Night time natter

Good old chit-chat

It's 12:30am, I'm laying in bed wide awake, Evangeline is is fast asleep in her mosses basket to the left of me, although she'll be awake soon for a feed and cuddle, Zachary's sleeping to my right. I'm not at all tired, which is rather odd for me, I'm usually always tired, but nope...not tonight - I'm wide awake and just can't seem to sleep? So instead I thought I'd write a post having a 'night time natter'.

I don't know why, but 95% of the time; unless I'm ridiculously tired - I have so much to talk about the moment myself and Zachary snuggle up under the duvet. I find myself rambling on about absolutely nothing, or making important plans like what we're doing on the weekend - haha. A majority of the time I think I pretty much talk to myself as every time I turn to look at Zachary he's always asleep, bless him. And I guess tonight is just one of those nights that I have so many things, or thought's running through my brain that I can't possibly drift of to sleepy town - the fact I've picked my phone up and starting typing this probably doesn't really help the situation haha.

So I've been really slacking on my blog this last week, well, pretty much the whole of November. I've been so set into a routine with my uploads and practically post the same time each and every week, the odd day change has been occuring quite a bit...but at least once a week. And I feel like I've completely neglected my blog pretty much the whole of this month - which isn't fab...however I did promise that I'd upload 2 this week! I don't think that'll actually happen, but hey, I can try!

I can't believe just how quickly Christmas is coming around! I believe that we are pretty much already half way through November, its the 16th today, my dads birthday - so I'll be spending the afternoon at my parents, of course I'll have to wait until he finishes work first; and plus I've still got to pop into the shop and grab him a few more presents!

I've only just started my Christmas shopping, which isn't like me at all...I usually have at least half of my Christmas shopping complete now - but nope, I have only ventured into 1 or 2 shops to buy presents....I tend to find myself buying clothes for Evie instead haha. Which I should probably stop, mainly because she has more clothes than she could possibly wear in 3-6 months and the same happened with her newborn clothing and 0-3 clothing, we've probably sold or thrown away 30, if not more items that shes never worn. But I just can't help myself; I see an item, know she'll look absolutely gorgeous and end up buying it haha.

So our house has been pretty hectic this week filled to the brim with workmen, we've been nonstop- which you would've thought would make me tired, me to...but apparently not!

So this weekend we're going to be taking Evie swimming for the first time, mainly because I can't actually swim...but also because I wasn't to comfortable with being in a bikini or swimming costume. But regardless, its only been 4 months since having Evangeline - and being completely honest, I very much doubt that anyone will actually care about how I look or what I'm doing, because they'll be far to focused about what their doing. Its just taken me a little while to realise this, but better late than never. She loves bath time and having a splash around, so I have a feeling she'll love swimming, but we'll see.

Anyway, I think I'm going to wrap it up here; or I'll never get to sleep.. so thanks for reading, it means a lot. And I'll speak to you in my next post.

Formula feeding and tommee tippee review :

Mummy Chats:

I wanted to do a post kind of having a ‘mummy chat’ with you beautiful bunch; I’ve been asked a few times – particularly in person as to why I didn’t breastfeed Evangeline. So I wanted to talk a little about that, so that those of you that were wondering will have an insight as to a reason why. I’m also adding in a review on our ‘Tommee Tippee closer to nature easivent feeding bottles’.

So starting right from the beginning- the whole idea of breast feeding was something that I intend to do upon finding out that I was pregnant. I had done a bit of research and spoken to my midwife about breastfeeding and formula feeding, and being completely honest after looking into the pros and cons of both, I wasn’t bothered about which one I would end up doing, in my opinion as long as your baby is gaining the nutrients he or she needs, as long as you baby is thriving why does it matter how you feed them.

I know that there a people out there that judge us mummies for making the decision to breastfeed and for choosing to formula feed – throwing negative comments about either. Anyway, going back to the decision I had made in regards to feeding our baby. As I said I did intend to breastfeed, but wasn’t to bothered either way.

I was prepared to breastfeed we had bought a breast pump, breast pads, milk storage bags – everything that we felt we needed. When packing mine and Evangeline’s hospital bag these were all things I had placed into the bags, products that we felt I would need; obviously we ended taking way more than what we needed haha. We also added a ready made formula and some bottles into our bags, just in case we needed it and boy am I glad we did. I think every first time mum has those thought’s running through their head “what if my milk doesn’t come in?”, “what if I can’t do it?” so many different thoughts, and in actual fact the reason that I couldn’t breastfeed was actually something I hadn’t heard of before, although now I’m aware that it is incredibly popular.

Your probably all thinking ‘well what was the reason then?” after Evangeline was born, I was taken into the recovery ward – this was due to having a csection. When in the recovery ward I had my first attempt at breast feeding, around 10 am. The midwife helped me to try and get Evie to latch; but she wouldn’t. Obviously I started to panic thinking that maybe I was doing it wrong, maybe she wasn’t in the correct position; the midwife said she wasn’t concerned because not every baby is hungry straight away. Which eased my mind.

Through the day up until around 6pm I was constantly trying to persuade Evangeline to latch, with the help of my mum, midwife and a breastfeeding specialist- but she just wouldn’t. I was given the option to self express and syringe my colostrum into Evangeline’s mouth; which we tried but not going to lie I was to out of it on medication that it became to much, I just wanted her to feed at this point and after around 8 hours of trying I was becoming extremely concerned and stressed, and myself and Zachary made the decision to try her on a bottle of the ready made formula – you know, the one that comes in those tiny cute bottles. And she latched straight away, feed for about 10 minutes and took 30ml or just over 1 ounce. Which was such a relief, a relief that she was finally feeding. Although I did blame myself, thinking it was the positioning or my milk. But the truth is it wasn’t either of our faults.

The next morning the paediatrician came around the ward to check Evie, to discharge her from the hospital, they do this for every baby; carrying out routine checks. Which is were the reason we couldn’t breastfeed was found, Evangeline was diagnosed with tongue-tie. It’s a condition involving the tongue  (obviously). Normally the tongue is loosely attached to the bottom of the mouth with a piece of skin called the lingual frenulum – however in babies that have tongue tie this piece of skin is particularly tight and short, preventing them from being able to breastfeed or in fact some babies can’t feed at all. Fortunately Evie’s tongue tie didn’t prevent her from feeding with a bottle. So we’re very lucky. I will say to anyone who is in the situation of their baby not latching defiantly ask for your baby to be checked for tongue tie.

Anyway, moving on. Let’s change subject to the review. Since Evie’s arrival we’ve purchased and trialled a variety of different bottles by numerous companies, however none seemed to work for Evie – I guess this is because she couldn’t quite get to grips of the bottles I suppose, or she just couldn’t work with the teat...I’m sure you understand what I mean, or at least I hope you do. But we finally found the perfect bottles for her, the Tommee Tippee closer to nature bottles. These are absolutely fabulous, Evangeline latched and feeds on these bottles like a dream and I don’t think we will ever change to any other bottles. When trying other bottles we found that Evangeline would just move the teat into the side of her mouth, and a majority of the milk would end up running down her chin.
Anyway, moving swiftly on – I’m just rambling…

So lets talk about the products or bottles:
The great thing about these bottles is that the teat is shaped to help encourage natural feeding. Also meaning that it is incredibly easier for baby to switch from breast to bottle. Fortunately these bottles work extremely well for Evangeline, she has a perfect latch and doesn’t dribble or loose any milk when she is feeding, unlike some of the other bottles that we have tried. Ironically, a high percentage of babies that have tongue tie tend to be unable to feed on bottles that mimic the breast, however that isn’t the case for Evie. The bottles we bought came in a set of 6, all of which had attached a slow flow teat – suitable from birth up. They are BPA free and can be held 3 different ways and offer the most natural feeding position. Our bottles in specific come in two sizes, 150ml and 260ml – we used the 150ml up until Evie was around 1 month old, and now use the 260ml. Another thing I love about these bottles, is due to the size Evie can easily grip and hold onto the body of the bottle, I really hope you know what I mean by body lol.

I love these bottles and would strongly recommend them. We also use the tommee tippee dummies, which are just as fab!

I’m going to end my review and chit-chat here, other wise it’ll probably end up being 320,967 pages long haha, thank you for reading; and I’ll speak to you in my next post.