Child Free Morning!

A friend had noticed from my facebook statuses (what is the plural of status?) that I was getting a bit stressed, that I was feeling the toll of being a Mummy 24 hours a day 7 days a week and that having moved so recently I didn't know who to turn to in order to get a break.  She didn't know me that well but she is a registered child minder and thought she would offer to take my wee one for 3 hours.  I jumped at the chance.

I thought it would be good for Naomi to learn that sometimes Mummy will go away but that she will always come back.  I knew it would be good for me to be able to sit down without watching Naomi or at the very least listening anxiously to the baby monitor as I try and shove another load of washing in the washing machine!

Well, this morning was my child free morning.  I was so excited, I needed it so much, I had a pile of sewing to do (a source of pleasure to me, not a stress) and I had a cup of tea with my name on it!  The thing is, though, this left me feeling somewhat guilty, about wanting time away from my wee one.  Was it right I needed some space that was all about me?

Yes!  I have only been away from Naomi a handful of times since she was born and most of those after bed-time.  I have been with her almost constantly for 5 months, you spend every waking moment with anyone for 5 months (they get to dictate what those waking hours are, too) and tell me you don't want some space from them.  My husband and I have never spent that long with no time apart and I love him unconditionally, why should my daughter be any different?

In the end, I feel great for be able to "forget" about being a Mum for a bit, and Naomi had an absolute blast playing with new toys and people.  Will I do it again? Absolutely! Will I feel guilty? Probably, but I'll get over it!

Finances

Sometimes in this day and age I think it can be a bit of a social faux pas to admit it, but I am not ashamed in the slightest to say that my husband and I are broke! We have just a little bit more money coming in over a month than we do going out, which is good, but we don't have any extra and we are living each month by using (then paying off) the credit card, rather than using "real" money.

The thing is, though, that I am okay with that.  Last night hubby and I came up with a plan of action and by wiping out our savings we can start living in the black rather than the red but for the foreseeable future we don't have any spare money floating around, slightly exacerbated, though not caused by a mistake on the part of HRMC which means we are having to pay extra money to the tax people every month.

Thing is though, apart from a stressed day a few nights ago we have not thought about sending me out to work, Naomi being 5 months old now, you might think we should but we have decided that I will be a stay at home Mum and we have decided that Naomi will have everything she needs but not necessarily all the extras that it seems to me that some people see as necessities.

It is important to me that Naomi realises that just having food in her belly and a roof over her head makes her amongst the most well off in the world, the fact that she also has clothes and toys and will have the chance of an education makes her incredibly rich.  It is important that she understands that money is precious and that it should be used responsibly and not just for ourselves.

I have only bought Naomi 3 items of clothes new, it was a 3 pack of vests as she had none in the right size and I was unable to get any in the charity shops.  Other than that every piece of clothing she owns is either a gift, a hand-me-down or a charity shop find (and even then she has very little that fits into this last category).

As for toys, she has many that were given to her and on top of that she has a rattle that I fashioned out of a spice jar and some rice and lentils!  As she gets older I will look out for things on Freecycle and for her birthdays and Christmases she shall receive second hand things because she does not need bigger things.

You might say we are mean, you might say that my husband and I should have saved "more" before we had a child and that we are irresponsible, but actually I see that our responsibility goes further than our immediate family and extends to those throughout the world (who include many people in this country) who do not even have enough to eat, and it is not for us to be extravagant, therefore, my short term inability to go for a coffee or buy some new jeans, is neither here nor there!

Radio Silence Ending!

So sorry for my radio silence this last week, I was just enjoying having my friend to stay far too much and then we were visiting family and before I knew it I had hardly posted anything in over a week!

So, while "normal" posting about various parenting issues will recommence tomorrow, I thought I would just do a wee post saying that I just cannot believe how much Naomi is progressing and changing just now!

She is discovering her feet at the moment, I love how much entertainment can be got from just lying on your back holding your toes! Tonight she found her right foot for the first time (she had the left one down a few days ago) and I loved the look of surprise on her face "What, you mean I've got one over here too!?"


I also love watching her take *everything* in, she can sit for ages just watching stuff, anything, although her favourite seems to be to watch me cook! But anything will do, a bit of clothing, another baby, a toy, anything!


She is eating well now, she knows what it means when the bib goes on and the pot of food is there, she waits in anticipation of the contents and so far we haven't really found anything she doesn't like, though broccoli is a definite favourite.


She is definitely growing as a result of all that food, I have just done another round of clearing out her clothes to get rid of the things that don't fit, I could swear it was only 5 minutes since I did that last!  I'm going to take her to baby weigh-in clinic in a couple of weeks, though I am expecting her to have put on a fair bit.

Even with her sleep she is learning all the time.  She is much better at settling when we put her down in the evenings now and although she still wakes often in the night it does seem to be getting a little easier to settle her then too.  She is starting to get the hang of napping too, with more and more worthwhile naps taking place in her cot (rather than the pram or the sling)

I already feel like my little girl is growing up to fast and she is only 5 months old! Can you imagine what I'll be like by the time she tries to go to university?!

What would you ask for?

My best friend is staying at the moment (which is why the blog has been a little quieter than usual) she is down from Aberdeen for a little under a week and I LOVE having her here.  I love her being here because she is silly and I love having someone to be silly with.  I love her being here because she is Naomi's Godmother and I love seeing her be silly with Naomi too and I love having her here because she is the kind of person who I can tell to hang my washing on the line!

I am really finding it such a blessing and a help to have someone here, all the time (not just weekends and evenings, silly husband having a job!), that can help me with the little things that normally get forgotten about.  I am no longer drowning in a sea of clean washing, I have actually managed to put it all away!

My dishes have been done every day which has given hubby a break too, as that is normally his job.  This morning when I got up (late for the baby had a terrible night but then slept in a little) I found my friend cleaning my kitchen to an extent that I have not had the time to do for some time!

Today I exclaimed that it was a shame I hadn't got my nappies on the line, I was informed they were already there, I hadn't even noticed them go out.

This is not to forget all the times I have been able to go to the toilet without a baby in tow.  I am absolutely loving the number of cups of tea that have been brought to me while breastfeeding (or expressing, yes, this is the kind of friend where she can even see me pump!) and having an extra pair of hands has even allowed me to make a nutritious lunch each day as well as a dinner!

If someone came to your house for a week and you could tell them to do whatever you wanted, what would be your priority?

Owning up to being mad!

So, this is the main point of this blog, mainly because it isn't a big part of me any more, but I thought I would share with you some of the challenges of being a Mum with a history of serious mental ill-health.

I used to be very unwell, I used to be psychotic, I used to be depressed to the point of so many suicide attempts that I lost count long before I stopped and I also used to have periods of mania.  I spent much of my early 20s in a psychiatric ward, sometimes the doors were locked and I wasn't always there at my own choice.  For a very long time the only thing that kept me well(ish) was having drugs jabbed into my bum once a fortnight.  Perhaps controversially, though, I don't mind you knowing this, it is part of who I was (and to an extent am) and I think that the fear of people who are not completely mentally well comes from people being scared to talk openly about their experiences.

I longed for Naomi (well a child) all that time, I was desperate, my husband and I even tried for a baby for a while.  I am so pleased, though, that God didn't let it happen at that time, for I could barely look after myself, let alone another little baby.  I am pleased that God's grace allowed Him to deny me my greatest desire.

I did get better though, I received treatment in a Therapeutic Community and my life turned around.  I love life now, I no longer tolerate it!  I love my friends and family and I love growing in being a Mum and a child of God!


I still find some things challenging though, I have always struggled to keep my mental health good unless I get enough sleep, and (particularly recently) Naomi has been keeping me up a lot and so I have to make sure I catch up when I can and that I do other things to keep me healthy.  I need to make sure I get enough exercise (a challenge in itself with a small baby) and I need to make sure I eat sensible food and don't ALWAYS just reach for the chocolate bar when the day has proved difficult!

My OCDish ways also need to be negotiated, I wear odd socks, I do this because wearing matching socks would stress me out unless they matched EXACTLY, even having had one go through the washing machine an extra time and so be a slightly different shade, really makes me anxious and so I have made it part of my personality to wear odd socks.  All this to say, I can't let that affect the way I deal with Naomi and not just in her dress style, but also that when she gets older and wants to colour the man in the picture in blue, I will just need to let her, it will however cause me no end of anxiety!  As will her putting her books back on the shelf but not in alphabetical order!

The thing I am working through at the moment, is that as the mother of a 5 month old baby who doesn't sleep through the night and struggles to go back to sleep without having my boob put in her mouth, it is completely normal to have down days! The adrenaline of the first few weeks has gone, this is me settled into my new life and things are challenging.  Sometimes she cries, sometimes she refuses to eat even though she is hungry, sometimes she cries because she wanted that toy and I gave her a different one and often she cries when I leave the room (isn't her separation anxiety supposed to come at more like 9 months?), but having a down day isn't the same as being depressed.  i have to allow myself to feel rubbish without worrying that I am becoming ill, for that will only perpetuate the problem!

I love my little girl and I wouldn't not have her for the world, but my mental health had been stable for only about 2 years when she showed up, I took a big risk and I am pleased to report that, so far, we are all doing well :-)

And the winner is......

Congratulations to Elisha who has just been randomly selected as the winner of this week's nappy competition, I hope they will bring you much joy and happiness and keep many bottoms dry for a long time!

Disposable or washable?

I thought seeing as I have a competition running just now in order to win some nappies, I thought I should share with you my reasons for using washable nappies and the thought process that led my family to go down the washable route...

When I was pregnant with Naomi there were lots of things we had to make decisions about, one decision was about the kind of nappy to use. I am quite hot on environmental issues and the idea of using lots of disposable nappies didn't sit well with me and so it was from this point of view that I started to explore the idea of using cloth nappies.

At the time I started looking into this I lived in the North East of Scotland and with Naomi being due at the end of January, so drying lots of nappies on the line would not really be possible, I started to think about the environmental impact of using a tumble drier as much as would be necessary, everyone knows that babies produce a lot of washing, however you chose to deal with their rear ends! I'll be honest, I haven't looked properly into the energy it takes to make a disposable nappy but I came to the conclusion that I would rather use a bit more electricity rather than have lots of nappies sitting in landfill sites not decomposing and as it happens, we found ourselves moving to the Midlands before Naomi was born and as a result I am able to dry the nappies on my washing line most days.

Another consideration was to do with cost. Disposable nappies are obviously and ongoing cost where as cloth nappies are expensive to begin with, however you then (in theory) need never buy another nappy ever again! The advice we seemed to be able to find was that if planning a family with two children then cost would be about the same, with one, disposables would be cheaper and with three or more then cloth nappies would be the way to go. Sandy and I would love (all things going well to have 3 or 4 children) so there was a lot to be said, purely from a financial point of view of going down the cloth nappy route. As it happens though we had some friends who had a complete birth to potty set of nappies and they kindly gave these to us for nothing, so going down the cloth route has definitely been cheaper for us!

Let's be honest though, I'm not going to pretend that Naomi has never had a disposable nappy on her bottom! Everyone we knew who had made cloth nappies work had told us to use disposables for the first few weeks. Ignoring the fact that the yukky muconium from the first few poos would probably ruin your lovely nappies, it is just not fair on yourself to expect you to do anything that is more work than it has to be when you are dealing with a newborn baby with limited sleep! So Naomi wore disposables until she was three weeks old and also wore them for all of our two week holiday and has occasionally had them for a day if we have been travelling far from home.  We also increasingly use them at night time (she goes to bed in a washable which we change for a disposable if/when she wakes) as we found she was waking up often in the early hours of the night and we also found she was soaking through her nappy and sleeping bag every night.

I will definitely keep using cloth nappies and I hope to use them for any future children we have too, I love knowing my impact on the environment is less than it might otherwise be and I love knowing I don't need to keep money back in the budget for disposables, but I increasingly realise that with all things in parenting, being relaxed about your decisions and about the alternatives seems to be the best way to make sure it happens!