Daddy daycare: Mama's first day off.

Ladies and gentlemen, last Wednesday we reached a humongous milestone!

It was my first time in baby Bear's almost twelve months of out-of-the-uterus life that he and I are not spending the entire day together. Sure, there have been moments where I'd go to the supermarket or someone would take Bear on an afternoon walk, but other than that we've spent every waking moment together. Come to think of it, I've never even left the house while Bear was sleeping.

Wow.


Let me start by explaining that I'm not necessarily the type of mother who can't stand to be away from her child, trust me there have been more than enough times that I needed my space, but we've stayed together out of necessity. During pregnancy I had a mild case of gestational diabetes and Bear was said to be above average at his growth scans which he technically speaking was at 3800 grams and 50 centimetres, but was by no means a large baby. However after three months of being above average in every measurement he suddenly dropped to below average in about a month or two.

This started a whole cycle of appointments with paediatricians, dieticians and we even had to draw some blood to check his thyroid, liver, kidney, allergies and some things I can't even remember. Scary, even when you know that there really isn't anything wrong with your child. Since Bear was never really a regular drinker and we gave him milk on demand, this sometimes meant up to twenty (!!!!!) feeds a day. Exhausting, but luckily I'm very headstrong and was determined to breastfeed until at least his first birthday. Around the nine month mark we asked the paediatrician about possibly switching from on-demand to scheduled feeds but we were advised not to "push" Bear into a schedule even though he had finally started picking up along the below average line and we were no longer worried.

Now we're just two days away from his first birthday we've finally managed to cut back on a lot of his milk feeds:
-No more night feeds
-No breastmilk with lunch
-Other feeds are actually on a regular schedule
With his morning snack feed out the window we're now down to just three feeds! Life is amazing.

Anyway, I finally had the time to just sit down for lunch with a friend, actually eat my own food and take my time to eat it too. (Non-parents: cherish these things!) But the very best thing? Baby Bear and papa Bear finally had the opportunity to get to know each other and enjoy one of daddy's favourite things; the zoo. They had so much fun which made the day perfect to me.

Well, I'm busy adapting my vegan banana bread recipe for Bear's birthday cake, more on that later but for now,

Enjoy and have a great Sunday!

Do you have any fun "first day off" experiences to share? I'd love to read them in the comments below!