I bought my house before I met my ex, and well before I’d even considered children, luckily I bought the biggest house I could afford at the time so therefore it is plenty big enough to accomodate Jackson as he grows, and possibly even a sibling (or two at a squeeze!).

I did everything to my house, it needed rewiring, new central heating, replastering, new woodwork, new kitchen, new bathrooms, and even walls building, and it was incredible to do. I saw my house rise from the dust and I have loved finally getting to live in it for the last year.

I am a total perfectionist, and I had planned for white walls and minimal ‘stuff’, however, there have been some things that I have had to accept since Jackson came into my life.

Firstly, ‘stuff’ and babies just go hand in hand, it’s just a fact. If it’s not a first bath to clutter the bathroom, it’s a mountain of toys to rival Everest. Baby clothes litter many rooms and socks disappear under the sofa to be found weeks later (after I have given them up for lost and bought more) by an inquisitive cat!

Worse than the ‘stuff’ which, given adequate cupboards could be cleared away, are the little accidents – my walls have gained knocks and marks from health visitors carrying large scales and they’ve been kissed on occasion by little mouths. Nappy leaks have led to slightly yellow patches on my carpets, and snot trails on my sofas are just the norm now, I don’t even notice them anymore, much to the horror of guests I am sure! My woodwork has had things knocked into and I’ve had to just suck it up, knowing that my nice fresh house is just being lived in, and that this is what it was for.

I have mellowed a bit, wanting pictures of Jackson on my walls, meaning drilling – shock horror, though I am yet to actually put these up – searching for the perfect frame, oh come on, I haven’t mellowed that much!

But the bits that have hurt the most was putting up stairgates – how stupid is that! They’re totally necessary and I can’t not have them, but drilling into my fresh plasterwork and most painfully my woodwork did make me cringe!

I love my house, and honestly, with every little thing that we do to it, necessary or cosmetic it is feeling more and more like mine and Jacksons home, so I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Jackson is 8 months old! He’s over half a year old and now every day he creeps closer to that scary birthday when he will have been on this planet a whole year!

I don’t think I’ve done a month update before which is a shame – after an incredibly detailed pregnancy I have really slacked on updating my blog about his baby days, but honestly when is there time?! I seriously admire people who blog with a new baby, or maybe their babies are different to mine and sleep in their cots, or some days sleep at all! This said I think I have kept notes of all his major milestones so hopefully I won’t live to regret not keeping detailed notes – after all, what would I record and what wouldn’t I? He is changing and developing so rapidly!

So at 8 months I have a baby (toddler?!) who prefers to be on his feet, who is starting to walk around the furniture, who can sit, crawl, pull himself up, feed himself and clap, but cannot for the life of him sleep in his own cot (but that’s ok, I can’t have everything!)

He seems to be developing quickly, a few days after rolling over he was up on all fours. It took him a while to get the crawling down, he started off commando crawling on his tummy but can now crawl properly, but a day after learning to do that he was pulling himself up. He doesn’t seem satisfied with what he can do, he always wants to do something more. I’m still convinced that it is all driven by the fact that he wants to reach, grab and get to more things to put in his mouth!

This is all great, he is by far the most advanced out of the babies his age I know, but I am not bragging- everyone says he’s clever and he is, but what I wouldn’t give to put him down and be able to walk way and find him there when I got back! What I wouldn’t give to not be shopping for stair gates (he can climb the bottom step and I haven’t left him to experiment any further!) I know that from now to when he goes to school (or maybe uni) I have my hands full keeping him out of mischief. He is a full time job, I cannot leave him loose for a second because he will have pulled himself up on the sofa and probably fallen back and smacked his head on the floor (he has done this a few times when I have been watching, and you think it’s scary them falling back from sitting….!)

We started weaning at 6 months so he’s been weaning for 2 months. In some ways it feels like a lifetime! I started with baby led weaning, but he just freaked out when the food got to the back of his throat, so I tried him with baby porridge. This seemed to slowly introduce him to the idea of swallowing solids and now he will happily chomp through a bread stick (though I’m sure more ends up on the floor than in his tummy!) he just needed a gentle introduction. He is fussy about what he will eat from a spoon, preferring fruit purees to savoury foods, but he will give anything a go if he can pick it up. Although feeding is going well, he hates water! I started him with a baby cup, but he couldn’t get anything out, I tried a different one and it came out too fast and he got soaked. I tried him with a beaker and he acted like he was drowning when I tipped it up (going so far as to grab onto me, hold his breath and cough) and so I got him a bottle, being exclusively breastfed this was new for him and he still won’t get the hang of it. I’m pretty sure he thinks water is an accidental side effect of him chewing on the bottle. Hopefully he will get there, I will have to persevere with that one!

We have started swimming with Water Babies, and knowing how he is with drinking water I was expecting the worst, but he wasn’t that bad. He clung to me like a baby monkey to start with but slowly grew in confidence, he even goes underwater and doesn’t scream!

My baby boy is growing up scarily fast, he is totally unrecognisable from the baby I brought home from hospital in both looks and abilities!! I feel like if I’d blinked I would have missed everything that has happened, and that’s terrfying!

2 years ago I first found out I was pregnant with Effy-Mae, and since that moment I have wanted nothing else but to be a mother. I made a conscious decision to give up my job and dedicate my life to my children, and this is why it confuses me when people sound like they’re giving me a way out when they say we should go out and have someone look after Jackson.
I get that some parents like that, time away from the children, time away for themselves, but that’s not me! I wish I could spend 100% of my time with him! I hate leaving him when I shower (though I know I need to shower!) so a day out shopping or to the cinema or a night out without him sounds awful. I’m sure this may change as he grows up, but at the moment I want to make the most of every moment.
In a month I am leaving him for an evening with his grandparents, and I’m absolutely dreading it! I know he will be fine, he loves them and I’m only a 20minute drive away, but that doesn’t stop the illogical part of my brain panicking!

When I describe myself now, I don’t describe myself, I say I’m a mother and describe my children, and I love that! I myself am nothing interesting, but my children are everything! I am a mother before anything else. I have made a decision to pause my life to start his and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Don’t tell me how my son should sleep, or eat, or cry! Even if you’ve had children yourself, just don’t!
Times change, my parenting style is different to yours (firmly in the attachment parenting group here (accidentally but happily)) and each child is different.
If you don’t have children, definitely don’t tell me how to parent!
I’m not unhappy with how we are at the moment, and if I was then I’d ask for help.
We co-sleep. Happily. I try him in his cot occasionally, but he doesn’t like it and wakes up and crys and I’m not going to force the issue because I like having him in with me. I like waking up and checking he’s ok and that if he crys because he’s teething or hungry or just sad then I am right there. He will sleep in his cot eventually. I’m sure when he’s a bit older we won’t like it so much and he will be able to sleep without me, but that’s ok. That time will come, in its own time. No. In HIS own time.
I’m currently weaning him and am doing a mix of purées and Baby Led Weaning and we are going with that! He’s getting some food down himself, playing with the rest and the best thing of all, enjoying it. I don’t mind that he’s not shovelling down bowl after bowl of mushy puréed peas, he’s not even 7 months so I’m happy with what we have achieved!
I am definitely not going to leave my son to cry. No. Never. (Well maybe 10mins when I’m on the loo, but nature calls and all that!) but not intentionally. I’m not going to leave him crying to settle and go back in occasionally. Stop suggesting it. Yes, maybe our parents did it, but they also let us lick lead paint and let us play outside alone. Times change.

I’m not worried about how my son is growing up. He’s happy, hes active (he’s crawling – goodness me he is the first of the babies I know to be doing that.) He will sleep in his own bed and eat food properly with a knife and fork when he is good and ready and you nagging me doesn’t help that, doesn’t speed that along, it just irritates me. I know what I’m doing and how to achieve what I want (or at least head in the direction I want) I don’t have plans, he wouldn’t stick to them anyway. I’m being led by him, what he wants and needs and I couldn’t be happier with how we are doing.

I knew that I’d be nervous about Jackson, after losing Effy-Mae I am constantly terrified about losing him too.
Before he was born I picked out the monitor I wanted, the all singing, all dancing sound, video and movement monitor from AngelCare. Even now, I daren’t put him down in his cot for more than 5 minutes without turning on the movement monitor. What if in the 5 minutes I’m on the loo he stops breathing?? It’s silly. Totally ridiculous. It’s something I’ve had to let go of a bit for cosleeping, obviously the movement sensor would just pick up my movements in the bed so I have to go without when he’s in with me, and this still scares me every time. I’m trying to wean him off it and get him into his own cot, but he seems fairly attached!
When I drive with him in the car I take extra care, driving slowly, leaving bigger stopping distances than normal, and I trust myself more than anyone else. When someone else is driving I sit next to him ready to throw myself over him if anything happens, constantly on edge. I don’t get people who don’t take extra care when he’s in the car – his dad drove us down to Kent to see some of his family and was leaving a car length stopping distance at 70mph. I spent the whole journey leaning over Jackson, fingers on his chin to stop his head whipping forwards if we crashed. Again it’s excessive, I’m sure most parents just put them in the car seat and think no more of it, but I just can’t. I run through every eventuality in my head!
At a group the other day there were older children around and they stood over him and another child of a similar age to him, their feet were getting close to their faces and I picked him straight up out of the situation but the other mum just left her child there. She was more trusting of the other children than me and her child was fine, but I just couldn’t take that risk! It was a similar situation with some toys out in a room, Jackson pulled a foily sheet over his face and I instantly took it off again and pushed it away from him – what if it smothered him? What if I was talking to another mum and didn’t notice? But another baby did the exact same thing and it’s mum just watched it and again baby was fine. I know I overreacted!
I’ve surprised myself though in one sense, I’m not worried about germs! If his dummy goes on the floor (at home) as long as it doesn’t have any hairs on he can have it back – obviously out in public it’s a different story. I let him play with and suck toys at play groups and in general I’m not worried! I’d expected myself to be overprotective in this aspect too, but I’ve come to the realisation that he is tougher than he looks!

I know that I’m overprotective, but I know what losing a child is like and I can’t go through it again.

I love this quote because it’s so very true.
My parents are amazing and as I expected are making fantastic grandparents.
Since I was little I always wanted to have my children young for two reasons.
1) My parents were older when they had me (there’s a 12 year age gap between me and my older brothers) so they were always older than the other parents in the playground and I wanted my children to have the ‘cool younger mum’ – though times have changed and I am by no means young by today’s standards!
2) I wanted my children to know their grandparents. I barely knew mine, one died before I was born and the last one when I was 6. I’ve always felt I missed a special relationship there and I wanted my children to have this, and the flipside to this, and I think my main driving reason was I wanted my parents to be grandparents and to see their grandchildren grow up.
Although I have older brothers, neither have had children yet so with Jackson being the first grandchild that they have got to spend time with (Effy-Mae will always be the firstborn) he is being very well spoilt – both affection and toy wise!
I am so proud that I got to give my parents this experience, I love watching the special bond develop between grandparents and grandson and hopefully they will get to become grandparents many more times over in the near future as they definitely deserve it.