A wee while ago I was chatting to Ally who was 32 weeks pregnant about mum-to-be life ...she asked me, and I quote "How do we introduce our slightly nutty cat to the baby when it arrives?" Little Sophie Baker arrived on 7th April, so I'm way too late to help out the Baker family BUUUUT it did get me thinking (albeit slowly): Baby and Dog, Baby and Cat...that's actually quite a tricky little meeting!

We don't have any pets. I really want a blue (apparently that's what grey dogs are called) whippet but our downstairs is all hard wood floors, which don't mix with scratchy little claws. Oh, and I couldn't handle having a baby and dog, and still manage to look after myself. So I looked to my more 'with it' pals (one's a doctor, one's a dentist, need I say more?) to tell me how they introduced their pets to

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I am inherently lazy when it comes to hunting for bargains, it doesn't seem to be in my DNA. If I go to the sales with the intention of finding a bargain, I quickly lose patience with sifting through tat and head on over to the 'New Season' stuff. However, I know people who are always buying second hand and finding amazing little gems that are cheap and gorgeous. To them finding these gems are a fun thing to do! Imagine?! It just takes a bit of patience and presumably knowing where to go...so with this in mind, I thought buying second hand kids stuff would be the ideal first topic for #nemumshour* on twitter!

Last night, I got my cuppa ready (stupidly leaving my tea on the stove. It got burnt) and got to chatting with a small but perfectly formed group of mums and dads (dads are welcome too

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Side Note: Breastfeeding is a funny thing. Whatever I say here will be judged, whether I'm pro breastfeeding or bottle feeding. So, just so you know, I'm not trying to sway anyone to do anything one way or another, I'm just going to say how I feel and what I think about stopping breastfeeding. I wrote this next section back in March but was a bit too afraid to publish it!

It's just sort of happened. Last week there was nothing left (well I found out when I squirted Mike in the eye that there is a bit but not enough for Reuben). After all the gearing up to stopping breastfeeding, I did feel a little bit sad about it!

Since Christmas I've only been breastfeeding Reuben at bedtime, during the night (which he rarely needed) and first thing in the morning. Cuddle times. So I guess, little by little, my supply

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Taking Baby Swimming - A guide to underwater swimming

Build up to it - for younger babies and first time swimmers, don't do more than 3 or 4 submersions in 1 session, increase the number each week (or each day if you are on holiday!)

Cover the head - always ensure your baby is fully submerged, the water must cover their head. Be decisive and aim for about an inch of water above baby's head, leave them for a couple of seconds and then bring them back up to the surface.

Listen to baby - if they protest a lot, build up even more slowly. It's meant to be fun so take the lead from your baby!

Reuben isn't very keen on this but we keep persevering! 

Ready?

Go!

Piece of cake!

Baby swimming - holding on!

As part of my exercise after pregnancy regime, last week I tried Tabata. I did NOT like the sound of it. 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off. Repeat 6 times!! Per exercise! And there's 12 exercises! But Dan thought I could do with an extra session that week (post holiday!).

I was a little nervous because so far I've just been working with Dan in the gym, and this is the first group exercise I've done on my own in over a year (since I was told by my other gym I couldn't go to any of their classes because I needed specialist attention - er, pregnancy isn't a disease, you know?). What if no one talked to me?!

It was like walking into a new school but, unlike school, before teacher Dan had even opened his mouth to start the class, people were chattering away to me.

Here's the class in pictures!

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Pre-childbirth my experience of caesarean, never mind a VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section), was limited to 'What to expect when you're expecting', which I saw when I was about 30 weeks pregnant and it terrified me. One of the women had to be rushed off for an emergency c-section in which she was drugged up to the eye-balls, completely unconnected from the birth and then nearly dies. Following that and lots of hippy books, I knew I didn't want one. I wanted to experience labour to the max, let my body take over, and all those primeval notions related to giving birth.

However, then I went into labour. On Super Saturday, as I was watching Mo win his second gold medal, I was thinking 'good for f*cking you, Mo, you dick. I wish I could have a c-section'. Entirely unconnected statements but I hated Mo (sorry Mo, I actually think you're lush, I just

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It's been a week since we went travelling with baby to Gran Canaria and although we've been back a week, I'm still not through the washing pile!! So, while I wait for the next load of washing to finish I thought I'd evoke that last minute packing feeling (yes, I am the kind of person who packs at 9pm the night before leaving for holiday) and tell you all what I packed, what I didn't need and what I wished I'd taken!

In case you haven't been keeping abreast of our family trips (you are forgiven), here are the details so you know whether to cut the amount for shorter trips or double it for longer (it's a bit like a recipe!), or increase/decrease the clothing layers.

Destination: Gran Canaria,

Duration: 7 days

Other details: all inclusive (not to make you jealous, but in case you want to take more baby food!)

Travelling with baby

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My nick name as a kid was water baby. When we were near water, I'd be in it. Even when we were out walking, if I could hear a stream or spy something watery looking in the distance, I'd be running off to find it, stripping off as I went. Despite this love of water, I never made anything of it - the training was too early and other things became interesting to me (boys). Even so, one of the first questions I asked my midwife when Reuben was born was 'when can I take my baby swimming?' My friend had sent me a swimming costume for him and I couldn't wait to get him in it! Of course, then life happened and just trying to exist day to day was hard work so it wasn't until he was nearly 5 months that we finally got round to it.

check out my

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This week is Real Nappy week, so to honour the occasion I am going to talk about...real nappies!

At the beginning of the year I blogged about Hattie, from free our kids, and her ambitions to live for free for a year. In the post, I wrote about how she inspired me to consider using Real Nappies. In the comments of that very post Kerry recommended that I get in touch with Aggie who runs Grow up Green, a personal service real nappy retailer.  Aggie offers a 2 week trial of no less than 17 real nappies, plus all the accoutrements you need (bucket, bucket liner, nappy liners, full instructions for how to use each nappy, etc), for £20.. It's a great idea as it means that you can try out a whole bunch of nappies to see which type suits you and baby's bum the best. The only difference is that normally when

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