So, if you've stumbled across my website you'll have seen that I have a variety of "themed" sections for different events like Christmas, Teachers, Mother's Day, Fathers Day etc. and it became apparent early on that I needed to add a Breastfeeding section. Next week I'll have been breastfeeding for on and off nearly 11 years so it has been a huge part of my life and it's something I'm very proud of. I'm in a lot of breastfeeding groups so tend to advertise within them too so a lot of people have asked me for pieces for breastfeeding milestones and celebrations which is where the inspiration behind a lot of mine has come from. 

I’ve had four very different feeding journeys- my first started in SCBU and involved a lot of expressing for a poorly baby then we made it to just short of a year. My second was an absolute dream apart from the fact he would throw pretty much all of it back up again during, just after and an hour after feeds- there was a LOT of clothing changes, we managed to feed through pregnancy and he finished at 3 years old. My third never felt *quite* right and we eventually had her tongue tie snipped at 17 weeks 😱 and she too went on to feed through pregnancy until she was 3.
And now my final journey- there was a huge amount of poo talk (all breastfeeding mums will understand this!!) in the early days and with a bit of expressing and encouragement, another tongue tie snip- we made it and that is us here today! Almost 9 months and still her favourite thing in the world.
I have to say though, all of these stories would have been completely different if I hadn’t had a tremendous amount of support. My husband has always been my number one supporter, lots of family encouragement and numerous health professionals along the way. Another huge support has been the endless supply of Facebook groups I’ve joined where you can guarantee that at 2am when you’re querying something, there’s always someone to help you out. If you’re considering breastfeeding I would highly recommend finding as much support as early as possible. It isn’t always easy but it’s always worth it!
For this worldl breastfeeding week PLEASE let’s celebrate all these in different stories without negativity, I would love to hear yours too!
P.s black and white picture because she loves breastfeeding *sooo* much she has to do it numerous times through the night.

Maternity leave... you often think of it through rose tinted glasses: playing with baby; feeding; napping together; going to mother and baby groups- lovely. But what can often happen is you try to cram absolutely everything into a short a time as possible! It was all going brilliantly up to Christmas, I had a few KIT days schedueled which I ended up not doing (bonus of being your own boss!) and got well and truely stuck into family life. The new year arrived and I ordered a new 2020 insert for my planner- I was going to be so well organised this year!

When I say I ordered a new 2020 insert, this was around February time... it does sum up how organised I am at times. And ordering it was almost like the universe taking one look at it and laughing as then Covid happened. The baby groups stopped. Husbands work stopped. Most imporantly- school and nursery stopped!! If you're new to Delix, I currently have a 10 year old in year 6, a 7 year old in year 2 and a 4 year old at nursery as well as the new baby. When they announced school closures my nice quiet week days were shattered! 

I must admit, we quite enjoyed the beginning. Husband had worked long hours previously before starting a new job before Christmas so actually having him home all the time (and most importantly, taking full control over dinner times!) was lovely, but my brain soon ended up full of home learning and panicing that the children will "fall behind" and any thoughts on business or KIT days or returning to work were firmly pushed out. 

Husband had taken over the business for me and with a huge mass of in stock pieces he was responsible for packaging them and dropping them off at the Post Office once a week, but with some extra time on our hands we set to wondering about a previous business venture we had spoken about. Brownies. He makes the most amazing brownies. As a trained pastry chef then head chef it was a given but he'd left the catering industry and I think secretly missed it so we set wheels into motion a few years ago, set everything up, food hygience certificate obtained, boxes planned... then life hit. So actually being forced to stop work in March allowed us the "time" to make a plan.

The brownie boxes have been so well received and it's been lovely working together with him, I'd like to think he now appreciates the little things I do behind the scenes a bit more- just printing some stickers off or updating the website arent't quite the 2 second jobs I think he imagined! However, I definitely appreciate his organiastion skills!

So much so, that the 2020 planner insert which had been gathering dust is back out and being planned with. Returning to a business like this when the world is so uncertain and peoples pursestrings are tighter than ever I need to find a way of making people part with their hard earned cash! Hopefully I'm creating a website that allows people to treat themselves with or send a little gift to others as well as substantial items that people want to budget towards. Plans keep evolving and changing and the plan I'd started with has been scrapped and rewritten countless times but at least this year I'm making a plan... kind of!

Nicole (often found multitasking!) x