This photo perfectly sums up how prepared I feel for mommahood. The beautiful pom poms are like the baby knowledge bombs I do not yet possess, flying toward my smiling, yet terrified face :) I mean WTF is an isofix base, why do we need one (or even two)?!

Nothing illustrates our lack of awareness better than the first attempt at baby product shopping. A couple of weeks ago Dean and I decided we’d better start looking at what we need and thought we’d start with the biggie - the buggy. We’d booked to go to the cinema at 8pm and thinking this would be a straightforward research assignment, we headed to MotherCare in Bangor half an hour before our movie started. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!! Oh what naive dumbass fools we are! Let’s just say we arrived to the cinema 15 mins late for our movie and were so overwhelmed at the stupid amount of decisions we didn’t talk about the ‘buggy incident’ for about a week! Seriously - who knew buggy wheels required their own conversation - clearly I did not lol! Side note - my first car was a beautiful, navy blue, Ford Fiesta (affectionally called Vogel). Vogel cost £800 and I’m still getting my head around the fact that a ‘travel system’ costs more than this. Man alive I loved that car!

So in the hope of avoiding this sort of experience for every item or worse, blindly searching the internet for random recommendations and reviews, I thought I would ask you lovely amazing mommas out there for some advice! Tell me what are your MUST HAVES - what were the things you could not have lived without in those early days? Or what are the things that everyone tells you to get that you found no use for? Seriously send me all of your mom hacks - I need them! At this point I think we’ve finally figured out the buggy conundrum and we also have our baby cot but that’s about it. So tell me what baby monitors do you guys use? What slings / harnesses? What sterilisers? What pumps / bottles / nursing accessories? Baby bouncers? Any awesome online resources or apps I need to know about? Did you use a baby nest? What brands or stores did you love?

As a pre-emptive thank you for your collective wisdom I will share a few of my random preggo thoughts / experiences with you :)

• Peeing is now a much bigger part of my life than I ever imagined it could be

  I know it’s a pretty common pregnancy symptom but it continues to shock me on the daily just how much time I now spend in the bathroom. If I come to visit you I will probably ask to use your loo before I say hello. This is just my life right now :)

• My baby is addicted to junk food

  For REALS! For the first 8 weeks all I could eat were crisp sandwiches and coke! I ate like I had a permanent hangover! And I NEVER drink Coke in real life! Seriously I make my sister bring her own to our house at Christmas because we just don’t do fizzy drinks. Well I didn’t 🙈🙈🙈. Now my body craves it like a zombie craves brain! Also my pre-preggo treat of choice was some delicious dark chocolate, not anymore, now I need super creamy chocolate like Galaxy and preferably the stuff that’s filled with caramel. And ideally several times per day by the kilo. I keep thinking I’ll sicken myself of it but NOPE! My capacity for Galaxy eating is to be both admired and feared.
  

• I MISS WINE AND CHEESE AND PILATES CLASS

  There I said it! I wish I was one of those ethereal preggo types who just seems to glide through pregnancy loving on every single bit of this other-worldly experience but I am not. I am SOOOOOO happy to be pregnant and I feel grateful to my BONES that I’ve had such a fab pregnancy so far BUT I still miss stuff! In particular I miss gooey cheese, red wine and my reformer pilates class. Side note - I am throwing myself a wine and cheese party once this baby is out - you are all invited! (Then I’ll get back to Reform to counteract my 3 month post baby cheese / wine binge). Oh 2019 I am so excited to see you!!!!

• Pregnancy pillows look creepy AF but they are the greatest invention EVER!

  Dean bought me this GIANT preggo pillow thing because I hadn’t been sleeping super well. I’ll be honest - it looked pretty god dam terrifying (especially when it’s under your quilt - it looks like three armed robbers might be hiding under there) but it has changed my life! I may never give it up. Dean will have to learn to live with the third person in our bed. Pregnant or not I think everyone should get one. Trust me.

• I am SOO excited to be a RAD client!

  Seriously I cannot WAIT to experience the other side of RAD!!! This might sound like a marketing blag but from the moment I found out I was pregnant I have been beside myself that I’m going to get to have my own bump shoot and newborn shoot! Most of you know that both of my parents have passed away so family photos hold a very significant value for me - I really drink the kool-aide that we sell here lol! Being in the photos with this baby are very important to me. I want this little one to see themselves growing in my belly and to have the book that shows how very little they were in Dad’s arms. Who knows we might even see Dean crack his first recorded smile lol! (I know, I know, I’m aiming too high aren’t I?)

Anyways that’s enough preggo rambling for now :) Thanks in advance for your hacks and wisdom!

xx

Lindsay