This is a joint post with Amber at Unlikely Mama. You can follow her on twitter here. We thought it would be fun to look back on what our expectations were before we had our babies and how they’ve changed a year on (for Amber) and two years on (for me).
Having Children
Amber: Let me start from the beginning.  I never “expected” to have a baby.  As my online moniker hints at…it was highly unlikely that I would become a mother.  Not because I couldn’t, but because I NEVER wanted to.  Not until …

Welcome to the February Carnival of Natural Parenting: Love and partners!
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month we’re writing about how a co-parent has or has not supported us in our dedication to natural parenting. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.
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Love and partners: How has a co-parent supported your dedication to natural parenting — or not?
When Riley was born, my relationship with my husband …

When Riley was about 14 months old she started reliably sleeping through the night and no needing my presence to get to sleep. Up until that point she was up three or more times a night and at nap time I would need to rock or stroke her to sleep.
Perhaps it was because I was no longer breastfeeding her, so there was less interest in night-time snacking, or perhaps it was that she had always hated the cot and I’d moved her to her toddler bed. Either way, I didn’t …

I read Best Blog Posts of 2009 at Scary Mommy and thought it was a pretty cool idea – if I have only got 6 months to choose from. I started this blog in July, thinking that it would be fun to do every now and then, but it quickly became more addictive than I’d imagined it could be.
July: Things I Learnt In My First Year (Part 1)
Breastfeeding: not as natural as you’d think
August: Things I Learnt In My First Year (Part II)
Sleep: apparently it’s optional
September: Crying It Out to …

1. Babies Never Settle into a Routine, Ever
As soon as you get used to one thing, they change it. And then they change it again.
2. Dirty Nappies are the Least of Your Concern
You may think that changing dirty nappy after dirty nappy is the worst part of having a newborn but really that barely even makes a dent – that’s the easy bit.
3. Teething Never Really Stops
It just has a nanna nap for brief periods of time. And then it’s more teething. And it’s a whole lot worse than any …

“War babies cry it out shut down’ was a search term on google that landed not just one person on my site, but two this week.

A little odd, but it reminded me of the Channel 4 Show: Bringing Up Baby which attempted to measure the successes and shortcomings of three different parenting methods for babies: Truby King, Dr Spock and the Continuum Concept. Families were set up with a mentor for the style of parenting they had opted to pursue and were guided along the way.
For the blissfully uninitiated, a …

Sleep is for the Weak!
I have to say that I never really thought that much about baby’s sleep while I was pregnant. I vaguely remember my father saying that I wouldn’t get a solid night sleep for the next two years and thinking he was a lunatic. I also remember reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting and seeing all the advice about putting a baby down to sleep awake. But I just didn’t realise how much it takes for a baby to learn to go to sleep, or even …

I admit it – I am a reformed perfectionist. The first time I wrote a prologue I re-wrote it hundreds of times until it was ‘perfect’. That is not an exaggeration by the way, literally hundreds of times – on a manual typewriter no less! I had flirted with the idea of ditching my perfectionism – after all if the prologue was anything to go by it would have probably taken me 50 years to get anything substantial on paper. And deep down I knew that perfectionists are always disappointed …

I was never very good at keeping my mouth shut about anything, although post-baby this is a skill that I am apparently honing. When I was pregnant it amazed me how many people believed that they were entitled to have a say in what I should/should not do/eat/drink etc. and if anything that gets much more intense once the little bundle is born.
Exhibit A:
In response to myself mentioning to a work colleague that I was breastfeeding (Riley was 10 months at the time): “oh no, you have to get them …

It’s Never as Easy as It Seems . . .
It seems impossible to start a series on all the things I learnt in my first year as a mother without starting at the beginning with breast-feeding.
It Didn’t Come Naturally (At First)

I had always assumed with all the beautiful images I had seen of a mother and a newborn, and the fact that I was a breast-fed baby myself that the act of breast-feeding would come very naturally to me. But it didn’t – we had a bumpy ride at first. …