5 Reasons You May Not Be Losing The Baby Weight

It's not easy to lose weight post-partum. Let’s face it. Losing weight can be hard. Losing weight as a parent, can be extra hard. Prior to having children, it’s more of a mental barrier than anything else - whilst you may claim to have no time to exercise, or the lack the means to afford to eat healthily, or the energy to get your butt to the gym - although we may convince ourselves it’s a task too difficult to even attempt, nothing compares to the difficulty you may face after having a child. Roughly one quarter of all women retain 11lbs or more a year after giving birth, and after joining mum club, I can now empathize completely. You have less time, you have less money, and there’s no arguing with the fact you have considerably less energy - heck, I had none for the first 4 months. No one is denying it is difficult that it can be challenging to lose the excess weight, especially if your not yet in the mindset to get really stuck into it. Despite what many think though, there is no need for a complete lifestyle overhaul; there may in fact be a key reasons you cannot shed those extra few pounds, and a few small changes you can make that will make a massive difference to the results you are personally seeing.

Our Relationship Is Not The Same

I could never have imagined just how much our relationship would have changed after having a baby. Sure, we'd have less sleep. less time together, a few more financial worries, but I always thought we'd still be us. Our circumstances may change, but our relationship would always be the same. I was naive about having a baby and the impact it would have on us;  I expected our child to simply slot into our life, whilst everything else remained in tact and unchanged. Ha. If only. We've struggled, we've bickered, but we've adapted. I'm now convinced, anyone who says their relationship did not change after having a baby is blatantly lying. Going from two, to three (or more, god help you), changes everything, and whilst it is not a bad change, it’s a change accompanied by pressure, bickering, and considerably more shit than before - in the literal sense.

Living Arrows | 6/52 Take The Damn Picture

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

– Kahlil Gibran

This year I'm taking part in Living Arrows - Donna's project that celebrates all things childhood. A photo a week to document the everyday moments - 52 lots of photos I can look back on at the end of the year and see the change in him.

How To Make Teething Suck A Little Less

Teething is brutal. It absolutely sucks. I was supposed to have months before I had to even think about it never mind deal with it. Teething can turn an absolutely perfect little angel into what can only be compared to a demon child overnight - and there’s very little you can actually do about it. Teething is frustrating. It’s been less than a month, and already I’ve had to deal with the feeling of helplessness, the exhaustion, the searing desire to find a mute button for your own flesh and blood, and it’s only going to get worse from here as we deal with his teeth cutting in. With Harrison, it went from 0 to 10 pretty much overnight, so we were very much thrown in at the deep end, and only now have we managed to find our feet a little bit in the big bad world of baby teeth. Teething sucks, and there is no getting around it unfortunately, there is no magic fix, but we have found a few things that have managed to make teething suck that little bit less.

Coming To Terms With Hating My Post-Partum Body

When I fell pregnant, I did not think about how it affect my body post partum. I found myself frustrated at gaining weight the entire way through, angry as my thighs got closer, upset as my arms lost their shape and angry as my face filled out. I did not resent my bump; my bump was my baby, and that was a necessary part of having a baby, but in my own mind I couldn’t accept the changes that occurred across the rest of my body. My pregnancy body was not my body anymore, it was simply a means to an end: to have my baby, I would have to put up with being a ball for nine months. After those nine months, I would snap back and my pregnancy body would be a thing of a past. After all, in my head that’s all this was. My thicker thighs and undefined arms were part and parcel with pregnancy, when the baby left so would they and I could go back to calling myself fat at 110lbs. I never thought about my Post Partum body, because I never thought it would look the way it does. I hate my Post Partum body, but most of all, I hate the fact that I hate it.

Living Arrows | 5/52 Daddy's Boy

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

– Kahlil Gibran

This year I'm taking part in Living Arrows - Donna's project that celebrates all things childhood. A photo a week to document the everyday moments - 52 lots of photos I can look back on at the end of the year and see the change in him.

I've been struggling a little this week with the motivation for continuing with this blog and what it actually means for anyone bar myself. I'll talk more about it later in the week, but regardless of whether or not I want to continue a 'parenting blog' I want to continue to document Harrison's first few years, and Living Arrows is one way to do that. No matter where I stand with my blog, I want to make sure by the end of the year I have 52 of these posts, if not, I can promise you now it's something I will deeply regret.

Travelling With A Baby | The Winter Essentials With WaterWipes

With a newborn baby, packing for a holiday was never going to be easy. I’ve tried making lists upon lists, and I’m now perfectly aware that it’s easy to pack everything but the kitchen sink despite the fact we're only going away for a few days. I’ll be honest, I will definitely overpack, and chances are, I'll definitely forget a good few bits we probably need. Given that it's a short winter break, as long as we a few certain essentials packed away with us, we should be able to make do, so I've made sure to look out our winter essentials for traveling with a newborn. Unfortunately we're not jetting off to the bahamas - if only: winter sun is nothing but a dream on the scraps of maternity allowance - we’re simply heading down to London for a weekend. It'll be bitter, cold and probably more stressful than needs be, but it's a break, and everyone could do with one of those to pick us up from the January Blues. It goes without saying there are many more essentials I'll need to pack with a baby - these are simply the ones you might not think of straight off the bat, but could make a big difference to your little one... We have gone off of recommendations from Water Wipes and Michelle Comrie, a midwife at Southampton Princess Anne Hospital to help us collate this list, and it should help us to keep Harrison content over our Winter Weekend.