I’m in beginning stages of my Post-Natal Yoga Training and have started reading around the subject and just come across this brilliant little book – I had to share it with you all!

The Kids are having tantrums. The Grown Ups are having tantrums. WTF is going on!?

To create the perfect birthing environment there are five elements that will help you feel relaxed and secure to birth your baby.

I’ve just had a catch up with one of LushTums students, who is now a friend, and we were talking about “how, when and what for exactly” does retuning to exercise look like for most women post having a baby.

Millie Maisie Davies was born on Wednesday 17th October weighing 8lbs. I decided to go ahead with the stretch and sweep on Tuesday 16th, and it kick-started things within a couple of hours - back ache only at first, with the mild contractions starting by 4pm.

At the risk of sounding like a smug bitch, I am on top of the world at the moment. I feel physically much better and emotionally less fragile, which has lifted an enormous weight off my shoulders and made things infinitely better, in stark contrast to the last few fairly horrid weeks.

After our scan we started to tell friends and family the news that we are expecting our second baby. We had confided in one or two people not long before the scan, which was largely due to unconcealable puking and my inability not to be a miserable bitch, both at their worst around weeks 9, 10 and 11. Luckily, these joyous side effects have died down a bit, and now that we know all is well it feels like a good time to share our exciting news.

Feel like you’ve been kicked in the vagina? Tada! That’s pelvic girdle pain! Thanks pregnancy. On a positive note, “pelvic pain” can be sung to the tune of the 1990s hit single “Kiss the Rain” by Billie Myers when you are doing the washing up: “Pelvic pain? Whenever you need to pee. Pelvic pain, whenever you walk for too long; if you’re hips feel twingey and achy; pelvic pain.”

“So, the immune system tends to go out the window a bit during the second trimester”. My GP delivered this line to me, followed by a chuckle. I didn’t find it quite as funny as I sat there with my double eye infection, chest infection and tonsillitis. Hilarious. I’m feeling a bit run down this week to say the least.

We are off to a wedding this weekend. The first of three weddings during this pregnancy. The first of three tent like outfits, three attempts not to look like an out of control beach ball on the dance floor, three evenings of sober conversation with mega drunk people, but also three toddler free weekends.

Absolutely massive pants have completely saved me this week. Last week I was pretty much crippled with pelvic girdle pain, which arrived a few weeks ago just as my sickness stopped, and so felt like a double kick between the legs. I was pretty pissed off, trust me.

This week I had to go for a glucose tolerance test as a check for gestational diabetes, which involved fasting, blood tests and quite a lot of waiting around. Less fun than a trip to the seaside but perhaps more fun than colonic irrigation.

In general, I am a big fan of a foot rub, but when pregnant it is my catnip. If you want to get on side, offer me a foot massage. Well, maybe only if you’re a licensed professional, otherwise it might be a bit weird. If you’re not a licensed professional, vouchers for establishments employing licensed professionals would be gratefully received. Just saying.

This week we have been living it up in the Isle of Wight. This is holidaying at its most intrepid. I would consider myself as reasonably well travelled and fairly adventurous on the whole, but since having our first son our passports have seen bugger all action. We've indulged in a long weekend in the new forest (ooh la la), another at the Suffolk Center Parcs (get us), and now we're jetting off to sunny Seaview, wait for it, for a whole week.

The decision to send your baby or child to nursery can be tough for some. Many mothers feel guilty and worry whether they are making the right decision. The fundamental point I must make is that you must stop being so hard on yourself, give yourself a break and look at this with an open mind.

Obviously, I’m not being literal but that overwhelming sense of love you’re “supposed” to get when you see your baby for the first time, it didn’t happen until my son was one-year-old. Even now, looking back I don’t remember much about that first year of my son’s life other than anxiety and crying (him and me).

‘I can do this’ I thought, ‘I look after babies for a living! How hard can it be?? I got this!’

How naïve, unprepared and surprised I was.

When I found out I was pregnant with my first baby I had been working full time as a Neonatal nurse for just over 3 years. I loved my job- and still very much do, but it is a rollercoaster of a ride. 13 hour shifts caring for the sick, premature, surgical, and sometimes even dying, babies. Every shift I would walk onto the unit and do my utmost to keep the babies safe and comfortable and provide their parents and family with a friendly, caring and supportive space amid the monitors, lines, equipment and chaos that is a Neonatal unit.

Understanding what your immune system does and where it is found will help you to
understand how best to support it, and give yourself a fighting chance of staying well and
energised through the long winter months.

It goes without saying that life changes a lot when you become a parent; many positive changes, and some less so. What many new parents find hardest is letting go of the life they had pre-children, and missing the things and the freedom that they used to enjoy. But while many changes are unavoidable and simply part of this new stage of your life, having children doesn’t have to mean changing how you live completely.
 

What does the festive season mean to you? Do you get stressed thinking about buying presents and trying to find the time and energy to keep everyone happy? Are you feeling completely overwhelmed and wishing it was over already? Has the festive season become a time you dread, rather than the celebration it should be?