When I moved into this house I was about a month or two pregnant and at the height of my illness. So as a result I didn’t get everything I wanted done or set up the way I should have, starting with a clean slate would have been much easier and less time consuming.

So what do you do when you have a house that’s a huge mess, disorganised and still full of packed boxes? you pick a place and start working on it when ever you have spare time.

How to pick where to start, I thought what is the area causing me the most trouble everyday? It turned out my kitchen was the answer. I had jumbled cupboards some plastic here and there pots where ever there was space to jam them, I even found some of my cutlery in the back corner of a cupboard wrapped in a paper bag.

All of my appliances were hidden under benches and not easily accessible for use, then I looked at the pantry I had no idea what was in there or where to find much needed ingredients for that nights meal. I was going insane, before having kids I was almost obsessive compulsive about my cleaning and organising and yet here I was living in utter chaos.

So I decided it was time I couldn’t take it any more and started. I boxed up everything on my benches to start and there was a lot of it.

Firstly you need space to work and sort, so I cleared off my benches and whatever wasn’t destined to belong in my kitchen I packed into a box to deal with later.

I decided to break my kitchen then into sections, for example plastics, pots, dishes and pantry. So with that in mind I started with plastic first:

• I emptied the cupboards contents onto the bench
• matched items together (lids with bases)
• stacked cups and bowls together
• threw out bases without lids and vice versa
• set aside items that no longer belonged in that space
• repacked into cupboard with designated groupings (cups, storage,strainers)

I realised then how much space I truly had available and how a simple reshuffle had done more than just made things more accessible, it’s shown me how much of my space was being wasted by unusable objects that had just been thrown in a cupboard  out of sight out of mind.

I followed the same basic principle for my pots and pans though I didn’t throw any out and found when they are well stacked I could also fit my appliances that I use less often.

I then did the biggest job which was to sort my pantry. My pantry made all my other cupboards look amazing. So following the same general concept I emptied the pantry one shelf at a time, as I went through I checked all expiry dates to make sure I wasn’t storing unusable items.

I then grouped my products for example cans with cans cooking essentials like flours and sugars, and dedicated a shelf to each grouping. Not only did I find a number of expired items I now know where everything is I also wrote a list of what stocks I had left to assist me in the future with shopping. It is so easy to forget what you have in the back of your pantry and buy multiples of things you already have.

I also reorganised my deep freezer and catalogued what food was stored in it. Since completing this task it has made my life so much easier I now know where everything I want and need is and although it took me a while to complete it has now saved me a large amount of time and some money too.

So last night my little man slept through, I am so happy and proud of him. However unfortunately I did not, I out of habit and worry awoke many times to check on him and because after nine weeks I know that he will usually sleep until at least 4am, however he usually last’s until 5-5:30am.

I have found that this time with my son I am more comfortable to doze while he feeds at night. With my daughter I was wide awake thinking that I had to stay awake the whole time, but over time I found out how common it is to sleep or doze while breastfeeding I must admit it helps with sleep deprivation.

In the past nine weeks my little boy has had interesting habits forming, at first he was jaundice and slept constantly requiring me to wake to an alarm and feed him every three hours, not much fun with a day old baby and the exhaustion associated with just having given birth.

I had to keep this rigorous routine up for the first two to three weeks before he settled down and began to have decent periods staying awake and was becoming more alert. This made life a little crazy, my daughter wanted attention and I was stuck feeding my son and napping when I could.

He then settled into a regular but not to often feeding pattern, I am demand feeding him so that meant waking a few times a night up until about three weeks ago, when he reduced it back to one feed a night and then finally last night he slept through undisturbed.

Unfortunately he has been feeding continuously for the past two weeks during the day. He has had trouble settling down for more then ten minutes at a time. I had the midwife weigh him on Monday and he had put on 670grams in two weeks, so the constant feedings have paid off.

I love watching him thrive I only wish I had more money for clothes he is changing size so rapidly that it is proving difficult to keep up with him.

So today is the first full day of dieting if in fact can call it a diet. I like to look at it as healthy eating for a healthier life. I know it sounds corny but I have done crash diets and had weight loss but it never stayed off for long.

This time I am approaching things differently, I am eating I am not going to allow myself to get hungry, because this is when I will eat junk food on an impulse and then regret it. I have reduced my coffee today I have only had four cups which is half what I usually have on a good day.

I had fruit salad and yoghurt for breakfast this morning and whilst it didn’t fill me up entirely, neither did nutrigrain but that’s a cereal filled with sugar, I am happy to have the fructose from fruit as it isn’t processed and I need to keep my dairy intake up for breastfeeding.

I had beef and vegetable soup for lunch with two slices of bread, it was delicious but I was still a little hungry so I had a peanut butter sandwich at afternoon tea.

For dinner I have made chicken stirfry, I only use a very small amount of olive oil to brown the chicken then the rest of the meal is made up of snap frozen vegetables and egg noodles. The sauce I make is chicken stock, garlic and soy sauce. I love this meal as it is so fast and easy to make and very healthy.

I feel for the first day I have done well and as my doctor said not to go to far otherwise I wont stick with it so I treated myself with a biscuit.

In the past year I have had my daughters first birthday, shortly after that I found out that I was pregnant, and with that pregnancy I also got very ill I was literally bed ridden for most of the pregnancy, my poor little girl lost out big time.

I could no longer play with her or go out to parks, I could hardly cook or clean. So needless to say our house was in chaos bills were paid late if I even remembered at all. Meals were made with whatever was on hand at the time. No preparation was put in to anything Christmas just slipped by I bought presents at the last minute costing us a lot of money we didn’t have.

Since having my son I have been feeling amazing (not including the flu I had for two weeks) I think after feeling so ill for so long feeling normal was so amazing and new, that despite having a new born baby I had mountains of energy. This has started to dissipate in the last two weeks, but the flu will do that to you.

I am now feeling well again and have started taking actions to resolve many issues we were having. I am now buying nappies and wipes in bulk online, these have worked out to be far more cost effective for our family. I also buy my groceries online and have them delivered, this takes a lot of stress off me as I don’t have to drag around two kids to the shops and try to entertain them while I am trying to concentrate on what item works out cheaper.

I do however buy my meat and fresh fruit and vegetables in person, to get the best price possible and the best quality available. I buy my meat in bulk so I save there as well and if possible, I buy frozen vegetables in my normal shop as they are usually cheaper and just as good for you as fresh.

I have started cataloguing my freezer and chest freezer along with my pantry, this way I just have to note when I use an item so I know to replace it during my next shop, I buy enough milk and bread and freeze it to last me a month. Though I am still trying to ascertain exactly how much milk and bread I need to buy to last my family a month.

I am planning on doing an inventory of our cleaning and personal items as well things like shampoo and razors, down to windex and toilet paper. I am also buying extra of things I will always use when they are on sale I have reorganised my cupboards to accommodate these items.

I have created multiple books which I am using to help me keep track of what I need and when. I have one book dedicated solely to my food and product inventories. It also contains my menu planner so I know what meals I can make from the products I have available. I am starting a collection of recipes and making my own cook book of only the one’s my family and I like and will most likely use again.

I have another book dedicated solely to my budgeting keeping track of what money I have available at any given time, when bills are due and what I can put away in savings. I have opened a number of sub-savings accounts attached to my main bank account in which I transfer the money into to wait until it is needed to be used for the bill or service it was meant for. Then it gets transferred back into the main account and used for it’s original purpose.

In putting up this extra barrier to my money it is always there for an emergency but I can’t accidentally overspend money that is needed elsewhere. So far this method has been working out great, I just have to remind myself to put the money back in the main account before any direct debit’s are due to come out.

I have found that if I pay all my bills and purchase all my food in the first pay of the month, everything after that is available to be spent on living and savings. I like knowing that if I want to buy a present for either of my children I can. Also it helps knowing it available for clothes as my son has been going up in size faster than I can buy new outfits for him.

I am making sure I plan as far ahead, with everything as I can this way I have more time to prepare and not get bogged down in everyday life. As there are so many things to get done in a day everyday. I have been planing a list of must do jobs for around the house like laundry and dishes cleaning up toys etc. That I know that if I can get this done I wont end up depressed about loosing another day and wont be pushed behind in what needs to be done.

When I used to leave the dishes or laundry it all added up so fast that I then dreaded doing it so much I often just kept pushing it back. I ended up with so much laundry I had to do several loads a day for a couple of weeks and I used the dryer constantly running up our electricity bill to a new crazy high.

Today I have started getting back into the habit of hanging out my laundry, rather than depending on my dryer in a hope that all the money I am putting into savings for our electricity bill wont be used, and will leave me with money left over, then I will be able to put the rest into savings. All money I don’t end up needing to use for bills, will go into my families general savings account to go towards unexpected expenses that occur in life.

I will endeavour to break these things I have listed into separate subsections to make it easier to follow what I am doing with each separate task I am currently undertaking.

There are just so many different things I would like to be able to do, and the only way I see myself managing to get anything done these days, is with careful planing and lots of effort especially in the beginning in organising what it is I want from all of this.

So I had my son nine weeks ago now and whilst in the first month I was walking around the estate I live in, stopping at four parks along the way so my daughter could play as we continued around the circuit. I stopped when I got the flu.

I got the flu about two weeks ago and all my new habit’s went out the window. But now that I am feeling better and an oh so scary check of my weight on the scales. Unfortunately I have gained all the weight I had lost post pregnancy and put on more then when I was pregnant.

I was pretty upset about this, but it has been a big wake up call. I want to be able to run around and play with my kids and also let them learn from my example, that they need to exercise regularly and that it can indeed be fun.

Everyone wants to loose weight after having a baby but when breast feeding it is important to maintain a healthy variety of food. so I am not going on a diet as such just being smart about what I am eating. For instance tonight I am having a plate of steamed vegetables, I have been breastfeeding my son constantly the last two weeks and he to has had a large weight increase (great for the baby not so good for me) but that has increased my hunger levels to a height I have not experienced before.

So in knowing that I need to eat a decent amount of food, I know I can’t go on a crash diet as this would take nutrients my baby needs to get from my breast milk.

So I have decided to cut out all the unhealthy things I eat way too often such as chocolate and excess sugar (I have a lotof coffee everyday) But I still need to have some fat and sugar daily, so I am having to cut down on my coffee but instead of cutting it out, I will allow myself to have a coffee normally as I would first thing in the morning but each subsequent coffee after that, I will only have one sugar and if I keep wanting/needing more coffee I will have it with no sugar.

The good thing is I like my daughter to have healthy food so I have always prepared her very healthy meals, like steamed vegetables and fresh fruit. So now all I have to do is make some extra and there will be enough for me as well. This should also help her see that I eat what she eats and this will encourage her to eat more often.

I am also making all of our snack foods from scratch now and this way I know exactly what is in them and how many I can have without having too much sugar. Plus if I want something I don’t just have to go to the cupboard to get it I have to bake/make it first, this is a good way to have some time to decided if I am sure I want to eat this or if I am just having a craving and will regret it later.

I am going to allow myself to eat as much fruit and vegetables as I want, I am hungry as I am breast feeding so much and I will eat but I can help myself to loose weight by eating healthier options.

I am also getting back into my exercise in the morning after fresh fruit and yoghurt, were going to go out for a walk again I know my daughter will love it she has missed going the past few weeks. So as I implement these new changes into my life I will try to keep things up to date on here.

But I do have to admit things get pretty crazy with two kids under two. There maybe times when I don’t get to post as often as I like, but my kid’s come first.

Well it has been a long time since I last added anything here. I feel bad about this for two reasons, one I was using this as a way to keep a record of milestones in my daughters life and my pregnancy. The other reason is because I realise now how long it really has been and once your out of the habit it’s hard to get back into things.

So the biggest change in my life would have to be the arrival of my baby boy, at 9 pounds 8 ounces he was almost twice as large as my daughter was at birth, who weighed in at 5 pound six ounces. I was again extremely ill during the duration of this pregnancy and spent most of the past nine months curled up in bed trying not to be ill and care for my daughter as best I could.

I would like to thank at this time my loving partner without whom everything would have come to a screaming halt. He cooked and cleaned and cared for our baby girl when I could not, and I appreciated the extra assistance.

I had to stop breast feeding my daughter when I was pregnant, as I was so ill the Dr’s thought my body couldn’t afford the extra drain on my system. But I am fortunate that I made it to one and a half years before I had to stop breast feeding her and she honestly didn’t seem to notice, there was no problem with weaning her she just started eating more food.

I am now dealing with breast feeding a newborn again and all the difficulties that that entails. Now bringing home a new baby is stressful enough and I think a little more so when you have a toddler at home who is too young to understand what is going on and who this new person is, that is occupying all the time you used to have for them.

I was ready for my daughter to act up and be jealous but instead she just ignored her little brothers existence all together she wouldn’t look at him, or register he was being held by either me or my partner, she jsut continued on like nothing was different. That includes trying to jump up on my lap whilst I was feeding him.

Now seven weeks into his life we have had a major turn around, once she realised he wasn’t going to disappear. She now (when she has the time) gives him kisses and cuddles and is highly amused by watching him sneeze and all the other little sounds he makes. It’s so beautiful to hear her giggle at him and he is obsessed with her. When he is in his swing he follows her around the room making sure she is always in view, so he knows what she is up to it’s just so cute.

There has been so many changes in our lives since I was last posting but I will endeavour to fill in the story up until now in the coming days, weeks and months. I have a lot going on in the near future including the preparation of my daughters second birthday, my partners and my 27th birthdays and numerous extended family obligations.

I will also attempt to start early preparation for Christmas this year I do not want to be spending the last few weeks before the holiday madly shopping for gifts and food I am working on getting my life more organised.

I have been trialling new routines to see what best suits our family. This includes both housework, meals and also exercise, play time and designated time to do educational activities.

I am planning on starting a diet and exercise journal on here to help motivate me through my journey of weight loss after having my son. I don’t just want to loose weight to be thin, I want to be able to run around like a mad thing with my kids and enjoy living life with them not just watching them have fun without me.

There are many new ventures I am planing on undertaking and I shall try to keep posting about what is new in our lives as new things come to fruition. Anyway glad to be back.

I am now 13 weeks pregnant. I was hospitalised almost two weeks ago now, I have been diagnosed with Hyperemesis Gravidarum which the doctors now believe I had with my first Daughter as well (this could explain the 20kgs I lost during my pregnancy).

I have had severe nausea and vomiting and needed to have Iv fluids for a few days, I am now undergoing constant care and monitoring from my hospital. I have to say that I am very grateful for the level of care I am receiving. I only wish that I had been diagnosed during my first pregnancy it could have saved me a lot of pain and suffering.

I unfortunately have been prescribed a large amount of medications that it looks like I will have to stay on until the birth of this child. But as the doctors explained to me it is better for me to be on medications than to be in hospital on a drip and unable to function or look after my family.

I am still ill in spite of all the medication, though I have to admit I can get up in the morning and I can eat some meals only bland foods or clear soups. I am holding out a hope that I will start to feel better by 20 to 25 weeks, but not getting to excited.

I went for a blood test today, it’s the one you get three days before an ultrasound to check the foetus for any abnormality or anomaly like down syndrome or spina bifida and as I have spina bifida occulta I was worried and thought a check was worth the effort plus I get to see the baby on Tuesday and make sure everything is still fine as I haven’t had an ultrasound since I was 6 weeks and that was as I was just starting to get sick.

I am looking forward to the ultrasound so I can see the baby as I haven’t yet got to see it when I had the last ultrasound we only got to hear the heart beat and didn’t see the baby itself. So it should be exciting to meet our new child.

The biggest issue I am trying to overcome, is how to properly pre pair my daughter for the fact that in six months, she is not going to be the only centre of our universe and also adjust to being in her own room and having a toddler bed.

I am also hoping that I can get my daughter toilet trained before the new baby comes along. Mainly because I don’t want her to have any negative association to changes in her lifestyle to the new baby. I know my daughter isn’t too fond of changes in her routine so I’m hoping she likes the changes and doesn’t think she is being put out.

I will try to keep posting, but as I am unsure of how my health will hold up over the coming months I cannot guarantee that I will be able to continue. But I will do all I can to keep this site up and running.

So it has been some time since my last post well on anything, so I’m going to try and give you all a brief overview of what’s been going on.

My daughters first birthday was a great success she had a marvelous time as did all the other kids and adults for that matter too. I would like to thank my sister and mother for all their help on the day things would have been impossible without your assistance.

Since then many things have happened we have moved house, which I thought wouldn’t be that difficult but we seem to have gathered a lot more stuff since we moved in so it took more time than I thought it would, it’s amazing how much stuff you can accumulate when you have children.

After the move which again I would like to thank my sister for helping drive the truck even though she was around 28 weeks pregnant I appreciate the help, but unfortunately when my sister and her family came to help they also bought a very unwelcome guest known as whooping cough.

Unfortunately all of my extended family got it and I also got it, it came into full swing when I had been admitted to hospital with Hyperemesis gravidarum which means I am extremely ill when I fall pregnant and I was so dehydrated that I was admitted to hospital for a few days only last week.

So yes I recently found out I’m pregnant again I am only now approaching 12 weeks so I still have some time to go yet but hoping with help from my doctors I can have a healthy little baby around May next year.

So I hope that this can help explain why I haven’t been focusing on this site but I hope to start posting more regularly again soon.

I have been thinking about my daughters first birthday for a long time now, thinking of all the things I want to get her, how I want the day to go, for quite some time I was trying to think of a theme that would work. Then a tone of questions came flooding in, I began thinking how am I going to handle all of this? There is so much that needs to be done and now I have less than four weeks to prepare. I began to panic, I have now calmed down and believe that I am on the path to hosting a successful 1st birthday party.

I have decided to follow a step by step plan to assist me with organising the party. I am dealing with the stress by trying to make sure I have covered as many details and plans as I can leading up to the birthday  and don’t get me wrong I am still sorting through aspects of the party and this is going to be my resource plan as much as it can be your’s if you choose to use it.

This is a list of questions or topics I have covered so far I will continue to add to these as time goes on and I have more questions, I may also go back over things and add suggestions etc.

What is the theme going to be?

How many people do I invite?

Who is going to be invited?

How long should it go for?

What food should be served?

Do I buy a cake or bake it?

What games can be played at a first birthday?

How can I keep lots of children entertained for a day?

The list just continues so for now I will leave it at this and add more posts or rehash further developments on current topics.

There are plenty of themes to choose from and most have plenty of themed supplies

The Theme:

I had many suggestions ranging from it’s a first birthday that is the theme, to Tinker belle and many others and I was considering all of them. That was until I realised the one show that my daughter watches everyday and has even influenced her vocabulary with phrases like Map and Backpack is the perfect choice for her that’s right we have chosen to have a Dora the explorer theme.

I was thinking that Dora the explorer was a theme suited for older children but it is the only thing that seemed to suit her at this time.  This is a such versatile theme because of all the adventures Dora goes on you can have a princess Dora or cowgirl Dora the choice is unlimited even a beach party would work. In my searching for Dora supplies I figured it wouldnt hurt to check out NickJr I found heaps of usefull things like coloring in templates and Dora themed invitaions and heaps more, there is also so many resources available to help create any other NickJr character themed party.

How many people do I invite:

There are a few general rules of thumb that I have been told over the years, one of which applies here, when inviting children to a party you invite the same number of children as the age of the birthday child plus one, for example if your child is turning 5 invite up to five friends plus a sixth and all should go well.

Now whilst I do believe this is sound advice it doesn’t always work best for a family event where aunts and uncles come and they have children as well, so for my daughters first birthday there is going to be four other children attending the oldest is five and the youngest is around six months, so my daughter is the second youngest.

As I said earlier the rule is a good one to follow however this is going to be a family event, the other thing to take into consideration is that these children are often gathered together for celebrations and relaxed get togethers, so they are used to playing together and get along well with each other.

Besides children at the party there are going to be myself and my partner and at seven other adults all close family, and all are familiar with the children and can assist with the day as is required.

Who is going to be invited:

This was partially covered in the last topic though it is important to think about the scope of the party, for instance it is easy to say I’m only going to invite family but then you are faced with greater issues is it immeadiate family only? or those with children? what about your close aunts new boy firend?

We have decided that immeadiate family with children this has helped to cut the numbers but not be much, my brother and sister both have partners and children and were going to have grand parents and great grand parents. So all in all were going to have at least 14 people her on the day.

How long is it going to go for:

Usually it is suggested that with such a young guest of honour it is best to limit the days activities to an hour or two, especially if venturing out to a venue. Again I think this is a good idea but with the function we are having being at home in a familiar environment and having people who are usually around for extended periods of time we are going to have an all day event.

The only advice I have to share is to expect tantrums and also when other young children are going to be around remember that they to will probably need a nap to help cope with the days festivites, so it is wise to provide and set up adequet sleeping space for all youngsters that may find the day just a bit too much.

The good thing about inviting close family is that they wont find screaming toddlers to disturbing and let it ruin the mood kid’s are resilliant and after a nap can be ready for loads more fun.

What food should be served:

I am still deciding on what to serve but I know there are a few necessities for well rounded party food, it is wise to always offer some fresh friut you never know what a child or adult may feel like and it’s healthy for them so I try to always offer it, we will have a fresh friut platter already cut and peeled there to be snacked on.

There are other staples of a party that I would include these are things like chips and dip, farie bread, cherios, lollies and lots of finger foods like mini meat pies and sausage rolls. We will also serve a meat and cheese platter, savory and sweet biscuts.

With a longer event you want to offer at least one solid meal, so I am going to serve spaghetti bolognais as all guests enjoy this meal as does the birthday girl. Usually I would cook this in advance and freeze it so on the day it could just be warmed through and served but one of the guests is pregnant and can not have precooked meat reheated. (it is always a good idea to ask people if they have any special requirments or allergies for safety reasons)

Always provide plenty of drinks lots of running around will dehydrate small bodies, we are going to offer some soft drinks for older kids, juice, milk and plenty of water. For adults we are going to have soft drinks agian but also plenty of coffee and tea, don’t forget to stock up on milk as it always seems to go fast. ( buying a bag of ice on the day could prove beneficial especially in summer)

Do I buy a cake or bake it:

I honestly can’t decide yet on what to do I know I am quiet capable of baking a cake and decorating it and being thrilled with how it turns out (I would suggest doing a test cake in the lead up to the birthday) but with all the other preperations I cna also see how it would be eaiser to get a cake made for you with a personalised message or theme to decorate.

I think that I would feel better knowing I had gone the extra distance making the cake myself, so at the moment that is what I am thinking I am going to do, I believe I will feel like I hav egiven this party all I can if I manage to pull of a cake on top of everything else. Though there is no shame in buying a cake it is a garunteed quality and very convienient. (if you bake your own cake you can cook it in advance and freeze it un-iced then defrost the day before and then frost)

What games can be played at a first birthday:

I have found some suggestions for games to be played at a first birthday party and you may find some work for you and others don’t just be ready if the game doesn’t go as planed for another activity to take it’s place.

The first game is for one child at a time and may not suit larger parites, firstly you lay a blanket on the ground and then you lay out different items on the blanket a note book, hairbrush, paint brush etc. but each of these items represents a career so a note book could be writter hair brush hair dresser and so on. The idea is that you let the baby go over to the blanket and the first item that the child chooses is supposed to be the most likely career that the child will persue in life.

Another game is to find a teddy or another onject and show the child/ children that it is there then make a race out of it to see who can crawl the fastest to get it and award the winner, and keep repeating if the same child keeps winning you may choose to have the winners consecutivly sit out until all have won once.

It only take your imagination to come up with a game for samll children things you do to entertain your child will often work with others or can be adapted to suit larger groups.

How can I keep lot’s of children entertained for a day:

I have found that with the theme we have chosen, a great way to entertain the children in between games and food is to simply put an episode of Dora the explorer on the TV. I have kids coming from 5 years old to the youngest at 6 months, all besides the six month old are interested in Dora the explorer so it will also work as great background noise and somewhere for the kid’s to go and sit down and relax when they feel they need a break. (I have a very decent collection of eppisodes so if you don’t ask other parents to bring any dvd’s they may have to use for the day)

Some of the activities I have decided on are simple but fun for most, these activities include colouring in pictures of Dora, I found templates online and I’m going to get photo copies so all the kids have plenty to choose from, then I will also have a nice stockpile for my daughter to use for a long time after as well.

If the weather is fine on the day I will also be taking the kid’s outside for some of the day for some finger painting and what ever else they decide is fun to paint with. (when planing these activites let parents know so they can bring a coverall or paint smock or else make sure you have enough to go around)

Then when the kid’s are bored with that and while we are still outside, I’m thinking that we will play some games like duck duck goose though I don’t think that these games will be that succesful for the younger children, just getting them to spend some energy outside running around will be great.

You can come up with simple activities for example, tell them to follow a big circle or conviluted path in the yard, following one and other and for one rotation pretend to be a certain animal, making the sound and/or impersonating their actions or things like hopping on one foot. This can go on for as long as you like it keeps changing all the time so it keeps kid’s interested and occupied for as long as you can keep coming up with a new animal etc. (It might be a good idea to write down as many different animals that you can think of in advance when put on the spot it’s amazing how fast you can draw a blank)

The last activity outside will be searching through the yard for little treasures these can be twigs, stones, or leaves anything the children deam valuable and worthy of using inside the house as art or part of their own personalised art project, this is great for older children and also great to take home as a suvenere of the days activities.

So this is all I have come up with so far and I will continue to update the plans as I make them, but I believe that I have begun the preparation required for a decent first birthday party for my daughter.

Well my first journal entry on self soothing took place on the 10th of June 2010, it is now the 25th of June 2010 and I believe that my journey has succeeded my daughter now sleeps through the night every night, The only exception to this is when either my partner or myself accidentally wake her when we go to bed.

She is having 2 naps a day usually and they can go for 10 minutes to and hour or two depending on the days activities. I am giving her 3 breast feeds a day, however I do try to get her to have a big breakfast and play before letting her have her first feed, so she usually has it around 11am, followed by a short nap.

When she wakes I try to get her to have a play while I cook her lunch, then let her eat until she looses interest, then she goes back to playing but I leave the food handy as she always comes around and asks for more to snack on. I try to keep her eating through the day and letting her explore as much as is safe for her to do so.

I will giver her a second feed around 3pm or a little later trying to stretch out the time in between feeds to make her day last longer but I have found any later than 5pm for her second feed can throw the rest of the night out of balance and possibly the next day and then the vicious cycle continues to spiral out of control and can only get worse if it isn’t stopped as soon as possible.

I then generally wait for her to wake up and then again let her play, read to her give her some snack food while I cook her dinner and then I feed her and try to make sure I get her to eat the bulk of her last meal for the day to help keep her satisfied through the night and I try to make this meal happen as soon as I can after she wakes up so that she doesn’t end up to exhausted and then refuse to have her solid meal.

I then let her wear herself out as much as I can and usually when she is starting to get sooky I will then get her into the bath I know that she loves having her bath and will fight to stay up that little bit longer so she can enjoy her time in the bath. I will sing to her and play games and stretch this time out as well until she decides she is done then we go into the bedroom and she is dressed for bed.

I will then give her the final breast feed for the day and every night she falls asleep during this feed and then I put her into bed and most night’s she doesn’t wake up at all through the night.

I can only comment on my experience’s with self soothing and I believe that it has had the best result for our family, my daughter sleeps well and is happy during the day she no longer spend hours crying if she wakes in the night, she may only cry for a tops of 5 minutes generally she has learned that night time is for sleeping and that we will not tolerate crying through the night or waking up and playing in the middle of the night.

My life has become easier because of our choice to try self soothing and I believe that it has worked perfectly I am now converted to this method and if I have more children in the future I can say that I will definitely use this method with them as well. No one deserves to be exhausted and feel helpless, let alone feel that way because your small child has realised you will do anything for them at any time and baby’s do understand emotional blackmail they have mastered it.

I love my daughter and now I have the energy to play with her and to cook her healthy meals and get the things I need done done . I am happy that this stage of our lives is over and has been such a success.