Guest Blogs, Life of a Mum

Apps For Naps: Useful Phone Downloads For New Parents

First-time parenthood is exhilarating, but it can also feel overwhelming. Luckily, technology has evolved to help out, and downloading the right apps can take a huge load off your shoulders, giving you more time to spend on the little one (and catching up on sleep). Here are some for you to consider.

Milk Maid

The health benefits of feeding your baby breast milk can be tremendous. If you’re hoping to breastfeed for as long as possible, you’ll need help keeping track of how much you’ve fed them, or how much milk you’ve pumped and stored. This can be challenging as you juggle the overwhelming responsibilities of new parenthood, but Milk maid can help you to reach a balance. Including handy trackers and timers, Milk Maid keeps all your breastmilk data in one safe place. You can even export it to a spreadsheet for easy viewing later.

Sleep Baby Sleep

As all parents know, getting your infant into a regular sleep routine is vital for your sanity! Most times, though, it’s impossible to keep the hustle and bustle of the household under wraps to ensure that your baby’s sleep isn’t disturbed. Sleep baby sleep is a white noise app that mutes all surrounding sounds, allowing you to keep up with the other tasks on your to-do list while having the peace of mind that the little one is getting proper rest.

The Wonder Weeks

Baby Milestones are important events to remember in your child’s life and tracking them can help to ensure that your infant is developing at the correct rate. The Wonder weeks app builds a catalog of all those special moments, so you’ll never have to worry about forgetting them. The app grants you access to handy personalized schedules and diaries, as well as relevant parenting audiobooks and ebooks. There’s even a 4G enabled baby monitor available to make checking in on your baby that much easier.

Redfin

A home that seemed big enough for you and your partner will begin to feel infinitely smaller once your newborn arrives, and you definitely don’t want to Baby proof your entire apartment before realizing you need to move into a bigger space. The Red fin (USA based) app makes fitting house hunting into your busy schedule a breeze since you’ll be able to filter listings to find your ideal match. If you don’t have the time to check out properties of interest in person, the app allows you to do virtual walkthroughs, giving you a real-life feel for your new home.

Cozi Family Organizer

Once your baby begins to grow, you’ll want to start enrolling them in fun extracurricular activities – this can mean a busier daily schedule. If you’re having trouble keeping track of everyone in the household’s calendar, the Cozi Family organiser app stores all your appointments in one, easy-to-access place. You’ll also be able to create shared grocery lists and a chores roster for everyone to follow.

Technology affords new parents luxuries that older generations could only have dreamed of. By letting apps handle the more menial tasks, you can focus on the important tasks, enjoy more free time and take control of your routine as a new parent.

Blog kindly written by Josh Moore, check our his page Diaper Dads

Got milk?, Milk, weaning and more

Boob- who knew?!?!?

When I was pregnant I was determined to breast feed; I tried to read a few book, go on the Facebook support pages and subscribed to mother and baby magazine.

I thought I knew enough to get me by. But I felt anxious about it all; it’s one of those things you don’t really ‘get’ until you’re doing it. And even then everyday is a school day.

Here’s some interesting (or weird things I never really knew).

1. Breastfeeding doesn’t mean the delay to your periods returning.

Yes this one really sucked; I was led to believe that one of the lovely benefits from breastfeeding was that your got a nice break from periods, this was supported my comments from friends when they were gutted their monthly friend returned after a year!

Well I had a two week post-partum bleed and then lo and behold- 28 bleeding days later Aunt Flo returned! What the actual fuck- I mean how unfair is that?!?!?!?

Not only that but whilst I was breast feeding my monthly visitor only arrived every ruddy month perfectly on time! couldn’t do that when we were trying to get pregnant and go through fertility treatment could it???

Ready for some even more shit news; (and this is a bit gross) when you are actually feeding your uterus contracts meaning that you sit their feeling the blood flood out. I mean lovely- totally wonderful. Mother BLOODY nature!

( slightly pissed off infertile woman here)

2. Let down

Well where to begin with this one; I’ll just go for it, imagine 37,500 ants crawling all over you tits. Well this is what ‘let down’ feels like. What???? You ask…..

Well did you know you milk just does sit ready to come out (otherwise we’d all just sit in puddles of milk); your babies first few sucks stimulates you boobs enough to ‘open the gates’ of your ducts- this is called ‘let down’, and let me warn you- that is a bloody weird feeling!

3. Porn star boobs

Ever contemplated getting a boob job, or wished you were curvier to help you feel sexier?

Well about 3 days after birth you’ll get a ‘free trial’ of those huge, rounded, stuck on looking bazookas- and you’ll feel sooo sexy!!! Er nope, they’re huge, they hurt, they feel like they’re going to explode, they’re hot, they’re leaking; and now you have to try and attach a baby onto them. Trying to attach a soft mouthed tiny new born onto a huge, hard, rounded football is flipping hard. And you’ll also decide you don’t want a boob job.

4. It’s good for your mental health.

I definitely struggled with my mental health more after weaning Dorothea off the boob. So I did some research and found your brain releases the hormones prolactin and oxytocin during breastfeeding, which help you to bond with baby and ease those normal feelings of stress and anxiety.

5. Breastfeeding burns loads of calories

Breastfeeding burns between 500-600 calories a day. That means some mums might end up losing weight without any additional exercise! But in reality it also makes you really hungry- I remember stuffing my face with flapjacks in the middle of the night. Also breastfeeding mums will generally spend more time sitting down- for me this signals ‘snack time’ – so don’t count on losing that weight; but in reality who cares, breastfeeding is great and so are flapjacks.

6. Rainbow milk. Milk is white right? Wrong!

When expressing I found that the bottles of milk in my fridge could be different colours- sometimes with a blue tinge! Apparently this change can be due to what you’ve eaten or your babies needs (milk constituents can change daily- clever eh?)

7. You produce milk long after feeding stops.

I figured that soon after I stopped feeding that I would ‘dry up’. Not the case- I found in the months following I would leak milk when emotional, and now (over a year later) milk is still there if pressure is put on my boobs.

8. Breastmilk jewellery

You can get gorgeous jewellery made from your milk! This one is always controversial, with many thinking it’s weird, but I love my milk pendant.

Check out:

https://www.forevernurtured.co.uk

https://milkdiamonds.co.uk/

9. Flapjacks!

Oats are supposed to be good for milk production and flapjacks are yummy! This was a recipe I created; these are great for devouring during night feeds (lots of good ingredients too)

⁃ 1 cup coconut oil

⁃ 3/4 cup agave syrup

⁃ 10 dried dates finely chopped

⁃ 1 apple finely chopped/grated

⁃ ( melt down the above in a pan until a gooey syrup- then add)

⁃ 1 cup chopped off nuts( I used cashews)

⁃ 4 cups oats

⁃ 1 cup milled flax seed

⁃ 4 tablespoons brewers yeast

Mix well, bake in flat pan for 15 mins at 180 (or until firm and browning)

10. Breastfeeding is amazing

It’s also hard work, often awkward, sometimes painful and welcomes some negative opinions. Next time you see a breastfeeding Mum be positive; a smile, compliment, cup of tea or biscuit.