Baby Tooth Progress

I thought I better update on how Finley's teeth are coming along 

Firstly it has taken so much longer than I thought for them to get growing, his first little tooth arrived on the 10th September and it is still only half the way up over a month later. If you missed that post you can have a gander here

I have tried so many times to get a good picture of his bottom teeth but of course he is that baby that as soon as you move his lip his tongue comes flying out. I had to be like a sniper with the camera to get any pictures so some are a little blurry....plus some are a food covered Finley as I tempted him with lunch to open his mouth haha. 

left tooth is 3 weeks old - right tooth is 1 week old

 The second tooth seems to have caught up with the first, it had a little growth spurt a few days ago - you can probably tell with all the rosey cheek pics on previous posts. I have noticed that the pain seems to get to him for 2-3 days them subsides for a few days. Poor little Sausage, I'm sure I read somewhere once that if adults had to go through the teething process we wouldn't be able to cope as the pain is so bad! 

See how the right tooth has caught up

Now we just have to wait for the dreaded top teeth to arrive, I'm a little sad if I'm honest, I have noticed that on so many other babies that it changes their face and expressions so much, plus they don't look like babies anymore :( But I'm sure if anything it will make him look even more handsome.

Let me know if you have any other teething questions :)

Love Kayleigh x

Sundays are made for...

Finley Kisses

Love Kayleigh x

Saturday Playdate

Finley has just gone down for his afternoon snooze so here I am to jot down the afternoons events. 

There's not much more to do on a rainy Saturday afternoon other than letting mummy Finley play with toys :) 

We dug into the toy basket and plucked out a few of Finley's faves to mess around with, however he seems to be teething a lot at the moment so he sat and chewed whilst I played with everything! 

He has his own little corner in our living room where we keep everything 'Finley', he has his toys, some of his books and his much loved Jumperoo.We recently bought some foam matts from Ebay to cushion that tiny bum and to protect his little head if he falls. 

We had great fun messing with toys, pressing buttons on phones and using rattles as mini hammers, he is so much more focused with his play now. For example is he drops his toy he will shuffle over to pick it up, rather than moving on to the next bright coloured thing he spots. 

Here are a few photos of his most loved toys

Every little boy needs a Peter Rabbit

And just to top off this already very heavy picture post here is another beauty.

Overall we had a great little afternoon clanging toys together, chewing on poor Sophie Giraffe and laughing at his singing pig. These moments might not seem like much when you do them all the time but I like to stop and reflect as one day he will be running out of the front door to play with his friends!

This is my new mission to capture not only the big milestones and events that happen but the daily 'loves' that we will have with Finley. 

Let me know how you plan to cherish your lovely baby memories :) 

Love Kayleigh x

 

Im so fat now I have had a baby...

Well that is a slight lie, I have always been on the chunkier side of the scale but I want to let you know how I feel about my post baby figure. 

Ever since I can remember I have carried a little more 'love' than others and of course I have had the depressed 'I hate my wobbly thighs so much' phase and the Weight Watchers 'Salad for me, I'm on a diet' weeks. But do you want to know why I'm still fat, I love eating more than I desire to be thin. That's all it is, as simple as that.  

I never really gained too much weight when I had Finley, I couldn't tell you exactly as the midwife never weighed me once! Maybe she could sense my fear of scales hahaha but I still fit in the majority of all my clothes I wore before I was pregnant.

The only difference I have noticed is the belly has more wobble than it used too, I'm guessing this is due to all the stretching and baby growing that took place in there. But I'm totally fine with it, it wasn't like there was no wobble before! Plus it reminds me how amazing it was to be pregnant and what my body was capable of.

This is not to say I will never want to loose any weight ever again, of course I want to have a gander round Topshop and actually buy jeans that fit but right now I'm happy with who I am. Every time I get that 'fat' feeling I think 'you only had a baby in January' calm down, there is no rush! If/when I do decide to loose a few lbs it will not be until next year, I want to enjoy my maternity leave and savour every moment with Finley without worrying about loosing inches from my bingo wings. But if you have started loosing weight, wowzers I don't know how you do it, I'm too much of a snacker whilst not in work!

I'm making a stand for all those mums out there that haven't lost their baby weight, that don't have time to exercise every day and those that are actually proud of their wider hips and post baby glow.

What does annoy me is the press - the amount of pressure mums feel to spring back into shape within a matter of weeks is madness. They bombarded us with images of perfect looking women 3 weeks after birth, Louboutins on, full face of make up, hair washed and curled! How? Finley is 9 months old and I would say 90% of the time my hair is in a top knot and I have comfy pants on. Jessica Simpson is a perfect example, the press blasted her for gaining weight with her daughter and now they are all praising her for loosing so much weight so quickly, I'm sure if we all got paid 4 million dollars we would do it too.

Rant over :) I just wanted to say there is no rush or panic to look like you used too, but if you have managed to loose your weight that's amazing...I couldn't do it yet. All i'm trying to say is embrace whoever you are and once you have done that you will be so much happier. The chub-spiration pictures I have posted all through the post are courtesy of Pinterest.

If you have read this and want to tweet me its @beautylifebaby and make sure to #loveyourchub

I would be very interested to hear your views on this topic and if you have lost any weight since giving birth, how did you do it? 

Love Kayleigh x

Online Window Shopping

So it's Saturday night, X-factor is on, Matt and I have had our ritual weekly takeaway and Finley is sound asleep snoozing in bed. I have been pondering all day on what to write about, there are just too many ideas whirling around in my head to focus on a review or update. So I have opted to deviate from the plan and go for a 'wish list' post. **It's now Sunday morning, I think I jinxed myself by writing the words 'Finley is sound asleep', and after 5 minuets he woke up**

If your anything like me when you browse online you will click 'add to basket' on loads of lovely items, filling your virtual basket to the brim with goodies galore then at the last minute you think 'hmmmm do I really need this?'  and click off the page leaving your basket of treats behind. *sad face*

After browsing for about an hour online at Next and then seeing the almost bank busting checkout price I bottled it and decided to post all my lovelies here instead. 

Here are a selection of what 'would have been' some of Finleys A/W12 wardrobe. 

As he is only just wearing 9-12 months clothes I think I may hold of purchasing until he gets a little fatter and is wearing 12-18 months, at least that way I know he is getting 6 months wear out of everything, especially if your spending nearly £72 wowzers! He has everything he needs until he hits 1 but I just cant stop myself swooning over beauties like these.

I'm not usually one for buying masses of brand new clothes for Finley but I thought I would share what I would get if we had the pennies sat in the bank. For now I will head back over to the much more bank friendly website Ebay to get a few baby bargains :)

Let me know if you daydream about all the lovely baby clothes online? Or if you stick to  mainly second hand like me? 

Love Kayleigh x

Cripes what has happened to my babies face?

Look at that little face, I cant even remember him being so tiny and squishable.

Today I wanted to let you all know about baby acne and how it effected Finners. 

One morning I woke up and all of a sudden I noticed these tiny little red lumps on Finley's cheeks, they looked like little like heat lumps but were more raised....just like spots I suppose. He didn't seemed phased by it and the health visitor confirmed it was nothing to worry about. Later that evening in his bubbly bath when I was washing his hair tiny flecks of skim were peeling off his head, like a shedding snake. As I washed his face the same was happening. As usual I took to the Internet 'what is this, why does he have it, is it my fault' I'm surprised my laptop keys haven't worn out. 

From the research I did he had a combo of baby acne and cradle cap that spread from his head to his face. 

  He was just over 3 1/2weeks old in the picture and I would say this was the worst it ever got.

Cradle Cap and Baby Acne both appear in the first couple of weeks after birth but can last a while - some people have said anything from weeks to years. Luckily for us Finley's was only a few weeks, and the worst of it cleared up in a few days. Fun fact for you - some scientist say that Baby Acne can be caused by a surge of hormones at the end of pregnancy that lead to the break out....hmmmm what do you think?

We managed his cradle cap by using Dentinox Cradle Cap shampoo. It was exactly like normal baby shampoo and he had no adverse reactions. The smell was fine....unlike their colic drops - I'm surprised people even buy those! After a couple of washes it seemed to improve and he wasn't peeling half as much :) A very cool alternative is expressed Breast Milk :)

Finley was looking less like a scaly lizard and mummy stopped panicking. The acne did take slightly longer to heal but I think this is down to him catching the spots with his tiny fingers.

After all the worry he was back to normal within 1 month looking as cheeky as ever. 

So any worried mums out there reading this now don't fret, it will get better but if your really worried just pop him/her to the doctors for a look....don't ever feel put off seeing your GP that is what they are there for :) 

Let me know if you had a similar experience to this or even if your baby had this later on in life? 

Love Kayleigh x

 

Finleys Mega Manicure Tip

I don't know if all babies have superhuman fingernails that grow at the speed of light or if it is just Finley. I wanted to share my secret on how to give your baby the perfect safe manicure.

When Finley was tiny I was far too nervous to use nail clippers anywhere near his wavy, jumpy newborn hands so I just bit the little tips of his nails off after his bath. He never used to mind and because he was asleep most of the time he didn't even know it was happening. 

My challenge began when he became aware of what I was trying to do, pulling his hands away thinking I was playing some weird hand game. I thought to myself, if I file my nails then why shouldn't I file Finley's? 

Hmmmm now to grab an emery board and get cracking....I thought. Boots sell teeny tiny little emery boards but they are still very rough to the touch and with his nails being so thin they bend as soon as you push against them. 

On a quick side note soon after giving birth I randomly stopped biting my nails, I'm not sure why it was just one of those things that happened. Maybe because I didnt have chance to bite them holdinf/feeding a baby 24/7 haha. Because of my new found nail love Matthew treated me to some products from Leighton Denny. In the set he got me was this Crystal Nail File. Hmmmm I had an idea. 

 The file itself is brilliant, smooth, sleek and easy to use. It comes in an aluminium case so you can carry it around in your bag with no worries of it getting broken or use it as I do as a baby distraction tool for one hand whilst I file the other. With regular emery boards you have that sharp edge where the cardboard ends and it can slice your finger if you pull it down at the wrong angle. With Leighton's file it is rounded all the way around and completely smooth, ensuring a panic free baby manicure. The file itself is so smooth, when you run in along the nail it turns the filings into dust rather than breaking the nail off and catching, that is also a bonus because if you catch their little fingers they wont even notice. 

It takes me two minuets to file Finley's nails now with no tantrums or worry that I will hurt his tiny little fingers. I would say on average I file his nails once a week before they are getting a little sharp again.

Overall a fantastic product from Leighton both for me and Finley, you can get yours here and as an added bonus you get a 25 year guarantee so if for any reason it looses its file-ability you can get a new one :) 

Let me know if you do anything similar? Or if you struggle to keep those little hands still enough to file. 

Love Kayleigh x