This past weekend we celebrated Grace’s first birthday.  Because I had a rough start to motherhood, to make up for it I decided we needed an extra special party and admittedly I went a little over-the-top.  We dressed the house in a vintage theme complete with bunting strung up across the living room, butterfly cakes and lolly bags with 80s retro lolly treats.  Clearly the party was as much for me as it was for Grace, but she didn’t seem to mind a bit.

A couple of times during the day I thought back to the year before and realised how quickly it had passed and how much had changed.

On reflection, this is what I wish I had known then.

You are the expert.

In the early days I took advice from anyone with any kind of medical background, convinced that ‘the experts’ had all the answers.  After all, they were experienced and I had never done this before, so of course they must know more than me, right? But what I learned was that every baby is completely different.  Something that works for one baby may not work for another.  No one knows your baby like you do, so be confident in your decisions and trust yourself.

You must be kind to yourself.

One of my greatest regrets in the first month or so was that I couldn’t successfully breastfeed Grace.  I agonised over the decision to stop and felt a huge amount of sadness and guilt.  But in hindsight my greatest regret was how hard I was on myself.  I gave it the best go that I could.  I consulted experts, but it didn’t work out for me.  Once I let go of the guilt and regret for how I wished things would be, I was so much happier.

You’ll appreciate the little things.

Having a baby has allowed me to really appreciate some of the little things that I always took for granted.  Now I love having the luxury to put my feet up for ten minutes and read a magazine and I watch with amazement as Grace discovers the exciting world around her.

You have an extraordinary capacity to love.

I knew I would love my child, but I didn’t realise what it would actually feel like.  There have been times when I’ve felt so much pride and love for Grace that I’ve had a physical reaction, a tingliness and lightness in my heart.  A thrill runs up my spine when I see her beautiful smile or cuddle her in my arms.  And it is the best feeling.  Ever.

So, happy birthday to my precious Grace. My bundle of joy.  We’ve come a long way baby.

Grace is 11 months old now and becoming more and more curious by the day.  It is wonderful to see her developing and changing but it also means that her same old toys are becoming just a tad boring for her.

Enter the BRIO Stacking Owl. I must confess that I’ve been a fan of BRIO since before Grace was born.  I love the look of their bright, simple, classic wooden toys, so I was very interested to see if Mr Owl was both fun for Grace to play with, as well as good looking.

Set free from his packaging, the first thing I noticed about Mr Owl was his overall feel of quality.  The wood had weight to it and the painted finish was ultra smooth and perfectly finished. Grace smiled at Mr Owl, held him and inspected him for a few minutes, and then she began to dismantle him.  He comes apart in five pieces and it was truly fascinating to watch Grace try to put him back together.

Her two favourite pieces were his wings and his head.  His wings are made from soft yet strong fabric that feels like suede. And his head has fabric ears and shiny eyes.

It was impossible to get a photo of Grace smiling with Mr Owl.  She was so absorbed in the process of putting him back together, Mum with her camera was simply an unwanted distraction!

Adam and I smiled with pride as we watched her determination in putting his wings on.  She understood exactly what she needed to do, and kept trying.  When I showed her how to do it and she finally got them on, her face just lit up.  She was so thrilled with herself.  It was beautiful to watch.

I was really impressed with the BRIO Stacking Owl. It really does develop skills and provide entertainment as well as looking fabulous.  That’s the thing with BRIO toys, even when they’re not being played with, they will look fantastic for years to come on display in your little one’s room.

As Grace approaches her first birthday, I’ve found myself thinking back over the past twelve months.  It has been a year like no other, with incredible highs and the lowest of lows.

When Grace arrived on August 20, I was exhilarated.  It was the best moment of my life.  I had been so worried about the birth and in the end, things went better than I could have hoped.  And I had a girl.  I have always wanted a daughter.  I know I would have loved my child no matter whether I had a boy or a girl, but I had secretly wished all those nine months for a daughter, and here she was.

We arrived home and I was glad to be back in my own environment.  But by week three or four, I felt a real change in myself.  We were at my parents-in-law’s house, sitting down to lunch for Father’s Day when I started to feel very strange.  I felt like I was not present, but that I was watching myself from a distance.  I felt like I was in a fog and couldn’t think straight.

I was exhausted from the relentless feeding regime but there was no relief.  I couldn’t sleep, my mind was racing with thoughts.  I felt anxious and constantly on edge.  I had absolutely no appetite, which is not like me at all, I usually love my food.  I dreaded the sound of Grace’s cry.  I felt physically sick at the thought of having to feed her because it was so painful. I didn’t want to get out of bed. I didn’t cry, I just felt numb.  And while a friend was finally getting the hang of breastfeeding, things were getting worse and worse for me despite expert help from lactation consultants.  I felt like I was the worst mother in the world.

I took myself off to my doctor because I knew that this was more than the ‘baby blues’ and that I needed help.  I told her how I was feeling and that I was a complete failure because I wasn’t coping and I couldn’t breastfeed, something that was meant to be the most natural thing in the world. My GP, who is such a compassionate woman put her arm around me and said “Suzanne, you know that Grace will be fine.  We need to focus on you. What she needs is a Mum who is happy and well” And then I finally broke down and cried.

I made it through the fog of Postnatal Depression because I got help.  By the time that Grace was four months old, I felt like my old self again and I was able to really enjoy being a Mum.  As women, so many of us feel that we have to be perfect and to portray an image of having it all together.  But there is absolutely no shame in asking for help, in fact it is the best thing you can do for yourself, your relationship and your little one.

Here are some other tips that helped me:

Just take things one day at a time (or one hour if it helps!).  Thinking too far ahead can snowball negative thoughts in your head.

Get some fresh air each day.  At my lowest point, I would walk to the end of our street and back.  Just five minutes, but it made a difference.

Tell yourself “this too shall pass”.  You won’t feel like this forever.  You will feel in control of your life again.

Don’t compare yourself to other Mums.  A colleague of mine took her little one in to the office 3 weeks after she was born.  It took me 8 weeks until I felt brave enough to venture out to the supermarket with Grace.

Don’t isolate yourself and assume that people will be judgemental.  One of the best things I did for myself and for Grace was to go to Mothers Group and to be honest about how I was feeling.  They’ve been an amazing support for me.

Ed note: Thanks Suzanne for sharing your experience with the bebe community. I too suffered from PND with bebe baby #1 and found that trying to fix it alone was the wrong answer.  I spent months isolating myself “until I got better” but in the act of isolating myself made it worse. I found getting help, fresh air, socialising with other Mums (to normalise the new parenting struggles ) and looking after myself were the key to getting out of the PND rut .  Thanks again for sharing. Careyx

I have lost count of the number of bibs I’ve bought since Grace was born.  I seem to be constantly on the look for that elusive, perfect one. The issues I’ve encountered with bibs are many and varied.  Everything from velcro losing its stickiness, being too thin to absorb mess, looking awful once washed and not to mention naff pictures and slogans. As one of my friends said the other week in mothers group; “Why can’t you buy a nice plain bib that does what it’s meant to and doesn’t have something embarrassing written on it like “quack if you love mummy!”"

So it was with great excitement that I opened my Road Test package to find two Eeni Meeni Miini Moh bibs.

The attraction was instant.  Firstly, I loved the muted, tasteful colours that you so rarely find in bibs.  Usually bibs are pink or blue, presumably to help strangers identify the gender of your child?

Secondly, you can immediately feel from the material that this is a high quality bib. The back consists of a very lush towelling material and the front is super soft cotton.  Much to my delight, the material gets even softer the more they’re washed.  Imagine your comfiest pair of trackies and that’s what they feel like.

The press stud closure at the neck gives the bib much greater longevity compared to its velcro counterparts. And the wide shoulders give added protection to clothing.  This is essential for us as Grace often gets distracted and looks over her shoulder during meal times to see if the television is on (it isn’t), getting food all over her clothes.

But most importantly, these bibs are super absorbent.  This is crucial if you have a little one like mine who delights in taking copious swigs of her sippy cup and then proceeds to let the water run right out of her mouth instead of swallowing it.

So, do the Eeni Meeni Miini Moh bibs tick all the boxes?  Let’s run through the criteria.   Large enough to protect clothes? Tick!  Does up securely at the neck? Tick!  No naff colours/pictures/slogans? Tick!  Looks stylish? Tick!  Will last the rigours of daily washing? Tick! Super absorbent? Tick! The Eeni Meeni Miini Moh bibs definitely tick all the boxes.  I wish I had a whole drawer full of them.  Well, I have four and counting…

Our daughter Grace has a beautiful bond with her Dad, Adam.  I was thinking the other day about our different approaches.  Though I don’t like to admit it, I do like things to be done a certain way and I am very much a routine person.  Think Monica from Friends and you can pretty much get the picture.

Adam is totally different but Grace loves him just as much.  Dads don’t always get a lot of credit when it comes to parenting, so this inspired me to think of the best things about Adam as a father.  And even though I know I’ve complained to him a lot about the little things; “the buttons go at the back of the dress, not the front”, “Grace doesn’t want to watch the footy replays” and “can’t you smell that nappy needs changing??” I really do think he’s a great Dad.

1.  He is laid-back and goes with the flow.

He is never watching the clock, wondering when Grace is due for her next sleep.  And much to my annoyance is very happy to share treats like a jam doughnut with Grace. Well, at least to let her have a lick of the jam.

2.  The world looks different from his perspective.

Literally.  I’m 164cm tall which I am happy to remind Adam is average height for a woman.  He is 194cm tall so everything looks a bit more exciting when Dad is holding her.

3. She has different hair to grab on to.

Grace absolutely loves to study and pull the hair on Adam’s chest, arms and legs.  Adam loves it much less, but with gritted teeth, will indulge her.

4. He can settle her just as well as I can.

In the early weeks, every night we seemed to experience the ‘witching hour’ that would start around 6pm and go on for what seemed an eternity.  Constant crying and fussing with no obvious problem would become exasperating.  In those days Adam would walk through the door to be greeted by me, exhausted, with baby headed in his direction, saying “can you please take her?”  Without fail, he could get her to sleep.  Now I know that some Mums find this annoying.  I just thought it was bliss!

5. He gives Mum time out when I need it.

The 24/7 nature of being a parent can sometimes feel overwhelming and having a break to go to the gym, catch up with a girlfriend or see a movie can be just what is needed to recharge the batteries.  On weekends Adam will offer to take Grace so that I can have some ‘me’ time.

So, thanks Adam.  I think Grace and I are very lucky.

I’m a huge believer in the benefits of swaddling a newborn.  I used to love wrapping Grace so that she was snug as a bug in her little cocoon.

And all was going well until she learnt the joys of rolling over in her cot.  She then decided, frustratingly for me, that the comfiest sleeping position she could find was no longer on her back, but on her tummy.

So this led me to find other ways to recreate this cocoon-like experience while keeping her arms safely free.  Grace has used a sleeping bag since she was eight weeks old.  But, trying to stick to a consistent routine, I only ever use it at night.

So I was intrigued to see how she would go using Nature Baby’s Organic Cotton Sleeping Gown for one of her day sleeps.

When I unwrapped the gown, the first thing I noticed was the softness and warmth of the fabric, it felt silky smooth to touch.

Being a very cold day in Melbourne, I slipped the gown over her play clothes and used the drawstring at the bottom.  This ensured that her little legs were safely cocooned (a recent favourite activity of Grace’s is to wedge her legs between the bars of the cot!).  The drawstring also makes it very quick and convenient if a nappy change is needed.

The sleeves have fold-over mittens, which would come in very handy for a newborn but weren’t needed for little G who had just had a manicure courtesy of me, that morning.

Once in her cot, Grace kicked around for a minute or two but then realised that she couldn’t reverse back and wedge herself on the bars, so she decided to go to sleep instead.  And as you can see, she woke up feeling pretty good.

The verdict?  Well, the Nature Baby sleeping gown is now a permanent part of daytime sleeps.  We like it a lot.  It’s beautiful quality and great value.  In fact, it’s now on my list of favourite gifts for a newborn.

I have always wanted to have children.  But I’ve always been rather worried about the labour part.  This developed into a full-blown fear a few years ago.  I was having lunch with a friend who was about eight months pregnant.  She started telling a traumatic birth story.  All of a sudden I felt a wave of heat, then clamminess, then dizziness.  As my friend kept talking, I was thinking “I’m going to faint, I’m really going to faint.  Would it be rude of me to excuse myself, or should I just faint here?”  Thankfully I made it to the bathroom where I studied my ghastly grey reflection.  After a few minutes, I composed myself and rejoined my friend.

I dismissed the incident as a freakish one-off trauma and figured I’d be fine when the time came to have my own baby. Apart from a shocking bout of fatigue in the first trimester, I felt great, positive and energetic for most of my pregnancy. But there was always a concern in the back of my mind about how this baby was actually going to come out.  Determined to be strong and shake off this fear, I decided to take hypnobirthing classes.  When I mentioned this to my sister, she almost choked on her lunch.  “What?” I said.  “Well, you have the lowest pain threshold of anyone I know”.  Thanks Kathryn.  “Plus, you are very Western in your thinking”.  Thanks again.  Unfortunately she was right.  During the class I tried so hard to concentrate and get into ‘the zone’, but other thoughts just kept popping into my head.  Important things like “I hope the patisserie doesn’t sell out of chocolate éclairs before this session is finished” or “I think this chair is from Ikea.  I wonder what colours it comes in?”.

I was diagnosed with mild pre-eclampsia at 34 weeks.  After days of continuous tests and monitoring, we met with my obstetrician and he said that we needed to make a plan to deliver the baby soon.  Panic set in as we talked through the different options.  A caesarean?.  No, I didn’t want one of those.  A vaginal birth?.  No, I didn’t want one of those.  Could he do an internal exam to see how things were going?  Sorry, no.  My underwear was staying firmly on.  I’m sure he thought I was insane.

In the end, I agreed to be induced.  My obstetrician recommended I have an epidural to reduce my blood pressure.  That was the best idea ever! After five and a half short hours of labour, I pushed that baby out and would you know, it wasn’t half as bad as I imagined.  I wrote in my diary that night “This has been the best day of my life.  My beautiful, precious daughter Grace arrived and I did it!  I’m so proud of myself”.

So there you go.  Happy ending.  And if you’re feeling worried about labour, just remember this.  If I can do it, anyone can do it.

 What would possess a thirty three year old woman to become friends with a giraffe on Facebook?  Well, my six month old daughter, Grace, has just discovered the phenomenonal joy of Sophie the Giraffe.

 Loved by French parents since 1961, Sophie provides blissful relief from troublesome teething.  While newborns are born with rooting and startle relexes, by four months or so, they appear to have developed a ‘Sophie reflex’.  Just watch a baby who is given Sophie for the first time.  She instantly knows she must devour her.  The only question is whether to go for the head or the legs first.   

Speaking of which, her nobbly head is perfect relief when those first teeth appear, while her legs are particularly useful when those awkward molars begin to surface.  Babies love the look of her spots, the smell of the rubber and the sound of her squeak.   

A brilliant gift for a newborn, join celebrity hip mums who have discovered the delights of Sophie; Isla Fisher, Naomi Watts, Nicole Richie…oh, and me of course. 

Meet Suzanne, one of our new resident Road Testers.  Suzanne is Mum to Grace and from Melbourne’s East.  Welcome aboard Suzanne! We look forward to reading Suzanne’s Road Tests and also her Guest Blogs