We’re all guilty of being a bit judgemental at times. Usually quite innocent or seemingly harmless. Spying on our fellow pedestrians and thinking “Ooh that’s too much make-up”, “I wouldn’t wear those trousers!”, “Who drinks Irn Bru for breakfast?!” A tiny, fleeting thought that we instantly forget and go about our day, entirely forgetting the badly drawn on eyebrows or the weird sandwich choice at lunch.

I think the strangest and most startling thing I discovered about becoming a mum is that on one hand, you’re invited into this lovely sorority of motherhood. You’re suddenly surrounded by a wealth of information and knowledge and experience all for the taking. On the other hand, you can also find yourself on the receiving end of a lot of judgment.

Disclaimer. I am beyond blessed. My Mammy Mates are amazing. They are smart, funny, loving, embracing, different but most importantly supportive. Not one of us is on the same baby journey. We all have tiny little humans to try to keep alive and a plethora of different ways to do it. And we do. Sure, we share tips and tricks but I know baby wearers, baby-led, spoon fed, co-sleepers, breastfeeders, bottle feeders, early weaners, late weaners, alpha mummies, tiger moms, hippy mammies, yummy mummies, slummy mummies (card carrying one right here).

It literally, figuratively, realistically, honestly does not matter. Has your baby recently been fed? Washed? Clothed? Slept? Had a bit of a cuddle? Boom. Job done.

What I have been noticing though is that through the media, social or otherwise, people have a lot of opinions about the “right” way to do things.

Personally, I follow the guidelines set by WHO and the NHS for general “this information will help you keep your small human alive” but the methods I apply tend to be things I’ve handpicked from the reading I’ve done.

Of course we all want to do the best we can do. Of course we want to feel like the decisions we make are the right ones. And of course there is lots of expert advice out there so it can be confusing.

My favourite bit of advice I was given when I was pregnant was to read everything I could and ignore the stuff I didn’t like.

Naturally, if someone asks how we feed Wee Daftie or what her bedtime routine is I’ll always answer honestly about what we do and why we do it. And if any one of my Mammy Mates want advice, I will do everything I can to help and support. But never judge.

What works for us, may not work for anyone else. People frequently say “every baby is different” which is so, so true. What is just as true is this every parent is different. And I think that’s the bit we need to remember.

Today was a fun day. I got to take my Wee Daftie to her first ever show in the Edinburgh Festival. 

Now. Working in hospitality in Edinburgh, the month of August can be mental. Working on the Royal Mile, running a cafe that was next to the Fringe Box Office, for four summers and four Festivals meant that I was a close as I could get to being I the Festival without actually having a show. (Though I frequently consider creating a one woman show, “Tangently Does It”) 

Working as the world’s greatest bar wench in the pub for as long as I have, I know what busy is. Tourists, regulars, performers, festival staff, all like to come and hang out for breakfast, lunch and dinner and then many after dinner whiskies. Unrelenting, unforgiving, unbelievable, unreal and my favourite time of the year. No matter how busy we get, I always make time to see shows and enjoy the amazing smorgasbord of culture, art, comedy, science, literature, performance art, dance, theatre, music, dance. And as many shows as possible. 

Last year, having a very new Wee Daftie to deal with meant I didn’t take full advantage of the greatest time of the year like I usually would. Understandable but also quite odd. I mean, I was still busy and we took a couple of days to wander the streets and gardens but no actual shows so the usual frenzy of Festival Nonsense with Numbnuts was definitely missing. 

Now that my Small Human is a slightly bigger human, I decided I need to continue on the path of making her like the things I like. That’s parenting, right? 

The first show was actually chosen for us by one of my Mammy Mates. She was taking her daughter so a group of us decided to all go together and introduce our small humans to some light opera. That’s right. The first show I took my Wee Daftie to was a show called “BambinO” by the Scottish Opera. 

I think Wee Daftie’s favourite part of the show was the ticket…

I have to admit, the show was fab. It was so great to have Daftie snuggled in and listening to the music. She sat up and seemed more interested when the baritone was singing (he was fantastic. It all was but he was exceptionally good) but she was more than happy to be part of an audience. You can never really tell how your small human will react in a new situation. Especially when the situation requires a bit of stillness and said small human is a fan of the exact opposite. 

It was so lovely for me to share one of my most favourite things (Festival shows) with one of my favourite people (I am talking about Daftie here. Not the baritone. No matter how good he was, I do like her more. Just.) 

The funniest part for me was when she decided to go for a walk for the last five minutes of the show. She can’t walk by herself yet but really like walking while holding hands. You can tell she wants to get moving by the way she slides down your legs, holds onto your hands and delicately lurches forward. It’s a subtle move and usually results in a very slow progress to nowhere. But it is fun and I love seeing her gaining more confidence in herself. 

She’ll be walking us both to the shows soon! 

There are plenty of ways of doing just about anything, especially where raising children are involved. Methods, theories, plans, notions, recommendations, tried and tested practises, newer ideas. 
One of the things I’ve discovered about having a baby is that I know nothing. But that’s a good thing. Means I can be open to what I think will work and a bit of reading and research can go a long way. 

So when it came to introducing solid food to my Wee Daftie, things for me were no different. 

Thanks to doing my antenatal classes through the NCT (love!) I was kept up-to-date of other courses that might interest me. One of which was about introducing solid food. Seemed like a fun day out, so Daftie and I went and sat on the floor of a room at Blackhall Library with a group of other mammies and talked food. (Love!)

It was genuinely utterly fascinating and I definitely felt like I walked away fully armed with knowledge and ideas. 

The emphasis was on baby-led weaning so no puree and jumping straight into solid foods. My health visitor (love!) had also gently recommended baby led to us and gave me my favourite bit of weaning advice. “Just because you are feeding a baby, doesn’t mean they need baby food.” This totally resonated with me and encouraged me to really look into the next, seemingly fun, part of my Mammy Life.

I could talk for hours about the personal benefits but the theory of baby led is that it teaches babies how to chew before swallowing, how to self regulate as they are the ones in control of how much or little they take in and, being exposed to an array of textures and flavours from the off, can help develop a good relationship with food. Now. This all may be nonsense. Gill Rapley, the woman who coined the phrase, may be off her rocker but I absolutely saw then, and still do now, the benefits for Daftie and me. It’s messy, it requires a lot of patience and a lot of trust to just let your Small Human work out food by themselves and it’s not for everyone. After doing my reading and research, I knew it was the path I wanted to try. 

One thing that both my HV and NCT course leader taught us was what signs in Wee Daftie to look out for that she would be ready for solid food. Being able to sit well upright (not totally unaided but not slouching in the highchair, for example), good hand eye coordination and a lessened tongue thrust. One and two were taken care of by 5 months so I decided to start cooking all my meals baby friendly (no added sugar or salt, no honey before 12 months and no whole nuts) so that I would be prepared for Daftie. What with my Big Human working away and the open plan living space, my girl has spent a lot of time around me cooking. It really wasn’t that surprising to me when she launched herself, face first, in my dinner one night. 

It was Christmas Eve, my Big Human had just returned home from a three month trip and my little idiot decided she wanted to eat. The decision of when to start, of what to offer, had all been taken from us and into her tiny wee hands. Don’t get much more baby led than that, amirite? 

I know I am biased, but I genuinely believe that my girl is the funniest. I definitely want to nurture this as comedy is very important to me, laughter is the best medicine and if you can’t laugh at yourself, how can you laugh at anyone else? Here is a small list of some things that made me giggle today…

Licked her own toes. Sat on the kitchen floor. Picked up her left foot and bent over to stick her big toe in her wee gob. Hilarious.

Rolled around the floor, giggling, before crawling over to her favourite reading spot like nothing odd had just occured. 

Started looking down the neck of her vest. I was washing up, my Big Human was cleaning the table and Wee Daftie was sitting in her highchair, giggling, and peering down the open neck of her vest like she’d never seen her tummy before.

Pulled a jumbo pack of maxi Tena lady pads from the supermarket shelf and was supremely displeased when we put them back. 

Decided to pull every paper item from my purse and sprinkle them behind the sofa. Meticulously, I might add. It was not a rush job.

Blew raspberries in my ear as I changed the most gigantic dirty nappy. Ever since she learned how to crawl, we haven’t changed any nappy with her lying down. Just not possible. So much wriggling. Please picture this, Wee Daftie standing, leaning on my shoulders, singing to herself and blowing raspberries in my ear. 

Fed me some of her lunch. This was after stealing my cereal from my bowl at brekkie. Obviously, this is a girl who likes to share food! Auntie Numbnuts will be proud.

Sat on the kitchen floor, pulled laundry from the basket and proceeded to put them on herself. Primarily a pair of undies as a snood. 

Attempted to climb into her toy box. Stood and performed perfect arabesques for about 5 minutes but never made it into the box. Sadly. Would have been hysterical! 

Things she did today that were less than amusing? Woke at 6am. 

Part of the reason for starting the blog again/properly, is to keep a decent record of what my Wee Daftie gets up to. Where better to start than the beginning? And who doesn’t love a good labour story? I know, right? Read on at your own peril…

One weird thing I learned about discovering you are late into your pregnancy, when you finally find out about it, is that it is harder to date it precisely. Usually, when you go for your first scan, there is a margin of error of two days. When you find out that you are pregnant at 24 weeks (and 5 days), the error can be two weeks, either way. 

Because of this, and my annoyingly high-ish blood pressure, I knew that if my Wee Daftie hadn’t made an appearance by Friday 8th July 2016, we had a noon appointment to have my waters broken. 

How cute was I all fat and preggo, by the way? 
My hospital bag had been packed pretty much from when I had finished work and moved in with my Big Human so when we headed into the hospital that morning, I was prepared. Not for everything but I did have comfy clothes, lots of disposal pants (I heard that was a thing), healthy snacks and water, clothes for the baby, nappies and the most hilarious birth plan ever written. No, really. One of my midwives giggled as she read it and actually thanked me for writing it. “What are your expectations of labour? Literally none, apart from a baby at the end of it. Oh and lots of swearing throughout.”

Having never had a baby before, I was more than happy to put my entire faith into the medical team. And I can honestly say they were amazing. They treated all three of us beautifully. Even though we weren’t on the labour ward for that long, I genuinely felt like they all took some time to get to know us a bit. It was ace. That said, the only thing I didn’t want was to take morpine unless absolutely necessary. I’d never taken any major pain medication before and I was unsure of how my body would react. This may be surprising to hear, but I don’t like to feel out of control so facing a strange event (birthing a small person is pretty odd, if you ask me) I wanted to be as present as possible. 

This turned out to be a good thing as gas and air sent me loopy, so goodness only knows what anything stronger would have done. I lost a good 1.5 hours of my life that day but, according to my Big Human, I didn’t miss much. I remember finding it more comfortable to be in a sumo position when the contractions hit. I remember throwing a few arabesques in for good luck and that my Big Human kept having to fix the gas/air breathing device as I kept biting down and pulling it apart. 

What I don’t remember is trying to crawl under the bed and away from the pain – a valiant but realistically pointless endeavour. I don’t really recall my midwife being on the floor with me holding the pads monitoring Wee Daftie on my tummy and I definitely don’t remember the doctor and two more midwives coming into the room. 

Apparently, having 7 contractions every 10 minutes wasn’t ideal so the other staff were there to consult and help. So when I stopped floating about on the ceiling and started coming back down to earth (my Big Human had given up fixing the breathing device so I was finally breathing regular air again for the first time in over an hour), I started to get a little paranoid. There was clearly some conspiracy afoot. These new people had arrived because I was bad at this. I obviously wasn’t good at labour so they were here to do something about it! 

My Big Human started to help me back onto the bed so I had to ask, as rationally as possible, what was going on. I think my exact words were…”Why are you moving me? I am doing it wrong?” 

“What? Labour?”

“Yeah. I am just bad at it? I need help, because I’m not getting it right?”

Confused silence. 

“No? They just need to examine you.”

Which made more sense. Still a bit spaced, I settled back down on the bed and it was decided (definitely not by me. I had no idea what was going on. Clearly.) that it was time to start pushing. With the help of the midwives, the doctor, a ventouse cup and words of encouragement from my Big Human (“Come on. Just a bit more.” “Nope. Done. Not doing aaaaany more. Done.” Pause. “Well, you have to. Baby’s not coming out otherwise.” Sigh. “Fine!”) Wee Daftie was born at 10:52pm. Less than 11 hours from when we arrived. 

Despite the fuzziness of most the experience, I was fully there when my girl was given to me for the first time. When our midwife popped a tiny hat on her head. When she just lay on my chest, all small and gooey. When my Big Human held my Small Human for the first time. 

Glad I didn’t miss those bits. 

So, I did a thing in March where I was raising money for Cancer Research. I kept a daily blog to keep myself accountable but found that, while useful, it was also super enjoyable!

My Wee Daftie is a huge idiot and this makes her pretty fun to write about. 

Now that she has made through her first year, and so have my Big Human and I, I have found that it’s been lovely to have had a written account for that month and I want to continue on. So this is where we start. 

Even if no one reads it, at least I’ll be able to look back and think “Oh I remember that! Weren’t you a good baby then? What happened?” 

Sleep! 

I have regularly been bad at sleeping. All my life, really. I was convinced when I was pregnant that I would suss out how to encourage good sleep in my Wee Daftie. 

I haven’t. 

She isn’t a bad sleeper. She’ll go to sleep with minimal effort when it’s bedtime and when she’s​ genuinely tired. We did establish a really nice evening routine for her when she was weeks old. We did this mainly for us as parents but she has taken to it like a baby to sleep. (On her face, arse in the air)

We’ve had a few interesting periods with her sleep since she arrived. Classic catnapping, only on me usually but not exclusively, during the day to begin with. Lots of falling asleep on the boob. There’s a weird feeling of fear and trepidation when your newborn is asleep on you and you really need to move but moving will result in an awake and crying baby. Pinned to the sofa, trapped by the smallest individual.

Learning how to move and crawl made for a very hard few months. She would roll in her sleep and wake up crying. I can only assume she got a fright. She was over 6 months so we just started putting her to sleep on her tummy as she had great head control. This absolutely helped…until she learned how to crawl.

Sleep crawling is a thing, by the way. That was a fun ten days of scooping Wee Daftie up and putting her back down after she had banged her head on the top of the cot.

What we’re facing at the moment is my worst nightmare​. I can handle the constant waking. Teeth 3 and 4 resulted in waking up every two hours the days before they cut. We’ve done a bit of co-sleeping when she was ill and also when she flung a bowl of water over her bed, bedding and mattress just as she was due to get in her bed. I have no problem when she wants a sleep on Mammy nap. I can happily survive, thrive even, on no sleep whatsoever. What I don’t like is early mornings! 

I’m just not built to be an early riser. Not grumpy or irritable, just better functioning at other, later, times of the day. We were spoiled by a 7:30/8am rising baby. The past week? Somewhere between 5 and 6. Now. I fully appreciate that this is normal. I totally get that parents the world over do this every day. I have just gotten used to my late riser so this week has been a huge shock to my night owl system. 

She’s happy though and that’s the important bit. 

So let’s talk about teething. 

Poor Wee Daftie is struggling with teeth three and four. I know I’ve mentioned that she isn’t an amazing sleeper before but when the teeth are on the move, my goodness everything goes out the window! Bless her. 

We’re definitely lucky that it’s really just the nights that was interrupted (bear with me here. It makes sense, honest) For about a week, I might get woken 3/4 times a night for a cuddle, a suckle and back to sleep but at least the daytimes aren’t bad. And her eating hasn’t been effected. I know it’s common for babies to be put off their food when they are ill or teething. So it’s a blessing to know that while other aspects of life go a bit haywire, at least I know she will she shove food into her face. 

There are a million things to help ease teething but the things that work for us are things like chilled melon to suck and chew on. Apples are good too as the chewing action can help soothe the gums as the teeth move about. We also have a couple of gels and teethy powder.

The worst thing about teething, in my opinion, is that because the pain comes and goes, it can be hard to know when to medicate. I don’t really relish in the thought of continually dosing Wee Daftie up with baby ibuprofen so it can be a case of soothing when the pain hits, rather than being a bit preemptive. Which I would rather. The planning, organised parts of me would absolutely prefer some notice! 

A Mammy can wish, right? 

The Apple Thief strikes again! 

So we took Wee Daftie out for her first proper trip to the beach today. We’ve been for walks and poked the sea with her toes before but not an actual, vaguely planned, adventure. 

My Big Human is around for a couple of weeks between jobs so we took advantage of the weather and both of our empty schedules to take a jaunt to Portobello. 

We picked up a few supplies from the supermarket, with some homemade snacks for Daftie and set off! My wonderful Mad Aunt Hil gave Daftie her beach gear and, though she looks like a jockey, she was brilliantly covered in her gorgeous outfit. 

One thing I am discovering the longer I spend pretending to parent, is that 99% of what I do is for someone else. Now, I’m not saying that to be all saintly and alpha mummy (we all know I’m not) but i definitely put of lot of effort into making sure my Humans are taken care of that some aspects of my own care do fall by the wayside. Specifically, my shoulders. My pink, sun-glazed shoulders. Baked til magenta and glistening in the lovely warm sun. So preoccupied was I with making sure Daftie was covered, that the salt content in the treats we bought would be okay, that we had plenty of water and that Big Human had remembered the towels, I entirely neglected to cover myself sunscreen. 

I regret nothing though. My shoulders may be pink and stiff but our family day out was just lovely. Daftie had an absolute ball. We narrowly avoided the jellyfish and only had to reel my girl back from crawling out to sea an approximate 6 times. 

Watching my little girl experience things for the first time is honestly one of the greatest feelings ever. Completely cheesy and cliche but, ultimately, true and fantastic. 

Captured just moments before she tried to crawl out to sea.

Ladies and gentlemen. Daftie and I have finished our month of walking over cancer, 10,000 steps a day for the month of March. Before I tell you about our day, would you like some stats? Of course you would. 

Grand total of steps from 1st – 31st March 349,132, an average of 11,262.32 steps per day. Worst day was 13/03/17, chiming in at 10,086. Best day was in fact today. A staggering (and let’s be honest, that’s what I’m doing now) 16,300. Phew. What a journey! It has been such fun and I am so…So many things right now.

A showery start to the day had me worried that today’s final jaunt would be a soggy one. Still, up and at them for music class, the last one before Easter. 

Music class was a lot of fun again today. I do love the class. I’m sure (I hope? I guess? I assume?) Daftie likes it too but it can be so enjoyable for me and I love my Mammy Mates at this class so much. Even when we get told off by Rachel…

After class, Daftie and I took a wee wander over to the modern art galleries to meet Numbnuts for some culture, some walking and some lunch. We had a good nosy at the art, stopping for a bit to look at one of my favourites by Roy Lichtenstein. I am not a huge arty person but I know what I like and I totally believe in having a good interest in many things is good for the soul. 

Daftie had a good crawl about some of the exhibits – nothing near a statue or anything breakable. She also had one of the stewards laughing as she sped across the reception floor. She also made pals with a table of French tourists, who made a point of stopping to say “Bon jour”, which was sweet. They did also think that my poor baldy Baba was a boy but we let that slide. Bless her and her naked head. 

Taking advantage of the sunshine, we took a walk through Dean’s Village and on down to Stockbridge. Such beautiful buildings in this area. Edinburgh is so gorgeous. Have I said this before? I don’t think I say it enough. Totally gorgeous. 

Finished off our epic walk by heading to Canonmills, down Bonnington and half way home via Ocean Terminal again. Very reminiscent of yesterday’s walk but still so lovely. Very blessed with good weather today! 

Arrived home to a Big Human waiting for us, which was awesome. I knew he was due home tonight but I wasn’t sure when so to see him waiting for us was such a lovely surprise. 

Wee Daftie, breaking and entering, eating soft tortilla wraps. 

I’m ending my month of walking and blogging with this. I wrote this about two months ago, on a bus, after an conversation with a woman in ASDA. She asked, with no ill intent, if Wee Daftie was good. It just got me thinking about babies and parents and life. The following rhyming verse is the result. 
Thank you for a joyous month of walking and listening to me ramble. Thanks for the donations, the walking buddies, the support. Hopefully we’ve helped to achieve something wonderful for someone else’s future. Be good. Be joyful. Be thankful. Be daft.

​Is your baby good?
Out and about, with my baby in tow. 

I say in tow, actually strapped to my chest

She’s sweet looking thing, always beautifully dressed

People stop to talk, to smile and coo

“Isn’t she lovely, she looks just like you”

Just when I think it’s all going well, they say those words

That make my hackles swell…
Is she good? 
I’m stumped, I stall I don’t want to be negative, ungrateful or crude

But isn’t that question frightfully rude?

The answer is no, no she’s not. She is 6 months old and a bit of a clot. 

She doesn’t sleep through the night, she bites at my digits,

When changing her nappy, she fights and she fidgets 

When on her changing mat, she squirms and she rolls

ESPECIALLY when I need to clean the poop from her folds

She makes quite a mess, she is difficult to dress

(Literally I mean, figuratively she’s a dream)

She’ll ignore her fancy toys, and rip happily at paper

And always, always wants to eat my face cream

Unless you’re me, and occasionally her dad,

Most people think she is terribly serious or a little bit sad

Truth be told, she’s eyeing you up, taking it in

And when she’s ready, you’ll have earned a grin.
Nor is she bad.
She’s 6 months old and a funny wee thing

She stares rapt when I start to sing

She’ll play with an envelope for the longest time

Take her on the bus and you’ll never hear her whine

She’s great at rolling over, and as strong as an ox

She loves eating dinner, the carpet, her shoes and socks

She’s a right little weirdo, her glorious chatter will make you grin

In the funny baby states, I definitely did win.
So, please, in the future, when meeting a baby

Don’t ask how they sleep, or if they eat their food

Everyone is different, every parent, every child, every day

And none is bad, and mostly it’s good 

But in asking those questions, we feel such a pressure

To confirm our precious baby is perfect, is “good”

When really, they are just being babies, just like they should.