When the toddler has his first proper sickness bug and morning sickness has hit hard 🤢

We’ve got a little secret... eeek! 😬😁

I’ve been gone for a while...

2017 was a funny old year for me - adjusting to motherhood, changing jobs (twice), going back to university amongst other things.

I’m determined that 2018 will be better. I’m going to appreciate every moment, because my boy is growing so quickly and I don’t want to miss a single second of it.

I’m very excited that I’ve come back to find that so many of the mamas who were pregnant at the same time as me are pregnant again !

Last week, I was officially diagnosed with post natal depression. I can't get my head around it, we waited and wished for our baby for such a long time, I was so excited to meet him all through my pregnancy... I don't understand why I feel this way. I always thought of PND as feeling as though you can't bond with your baby, harmful thoughts etc, but I don't have any of that ! I love Oscar more than anything, and that's the problem. I don't feel good enough for him, I don't feel like I can take care of him well enough, I feel like he would be better off without me. I don't want to feel like this anymore 😢

👋🏻 just letting anyone who cares know that I'm still here. Oscar is 10 weeks old. It feels like an uphill battle just to get through each day and I'm struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel. That's all really.

@western-roses I know that feeling ! My little one has a built in radar for when I'm about to sit down to eat. I can't remember the last time I ate a meal while it was still hot. Or drank a hot cup of tea. I'm really lucky that my little one has got 3 sets of grandparents who all live close by and are really supportive. I don't think I would have gotten through the past month without them. It definitely will pass though - one day we'll look back on this period of time and we won't remember the 3am feeds or the hours of crying, we'll just remember our beautiful little babies and we'll wonder at how fast they've grown. Some of us will even be crazy enough to do this all again !

@novembersmiles the thought has crossed my mind. My health visitor told me 'baby blues are normal, but you need to watch for if it becomes more than that.' But how do I know if it's more than baby blues.. I guess I see PPD as not binding with baby which isnt the case here - I love him unconditionally, I just feel like I'm not good enough to be his mama, like I'm letting him down. I feel like the support from healthcare professionals where I am is really not great - we had to give up on breastfeeding because we had no support from anyone when we started to struggle. @megtyler14 you're completely right, and it's the same in life in general - people will tell you how their little one slept through the night at 'X' amount of weeks/months old but forget to mention that they screamed all day long etc. I was really struggling last week so my mum offered to watch the baby overnight so I could catch up on some sleep and spend some time with my husband. When I mentioned it to a friend she seemed horrified that I had been able to part with him overnight and it made me feel like such a bad mum - should I not have wanted my mum to have him ? Thank you for your kind words, sometimes it just helps to hear that you're not alone and you're not doing all that badly !

I've been completely MIA on this blog since Oscar was born.. Truth be told, I've been here, keeping up with how everyone's doing. I just haven't been updating. I guess the reason for that is that I read through everyone else's posts and everyone (particularly all the new mamas who's littles were born around the same time as mine) seems to be doing so well. I suppose that sounds awful, but I'm really struggling to adjust to life as a mama. I'm finding it all very overwhelming and lonely, and it feels as if I'm the only one feeling like this. I feel guilty for feeling like I do, because we tried and waited and wished for so long for a baby, and I feel like I'm not appreciating him as much as I should.. There wasn't really much of a point to this post, just venting a little I guess.

Baby Oscar entered the world 14/8/16, at 3.04am. He's perfect :)

41+2, featuring my husband ! Stretch and sweep yesterday seems to have had no effect, so we're booked in for induction on Saturday if he doesn't come before then.

40+1 weeks. Saw my midwife today and asked about getting a stretch and sweep this week, with a view to induce at 41 weeks but she said no ! Booked a stretch and sweep for next week and induction for the week after. I want to cry at the prospect of being pregnant for another 2 weeks.

@okaymermaid I have mostly Charlie Banana and Fuzzibunz nappies, and the majority are birth-to-potty pockets. I'm completely new to it too, I got in contact with my local nappy library and she pointed me in the direction of these ! Hope that helps.

My cloth nappy stash. A trip to IKEA today solved my storage issue. It's so crazy to think that soon we'll have a little one to put these on !

@growing-our-little-monster I found this on pintrest which seems like a good solution for us but it just doesn't look as cute as some of the others :( we have no floor space left for a free standing unit, and no space left in the drawers/wardrobe.

I have a serious case of nursery envy. I keep seeing pictures of everyone's nurseries and it makes me a little jealous. Little one's room is very small, and I'm really starting to struggle with storage for his never ending collection of belongings. I'm particularly upset because I really want my cloth nappies out on display and I just can't find any space. Any mamas with space-saving storage ideas ?