Gracie Update.

 Prior to my last post (World pandemic) I had posted about our Breastfeeding struggles. Gracie continued to refuse the boob, this lead to me expressing her every feed for the first 8 weeks of her life. I decided to introduce formula when she was 8 weeks old because it was half term, Archie was on holiday and he wanted to go out on adventures not sit watching me expressing for Gracie then feeding Gracie. I managed to express milk off and combi feed until my milk ran dry. 

Our personal breastfeeding journey was a hard one but I took it on for as long as I could given the circumstances. I tried getting nipple guards, bottles with teets that mimicked boobs, the works but she was determined, more determined than I had the fight for. 

Since day 1 shes known her own mind, shes strong willed and wants things just how she wants them.. her sleep has always been an issue and continues to be even at 2. She went through weaning at 6 months and point blank refused sweet things, we finally got her to try sweet at the age of 9 months. She started walking unaided, just after her 1st birthday. However the moment she could walk holding onto someone's hand, that is exactly what she wanted to do. For her 1st birthday we went to  a local farm, she spent the whole time wanting to walk 

The pandemic hit and we found ourselves home more than we had ever been, the 4 of us as a unit in each others pockets all the time. We took family walks together across the farmers fields, along the river and around the estate we lived in, parks were closed due to stop the virus spreading through touching of play equipment, so we was unable to release archies energy in the means of a climbing frame. The kids went from spending time in a park on a near on daily basis to not being able to enter one for 6 months. Due to the location of our flat we was able to use the delivery area (where we parked out car and the shops recieved their deliveries) as a little garden, the only shop to reciever delivery's were the bakery and that was always early mornings. We used to set a little tent up in our second allocated parking space along with a picnic blanket and enjoy the sun to the best we could. Our neighbours used to get out a padding pool for their daughter in their little area. It was the only way we managed to get by on the hotter days. 

When we moved we was able to enjoy lazy days in the garden and it was the best feeling in the world.  By chance we stumbled upon this house and are so very lucky it worked the way it did. We viewed, agreed terms and had a move date within a week, we then had 3 weeks to pack up our whole life of 8 years, with 2 kids, in the middle of a pandemic where people were not allowed to enter other peoples homes. We genuinly thought we was going to have to move on our own, with no help from family. 

Thankfully it was a beautiful day the day of the move so the inlaws had the children in the garden while my dad helped Steve and myself move everything..

Fast forward to April 2021, Gracie celebrated her 2nd birthday in lockdown last month. We couldn't do anything and steve was at work 12-9 that day, Archie was in school so it was very low key. Shes obsessed with peppa pig so we hope to take her to peppa pig World at some point this year (if restrictions allow). Her speech is still very much gracie babble however next week she starts nursery half a day a week, until sept where she will go one full day a week so we hope her speech will come along more then. Sleep is non exsistant, she don't sleep, some how she managed to survive on 3-4 solid hours then broken sleep. Her normal time to wake is between 1.30 and 2. We usually spent on advridge 40 mins in her room settling her back down before she wakes again between 3 and 4 where she then expects to start her day. Its hard going because of how active she is through the day. 

I'm hoping, preying that she finally decided to sleep through soon. However knowing gracie and her strong willness ill be waiting a long time for that. 

World Pandemic

 Well hello, its been a while. 

Life really has been one huge struggle for us and many people alike since my last post. For purposes of reading back in years to come we are currently coming towards the tail end (we hope) of a world pandemic. A huge spreading virus known as Coronavirus (covid-19) a world spread virus that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives that orginated from wuhun in China. It is believed to have started due to a man eating a bat with the virus, although their are many theories out there. 

We entered a UK wide national lockdown on 23rd March 2020, our first confirmed case within the UK was in January 2020, the virus has swept through the world and many countries have had to do full lockdowns to help ease the spread. 

LOCKDOWN 1, (23rd March) it was tough, but my world the government came up trumps with furlough (80% of your wages paid if you was unable to work) all none essential shops, play zones and pubs/bars were closed. It originally started as a review in 3 weeks, however for myself in the hairdressing world it ran until July 4th although many other busisness found themselves closed way beyond that. We was to stay home, we couldn't visit loved ones and was allowed out for one walk a day. Living in a flat it was seriously tough going, especially as the weather picked up almost instantly. 

Life slowly started to get back to normal however we were thrown into wearing masks when going about our day to day life. I must so add we moved house through the pandemic June 12th (steves birthday) we moved from thr 2 bedroom flat we had lived in for 8 years, to a 3 bedroom house with a garden. It was a god send and happened just at the right time. We were so lucky and still to this day feel very fortunate. 

LOCKDOWN 2 ( 5th Nov-2nd Dec)   cases started to surge so once more Boris Johnson put us back in a lockdown. It was expected so his announcement wasn't a shock. We had done it before we could do it again. We slowly got back into life again through December however we was all very awear of how easily it could all spread.  

We soon found this out when my sister contracted it through her line of work, she is what is known as my childcare support bubble, she looks after gracie  while I work, because we had contact I was told I needed to isolate. Isolation was like lockdown only you could not leave the house for any reason. This happened on the 18th December, 2 weeks after starting back in work. I was allowed back in the salon from Dec 31st however this leads us nicely onto.... 

LOCKDOWN 3 (starting as regional 26th dec)  Yes another one. This one started as regional, the area we lived in had spiked with a new varient of covid. It was more easily spread and fast paced. Reginal only lasted a short while before it once more became NATIONAL. 

And this is where we are currently at, restrictions are easing in the next few days (April 12th 2021) non essential retail, hairdressers and beauty, pubs and restaurants- if seated outside are allowed to open. Its part of stage 2 of releasing lockdown. 

I did forget to add that the schools were closed from March 2020 until September 2020, they was allowed to continue to be open through the November lockdown but we once more closed with the December lockdown. Parents were having to home learn the children on a daily basis until they returned to the classroom once more March 8th 2021. Google classroom, Windows 360, purple mash and zoom were a huge part of life to help aid our children's school learning while at home. 

Lockdown has been a mixed bag for many people, its been fantastic for spending time with my little family, watching the children grow but there is no doubting its hindered so much of their life. Gracie has spent half her life in lockdown, or under hard restrictions preventing her from seeing many family members, shes not had the interaction with other children that Archie had at this point in his life an I 100% believe that shows, with both her speech and mannerisms. 

Breast feeding journey

So it's no secret I've been absent from my blog since breaking the news of our pregnancy. I won't lie it was a real struggle pregnancy however as you can tell from the title we have news.

We welcomed Gracie Rebecca into the world, Sunday March 17th at 15.14. From the date of this post she is 5 days old.

One thing I promised to be within my blog is honest, the good, the bad, the gritty, the works. So here I am day 5 of Breast feeding ready to give a little insight to our so far short journey and how it's really been.

Now I didn't breastfeed with our first, Archie. I think the main reason was because I was shy, I was worried about getting my boob out in public to feed. As silly as it sounds with it being such a natural thing, I still would hear of horror stories of people having a hard time or being asked to 'feed elsewhere'
However this time I wanted to give it ago. I still fully believe in you do you, if your baby is formula fed or breastfed no-one will be any of the wiser when you take your child to school. Honestly, my main reason for wanting to BF was money.

In the lead up to the birth I attended many workshops and groups to help me get a understanding of Breast Feeding and exactly how to do it. I looked up YouTube videos and took as many leaflets and books from the library that would help in anyway possible, I wanted to be prepared.

When Gracie was born, we managed to get a strong latch and a good 10 minute feed from her, the midwife was fab and helped check she was in position and that I was comfortable. She then left the room allowing us to adjust to our newborn and to continue feeding.
 It wasn't until abit later on, when I was back on the ward (as I had a overnight stay) that we hit problems.  Gracie could latch, we got that part but she just didn't want to do any of the hard work, I ended our first night hand expressing just to get a feed into her.

MONDAY - having hand expressed through the night, the midwife came round in the morning to once more give a little guidence to help get Gracie to work for her food.
It soon became clear Gracie wasn't up for hard work, so I was told to contiune hand expressing to get her going. We was then discharged from hospital.
Thankfully we had a very sleepy baby who didn't care much for food so we made do the rest of Monday with the syringe and hand expressing a ml at a time.

TUESDAY - due to the lack of feeding when the midwife called to check how we were doing she agreed she was concerned that a ml was not enough so agreed to come out, we established a latch and a little suckle before the boob got pushed away. It was a huge break through, but still not enough to make a huge difference. I was told to keep at it, as she was showing signs of improvement.

WEDNESDSY - OUR scheduled midwife appointment, weight check and genural check in with how it was all going.
The midwife weighed Gracie to find she had lost 8.5% of her birth weight. Thankfully my milk had started to come in so I was able to express my milk off. Our main concern was upping Gracies weight in anyway possible. I was told to offer the boob first however if she was refusing to stay on for more than 5 minutes to introduce the expressed milk.

THURSDAY - what a suprise our little monkey is still not wanting to work the boob, however her feeds are on the up, the day was spent expressing, and then feeding her.

FRIDAY - THE day I'm writing this, day 5. We're not exclusively breast but we are exclusively breastfed. I'm not going to lie, it's knackering, I'm expressing after every feed to keep my milk supply and enough for Gracie to always have milk. We get the odd suckle on the boob but not much. The midwife attended again today in order to weigh and do the heel prick test. Thankfully Gracie had gained, birth weight was 6lb 9oz, she dropped to 6lb3 on Wednesday and today was 6lb6 
We are getting a little better with staying on the boob but not enough for me to go cold turkey on the bottle.

We have an appointment to see a breast feeding specialist, the guru who comes highly recommended that within a few hours she will have your baby off the bottle and on the breast. I have my fingers crossed for this..


I'd be interested to know how you all got on. Did you breast feed? Could you breast feed?
How did you establish a good latch that remained.
We have tried skin to skin many times and daily we set aside a good hour to promote this but other than the small little signs of improvement it seems to be doing more in the way of producing extra milk that I always manage to spray. (Doh)

We Have News.

I'm unsure how we have managed to keep this off social media but with being little under half way (a week and A few days to be exact) it's about time we share the news.... Our family of 3 is becoming a family of 4 in March.

I'd love to paint a picture of it being all sunshine and rainbows but this pregnancy has been far from it. This baby is nothing like it's brother and seems to be causing me as much hassle as possible.
It all started back in July with the standard morning sickness that, let's face it is never really morning and more of all day sickness. A huge struggle to keep under wraps when your racing for the toilet every few minutes. Thankfully this time I didn't end up in hospital, well not with the sickness anyway.

Our 12 week scan was filled with mix emotions, excitement to see the baby along with a lot of worry, especially as our first midwife appointment was a year to the day that we found out we had miscarried.
However seeing that beating heart and the movement of baby soon saw all our fears deflate.

At 15 weeks we found that I was struggling with my blood pressure, for weeks I had been feeling light headed and dizzy. I was fine sitting down but the moment I got up and was active I would come over faint. I booked myself a doctor's appointment, thankfully I did because I was suffering was savere low blood pressure. When resting it was low but whenever I was active it was going super low.
I'm now on close monitoring to help with this.

18 weeks at my latest check up my doctor along with the midwife delivered the news they believed I could be suffering with pre eclampsia (something I didn't realise was even a thing so early on in pregnancy) it baffled me as I knew common signs were high blood pressure obviously something I was not suffering with. Swelling to hands/feet, can't say I had noticed any and weight gain, again something that I've not had any issues with especially as I have lost weight every week since I found out about the pregnancy.
Neither the less I went for the blood tests and took a urine sample to see the outcome these results I'm still waiting upon.

So far I have managed to maintain wearing my normal clothing, but then again I live my life in leggings or jeggings so they stretch with me.
I can notice a small bump appearing in the evenings when I'm bloated or if I wear a tighter top.

Archie has been super affectionate since finding out his going to be  a big brother, kissing my tummy every chance he gets and saying hello to it.
The only issue I think we're going to have is when asked his preference of the gender his response is a dog. Well son I think you maybe a little disappointed with that one....

I plan now it's out in the big wide world to deliver regular updates to this pregnancy as a place to share our journey in hope someone else reading that maybe in the same situation find comfort in not being alone and as a platform to look back on.
We have yet to decide of we are going to find out the gender when we head to our scan in just over a weeks time. Knowing this will be our last I really want to keep it as a surprise however Steve is more keen to get as ready as possible...

If you've managed reading this far along.... then thank you.
Congratulations to any other expectant mums who maybe reading this.

For now I'm going to stop blabbering....

Claire.

Your Amazing.

Have i told you lately just how wonderful you are mama?

Archie had never really been a 'hard baby'. He was so laid back and chilled. Don't get me wrong I had sleepless nights and days where he wouldn't stop crying but as a whole genuinely he was pretty calm and most days i felt I had my s#@t together. Until the constipation started, oh sweet Lord, my calm baby turned into a crazed demon..it may have only been for 3 weeks so I should have felt I got off lightly with it, but at the time I felt far from being lucky, the constant screaming and crying seemed to go on forever. I remember sitting in the doctors room, tears rolling down my face feeling like the worst mum in the world for not knowing how to help my baby. It was that day the Dr looked at me, touched my hand and said something that stuck with me ever since. Speaking as a mum she said "you've got this, your doing amazing, never think your failing your child, your fantastic" 
Yes I sobbed even more in that moment simply because I felt someone understood, someone could see I was doing my absolute best..... so right now I want to pay that forward to another mama who maybe sat at home feeling just how I felt.

Being a mummy can feel so incredibly lonely, sometimes you want someone to recognise your efforts and to just tell you your great. Your unstoppable.  Your superwoman.

So here is me paying it forward.

Who cares if it really don't look like you got it all together, someone somewhere is admiring you and your ways.

Mama your perfect, never let anyone dull your sparkle, your kids love you more than you'll ever know, you are their everything. It may not feel like it but your doing a brilliant job. You are superwoman... And you really HAVE got this.

And we're off

Anyone who knows Archie will know his a real bike fanatic, much like his racing Uncle and his (I'm sure soon to be racing) 6 year old cousin. Speedway, MotoGp, Motorcross you name it if a bike is involved his sat infront of the tv glued. So this post is partially exciting for him.....

Another milestone hit in the wayland household. It really does make me want to slow down Archies constant accomplishments. I mean his only just turned three!! 

But yes as you can tell this evening we took Archie out on his birthday present. Having purchased his safety helmet this afternoon, we decided to take little dude the short walk to nannys house on his bike for the first time.

No sooner had we sat him on the bike, he was peddling short half peddle stride. This pleased him no end until daddy decided to take charge.

Daddy pushed Archie along to get some speed and made him peddle backwards. Once Archie had got the gist of how the peddles worked Daddy told him to reverse and peddle forwards. It took a few attempts but before we knew it be was off peddling his way down the path with the biggest of smiles on his face.  

We have yet to work the brakes but that will be something for another day..

Safety First....

We have held off allowing Archie on his bike until he got his crash helmet. We took him along to chose what one he wanted today, naturally he wanted them all. We went to smyths toy store in Ipswich, they had a huge selection from pj masks to paw patrol, cars to batman, from block colours to motocross style and everything inbetween. We was helped by Rebecca who made sure the fit was perfect and checked for any kind of imperfections to the helmet. She was very througher making sure Archie felt comfortable but also that it was tight enough not to fall off his head in the case of a fall. Archie was so satisfied with the purchase he left the shop wearing it, a far cry from refusing to even try any on when we entered the shop...

Thankfully it's just a push bike with stablizers, im sure for now he will be happy just to add in his own sound effects. However this got me thinking, it won't be long before his pestering for petrol. I think we best start saving the pennies now. 

What kind of things are your three year olds into? 

Are there any fellow bike mad boys (or girls) out their? 

Feel free to comment below on what your little ones are into. 

Date Day.

We were very fortune to have had our first day date trip since Archie was born on Sunday.

Before i continue with this post I must say a massive thank you to Hughes Electrical - the electrical experts and virgin experience for the opportunity and Paul Cook for the lovely cover photo.

I genuinely can't remember the last time Steve and I went out for any kind of date since we have lived together, let alone one that lasted all day.
Hughes kindly gifted us a virgin experience package that allowed us to chose a activity from an extensive range.
The virgin experience website was very straight forward when it came to the booking of our chosen activity, it allowed us to enter the serial number and pin of our voucher and we was away.  We chose the punting on river cam followed by a 3 course meal at cafè rouge.

To say we had a fantastic time is really putting it mildly, Steve's parents had Archie for the day so we didn't need to worry about rushing home. The weather was spot on and our host on the punt, Michael was a real pleasure to listen to. Michael was very informative and really knew his stuff, who knew there was so many facts about Cambridge and the river
cam?. Our punt experience lasted 50 miniutes, slightly longer than expected due to the amount of self punters on the river getting in the way. The river had a beautiful buzz about it as so many people had decended upon it for a relaxing time on the water.

Once our tour was finished we hot footed it the 12 minute walk to cafè rouge, where we was greated by Tom who gave us a choice of seating available. We opted to sit outside in the courtyard garden it had such a gentle breeze blowing through it was perfect.
We chose off the set menu and was given prosecco (although mine was changed to a soft drink for obvious reasons)
Tom was brilliant and kept nipping back at regular intervals to make sure all was ok with our meal.
It felt very strange being able to just get up and leave from our meal once we had finished, almost criminal.

We had the absolute best time, it reminded us just who we were other than mummy and daddy, although the whole conversation more or less consisted of Archie and baby talk.

Once again a huge thank you to Hughes Electrical for such a generous gift.
Below are a few photos we took of the day.

It's all new.

Motherhood And Us has been set up for a little insight of our lives. We are a family of three who has just found out were adding one more to the team due in March 2019.

We would love for you to join us on our journey from bump to birth and beyond. Experiencing the highs and the lows of pregnancy and raising a baby with a toddler.

We are a very outdoorsy kind of family who are teaching ourselves to be abit more frugal when it comes to our money. 

Mummy: To the adult world I'm known as Claire, I'm a 29 year old part time hairdresser who specialises in creative colouring. With our son I had a serious pram addiction and I love to shop. My family is my world. 

Daddy: a 30 year old, electrical sales assistant known as Steve to the world of work.  I work full time but love spending my spare time with my family. 

 Archie: The energetic 3 year old to the above. I love paw patrol, cars, making a mess and cuddles with my mummy and daddy. I enjoy little adventures and being outside. 

* upon this blog we plan to also do some reviews, while we plan to purchase each item if any brands were to work with us or send samples we would clearly state that the post has been sponsored*  

We hope you enjoy our content and look forward to your engagement with our posts.