Just 1 week left of maternity leave

Wow can't believe I only have 1 week left of my maternity leave! This time next week I will be getting ready to leave the house with J to drop him off at nursery and then getting myself to work!

I can't believe how quickly the last 9 months have gone. I actually made the choice to return to work a month and a bit early, for me it was a quite easy decision to make in a sense. Some of you may not know that I've actually been struggling emotionally for quite a while now. It trully hit me in January so much so I felt the need to go to the doctors and talk to him,  he prescribed sertraline which is a anti depressant and also suggested I looked into talking therapies. I've now been on the tablets well over a month and they've differently have helped. I feel like a fog has been lifted but also I feel a lot less stressed. I find it interesting to discover how many of my lovely twitter friends actually stuffer from PND as well, I wonder if that's because society today puts so much pressure on us mums to be perfect? But what is perfect? For me I think feelings of PND started to show them selves more from certain people on twitter painting such 'the right way' of parenting making those who weren't doing it that way feel inferior. I have discovered that I'm not a maternal mother, I love my son but find it hard spending 12 hrs a day 7 days a week with him, some people have made me feel really bad about saying that. I also find the whole 'my baby is doing this already' thing stressful. I know every baby developes at different rates but somehow I can't help to compare what J is doing or not doing to what other babies are doing. I managed to get my self in such a tiz over weaning and development of J that I actually just wanted to run away. 

Anyway part of helping me to feel better was deciding to return to work early. I feel like I just need a part of normality back. I had always decided that I wanted J to start at nursery about a month before I started at work mainly due to the fact I had heard from others that they are likely to get ill when the start. Well that was true a week after starting J got some kidda stomach bug and therefore stayed at home for a week. Even now he seems to perminatatly have a cold.

People keep asking me how I feel about returing to work and honestly I have no feeling about it. Or maybe I'm trying not to think about it. It will certainly be interesting sharing my job for a month or so with the bloke who's doing my maternity cover. I know I will probably need to bite my tongue quite a bit, though the grape vine I know there is a lot of office polities going on at work.

 I am lucky in the sense J's nursery is in the basement of work which means I only have to get us to 1 location 2 days a week. Tuesday will be nice as my mil is looking after J and she will come to ours. Fridays will be a bit more interesting, my mum (hello mum love you) will be looking after him at hers so I will have to get him over to hers before getting myself to work. I'm sure it will all work out fine and I'm pleased that J will get to spend time each week with both grandparents. Then Mondays will be my day with J.

So how am I spending my last week well today Thursday I'm off to Biescester outlet village with a friend and her little one while J is at nursery. Tomorrow me and J are spending the day with my mum and going to m&s camberley. Saturday will be the normal house work stuff and food shopping. Sunday I'm going to Coworth Park for afternoon tea with my friends for a friends baby shower who due with her second child in a month. Monday J and me have got our normal swimming lesson with swim kidz. Tuesday well not sure yet but J is with his nanny before her taking him to nursery so I have the day to myself. Then Wednesday is my last NCT catch up day. Think this will be the biggest thing I will miss when I return to work, I  have made some great friends through it.

Wow that was a bit of a essay so thanks if you've made it to the end! As always thanks for reading x

J is 8 months old

Wow where does time go! it only feels like a week ago I was writing J's 7 month post.

Well lots has happened in the last month, J's sitting is going really well but also he has also learnt how to properly flip over to his belly and he can now flip back over too. He's also learnt how to backwards shuffle on his belly and he is trying to get his knees under so I'm sure in the next month or so that will go into a crawl! GOD HELP US hehe he's also just started to learn how to go from lying to sitting. It's funny to see how much he changes at the moment from week to week.

We took advantage of the Aldi baby event being on to get our selves prepared for the start of the crawling by buying a stair gate. We brought the Lindam on which has had good write ups. Although we've brought it and made sure it fits we've not yet installed it permimitalty.

The other big news is we now have our 1st two teeth at the bottom!

We had a bit of a nightmare week the week they came through. The monday he was very sleepy and clingy, the Tuesday he wouldn't sleep and was very grumpy then kept waking up every hour during the night, Wednesday he was a bit better and by Thursday we had our 1st tooth, the 2nd one followed within a couple of days. I have now brought J an amber necklace from The Bumblebee Baby Boutique on Facebook. I have heard good things about them and decided why not give it a go. My verdict is still out on it but will keep you posted.

J has now being going to nursery for the last month and seems to be really enjoying it. I'm differently finding him being there is doing him and me good. 

Weaning wise things have improved, I was having a tough time back in January struggling with a bit of PND. J is now having 3 meals a day finally think it was me stopping him progressing more than him not wanting. He enjoys all sorts of things, I have been mainly giving him pouches and Jars but I have been trying on some home cooked items like pasta and sauce and even trying him on left over roast dinner pureed up. I'm going to carry on with a mixture of both. I've also been giving J some finger foods which he seems to like. He's also now dropped his 10:30 bottle.

J is now finally out of his 3-6 months clothes and sleep suites and is now in his 6-9 month stuff.

So it seems from 7-8 months has been a busy month. I wonder what the next month will hold for us?