Second pregnancy: what have changed?

I have written already a post about my first pregnancy and you can find it here. Even though I have lived the experience of being a mum, second pregnancy made me to ask questions as well. There is no pregnancy the same.

Disorders - same or not

There are disorders that will be the same as queasiness or back pain, because these disorders are related to the changes that we have in our body. For example queasiness I had less on my first pregnancy, but back pain was felt more in my second pregnancy.

Feel baby's movements

I was reading that for sure in my second pregnancy I will feel baby's movements before that in my first pregnancy, I would say that both babies I have noticed on my 20th week of pregnancy.

Food

On both pregnancies I felt like I am 24h hungry, this feeling hasn't changed. The only thing that was different was the kind of food that I was keen to eat more. On my first pregnancy I ate chocolates, and a lot of sweet things. While with my second pregnancy I ate a lot of salt things and I didn't like sweets.

Duration of delivery

Oooh yes, here is so big difference on its duration. With first baby it last almost 12 hours, and with second 3,5 hours. Researches say that on the second delivery, our muscles are more elastic and our body maintain something like "memory" about what have happened once in our body. Our body is marvelous and it can do miracles.

Breast feeding

With second baby breast feeding is much easier, because it is prepared for the suction, while with first baby almost one month I needed to get customized with the process. Very first days of breast feeding with our first son, was painful, while with second son there was no pain. And breast feeding is a pleasant process.

                                Aren't they cute?

Read more ...

Childhood now and 20 years ago.

This post I want to dedicate to me and others mums like me, because I found out that 23h of 24h I think and talk just about my toddler. That is why today's post I want to dedicate to my childhood and my memories.

The idea came to my mind today on my class of English (yes...even now I study English.....and yes... I see that I have to learn even more). We were talking about our childhood, about our favorites toys, if we had to do chores and other things we were used to do while being kids. So, let's begin:

- childhood in a city is different to a village one
- outside activities while living in an apartment are different to those in a house with a farm
- childhood in one country is different to another and so on.

1. I used to live with my parents in a flat in a little town and during the summer I lived with my grandparents on their farm. So my toys were chickens and ducks, dogs and rabbits. My outside activities were looking after the ducks at the nearby river. My toddler would never ever know what is that and how this is used to be done.

2. My parents gave me all theirs love, read me a lot of books, but never ever tried to keep me busy as I do to my kid. If I wanted to do something extra I had to do it by myself or with my elder sister. Now I feel that my toddler is somewhere dependent of activities that I propose him to do, as he expects me to be nearby everytime or our daddy.

3. I didn't have ant toy that was the one and only...no... My toddler has 2 toys, one teddy bear and other a little dog.

4. In my childhood there were no wifi or internet connection and we spent a lot of time outside, now my toddler has wifi, but not here is the problem. The problem is his mother that somewhere she is addicted to socials, my parents prefered to spent theirs time with me to socials.

5. In a little town or in a village you are friend with everybody, every child and 20 years ago there were no differences within children and we used to make friends easier. Now I feel that my toddler finds difficult to make friends, even in the kindergarden, kids are very possesive and think that all the toys had to be theirs, so, there is no sharing feelings.

5. I used to do chores during the day and to help my mother in the apartment and my grandma at her house. I hope I will have enough pacience to educate my toddler to make chores in our flat as well.

As a conclusion, my toddler will have a great childhood and I know he will think as me now that his childhood is better that will be to his children :). How about you childhood dear mum?

Read more ...

Fine Motor Activity

I like keep busy my toddler, and I like it more when he enjoys the activities that I propose to him. From all of the activities that I have proposed him till now, he enjoyed every activity with filling the bottle and painting with different forms and in different ways. Check more on the posts below.

1. Paint on a sponge

2. Fill the bottle with tisues

3. Fine motor activity

4. Painting

5. Painting II

This activity, is as well, one that suppose filling the bottle, but now with sponge. I had a big sponge that I have cut into little pieces, and a little bottle. Damian enjoyed filling this bottle with sponge, almost for its texture, as well he tried to take out the sponge from the bottle :D:D:D. The idea was that he feels how a sponge changes when it is touched. It is a good experience for him to understand the things around him.

Read more ...

Playing Dough an interactive activity for toddlers

This weekend I wanted to prepare to my toddler an interactive activity and specially colored dough. I have plasteline, and very coloured and very beautiful, but once I gave it to him he put all in his mouth to try it. So, I opted for a natural things that wouldn't affect my child if he would like to taste the object while playing. I decided that coloured dough it is the best way he can enjoy to play with and the safest. I took floor and water and prepared the mass, then this mass cut into four little pieces of dough and coloured each one with a new colour. I have just 4 food colours, it is said that I can mix them to obtain other colours, but I didn´t complicate this work too much, you know what I mean. As it was supposed he liked the colours and took all of the balls into his mouth to try them :D. It was fun, but I was happy as I knew that it´s ok for him. We made different shapes and forms, at the end it wasn't just an interactive game, but educational activity too.

Below you can see some images.

Read more ...

Salt Dough Toys or how to get busy your kid

It is well known that babies like routine, even when they are kids they like to mantain the same route of the day. While all the people were busy to prepare for the New Year's Eve, we tried to get busy our kid. Because, if I don't get him busy he becomes nervous, and I have to go out as in the flat it is very difficult to stay calm. The idea of sault dough toys came to my mind earlier this month, when one of my colleagues told me that it is a great thing as you don't need to use plasticine, and as he is not so big enough it is safe to use this kind of thing. So, I just was looking for a good moment to do all that, here I want to mention that you need someone who will help you, as alone with a little kid it is difficult to prepare all things done. And some free time, because you will see this process will take you a lot of time, so be prepared to dedicate your child almost 2-3 hours.

I was looking in internet to find the receipe of this kind of thing, but there is a lot of ways to prepare dough. I used this one:

1 cup of flour

1 cup of salt

up to 1 cup of water

but then I had to add more flour as the daugh got more rigid and ready to use it, at the end this need to be as soft as plasticine.

Then you need to prepare the dough as it will be for a pizza and choose some forms for cooking, I donn't have, so we used some of his toys for this :D. As you will see this process took us a lot of time, so be prepared to dedicate your child almost 2-3 hours. When dough and forms from this dough were ready, we put all the forms made in the oven, till these were cooked, but not browned. I got them out and pained these with watercolour, you can use food coloring as well. I think that within all this process Damian had fun twice, first when he worked with dough, and then when he painted the forms. After painting them all, we left them to dry. And that is it!!!

I was tired after this experience, it is true that you and your child have a lot of fun together, and it is a great way to mantain busy your child, but as well it is a lot of work.

Below some pictures, and we want to wish you a Happy New Year!!!

Read more ...