paternity-leave-interview

A husband’s view of paternity leave and returning to work

Going back a couple of generations, looking after the home and children was very much thought of as “women’s work”. However, with the rise of stay-at-home dads and dads seeming to be more hands-on in general, I wondered what my husband’s thoughts were. He’s wonderfully hands on with Autumn and has expressed in the past that he is worried about missing her doing different things like crawling and walking for the first time. I thought I’d do a little interview with him about his thoughts on paternity leave and working, leaving his baby at home.

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I hated my daughter's name

When you’re pregnant you spend hours looking at baby names with your partner, trying to pick the perfect one for your unborn child. My husband and I were no different; hours were spent searching the internet looking for inspiration. So, it pains me to say that for a period of time, I couldn’t stand my daughter’s name, despite the fact that I was the one who had chosen it. Hearing her name made me flinch; I felt like I wanted to change it to something else…

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30 things to do before 30

As my friends keep reminding me, as I have recently turned 25 I am now closer to 30 than I am 20! Quite frankly, this kind of scares me as time seems to have gone so fast since I was 16 and seems to go quicker each year. As such, I felt the need to make a list of things I’d like to do before I turn 30. Hopefully I can achieve quite a few of these, so even if the time goes quickly, I’ll feel like I’ve achieved a lot with it!

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When do you start feeling like a mother?

It was late January 2016 that I took my positive pregnancy test, so I’ve been thinking a lot about this time last year. I was thinking about when I started being a mum and when I started feeling like a mum. Without getting into a pro-life vs. pro-choice debate, I’d like to share my story and discuss with you when you first started being a mum.

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Autumn's 3 most favourite books, March 2017

Inspired by World Book Day tomorrow, (2nd March 2017), I thought I’d write about some of the books Autumn has in her collection or has borrowed from the library. Since Autumn was only a 6 week old baby, I’ve been buying and reading books to her often.

It’s never too early to start reading to babies, as it helps them to learn and it’s another activity you can do to help develop their senses. To begin with, black and white books are best as they can’t see especially clearly and they enjoy looking at the contrast. As they get to a couple of months old, they start to pay more attention to bright colours. As a 5 month old, Autumn now absolutely loves books, especially if they’re brightly coloured! She really looks at them and interacts with them by touching them and trying to hold them. Sometimes she even tries to turn the pages by herself!

Autumn seems to have three favourite books currently:

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