferably open and honest ones.  It's great to know you are not alone in going through some of the stuff you go through as a new mum.
4. Try to get out every day.  This doesn't need to be far.  A walk to the shops, a wander around the park with the buggy for example.  It's good for morale to be up and dressed, especially on a day when you've had no sleep and baby won't stop crying.  A change of scenery will do you both good, and if you can combine this with a meet up with a fellow mummy, so you can compare notes and support one another then even better.  This is why they invented "mother and baby" or "toddler" groups.  They can be cliquey, they can be scary and some of them are awful, but if you find a welcoming one with those honest mums who look after one another, then its worth it.
5. On the same count, don't feel you have to fill baby's day with clubs and classes.  Baby doesn't care whether they've been to baby sensory, or baby yoga or baby music lessons.  Baby wants to spend time with mummy.  As mentioned earlier, a walk to the shops or around the park or coffee at a friend's house is plenty.  There are some days when you'll be very tired.  There are some days when baby will be cranky.  There are plenty of days when sitting on the sofa cuddling the baby and watching daytime telly are perfectly acceptable ways to while away the hours.  Also, your baby will begin to fall into a napping routine at some point and you'll want to encourage this, because healthy sleep patterns = happy baby (and mummy).  Once this starts to happen, ditch any regular activities that interfere with baby nap time.
6. All this advice is written with the assumption that its mum at home with the baby.  Of course, all this advice applies equally to dad being the main carer at home, and my next piece of advice is to share the load.  Dad needs time to bond with baby too, and should be involved with all the decisions about how you manage things.
7. Having a baby around the place isn't always easy, and being a new mum at home can be lonely.  Don't feel you are alone.  Everybody will tell you to "relish these years, they go so fast".  They do.  But sometimes it doesn't feel like that at four in the morning when baby just won't go to sleep, or when you realise that you haven't got dressed or had a shower for four days because baby wails every time you put it down... those days seem very very long.  Pick up the phone.  Call a friend.  Have a cry or a moan or a rant.  If they are a good friend they will remember or understand.  Ask them to come over and hold the baby so you can have a shower.  Ask them to hang the washing and mop the kitchen while you and baby have a nap together.  

My children are now seven and eight.  I don't remember the details of my time as a new mum, though looking back at this blog from 2010 and 2011 gives a bit of an insight to what we were getting up to.  I do know that we had some great days, and we had some harder days.  I also know that the time I spent with my babies and toddlers has helped build the relationship we have today.  Having babies isn't always easy, but it's worth every moment as you watch that baby grow into an independent young person.

Handmade felt baby mobile - Monday Make

I thought that each Monday I'd share something I've made recently - Monday Make.
Sometimes I'll have made it for my home, sometimes to sell at Sunbow Designs, sometimes for a gift, and sometimes it'll be something that the children have made.  Sometimes I'll do a tutorial, and other times I'll just post a picture and a brief description.

I'm going to start off with this handmade felt baby mobile.

A friend recently adopted a baby, and to congratulate the new family, the toddler group in the village decided to put together a hamper for them.  I opted to source a mobile for baby's bedroom.

A quick scoot on pinterest for some ideas, a quick trip to Hobbycraft for the materials and a couple of hours sewing over half term and we have a moon and stars mobile.  I helped make some Christmas decorations for the school Christmas fair, and they were sewn with blanket stitch in gold metallic thread, which I thought looked really special, so for this mobile I used silver metallic thread... I think it adds a certain Je ne sais quoi.  It turns out I didn't attach the stars terribly well, the thread un-knotted and slipped through a couple of times, but my friend says that she's sorted it.  I love the effect, but if I was going to do it again I'd probably add another cross at the top so that there were eight strands of stars.  Or I'd hang them from a ring so that I could put as many strands of stars on as I'd like.

Now I have to get my thinking cap on for a suitable "welcome to the world" gift for my next nephew or niece, who is due at the end of March, so could make an appearance at any time now!

Birthday Girl!

The way it works is this... if I don't post for a while, it's either because I'm away somewhere, or more likely because some defect in my personal organisation means that I've been frantically trying to get something done in time which should have been done and finished ages ago.  This time it's the second.  Here's the project:

As you can see it still isn't finished.  It's Sis's 1st birthday today and I still haven't finished making her present.  What a bad mummy I am.  With any luck and some more frantic knitting and sewing it should be done by the party on Sunday.


That's right, you read me correctly, Sis is one already!  Where has the year flown by?  I have absolutely no idea.  But here is a little homage to my little monkey.  I adore her.

February 2011 - newborn

March 2011

April 2011

May 2011

June 2011

July 2011

August 2011

September 2011

October 2011

November 2011

December 2011

January 2012

Birthday girl! February 2012

Baby Signing

Today I've been thinking about Baby Signing.  

For anybody that doesn't know, Baby Signing is an adaptation of Sign Language which you can use to communicate with your baby.  The idea is that you start using a limited range of signs when you say certain words, such as milk, all gone, more etc.  The baby then starts using the signs to communicate with you while they are still unable to talk.  For more information on it, here's Wikipedia and Baby Signing Mummy.

It's something I sort of half-heartedly tried with C when he was about 8-10 months old, but I soon realised that actually he was communicating pretty well without using any of the signs.  By watching him and being close to him, I was already able to anticipate mostly what he was trying to do or what he wanted from the context or from his body language.

I've also got this book, but the little ones don't seem to be interested in it.
Perhaps it's too big?

We're at a similar stage with Sis.  We have the Sing and Sign DVD, and we watch it occasionally, but more because we like the action songs than because I'm trying to teach the signs.  I don't use the signs at all otherwise.  By observing Sis and the context, she has so far not had to deal with any frustration following not being able to signal her needs or desires.  She is already trying out word-like sounds and I am convinced that by talking to her, by telling her what things are, by trying to work out what she needs, I am able to understand her, and her language is developing, without the need for any baby signing.

This may seem a little abstract, but as an example:  She's sitting at the table, munching on her dinner.  She starts waving madly and making noises.  What could she want?  I offer her the cup of water.  She smiles and reaches for it.  Another example:  She's playing on the floor in the sitting room.  I leave the room to start the dinner.  When I come back in she stretches up her arms and verbalises "mumumumum".  Hmmm, now that's a tricky one. "Would you like a cuddle?"  Big beam, more stretching up and now bouncing on her bottom until I pick her up for the desired cuddle.


So... my question... and please feel free to comment with an answer... do we need Baby Signing?


Check out some more Baby Signing debate at Brazenmom.com 

November's theme was... Animals

I blogged way back in February about creating a theme for each month, and the theme for February was Birds, which went quite well.  Since then there hasn't been much theming going on. I've occasionally tried, but it's been a bit half-baked.  Something to do with having a baby in February and time vanishing since then I think.  I think it's about time to rediscover our themes each month.  Little Sis is getting big enough now that she's keen to join in (eat) our activities, and I think its time to go for it with both of them. 


The theme for November 2011 has been Animals.  


We read "Dear Zoo" by Rod Campbell, and looked at Wildlife Identification books and our Wildlife Factfiles.

We investigated animal patterns on giraffes, zebra, tigers, leopards and cheetahs.


We sang Old MacDonald had a farm, 3 Little Monkeys, 5 Little Speckled Frogs etc.

We visited the pet shop and the zoo.




We played with the toy farm and soft toy animals, 


We watched David Attenborough.  


We made animal noises.  We laced animal outlines.  


We compared the sizes of animals.  


I'd like to have done more, but hey ho... there's always next time.  Our theme for December is obviously... Christmas

Cooking and Baking with Little People

Oh dear, where have I been again this week?  I've just had yet another of those chasing my tail without actually getting anything done, children-sticking-to-me-like-velcro type of weeks.


As I love involving my children in cooking with me, I thought I'd share how we do it, for those a little nervous of plunging in with the aprons and wooden spoons.

Setting up
I open out the table in the kitchen and put the high-chairs and a chair for me around it so that we can sit down.
I also have a small step-ladder in the main part of the kitchen so that C can stand up at the kitchen counters and help wash the dishes etc.
I aim to get as much equipment and as many ingredients as possible out before C comes to join in, that way I can concentrate on him and Sis without having to dart into the pantry to find something - or worse still get halfway through a recipe and find I don't have something vital.

What to do with the smallest one.


Mine is just coming up to 9 months, and if yours is anything like mine at this age, she doesn't want to be left out of anything!


I put her in her high-chair, and leave within reach only what I don't mind her eating or throwing on the floor.  She gets to play, investigate etc. and can also see what we are up to.  On this cooking occasion we were making chicken stew, rock buns and soda bread.  She got to eat a bit of chicken and raw carrot, investigate the leek trimmings and some ice from the freezer, explore a sieve, some measuring spoons and a jug, and join in licking the spoon from the rock buns.  She also got a bit of packaging.

Before we start
We wash or wipe our hands and put our aprons on.  Then we look at the recipe, check through the ingredients and equipment list (I call it out and he checks to see if we have it on the table).  I usually put a little plate or bowl out next to him into which we add a few bits of interesting ingredients for him to taste - that way we aim to stop him tasting the mixture or stealing all the chocolate drops or whatever before it goes in the oven.

Two options
You choose from these two options depending on the age, experience and temperament of your child, and also on the recipe.  The two options are:
- The "I Can Cook" method (named for the CBeebies programme on which it is based.  In this one you split your ingredients in half and double up on equipment.  You make half with your equipment and your child copies you and makes the other half with his equipment.  The advantages are that it's entirely their own work and they really get stuck in with all the processes.  They get the pride in their finished article.  The disadvantages are that if they do a major step wrong it's ruined, and while they may learn from it, they would inevitably be disappointed.  Not all recipes work this way, it's tricky to divide an egg in half for example, or you might not have two small loaf tins (for which the cooking time would probably also be different than a large loaf tin).
- The second option is probably more common, particularly with younger or more excitable or easily distracted children.  It's the partnership approach.  This is where you work together.  You give your child as much involvement as possible, but step in where needed to "help".

Top Tips

• Only ever bake or cook with your children if you have plenty of time and you are feeling chilled out and relaxed.  A frazzled temper will only ever escalate when cooking is involved.
• Don't worry about mess.  In the grand scheme of things how important is it?  They will learn so so much from cooking, and it's always inevitable to do some clearing up after a messy activity - they should learn to help you clear up - part of the learning experience.
• Be aware of safety at all times.  Don't stop your child from handling knives or glass bowls or stirring hot food - but introduce these aspects at an appropriate stage for your child and ensure that you teach them safety first, and are always there to supervise.

Water Play

We have a visual timetable.  I've made lots of laminated little cards for every conceivable activity and they go on our weekly timetable.  I've blogged about this before.  Currently Little C has a sticker chart for saying Please and Thank-you (this was very successful, so we've made it harder and he only gets the stickers if he uses the words without a reminder, or to somebody outside our family).  When he gets ten stickers on the chart, he gets to choose from six activities, and his choice fits onto the next available slot on the calendar.  Today he chose "Water Play".


Here's how we did it today:

While the two of them were having their snack I set up the kitchen.  I put a big tub and a washing-up bowl in the middle of the floor, and laid out four old towels around the outside.  

In the tubs I put bath toys, a sprayer/mister, a couple of jugs, some bowls and cups, a sports bottle, a bucket and an empty plastic milk bottle.  I filled four of the containers with water, and put a couple of drops of different food colouring in three of them.  We had red, yellow and green water.

I then got them down from their snack and undressed them down to vests.  I sat them on the towels, and told them that we needed to keep the water within the towel area so it would be easier to clean up.  We then got stuck in.  I showed them pouring and spraying, mixing water colours and so on.  After a few minutes I stepped back to allow them to get on with it, and I sat nearby, reading the paper.  Close enough to be there if needed, but far enough away that they could explore freely.

Little Sis just grabbed things and was surprised every time that she got covered or spattered with red water.  

Little C learned about pouring.  I think he poured every single container from one to the other.  Then, when I took Little Sis for a nap, he practised spraying.

This activity kept them both absorbed for over an hour.  Cleaning up was very easy.  Little C put all the items back in the tub.  We rubbed the floor with the towels and put them into the washing machine ready for the next load.  I put the bath toys back in the bathroom and everything else in the dishwasher.  Job done!


(and what were the six activities he could choose from?  Baking, Walk in the Woods, Watch a video, TV time, Wet Play, Train Set - I'm always fascinated by his choices...)

Beating the Supermarkets

I would love not to shop in a supermarket.  I would love to shop locally, but I don't do it nearly as much as I would like to.  Why?

Shopping involves a toddler and a baby.  Before any trip out they need to be well fed and nappy changed.    Then I need to get them togged up in socks and shoes, jumpers, coats etc.    My nearest shop is 3 miles away, so any trip involves a drive, so I need to get them out into the Landrover and strapped in.  Then on arrival at any shop I need to get them out of the Landrover.  Then, I need to attempt to find a parking space, get from the Landrover to the shop/s and get around the shop with them.  This means that I'll either be carrying one and holding hands with the other, or I'll have one in the sling and hold hands with the other, or I'll have one in the pushchair and one in the sling or one in the pushchair and the other one holding on to the pushchair etc. etc. I then have to negotiate narrow aisles, doorways, things stacked all over the place, and somehow still have a hand free to pick things up from the shelf and carry them to the check-out!  Inevitably this means you can't buy as much in one go, which means that you have to go through the whole pantomime again a couple of days later.  

For a while after I had Little Sis I was trying to do this.  Since the village where the shops are has pushchair friendly walks, and mine doesn't, I was even trying to tie in a walk with the Waggy-tailed-one at the same time.  Suffice to say, after a couple of months of near insanity as I tried to negotiate my way with a baby in a pushchair, a toddler, a dog and a couple of bags of shopping, through wind and weather, then tried to work out the logistics of which should be put in the vehicle first - which would stay still on the pavement while I put the other in, the dog or the toddler? - to say nothing of the overloaded pushchair falling over, and the difficulty of managing to push a pushchair through narrow aisles, hang on to a small toddler and hold a shopping basket all at the same time... I gave up and went back to the supermarket.

In the supermarket, much as I hate to admit it, they make things much easier.  They have parking right outside, even with designated parent and child parking spaces nearer the door with wide spaces for getting children in and out.  They have specially designed trolleys so that I can put the children in and have two hands free for shopping and plenty of space to put the groceries.  They have everything I need under one roof - which local shop sells kitchen roll when you need it?  Why do local shops only seem to sell branded products that are much more expensive?  I only need to do a shop once a week.

Aaahhh!!! I feel as though I'm selling out on myself.  I can't stand the homogeneous supermarkets, the death that they deal to small retailers, the marketing treadmill that you step on as soon as you get to the door... Please... any suggestions how I can do my shopping without resorting to the supermarket!!!???

First adventures with food

Our little girl is now eating... or should I say, our little girl never stops eating!  Now that she's discovered the joys of food there's no stopping her.  
We stuck with just the good stuff (breast milk) until a little short of six months and then just threw ourselves into food in all its glory and wonder.  
We don't do puree, or jars/pouches.  We just give her a bit of whatever we're having and see how she gets on.  
If it's squishy (tonight it was mashed potato and tinned tomato) then we put it on a spoon and either hand her the spoon to feed herself or help her out, and if it's possible to hold in the hand, then we give it to her to deal with herself (tonight that bit was the sausage).
She makes some delightful faces, but she's really tucking in to everything.  The photo above is a wedge of nectarine.  She's also had spaghetti, sandwiches, lots of fruit, peas, potatoes, fish, chicken, bread, toast, egg, soup and lots lots more.  She struggles a little with the co-ordination required to pick the food up and get it to her mouth, and tends to sweep it towards herself and then dive at it, but there's been a marked difference already, as she's practising the skills so often.  When she gets too frustrated I hold the food and she grabs my hand (an easier target) and pulls that towards her mouth.  What a joy!
It's made a difference to Little C too: if he sees Little Sister eating something, then he wants to eat it too.  To begin with he regressed a bit with cutlery use and wanted a spoon or fingers the same as Little Sister, but then I pointed out that she was watching him to learn how to eat nicely, and I've noticed the cutlery being used a bit more again.

Where have I been?

Where have I been?  Good question actually.  A long weekend in a proper moated Norman castle with nephews, nieces, sisters and mum (more in another post later).  And since then I've just been running around chasing my tail trying to keep up with the normal, mundane, day to day type stuff.  Until today.  

Today for the first time in well over two years (since I was pregnant with Little C) I went on my bike.  Now that Little Sis is 6 months she is big enough to wear the smallest sized splash suit that you can get, and big enough (just) to buy a cycle helmet and to sit in a bike seat.

So off we drove to cycle a bit of track we've been lusting after.  It goes from Glen Ogle down to Lochearnhead and is an old railway track hugging the hillside and with splendiferous views.  Being an old railway track means no cars, so the Waggy-tailed-one could race along at our sides.  For Little Sister's first time we kept things short, but even then we had to sit down on a mossy rock for a feed.  Little C didn't mind, we had a stash of chocolate buttons for him.

So yippee!  Now that she's 6 months, we can be an outdoor family!  Next stop - a camping trip in Wester Ross (more on that in a future post too!).

On reflection...

How to entertain an almost 6  month old?

Spend half an hour in front of the mirror...

Mummy Ramblings

A few random thoughts from mummy-dom:

• Really, nothing beats that feeling when baby is snuggled in next to you in bed, sucking at the breast and looking into your eyes with their deep, deep ocean eyes.
• The other great thing about breast-feeding - you get to this point, coming up to five months in, and you look at your baby and know that everything there is your effort.  I mean, I know that genetically Big C put in his half, and that he's certainly involved in her mental development, but physically, so far, it's all me.  I grew her from a little seed for nine months until she was a fully grown ready-to-be-born baby and then since then I have fed her and grown her and fed her and nurtured her, and wow she's fabulous!
• Little C now has both a toilet seat and a potty.  The toilet seat we've had a while and he's sat on it a few times and has even produced a "number 2" to many congratulations and much whooping from mummy (who had been patiently sitting there with  him for nearly half an hour).  The potty I just got this morning.  He's beginning to be more aware of the sensation of needing to go, and going, and to help him equate this to what actually comes out, he's nappy-free in the garden at the moment.  I thought a potty to go in might be a good idea, especially since he wasn't entirely happy when it came out on the lawn yesterday.  He didn't go to the potty to do it (number 2) today though either - and don't even go there with the disgusting-ness of this - before I even had a chance to get a tissue to pick it up and dispose of it, in swoops the dog and wolfs it down... yuck!!!  That's twice in two days she's done this - I didn't let her lick me for quite a while I assure you.  Anyway, Little C is not even 2 yet (birthday on Monday!) so I think he's doing pretty well to have some sense of what's going on down there, and am not intending to rush him.
• Love his language at the  moment.  He's doing brilliantly.  He constructs amazing sentences and has a great vocabulary, and is even having a go at plurals and tenses.  He hasn't quite got the hang of me/you/he yet though, so we had a conversation earlier like this (he's talking about his toy bin lorry):  Little C - "You got it from Grandma"; Mummy - "That's right, you did get it from Grandma, you need to say 'I got it from Grandma'.  Can you say that?";  Little C - (thinks for a moment) "He got his bin lorry from Grandma.  Grandma sent it to him in a parcel.";  You've got to love him for the effort he put in!
• Bubble bath - Not bubble bath, but bubbles in the bath.  I brought one of those little pots of bubbles that Little C had in a party bag along to bath time tonight, and while Little Sis splashed vigorously and Little C poured water from one container to another I started blowing bubbles for them.  Little Sis was instantly wide-eyed and entranced, totally focused on the bubbles floating above her, while Little C started rather dangerously bouncing around the bath trying to catch them all.  Definitely one to repeat.

Can't you sleep, Little Sister?

My evenings this week have vanished.  Projects hang in the air like so many spinning plates, hoping that I might return to them in time to stop them crashing to the ground.

Little Sister has discovered that being awake means fun time.  That awake time should equal mummy time, and that mummy time should equal breast.


This means that my previously brilliant, self-soothing, sleeping through the night and great naps kind of girl has taken to sleep refusal.  I've been putting her to bed, and as soon as the thumb is in the mouth (usually a sign that sleep is on the way) heading out for a jog with the dog.  I've been coming home to find a frustrated husband who can't console his little girl.  As soon as I appear she smiles, giggles, latches on and that's her attached for the night pretty much.


You might suggest that I should get him to take the dog out (he has tonight), but firstly he does his walk in the morning, and secondly, I need the fresh air and exercise as much as the dog does!

Tonight I decided I would wait until she's properly asleep before going out, but she cycled from thumb sucking to shouting and back again several times without actually going to sleep.  Big C took the dog.  She's now getting herself upset, so I'll go and settle her again, hoping that this time she'll actually go to sleep and stay that way, as she's getting pretty tired (as am I!).