I don’t really feel like it was a decision. I just wanted to breast feed, despite most of my family (myself included) being bottle fed. The only reason I switched to bottles after a while with my first two is because I had concerns about their health, and I wish that I could have had more faith in my body and managed to nurse for longer. This time around I am really glad to still be nursing and wouldn’t have it any other way. I think if I had known before what I know now, I would have continued with breast feeding and not needed to use formula.

2. How long did you breastfeed or are you planning to breastfeed?

With my first two, I only managed a couple of months each. This time we are at 7.5 months and I have no intention of stopping until Baby L decides she no longer wants to feed from me. Personally, I hope this is not for a long time as I love feeding her!

3. What is the best thing about breastfeeding?

The intimacy of holding her close to me, and having her drink the milk that my body has provided for her. Also now that she’s older, the way her face lights up a bit when she sees my breast.

4. Did you have to overcome challenges on your breastfeeding journey?

We have been really lucky. The worst I’ve had to deal with is sore nipples in the early weeks and around four months when she had a growth spurt. The soreness cleared up quite easily with some Mother’s Balm from Neal’s Yard Remedies that I was bought as a new-mum gift.

5. Who supported you the most with breastfeeding?

My partner has been great, and also a lot of women I’ve spoken to on parenting forums. I think it’s hard for some of my family to be as supportive though, just because they have no experience of breast feeding and don’t really ‘get’ it.

6. How did you feel when you first breastfed in public?

With my first I didn’t breast feed in public at all! I expressed milk and took a bottle out with me. By the second time I wasn’t embarrassed any more and now I feed wherever I am. I am proud of my feeding, and while I do it discreetly, I won’t shy away from giving Baby L milk when she wants it. I’m lucky to have never had any negative reactions. Most of the time people don’t even notice she is feeding, even when they come up to coo and stroke her hair!

7. Have you been questioned for breastfeeding?

Not really. My family don’t really understand it. They seemed to think I was a little mad for having no routine and not knowing when she’d next want a feed. They accept that it works for us though. I expect that I might get questions as Baby L gets bigger and if she chooses to feed later into toddlerhood or pre-school age. I’m not particularly worried about it though. I love nursing and will just answer questions honestly.

8. Has breastfeeding made you feel different about your body?

Yes, it has made me appreciate my body a lot more. I feel a real sense of pride in that my body is providing for Baby L as she grows (and for K and E sometimes if I express milk!) and in the closeness we share when she feeds. It has also made me think a lot more about how I look after myself. I think much more about what I eat and drink because in essence it is also what Baby L eats, so it’s making me more healthy in my effort to keep her healthy.

9. What do you wish you had known before making the decision to breastfeed your baby?

I wish that when I was feeding my first two I had known to have faith in my body’s ability to produce enough milk for them. I wish that I had known that even if my supply was lowered, it could be replenished if I persevered using formula just to top-up when necessary rather than switching completely.

I am tagging

Any boobie mum that would like to give this a go!

1. In less than two weeks, we will be fully moved into our new house. No more worrying about stairs, lack of space or bothering the neighbours. It’s also given me an idea for a blog-hop I’d like to host.
2. I went to parents’ evening and K’s teacher spent the time mostly saying how bright, hard-working and attentive K is. I’m so proud of her.
3. I have bought some new duvets and bedcovers and they are gorgeous. I love new bedding! Looking forward to snuggling down in our new home!
4. My last reason, with the risk of sounding really soppy, is my other half. He is passionate, sensitive, helpful and handsome. He is always there to support me, even when I’m being an idiot, and I feel very lucky to have him.

So after the few tangled practice runs over the weekend, I sat down Monday night ready to begin my first ever sewing project. With my scraps of fabric and a bit of sturdy plastic bag for sound effects, I made a taggie blanket toy for Baby L.

I made a few mistakes along the way, managing to sew the tags into the inside of the blanket and having to unpick a line of stitches, but in the end I got there and I’m very proud of what I managed to do. I remember as a child having a go on my grandmother’s sewing machine and not managing to keep the stitches straight at all, so I was really pleased that I only had a few wobbles.

I’m feeling really excited about making something else already. My next project is a miniature taggie for K’s baby doll which I’ll be making tonight. After that I’d really like to try making some bandana bibs as Baby L is a dribbler and I love the look of them but not the price!

Snotty Baby L enjoying her taggie

I’m still on the look out for good sewing books, websites, blogs or videos, so please do tell me if you know of any!

I also didn’t expect that I would be struggling with my mental health, and finding myself frustrated that I can’t always appreciate the things I listed above. I am feeling thankful though that I realise that I’m ill, and that I’m determined to get the help I need. When we do move to our new house, I’ve found that we will be able to change to a new GP, a surgery with one doctor that specialises in mental health issues, so I’m hopeful that I will be taken seriously by my new doctor. I’ve also found that on the NHS website, where you can leave comments and reviews about a surgery, that my current surgery has a lot of people saying that they haven’t been taken seriously. This is very reassuring as I now know I wasn’t just being over-sensitive about my visits there.

Janome PS1030 from John Lewis

On a less serious note, my partner has bought me the sewing machine that I wanted for my birthday! I’m utterly thrilled with it! So far I have managed to thread it all, and sew along two edges of an old tea towel, getting tangled up about four times in the process. It is great fun! I’m really loving getting to know my new machine, which I have decided to name Sigrun. I don’t know why I feel that my machine should have a name, but there you go. Now I am on the lookout for any good books or resources for absolute beginners, and any really easy projects I can have a go at. I’m also looking for really cheap fabric to practice on, so I’ll be having a look at my local fabric shop tomorrow, but I’d love to hear of any websites that sell cheap, easy-to-sew fabrics that I can learn with.

From other people, I have been given a provisional driving license, a huge box of chocolates, a massive bag of funky craft buttons and some spending money. My partner is currently in the kitchen cooking a nice meal for me, and then we are going to curl up on the sofa and watch some of our favourite TV shows. I’m feeling very lucky right now!

1. Baby L is seven months old this week, which means that I have been breastfeeding for seven months as well! I’m so, so pleased with this as I only managed a couple of months with K and E.
2. My children seem to have started going to bed with much less fuss than usual. Not sure how long it will last, but I am certainly enjoying it while it does!
3. Today while I was having a shower, E came into the bathroom and said, ‘Mummy, I brought you a towel to help you get dry. I put it on the radiator so it’s warm.’ She is often a little mischief-maker, but times like these warm my heart so much.

Have a wonderful week!

1. I got a call this week saying that we are all okay to move into the house we looked at and loved, so we’ll be moving house next month. I’ve been wanting to move closer to school and into a bigger home for ages now, so I’m thrilled it’s finally happening.
2. I feel like I’ve done really well with my Grooving Mums journey this week. I’ve made some real positive steps with my socialising and self-confidence. I’ll blog in more detail about this soon!
3. I’ve also been overwhelmed by the amount of lovely, supportive comments I’ve received on my blog this week. It has been really helpful to hear your advice and experiences and such kind words, so thank you everybody for giving me a massive reason to be cheerful!

More reasons to be cheerful next week!

“If you wean too late, they will be a fussy eater.”

“They should be on solids by now!”

 So when exactly is the right time to wean?

The current NHS guidelines suggest introducing solids at six months, but as early as four months if necessary for the child. My health visitor, when I saw her at clinic on Tuesday, seemed quite concerned that Baby L is showing no real interest in solid food at almost seven months. Up until today, I had just been making food available and following Baby L’s leads, assuming that she would take food when she was ready for it. Up until today I had no concerns about my cheerful, active, alert little girl.

The health visitor’s concern shook me up a little bit. I began to wonder if I should be more proactive with my approach to weaning. I started to think I had perhaps been a careless mum and wondered if I was unintentionally causing harm to Baby L and her development. I posted about my worries on a forum, and the responses I received were unanimous. What a load of rubbish. A couple of mums shared that their children had also been uninterested in food long after the standard six month guideline, and that this had caused no harm at all. All of the mums agreed that breast milk would provide everything Baby L needs at this age.

So I’m writing this with a renewed sense of confidence in my abilities and choices as a mum. I have no concerns about Baby L’s health, so I’m letting her lead the way. Boob she wants and boob she will get, for as long as she wants it. It is her tummy we’re feeding, after all.

When is the right time to wean? When your baby is ready.

People are so varied at all stages of their lives, babyhood included, and are ready for different things at different times. It’s easy to get bogged down in all the guidelines, but I think we should remember that as parents and carers, we know our children best. Guidelines are just guidelines, not steadfast rules. As long as our children are happy and healthy, let’s not be afraid to do what feels right, even if that means doing things a little differently.

My mental health at the moment isn’t very good. I spend a lot of my time thinking and worrying about how I’m not coping. Naturally this makes me more unable to cope, but I can’t help worrying about it. I am very sad a lot of the time, and I cry a lot. When I cry, I feel stupid because I don’t really have anything to cry about. I don’t have much money, but I do have a caring partner and three beautiful daughters, and we get by and manage to treat ourselves sometimes. I feel guilty for being so sad all the time, because I know it makes my partner feel like he doesn’t make me happy, which isn’t true. I also tend to snap or shout at him over silly things. Things that aren’t even things.

I find it hard to find my get-up-and-go most days. A lot of the time I don’t know what I want to do with my time. There is plenty of stuff to be getting on with, but I find myself making excuses or just pretending it’s not there waiting for me to do it. When it comes to things that actually need to be done, I just feel very anxious. I dread doing the school run and I don’t really know why. It’s not particularly fun, waiting for the bus in the cold, but really it’s not that bad – so why do I feel so on edge for half an hour before I’m due to leave? Things like that are the worst, I think. I feel like a failure of a person because I find it so hard to do such simple tasks.

Of course, when the simple things seem like mammoth tasks, the things that take a bit more effort barely get a look in. I don’t do nearly enough with my children. My flat is in desperate need of a clear out, especially as we’re supposed to be moving next month. Sometimes I make plans to change this, but they never quite happen. I can’t find the motivation. I see other people just getting on with their lives, and I wish I could do the same. I just end up putting on a show a lot of the time. Other times I just avoid people altogether.

I’ve come to the point now, with the help of my partner, where I can see that I’m not a failure as a person, I’m ILL and I need help. Now it’s just a case of getting it. I went to the doctor but she didn’t seem to take me seriously in the slightest. She was the same doctor I saw three weeks after Baby L was born with my concerns about PND, who tried to put me back on anti-depressants before I loudly informed her that I couldn’t take them while breastfeeding, and who then gave me a therapy referral form but said it was unlikely anybody would see me any time soon because it ‘wasn’t that bad’. She denied saying that this time. She said I must have misunderstood. I think not. That meeting with her before is etched into my brain and it upsets me still now to think about it. I never filled out that referral form. She gave me another this time around, when I was done crying in her office, and this time I filled it out before I left the surgery. I don’t know if or when I’ll hear anything back about it. Until then I just have to cope. Just keep going, keep busy and hope.

Perhaps the worst thing about all of this is that I know I’m not the only one that suffers this way, struggling with life and doubting my own mind. I know I’m far from the only one who can’t get the help they need, which is a sad and scary thought.

I’ve resisted the temptation to have numerous strict resolutions because I know that will set me up for failure, so I’m going for some ambitious but doable writing targets and some simple personal ones. And if I fall behind on them, I will not give up. I will keep going and do the best I can.

• I will complete the writing resolutions I have just written about on my writing blog. My novels really need to be wrapped up, especially as I have every intention of starting on a new one in November.
• I will continue blogging and improving myself and my life with the grooving mums. It makes me feel a lot better, and I hope that if somebody stumbles upon my blog perhaps they might find something they relate to or find useful.
• I will be honest with myself about how I am doing and about my mental health by keeping a diary of how I am feeling and what I have done during the day, so that I can look back and actually know what’s been going on, rather than guessing that everything’s been totally fine/absolutely dreadful.

So there you have it, my resolutions for this year. I hope that having written them down will help me remember them and encourage me to come back to them and keep trying to do the best I can.

Wishing everybody a happy new year and the best of luck with any resolutions you make!

I have mixed feelings about this time of year. It’s stressful. There are presents to buy yet never quite enough money, and the looming prospect of the most complicated and difficult dinner of the entire year. Then there is the extended family and the politics that come with them: a game I really don’t want to play. There is the freezing cold weather and the bitter wind from the river, which I hate and which makes my knees play up awfully (at the ripe old age of twenty-one!). There is the very real possibility of oh-so-beautiful snow that brings the bus system to a standstill (not good for somebody so reliant on public transport as I!) and soon enough turns the roads and pavements into slippery rinks of doom. Having been bombarded with advertising and lights and sparkles – Christmas this and Christmas that – since mid-September, I am just about ready to scream. I don’t even want to think about how much worse it would be if we had television adverts to add to that.

Like I said, it’s a terribly stressful time of year, and I’m a little frazzled just thinking about it all. I spend a lot of time really struggling to be festive or even remotely cheerful at the idea of it, even with the excited faces of my daughters looking up at me. I feel affronted by the baubles dangling from the ceiling in the local shopping centre. I am more than a little irritated by the fact that I have been unable to find what I want in Sainsbury’s for the last month because they keep moving things around to fit in more and more Christmas stuff.

Then it gets to this point, with a week or so to go, the Christmas holidays here, and I forget about all that. I buy the Christmas food with a little seed of excitement just beginning to grow. I think about the crafty supplies stashed behind the sofa and about what decorations I can make with the children this year – they’re a little older now, and their attention spans a little better. There’s a little panicked voice somewhere, reminding me shrilly that I haven’t organised exactly what I’ll be buying for my partner, but it doesn’t manage to shout down this growing anticipation that has appeared. I go into Sainsbury’s for a loaf of bread and the mince pies catch my eye. Bah, I think, I’ll make my own! I wonder to myself about the most exciting way to present my daughter with their gifts, and picture the smiles that will shine bright right up to their eyes.

You can see where this is going now and so can I. By the time it’s Christmas eve I’ll be just as excited and unable to sleep as the children. Well, excited at least. Having a five-month-old that doesn’t like to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time means that I can usually sleep any time and any where I get the chance.

This is the time that I remember what Christmas is all about. I’m not a religious person. I don’t celebrate the birth of Jesus, nor does anybody close to me, but Christmas still has a great meaning for me. Despite all the commercialisation and the pressure to spend, spend, spend, Christmas is about family. It’s about taking one day of the year that is dedicated entirely to spending time together, to the love we have for each other, to making each other happy. It’s about relaxing, even if the turkey’s a little bit burnt and the potatoes haven’t browned and the veg is a little bit cool – never mind that we forgot the Yorkshire pudding completely. I suppose it doesn’t even really matter that it’s Christmas, that it’s the twenty-fifth of December, it just matters that it’s a day, one day, set aside simply to enjoy.