The Blissful Baby Expert

When I 1^st got the request from The Blissful baby expert on twitter I had to say I ignored it, couple days later it came again and for what ever reason I accepted it.

Most of the tweets I skimmed over mainly as they were advertising her book. I’d pretty much decided that I wasn’t going to buy any ‘Baby’ books. A few years back when I started down the trying to get pregnant route a friend gave me Minus Nine to One – which is a honest diary that Jools Oliver wrote , I enjoyed it and have recently picked it up again, any way this is not about that book.

So as I said I’d pretty much been skimming over the tweets by the Blissfull baby expert until yesterday when I saw this one:

	blissfulbabyexpert (@blissfulbabyexp)
30/05/2013 10:38 #pregnant #mum2be Worried about going into hospital & #birthplan for #labour Read this post on @TheBabyWebsite thebabywebsite.com/blog/birth-pla…

So I clicked on the link and started ready, what I read made sense almost as if Lisa was talking to me and it made me laugh which is always a bonus! This made me look up her book on amazon and what I saw intrigued me, it had sensible chapters covering everything from what equipment to buy before baby is born to weaning and much more.

When I saw I could download a free sample of the book to my kindle I thought why not. It covered part of the 1^st chapter and it was a very interesting read so I decided that as the full book was only £1.03 on Amazon Kindle that I would just go and buy it.

What I love is that it’s written by a women who has had 3 of her own children and has been a nanny for a number of years and the main thing that stuck out in the introduction for me was that "no guidelines fits all – every baby is unique!" & “Babies are not robots and all have completely different personalities, so therefore each routine needs to be tweaked slightly and adapted”

In the 1^st day I have just got to the end of the 3^rd chapter but I already know it will become a book I will refer to often.

So thank you Lisa The Blissful Baby Expect for writing such a down to earth book!

Pregnancy Week 37! Classified as full term

Well I’ve only gone and bloody made it! This week at 37 weeks I’m classified as full term!

Thank fully I finished work last Friday which couldn’t have come soon enough for me. Friday night was a horrible night in the terms of sleep, I had bad acid indigestion again and due to hubby being away in Swindon with friends for the night meant that when I couldn’t get back to sleep at 2am in the morning I was able to put the TV on for a few hours.

Saturday spent an hour in the morning with one of my closest friends Charlie and her little girl Grace before hubby got home. After spent popping in to see my parents before a makro trip to get loo rolls – I know how to live!

Had a lovely day Sunday catching up with the gang had a nice BBQ around ours. I was scary to think that it would probably be the last time I saw them before Baby Hano comes!

I do feel scared about the birth, think that’s natural but something on Monday made me realises that I should be ok, what will be will be. I am as prepared as I can be now it’s just a waiting game. So now I feel very calm about it all.

Had a lovely day with Hubby on Monday took a little trip out to Swindon to look at a new bike jacket for him before he took me for lunch in Marlborough. It’s such a pretty little village found a lovely little tea room to have a bit to eat.

Was weird on Tuesday not having to get up for work, hubby spoilt me by bringing me a cuppa in bed.

Wednesday I enjoyed my hydro class as it was much needed after a very restless night in pain. The afternoon I spent on the sofa

Thursday started with a call to the physio as I was in so much pain thankfully she managed to fit me in that afternoon. After that I headed down to the Aldi baby event. I got all the below for under £8.

I’ve not had any real labour signs yet been getting a few bad period like pains that last about 20 secs or more but my bump hasn’t dropped or waters broken. I think I may be one of these people that the bump doesn’t drop for. 

Bumps to Baby photo shoot

Couple of weeks ago I saw an amazing offer on Groupon that was a little too good to pass up. It was for a Bump to Baby photo shoot with a local photographer Neil Palmer who is based in Early. The deal gave us:

• Three individual hour-long baby photography sessions documenting the child's development
• Choice of nine photo shoots including maternity, new born, and two years old
• Memory box album with three 4"x4" prints
• Low resolution DVD album of images from all three sessions 

All for a bargain price of £19 the only condition on the offer was it expired at the end of October. With this in mind I decided that I wanted a Bump photo shoot followed by new born pictures of Baby Hano and then some as close to the end of October as we could get at which time he would be 4 months old.

We had our 1^st shoot on Saturday the Bump shoot. We were advised not to wear and strips or patterns and to try and match. We decided just to wear a black top each and Jeans. Unfortunately we arrived 20 minutes late but Neil was fine about in the end. He talked us through what the plan was and then took us through to his studio which reminded me slightly of a cellar mainly due to the plain white walls and no windows. He did loads of different poses with us, some me by my self and other with me and Chris. He normally allows an hours per shoot but as we just got on and did what he said we were done after 35 minutes. Afterwards we then booked in a viewing session.

Have to say viewing all the pictures was great, I think he’s taken over 30 images and there were only a few we didn’t like mainly due to faces being pulled or strange necks or eyes. It was hard to choose our favourite, we ended having 4. Below are a taster of them 

    

Pregnancy Week 36!

Maternity Clothes: None

Other Purchases made this week: A new handbag! Not baby related J Also brought 3 new books for little one. I’ve always read books think it goes back to my mum & dad as they are huge readers. I decided very early on that I wanted to read to my son from birth, so slowly I have been collecting various books most have been when I have seen them on offer. What I have so far:

Amazing Machines – Tony Mitton

The Naughty Bunny

Humphrey Farm Adventure – Sally Hunter

Peekaboo! With spotty dog

Nursery Treasure – Niles Kelly

Little Blue Train

I’d really love a puppy

If I were a cow

Dear Zoo – Rod Campbell

Train

Guess How Much I love you – Sam McBratney

Various Thomas the Tank Engine books

Hickory Dickory Dock

Others:

Top 100 Baby Purees – Annabel Karmel

Baby & Child Health – Dr Philippa Kaye

Stretch Marks: Starting to see more blue lines appear on my belly

Sleep: Differently waking up every couple of hours

Best moment this week : Bump photo shoot on Saturday – see separate post

Worse Moment this week: none

Pregnancy Classes attended this week: NCT, Hydro

Movement : Lots, he loved it at the cinema had a right old wriggle session for a good hour

Food Cravings: Cheesecake & Chocolate milkshake

Anything making you queasy or sick? Still acid reflux but have learnt that I need to make sure I sit up properly when eating

Belly button in or out? in

Wedding ring on or off? On

Mood over week? ok

Looking forward to: Finishing work Friday and starting my maternity leave!

Desk at work on last day

Miss anything? nope

Pregnancy Week 35!

bump size round the middle:   not taken this week

Maternity Clothes: Sunday I brought some new trousers, a new top and a dress mainly because I was fed up of not having much left. I’ll be able to wear the dress and top after.

Other Purchases made this week: I brought a little outfit from M&S with our vouchers from our credit card

Stretch Marks: I’ve started to see blue veins appear on my tummy but feeling that tummy is very tight now

Sleep: What that? Actually it’s not that bad but getting up still loads during the night and then takes longer to go back to go back to sleep

Best moment this week: Probably buying some new clothes and actually feeling girlies again instead of like a whale

Worse Moment this week: Most of it feeling grumpy, tired etc

Pregnancy Classes attended this week: NCT & Hydro & Physio. After taking some advice from a lovely lady on twitter I asked the physio for some big  tubi grip and so far so good really helping and almost pain free Friday.

Movement : Lots and lots of big kicks

Food Cravings: Nothing

Anything making you queasy or sick? Still getting acid reflux

Belly button in or out? in

Wedding ring on or off? On some days I think it may have to come off as normally in the morning it’s tight

Mood over week? Mixed but grumpy

Looking forward to: Our bump photo shot on Saturday & going to Westfield sunday

Miss anything? nope