Currently Browsing: Eat
May 25, 2013
Is there a growth spurt at eight weeks? There certainly seems to be one here.
All week Little Woman has been feeding well, and gradually spreading out her feeds at night. In fact we had one night this week where she slept from 11.15pm until 5.50am. I felt amazing after it! That’s the longest stretch of sleep I’ve had since I was pregnant.
Those lovely stretches abruptly came to a stop this...
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Eight weeks old
May 20, 2013
I’m sitting here right now feeding my baby, and it’s easy and relaxing, and hard to believe that just a few weeks ago I was in tears at the thoughts of the next feed.
While I was dealing with painful feeds in the early weeks – especially the feeds where I felt exquisite pain – I found myself turning to the Internet several times and looking for ways to deal with the pain. Most...
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Feeding through the pain
May 3, 2013
At some point in the past week, we turned the corner with breastfeeding. The pain I was experiencing started to ease and then gradually disappeared.
I think this is down to a combination of things. First better positioning for feeds thanks to the tips I got from Catriona McCarthy. Second a slower milk flow, again thanks to Catriona’s advice. Third the Jack Newman All Purpose Nipple Ointment really...
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Suddenly it’s easy
May 2, 2013
People’s generosity has blown me away since Little Woman was born. My own parents gave up a month of their time to help us out. My sister-in-law came to stay for a few days to take care of Little Man for me. And people have brought beautiful gifts for Little Woman and thoughtful gifts for Little Man to make sure he didn’t feel left out.
The Irish Parenting Bloggers group spoiled me rotten with...
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Just have to share
Apr 22, 2013
Today was a day of mixed emotions for me. I found the hours from midnight until 9am long because Little Woman woke a lot for feeds during the night, and was awake for a couple of hours each time, so I got very little sleep and was feeling tired and irritable by the time the sun rose. My right nipple with that godforsaken crack was very sore and the thoughts of feeding on it again filled me with dread.
I...
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Enough of this crack!
Apr 16, 2013
We’ve made a lot of progress establishing breastfeeding since last week. On Friday, I decided that I needed help to resolve the latching issues I was experiencing, and so, based on a number of online recommendations, I called Catriona McCarthy.
Catriona, who runs TheMilkyWay.ie, is an IBCLC (International Board Certified Lactation Consultant), and she offers home visits to help with breastfeeding...
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A visit from the lactation consultant
Apr 13, 2013
The problem with feeding on demand is that every so often the person you’re feeding gets very demanding! That’s what happened when Little Woman turned 8 days old. Actually I think it happened the evening before.
Gone were the lovely 3-4 hour stretches between feeds. Instead I suddenly found myself feeding every two hours or less. Once or twice it was a lot less and we had two or three feeds in...
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Two weeks old
Apr 12, 2013
Thank you so much to everyone who contacted me to offer advice after my cry for help about the latching pain I’ve been suffering this week. Today I took Little Woman for her two week check up and was very reassured to learn that she is thriving. She has regained her birth weight and a little bit extra for good measure.
I explained to the nurse about the problems I’ve been having when it comes...
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Help is on the way!
Apr 11, 2013
Little Woman was 12 days old today. I had really hoped at this stage to be reporting that we’re flying along with the breastfeeding and its fully established and those dark days of figuring it out are behind us. Not so I’m afraid. Despite all my preparation and reading and watching of videos, I’m still encountering problems. Not in comparison to the problems I experienced first time...
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Exquisite pain on latching
Apr 8, 2013
If you’ve read the story of my breastfeeding journey with Little Man, you’ll know that we didn’t have an easy time of it – not by a long shot. So this time around with Little Woman, I’ve been doing everything in my power to get it right from the start. I thought it might be helpful to others for me to document the approach I’ve taken and the things I’ve tried....
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Establishing breastfeeding
Feb 19, 2013
When you’re pregnant, many people ask you whether or not you’re planning to breastfeed. And if you say you are, the preparations for a switch to formula start. “Don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t work out.” “I tried it and it was awful – cracked nipples and mastitis.” “Don’t be afraid to give a bottle every now and again to give yourself a...
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Undermining breastfeeding
Oct 22, 2012
As my pregnancy continues, my thoughts are naturally drifting back to when Little Man was born. I find myself especially thinking about the difficulties I had getting breastfeeding established. Looking back, I was just so naive and so uninformed starting out with it. I assumed that because it’s natural, breastfeeding would be easy. But unfortunately that wasn’t my experience at all in those...
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Breastfeeding is not a choice!
Aug 7, 2012
Did you know that the past week was World Breastfeeding Week? In fact, today is the last day of it. This time last year, I wrote a post linking out to my own breastfeeding story, and I hosted a series of guest posts in honour of the week. But this year, the week almost passed me by without acknowledgement. It’s not that I don’t think it’s important – I most certainly do! It’s...
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World Breastfeeding Week
May 19, 2012
In a nostalgic mood this week, I was looking back through our old videos of Little Man when I found this little gem. Little Man versus The Pesky Pea.
I think it’s a great example of how good baby led weaning is for promoting dexterity in babies. Just check out the determination to pick up that pea! And the satisfaction at the end! I love it!
Your browser does not support the video...
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BLW: Pesky Peas
Apr 24, 2012
This week Adele over on Circus Queen announced that she is hosting a Baby Led Weaning blog carnival, and she has invited bloggers to submit old and new blog posts about their experiences with baby led weaning.
Of course, Little Man is two and a half, so weaning seems like a lifetime ago to us. It’s interesting now to look back and see how far we’ve come.
When starting out with weaning, I read...
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Baby Led Weaning two years on
Apr 19, 2012
For Mother’s Day this year, my brother bought a gift voucher for afternoon tea for two in Adare Manor, Limerick, for my mother and me. We debated making a reservation for Mother’s Day itself but decided that it would be too busy that day, so we waited a few weeks instead.
Was it worth the wait? Absolutely! When we arrived we were the only people having afternoon tea, and we had a table with...
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Afternoon Tea for Two
Apr 8, 2012
Many thanks to Caitriona from Wholesome Ireland for her tip about the Easter Egg moulds in Tesco this week. We picked some up together with white and milk chocolate.
The eggs were really easy to make. Just melt the chocolate in a bowl over some hot water, and then use a pastry brush to paint a layer of chocolate on the inside of each egg mould.
I painted on the milk chocolate first and put it in the...
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Happy Easter!
Mar 5, 2012
At book club last month, one of my fellow mammies was telling me all about a fish oil supplement that she had started giving her daughter, which she was very impressed with. She claimed that since starting the supplement she had seen an improvement in her daughter’s sleep patterns and overall mood. I was a little sceptical, and wondered if this Eskimo Kids product she was extolling the virtues of...
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Eskimo Kids – who knew?
Feb 12, 2012
It’s been a tough week food-wise here at Chez Mama! Doesn’t matter what we serve up – even pizza that he made himself is refused by Little Man. Yesterday, I decided to dig out the Baby Led Weaning Cookbook and follow a few recipes for decent finger foods, in the hopes that even if he wouldn’t eat a full dinner for me, Little Man might eat some finger foods. I was all set to make our...
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Back to basics
Feb 8, 2012
Little Man is going through a fussy stage with food. So far this week, we’ve heard “I no like carrots”, “I no like meat”, “I no like dinner”… You get the picture. So I decided this evening to get him involved in making his dinner to see if it would get him excited about eating it. We made pizzas using some ready-made bases and sauce. Little Man spooned the...
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A budding chef?
Feb 6, 2012
I’m beginning to think that breastfeeding is bad for my health! Or at least the debates about breastfeeding in Ireland are! My blood pressure was through the roof this evening because of it!
You may have heard that Friends of Breastfeeding held a protest at the Facebook headquarters in Dublin today. This protest was against a persistent problem on Facebook, where despite having a policy which states...
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Breastfeeding is bad for my health
Jan 26, 2012
We absolutely love Banana Pancakes in this house – we usually make them one or two Saturdays a month, and they never last long. We’re also big fans of fairy cakes (or buns as we always called them growing up), especially lately because Little Man is now able to flick the switch to turn on the mixer! And he’s a dab hand at helping to lay out the bun cases in the baking tray, and scrape the...
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Banana Buns – yum yum!
Jan 9, 2012
Did any of you see Niamh from The Mama’s Hip blog being interviewed by Maura Derrane on Four Live on RTE 1 today? If you haven’t seen it already, you can watch it here on the RTE Player – Niamh is on at the very end. Be warned though, it’s not good viewing for blood pressure!
Niamh is currently breastfeeding her two sons, the elder of whom is 3.5 years old. Like many women, Niamh...
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Four Live attacks extended breastfeeding
Dec 21, 2011
The Christmas baking frenzy continues. The cakes baked last night and filled the house with mouth-watering scents, and after one whole day to mature, today was decorating day! So once Little Man went to bed this evening, Charlie and I got to work. Cake decorating is harder than it looks. I think we need some practice....
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Wordless Wednesday: Christmas Cake Decorating
Oct 31, 2011
Happy Halloween everyone!
Hope you enjoyed this year’s spooky holiday. We started our day by getting in a spooky mood making some tasty Halloween treats. We spent some time yesterday searching for some good Halloween-themed treat ideas, and in the process we discovered a great blog called The Pastry Affair. As soon as Charlie showed me The Pastry Affair’s Frankenstein’s Marshmallow Pops,...
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Happy Halloween!
