I recently shared a post on Insta of Freddo dropping a log in his potty, don’t worry it wasn’t graphic but my DMs soon filled up with people asking questions about him sitting on his throne because he’s so young (8 months). This time people weren’t being shitty (see what I did there) so I’ve decided to answer some of the questions I’ve been asked as well as share my experience of ‘potty training’ Freddie. 

Date night, it wasn’t even a thing for us four years ago. Every night was date night. We were in the first stages of love and every weekend was a night out / in with too much wine and our week nights consisted of a well thought out meal cooked by one of us or both of us because we were just that cute back then. These days we’d love a date night, we often talk about date night and how amazing it would be to go out out and drink and dance, laugh and creep in in the early hours and spend the morning (whole day) in bed watching films and napping. 

BLW (baby led weening) is the way we're supposed to ween our little ones and get them used to exploring food and developing their hand-eye coordination. When Freddie was tiny we I looked into Traditional and BLW and decided that we were going to use a mixture of both. In theory this seemed like a wonderful idea but the reality was very different, here's why BLW just isn't for us.

Every parent I've spoken to about this has said they they or their partner lost their marbles after having a baby so why don't we talk about it more? Well, luckily for you I am here with my brutal honesty about to spill the tea on how having a baby has sent me totally bonkers and brought my relationship to the brink of destruction. Yay. 

We all get pissed off by something at some point, for me it's daily and mostly at Luke but that's a different story. Sometimes we receive a poor customer service or feel let down by a product and with the wonder that is social media it is so easy to reach out to brands and business and share our disappointment and frustrations but there is a way to do this to ensure that your complaint is understood and rectified.

I always wanted to blog abut our parenting experience but I never wanted to be a "Mummy Blogger", I just don't have that whole wholesome advice giving yummy mummy vibe going on nor do I follow a specific parenting technique unless of course completely winging it counts? I've also found that some Mummy Bloggers can either be a little smug with their advice and methods and not be open to anyone else's or it often be a competition over who has it worse when it comes to teething, sleepless nights feeding issues. Without meaning to come across as smug; I've been blessed with a wonder baby who sleeps through, eats all his milk and doesn't seem to be suffering too much with teething, yet. I'm under no illusions that this could all change at any time. 

When I first found out that I was pregnant I was convinced that I was going to miscarry, I barely wanted to move incase something happened; I was shocked at every scan to find that everything was ok and it wasn't until around 26 weeks that my worries subsided but then a new worry took it's place, stillbirth. As soon as Freddie was kicking I began to notice his pattern and religiously count his kicks, any decrease in his kicks sent waves of panic deep down in my tummy and I had to seek reassurance from Luke. When my little bundle of joy arrived, alive and kicking I was overwhelmed with happiness, we made it and he spent the next three months sleeping in his moses basket getting gently poked and prodded throughout tonight so that I could make sure he was breathing. Things are different now, Fred is three months old has to go in his own room and once again I have those waves of bad butterflies fluttering around my tummy every time I put him to bed. 

I am the queen of making stupid decisions, I'm not competitive but I like to challenge myself and seeing as this parenting lark is going quite well I thought it'd be a good idea to take a three month old baby on a three hour train journey with three changes a suitcase, a nappy bag and all the other heaps of shit these tiny little beings need to cart around with them at all times. Here's how it went. 

Ahhh this is a post I've been meaning to write for a while. If you follow me on Twitter you'll know that every now and then I clamber up on my high horse and get a little ranty over Influencers promoting the nonsense that our pals at Natural Cycles keep coming out with. It's a shame that influencers continue to endorse this utter claptrap but I hear Natural Cycles have a very big budgets and a strict brief and I guess we've all got bills to pay but here I am, offering you the counter-argument to Natural Cycle's 'certified' claims all for free. Aren't I a good little egg. 

I've always been a bit funny about baby carriers and worried about their safety, it's hard to get a baby into a carrier without thinking that you're going to drop them, or is that just me? When Freddie first arrived my my Mum bought us a great carrier that Luke loves carrying Freddie around in but I find that it squishes my boobs and pulls on my back which completely put me off. This was a shame as I didn't want Freddie to spend every time we go out in his pram not actually seeing what was going on around him. But that's all changed thanks to the Izmi carrier that Cheeky Rascals sent us.

I'm not denying that babies are hard graft sometimes and being a Mum can be exhausting, lonely and overwhelming but it is not an occupation or profession. I am a full-time project officer who is currently on maternity leave - if I didn't work I wouldn't consider myself a full-time Mum either; I'd say I was unemployed, a stay at home parent or even a housewife. Full-time Mum implies that Mums who do work are part-time Mums which isn't fair, whether you stay at home or work 40 hours a week you're just as much of a Mum as anyone else, we do't have to clock up the hours and compete.

Lack of sleep was the main thing that I was dreading when Fred arrived I had got used to having naps throughout the day as well as a full-nights sleep when I was pregnant that I was worried how I'd actually cope if the baby kept us awake all night every night. I'd also started watching some family YouTubers and noticed that some were taking 'shifts' throughout the night as their baby wouldn't settle - I winced every time I saw them standing in the kitchen at 3am. Whilst Luke and I have a relaxed approach to parenting and didn't have any high expectations of how newborn life was going to be, we knew that getting into some kind of routine that worked for us and the baby ASAP was important.

We live in a time when women are again proudly declaring that they're feminists, men are trash and they're going to fight the patriarchy so why oh why are we judging one another over what we decide to feed our babies and do with our boobs?

Being a parent is great, I wouldn't change it for the world. It's definitely life changing and whilst most new parents gush about how complete their lives are, here's ten home truths about becoming a Mum.

For those that don't know, an Episiotomy is a surgical cut made at the opening of the vagina during childbirth, to aid a difficult delivery and prevent rupture of tissues. Not only did I get an Episiotomy but also tore (ruptured some tissues). This lead to me getting some pretty snazzy stitches all over the place and those of you who follow me on Insta will know how my down there bits are doing thanks to my Faj Updates. Episiotomies and Tears usually heal well and easily with stitches but due to the awkward location of my tear (scroll down for my brilliant diagram) I burst my stitches...twice, ended up with two infections and pretty much hated my life for a couple of weeks but this post is going to be a  guide on getting over a butchered faj and tips on not getting it infected because sharing is caring.

I'm a sucker for a good Beauty Box but I often find that the novelty soon wears off after a couple of months and I'm left with a load of mini products I'm not interested in using. When Latest in Beauty offered to send me a box I was a little skeptical but was soon surprised to find a decent sized box packed to the brim with a range of amazing products, none of which I'll be casting aside.

If you're squeamish and don't appreciate descriptions of open wounds, smelly pus, poo explosions and the worst pain imaginable then I suggest you go and read one of my beauty reviews because boy have I got a horror story to tell you. This is my birth story, the gruesome tale of how the most beautiful baby came into the world. I never had a birth plan which may come as a shock to those who know how organised I am and how much I enjoy planning; I don't know anyone who's birth plan has gone to plan and I didn't know what to expect so decided not to bother having any expectations at all, when Luke and I rocked up to the Delivery Unit at 3am on the 10th March 2018 the Midwife asked me what my birth plan was, I said "To do as I'm told and get this baby out as safely as possible" - I think it went to plan, all things considered. 

I'm stubborn, but I'm also really stupid, combine this with being 9 months pregnant, having a serious case of baby brain and terrible balance and spacial awareness and weeks of maternity leave with not much to do at all and you're pretty much asking for a disaster. I've done some pretty stupid things during this pregnancy, nothing that's harmed the baby (I'm not that stupid) but stupid nonetheless. Here's a collection of some of my most stupid endeavours over the past nine months.

Aaah, I do love a good bandwagon - I can't remember the last one that people so eagerly jumped on in their droves or, where it started but last Saturday night my twitter feed become a torrent of people sharing their Vero user names and / or people asking what the hell Vero actually is. With that that there also came some discrepancies about their Privacy Policy (that, credit to them they soon amended) as well the fact that the app experienced technical difficulties due to the amount of people signing up (I bet they were buzzing at Vero HQ) I finally managed to get in myself and have a good nosey around as well as read the Privacy Policy, Terms of Use and smartly named, Manifesto. So here's my first impressions of what has been hailed the new Instagram.

Babies cost A LOT and lets not mention the elephant in the room called childcare - I'm still hysterically lolling about how we're going to afford that but that's a problem for another day. When we first found out we were preggo I was overwhelmed with exactly how much a baby needs and how much it all costs. It's also very easy as an expectant parent to get lost in knowing what your baby needs and what is just very clever marketing.

Dry lips have been the bane of my life for a good couple of years; to the point where I’ve developed an unhealthy habit of peeling and picking them and making them worse than they were when they were just dry. I’ve tried a plethora of products over the years from balms to creams to oils and nothing has helped. It’s got me down, lip products are probably my favourite piece of make-up and whilst I’ve been treating myself to odd limited edition piece I’ve barely been able to justify wearing anything because of my dry lips. Most days I’ve not work anything on my lips because everything was drying after a while and every product simply highlighted the dry patches of skin on my lips.

Last year Bedford saw a variety of new restaurants open up on the new Riverside North project and whilst I thought it was great to see so many jobs coming to town as well making space of a beautiful area and bringing more income, I was a little disappointed with the range of restaurants. Don't get me wrong, I am a die hard Nando's fan but that's pretty much where it ends when it comes to big chain restaurants, the rest just seem a bit...samey and not my cuppa tea at all. I'd kind of avoided the whole new complex for this reason until I started hearing the buzz about the Albero Lounge based at the old Cowper Building next to the courts and old town hall. 

I started nesting at about 6 weeks pregnant, I think the excitement made me want to start getting ready immediately so one very hot day in July I decided to simultaneously paint the kitchen and cook a roast. I looked like a mad woman climbing over boiling pots of veg, brush in hand manically splattering paint everywhere. I’m surprised Luke stuck around because I soon flaked out on the sofa too over heated to eat the roast or finish my dodgy paint job. Thankfully (for Luke and our deposit) morning sickness soon kicked and the sofa became my permanent residence giving me time to plan making room for the baby sensibly.

I was half-tempted to buy Luke this book back during Christmas time when I half-noticed a Youtuber mention it. More recently we went to Luke's parents who had got the book for Christmas and both had a look at some of the recipes and were really keen to try a few. We're definitely lacking inspiration in the kitchen lately and tend to go for the same, very basic meals of spag bol, wraps, chilli or pizza. We also both have very different preferences when it comes to food, where I go for hearty northern stews and roasts, Luke prefers fajitas and well, Nando's. With this in mind I decided to snap this up on Amazon for £11 and see how our pal Jamie O creates meals with just 5 ingredients.

What's the most logical thing to do when you're wanting to try a lip product for the first time? Buy it in 30 shades of course. I've been lusting after the Nyx Lingerie collection for a while but with already having an obscene amount of lip products that I don't use often often enough stashed away in my make-up drawer, I never got around to buying any (much to Luke's relief). Then, Cult Beauty popped up in my inbox with an offer to buy the Lingerie Vault, that includes 6 additional shades to the collection for £45 and the baby kicked and it accidentally fell in my shopping basket and before I knew it it was being handed to me by the world's grumpiest postman and well, here we are.

Can you bloody believe I'm thirty two weeks pregnant? That's a half a year, I can't believe I'm pregnant at all to be honest. Pregnancy has been hard and I don't mean hard in some kind of mard arse millenial way, I mean as a process it's physically hard yet incredible what the body goes through and my god have been feeling it lately. To celebrate hitting the mile stone of the thirty two weeks I've complied a list of some of the less glamorous things about pregnancy that I didn't anticipate.