gurgle.com blog

Potty training a toddler and breastfeeding a small baby means that sometimes both things happen in inappropriate places!

Places I have breastfed both my girls include:

Yo Sushi (no one noticed, I was very discreet and Pops was in a sling)
BMI business lounge toilets (too many suits to whip a boob out so I headed sheepishly to the loos)
Practically every Mothercare in the UK (they have great feeding rooms)
Starbucks
On an Aer Lingus flight, a BMI Flight, an Iberia flight and a British Airways flight
In the front seat of my car in a lay-by on an A road off the M4
In a marquee at a friend's wedding (I've also expressed milk in a room at the bride's parent's house when someone walked in and asked me, 'what the hell are you doing!')
Many many times in our local park
At the Giant's Causeway on the North coast of Ireland
At Petersham Nurseries in Richmond (there were a few of breastfeeding at the time)
My local pub (I was in the beer garden and I don't think anyone noticed)
On the 52 bus going into town...

So far I have cleared up 'little accidents' from potty training in...
Every room in my house, particularly the carpeted rooms
My car
Nursery
My sister's house
My parent's house
My in-law's house
Our garden
My neighbour's garden
My friend's garden and house
My husband's work (no-one knew...I hope...)

I'm also very proud of my husband this week who phoned up LBC - London's talk radio station to stand up for breastfeeding. The presenter was slating women who breastfeed in public, particularly in restaurants. He also thought that families should have segregated sections on planes so that travellers without children weren't irritated by kids! My husband's arguments were quite simple.

a) If they expect couples with babies to NEVER go out for about a year after they have babies then fine, but the fact that there are places we know we can go and eat and DISCREETLY breastfeed, means we can have a semi-normal existence.

b) Most women we know who breastfeed are very discreet about it

c) For all those who can't stand public breastfeeding, there are plenty of women who can't stand the sideways glances and the dissaproving looks whilst they feed their babies.

And as for the aeroplane issue, well, families being segregated - i'd thought we'd moved on from putting people to the back of the bus!

Anyway, it was very funny listening to my husband standing up for my discreet but public breastfeeding! Thanks....

Ok, The Bean is just over two, but holidaying with small children is hard work and rewarding! The nicest part was having my husband around the whole time which meant I could have a few luxuries like indulge in an hour long bath (I haven't had a bath since Pops was born, it's quick showers for me I'm afraid), and read a novel (Two doors down, by Annie McCartney - very good but I didn't get to finish it because it's pretty difficult to breastfeed and read/turn the pages over at the same time).

Both girls behaved impeccably on holiday. We were only in Ireland, but the weather was fantastic so it felt like Spain until we dipped our toes into the Atlantic and remembered we were on the north coast of Ireland - Brrrrrrrr. The Bean didn't enjoy the flight as much as I thought, as this was her first flight being over two and therefore having her own seat on the plane. All she wanted was to take her seat belt off and crawl around the floor. I had to restrain her with a bumper pack of Iggle Piggle stickers which ended up being stuck to all our seats. She also threw a tantrum because the Plane wasn't pink, but some things, even mums can't change!

We took the girls to a beach fun fair one day which they loved (well, Pops slept the WHOLE time), but most of the rides were either for toddlers or for toddlers accompanied by parents. This resulted in my husband and I taking turns to squash into tiny rides made for tiny children. I have bruised shins from the caterpiller ride and I wacked my head on the 'tumble train'. Our mistake was taking The Bean on the Ghost Train. We assumed it would be crap, like all the ghost trains I have ever been on, but we forgot that what is rubbish to an adult is super scary to a two year old. Off The Bean went beaming with happiness into the ghost train tunnel... a couple of minutes later she came out the other end clinging onto her Dad and crying for me. My husband said it was actually really scary and skeletons were popping up all over the place. The Bean calmed down with an ice cream (a pink one of course) but spent the evening telling us not to take her back to the 'dark place'. We felt like the worse parents in the world!

Luckily she seems to have forgotten all about it now and if I ask her about the fair, all she talks about is the helter skelter which was brilliant. Anyway, after about one hundred ice creams later we returned home on the plane last night. When we got to Heathrow and collected our bags we realised that The Bean's buggy hadn't arrived. As the baggage reclaim room emptied we found ourselves standing with six other families, all with toddlers, all without buggies. Apparently they had left all our buggies at the airport we departed from... By this stage we had waited for an hour to find out where our six buggies were, all our kids were tired and hungry and it was bedtime and we were all at Heathrow, Then an Edinburgh flight arrived and the same thing had happened to another set of parents. Now, It did strike me that if you didn't have enough baggage room on a flight you might 'accidently' leave behind the bulkier baggage i.e buggies, rather than leave suitcases behind. I just wanted to warn other parents that this happened and that it could be awkward, especially if you are travelling on your own with more then one child and you rely on that buggy.... Please let me know if this has ever happened to you as I was pretty annoyed by it. We didn't get home until 10.30pm, with a very tired grumpy newborn and a toddler who had to have chocolate buttons for tea....

Our buggy still hasn't arrived...

So we've muddled along and reached six weeks. Pops is now pretty big, well over ten pounds and doing really well. I definitely don't feel as sleep deprived as I did with The Bean, but life is much more of a juggling act. This morning I tried to pay a few household bills over the phone with a crying baby and eventually when she realised I wouldn't play with her, a crying toddler too. Needless to say nothing got paid. I did remember to fill out my child benefit form (which all parents are entitled too, so don't forget to do it) and my washing machine is just about managing the strain of washing newborn and toddler clothes, my clothes and my husbands (notice that my husbands clothes are last on this list, i'm afraid the girls in my house get priority!)

I also had my first dilemma today. I was driving somewhere with Pops and The Bean and both had fallen asleep. Then I realised I had no petrol. So, should I fill the car, then wake both children and haul them into the petrol station to pay? Or, should I run in and pay leaving my sleeping children in a car in a London petrol station? I did the latter but locked all the doors. I didn't want to wake them and I kept my eyes on my car the whole time. If anyone had got within an inch of my car I would have been over in a mili-second ready with a rubbish rugby tackle.

Six weeks on and I feel a lot better too. There is no more pain with the stitches and tears and I no longer wince when sitting down. Slowly, day by day, the memory of the birth and labour fade in my mind and i'm definitely forgetting the pain. In fact, in my mind it wasn't really that painful... my mum was right - you do forget the pain of labour and i find myself describing the experience to my pregnant friends as 'pretty good really', amazing what the mind can do...