My baby essentials

A few people have asked me what the most useful or essential items you need for a new baby and the reality is this: all your baby needs in the beginning is clothing, a safe place to sleep, a car seat, and some means of getting from A to B (e.g. a pram or a sling – though I would recommend both). You do not need to spend huge swathes of precious maternity money on much else. That said, I’ve compiled a list of the things that I have personally found most useful.

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Birth

I love a good birth story. Before I was pregnant I would spend ages reading them. Birth always seemed to be this bonkers, beautiful, visceral experience. No two births seemed to be the same. Birth is simultaneously familiar and yet completely unknown: you did biology at school, you’ve seen birth in movies, you’ve watched One Born Every Minute, you’ve read...

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Three months in

When my son was three weeks old, I wrote a little brain dump post of the things I had learned so far. He’s now nearly four months old and I’ve learned a heck of a lot since then. Below is another brain dump of the advice/thoughts/tips from a mum who’s three months in. Again, let me stress that I have...

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On breastfeeding

For the last three months, I have been using my boobs to feed my son. It still blows my mind that this is A Thing, and that my enormous son has grown so large and rambunctious because of my boobs. Breastfeeding is truly a unique experience – and one that I do not take for granted. When asked while pregnant...

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Postpartum

None of my jeans fit. This shouldn’t really be a surprise given I only gave birth a few weeks ago but still. My jeans don’t fit. I have never enjoyed an easy relationship with my body but I loved being pregnant. I was very lucky to have a smooth and easy pregnancy and it felt like my body was finally...

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Stretched

As my son’s head descended inside my pelvis I had the distinct and overwhelming feeling that it wasn’t going to fit. It was too big, it wasn’t going to work, and I’d quite like to go home, finish watching Buffy, and forget this silly baby business thank you very much. “It’s too big!” I gasped at my midwives, eyes frantic....

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Practical tips for parents-to-be from a (very) new mum

Hello! I had my first baby three weeks ago. While it’s all fresh in my mind, I thought it would be worth writing down all the practical things I’ve learned so far, with first time parents-to-be in mind. This isn’t particularly elegant or deep I’m afraid – turns out it’s quite hard to write beautiful prose on broken sleep…! Some...

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South Africa travel tips – Cape Town

We visited South Africa in November and had the trip of a lifetime. I’ve been recommending it to virtually everyone so thought it was high time I write up some recommendations for anyone who’s thinking of visiting. I’ve outlined what we did below and over the next few posts I will cover Cape Town, Franschhoek, Hermanus, Wilderness, Knysna, Plettenberg Bay,...

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