Tag Archives: baby girl

The dreaded “sleep regression”

Sleep regression

If, like me, you read your share of parenting books/site, you’ll know the term experts like to use is “sleep regression”. Supposedly, they happen at fairly predictable times. There’s the 4-6 month sleep regression, the 8-10 month sleep regression and the 18 month sleep regression. Personally, I hate the term. It’s as if the people who call it that have no experience with an actual baby, or parenthood, or sleep deprivation.

Harley hasn’t been a bad sleeper. I’ve heard such horror stories, I really can’t complain. From a relatively early age, she would sleep for 2-3 hours at a time, slowly extended to 3, 4, 5, 6 and eventually 8 hours of sleep. It was glorious. And then it was snatched away from me. For the past week or two, Harley has been refusing to nap, or fighting her naps so much that they’re almost impossible. You’d think that would leave her exhausted at night, but nope! Instead, she is up more frequently than she’s been in months. Obviously, this is taking its toll. Continue Reading

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4 Comments Rambling

8 reasons I love my eight month old

Harley is eight months old today. It’s actually amazing for me. I mean, I know time keeps marching on and all that jazz, but it’s just crazy to realize how fast it’s going, how much she is changing, and how much her changes are having an impact on me. It’s hard to believe how much my life has changed in such a short period. I knew things would be completely and irrevocably changed when she arrived, but I don’t think I realized how fast those transformations would come, and how profound they would be.

It seems crazy to think that eight months ago I nearly died. Eight months ago, Harley made her dramatic entrance into this world. Eight months ago, I became a mom. And with her changing so much with every day, here are eight things I love about my eight month old, exactly as she is right now. Continue Reading

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6-7 ways I’ve changed in the past 7.5 months

Mandela Day

It’s Mandela Day here in South Africa, a day when we’re all encouraged to spend 67 minutes to help make South Africa and the world a better place. I will be striving to do that for the next 67 DAYS as a part of #CarseatFullstop, so while it would obviously be great to go volunteer my time somewhere, at least I sort of feel like I’m making a difference. So instead, for Mandela Day, I want to look at the 6 or 7 ways my life has changed since Harley came into this world. Continue Reading

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How this mommy and baby class saved me and Harley

Toptots

With Harley now seven months old, I have enough distance from those early weeks and months to look back with some perspective. I’ve written about how traumatic her birth experience was, but even then I didn’t realize how traumatic it was and how hard it was going to make things with her. I was sick, she was so very premature, and we had quite a road ahead of us. I struggled to bond with her, I felt like everything was just so hard, and I was even resenting her. It was NOT good.

Luckily, while still pregnant, I had already decided that I wanted to try and find a nice mommy and baby class to attend once she was born. There are so many out there, so I wasn’t quite sure which one I’d go for. But I chatted to Geoff, my editor at Lazygamer, and his wife used to own a TOPTOTS franchise, so I decided to give them a whirl. It turns out, that was one of the best decisions I’ve made in the first six months of Harley’s life. Continue Reading

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4 Comments Child Development, Parenting, South Africa, Sponsored

Attachment parenting and the most important year

attachment parenting

I can’t stress enough how lucky I am. Sure, I have plenty of ups and downs and real life and troubles like everyone else, but I am incredibly lucky – I work from home. While it’s a lot of hard work, and I’ve struggled to find a balance at times, it has meant that I’ve been able to work and take care of Harley at the same time. She hasn’t needed a nanny or a creche; I have been her primary caretaker, her teacher, her entertainment, her jungle gym, her bed, her food source, so in a word – her mommy.

It hasn’t been easy, and I often felt like I was failing. Especially when Harley was even smaller than she is now, I wondered if it was enough to just hold her during the day while I worked, I would get frustrated when I didn’t know what was wrong or when I felt like I couldn’t help her. It’s gotten so much easier as she has gotten bigger and easier to understand, and a big part of that is because we both know that I can take care of her, even when I’m not totally sure how. But the more I read about attachment parenting, the more it sounds like what I’ve done with Harley naturally, and will continue to do cognizantly. Continue Reading

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