Potty training 2

So just one day after I published our potty training post here I decided to check with Alex about her night time nappy.

She said straight away that she doesn't want it. 

Even though I was a little bit worried, I left it with her.

I only changed the sheets on her bed to a waterproof ones. Just in case.

And guess what....it's nearly a week and no night accidents.

Alex stays most of the time in her bed during the night and uses potty in the morning.

She got up to use potty at night only twice.

The only thing is that she calls for me during the night, because she wakes up sometimes. The reason might be the potty training, or maybe bad dreams. Who knows, but she won't tell me what woke her up.

I just hope it will sort itself out soon.

Jessie sleeps better now even though he had vaccination yesterday. He woke up last night twice as well, but it looks better today.

So here we go, we have one little lady home without nappies already and one really fast growing boy who climbs everywhere and has to sit at a table on a big chair like the rest of us.

What is going on here?

I just woke up this morning with Jessie in my bed again. He was up 5:30am and I don't like to be up that early, so I took him with me and we slept for two more hours. Alex was sleeping even longer. Sometimes I think she's a Sleeping Beauty.

But what surprise waited for us outside???? Yesterday we went for a walk, it was a bit cold, but sunny and everything was green and lovely, birds singing, bees buzzing, lovely spring day.

This morning though......I looked out of the window and it was snowing. Not just a little snowflakes like frozen rain, but a big ones and it was snowing heavily. We didn't expect it and definitely not the fact that it was snowing a whole day until 8pm. There is such a huge amount of snow outside, that we can go and build a snowman again.

What will happen with our vegetable garden? Who knows, I just hope the snow will work as a pillow and all seeds will survive the cold weather. It would be a pity if they won't.

Alex and Jessie didn't mind the weather. We played inside, but I would prefer to take them out. Hopefully tomorrow we'll go to get some more fresh air.

It's nearly May and I didn't expect the snow to come. I had plans to meet with my workout groups outside and do a little bit of training, but all is wet, it's freezing cold and in the city it's raining instead. If we would meet up it could work out, but we wouldn't be able to take kids with us, so I had to arrange online training for them. I know some of them will do it, even though we have online challenge for 30 days, well now only 20 left, which keeps my girls busy everyday.

I really need better weather. I have to start running. Me and a few moms decided to go for an obstacle race in 4 weeks. This weather isn't helping us much. I was running only twice so far and need to get use to it as it's 10K race.

I just hope we get ready and won't be last at the finish line :D

Jessie is 1

Our little Jessie is not that little anymore. He's already one year old.

He's still walking just around the furniture, but when on bed he lets go and try his balance.

He absolutely loves music, he's dancing even, if we just clap our hands.

I can't wait for him to start walking and talking.

This is a little cake I made for him. Very tasty lemon cake with vanilla sugar icing.

And last week the weather just became better. We can be outside most of the day, so it's great.

Kids are tired in the evening. Fresh air is a miraculous medicine to anything even boredom.

Our sand pit is full of new toys Jessie got as presents, so there is no fighting over anything.

Every time we are outside our dog and cat come to us and play as well. Just not between themselves. Our dog Hachiko doesn't care she's a cat, but she doesn't like dogs. But they are getting along more and more, so I believe they will respect each other by the summer.

Busy busy busy

Oh yeah, even I have no time sometimes. 

It was so busy these past two months, that I didn't have time to sit down and do something relaxing for myself like writing here.

We went to see my family and sort out some legal issues, which after a stressful month are done. 

Kids had one day stomach flu which affected nearly whole family, even I had it and believe me it was no fun and I'm an adult. Poor kids. :( We were glad that it was just a day, in Jessie's case three days.

I finally finished another online course which I didn't have time to do before and there was a time limit set for me. It's done now, but it was a very time consuming as I had to catch up on all the lessons. 

Alex also decided it was time to test our bedtime routine again, so I didn't have even evenings free. It settled down and the bedtime is at 8:30pm which gives me 30 minutes for the bedtime story and Alex is most of the time fast asleep by 9pm. There are some odd days when she tries to stay up, but we decided that if she comes to the living room, she could be there, but without our attention. Of course we watch her a little bit, but there is no communications and we pretend to do our stuff. This usually works and she falls asleep on the spot, so we move her to her bed. All is in normal the following day.

Jessie is sleeping better too. Usually up around 5am, but most of the nights not waking up after midnight. If he's not teething of course. When the time's right and my hubby won't be studying again, we will do the sleep training with him, so he stays in his cot by 7am at least. Wishful thinking, but it can be done ;) We know.

Jessie's going to be one soon and I'll have to get his present done. Another crocheted toy. I hope I'll finish it soon. I started before Christmas.....

I'll try to make more time for myself and my writing again as I need it to relax a little bit. I still have some parenting books to read and I'll write reviews on them here as well and yet another course starting next Monday. This time photography :D 

Alex's English is improving and she loves all her movies. She started to play puzzles and it's amazing how fast is she picking up what needs to go where.

I started to worry a little bit that she's not brushing her teeth much. She wasn't interested and liked to play with the electric toothbrush, but the battery's dead. So I was thinking what to do. As she started to play puzzles on tablet as well which teach her the words in English as well I downloaded a few apps for her. She adores cats and I had one app already. She got pretty upset when the cat had to go to bed and she couldn't play with it, so I decided to download another one. Guess what....the cat has to get her teeth brushed. Surprise!!!! Alex is now brushing her own teeth after breakfast and dinner and she would even often if I asked her to. I let her to do it herself, then I do a little bit and she finishes the job. Great fun and all done.

Jessie is walking around furniture. He tries to climb up on a bed, but it didn't work out yet. We had a two months of very laud screaming in the house, because he stood up and couldn't get back to the floor. Finally he got how to bend his knees and return back to the ground, so less screaming here and much more laughter. 

There is still some sibling rivalry and jealousy, but we are working on it and I'll write much more later.

So I hope to write some more soon.

New Year 2016

Hello Everyone,

so this is my first post in a year 2016. Our end of the year was calm. We were home alone, just me, hubby and kids. As our kids don't know what does end of a year means, we didn't wake them up at midnight. We just watched a movie  with my hubby to survive the last few hours of 2015 and don't fall asleep and wished each other happy new year. 

I don't even remember when I celebrated the New Years Eve last time. There were no big celebrations in Ireland, fireworks are illegal there, so nothing special and to be honest, with little kids I don't even have the power to stay awake longer than necessary. That means, when kids are in a bed, kitchen is clean and ready for following day, I don't bother with anything else. 

It's difficult to get some rest if you are waking up during the night to attend your babies, but it's getting better now. 

Jessie is crawling now. And he's pretty good at it and starting to be fast as well. He's able to climb over small objects and he's kneeling by footstool or boxes or anything like this. He loves that he can get anywhere now and nothing is safe. 

Alex doesn't take it as good as we do. She started to be jealous of him. It will take time for her to get use to it, that her little brother is not that little anymore and he loves to copy her with everything. So far it's just playing with toys. The fact that she pushes him sometimes doesn't bother him yet. I just hope we can get her behave better before he thinks that it's normal and starts to return these little favours ;)

So Alex was a few times on a naughty step. She didn't like it at all and when it was done by her daddy she didn't get it as he messed up a little. That was actually first time we used it. Today I sat her down there twice and second time it was much smoother, she even got me hugs and kisses after that and kissed her brother too. It might work ;) I'm really glad I remember something from watching SuperNanny those years ago, before our kids arrived.

Jessie has two teeth and another is coming out. He's sleeping much better last two nights, wakes only around 9pm, that's around 1.5 hour after bedtime and another time around 5:30am. He goes back to sleep and wakes again in an hour or two, so it's great, except we are use to sleep longer. We should probably change it a little. 

With me exercising again and eating better now, I have more energy to play with kids. If the good sleeps continues, I'll be super powered mommy in no time :)

That's it for now. I need to finish some presents for kids of my friends. They will have birthday soon ;) 

BTW the winter's here. It's really cold and snowing from time to time. I'm happy that we have full freezer, fridge and storage, just in case we get snowed in.

Our Christmas

So tomorrow is the last day of 2015.

I believe this year was a good one for us, even though we were really busy with the move, and of course after Jessie came to our little family :)

Our Christmas were the first in a new country for me and our kids. I was so happy that we could share it with my husband's family. There was 9 of us at the dinner table. 

Alex of course didn't want to wait and wanted to go to the living room before anyone could get dessert or coffee after the Christmas meal.

In here we share Christmas presents after the dinner and so we couldn't allow her to go back there by herself as all the gifts were already on a huge pile under our hanging Christmas tree.

We took her out for a moment to light up sparkles and give everyone else a little time to get ready to move out of the kitchen.

When we walked in Alex was surprised but didn't  know much about what is going on. 

My hubby's sister started to sort out the presents. Of course our kids got all of theirs first. Alex was so busy with her first one that she didn't even realised how many others were placed next to her. Daddy opened all Jessie's ones with him. Jessie didn't know what was happening, and to be honest he didn't even touch anything. 

Alex opened everything and helped her granddad to open his as well. It was funny as he got a bottle of alcohol and she tried to open it for him. That evening she didn't play with anything much. But she checked every single present even Jessie's ones and before she went to bed, she looked through mine and hubby's ones too.

The following morning she tried everything and played with most of her new toys. The one she unwrapped first she didn't like at all. It's the pop up pirate game. She was scared when the pirate jump out. So she complained when I was testing it with my sister in law. It took her 3 days, now she's able to sit with it for hours and play all by herself. 

She got puzzles, books, alphabet letters, other little games and toys. Jessie got a book, some fluffy toys and a set of cars. And same as Alex he was afraid of one of the presents too. My favourite: set of 4 cars. He couldn't be nearby them, but now he's crawling to get them and what's interesting he loves to play the pirate too, even though he can't stick the sword to the barrel, but he's trying :D

So far so good. All gifts accepted and kids are happy to play with them. This is what I wanted.

We still have a little bit of our cookies and a lot of other food in the fridge. Funny how much do you buy and get when the family should come together and then everyone is too full to eat anything :p

Now we are alone. Somebody would say, time to rest, but with our little angels rest is a word we don't know. 

Unfortunately the sleep training we did with Alex a few times and worked that worked with her perfectly is not working with Jessie, so we might need to try something different. He has good nights when he wakes up once around midnight and second time around 5-6am, but after a good night a bad one comes when we could go there even 8-10 times. 

I'm really tired and I fell asleep two days ago when both kids slept in the living room. This little power nap made me good, but it's rare to have it as Alex usually doesn't nap anymore.

So I call it tonight and go to bed, my eyes are burning, my body aching as I started working out after two weeks without regular exercising and tomorrow is the last day of 2015. I will need to prepare good lunch, dinner and a little bit for the evening as we might not go to sleep that soon.

Next post will be in 2016. So I wish you all the greatest end of the year and all the best in the new one. Most of all a lot of love, health and luck :)

BTW Jessie has a tooth!!!

Little update :)

Alex's birthday is nearly here. I picked up a recipe for her cake. I just hope it will be tasty and nice. Well, when it's ready, I'll take a picture and put it up here :)

We moved out of kid's bedroom last week. They sleep by themselves now. It's working good so far. Of course we have a baby monitor, but we could hear them through open door as well. Yesterday we rearranged the furniture there so they both sleep in new location and a little closer to each other. I just hope that they won't wake each other if they cry.

So far so good. Last night was the first night and Jessie slept much better than usual. He woke up only twice between 8pm and 5am, after that he didn't want to fall asleep, so I had to take him with me. When he was sleeping next to me for about 5 minutes he started to talk from his sleep. It was the longest babbling ever :D and so cute.

Jessie is 8th month already, but he's about the size of one year old baby. His clothes are getting smaller too fast. He absolutely loves food. Anything he gets, he eats and milk.... That's a different story. He doesn't take it during the day, only night feed(s). He takes usually one feed a night, but there is the odd night when he wants twice.

This evening it was a first time after about 4 weeks when he took milk after dinner, before he went to sleep.

Alex loves watching fairytales these days. The weather is cold and wet, so we can't go out as much. She loves horses, bunnies, dolphins etc and she's learning English from them and 90% of our movies are in English. She told me tonight Good Night in English. It was a big surprise for me. Her languages improved so much. She's constantly talking, loves reading her princess book and even playing with Jessie.

Jessie on the other hand is trying to crawl. He's moving around all right. Just not on all fours yet. He loves exploring everything especially with his mouth. I'm glad we don't have small toys yet. 

Alex didn't want to eat much lately. After we were sick, she had usually breakfast, a little one, a half of potato with something at lunch time and maybe something for dinner. I started to worry, because she didn't even ate what Jessie was able to finish within a few minutes. It was just a phase. After about 3 weeks of this picky eating she started to eat everything again. She surprised us one evening to finish whole slice of bread (usually she has a half of it), same portion of soup as I gave to her father and today two large chicken wings with rice. It was nearly the same portion I had for lunch.

We had to move her evening routine a little as she was complaining when we put her to the bed before 8pm. Most of the days she goes to sleep around 9pm which is still OK with me. If she has a bad day she would try to stay awake for ages, like yesterday but with the bell at 10pm she was in bed fast asleep. I told her to go the be when she wants, but I expect her to wake up at 8am and be fresh and ready for the day. That's what we agreed on. And even though she went to bed so late last night, she was up by herself at 8am and came to us. All happy and asking for a Litter Mermaid movie :)

Today it was 9 again, I hope tomorrow will be same.

That's about it. There is nothing special happening now, except for the snow outside, but we'll be really busy from this weekend onwards.

Christmas is coming!!!!! I'm really excited about this one, I'll tell you why next time :p

Sick family

Our little growing family was sick. Just a few days ago we got better. It started with the kids. Alex and Jessie had head cold, I had sore throat and my hubby too.

I wanted them to get better soon as we were invited to a family reunion. 

Alex and Jessie had really bad sniffles, probably sore throat as well and little cough. As it looked quite bad after 3 days, no improvements, we took them to the doctor. Both got some drops, vitamins etc. We were lucky as they had fever only once.

We had only 3 more days for them to get well, so we could go to see the family. I didn't care much about myself, but was concerned with them. If they would have fever or really bad cough, we wouldn't go, but luck was on our side.

By Saturday, the day of the visit, they were fine. Still had a little sniffles, but nothing big. Just Jessie slept really bad during the night. Alex was fine, she returned to whole night sleep and didn't even get blocked nose, but Jessie is still sleeping very light. He will wake up a lot, much more than before. 

Last night was a little better. Even though he woke up a few times, he settled himself back to sleep and after I fed him, he slept for a few more hours.

I still breastfeed him, but he takes only one feed during the night and that's around 5-6am.

I wish he would sleep better and longer, but he's still small. He didn't take his first sickness well. It really stressed him a lot. He's still getting over it, so it's easier for me to take him to our bed when he wakes during the night, so I don't need to get up. My hubby moved out of the room/bed when we got sick and still didn't return as he's studying now and has webinars until late night/early morning.

We are also expecting to get a new bed and move ourselves to different room. I will then start to train Jessie to get better sleep. 

As he slept longer last night, he was much happier today and had only one longer day nap. I didn't mind that. He was really nice. Alex was a different story. But not all days are happy days for everyone. 

She started well, but towards the evening got more tired and made a little trouble here and there.

Jessie is teething as well, so this could cause the sleep problems too, who knows.

We are not perfect and I was getting upset faster than usual too. The tiredness and lack of sleep affects everyone. 

I feel stressed sometimes, but I get better when I get some me time. During the weeks it's usually my workout time. I got use to the exercising again, that I really miss it during my days off :D

Something about Alex

Alex is 20 months old.

She loves being outside, it's sooo dificult to get her back to house in this lovely weather. She's starting to run around. We took her for a longer walk this morning and she managed really well.

She's able to put wellies on by herself. I'm just waiting for her to start dress herself alone, but she's not interested in it. She loves running out naked, I'm glad we have big garden and nearly no neighbours, so she can do whatever she wants.

Alex loves all animals, she's searching for spiders everyday. Even though a vosp pinched her, she's not afraid of any insect. That's great. She probably won't have same fobia as I use to have.

Our big girl is now also sleeping in her own big bed. The transition was OK due to the fact she had to sleep with me on a double beds while visiting my sisters.

I took her one day horse riding. Well I was sitting on the horse and she was watching me walking around a field and she wanted up as well. She absolutely loved it. She didn't want to get down. Poor girl who owned the horse was walking with us for 10 minutes maybe more. Alex was chearing up, laughing, it was brilliant. So the next time when we discovered horse riding for kids (walking) we paid for a few rounds and daddy walked beside her and held her leg so she wouldn't slip. She cried again when she had to go down.

Alex also loves the summer fruit. She can have whatever she likes from the garden. Strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrent, gooseberries, cherries etc. In this hot weather she doesn't want to eat much but she eats every few minutes a little bit. It is much easier because she has nearly all teeth now and is able to eat everything.

Her hair is getting fair and she has a lovely tan eventhough I put a sunscreen on her everyday and it's factor 50.

Before our holidays she didn't want to go to a bath. Now it's really difficult to get her out of our small swimming pool or evrn baby bath in the evening.

The only problem I have now is her addiction to me. It might be her age or the fact we are together all the time or maybe she wants me for herself after her brother joined our family, but she is constantly calling me while outside.

We must try to get away for a few hours more often or at least I should go to have some me time.

Some news about Jessie

Jessie is 4 months old already. The time flies. 

He loves his tummy time. His neck muscles are really strong. He's even trying to crawl a little. Was able to move on a bed a little bit. He is sometimes turning to his side as well, but wasn't able to roll over yet.

He's such a good boy. If he's not teething he's full of smiles, feeds well and sleeps great.

He's up only once or twice a night, if I give him soother, he goes back to sleep and feeds around 6am. So it's around 9 hours night sleep as we are aiming for bedtime around 8-9pm.

We already tried a bit of baby rice, he didn't spit it out much, so I presume he likes it. I have a plenty of milk for him, so there is no need to push it too much with the solids, but I want him to get use to new textures and possible tastes. 

It's summer time, we'll have a lot of healthy vegetables, home grown, so I would like to use this opportunity.

We went even swimming with him and we are trying to get him use to water in our garden swimming pool. It's a small one, but there is enough water for him and Alex. Even for me ;)

Jessie is growing really fast. He's strong boy. I'm waiting to go for development check up with him. I believe all is well, but it's always nice to hear professional opinion. We need to get his vaccines done as well, but that has time.

He's very alert and loves to look at pictures, toys and books. He's reaching for everything what is close.

After the morning feed he usually wants to talk to me, he's smiling, singing etc, which is not too good as he might wake Alex, so I take him to bed and try to calm him down and get him back to sleep.
Some mornings are luckier than others. It's 50-50 chance he falls asleep after a few minutes.

Funny thing is that if I turn my back to him, he reaches to me and starts poking me with his fist or pulling my hair, but he's always gentle.

I want him to be strong and crawl already as it's difficult to have one baby on a blanket outside and the other running around the house. I hope he will follow us around when he'll be able, but I'm sure he might start running to the other direction to keep me even busier. We'll see ;)

6 weeks here we go

Our Jessie is nearly six weeks, he's due to have Dr. check up.

All is going well. He's growing so fast. Gained 1kg in 3 weeks and grew 6 cm from the birth. He's getting strong. His routine is getting better, usually feeds every 3 hours, sometime 4. The only thing we are struggling with is my milk flow. It's too fast. We have to use only two positions for feeding. One is the rugby ball position and another of me on back, so I'm feeding against the gravitation.
It is working so far. 

Jessie had a few bad days when he was pushing me away. He was hungry, trying to get milk, but after a few seconds he stopped and pushed me and fought with me. It usually happened when he was tired or the flow was really too fast.

He is still struggling with the wind but there is not much we can do. We do baby massage, I watch what I eat and sometimes, when it's really bad we give him two teaspoons of fennel tea (not more than once in 3 days).

He's currently falling asleep in the Moses basket next to me. It's great that we got him use to falling asleep by himself so early. I know people who need to walk with baby, rock it, drive around in a car, but that's not good. 

Yeah, we are using soother now, and that helps with the sleeping as well, but what we found out is that Jessie doesn't want it during the night, only during a day, when he's sleeping.

Alex is a different story, she's still adjusting to our new family situation, it looked great a few weeks ago, but it's getting more difficult now. She's trying to help, but sometimes she's too quick. She wants to give her brother soother, even when he's asleep, which will usually wake him up, and once she manages to give it to him, she will pull it out again, so he's getting more irritated and tired as he doesn't get much sleep. Luckily past few days was better and she just ignored him while he was sleeping.

But she loves him, would love to change his clothes all the time, so I have to stop her from opening her brothers pj's or nappies if it's not necessary. She also wants to hug him, cuddle him, but he's quite heavy for her, so she needs to sit down and I can place him on her lap, but have to hold his head and make sure, she won't push him away when she get bored with him.

Alex is sometimes not sleeping that good, but she's able to tell us when she wants to go for her day time nap and that goes without crying.

To be honest, it's a lot of work at the moment, but I'm really looking forward the summer and autumn when Jessie will be stronger and more interactive, so Alex will enjoy some plays with him.

People around are telling us that we are brave to have to babies with such small age gap. I think we didn't realize it could be difficult some times when I was pregnant. But yes, I think we are brave, not stupid as other thinks. All is settling and I believe it's going to be better every day.

With me it's nearly all back to normal. I had a few moments with some baby blues, and I am more snappy at my hubby at the moment as I need more support from him, but it's not that bad. I thought the body cleaning was faster this time, but I was wrong. The first bit was faster (the heavy bleeding finished sooner), but the other part took ages. My body adjusted to the new me just last week. I hope the first post pregnancy period will come after I stop breastfeeding ;) But great news is that I lost a lot of weight just with breastfeeding. I gained nearly 20kg during this pregnancy and I have only 6 kg left to loose to be in my pre-pregnancy weight. I didn't do any exercises yet, but planning to start from Monday. With the labour I lost about 7kg, so 7 more was the breastfeeding so far, which is not bad. I still need to get my body to shape, as I can't fit to any of my jeans yet, but that doesn't matter.
Well it will matter in a few weeks time when I will go to a party, so I hope, I'll fit in some clothes :D

3 weeks with new baby

The time flies!

It's already 3 weeks since we are home as a family of 4. 

Jessie is growing soooo fast. It's unbelievable and Alex is really a big sister. 

Even though she can be jealous and tries to get my attention when I'm attending to Jessie, she's a great help. She grew up from one day to another. 

If I ask her to help me with something, like to bring me a new nappy for Jessie or something, she usually goes and brings me what I ask for. She loves helping so much, that I had to allow her to help with washing too. 

Of course, I bring all the clothes to washing machine, prepare everything, and I never let her touch the washing powder etc, but she was so interested in pressing the buttons on the machine and turning the settings that I decided to give her the responsibility of turning it on. 

Well she's not strong enough to press the buttons, well the power one for sure, but I showed her which one is the start on and when all is ready, I turn the power on and ask her to come and help me press the start. It's usually me who press it at the end, but she has her finger on the correct button and feels so proud when she hears the water flowing in the machine. We always wait if the water comes. This way she's not trying to press any other buttons during the wash cycle or even when the machine is empty. This was one of the tips we got in our new parenting training we signed up for with my hubby.

It's great and I will tell you all about it later when I get more spare time, but at this moment it's quite busy. One baby needs me, another wants me, so it's an important game to satisfy all our little ones needs.

But I'm one really proud mummy with two beautiful kids. Love them to bits ;)

Still tired from night feeds, but they are getting better now. Breastfeeding is so handy. I'm happy that I can do it again. The only issue I have is that I have a lot of milk and very fast flow, which makes Jessie to swallow air as he's getting his milk so fast.

That wouldn't be a much problem if he would burp after each feed, but he doesn't, so the air goes to the other end ;) that means Jessie has a lot of wind and his tummy hurts because of that. I'm trying to help him with a baby massage and exercises and with trying to burp him every time he lets go of my breast, but that is not enough. 

I know boys have more tummy ache than girls, as a lot of friends told me that, but I also know he will grow out of it soon, so I need to work around it now, it all will be over soon. Alex was had a lot of wind too and she was fine by 12th week, so I'm hoping we will be lucky with Jessie as well and he'll be alright by the end of his 3rd month.

Oh BTW, Alex has 2 new teeth nearly out, and 3rd one is trying to come as well, so she's currently teething with 3 new teeth. This doesn't affect her sleeping, so we are lucky as she sleeps through the night.

Granny is here for a holidays from last Saturday to Monday so at least she has a good night sleep as she stays in Alex's room.

I'm really happy that we got some help here, but this will soon be over and it will be just us in the house. Me, hubby and two kids. Let see how we manage.
I think we did good during the first two weeks, so hope this will be even better as Jessie will be older now. Fingers crossed!

Jessie and his nappies

It is completely different changing boy and a girl. 

Of course with the girls there is the issue of what direction to clean the poop etc. and with boys to make sure their little penis is facing down, so you don't need to change his clothes every time he pees.

When Alex was tiny she managed to pee on me only once, luckily she never pooped all over me.

Jessie pees on us every day :)

Like he's waiting for being naked. I didn't expect such a small person be able to pee soooo far away.  When my hubby changes him and this is about to happen, he can somehow tell and is able to navigate the stream, I'm not that skilled yet. Well he's a man and have a lot of experience with that.

Yesterday evening I tried to navigate it, unfortunately it didn't work again. I had to laugh, but hubby wasn't impressed while cleaning it from the floor.

So I'm always trying to be fast with removing the dirty nappy and placing new one under Jessie's butt. 

As I breastfeed Jessie it's easier to have him in a bed while I feed him and change him during the night. He sleeps in his basket next to the bed. But last night it didn't seam like a good idea changing him there.

After his feed I went to check on him. He looked as he's done with it all. I got everything ready and set. Cleaned his butt and in the 3 seconds window before I managed to place a fresh nappy under him, he sharted :( there was poop on a bed, on my leg, his blanket, my duvet and before I was able to do anything about it he decided to pee as well. 

Late night bed changing wasn't really one of the nice moments of parenthood, but it was funny a little bit. Shocking at first but now I'm smiling.  At least he didn't have a tummy ache and was able to fall asleep within a few minutes after that incident.

So I need to be more careful next time and even faster I think ;)

Coming home with Jessie first few days with two little ones home

After 24 hours in hospital I could go home. I was so happy to go, even though Jessie was sleeping a lot and I was a little bit scared that he's not feeding enough, but I didn't want to stay there.

Jessie passed all the tests and check ups, so there was no reason keeping the bed occupied if there was so many newborn babies in the hospital.

At the end of a labour I asked not to get the pitocin injection to help expel placenta. I wanted to try how it will work without it as the baby itself should raise the levels of oxytocin in blood which helps with the bonding and the 3rd stage of a labour.

With Alex I had to get one due to slight bleeding 5 days before she was born. So I have now experiences with and without it. With the injection I didn't feel much, it was very quick, without it I had a few more contractions and but it was over soon enough.

Before I left the hospital my body was still cleaning but this time it felt different. It took longer for the body to clear, but it's not as dramatic as last time. Unfortunately one midwife wasn't too impressed with me. She didn't understand why I didn't want to get the injection for the 3rd stage of labour, and with all the changes happening in my life I couldn't remember the reason why until I was home.

Hubby arrived with Alex to pick me up. She was surprised that there was a little person with me. We introduced Jessie to her and gave her and her brother presents I made. Two crocheted sheep, one in blue, another in red. Alex was more interested in the toys than her little brother. 

But when we were home she was checking on him often. She watched us changing him, feeding him etc. The following morning Alex came to my bedroom and looked for Jessie. She found him in our Moses basket next to my bed.

This repeats every morning. Even if I get her from her cot and change her. She then goes to my bedroom to see if Jessie is there. 

Of course she's a little bit jealous but most of the time she just looks at him.

I have to say that I'm really lucky that my hubby's currently home. The first 3 days were a bit crazy and I thought it would be really difficult to look after two babies alone, but now it's getting easier as Jessie is starting to have a little routine.

He still sleeps a lot, but can watch us for hours as well. Usually twice a day he stays awake between feeds and looks around. He's really sweet and doesn't cry that much. Only during the night it gets a little bit difficult as he can cluster feed for 2-3 hours, until he fells asleep.

I absolutely love being mum of two. Both of our kids are great. Alex is sometimes even helping with changing nappies or clothes of he little brother.

She had two bad nights with screaming spells. But pass two nights she's sleeping through again, without screaming or protesting to go to sleep. 

We knew it will take a little time for her to adjust to a new family member, but it looks better than we expected.

We already had a growth spurt. Jessie was feeding every hour and half yesterday and didn't sleep since morning until afternoon. Then he slept for 4 hours and 3.5 hours afterwards. Only kept me awake from 3am til 5am as usual. But the time when he feeds during the night for long period of time is getting shorter now.

I'm hoping he will stop these feeding sessions soon, so I could get more sleep. But I know he's still very small.

Sleep training #3 Alex without soother

After one lovely day we decided to take away the soother Alex was still using when going for naps or sleep.

It happened after we visited nearby pet farm. Alex loved the animal there, but some of them frightened her a little. Like a white horse she didn't expect when she turned her head in daddy's arm. The horse was standing just next to her and she nearly climbed up daddy's head to run away.
She loved the rabbits and other small animals, but when we took her in one of the sheds to see ducks and hens and rooster, she run away for a first time. She walked in and watch them all was so interesting, but then the rooster decided to great her with his kikiriki and that was what she didn't expect. While she was holding daddy's hand she turned around like a ballet dancer and run. It was sooo funny. She didn't cry, she was just surprised. But I think this day out affected her night time sleep that night.

She woke up about five times, which was already very unusual for her. The only thing that calmed her down was soother, but she spitted it out in a while and when she found out she doesn't have it, she woke up again and cried.

The following morning we decided to try one of the gentle techniques to get her off the soother. They say you should cut a little piece of the top to leave a little hole. The baby will decide when to stop using it. Either when she doesn't like it anymore, or there is nothing left to cut away.

Well I made probably slight mistake and cut the soother too much. Alex spitted it out as soon as I gave it to her. So there was nothing else we could do than to go with the sleep training technique to get her to sleep without it.

We thought it would be better if she's off the soother before the baby comes.

The first naps that day, there were two, were very difficult. We followed out routine to get Alex to sleep, but nothing seamed to work. She was crying and crying, but after a while we could recognise that the cry wasn't cry for a soother or distress, she was just testing us. She was angry and thought our patience wasn't strong enough and we will give in and bring another dummy.

We didn't! The worse part was falling asleep. Even though she had her comforter bunny in bed, warm milk before night time sleep and bed time story she cried. A lot! The first night she fell asleep after about 45 minutes crying and us constantly checking on her in agreed intervals. She woke up only once during the night, cried a little, but fell asleep within 10 minutes.

The next day was better. Alex fell asleep faster, but still not fast enough and didn't sleep for long during the day. During the night she woke up twice, but was sleeping again even faster.

Following day she slept only once during the day, but night time was even better. Fell asleep withing 15 minutes, only 5 minutes cry and didn't wake up at all.

We are now on day 5. We had already 3 nights without waking up at all and last night she was asleep as fast as with the soother. So mission accomplished. She still cries a little, but last night it wasn't even a minute long. 

I'm very proud at her, no more soothers in the house. No need to do drastic measures. Just followed the sleep training routine we used for her before. 

Sleep Training #2 Tony

Sleep training #2

One of my best friends asked me, after finding out that I did the sleep training course, to help her with her little man Tony, 8 months.

Tony was waking up a few times during the night. Sometimes less, sometimes more, but on average around 4 times. Still sleeping in his parents bedroom, and each time he woke up, my friend gave him water to drink and he went back to sleep.

She's returning to work soon and so I offered, I can help her with Tony's sleep. We met for a tea one afternoon where I got all the details I needed  to find out a solution for them.

They wanted to move him to his own room and cot, which was a great idea. So that week after our talk her hubby moved the crib away from their bedroom and Tony went to cot in his room. He woke up a few times during the night and even though I suggested not to give him water, as he's associating this with falling asleep, he got drink a few times. But the next day and day after less. Unfortunately he got a bad cold, so I suggested to do whatever makes him happy at that time, until he gets better. Then they can resume in the training. 

Even though he was sick, it took only a little bit over a week and Tony is now sleeping in his room, without waking up. If he wakes up, which is usually only once a night and every 3rd day, the fastest way to get him back to sleep is still the water, but he got sooo good at sleeping in such short period of time, that soon he will wake up only if he's teething or sick, otherwise he'll sleep through the night. He already show it a few times, that he doesn't need to wake up at all.

I'm really happy for my friend and her family. She can relax more and will have more power to deal with the return to work etc.

I'm glad it works for others as well. Can't wait to help a few more kids to have great night sleep.

Maternity photoshoot #2 / night time routine surprise

We had another great photo shoot with our photographer last Saturday

It was a birthday gift for me from my hubby.

I booked it for Saturday afternoon as he wanted to do some pictures during the sundown. 

Unfortunately for us the weather had another idea, so even though we made some photos outside, the sun was nowhere to see, but at least it was dry!

We started the photo shoot in our photographers house, where they have an atelier. A few pictures there, then we went to a beach nearby and had some lovely photos taken there. It was a bit cold, but we didn't spend too long there.

We went back to the house and finished with some more pictures. I can't wait to see the photos.

All took about 3 hours including travelling to the beach and back and us having dinner over there, as we were already starving. 


We came home half past 7 which is Alex's bed time. She's usually already in her cot, after bedtime story and sometimes even fast asleep. 

I made her a quick dinner, she gobbled it all in a few minutes and hubby was getting ready her milk. I put her down on the floor, so she could play for a while, before all is ready.

Hubby didn't want to give her shower as usual, just wash her with wet cloth head to toe, but Alex had another idea. When I was leaving her room after her bed and pyjamas was ready she was already in a bathroom, standing in a shower waiting of either of us to wash her. This was such a lovely surprise. I didn't expect it at all, but she knew what should come and as she was already tired, she wanted to get things going and speed the process up :)

After a quick shower, she even cooperate during the process, we put her nappy on gave her last milk for the day, so she will sleep better, daddy had the bedtime story duty and after all this was done, she was asleep within a few minutes.

It was amazing day! And I wish to thank our Alex for showing us, that even though as a first time parents we don't know all the time exactly what to do, we must find the right recipe first, but we are doing pretty good job as she's able to cooperate and help us. 

So my suggestion to all new parents, set up at least bed time routine, it will pay off!!!

Difficult weeks / difficult decision

Last two weeks were very difficult.

On Monday two weeks ago Alex didn't sleep at night. She was screaming her lungs out. She had very bad runny nose. We originally thought it's just a cold. Hubby was looking after her until 3:30am then I took over, because he was so exhausted. So that night I got like 3-4 hours sleep all together and went to work at 7am. Nearly falling asleep there, I had to ask to leave early as Alex stopped eating and got even worse. 

We went to the doctor who found out what's wrong. Ear infection! That was the reason for her runny nose. We got antibiotics and the following night was a bit better. We had to give Alex some baby painkillers to calm her down as well, but she didn't need them that often. She still didn't want to eat, but our doctor said the most important think is to get her drink, anything to drink, that the appetite will come back as soon as she starts feeling a bit better. 

She did start feeling better, and after a few days even started to eat a little bit, but me and hubby got worse.

Doc said we could caught a viral infection, but nothing else. Well we both had sore throat and bit of sniffles, but in my case it was even worse.

With the low amount of iron, tiredness caused by the lack of sleep from Monday and the low iron levels and the viral infection, I was very weak. Thursday morning I didn't feel good at all, went to work, still OK, but after about an hour there I fainted. As I know when it is going to happen and how it feels, I was able to sit down on a chair before I collapsed. My colleagues called the company nurse and she took me to the office. On a wheelchair!!!! Oh, how embarrassed I felt, but I wasn't able to walk. Everyone was looking at me. That was something I didn't like.

Spent nearly an hour in the nurse room, lying down with cold compresses, then we agreed I'll rather go home to sleep. My colleague had to drive me home. When I came, my hubby dropped her back to work and I went to bed. Slept for two hours, but felt still lightheaded and weak.

I couldn't go to work on Friday either, so I had longer weekend even though it was no fun. Monday morning at work I wasn't well again, but it got better by lunch time, so I thought it might be over.

Tuesday, I had to go home again after two hours there. It was a day of my regular maternity appointment with my doctor. 

As soon as she saw me, she said she can see I'm struggling. I had low blood pressure, the cold was over, but still felt very bad. There was a decision to be made. Do I go back to work, do I go part time, or not at all?

As I spoke to one of our company nurses just that morning, she said, my body is probably telling me to take it easy. She used to work as midwife, so she explained to me that the following two weeks will be very difficult for me as the baby has a growth spur and the placenta must work even harder now. Using all my blood supply for the baby and with the low iron level, there is not much left for me. My maternity leave was supposed to start in 2.5 weeks.

So after consultation with my hubby, the doctor and after getting all the information I needed, I decided to stay home. 

No more work for me before the baby comes. The health of both of us is more important and I wouldn't risk driving around in a car with the possibility of getting dizzy or even worse. So that's it. 

I'm actually very happy I decided to stay home because today I felt pretty bad again. Had to go for afternoon nap and woke up feeling very weak again. Now I'm trying to sort out my diet to get more energetic food for me and the baby and I hope it will help. Of course I'm taking my iron supplements as recommended, two per day, so we'll see if this gets me back into good shape.

BTW as Alex is completely fine now, she sleeps through the night! So our sleep training worked :)

Sleep trainig course

Sleep training course

as I already wrote a few posts before, I took a course to teach babies/kids sleep through night. Seams to be working pretty well with our Alex. 

I already managed to prepare my questioner and weekly diary in case my friends will need a little help with their kids. And sent it to one of them who asked me a few weeks ago.

Today I received the result from my final assessment. I passed with 94%.

I'm really happy about that. Bought another book which was recommended to me during the course and will study some more.

But as the time for our second little one is coming closer, I have to practice my hypnobirthing exercises too, so will start to read that book probably next week.

I hope to help other struggling parents in the future as well. 

I already completed a few other courses like child nutritionist course, child psychology etc. Looks like I'll never stop studying :)

BTW never was that study type during my school years :p

Alex is walking

Alex is walking already

We started to train her during her playtime. I usually sat down in front of her, put her up standing and told her to walk to me. She did two steps before falling to my arm. She loved that, I always made a big deal from it, when she reached me. Laughing with her, cheering her etc. Then we put her a little bit further away from us or ask her to walk between me and hubby. 

She managed 4-6 steps before we had her in our arms again. This went like that for a few days and suddenly last weekend she just turned from one sofa by herself and walked to the other one without holding a thing. It was just 3 steps away, but she did it all by herself and it was also her decision to let go. From that moment it went fast. 

While preparing dinner for her, I handed her plastic bowl where she usually has her food. She walked with that towards me. 5 steps this time.

She was very cautious, didn't want to let go if she wasn't sure she has something else to grasp on the other side, but she was trying more and more.

Yesterday she walked across her bedroom in the morning from bed to the changing table. I haven't seen it, my hubby was there alone, but I can just imagine how many steps did she have to take. 

She made it up for me. When I came to the living room, she walked from a kitchen to living room. That's even further away and she continued for the rest of the morning like that. 

So we decided to get her first outside walking shoes, so she's not limited to walk only on flat surface of our floors in her socks.

The shopping for the shoes was a little nightmare. We couldn't find the shop first, then nobody was in, so we had to call the phone number on the door. As I spoke to some lady a gentleman came back to the shop. 

Wow, so many kids shoes!

First baby shoes shouldn't have the sole too hard, they should be high, towards the ankles, so they keep the foot in a safe place. If you go to a proper shop they should be able to help you choose the right one and will not recommend anything that can hurt you baby's feet. They still need to develop.

We decided to try to get her first leather shoes as it's quite wet here. She was screaming, didn't want to try them on, not even let the man measure her foot size. I know in some shops, they won't let you buy shoes for baby if you don't show them, that they can make at least 5 steps alone. Alex didn't want to even sit alone. 

When she put the shoes one she was scared. When we put her down on the floor to try them, she became a sculpture. Didn't move an inch. Well it took a while and she tried to do some steps while holding hubby's hands.

We gave her 4 more pairs of house shoes on the floor to choose one. She did and actually wasn't that scared to put them on. We still want her to walk in the house barefoot, but we need her to get used to wearing the shoes, so we will give them to her a few times a day for a few minutes to try it.

Yesterday when we arrived home, we changed her and put them on. She tried to walk, but the rubber sole got stuck to the lino and she felt a few times. She needs to get use to lifting her legs a bit more, but so far it looks very good :)

I'm very happy with our purchase and I believe Alex will be in a few days too.

BTW her sleep improved a lot. She's waking only once a night or sleeps through, it depends probably on her excitement from the day before, but it's much better and easier now than before.