I got sick while on a little family trip over the weekend.
We left on Friday afternoon after my husband Leki finished work and arrived to the Bellarine Big 4 site at around 3:30pm.
We had pre-cooked a lot of our meals, packed a lot of our usual goodies and had been prepared to have some quality R&R time.
We spent Friday maximising the sunshine because the forecast for Saturday was rain and grey clouds 🙁
Eme jumped on the trampoline, made new friends at the playground and we went for a nice swim together.
We then warmed our pre-prepped meal and had our dinner together at 7pm.
Later that Friday night I got violently sick.
Vomited 3-4 times, had the runs and achy joints all night. The works!
Woke up on Sat and the batteries were very flat! Btw #NotPregnant
I’m still not sure what caused my reaction.
I was the only one that fell ill.
Leki, Eme and Ky were all fine so I can’t really blame our food – which we all ate.
Leki seems to think that I picked up a bug somewhere that only I was susceptible to. As a result I was the only one that fell sick 🙁
Ky was upset wanting to be fed but I managed to breastfeed him 3-4 for the whole day as per usual!
Eme and Leki were pretty good making use of the family park even though the weather was pretty cold and rainy. He took the kids out for almost 4 hours to give some time to rest.
I didn’t plan on getting sick so I didn’t pack any medical supplies – not even panadol. I’m usually pretty good with remembering to bring some things but didn’t on this trip for some strange reason.
So here’s what we did to ensure I bounce back quickly.
The activated charcoal was mixed with a cup of water and taken with an empty stomach (didn’t want to eat anything at that stage).
Believe me it doesn’t look that nice but I knew it was going to help my upset stomach so down the hatch it went!
I wouldn’t say that I felt better straight away but it did seem to calm the rumbling in my stomach.
Leki and Eme both took some of the activated charcoal with water as a safety measure.
My understanding of activated charcoal is that it binds with all the nasty toxins in your stomach/guts so the body can get rid of it more effectively.
The probiotic has some ‘healthy/friendly’ bacteria to help repair the intestinal wall and fight the ‘bad’ bacteria.
Again, no immediate relief but every little bit counts.
It makes me think what I would have done if I was unwell and at home.
I may have gone to the local GP and she may have prescribed an antibiotic to kill the bacteria in my gut.
Sure, it would have fixed the problem but the issue with antibiotics is that it kills ALL bacteria. Both good and bad bacteria in your gut. So I try and avoid it unless I really need it to save me 🙂
So the rest of Saturday was pretty boring for me anyway. Mostly staying indoors while Leki took the kids to the local shopping centre, watched a movie at the park’s indoor cinema and playing outside.
By Saturday night I had recovered enough to eat something.
By Sunday morning I had recovered 80% and was able to enjoy the rest of our little trip especially the beach walk at Ocean Grove.
This had been a timely warning for me as we prepare for a little trip to Bali in late-October and I’d hate to fall sick over there!
I’ll be doing some research and become more knowledgeable about things to prepare before a trip to ensure my family stays healthy!
I’m going to show you how our usual morning routine looks.
I first wrote about this topic 18 months ago. A LOT has changed. We’ve moved house, changed some of our food habits and had baby no #2. Read about it – HERE.
It’s always a work in progress but this is how it is 80% of the time in the average week.
It’s really my husband Leki that drives the mornings because I’m up a couple of times over the night depending on how our 8 month son Ky is sleeping. Our 3yo daughter Emelina sleeps like a champion 🙂
So I’ve invited my husband Leki to write this blog and how he manages it all until I can drag myself out of bed 😉
Enjoy.
Howdy everyone.
My mornings usually start around 4:30am to 6:30am depending on Ky’s sleep.
If Ky’s last feed was at 8pm then he usually needs a few short 5-10min nursing moments at 2am-3am. (Belinda does a great job as I’m knocked out cold).
So let’s say he’s up 5:30am.
I’d spend time with him in the morning as I usually get up at 4:30am. (I practice biphasic sleep which allows me to wake early)
So between 4:30am-7am I’ve got 2.5 hours to myself to read, study and think. Plus when my son wakes up I can spend some quality time together because my work hours are usually 9am until 8pm.
I really enjoy the mornings because that’s the only time during the week where we are all together. During the day I’m working and Belinda and kids have their own schedule to keep.
Some families sit down over dinner together.
Our family meal is in the morning.
I eat lunch and dinner at work and Belinda and our kids eat at home.
Because we bulk prep on Sunday’s we are pretty organised for the working week with the main meals.
My job is to ensure we have our quality morning routine which is preparing a hot breakfast at 7am.
It takes me 30-45mins to organise.
Here’s what’s on the menu:
3 x lightly pan fried eggs for Belinda and I plus Eme and Ky have 1 x lightly pan fried egg each cooking in coconut oil
baby spinach
asparagus
avocado
grass fed butter
Belinda’s breastmilk booster shake which Eme and Ky also have
almonds
flax seeds
MCT oil
coconut water
oats
chia seeds
banana
ground cinnamon powder
Belinda’s boobie cookies and fenugreek supplement
Water and lemon water with apple cider vinegar
Bulletproof coffee (blended together)
MCT oil
1 tablespoon of ground coffee
grass fed butter
I cook with Ky watching me in the pram and then Eme usually gets up at 7:30am because of the noise.
Ky is ready to have his morning feed from Belinda at 7:30am and when Eme rises I get her to wake up Mama for breakfast.
I then spend 15 mins getting ready for work and then we sit down for a good 20 mins together to eat a nice hot breakfast.
Eme says grace and then down the hatch 🙂
Breakfast Breakdown:
Eme and Ky have 1 x pan fried egg each (as described above) with a bit of the smoothie along with water.
Belinda has 3 x eggs with a glass of water, boobie smoothie, a fenugreek supplement and boobie cookies. (Remember Belinda has fasted from 4pm the day before so she’s hungry in the morning)
I make the 3 x eggs but I pack it to have with my lunch. I add the eggs together with my pre-prepped lunch around 1:30pm and I eat dinner at around 6pm. (I fast from 6pm to 1pm the next day) At breakfast I drink hot lemon water with apple cider vinegar then 15 mins later I enjoy my Bulletproof coffee.
Voila!
I hope you’ve enjoyed a little insight into our usual morning routine.
It’s not really important what we do or what we eat in the morning.
The point of the post today is actively setting the time to be there for each other in the morning.
I think it’s important to spend as much family time together daily even if it’s only for a short time.
There will be a time that our kids will be ready to move out of our home and be independent young adults.
At that time Belinda and I will wish to be able to sit down over breakfast one more time together as a family. (Belinda wrote an awesome post about this earlier – read about it here)
We are all busy but we actively try and prioritise our mornings to spend quality time together and be happy.
I hope you all had a lovely time with your Grandfathers, Fathers and partners over the weekend celebrating Father’s Day.
Today I’m writing about trying to maintain your lifestyle when there are so many temptations.
We had a Father’s Day weekend as Saturday our family celebrated for my husband Leki and Sunday was flat out with my father’s breakfast and then catching up with my father-in-law for lunch/dinner.
So with that said here are my 3 main points:
Communication
Food prep
Decision making
Communication
Leki and I talk all the time.
Over breakfast in the morning we communicate to our family about what’s happening today, what we’re looking forward to later in the week and little trips coming up in the next few months.
During the day while I’m running around or holding the fort down at home Leki might call me on the phone and we’d chat for 20-30 mins while he’s driving to and from different locations for work.
We often talk about things that we’re planning to do later that week or events that are about to happen over the weekend.
Then later at night we would continue to talk about it while we’re winding down.
The theme of this is communication.
We discuss and plan for what is coming down the pipeline because we can understand it from both perspectives – his and mine.
Watching Rugby with Ky
Let’s take the Father’s Day weekend for example.
Leki works every Saturday.
After he finished we drove 60 mins to support my cousin play in his Rugby League grand final at 2:30pm.
Then from there we travelled another 30 mins to a meeting Leki had until 7:30pm.
We would return home after 8pm on Saturday night.
It would be almost too easy to drop into Maccas or take away on Saturday – but we didn’t.
Instead of making excuses we communicated over the week on how we busy we were going to be plus managing our little kids.
The solution?
We prepped meals and talked about how we would manage our day.
Once I had prepared the meals Leki and I talked about our respective eating windows (intermittent fasting) and how we would manage things together.
You see, Leki only eats in a 4 hour window from 2-3pm until 6-7pm and I’m eating within a 8 hour window from 8am-4pm.
So we talked through how we’d be managing ourselves and our family over the upcoming weekend.
Communication with your partner is key to being consistent!
Food prep
Last week I shared our outlook on prepping meals to free up time later in the week.
Our food prep can supply our household from Sun to Fri most weeks.
By Saturday lunchtime we’ve run out of food which is when we’d do our weekly shopping, have our carb refuel meal (cheat meal) then rest up Saturday night having a night in.
Sunday after church from 1pm to 3pm we’d spend the time bulk prepping nutritious meals for the upcoming working week.
Bulk shopping 🙂
Over the Father’s Day weekend though things were a slightly different.
I knew we’d be busy all weekend long so in order to keep our healthy buzz going we would have to prep and pack food to take.
My goal is to get to less 69kg by the time I’m away in Bali in late Oct. That’s about 7 weeks away and I’m around 71.5kg.
In order to lose the weight I need to be consistent.
Moments of weakness or a weekend of ‘letting myself go’ can undo over a fortnight of ‘being good’. It’s happened to me before!
So I was willing to get on the front foot, shop, cook and prep meals and snacks all the while balancing my 2 x kids and keeping my home in good working condition.
On Thursday (leading to the Father’s Day weekend) I went to Aldi and did some extra shopping.
Then over Thursday and Friday I pre cooked some meals so that we’d have them ready for the weekend coming up!
We had some snacks for the Rugby game and then we had some food ready to have just before Leki’s meeting on Saturday night.
Which leads me to my next point…
Communication + Prepping = Better decision making
Decision making
With our efforts to communicate throughout the week we can make better decisions.
In my “Sister chat” which we discuss things on Facebook Messenger in a group chat and it’s here my sister organised Father’s Day breakfast for my Dad.
Similarly with Leki’s family on a group Viber chat they had organised something for Sunday lunchtime.
The result was challenging.
2 x restaurants to eat on the same day with a lot of temptations 🙂
Given that we would be tempted we decided to check out the menu of Lazy Moe’s where we’d be having part of our celebrations.
After having a quick preview on what was on offer we both decided to grab the Veg breakfast option with extra poached eggs, avocado and picked the gluten free toast.
It was amazing because we enjoyed ourselves with family but didn’t feel too guilty after as we maintain our disciple with our food choices.
Soon after we caught up with Leki’s parents and last minute decided to eat out at a Chinese restaurants in Crown called Man Tong Kitchen.
This was unplanned.
As we sat down to enjoy the banquet meal we decided on some options that would not throw us out of wack.
We decided to order some smaller entree dishes (dumplings etc.) and one fried rice and sizzling chicken plate to share among us. We also had some dessert – Leki had the red bean pancake with ice cream and I had the banana split with Eme.
The result?
I put on 500g or half kilo the next day when I weighed myself.
I take that as a positive because I could have chosen to ‘let myself go’ for the weekend and easily put on over 2kg (which has happened in the past).
It’s now 2 days after the weekend and I’m back to where I was on Saturday – weight wise.
So, 2 x meals on Sunday takes me 2-3 days to return back my ‘usual’ weight.
Decision making is important and I feel you need to help yourself as best you can by communicating with your partner/support network and prepare food to make choices easier on you and your family.
We are all human and there are things that we like and don’t like.
I like eating.
I like having fun.
I like seeing the numbers on the scales going lower and lower.
I like feeling and looking good.
Whatever you like comes at a cost and you have to be prepared to make the sacrifices.
This is an update from my first post on this topic almost 10 months ago. Read about it here.
There have been some slight changes in how we organise our grocery shopping, our bulk prep work and the meal plans after monitoring our results over this period of time.
The big factors in deciding what we’ll eat is taste, prep time and quality of the produce.
I previously wrote about how we prefer to spend a little extra on quality food and cut back on other things as the trade off.
Using the grocery list I outlined earlier here – we spend 2 hours on Sunday cooking for the week as a family. We look at it as a bit of bonding time 🙂
Word of warning!
We don’t count calories.
We lean towards having a nutrient rich meal (paleo food source) which keeps us in ketosis for 3-5 days of the week.
We then ‘refeed’ carbs on Saturday or Sun so we don’t get too tired or overwhelmed!
It’s called cyclic ketosis.
I’ll talk more about this down the track but for now here’s more information that I’ve found helpful 🙂
On top of that I try and move (HIIT 1-2 per day) regularly and practice intermittent fasting where I eat only within an 8 hours window from 8am-4pm.
That sounds like a lot of work but once you get into a routine and develop a discipline it quickly becomes a lifestyle.
Due to this routine I’ve been able to lose weight quite quickly and easily since having baby #2 earlier this year.
I open up and report my findings monthly – read the August issue here.
So back to the original point of this blog post – here are the updated 3 x meals we prepare weekly:
Beef burger with tomato, carrot, lightly pan fried egg and lettuce bun (no cheese)Pan grilled salmon with pine nuts, asparagus, broccoli and baked sweet potatoGrass fed minced beef with green beans, broccoli and spiralised zucchini
Here’s the process on how I prep everything:
Prepare the meat (lightly grill or oven bake) = 30min
Prepare the vegetables by washing them and preparing them (boil, oven bake, spiralise or light grilled) = 30min
Allow the food to cool > 1 hour
Pack the food into containers = 10min
The end result is we can pick from a variety of food to eat on any given day.
Check out how we do this together on a typical Sunday:
For example I might have the burger + lettuce bun for lunch with the kids at home and then salmon for dinner.
All I have to do is heat it up.
Similarly Leki picks what he wants in the morning as he’s packing his food to eat lunch and dinner at work.
So as breakfast is prepared every morning by Leki and lunch and dinner for the week is organised after our Sun cook out the whole week is pretty much running on autopilot.
Can’t get any better then that!
In terms of cooking oil we only use coconut oil for all pan/cooked prep work and it costs about $12-$15 per jar at Costco.
Here are my go to ‘snacks’ for the day:
Fruit – blackberries, strawberries, apples, pawpaw and bananas
Natural or Greek yogurt
Almonds
Keto friendly snacks like chocolate drops and cookies which I make at home with Eme
My main weakness is dessert and sweets. On my weaker days especially when my monthly visitor arrives my poison of choice is usually:
Tim Tams
Corn chips
This is an update on how we keep on top of our food prep and making sure it is healthy and most importantly tasty! No one likes eating cardboard 🙂
We’ve made the effort to drop our sugar/sweets intake over the last 10 months but it’s always a work in progress.
We’ll see how good we’ve been over the next 6 months where I aim to provide you an update on how we’re going food prep wise and whether we’ve made any changes.
What works for you? Do you practice intermittent fasting? Are you apart of the Keto cult 😉 or do you follow another game plan? Either way I always try and keep an open mind when trying new things!
I thought I would put together a list of the most helpful purchases in the last year which hasn’t broken the bank account but has been invaluable in our daily life.
I’m not really focusing on the cost of the product but rather the time it saves!
I hope you find it helpful 🙂
Ambiano blender
Now to be honest we purchased this blender years ago at Aldi and it lasted us about 2 years before it died.
Ambiano
The cost for the blender was $40 from memory but it was so helpful.
We started making our Bulletproof coffee with it. I used to puree Eme’s food without issue. I made smoothies over the summer time and it was really cheap but well made.
We have since upgraded to an expensive blender and we chose to buy the Vitamix 5200 Black which cost us $729 from Costco.
You don’t really need this type of blender to begin with but with amount of food prep we were planning to go through we decided to treat the family to something more robust.
Vitamix
It hasn’t skipped a beat since!
Velocity Points
I wrote earlier about small trips that we try and plan as a family to rest and recharge.
We have a credit card with is linked to a rewards program and we completely forgot all about the Velocity Points we had collected over the last 3-5 years.
Leki got an email reminding him of the rewards program and was surprised with what we could redeem.
We’ve just returned from a weekend trip to visit family in Sydney.
90% of the trip was redeemed through the Velocity Points program.
Fun in Sydney
Airfares, car hire, public transport and a few meals was what we were able to redeem plus we stayed with family in west Sydney.
We also managed to get some tickets to watch the Bledisloe game 1 match. Our family are proud Wallabies supporters and we had a great time watching them at Olympic Stadium.
We lost 🙁
Thin Lizzy
This is my go to brand for light make up.
Cheap price but quality product. I’ve been using them for over 10 years and will continue to use their products!
I like that the look is natural and I don’t have the glossy reflection in photos.
Besides it doesn’t take too much to remove the make up after I’ve had a little glam session 😉
My Thin Lizzy pack costs $30 and lasts me around 3 months easily 🙂
Montessori toys
Check out our little Montessori space at home. It’s one of our many pride and joys within our little home.
Montessori toys are nothing fancy or expensive.
They are basically toys that challenge the senses of the child to help their curiosity to learn.
Learning with water
Some of our collections are from our recent trip to Thailand.
Others are from Target like her shopfront where she pretends to be the shop lady selling us fruit and coffee 🙂
Eme was gifted a kitchen set where she pretends to make pancakes and breakfast when Leki cooks in the morning.
We also love hosting kids at a party because they are self contained in our little Montessori space 😉
Learning about nature
Each of things that we’ve collected over the last year range in cost from being FREE (giveaways or hand me downs), second hand from the local op shop or purchased from Aldi/other stores for $8-$35.
Coconut oil
We go shopping at Costco once a month – I wrote about how we organise our grocery previously here.
One key product we always purchase in bulk is coconut oil.
We go with either the Kirkland (Costco generic brand) one or the Absolute Organic brand (which is still a Costco branded product I think) and we use it for lots of things.
Leki uses it to slick his hair.
We both use it for our skin as a moisturiser.
It’s our only option of oil for cooking (our only alternative is extra virgin oil as we strictly avoid vegetable oil or other oils with a low melting point).
We usually purchase one bottle for approx. $13-18 and it lasts us about 3 months! Talk about value for money 🙂
Veggie Bullet
We only just picked this one up less then a month ago.
Advertised at $89 at JB Hifi we were then offered a further $5 discount at purchase. I think their competitors The Good Guys were also having a promotion!
The veggie cutter is saving me a MASSIVE amount of time plus improving my family’s health.
How?
Firstly the chopping, dicing and spiralling work takes time and effort. It would take us 30-45 mins to get through our prep work for 3-5 days of sweet potatoes, cucumber, broccoli, carrot etc.
The Veggie cutter has this all prepared and ready to be cooked within 5 minutes 🙂
Plus we have now removed white rice from our diet and replaced it with spiralised zucchini mixed with our meat of choice for a great effect!
I reached out to a Mama who was advertising her bathing seat on Gumtree.
Within 30 minutes we had reached an agreed time for pick up and later that day I was a proud owner of this bathing seat.
It’s been such a welcome relief because we’d shower him in tandem with Leki when he’s home which can be quite late so I needed an alternative. I struggled to manage them both at the same time.
This product which is obviously second hand has been a lifesaver and Ky really enjoys his bath and looks forward to it everyday 😉
It only cost me $25 second hand which is a bonus! Brand new is $45 from Baby Bunting 🙂
Go Pro Black 4 from Facebook Marketplace
This is an expensive purchase but it’s been such a great buy I had to share it with you!
We decided to purchase an older version to learn how to use the Go Pro.
It was the perfect purchase for our recent trip to Sydney.
The quality of the videos, the accessories that come with it, the memories they capture. Priceless!
Leki found a great deal on the Facebook app within ‘Marketplace’.
The seller lived in the Melbourne CBD and Leki organised the exchange which cost us $270.
We also bought a memory card and the mounting stick on top of that for an additional $110 from JB Hifi.
Check out the video we posted using our new (but old lol) Go Pro!
What purchases for < $100 have you found invaluable or time efficient to help you on your day? I’d love to hear of other products other there that help Mums 🙂
Last week I wrote about my primary goal of maintaining high quality breastfeeding with the secondary goal of losing weight down to a size 10 summer dress.
Surviving the winter… brrr
The real struggle has begun!
The main issue I’m finding is the reward is NOT married to the effort.
What does that mean?
In my early days with the baby fat it was ‘easier’ for that to come off me.
All that was required was a little effort with my food choices and a big effortwith discipline.
So what’s changed?
Now that I’m back at my ‘healthy’ weight it’s a harder task to lose more weight.
What’s required now is a big effort with my food choices and a bigger effort with my discipline.
Blessed 🙂
Where to from here?
Let me start with what’s worked for me
I always come back to the same ideas that seem to work for me.
Once I acknowledge what’s been good I then think about what hasn’t been that good or what I can improve on.
Good things first:
Modified paleo/wholefood diet
Intermittent fasting
Simple High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) routine
‘Cheat’ treats
Things to improve on:
Negative self talk
Seeing other people’s results and making them my own
Letting other people enjoy their own well being journey
Glamourous Mum life 🙂
The Negatives
Self talk
Sometimes when things don’t go your way it can be easier to blame other people, other things or just blame the situation.
In those testing times it can be the self talk that determine the outcome.
My natural tendency is to blame other people, blame things or blame the situation.
Negative self talk has been my go to strategy. Not good 🙁
Something that I’m actively working on is asking myself “is this as bad as it seems?” or “what does that mean?”.
Example no. 1 – Seeing that I’m not losing weight
If I try and ask myself those questions then helps manage those inner feelings of frustration, anger and hopelessness. So if I ask myself “is it as bad as it seems?” then I can see that’s it’s simply just numbers on a weighing machine. With time and persistence these numbers will change.
Example no. 2 – Ky crying at night
I’ve written that I’m struggling with settling Kyneton at night. Rather then get upset I ask myself “what does that mean?”. I try and work on the questions I ask myself so that I can arrive to better solutions rather then accepting things as they are.
Social media is not real
The interconnected online world is not real.
A simple photo on Instagram does not show the struggle.
A short video showing you my best angle is not the real me.
My freckles on my face really irritate me.
My thinning hair and the fact that I may become prematurely bald worries me.
These are some of my many self perceived ‘problems’.
In Facebook-land or Instagram you don’t see those things… just a good things.
Imagine the image that people online may or may not be showing you.
What’s my point?
Don’t measure your happiness with what you see online.
Find happiness in real places like what’s inside you, people around you, at home, a sunny morning, drinking your coffee… you get the idea.
A bit preachy I know but I hope you see the message.
I follow all types of Mums online.
Some are funny, others are passionate about things and others are really fit and healthy.
Sometimes it can feed into my negative self talk.
So next time you see the gorgeous girl on Instagram, feel guilty with images of that Mum sweating in the gym or just plain feel uncomfortable about where you are in your journey don’t make things worse by comparing yourself to someone else.
Run your own race 🙂
Food prep 101
Let other people enjoy their own well being journey
Don’t get me wrong I am proud of the results I have had since I started in 2015 (after baby no.1).
I’ve grown A LOT.
I have lost a lot of weight.
I try my best not to judge you.
I try my best to keep an open mind.
I appreciate that we are all on a different path.
I appreciate that you might have a different game plan.
I need to learn that you’re on your own journey.
My results are unique to me and if you find it helpful – that’s really cool 🙂
Teaching Eme, Ky crying and Leki bulk cooking 🙂
The Positives
Modified Paleo/wholefood diet
I’ve written at length about our family food choices.
We believe in eating a paleo/wholefood diet meaning that we try and eat things that come directly from the land or from animals.
Basically we try and avoid things that are manufactured or come out of a box.
There are a lot of free materials available to assist you in your ongoing self education but I would point you to who we follow – Dave Asprey and Dr. Berg.
Since we have changed our eating habits our bodies are now very efficient with the type of food we eat we are optimised for ketones.
What’s ketones? Basically our bodies use ketones (healthy fats) rather then carbs (sugars) or protein for energy. Think of it as the body using all the fat (in storage on the love handles) for energy rather then carbohydrates or protein.
I highly encourage that you educate yourself on this because this is the key for lifelong health.
This means that we practice cyclic ketosis where 4-5 days throughout the week we are in ketosis and the other days we cycle out of ketosis. There are many factors on why being in ketosis is beneficial not only weight loss but it’s really good for your insides. (I can elaborate on this later.)
We just eat a varied wholefood/paleo diet (food source). This food source is high in good carbohydrates (vegetables), moderate in protein (meat/fish) and very low in sugar (fruit/treats).
Since we have chosen this wholefood/paleo food source it allows my family to use ketones (healthy fats) as the primary source of energy.
When we have a treat on the weekend and eat some takeaway with family or have something ‘out’ it will take us out of ketosis although we can return to our optimised selves within 1-2 days.
That has been the result of hard work and I would encourage everyone to start your own journey TODAY!
Heading towards that summer dress 🙂
Intermittent fasting
I’ve written at length about how I fast for the majority of the day and that my 8-hour eating window is typically at breakfast until late-lunch/early dinner. From 8am-4pm is my eating window.
In my breastfeeding timeline my last update was when Ky was 2 months old. He’s now 7 months old so a few things have changed.
He’s got 2 x teeth in the bottom row and he enjoys his regular mashed solids.
My initial goal was to breastfeed Ky for at least 12 months and at the rate I’m going I think I going to achieve this but it’s not without it’s challenges.
I wrote earlier about my previous challenges in regard to breastfeeding:
Running out at 6 months with my daughter
Running low at the 4th month with Ky due to my diet plan and stress
Trying to lose weight
Trying to introduce a regular exercise program
Planning my day/week/month so I can manage my time effectively
Here are my 3 main bits of advice I would give myself I were to go through this again:
Don’t assume
Little hacks
Sleep is a priority
1. Don’t assume
Let me paint you a picture.
Imagine you’ve given birth and your new baby is sleeping well, feeding well and there aren’t any ‘problems’ in the early days.
That’s the Honeymoon Period.
Like all new marriages it’s all good early until your first argument 🙂
Same situation but with a baby.
My honeymoon period lasted about 3 months and into the 4th month the real world hit me.
I just assumed that everything would continue to be awesome.
Nope.
Ky started demand feeding almost every 2 hours around the early days of his 4th month. He would wake and scream and cry like someone was pulling his arm and the only way (I thought) was to give him what he wanted.
Well that’s what I assumed anyway.
Fast forward a couple of months and I continued to demand feed him at night and I’ve now reinforced this behaviour – BAD MAMA 🙁
“Every time I cry my Mama will come and save me” is probably what Ky’s thinking the smart little bugger! 😉
So the result? I have this child who cries every 3-4 hours wanting to be fed or comforted which was made worse when he started teething around month 5 (after Thailand).
If I had my time again I would get on the front foot and conduct some research on what might happen.
Not just assume that everything will remain awesome!
I’ve made it my goal to help Ky with self soothing at night.
We feed him well with mashed solids for over 2 months now and he’s a happy camper during the day.
Just struggling with the night time and I blame myself for reinforcing this idea that it’s ok for him to cry and I’ll come to save the day!
2. Little hacks
There’s a couple of things I’d like to update you on compared to my early days.
(a) My diet and supplements remain the same
I continue to eat a wholesome varied diet – modified paleo is what we follow.
On top of that I supplement with a morning ‘booster shake’ which I make myself with various ingredients and finally I add 2 x Fenugreek tablets with water at breakfast.
(b) I have spaced out Kyneton’s breastfeeding
Now that Ky is eating mashed solids at breakfast, lunch and dinner I try and space out the breastfeeding from 4-6 per day to 2-3.
It has been a welcome change as I have more volume within each feed plus it gives my nipples more of a chance to ‘recover’ as Ky can sometimes gnaw and chew on it with his little 2 x teeth OUCH!
(c) Dream feeding
I have come to learn about this thing called dream feeding.
Apparently it’s when the baby is fed when he’s a alseep.
For the most part I’ve been working on pushing Ky’s last feed to as late as possible (my next point) but I will trial dream feeding if my latest strategy doesn’t work out for me.
(d) Pushing the last feed as late as possible
In our daily ‘wind down routine’ I’m washing and feeding the kids by 6pm at the latest.
By 7pm our 3yo Eme is in bed and she can put herself to sleep by 8pm most nights… YAY!
As I’m juggling Ky around Eme I feed him ‘dinner’ at the same time as Eme (who can mostly feed herself) at around 6pm.
I try and stretch the last breastfeeding effort to 9pm so that he’s ‘full’ for longer and I actively avoid feeding him at 2am-3am when he stirs and needs just a quick positional change. If that fails I’ll trial the ‘dream feeding’ I mentioned earlier before he stirs at 2am-3am as my Plan B.
So if I put him down at 9pm I try and get him to sleep right through until 4am-5am where I usually breastfeed him again then Leki takes over and looks after him in the morning.
I then get the rest of the morning off as Leki is usually up early after his good night sleep. He then cooks our hot breakfast at 7:30am and we eat together at 8am.
All this is made possible with how we closely monitor Ky’s sleeping behaviour and the level of his irritability.
Work in progress 🙂
3. Sleep is a priority
I know I might have touched on this earlier but sleep is no.1!
I have not been good in following my own advice as Ky is dictating my quality of sleep.
In the last 2 months I have been getting very tired waking over 4-5 times per night as he continues to demand feed.
As a result I’ve been feeling woozy throughout the day and I have chosen not to sleep during the day.
This can sometimes leave me feeling resentful to Leki and Ky because I’m not getting the sleep I need.
But I come back to our original plans when we decided to have another baby and how our home situation would look like.
Leki works full time and I’m at home full time.
He’s agreed to help as much as he can but the priority is to be healthy for work and provide. My part of the deal is to be happy at home and think about ways to make my job as easy as possible for myself.
I’ve really let myself down with the sleep side of the deal so I have done my own research and now working on finding the best method that works for me and my family.
I can only rely on people around me to do so much but ultimately this is my primary job so I need to get my act together.
Leki helps and that’s great. Together we’ve worked hard on Eme and she’s running very efficiently. So I just need to work harder on Ky… and myself.
The result?
Self soothing with Plan B being dream feeding.
You can see there’s a consistent theme here – self soothing.
As you know we’ve managed to get both Ky and Eme into their own rooms.
Eme continues to do really well.
Ky is a work in progress.
I will be giving myself 2 weeks to see how it goes before reviewing my results.
It’ll be tough and Leki is supportive of my effort but I feel I need to get over this hurdle and then I’m down the home stretch!
I’ll report on how I get past this little road block next time I update “Project Breastfeeding” which will be mostly likely after Ky’s first birthday in Jan 2019.
If I achieve my original goal of breastfeeding for 1 year then I’ll have to make new goals 🙂
This is an update from an earlier post about this very topic.
The only difference is that we are 4 months down the track and I’d like to report on some developments since then 🙂
Compare notes with my previous post by clicking here.
What are the main changes?
Kyneton is out of the bassinet and in his own room
Emelina was getting scared sleeping in her own room
Everyone is in bed by 8:30pm (ish)
1. Ky’s sleeping on his own… well kind of
So let me start by saying that this is quite difficult for us.
We had Ky in the bassinet next to our bed from day 1.
He’s now 7 months old and has a few teeth poking through the gums and he can be quite irritable during the day and upset overnight.
Despite that we both agreed it was time to put him in his own room – the nursery aka bedroom #3.
The funny thing is we are all doing a little better at night time since we decided on that.
Let me explain.
When he was sleeping right next to me in the bassinet, every little breath and splutter was heard by the Mama Bear 😉
That would always have me on edge and have me in a light superficial sleep.
Since he’s been in his own room two things have happened:
Ky is sleeping more soundly
I’m getting better sleep
Now let me break this down for a minute.
Pre-nursery Kyneton was waking probably every 2-3 hours over the night time.
Now I only attend to Ky on average 2 x times over the night when he’s hungry or uncomfortable.
The other thing is that when my Mum visited the other day she told me off for having Ky mostly lying on his back. As a result he was developing a flat head.
Now I alternate his position at night so that he’s more comfortable and overtime the ‘flat headedness’ will settle.
For example, if I place him on his left side when I put him down at 8pm I’d probably be attending to him around 10-11pm (uncomfortable and hungry) and feed him then switch him to the right side in the crib.
Often when I return at 4am (usually he’s hungry) I then see that he’s lying on his back and after I feed him I return him to side lying.
In terms of my own situation I’m getting much better rest averaging 2 hours (9-11pm) in the first block then another 4-5 hours (11pm-4am) in the second block of rest.
We do not practice co-sleeping at all although it is quite common in our culture.
So there you go, 7 months old and kicked out of our room into his own setup 🙂
2. Eme’s new sleeping routine… well kind of
We decided to put Emelina in her own room when she was 3 months old but let me back up a little and remind you that our 3yo daughter was a dream baby.
Slept well all the way through the night even when she was teething and right through until today.
What’s changed?
She sees ‘monsters’ and has some nightmares.
It might be something she saw on the TV during the day and then she brings it up when we begin her ‘wind down’ routine for bed time.
So here’s our traditional game plan.
5:30pm – Shower/bath
6pm – Dinner
6:30pm-7:30pm – Screen time
7:30pm-8:30pm – Wind down routine
So what’s our wind down routine?
Well we start off with brushing her teeth and taking her to the loo to empty her little bladder. (Only occasional accident in bed now… last one was in Thailand)
Then she goes to kiss her brother goodnight and Leki if he’s home by then.
I then follow her into her room and tuck her into bed.
We then say our nightly prayer and then my final instructions are that you can now ‘rest your body‘ and read your books and sleep when you’re tired.
That is the key difference.
We don’t force her to sleep and turn the light off.
She would get upset when we used the words ‘it’s time for bed’ or ‘go to sleep’. We now reframe it to ‘it’s story time‘ and ‘our bodies need to rest to have energy for tomorrow‘.
I then tell her it’s ok she can stay warm in bed and read her book (which I pile up next to her so she doesn’t have to get out of bed).
In her own time and with the lamp light on she’s reading and then falls off to sleep when she’s tired.
There’s no more dramas about monsters lurking in the darkness as she’s looking at her picture book and talking to herself.
Often we walk by (quietly) and we’ve either seen her konked out or she’s busily ‘reading’ the words and looking at the pictures of the book!
My last little tip is that we try and manage Eme’s day so that she doesn’t nap during the day.
We’ve found that when she naps she’s either pretty grumpy and clingly for 1-2 hours after she wakes or when we’re in our wind down mode it’s hard to get her settled because she’s still energised and not ready to ‘go down’ to bed.
Your mileage may vary 🙂
3. Bed time is 8:30PM… well kind of
So to bring us back to the general timeline. (Please review my last entry about this here.)
In the morning my husband Leki makes breakfast before he’s off to work around 8am. I also squeeze in my little 9 min HIIT session while he’s preparing our breakfast.
This has been a little change for our family as we’ve moved and some days of the week Leki needs to leave home a touch earlier so he can’t help with some things like he used to.
Between 8am-9am I’ve finished getting the kids ready so we travel to either Montessori school for Eme or gymnastics.
From around 11am-1pm we’re out shopping or running errands before we head home for my main meal (pre-prepared).
Once home again I then try and put Ky down for 1-2 hours if I’m lucky and Eme is content with playing in her Montessori space at home or watching a movie. (I’m still unpacking a little bit from our move!)
It’s around 4pm I try and get my second HIIT session before having my last meal for the day. I practice intermittent fasting for 16 hours starting at 4pm until breakfast at 7:30am. My eating window is usually 8 hours from 8am-4pm on average.
After my last meal I then try and wash Eme and Ky at 5pm then feed them so that when Leki gets home we can maximise our family time together and just hang out.
He usually gets home around 7pm.
Sometimes Leki plays with Eme in her Montessori space.
Other times Eme is having screen time and then we watch reruns of GoT or whatever series we are watching to pass the time until GoT returns 🙂
Our set routine has sorted out the food so that Leki eats at work and comes home just to chill out with us, it allows the kids to be prepared for the wind down routine and gives Mum and Dad a chance to have couple time!
So when we’re all watching programs or just hanging out Kyneton is usually happy to sit with us and giggle and laugh. As soon as he gets irritable it’s probably because he’s hungry and tired.
Easy fix!
I feed him and then place him into his crib. One down one to go!
Around 7:30pm Eme has already had her screen time and I initiate the wind down routine and she’s usually asleep by 9pm.
From 8pm onward Leki and I often watch an episode of something but other times we decide to go to bed and talk about the day and start looking forward to things that are coming up.
Most nights Mum and Dad are asleep at 9:30pm until the Kyneton alarm wakes us up.
Well that’s how the picture looks like in our little household.
I’ll most likely update this in 1 year and see what kind of changes have happened since!
As you know I recently moved home and Leki and I saw it as an opportunity to get rid of things which we’ve held onto for too looooong 🙂
We are both sentimental with things.
Eme directing traffic
That little piece of paper that Eme first scribbled on as a baby.
My old cards and work slips that serve no purpose.
Leki’s old rugby gear which can take up a whole room.
Little toys that Ky was given that he doesn’t even use.
Other assorted knick knacks that don’t have a home in the house but live in a tired looking box ‘just incase’ we need it in the future.
We all have them.
Well most of us anyway.
So Leki came across a lady who’s whole ‘shtick’ is minimal living.
Now I know it can be simple to declutter and get rid of useless things but her whole angle is how you get rid of things.
Marie Kondo developed the “KonMari Method” which is a decluttering method based on Japanese values in order to surround yourself with items that spark joy.
Now personally when I think of a ‘Japanese home’ what I think of very little clutter and a simple natural feel within the home.
On the way to the tip
Basically Leki and I agreed that we would get rid of 90% of our things and practice a simple version of the KonMari method.
So how does it work?
To the item you are struggling to ‘let go’ you simple look at the object and think about the joy it had brought you… once upon a time.
It may be an old book, or a article of clothing, or in my case… boxes upon boxes of shoes, little things that have lingered in the closet for the day you might need it (and that day never comes).
You then say to the item – “you have brought me joy and now I must let you go“.
I’ll let you go to the op shop to bring someone else joy.
I’ll let you go and give joy to other family members.
I’ll let you go and help someone in need elsewhere.
You get the picture.
It’s almost reframing the item which was once much loved or neglected to be released and give someone else that joy.
Now I know this sounds crazy and woo woo but it really helps.
Fun times with Eme
Leki loves Rugby.
He’s been involved in Rugby and has collected A LOT of rugby gear and memorabilia from over the years.
He said goodbye to over 90% of his things and gave it all away.
I love shoes.
I have shoes spilling out of every closet of my home and I had more in storage.
I gave away 90% of my shoes.
We both feel good about it.
Speak to us 12 months ago and there would be no chance that we’d part with our special treasures.
Let me give you some insight:
Leki has traveled a lot with sporting teams and there is often tracksuits, tops, polos and other various equipment that comes with travel.
He would travel almost 6-8 x times a year and each traveling team would have their own uniform. After 5-7 years of traveling at 6-8 tours per year you can imagine how much stuff you collect.
Each tour would be special and he would tie some of those special memories to the clothing.
No anymore… he’s said goodbye to 90% of that stuff now.
Leki at the tip
As I quoted earlier I love shoes.
All sorts of shoes too! High heels, platforms, knee high boots, sleek flats, runners. You name it, I had it in one shape or colour 🙂
I remember the exact pair of shoes I wore when Leki and I went on our first date!
They traveled with me in each of the homes we moved into even when I never wore them because they weren’t that fashionable as the years went by.
Regardless of that I still held onto them.
That was until I say goodbye to them last week and off they went. Given away to family in Tonga.
Wherever all our treasures have ended up…
“I hope they give you joy as much as they have given me”.
Despite all the ups and downs I want to reaffirm my primary goal which is:
To track my weight loss as I maintain breastfeeding for my newborn son Ky for over 12 months
Originally, I made the goal to lose weight down to my ‘best self’ which was 69 kgs from 95kgs after having baby no.2 Jan 2018. (I documented my weight loss after baby no.1 in 2015. Read about it here.)
About 4 months into this recent journey I realised that it will take more time to lose the weight to 69kgs and so I made the adjustment and targeted my pre-baby weight of 75kgs.
I managed to weight 73.9kgs just before my trip to Thailand. YAY 😉
BIG in January 2018 to a Bikini in June 2018 🙂
So now what?
Well, I’ve set another goal.
To fit into a size 10 dress by Christmas 2018
What’s the latest?
Well… I can tell you we had a BLAST in Thailand with family and friends.
Almost 20 of us went.
We survived the 9 hour flight which I wrote about last week.
Ate to our hearts content – seafood, pad thai, fresh fruit, hot buffet breakfast, crepes, sweets and all types of drinks 🙂
The only bit of exercise I did was walking around the markets and swimming in the pool 😉
The result?
I put on some naughty weight.
So it’s back on the bike for me, returning to my usual daily structure and building back into my normal routine and positive habits.
My Top 3 Things To Report
Stress levels
Back on the grind
Time out?
1. Stress levels
Our sad gummy bear!
Our little son is now a little over 6 months old and has 2 little teeth popping through the gums.
As a result he’s really irritable at night and with the help of some child friendly Nurofen and Bonjela he’s found a little bit of relief at night time.
During the day he is like a little joey in the kangaroo pouch.
As soon as I get him down for some tummy time or set him down to do some things around the house – he starts crying.
It’s not one of those ‘cute’ baby cries either… it’s like a firetruck siren.
It’s loud to begin with then it rises and falls depending on how much attention he gets.
I swear this little guy knows how to press my buttons 😉
So on top of his teething issues we have also had some additional challenges like travelling overseas and moving house.
As a result I’ve been incredibly stressed and I feel it’s affected my supply of breast milk.
I know our established routine will help me ‘de-stress’ once I get everything up and running at home.
We’re back on our nutritious food plan, taking my ‘power smoothie’ with Fenugreek supplements plus I’ll be cooking my boobie cookies again soon. Read about it here.
Once I have all that under control then the stress will go 🙂
2. Back on the grind
To be honest I wasn’t too naughty while being overseas.
Eating in Patong
Although I enjoyed myself I didn’t over eat (too much), only had 1-2 alcoholic drinks and kept meals light at dinner time.
But now that I’m back and settling into the new house I’m looking to get back into routine.
So it’s back on the grind now.
I’m currently hovering around 74kgs and my target is to lose 5kgs over the next 5 months from size 14 to size 10.
I have found that the ‘easy’ part was losing the baby weight.
I’m in the ‘hard’ part of my weight loss which is shrinking down from my ‘stable’ pre-baby weight.
I have found it takes a lot more determination and discipline to lose weight here so I have given myself another 5 months to lose 5kgs.
But any progress is better then no progress.
I’ve returned to my normal routine of weighing myself in the morning and stuck to my program of eating during an 8 hour window and practicing intermittent fasting. (If you’re not sure what fasting is about check out my summary here.)
The thing I need to improve on is the regular exercise.
Right now I try and compliment my eating regime with a short high intensity interval training program (HIIT) consisting of sit to stand squats off a chair, wall push ups and step up and step downs.
I spend one minute at each exercise and complete the circuit three times. It only takes 9-10 minutes and I’m done. I also work at a high intensity (80% max.) so you should feel your heart beating out your chest and your breathing gets quite heavy. Now you’re working!
Once Ky get’s a little older I’ll be looking to start some strengthening work to tone up 😉
Swensen’s ice cream 🙂
3. Time out?
I’m a really big believer in trying to manage your day effectively so you can carve out some “ME TIME”.
In the morning breakfast is organised by my husband Leki.
We prepare the kids for what lies ahead before he’s off to work.
When I’m by myself it’s all hands on deck for the next 8 hours.
Eme doesn’t nap during the day anymore and she’s only got 2-3 things to attend throughout the week.
So there’s a lot of down time. A LOT OF DOWN TIME.
There’s plenty to do – it’s full time work.
But I’m not complaining. I actually enjoy it.
It just takes a lot of effort to plan the day for myself, my newborn Ky and the active 3yo Eme.
So as a family we’ve stated that we tend to commit to regular short ‘mini-breaks’. I wrote about it here.
It gives you a little bit of pleasure knowing that while you’re working hard – at home or at the office – coming soon you have a short trip planned to relieve some pressure!
So we have pre-planned a couple of small trips in August and September plus our annual Christmas getaway with Leki’s family is being organised now.
We are also planning a little caravan trip probably Easter next year for maybe a week. More on that later 😉
How bad am I?
I just got back from a holiday and I’m already planning the next one(s).
