So it begins

Having read lots of other blogs I decided to give it a go.

A bit about me first - I am 31 and have been married for 2 1/2 years. We are parents to Olivia. She was born in November 2009 and having her has completely changed my life. Before O I was a busy primary school teacher who worked too many hours! Now I am first a mum and second a teacher. I will be returning to work in early June but before then I am determined to enjoy my time watching my beautiful daughter change everyday.

O has recently learnt to sit up by herself although we still have to catch her if she happens to lean to far for an interesting object! We are still waiting for the elusive rolling over! She loves jumping in her Jumperoo and chats quite happily most of the day. Recently she has decided that she doesn't like settling herself to sleep at night anymore but we are working on that one! She generally wakes twice in the night although we can sometimes get every three hours waking as well. However the smiles and giggles more than make up for the broken sleep. The best sound in the world is her laugh.

Now that O is 24 weeks and sitting up we have decided to start weaning her. We have decided to follow baby led weaning which basically means that rather than giving baby rice and puree we follow her lead and offer her food as we would eat it and let her decide whether she wants to eat it and how much she wants. At the moment it is all about playing and getting used to textures and flavours rather than actually eating any of it. O will continue to get her nutritional needs from her milk.

So far we have had mixed results but she seems to prefer sitting in her bumbo and playing with food rather than in her high chair. We have tried banana, pear, baby sweetcorn, carrot, and today toast. We also have let her have a baby rice cake and a piece of rusk. Banana went down quite well the second time we gave it to her because we left some skin on so it was easier for her to hold (not so slimey) and the toast was sucked to death today.

it is incredible to see her trying these new flavours and must be very strange for her after only really ever having had breast milk.

I am hoping to use this blog as a record of Olivia's journey as well as our journey as a family as I return to full time work and try to develop a great work/life balance that will benefit us all and give Olivia the best start we can offer her.