Fireplace decorating ideas

During our house search I was only sure of two things; the place needed to have a good sized garden and I wanted some sort of period features. This pretty much ruled much all of the new builds in our area which were generic and too sterile.

I should note that I was 15 weeks pregnant during our search, a little bit snippy and convinced that I was going to have this baby in our one bedroom, second floor flat with a balcony and barely any room to store my shoes let alone a baby. So you could say I was a bit of a demanding customer with a seriously tight timeline, in other words every estate agents nightmare.

Baby Girl Spring Edit

The snow has melted, the temperature is rising and the clocks go forward. It must be Spring now, right? Well it is quite cold and rainy in Brighton today which has got me dreaming of sunnier climates now. And that can only mean one thing, baby's spring wardrobe. Eva was a summer baby so lived in little bodysuits during the first few months so I'm really looking forward to putting her in more dresses, tops and shorts this year. I've shared below my favourite items with a mix of prices to suit all budgets. Even those statutory maternity pay ones!

How we sold, bought & moved in 12 weeks - Part 2

This is the second part of my story of moving houses whilst heavily pregnant. The first part can be read here. I've shared some pictures of the house when we first bought it with the view to doing a before an after post..as soon as the house is fully decorated!

How we sold, bought & moved in 12 weeks - Part 1

When we first found out about our little baby, we immediately looked around our lovely but small, flat and thought 'Where are we going to put it?'. Sure the kid itself will be small but what about the stuff? They come with a lot of stuff? For starters we live on the first floor and there is no lift. That seems problematic. And then there's no spare bedroom..and no space in our room for a cot..

It was around that time that I stated panic googling how to buy a house and mortgage calculators. Unfortunately for us we decided to live in Brighton, which is one of the most expensive cities outside of London. But fortunately we already owned our flat so wouldn't have to worry too much about finding that massive deposit. We were on countdown mode, T-Minus 6 months until this baby was coming so we decided to get a real shift on.

What I've learnt in eight months..

Eva turned eight months old last week. It felt like a momentous occasion because I found out I was pregnant when I was 1 month gone, so I always joked it was great as I only had an eight month pregnancy. That moment realising that she would soon be out in the world longer than she was in my tummy floored me a little bit. When you are the one staying at home each day looking after a tiny baby you take each day survived as a win. Anything to get through the day, hit that magic time when Luke gets home and you can hand her off and go for that much needed wee by yourself. It got me thinking about how far we have come in these 8 months. The newborn stage seems so far removed and like it never happened when you watch your baby sit unaided or lift an iPad with ease. I often look at day old pictures thinking 'Did that happen? It's all a fog'. Here are some observations that I've discovered along the way.

7 ways to cut costs on Maternity Leave

Taking time off to have your baby can be a real financial struggle. Having a baby who needs food, clothes and fun can be expensive and a real hit on the bank account. I’m into month three of the statutory maternity pay now, boo hoo. During my pregnancy I was able to budget and save so I could pay for stuff like mortgage and food, you know important stuff. But now I have very little disposable income. So I’ve been super thrifty and wanted to share some ways I’ve been cutting costs to make my money go further during maternity leave. Apart from making a strict budget each week I’ve implemented these measures to make sure financial worry and stress is reduced.

March Skin Care Favourites

                                        

If there is two pieces of beauty advice my mum imparted on me it was ; look after your teeth and moisturise your skin. Well I have recently had a filling on the teeth so I'm failing slightly on that one but I do like to think I am obsessive with moisturising my face. Back when I was 16, this meant using a bottle of Olay which lasted about a year. Those were simpler times. Now every lotion claims to be a miracle cream, there is an apparent need for a fully fledged schedule of products and specific times to use them for best results. I'm sharing the products I love at the moment to give an honest view on what’s worked for me. As I like to change products all the time but these are the core four that I use all the time.

Shopping for the 6-9 months

It would appear that since having a tiny infant that my shopping habit has switched from stuff for myself, to things for Eva. As I write this I am wearing an £8 hoodie from Primark and a pair of maternity leggings. (Leave me alone, they are comfy and I've been cleaning)  I've had some lovely comments about clothes Eva has been wearing on my Instagram so I thought I'd share some recent stuff I got her. I always shop ahead so at the moment I'm on the hunt for summery things for 6-9 months. Eva is 8 months old but she is still dinky so we are always a size behind!
I'm a big believer in versatile baby clothes that can be mixed and matched. Strangely I have to dress her in 'proper' clothes everyday and have done since she was about three weeks old. If only to make myself feel like I have achieved something, that or I bloody love doing washing. (Which secretly I do, but HATE ironing. I actually don't iron anything) I like going to different high street shops as I find that the sizes are all pretty comparable. Apart from tights. No one seems to understand the size for baby tights. Looking at you H&M, she will wear them when she is 7.
So these are what I bought from Zara recently. I've never bought from Zara before as every time I've gone in store they never have anything in Eva's size and some of the items are wildly expensive. Like £24.99 for a jumper? I think not. But I had a browse and found some amazing bits which actually where pretty reasonable price wise. So I've shared below! Where are your favourite shops for little ones?

Body Coach Cycle 1

                                       

After Eva was born, I lost my baby weight within a few weeks. Mainly because I gained a stone and that kid weighed half of that. And the reason I didn’t gain much was because eating was so physically painful because of acid reflux that I barely ate during my second and third trimester. So once she was out, I was free to dine on my favourite foods again. This unfortunately mainly consisted of bacon, crisps and croissants.  So within six months, I gained that stone back again. And I felt tired, grumpy and just plain fed up with eating and drinking everything in sight. And it wasn’t about weight or size, I just didn’t feel good. For the first time it wasn’t about me, it was about my health and being healthy for my kid.

Initially I decided to do Slimming World as I’ve seen some amazing transformations on Instagram. However I found that I was using my syn allowance to eat chocolate or crisps. I know restricting these will help me to lose weight but that food isn’t healthy to be having every day. I also found the lack of structured exercise strange. I know that it has worked for loads of people, which is brilliant but it just wasn't for me.

Getting out and over the fear

Last week I wrote an honest Instagram post about how I’ve been bricking it every time I venture past the front door with the baby. The past four months I’ve been learning how to look after a baby and discovering what kind of mother I want to be. With that has come amazing highs as well as the inevitable lows. A major challenge for me is has been how I am perceived by people in public about my mothering skills. It has ruled my day and often ended up in Eva and I staying indoors where it’s safe, rather than getting outside and mingling with the public because she may have a meltdown and I can’t calm her, resulting in me feeling the ‘warm wash of embarrassment’ sweep over me due to my inept parenting.

What the books don't prepare you for..

 

Becoming a mum is overwhelming. I don’t think there is a woman who would deny that and so we read all the maternity and first time parenting books to prepare for it. However there were certain things I just didn’t expect during the first few weeks of baby Eva’s life.

The birth of Eva Rose Caldwell

During pregnancy the whole 9 months was focused on the big event. All the midwife appointments, chats with friends and reading material were all about the labour. And in all honestly it never scared me. Women have been doing this since the beginning of time, we got this. I’m a big believer in that knowledge is power so I became a one woman pregnancy information machine. The things I found out just made me even more in awe of what our bodies can achieve. I loved reading birth stories and so I wanted to share mine.

The Woman, the Myths, the Pregnancy.

When I found out about my pregnancy I was already 5 weeks gone. Not that I knew at the time. Midwives kept asking about last periods and in the fog of the shock I couldn’t really remember. I had none of the usual ‘signs’ that I furiously read on the NHS website other than awaiting a period which it turns out, was never coming. I even dodged the morning sickness bullet. Don’t get me wrong for the next 7 weeks I had a constant anxious sickness in the pit of my stomach whilst I evaluated how un-baby-friendly my life was and how to remedy this in 6 months. (Goodbye one bedroom river view flat, Hello huge mortgage house for starters.) And whilst I fortunately dodged some of the more serious and tough complications in pregnancy I basically spent the next 6 months complaining about the lesser known side effects.

Acid reflux
When I got pregnant I had been on such a health kick, I had lost a stone and was even weighing out the rice before I ate it to work out the macros. (I can’t explain it; it was a weird time ok?) So I was delighted to have the BEST excuse to eat whatever I wanted. This was my time; it was what I’d trained to do. I’ve eaten an entire Victoria Sponge before so this was going to be no problem to me. However by week 13 my entire day became all about how many Rennie tablets I could shove into my face whilst sticking to the recommended daily amount. The reflux was horrific. I once drank a smoothie, trying to be healthy and got it so viciously I couldn’t eat for the rest of the day. Pregnancy was supposed to be my food heaven at a time where gin and I were on a sabbatical. Instead I became afraid to eat as it brought it on so badly. I tried all the remedies, drinking milk, cutting out tomatoes. Nothing helped. Basically my stomach had been shoved and squished about a foot higher than it should be and until I got that baby out of there it was a plight to deal with.

Thrush
I’ve lived a charmed life. I never had thrush until pregnancy. However the viciousness and frequency has more than made up for this. It all started with anti-biotics prescribed because of a UTI that I had no idea about. Then the thrush came. I had no idea about any of this but thrush is a side effect of taking them as they wipe out all your bacteria, both good and bad. Until you are furiously dashing around Reykjavik trying to find the Icelandic version of Canesten duo you really haven’t lived. Can’t use the pessary until you talk to your doctor, bloody cream doesn’t work on its own. After a week of hell, live yoghurt and ice packs I finally cracked, used the pessary and felt immediately better. However I got thrush a further 5 times over the next 6 months which drove me insane and probably cost me about £60. Fantastic. The midwife said ‘Ah yes, just one of those things in pregnancy’. I felt like this was the answer to basically any medical issue.

Glow
The elusive pregnancy glow. I got excited for this one. As a 25 year old who still has spot breakouts on the regs, I thought this was going to be my time to rock that natural look. No heavy duty Estee Lauder double wear foundation required, I’m going to use BB cream. The only glow I got was a nice sweat on during the June heatwave. And I needed twice the amount of foundation to cover the red sweaty mess that was my face. The glow is an absolute myth.
So that’s some of my pregnancy gripes. It feels quite cathartic to have written it down now. Maybe I can move on..but I will forever be haunted when I see Rennie’s or Canesten. What side effects did you have in pregnancy? I’d love to hear them and compare notes.
Love,
Rachel & Baby Eva