I wasn't sure whether to write and publish this or not, it's not the usual type of post from me but I do feel it's important to me and it could help others who are expectant or new mums.

After having a baby, your body goes through so many changes. After being pregnant for 9 months and your body getting adjusted to all the new hormones, you give birth and suddenly everything starts changing again, just after you've finally gotten used to it!

I knew there were quite a lot of changes I was going to experience; I'd experienced them whilst being pregnant so I knew they had to go back at some point - my skin changed from it's normal/combination status to extremely dry in the early months and then glowing and healthy in the later months. Obviously your figure alters drastically and you get cravings and in the later months (if you didn't already) a huge appetite.

Although I didn't really notice it at the time, whilst pregnant my hair was falling out a lot less than normal and it was growing faster and becoming thicker too. After birth, I didn't immediately experience any hair loss, it only started for me at about 3.5 months and wow, did it come out thick and fast. I didn't really think too much of it until one day I pulled my hair back to do my makeup and spotted two bald patches at my temples. I was obviously upset and although I knew it was going to be hormone/postpartum changes I never expected it to be so drastic.

The reason it happens is that your hair normally goes through two phases; growing and resting. Most of your hair is in a growing phase whilst 10-15% is in a resting phase. When it ends the resting phase, that's when your hair falls out. The difference is when you're pregnant the hormone changes trigger many more of your hair follicles to enter the growing phase resulting in having lovely, thick and healthy locks.

After giving birth, the hormones return to normal and your hair now has a lot of catching up to do and a lot of the hair that was in the growing phase now enters the resting phase and begins to shed leading you to finding a lot more hair coming out when styling or washing.

I'm not kidding when I say that my hair now comes out in thick strands when I'm shampooing it, then when I'm towel drying it, brushing it and styling it. My hairbrush is full of hair within a couple of days rather than about a month (is it gross I only empty my brush when it's completely full?) of brushing it and I'm finding hairs shedding all over my clothes. It doesn't help having a curious 5 month old who loves to tug on mummy's hair either! He ends up with handfuls of it and more of it ends up floating around the house.

I'm not entirely sure why the loss is so noticeable at the temples; perhaps because the hair there can be quite fine and wispy anyway because I haven't been able to notice any other bald patches on my head.

Unfortunately, there's very little that can be done to avoid the hair loss, it will happen whether or not you breastfeed and as it's hormonal you pretty much have to go through it. I have really thick hair anyway and so I'm not sure if you lose more/less hair depending on how thick it is or if it makes it more noticeable depending on your hair type.

You can help manage it in a couple of ways though and fortunately, it won't last forever. By the time your baby is celebrating their first birthday you should be back to normal. If you have hair that can be styled easily, you could always try going for a fringe to hide the bald spots at the temples and then you can wear your hair back without worrying people will notice. This isn't an option for me due to having curly hair so I find that as long as I wear it down, you can't tell. I also got a couple of inches lopped off to help make my hair a bit lighter and it seems to have reduced the strain on my hair too.

I hope that this is helpful to anyone going through the same thing as me, you are not alone! And also if you're an expectant mum or haven't yet reached the 3/4 month mark then to give you an idea of what to expect and not feel too shocked or worried - it's completely normal and it will stop and is just one more thing for your body to adapt to and let's face it, that cute little face looking at you is totally worth it.

UPDATE: I posted this 4/5 months PP - Now we're 7 months along and at about 6 months PP, I noticed my hair had started coming back in little tufts. My hair has now returned to it's normal rate of shedding and the bald patches are a lot less noticeable. 

Oscar's 7 Month Update

Ok, so now it's kiiiiinda been scaled back to a monthly update, it just makes more sense as I was repeating myself on the weekly ones a little bit.

Oscar, you have now officially turned 7 months old, I really can't believe it's been over half a year since you arrived in this world. You are becoming more of a little person every single day, I think you're definitely trying to talk to us now, I often film you to send a video to Grandma & GD and if I say "say hello!" or "say bye bye" you will give me a massive grin and sometimes make a sound that vaguely resembles the words I just said.

You got some lovely presents on your first Christmas, particularly your car walker that you look so adorable in and have now mastered how to turn the key and accelerator yet still look surprised when you hear it make a noise.

You've moved on to Stage 2 weaning foods now and you are not a massive fan of the lumpy texture. you usually pull a face and don't seem to have grasped the concept of chewing yet and as you doesn't have any teeth either you tend to just swallow the spoonful whole. We tried you on some 'Puffits' which are age appropriate but you just swallowed it whole and were not a happy boy. I'm sure you'll get there!

You're on your way to sitting up unaided, if you have some support behind you then he can lean forward and play with your toys but you do have a tendency to topple sideways if we put you on the bed with no cushions behind you.

You are improving every day with your motor skills and can now not only pick up your toys without any trouble but you can pass them from hand to hand. You're showing more interest in a wider variety of toys but without fail always want mummy's phone! Perhaps it's the penguin case I have on the back?
You absolutely love blowing raspberries now and sit there for about 10/15 minutes sometimes content with yourself, you've also taken to stuffing your bib into your mouth and chewing on it, if I try and take it out, you just push it back in!

Sleep wise, You are still going down at about 9pm and waking up 12 hours later at 9am. We are looking at a slight adjustment on your feeding and sleeping - we want to drop your evening meal that you have just before bedtime and give you only a bottle but incorporate snacks into your daily routine so you're not losing out on any food or nutrients. We're thinking of gradually bringing you back to waking at about 8am and in bed for 8pm as sometimes, I feel you're already a little tired by the time we get to your evening meal.
We've also just lowered your cot to the 2nd level, I was worried you might learn to pull yourself up one night and so you're now safe and lowered.

I can't believe you'll be one in less than 1/2 a year, you're so perfect as you are yet I look forward to watching you grow and change.

Love you lots little bean,

Mummy xxxx

The Dummy Debate

This is a question that comes up time and time again and people tend to be quite divided on it, they're a bit like marmite in the parenting world.

At the start of my pregnancy, N and I were quite against dummies and just said that we weren't going to bother with them. Our main reason for this was because we didn't want Oscar getting into a bad habit with it and refusing to go to sleep/settle without one or waking up all the time in the night for us to put it back in.

However, when we were out shopping for baby things, I thought I might as well pick a pack up and use them if we felt that they'd be beneficial to Oscar in helping soothe him. - N wasn't too pleased about this but I just said we didn't have to use them if we didn't want to but at least the option was there.

I decided to pick up the Tommee Tippee dummies as we had the bottles (we switched to Avent a couple of weeks after he was born as the teats kept collapsing on themselves) and according to their website/packaging they help support the natural shape of baby’s growing palate and have a special teat that expands gently across the roof of the mouth which to support healthy teeth and gum development.
Dummies by other brands such as Avent and Mothercare's own range also offer the same thing though so there's quite a large selection to choose from and it's pretty much from an aesthetic point of view which ones you go for.

Once Oscar arrived it's needless to say that we did indeed go down the dummy route. For the first few days we were sans dummy and then in a moment of desperation when he was really upset, we decided to pop one in and see if it would help calm him down.

It did.

From that point on, if Oscar was upset for no main reason such as a feed/change/sleep etc, we would try him with his dummy and see if that was what he wanted. He would go down with it at every sleep time but we did encounter the issue we had feared where when it came out when he was sleeping, he would wake and cry for it until we popped it back in.

It was when we went away for a week and he was sleeping in his travel cot in a different room that we really had a problem, he was waking numerous times in the night rather than just occasionally and sometimes we were no sooner back in bed than it had fallen out again. This made for a couple of very tired parents and an unsettled night for Ozzy.

However, this all soon came to a stop as he seemed to find his thumb at about 12 weeks old and that solved all of our dummy related issues. He now only really ever wants his thumb and of course it's easy for him to find in the night as all he has to do is pop his thumb in rather than be unable to find his dummy. He sucks his thumb as his main way of soothing himself and also when he's tired. We do still have a dummy in his cot as sometimes he'll like to have it in at first and if it comes out during the night, he'll pop his thumb in.

At first we were a bit worried that the thumb sucking might become a serious habit that he could find hard to stop when he's older or that it could cause issues with his teeth developing but we'll just have to see how it goes. It makes him happy for now and I have read that quite a lot of babies stop sucking their thumb when they are ready, but we are prepared that it could be a difficult habit for him to break out of!

Overall, I'd have to say that I am in favour of the dummy.  One of the main positives that I was happy about was that research has shown that it can give protection and help minimise the risk of SIDS if you give them one as they go down to sleep as it can help regulate their breathing. It's also obviously good for baby to soothe themselves with and can help with babies who have a strong suck reflex that exceeds the time they would spend on bottle or breast.

The negatives are that they could potentially cause nipple confusion if you're breastfeeding, so it's recommended to keep them off a dummy if you are until they're about one month old. They can also cause the same issue as thumb sucking with teeth development and possibly causing a speech impediment. Of course, some people just don't like the look of dummies in a babies mouth and you could worry that you might be encouraging a lack of communication as they get older.

In my opinion, the positives and the negatives can balance each other out and if you use it sparingly, such as only at sleep times or at times of real distress, the chances are that your baby is unlikely to develop a bad habit with it and will be able to soothe themselves. You can also get glow in the dark dummies which are great for when little ones are a bit older and can spot them dummy and put it back in if it comes out! Or to be honest, handy for parents when you can't spot the darn thing in the cot when they're crying out for it at 3am...

What's your opinion on dummies? Could you never be without them or do you loathe them with a passion?

Oscar's Sleep Routine

Asleep on your playmat - not a usual napping place!

Oscar has always been really great (to this point, don't want to jinx anything!) with his sleeping. The first night he was at home he slept 5 hours straight and has only ever woken once during the night for a feed and a change in the first 3 months and after that point, he started to sleep through. He now currently sleeps 12 hours straight throughout the night.

We have never nursed Oscar to sleep, from the very beginning he has always been put down awake in his cot or if he was falling asleep on us, we gently moved him into his Moses Basket. I think this was hugely beneficial to us having him being a good sleeper has he has never grown attached to sleeping on anyone. We use Ewan the Dream Sheep who I cannot praise enough, Ozzy absolutely loves him and he has been another key element in him going down to sleep.

Once we started trying to get him into a routine at around the 6 week mark, we did have to go into our room and soothe him a little and pick him up for hugs and reassurance and then put him back down again and walk out. This really only lasted a week or two and Ewan was his main comforter in helping him sleep.

Again, around the 6 week mark, when we started to implement the routine we ended up feeding him at around midnight and then he would sleep through until about 6.30/7 am. That was the starting point for us eliminating the night feed as we started to gradually bring back his midnight feed earlier and earlier (usually around 15 minutes earlier each night) and then he ended up having his last feed at around 8pm and waking somewhere between 7 and 8am.

Also, we have always had him sleeping separately from us, for the first 10 weeks he slept in his Moses Basket in our bedroom but he got too big for it so he moved into his cot in his nursery and has stayed in there ever since. I know a lot of people tend to have their baby in with them for the first 6 months but we didn't really want to do that - he is quite a noisy sleeper crying out in the night and kicking his legs despite being asleep and also his cot is really too large to fit in our room.
He has been really happy in his nursery and sometimes he even cries until you go and put him in his cot and then he settles down and goes off to sleep.

His current routine involves him waking up at around 9am, having his breakfast and then he has a nap at about 11.30 for anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour and then he has his lunch. Usually he is ready for his afternoon nap an hour after lunch which he has in his cot which usually lasts for 2 hours although he does go through phases of waking up after an hour or sleeping for up to 3 hours which we just let him do. He then has his tea and then another short nap for about 45 minutes and then he is awake until he goes down to bed at 9pm after having his final meal.

I'm not sure how much of it is down to good luck and how much of it is down to us getting him into a routine but we are extremely happy that he is such a great sleeper (obviously!) and I do think that Oscar has really benefit from having a routine as he knows when he's going to be getting fed, when his nap times are and when his bedtime is.

I spent a lot of time whilst I was pregnant reading all about the different ways to do things with your baby and for me, having a routine and not using any co-sleeping or attachment parenting was something that I thought would really work well for all of us. Oscar has always been fully supported by us and whenever he has been upset or needed a reassuring hug we have been there for him, but I do feel that he is a much more settled baby because he knows how to self soothe.

Week 27 & 28

I might start changing these updates to fortnightly as although you are advancing, I'm not sure that each week will be that different from the next! We'll see :-)

In the past couple of weeks, I mentioned it in your last update but now you really reach out for everything. I bring your food in, you want it. I get my phone/camera out to film or take a picture out, you try and take it, it's so cute. You have a really determined look on your face to have it!

You are drinking 3 6oz bottles of follow-on milk a day, one 7oz bottle of juice at lunch and another two smaller bottles of juice throughout the day, you seem to enjoy having your juice and it's helping you with going to the toilet too. Of course, you are having 4 meals a day too - you have definitely inherited mummy's sweet tooth - you're still not a fan of savoury meals but love all the fruit ones.

You can now grab with two hands properly (as you can see from the photo above! Don't worry, we still feed you.) and you are very strong on your legs when we hold you up on them. I am thinking it's possible that you might not be much of a crawler as you have always hated being on your front and you might skip that bit out and go straight to walking when you're ready.

Your language comes on more every day and you have a new little selection of sounds you like to make including "adada", "daai"  "mama" and "mmmi" among lots of squeals. You still love watching Baby Einstein and this is when you make most of your noises, I think you're trying to talk to the puppets!

You will have had your 1st Christmas by your next update, how exciting is that? I'm sure Father Christmas has got lots of lovely presents for you to enjoy.

Lots of love,

Mama xxxxx

Week 26

Hey Ozzy!

You officially turned 6 months old this week, I can't believe it. You seem to look much bigger this week than you did last week, I'm not sure if you've had a growth spurt or not but you are starting to look like a real little boy rather than just a baby.

You're still on your quest to sit up on your own, you are improving all the time but you're not quite there yet!
You have pretty much outgrown all of your 3-6 month clothes and we've had to get you a whole new wardrobe practically.

You've moved on to the Stage 2 milk as now you're eating at every single meal, you didn't need the Stage 1 anymore. I think it was too much for your little body and now you're having baby juice at one meal and your milk for the other meals. We've got a sippy cup for you but at the minute, you prefer chewing on it's handles rather than trying to drink from it!

You are so aware of everything around you now and also try and grab EVERYTHING. You also hate being put in your car seat (and your coat!) and without fail will cry every time you are put in it. We are looking at getting you a bigger seat so that you are less squashed up but we need to see if it will fit in our car first.

Love you lots,

Mummy xxx

Baby Christmas Picks

Daddy's Little Helper All in One - £8.00

My First Christmas Bauble - £3.00 

Reindeer 3-piece set - £12.00

Stocking (can be personalised) - £5.00

Santa's Little Helper hat - £2.00

Santa Booties - £3.00

I can never resist an opportunity to dress Oscar for the occasion - I was looking forward to picking his
Halloween costume before he was even born! So I thought I'd put together my pick of Christmas cuteness to share. I spotted the All In One in store and thought it was so adorable! I want something comfy for him to wear on the day rather than being too dressed up as we're only going to be relaxing at home or at his grandparents. I already have a santa hat for Oscar that seems to be glued to his head, he looks so sweet! This elf one is just as adorable.

What are your favourite Christmas baby items?