Mummy I want

Claire J wonders if there’s any limit to what children want.

So my niece turns 10 this week. God knows what she is going to get for her birthday because she already seems to have absolutely everything she could possibly want. An iPhone, an iPod of some sort, a television and DVD player, a Wii, a Nintendo 3DS and various other gadgets and gizmos I haven’t even heard of.

She’s a lovely girl, and I’m not claiming that she’s spoilt in any way…she’s no different, it seems, from every other 10 year old. She tells me that some of her classmates get picked on because they don’t have a “cool” mobile. 10 year old girls in 2012 wear makeup to parties, straighten their hair, lust after expensive labels like Hollister and Jack Wills, and are often more tech savvy than their parents. How did this happen? When I was 10 (1988, if you must know) my friends and I still played with Barbie, went to bed at 8pm and genuinely believed in Santa Claus (no, it wasn’t just me!).

You can’t blame the kids. They’re encouraged to use computers in school (which I accept is a positive thing), and you’d be hard pushed to find an 8 year old who can’t bring up the Google search box and type the words “is Santa real?” They only have to wait 0.16 seconds for the answer (about 343,000,000 answers, actually). The big, bad, expensive world is right at their fingertips.

So who is to blame? The parents? Maybe. I’m in no position to point the finger. My children haven’t even started school yet, so I have no idea what it’s like to be a mother of a tween who is pleading for all the latest must-haves and crying because she can’t have celebrate her birthday in a pink stretch limo. But I’m already thinking about it, because one day I will be that mother. What will the world be like when my 17 month old daughter turns 10? Will kids expect a birthday party on the moon in 2020? Their own personal assistant? Simply because everybody else has one? If everyone else has one, how can a parent look their child in the eyes and say “I’m sorry, but you’re not getting it”, when this leaves them open to ridicule and possibly even bullying? Peer pressure and bullying are not modern behaviours by any means, but I think the materialistic undercurrent is.

What has caused this massive change in society, where 10 year old kids get £200 phones for their birthdays and their parties cost the same as a week-long package holiday? Has the world become more greedy and materialistic in general?

I don’t want my children to miss out, and I accept that the the birthday present bar has been raised ten-fold since I was a child. It’s not just about the money – it’s the fact that so many of them seem to expect so much. I recently blogged about the books I loved to read as a child – perhaps this has got me reminiscing about those times and making comparisons between then and now. Things seemed so much simpler back then.

When I started thinking about all those Enid Blyton treasures, I couldn’t stop. So I’ve been searching the internet for the exact editions that I adored as a child (I salute you, eBay!). I’m like a child on Christmas morning every time a small, slim package drops through my letterbox. Except I’m ripping open a parcel containing a dog-eared, 1985 edition of a 60-year old children’s book, not a shiny, expensive gadget.

Sleeping baby boy - Wikimedia Commons

Lauren L ponders the signficance of gender targeted toys.

As my son played with a naked Barbie doll in the bath with his two sisters tonight, I pondered whether or not it was normal for him to enjoy playing with so many ‘girl’ toys.

His older sister is 6, and younger sister just 4 months but he is surrounded.  He is surrounded by girly toys, girly clothes and girly chat.  Not forgetting me, all my mummy friends, and his two sisters and their friends.

Like many of his little friends, he only sees his dad for a short while in the morning and evening during the week and at the weekends when my husband’s attention is split between all three children and me.

My son is not in the least bit feminine and is very much a real boy – he loves being loud, running around, playing with cars and trains and loves muddy puddles – but I do worry a little that he has a little too much feminine influence in his life.

Growing up as one of two sisters, and then losing my father at a young age, I wasn’t privy to much masculine influence… something that was exacerbated when I went to a single sex school as well.  So I don’t really understand men, boys, their toys or how they work.

I am on a steep learning curve now that I have a son.  Whereas parenting my daughters feels like it comes naturally, being a mum of a three year old boy often leaves me feeling like I’m in deep waters.

It is often said that boys are easier (whatever that means – I very rarely think that any aspect of parenting is easy!).  But this is definitely not the case with me and my son.

I do feel like I am getting the hang of having a boy.  I finally get it that he is happiest when he has a full tummy, is doing lots of exercise and he’s playing with his willy.

But what else can I do to bring out the man in him?

One of my new year’s resolutions is to set up more play dates with other boys for him and take him to predominantly boy activities like toddler football.  My husband is going to spend some more boy time with him at the weekends.  Apart from that, we are just going to keep feeding him (he tells me he is hungry on the hour every hour), exercising him, and telling him to get his hands out of his trousers.

At the end of the day, being surrounded by girls now could stand him in good stead for the future.  He’ll have more idea about the opposite sex than I do!

A Mum's Internal Monologue

Guest poster, “Mum Monologue” wonders how many children is enough for her?

My baby is hurtling his toddle truck towards his first birthday. Before he came along I wanted 6 children, a huge brood, some biting at my ankles while others did sticking and colouring on the table, and others were messing up their bedrooms, perhaps 1 would enjoy helping mum and would do the hoovering and ironing with me (all totally ridiculous – I don’t even do any hoovering or ironing). Having my first at 35 made it doubtful I’d reach the 6, and after having 1 I’m doubtful I want 2.

My husband wants more children but would also like me in my right mind, so I’ve managed to put off the thought and thorough discussion about whether 3 can become 4.

I’m finding it a deeply complex and surprising conservation with myself. For me now, right at this moment, I don’t want anymore children. Before having my son I was bursting with broodiness, there was no question whether I wanted a baby, no doubt what so ever that my son was the best thing ever to happen. I don’t have any broodiness now, nor can I imagine ever feeling that way again.

Since he was born I have struggled to find any pleasure in my day to day life, and despite now finding day to day life OK and even having moments of shear joy, I’m scared, really scared of feeling that way again. Can I take the risk and start that misery all over again.

What would be the right reason to have another baby, or more to the point, the wrong reason?

Should I pay any attention to my feelings now, maybe it should be a pragmatic decision. I have no way of knowing how I will feel in a year, if I wait a year to find out and decide I do, then I try and get pregnant, then I have the pregnancy, how old will I be by the time I’m giving birth? What if I still don’t want another after that year, do I wait another?

And then of course its not all about what I want, my husband would love to have more kids, he’s a brilliant dad. Can I deny him a family? I feel like Ive cheated him, we talked (theoretically) about our family before our son came along, I talked about my 6, and he reveled in the idea of his family (maybe 2 though, not 6) now I’m saying 1′s my limit. We decided we wouldn’t wait for “the right time” to do things, we wanted to get married so 3 months later we got married. We wanted a family so 3 months later I was pregnant. We didn’t and don’t have the money, the family home or the secure income but it was what we wanted so we did it! Now that I’m missing that desire to have another, all those other things seem so much more important, or are they excuses?

Then I think of my son, we are his world, he is the most important thing in the world to us, how can I decide to change that, to stop devoting myself to him and to share everything between 2. I sometimes feel I have nothing left in me, to give my husband and nothing left for me. How can I give more.

Then again, thinking of my son, should I force only childom on him (especially with me as his mother). We live miles away from family and I’m not the most social creature so friends and company are going to be all down to him (poor thing). My childhood was spent with my sister, up until I was about 16 we were best friends (we still are, its just geography that distances us). Can I deny him the potential of a close sibling relationship, being a big brother.

There is also the nitty gritty of procreating, basically I have no desire for sex, nill, none, not happening. Pregnancy would be a miracle and it would take a hell of a lot of gentle whispers, soft touches and champagne cocktails to get round me, yeah and at least a week of incredible nights sleep, a long bath, a new haircut and the loss of about a stone in weight.

I want to want another, what does that tell me? And its the babies you don’t have that you regret, not ones you do – right?

Image by Westfall on Flikr Creative Commons

Leah V makes us all jealous as she fits comfortably back into her my pre-pregnancy clothes.

We’ve come around to January again and it’s this time of year that Davina gets her abs out and tries to convince us that she is just like any working mum who struggles to stay in shape.

Celebrities across the spectrum of A-Z don their leotards and have their accountants on speed dial ready and waiting for when the royalties come in for their “revolutionary” fitness DVD, which, for many may only be used once, quite possibly by the man of the house!!

Just flick on the TV and you will be inundated with adverts promising that for a small fee, you could be a slimmed down version of yourself within weeks. The TV schedule is filled with a host of fat fighting, celeb slimming and designer diet programmes.

Yet before and during Christmas we were encouraged by our favourite TV chefs to lovingly ladle the goose fat to make our roast potatoes nice and crispy, Fry our sprouts with butter and bacon to make them more palatable, and slather on Baileys flavoured cream to anything sweet.

You could say that it’s a rotten time to become a mum really, as one of the things that we struggle with after we’ve after giving birth, is adjusting to what’s happened to our body and then trying to figure out how we can feel more normal.

My twins are 18months old now and I can finally say that my body is finally nearly back to what I would term “normal”. That is, I fit comfortably back into to my pre-pregnancy clothes and I can at long last to some semblance of a waist. To be honest, the first few weeks after having the twins, I lost a bit of weight quite quickly. I think with breast feeding combined with the stress of being a first time mum and struggling to find the time to eat in between feeding, changing and comforting the twins, it was no wonder the weight was dropping off. Once I stopped breast feeding and we got ourselves into a routine, the weight loss stopped. Then of course you have to wait for clearance from the doctor in order to exercise. As I didn’t have a caesarean it was much quicker for me.

Before I got pregnant with the twins I was very active and liked to keep fit, of course life before the twins was much more self indulgent, I could go to the gym all the time if I wanted to. When you have a baby you have to learn to adapt your life to suit your children’s needs and not vice versa. However, I was still very conscious that my body was different and that I would not be comfortable unless I tried to do something about it. I love my children very much and nurturing them is a focal point of my life, but it doesn’t mean that I have to forget about myself and what makes me feel good and being healthy, fit and in good shape is what makes me feel good both mentally and physically.

I know that there are many mums out there who are struggling with post baby weight and I guess what I want to try and do in this post is say that, there is no miracle cure to this and there is no quick solution, unless you have a load of money then you can go and get it all sucked out and tucked in. It has taken me 18 months to get to a point in which I’m 85% happy with how I look. I say 85% because I have the same niggles that I had even BEFORE I was pregnant and I’ve never been 100% happy anyway.

It was all as simple as healthy eating and plenty of exercise. I’m not talking starvation diet and being chained to the treadmill, call it the 90/10 rule, for six days eat as healthy as possible and for one day, don’t go over the top, but allow yourself to enjoy a treat, whether it is sweet or savoury.

I’d also say to just think about little things, do you eat your children’s left overs? Do you graze? Are you eating out of boredom? Sometimes having to be at home all day with baby can make you head for the cupboard or fridge.

It’s also very easy to play the too tired and frazzled to make proper meals card, but marinating a chicken breast and steaming vegetables takes less than 15 minutes. It also helps if you plan your meals a week in advance then it is easy to prepare.

I’m not going to patronise you and go through a long list of foods that are good and bad, everyone knows, it really is common sense, you don’t need to spend money on a diet book or DVD to tell you.

In terms of exercise, it’s best to start off slowly, don’t go crazy and think you have to compete with celebrity mums who just seem to snap back into shape. I walked (and still do) every day with the twins in the pram, choose a time when you think they might take a nap, this means you can go for a good 30-60mins. Plus getting outdoors is a good way to clear your head. I’m fortunate enough that I have my mother in law living near by so I am able to go to the gym twice a week. But you don’t need a gym to exercise and you don’t need to spend a lot of time doing it, you can even split it into 15 min intervals throughout a day. Look online for post pregnancy workouts..that’s the beauty of the internet. Or invest in a couple of good DVD’s. I have a load called 10 minute solutions. Each DVD has five separate workouts split into 10 min workouts. I could do one or two sections whilst the kids were napping or playing with toys. I still do them now when the kids go to bed.

It’s important to talk to your partner, ask them for help, see if you can schedule in the week a couple of nights where you can concentrate on you, be it doing an exercise DVD or going to a local fitness class.

Don’t feel guilty about focusing on you, remember babies can detect your mood and frame of mind, if you aren’t feeling good about yourself, your emotions can often be transported to them and it becomes a vicious circle of you not feeling happy and them getting upset too.

I know that being a new mum is extremely time consuming and that there is just no time to fit everything in. If you want it to happen quickly then no, there is no time. For the first few months it can be a little difficult, and also for those of you who have to go back to work, time with baby becomes precious. If you really want to do it you will MAKE the time and effort. You just have to accept that it will be a slow journey..but I promise you there is a final destination.

Nappy cake by Little Grasshopper

Faith H celebrates her first year as a mummy.

As I give my daughter her bottle and put her down to bed tonight, I find myself looking back over the last year.

She is fast approaching 1 and it is a real milestone birthday. Feelings of paranoia wash over me again, have I really been the best possible parent to her since she arrived last January?

She is a happy little soul, eats well, sleeps well and so I know I should be thankful, but in a funny way, as scared as I was of her when she was just a new-born, I guess it feels almost the same. I pack out my days with play dates and activities, and I thank god for my new found mummy friends. Where would I be without them? Our friendships have solidified over the last year; a bond we may never have known if it had not been our due dates so close to each other!

I try to remember what life was like before we had a baby; social, drunk, fun! Well, we have done some of that since she arrived so check that box. And as for the future, I just hope she loves me, heck, even likes me would be great. My love for her keeps getting stronger and I will do my absolute upmost to have the best relationship with her, give her guidance, encouragement and the confidence to enjoy life to the max!

Roll on the next 18 years! I love being a mummy!

Son

Alli Marshall reflects on the challenge of sharing love between her children.

During the Christmas holidays I spent a wonderful day at home with my Husband and 4 children, my 3 older children all own the latest electronic devices and I do limit the time they are allowed to spend on them; however on this day I banned them totally and told the children that they would need to entertain themselves using “old fashioned” methods such as reading or doing some crafts.

My Daughter decided that she would build a wooden desk tidy that she had received for Christmas, she enjoys doing arts and crafts and is quite a professional and so she simply set herself up at the dining room table and set about her task.

The boys though were a completely different matter; they like the idea of building models but their attention spans are limited.  Both of them had received woodcraft construction kits for Christmas and decided that they wanted to build these.  My Husband helped our middle Son with his jet plan and I helped our eldest Son with his motorbike.

Middle Son was finished quite quickly, as Husband did do most of the construction –myself & eldest Son took somewhat longer; we spent over 4 hours building the model, which is probably the most quality time we have spent together for a long time.  Eldest Son is 12 now and so his reliance on Mum is now mainly limited to taxi services & food provision or so I thought!

My eldest Son thanked me when the model was complete and told me that he had really enjoyed spending the time with me & hoped that we could do it again soon – it made me realise that no matter how old my children are they still require quality one on one time with Mum.

I make sure I spend time with my youngest Son (17 months) playing games with him and entertaining him yet at some point I stopped doing this with my older Son thinking that he no longer needed or wanted this interaction.

I was wrong – my eldest Son still wants time with Mum and so I have resolved to spend more time with him in 2012.

Yummy Mummy week

Today 10 children in the UK will hear the news they have cancer.

It’s not an easy thing to hear and organisations like CLIC Sargent are there to offer ongoing support to children with cancer and their families.

Just imagine for one moment hearing your child has been diagnosed with cancer and then learning you have to do a 50 mile round trip three times a week for the next year. How would you cope? How would your child cope? How would their siblings cope?

CLIC Sargent offer vital services, from clinical care, to financial support, homes from home so parents can stay with their children during treatment and play specialists to help children deal with their diagnosis.

We want you, as a parent with a powerful voice, to get involved in CLIC Sargent’s Yummy Mummy week 10th-18th March.

We’re hoping as many mums will get involved by signing up at www.yumymummy.org.uk

We’re also looking for bloggers to join in with our Yummy Mummy Week writing prompts and spread the word – you can read more here.

You can also join in on Twitter by using the hashtag #dosomethingyummy

Zita West

Zita West, Midwife and Fertility Expert at The Zita West Clinic shares her tips for maximising your chances of conceiving.

I see women who are at all stages of planning a family, whether they just want to plan ahead or have problems they need to overcome. I’m there to provide them with as much, or as little, help as they may need. This is why I’ve partnered with First Response to develop pinktimeline.com, which helps couples who are trying for a baby.

As a midwife I find it’s the ‘two-week wait’, the time between ovulation and when a woman can test, that can cause a lot of stress. It’s hard not to get caught up with the excitement that you may be pregnant but there are also many questions women ask and want answered during that time. What they should and shouldn’t do; what they can and they can’t do. A lot of these questions are based around lifestyle and what changes they need to make. Very often it’s not huge changes, it’s little steps that can make a difference:

Nutrition

My ultimate piece of advice is to ensure there are four key food groups in your diet; protein, fats, carbohydrates and antioxidants. Eat a good breakfast such as porridge, which is a slow releasing carbohydrate, or a protein such as poached eggs with wholemeal bread. This ensures that your blood sugar levels are balanced. At lunch try and substitute white bread for wholemeal bread and add some extra healthy fillings such as avocado. Another important point about your diet is that it’s important to maintain a healthy body weight; being overweight or underweight may impact on your fertility.

Exercise

I often get asked during the ‘two-week wait’ (when a woman doesn’t know whether she is pregnant or not), “How much exercise can I do?” and the answer is nothing too strenuous, but gentle exercises for around thirty minutes a day such as yoga or brisk walking can be vey beneficial to the body. Exercise is great for stress relief; it helps the body to release endorphins, which are the body’s feel good hormones. It also helps with blood flow to the reproductive organs. Thirty minutes a day can be really beneficial.

Relaxation

Everyday stresses of life can make you feel very anxious and out of control. There are many things you can do to help combat your stress levels, such as visualisation and relaxation techniques. With visualisation and relaxation I suggest you take yourself to a quiet spot that is uninterrupted, turn off your mobile phone, close your eyes and start to take yourself to a place that you enjoy; a beach, a garden and start to count down through your body from your head right the way down to your toes. This can be done for twenty minutes a day and puts you into a deep relaxed space – it re-energises you and the beauty of it is you can do it wherever you are.

Fertility Costs

Fertility can be costly for many couples. To help you embark on the journey, pinktimeline.com has a fundraising resource to help you raise funds for associated costs that can come with trying for a baby. Couples can create a private fundraising page to share with family and friends, at their discretion, to raise funds for specialty consultations, fertility treatments or even to set up a nursery. The first 100 couples to create fundraising pages will also receive a £50 contribution from First Response to get them started.

Visit Pinktimeline.com for details on what is happening to a woman’s body during the fertility process, including Zita’s tips for staying healthy and relaxed. There is even a forum where women can connect with others who are also waiting to test. After testing, there is also a results page with next step advice from Zita.

Wendy house from playhouses.co.uk

Last week we were sent the The Fairy Princess Play Tent from playhouses.co.uk to play with, which we gifted to one of Joel’s best friends and then watched them play in for a joyful afternoon before the frost set in.

It’s an unusually spacious playhouse with durable canvas walls and a wooden frame held together with plastic joints and screws.

The whole thing was very simple to put together although the screws mean that when it’s up it’s up, which could pose a problem in a small house, especially since the frame is made from untreated wood so can’t be left in the rain.

The outside of the tent is beautifully decorated with pinks and purples, hearts and star motifs. It boasts windows and a door and is perfect for pretend play. Joel’s friend M had a great time pretending to be a princess while Joel took on the role of knight – it was easily big enough to accommodate two playful four year olds.

The  Fairy Princess Play Tent is suitable from age 1+, measures 146 x 172 x 120 cm and retails for £74.99

(Disclosure: The playhouse was given to us free of charge by playhouses.co.uk for the purposes of this review . Mums On The Blog reviews are written with total honesty and integrity at all times.)

#allbabiescount

Sudocrem, the UK’s leading nappy rash treatment, has pledged to donate up to £25,000 to support the NSPCC’s ‘All babies count’ online campaign to prevent the abuse and neglect of babies.

Here’s how you can help:

Visit www.facebook.com/sudocrem or tweet about the campaign.  Sudocrem will donate 50p for each ‘like’ on Sudocrem’s Facebook page and 25p for every tweet using the #allbabiescount hashtag. Sudocrem will also donate 50p for every comment on the NSPCC Facebook campaign page: www.nspcc.org.uk/allbabiescount

Ray Stafford CEO of Forest Europe said:

“We are proud to support the NSPCC and their work with vulnerable babies and children”.

Svetlana Kirov, NSPCC Head of Corporate Partnerships, said:

“Sudocrem has pledged to donate £25,000 to the NSPCC. We’re urging bloggers to support the All babies count campaign; Sudocrem will make a donation to the NSPCC for every tweet using the

hashtag and for every blogger who ‘likes’ their Facebook page  and posts a comment on the NSPCC Facebook Campaign page.”

Help make sure All babies count:

• www.nspcc.org.uk/allbabiescount
• https://twitter.com/nspcc
• http://www.facebook.com/nspcc