Little Beehiive

I felt it was time to update.
Now I have a moment to sit down, grab a cup of tea and waffle. So here goes....

Babies are whirlwinds. They come into your life so unexpectedly. Sometimes late, sometimes early. The third trimester whizzed past before my eyes. I didn't have chance to write about my third trimester, I didn't have chance. Everything happened a week earlier than I expected. Our life became a non stop madness of nappies, feeds, cuddles and milestones. It feels like I've been on a holiday for the past 6 months. A holiday of a lifetime.

Henry Charles ventured into the world on the 22nd November at 3:39pm to be precise. All squished up, with his arm behind his head. His little button nose wrinkled, he snuggled onto my stomach. A perfect warm little bundle. My labour and birth was fairly straight forward and weirdly enough, something I'm so glad I experienced. The birth went pretty much to plan minus a little after surgery and giving birth out of the pool but none of that mattered. I had him here, in my arms.

We stayed in hospital a short while and it was difficult. Breastfeeding was meant to come naturally wasn't it? So why couldn't I feed my own baby? I was told I had to do so many feeds before I left. Wanting to go home I did everything I could to get him to latch. So I learnt to lay down and feed him. We went home the next evening. Bringing back Henry home was the most terrifying thing we've ever done. It was real now. We had to look after this tiny human being and keep him alive. I was his main food source. James and I was who he relied on to keep him warm, safe, clean and loved. The first night was absolutely terrifying, we bed shared for the first time. Something I didn't feel comfortable about beforehand but it worked for us. Henry wanted me and that was fine.

Although we took to parenthood straight away, the feeding did not come naturally. I think it's important to be brutally honest about how things worked out for yourself. I think you can sugar coat everything but honesty is best policy and breastfeeding did not work for us.



We've started BLW recently. He loves cheese, watermelon, broccoli, toast, yoghurt and sweet potato. He also loves drinking water from a regular cup, clearly too sophisticated for a sippy cup. He has a bunny called bon bon that he loves for comfort and a highchair toy called Wendy bird who he often snogs the face off. He likes being tickled, things hanging above him or over his head. He likes chewing hands, arms, clothes and sometimes his toes. He wears cloth nappies (pocket) and has a wardrobe full of scandi clothing and little bird. He is cheeky. He is stubborn and he often throws a little tantrum when he has cans of pepsi max moved out of his reach. He sits, he wobbles. He rolls from front to back but too lazy to go back to front. He loves cbeebies. He's very visual. He loves toys that roll, toys that move fast and toys that he can chew. He's very forward, independent and social. On the other hand he's clingy at bedtime, he LOVES cuddles and skin to skin. He is perfect.
I will try and update my blog where I can as I know I've got a few readers that enjoy my writing and quite frankly I enjoy waffling on. So if you've got this far, thank you!

I'll be updating with some BLW tips and ideas, talking about real nappies, our adventures, items that have saved our bacon this first year and so much more.

Thanks for reading!
Charlotte

So I was expecting to nest at the end of the pregnancy, not so soon. It started with stocking up on grapefruit zoflora, then obsessing over my new comforter and smelling every piece of clothing that came out of my washing machine. It was ridiculous, then this overwhelming feeling to clean everything and make everything smell beautiful. It resulted in a massive trip to IKEA. Which then resulted in putting up nursery furniture.

I know some people wait, we're still not past the 'safe' point in pregnancy. But are you really ever? Some people have commented on how early it is. But it's quite clear we're far from traditional as a couple and as parents. We strive to do things the way we want to. So we decided to do the nursery. We still have little bits we want to add to our boys little room but this is it for the time being.Life is far too short not to soak up the moment.

It's not like we actually had to decorate as in our rented home we're not allowed to paint so we decided on wall stickers and making the room bright with beautiful decor.



























We decided on a theme of foxes, nature and bright colours. The typical painting the room 'blue for a boy and pink for a girl' just wasn't us. A mixture of monochrome, with pops of colour was more fitting. Especially when most of his clothes were rainbow themed, how could we not?!

So the old wives tales didn't quite meet their expectations and we found out on the 17th June that we're having a little baby boy. So although the odds were in the favor of a little girl the male genes were too strong and have blessed us with this tiny little guy! Who quite honestly looks like he's laid up on a tropical beach and not floating about in my womb.