Don’t let the cute smile fool you

Bubba has been a terrible sleeper. The worst of my 3 kids. At 7 months, She had only managed a 4hr nap less than 5 times…. (some babies sleep 12hrs)
We reached out to a “sleep therapist” to help bubba sleep better… here’s our story 5 weeks on.

Before sleep training:
Bubba was co-sleeping in bed with me and waking 10 to 15
times a night for a comfort feed. Obviously I was tired and worn out. This wasn’t sustainable for bub either. Day sleeps were not much better she might sleep for 20mins here and there.

After sleep training
Bubba now sleeps in her cot.
On a good night she sleeps from 6:30-2am then will have a feed and sleep 2:15-6:30am.
However every night is different and she might cry at various times, sometimes she self settles other times I have to go in and soothe her, we are yet to master consistency.
During the day she now sleeps in her cot and naps can range from 40mins to 2hrs (on a good day)

At week 4 of sleep training she slept from 6:30pm to 6:30am!!!!

The journey
The training was hard but we started gentle by letting bub cry for 5minute intervals, picking her up and settling her before putting her back down, giving her a comfort feed when necessary. Each night extending the intervals and minimising touch and feeds. This was a draining process and I felt more exhausted than I was pre-training.
Some nights she would be unsettled for a 3 hour period, some nights she would go to sleep easy and wake up for a feed on schedule.

Our sleep therapist was there every day (for the first 2weeks) to check in to see how bubba was going and to offer suggestions on the next night.

5 weeks on she has made amazing progress. I’m sleeping much better now myself which has a positive flow on effect for my mood and energy. I
never realised how important a quality sleep was.

Looking back I wish I had done this earlier.

How do your kiddies sleep?

Would you consider a sleep therapist?

My girlfriends and I catch up a few times a year and there’s usually a new bubba in the midst. So we regularly share our birthing stories, the good, the bad and the ugly. My birth with Charlotte was quite an incredible experience, so I thought I’d write a blog post.

It was mid-afternoon on Tuesday 17th September, after a scheduled midwife appointment I began to feel mild contractions, as I was over 40 weeks I knew I’d be giving birth in the next 24hrs, which was quite a surreal feeling. I sent my husband to collect the kids from school, organised an early dinner and baths, notified the babysitter to be on-call, ordered some groceries online, and went for a walk around the block.

Not much was changing so my husband took the kids to their school concert while I had planned to have a rest, HA! The minute they left my contractions were intense and close together. I text my midwife, the babysitter and my husband all to standby as things had progressed. I was waiting for my waters to break before heading to the hospital, but my midwife said not to wait. Within half an hour my contractions were very intense and I knew I had to get to hospital, I notified everyone and while I waited for my husband to get home I had a hot shower.

On the way to the hospital my husband was eager to drive quickly but every bump on the road hurt so I kept telling him to take it easy. He was going to drop me off at the front of the hospital and park the car, I told him I could handle it a bit longer and we both parked the car and made the long(ish) walk to the maternity ward. I had to stop about four times to breathe through my contractions.

We met my Midwife Ros in the birthing suite at 7:15pm and I went straight into the dark bathroom and bounced on the exercise ball, this helped keep my mind off the pain and helped move baby into position. I felt things progressing further and knew I had to get into the bath (birthing pool) (In my previous birth this took some of the pain away).

I hopped into the water about 8:15pm, my contractions were sporadic but still intense, I just kept breathing through my contractions, my husband went to rub my shoulders at one stage and I shrugged him off, totally in my element of giving birth. The next 15 minutes came down to my mindset, as much as I wanted to give up, I kept giving myself an internal pep talk “I can do this” “no one else can do this for me” at this stage I was tempted to ask for gas (pain relief), but knew I would have to push soon and couldn’t have both so I pushed through. (Literally ha)

I wasn’t sure whether I should start pushing or not, so I gave it a try with my next contraction, as I did the baby’s head moved down slightly and I remember feeling like I was going to break something so I whispered my midwifes name so she could come closer to see if everything was ok, with my next contraction I was able to burst my waters and push baby’s head out, shortly after I remember my midwife saying “pick up your baby” and to my relief it was over! Baby was born at 8:35pm.

I nursed my baby for a while, sitting in silence, eyes closed feeling relief that the worst was over. It actually took me 10 or so minutes to look at my baby to reveal the gender.

My midwife kept saying “you are amazing, you could birth 5 babies”. My labour was silent, drug free, over within 2.5hrs, and was able to deliver baby safely in water. Her Apgar score was 10 and had 100% oxygen levels. Pretty amazing to look back on as far as births go. (Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of pain!!!)

Baby weighed 9pd 1oz, 54cm in length, head circumference 34cm. We had no names picked but after 30mintues we both agreed on Charlotte. This name kept popping into my head, my husband was lying next to me scrolling through a long list of girl names on google, and he put his phone down and said the only name he liked was Charlotte!!!! I couldn’t believe it, crazy. So it was meant to be. (Her middle name took 2 weeks to choose).

As I was under the care of the My Midwives team I had the option of leaving the hospital 4-6hrs after birth. So I was able to take baby Charlotte home, have a little sleep and introduce her to her brother and sister in the morning. I received daily visits from my midwife at home to check on my recovery and the babies’ progress. It made it easier to be at home so I could still be with my other children. However it was hard at times as it was the beginning of school holidays.

The first few days were a challenge as I had forgotten all the after birth pains, lack of sleep, and pain associated with breastfeeding a baby with lip and tongue tie. 4 weeks on and this has all balanced out and things are getting better.

A big thanks to Daniel from Murray Chiropractic for not only helping with my aches and pains during pregnancy but also addressing my fear around child birth and guiding my mindset into a better place so I could accept my contraction pains as my body’s natural process to deliver a beautiful gift. I believe this is why my birth was such a success. I remember Daniel saying “Acceptance of pain can be the difference between a 10 hour labour and a 2 hour labour”. I kept remembering this during my labour.

My personal midwife Ros Beard (My Midwives- Toowoomba) has been amazing all the way through my pregnancy, from my very first appointment at 7 weeks, to regular check-ups throughout. It was piece of mind having someone on- call (just a phone call or text message away) that was familiar with my history and previous pregnancies. She ensured I received regular blood tests, scans, made me accountable for taking my supplements and always checked on my health and wellbeing. She became a coach, and personal photographer during birth to capture those precious moments. She identified early on that Charlotte had lip and tongue tie so I was able to get this fixed early on.  It was also great to receive house call visits after birth to check on me and Charlotte, and I didn’t have to leave the house. If you are pregnant or considering having a baby I highly recommend this service.

National Diabetes Week 14^th– 20^th July 19

I’ve interviewed my friend Ammee who has lived with Type 1 diabetes for the past 20 years, being diagnosed when she was just 11. It was Ammee’s quick thinking and knowledge of the disease that made her vigilant in checking her daughters sugar levels that led to her daughter Alice being diagnosed with T1 diabetes at the age of 3.

Have a watch : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXBDU18VNQc 

Or continue reading as I outline what Ammee speaks of in her interview. Aspiring to raise awareness for T1 Diabetes, being an autoimmune disease which attacks healthy cells essentially killing the pancreas and not being caused by consuming too much sugar or having a poor diet.

Ammee speaks of her journey to get her daughter diagnosed and following her intuition to proceed with testing.

Ammee describes Alice as being confident and takes her daily care in her stride.

Alice still has partial use of her pancreas which has surprised her specialist who wants to use Alice’s data to raise awareness for early detection.

Alice is lucky enough to have a monitor which helps monitor sugar levels and insulin. However Ammee can’t fully rely on the monitor to provide accurate information so she still finger pricks 5 times a day.

Ammee has to carb count Alice’s food 15minutes prior to Alice eating, this is to balance insulin levels with the glucose in her body.

She has to do set changes of the monitor every two days to prevent abscesses from occurring. This involves a small needle inserted into Alice’s skin.

She speaks of the challenges they are faced with daily; mood, stress, sleep and seasons can all affect Alice’s sugar levels. Alice recently has low sugars due to her body’s natural response to burn energy to keep her body warm during winter. This can cause low sugar, and if not monitored can be fatal.

Alice is restricted when it comes to sleepovers because it’s hard for others to understand the monitor and count carbs

Ammee also addresses the challenges she has with the costs involved with the equipment needed to provide a monitor and ongoing care, she also talks about Alice’s side effects, of skin rashes, gastro, reflux and hormones.

Ammee bravely shares her personal story of not waking up one morning and being revived with a glucose kit (similar to an anaphylactic needle) Thankfully Alice has a monitor which can detect low sugars to avoid her body shutting down through the night.

My name is Victoria, I am a wife, mother of two, I have a big smile and even bigger heart, I’m a passionate foodie, health educator, Mad Food Science Instructor, advocate for children’s health, Cookbook author, small time blogger, I’ve dabbled in massage and essential oils and I am a supporter of low tox living.

As a massive introvert I struggle sharing my life and passion on such a public platform as Social Media, I’m a private person and have a massive fear of judgement. Recently I’ve realised my passion far outweighs the benefits to keeping to myself and I have messages that I want to share and SHOUT TO THE WORLD. #ThanksBreneBrown #Vulnerable

So here goes…

My story features a lot around my sons behavioural challenges, raising a newborn, dealing with a rouge child, working 50+ hours a week, a partner that was working equally if not more hours a week, I was living a life full of stress. As I began to seek out answers I came across a podcast on additives in food and how they affect behaviour (Thanks Additive-Free Lifestyle, Episode 5). I was mortified when I started reading packet labels. As I was at breaking point I went to extremes of removing all additives from our pantry and fridge. This meant extended shopping trips with what quickly became my reference bible, The Chemical Maze. Making these changes, also changed my son’s behaviour, so I knew I was onto something and we had to continue.

Since that day we have gone from supermarket swaps, to cooking more foods from scratch, reducing our sugar content immensely, reducing our gluten consumption, putting a particular focus on our individual gut health. We have also gone beyond looking at our food, to removing chemicals from our cleaning products and body products and more recently reducing our household need for plastic waste.

All these changes have led to better health within our family, reduced our stress, improved our relationships, happier kids, less emotional meltdowns, better behaviour, less illness (My son use to have a runny nose continuously for 6 months of the year) and a better work/life balance.

I had a passion driving me to make a change in children’s lives, a vision to teach parents how foods can affect our/children’s behaviour, introduce them to healthier homemade alternatives and to show parents that are struggling with behavioural challenges (like I was) that there is light at the end of the tunnel and to offer my support.

I was given the opportunity by The Root Cause to become a certified instructor of the Mad Food Science Program™. A program delivered to children in schools which focuses on eating more fruits and vegetable and minimising packet food. Running this program I have been able to fulfill the passion to make a difference by educating children and parents on healthier food choices. #IHaveAPurpose

So if you feel you can relate to my messages, or know someone who needs help and support in these areas please reach out. I’m always happy to answer your questions.