Dress your baby in Week 1 (winter baby)

This is Part B to the post I published a couple of weeks ago, on what clothes to buy to prepare for a new baby. The previous list was for babies born in the warmer months, this is a checklist for babies due when the weather turns cold.

My goal is to help you create a short-list of clothes to buy for your baby when you’re expecting, that you'll have ready for Week 1 of life as a new parent. I’m trying to help you avoid two things:

* Having to rush out (or send somebody to rush out) because you discover an essential item of clothing that your baby needs, when what you really need is to bunker down with your new baby and recover and enjoy * Wasting money and time and space by buying clothes that your baby won’t fit or can’t wear or both

The idea is that you minimise spending before your baby is born, and then go shopping a week or two after they’re born, once you know what size they are and have a better idea of what the season is doing and find a routine that suits you personally. My list should keep you going for those few weeks in between.

My top tip for winter babies is to dress them in layers. Your instinct will be to rug them up against the cold, but if you’re inside the house or in the car or in a cafe etc, you don’t want them to overheat, especially when they’re sleeping. So if for example they fall asleep in the pram, it’s a lot easier to gently remove a layer or two than to have to get them completely changed, which almost always wakes them up (aaargh).

1// T-shirts x 2

Use these to layer over singlets and onesies, and under cardigans. Don’t buy too many because they’re probably not overly weather-appropriate, it’ll just be handy to have one or two as back-ups

2// Winter hats x 2

I found little hats a very handy way to regulate the temperature of my baby. Because babies lose so much heat through their heads, hats are a very efficient way to either warm or cool your baby, and can generally be removed without waking them up (big bonus!)

3// Pairs of socks x 3

Because those little toes can get icy cold, even under a blanket, and especially if you’re “wearing” your baby in a carrier that leaves their feet and legs exposed

4// Bibs x 3

These are handy to catch dribble and spit-up. Without them, your baby will quickly end up with a soaking-wet top and you’ll end up having to change (and wash and dry and fold and put away) even more clothes

5// Cardigans or jackets x 2

I said this last time, that know those little knitted cardigans that people make you when you’re pregnant are adorable, but they can be quite hot and bulky. For me, even when the weather was cold enough to warrant a thick wool knit, I preferred to put something softer on my baby, like a light cardigan and/or a fleece jacket, then layer with blankets for warmth. That made it easier to adapt when moving between inside and out

6// Short-sleeved onesies x 2

It’s more likely that you’ll be sticking to long sleeves for your winter baby, especially as a lot of babies like to sleep with their arms out above their heads, so they won’t be under the blankets. However, I recommend having just one or two of these at home when your baby arrives. This way you’ll be prepared if either the weather or the room are warmer than you expected, and you can always use them as back-ups teamed with cardigans, if you don’t get around to doing the laundry in time!

7// Singlets x 6

I found singlets essential for both my babies during the colder months. I love that they create that extra layer under their clothes to keep their chests warm, without smothering them with too much bulk. And when you’re changing nappies in the middle of the night, it’s nice to give them a bit of a barrier from the chilly air

8// Long-sleeved onesies x 6

As I mentioned in my summer baby list, I prefer onesies to t-shirts for newborns, because they don’t hitch up and make the baby uncomfortable while sleeping, or expose their little tummies to the cold air, and they help in a limited way to keep nappies in place, which trust me is something you really want. For this reason, I think you’ll love the long sleeved onesies for your winter baby.

You can also get onesies with legs included, like a jumpsuit, and I used these a lot with Scout. However, with the benefit of hindsight and experience from my second baby, I recommend going with the leg-free kind. The press-studs all the way up the legs and down the tummy of those all-in-one jumpsuits can drive you mental, especially if it’s the middle of the night and even more-so if your baby is crying and wiggling while you’re trying to do them up. I have found it significantly faster and easier to just pop on some little elasticised pants.

9// Long pants x 6

See above for why I prefer to go with separate long pants rather than all-in-one jumpsuit-style onesies. You can also get little pants with the feet covered in, which I found very handy when my baby kept kicking her socks off, especially if I was wearing her in the carrier. On the down-side, you get less wear out of these because they’ll grow out of them sooner. I recommend sticking with the standard pants for now, and buying the foot-covered type after a couple of weeks, because by then your baby will probably have already gone up a size.

ps.1 It should go without saying but here I am saying it again that every baby is different and every family is different and what worked for me might not work for you. This is the best I can give you, based on my winter baby of 2012 and my summer baby of 2013. I hope it helps at least a little!

ps.2 The photo at the top is of me with my winter baby Scout, when she was three weeks old. SUCH a proud mother!

One year

How do you compress a person into a year? How do you tell, without being impossibly shallow, what a child's birthday means to a mother?

Can anyone truly build into words the story of a little one who one year ago wasn't here and now, as the sparklers on his birthday cake sizzle and glow, must surely have been here forever?

Ralph turned one on the weekend, and I kept trying to find moments for us: quiet cuddles at the morning feed, kisses on his round belly while changing his nappy, the blowing of Weetbix-filled raspberries, to really notice and remember and mark this occasion with the weight I felt it deserved.

So when the Happy Birthday song was all over and the rousing "hip hip hoorays" of 40 of Ralph's closest friends and family had all died down and the sparkler in the shape of a 1 on his cake had faded back to grey, I found myself in the very unusual position of wanting to say a few public words.

"Thank you for coming," I told our friends, as toddlers shrieked across the room with balloons and streamers in their wake, and small conversations started up while Mr B began to dismantle and distribute the croquembouche. "This little man deserves celebrating…"

I paused. By then the room was so full of the noise of friendships and celebrations and music and food that nobody else was there with me, so I gave it up. Instead I kissed my little boy on the forehead, feeling all the heavy beauty of loving him, and the body-memories of a connection that only he and I could share, and went on with the party.

But this is what I would have said, if I had been brave enough to raise my voice.

Ralph is the kind of kid who is loved by people who don't like kids.

Anyone who has ever met Ralph knows his big, wide smile, because it beams from his face most of the time. Ralph is a gentle and loving little boy who gives people the very special gift of trusting them.

He spreads joy.

He barely cried when he was born, and spent the following days and weeks calmly watching, or easily sleeping, while I learned how to be a mother all over again, and adjusted - not entirely seamlessly - to life with two under two.

Ralph smiled early and often, and crawled late. He was content to sit and watch the people he loved - which was pretty much the whole world - go about their lives and businesses.

Now that he is finally on the move I have watched his confidence and curiosity grow.

With a thumping crawl that sounds like the muffled footsteps of a clydesdale, he follows me faithfully around the house, secure in the knowledge that he is wanted and loved. Which he is.

And then I will look around and he is gone, the thump-thump-thump of his crawl receding to the far end of the house as he embarks on another adventure of his own making.

Ralph's sister Scout is teaching him to talk, and tickle, and play. When he sees her he squeals with delight, racing to be near her. He laughs when she laughs and, when she cries, he is round-eyed with concern.

When Ralph gets tired he puts one thumb into his mouth and lifts the other hand up to twirl his hair. I gather him into my arms and carry him to his cot, where he flops his head to the side (always to the right) and closes his eyes. Utterly trusting, again, and asleep in moments.

It breaks my heart, every time.

(ps. What? That's not his name, is it?)

Christmas magic?

Sometimes do you go along to something that has so much potential but it just falls short? And you're left with a bit of an empty feeling and you think, "This could have been SO GOOD, why didn't the organisers take it there?"

Yeah me too.

I spent the afternoon on Saturday imagining how I would create a Christmas wonderland for children, the way I felt Santa's Magical Kingdom SHOULD have been. My imagined North Pole was truly amazing: a place of wide-eyed wonder and play and magic that both children and adults would want to explore.

So I sat in the car on the way home from the real Santa's Magical Kingdom and regaled Mr B with my ideas, while the children slept. And Mr B listened patiently for a not particularly long time, before saying something along the lines of "Stop, my ears are bleeding." And also, "You needed to marry a billionaire, because your ideas make exactly zero commercial sense." This was rather insensitively practical of him, so I pushed my argument further with an irrefutable "But imagine how amazing it would all be!"

And I'm pretty sure he agreed, but all he said was "My right ankle hurts," which was open to a fair bit of interpretation.

Mr B and I had been anticipating this trip to Santa's Magical Kingdom with almost breathless enthusiasm. We'd heard people rave about it, and couldn't wait to take the children along, especially since Scout this year was old enough to properly understand and appreciate Christmas.

Neither of us said so while we were there, but by the time we staggered into the car at the end of our three-hour session, we both agreed that the whole shebang had fallen a fair bit short of our expectations. I had expected North Pole snow and Santa and magic and Christmas joy. What I experienced was a neon-lit Christmas-themed sideshow alley. For the not exactly bargain basement price of $40.27 per adult and $35.68 per child.

I dunno. People rave about this experience, it has won awards, and I realise Mr B and I are probably in the minority in our rather damning assessment. Have you been along? What did you think? I don't think Scout will beg us to return, and Ralph is too young to really care but, to be fair, they certainly didn't seem hate it.

Later that night, when I was looking through the photos on my camera, I could see some of the beauty of the event that I'd missed while I was inside it. And I could see Scout smiling quite a lot. So, maybe I just wasn't the target audience (Santa forbid!) and the organisers got it right after all.

3 highlights * Fast-moving lines * Riding with Scout on her first carousel * Decorating (and eating) gingerbread men

3 low-points * The world's slowest, most boring Ferris wheel (we were stuck on that thing for about 25 minutes. Scout was crying. I was carsick) * The circus - probably good for older kids but after waiting 20 minutes for everyone to find their seats, we had to leave 15 minutes in because our little ones just weren't that engaged with jugglers and they were starting to lose it (to be polite) * The snow area - this was the section I was looking forward to the most, but the "actual snow" comprised two areas not much more than a metre in diameter each, with a tiny bit of slush falling from above

Bring on the photos.

Life at mine

Lonely gold shoe // Christmas already? // A tale of two cities: New York and Melbourne // First face paint // Mummy Pig // Celebration in stock // Typewriters in the city // Ralph is crawling now. Can you tell? // Boys' night // "Hey Mummy I writing your name" // Afternoon light

I'm taking inspiration from The Veggie Mama for this post. What's been happening at your place?

Meet Scout & Ralph

Meet my children. They're pretty great. Their names are Scout and Ralph.

Those are not their real names, of course. Their real names are no big secret and if it's eating you up inside and you just have to know, simply scroll back through some of my older posts and you'll find them. I haven't exactly been backwards when it comes to talking about my children.

But from now on, I will refer to my daughter as Scout and my son as Ralph on this blog, because I want to lessen the digital footprint I am leaving for them.

I'm not overly concerned, really. There's nothing on this blog that is likely to embarrass them when they are older. No bare-bottom photos; no potty-training stories; no revelations about emotional, mental or behavioural challenges; no recounts of arguments with their father; no heartbreaking confessions from me... just a celebration of how much I love them.

And that has been deliberate, all along. This blog is my happy place, so I write mainly about the GOOD things in life that make me happy. Also, I want to respect my family's right to privacy so I don't write things about them or myself that should really stay with us.

However, I have in the past used their real names. So if you were to type those names into a search engine, you'd find the old posts I've written about them.

That's ok, but from now on, there won't be any more. I mean of course if you were to type in their real names, my blog is likely to come up anyway because we share a surname, but nothing specific.

(As an aside, that's why I always call Mr B "Mr B" on here. A lot of you know his name and again it's no big secret, but this way his digital footprint is his own, not something of my making).

You may or may not know or have noticed it in the past, but both of my children bear the names of storybook heroes. They weren't named for those heroes, per se, but we were certainly aware of the characters and fans of the books and looked forward to reading the children the stories of their namesakes when they were old enough to enjoy them.

So when I came to select pseudonyms to use on this blog, I gave them the names of some of my other favourite fictional children. Scout (from To Kill a Mockingbird) is brave and inquisitive and intelligent and thoughtful and kind and fun. Ralph (from The Lord of the Flies) is charismatic and clever and compassionate and reflective and kind.

All attributes I like to think I see in both of my babies, and all attributes that I would hope to nurture and celebrate in them.

Now please excuse me while I go and hug my children.

She runs away

She runs away from me, a little further each day. Squealing with glee, captioning her flight, as if I didn't know it:

I running away Mummy!

Even as she runs she longs to be close. She twists to watch me as she races the other way, bumping into walls and trees and tumbling down hills because no matter how many times I call out, "Watch where you're going!" she is always looking back, to me, not forward.

I guess that's the nature of independence in its seed form, isn't it. The growing confidence of a toddler who is testing the boundaries of her world from the safety of her mother's and father's love. Without a strong hand to shake off or a safe harbour to farewell, independence is just loneliness.

Later, she curls on my lap and we read stories.

I really lub you Mummy, she murmurs. I lub you for ebba.

{Joyful springtime photographs brought to you by a rare and incredibly precious mother-daughter morning at Floriade in Canberra}

Allo, Mummy

Oh hello, have you been enjoying the sunshine? We sure have. But this was how my weekend started.

It was about 4am on Friday night/Saturday morning. I was coming home from a night out dining, drinking and dancing with my friends…

No, I wasn't. I HAD been fast asleep in my bed with my ear-plugs in, when I felt something touch my cheek and it woke me up. Pulling the ear-plugs out, I could hear the soft sounds of a little person breathing. Blearily, still surfacing from sleep, I wondered why Mr B had brought Harry into our bed and what my baby was doing on my pillow. The little person flung his hand around my neck and I thought, "Isn't that the most adorable thing? It's almost like he's hugging me!" Then I realised Mr B was saying something about going downstairs for a second and asking me to keep her safe on the bed.

"Him," I corrected Mr B blearily as I watched his shadow retreat. For a moment, everything was quiet. Then the arm around my neck shifted and, millimetres from my ear, a little voice equal parts creepy and adorable, said, "Allo, Mummy."

Turns out Madeleine had been having a nightmare (something about a lost hair-band) and Mr B had tried but failed to resettle her, then brought her into our bed. Let me tell you she was very pleased to be there. The nightmare was long forgotten but so, sadly, was my night's sleep. She kept up a constant stream of chatter for the next two hours while Mr B and Harry both snored, snuggling happily next to me and stroking my hair and saying things like "I like you lots Mummy" and "I loving you Mummy" and "Harry still sleeping?" and "I have breakfast yet?" (at about 4.45am).

At 5.45am when Harry woke up (it is a true miracle that he didn't wake sooner since his cot is RIGHT next to our bed), I sat up to feed him and Madeleine sat up too. She covered his face and mine with repeated kisses, which didn't make breastfeeding particularly easy but which was ridiculously lovely.

And then we all went downstairs before the sun was up and BAM, just like that, it was time for the weekend to begin. Ah weekends, a restful reprise from the busy work week. The next two days continued as they had begun. Exhausting, entertaining, adorable, exasperating, hilarious, filled with love and filled with fun.

So, basically just another day in a house with a toddler and a baby. How was your weekend?

Here are some parenty-style links that you might enjoy:

* DIRECTLY related to my story above, this piece on the ageing influence of motherhood made me laugh

* I have a love-hate relationship with IKEA, I take issue with being forced to follow the arrows, for one. But ever since having kids I've had to make my peace with them. Those storage solutions are just so handy. And did you know they now have a stationery range?

* This beautifully expresses how I feel about the daycare drop-off (yes, I've started that early)

* Holy moly, how cool are the little cardboard castles in this party for a bunch of two year olds?

* What writers can learn from 'Good Night Moon'. We love this book at our place!

* Do you like to drink flavoured water?

* How to grow your own crystals. I LOVED keeping 'crystal gardens' when I was a kid. Did you?

* Pretty much love all the clothes in this shop!

* Equal parts loving and loathing. Yeah, I get that

* Beautiful children's rooms

* New-baby gifts that might actually get used

* Women need a year to recover from childhood. Well, that lets me off the hook a bit

* Super cute party food for little ones

Dear mama: don't listen to the stories

Warning: rant pending.

This is a little pep talk for everyone expecting (or one day hoping to expect, or friends with someone who is expecting) their first baby. It is called DON'T LISTEN TO THE STORIES.

You know the stories I’m talking about. The “You Will Never Sleep Again” stories. The “Your Breasts Will Sag Forever” stories. The stretch-mark stories and the projectile vomit stories and the no-sleep stories and the nappy-contents stories and the traumatic birth stories. Especially the traumatic birth stories.

My advice is this: stop listening to them! These stories will not help you but they will probably scare you. And there is so much GOOD about having a baby, and so much practical stuff that you NEED to know, why would you bother with the scary, unhelpful stuff?

It’s like a trigger flips inside grandmothers and mothers and aunties and sisters and cousins and friends and complete strangers that makes them want to spill their most intimate and, in many cases, their worst labour experiences to expectant mothers.

I don't get it! Are they thinking expecting mothers need to be taken down a peg or something? I imagine their inner monologue goes something like this: “Hey pregnant woman, you are clearly expecting everything to be soft and gentle and loving like a baby powder commercial, and I am here to tell you the hard truth.”

Whereas in reality, the pregnant woman is probably already plagued by nerves and fear and the unknown, alongside her excitement and anticipation, not to mention exhaustion and sleep difficulties and professional and financial nerves and a to-do-list that is getting out of hand. The last thing she needs is your doomsday prophesy.

I remember when I was a good eight-and-a-half months pregnant with my first child and we had gone out for a quiet dinner at the pub after work. There I was sipping my mineral water and eyeing other people’s glasses of sav blanc with longing when the waitress, quite a young woman, approached our table and began regaling me with the story of her sister’s recent labour.

If even half of that story was true, someone will be making a mini-series about it some time soon. It seemed to last for days (both the labour and the story). At one point I swear there were spy-thriller spotlights pinning the poor woman to her hospital bed. At another, some kind of water-jet that suggested they were trying to pressure-hose that baby out like old paint off a brick wall.

Mr B kept walking away from the table, ostensibly to warm himself by the open fire but really to get away from the Labour From Hell story. I could see his shoulders shaking with silent laughter even though his back was turned. Then he would return, realise the story was STILL GOING, and head back to the fire. Unfortunately I was trapped, both by the near-impossibility of maneuvering my enormous belly away from the table and between the tightly-packed bistro chairs, and by the deep-seated social constraints that made me smile and nod politely even when she got up to the bloody bits and the screaming bits and the frankly anatomically-impossible bits (“the baby was coming out sideways”).

Later in the car on the way home, we roared with laughter. “What about the bit with the water torture?” Mr B gasped, red faced and wiping away tears. “How could you have left me there alone!” I shrieked. “She just wouldn’t stop!”

Recently I was at the zoo with a friend who was expecting her second child. Another woman overheard us talking about it, and began to share the stories of her recent miscarriages. It was so sad. That poor woman. We both realised how raw and heartbreaking those experiences were for her, and how clearly she just needed to get them off her chest, to share her sadness and anger at the universe. Neither of us begrudged her this need, because neither of us could imagine how difficult such a situation must be.

But of all the strangers with whom to share her sad, sad story, did she really have to pick the pregnant one? A rounded belly, it seems, is as much an invitation for uninvited stories as it is for uninvited touching.

So, the point of my rant is this: don’t listen to the stories. You don't need them. Deflect the conversation away, if you can. Sometimes, I point-blank told people, “Don’t tell me that, it’s not helping.”

Because this is your pregnancy, not theirs.

And your baby, not theirs.

It will be what it will be and the one thing that is within your control is freeing yourself up to enjoy it. Let's face it, it’s a lot easier to anticipate happy things if your mind isn’t full of tales of woe.

ps. That belly? That's Madeleine, at eight and a half months.

ps2. Here's another resource: the handy "pregnancy food card" I made when I was pregnant, if you're that way inclined

Madeleine's diary: lemon preserves

Sunday, 3:30pm: We are picking lemons. I LOVE picking lemons! Mummy says I'm very busy. I think I will shout. ME BUSY! ME BUSY! The lemons are up very high in the tree. This is so exciting, how can I contain myself? I know, I'll yell. UP HIGH! UP HIGH! Now I think I will run around in circles. Oh there's my dog Oliver! Catch Oliver! Catch Oliver! Why is he hiding under the table?

3:40pm: Mummy is picking lemons without me! Nooooo Mummy! How could you? I am devastated. Waaaaaaah! Me! Me! Where is Oliver? No, wait, I'm picking lemons. Me busy Mummy! Me busy!

3:41pm: I am very good at picking lemons. The neighbours should all know about this. YEMONS! ME BUSY! ME BUSY!

3:50pm: We filled the whole basket. I can carry it Mummy. Me!

3:51pm: Oh no! The basket tipped over and all the lemons fell out! Waaaaaaah.

3:52pm: We are picking up all the lemons and putting them back in the basket. Me busy Mummy! Me busy! Oh look there's Oliver...

4:15pm: Mummy is washing the lemons, ready to make preserves. I help! I help! I know all about baking. I'll just get my little stool. Here Mummy, I'll bring you all the things you need from out of the cupboard and put them on the kitchen bench. Flour. Cocoa. Vanilla essence. Golden syrup. Hundreds and Thousands. Cornflour. Now I'll bring your baking things. Big mixing bowl. Rolling pin. My pink mixing spoon with the pig on the end. A whisk. These lemons will make excellent chocolate cake!

4:16pm: No Mummy! Don't put those things away! We're baking! Waaaaaah!

4:17pm: Why is she putting lemons into little bags? The freezer Mummy? I open de door! I OPEN! I opened the freezer door for Mummy. I am very good at that. I closed it too. Oh look! Oliver is inside the house. Catch me Oliver...

Monday, 4pm: Mummy is stuffing rock salt into partially-defrosted lemons. It is probably chocolate cake. I will lick the bowl. I'll quickly grab it before asking, in case Mummy says no. YUCKY! Waaaaaah! Lemon juice and salt do not taste like chocolate cake AT ALL.

So, lemon preserves. I followed this recipe. Two big jars are now resting quietly on a dark shelf at the top of our pantry, ready for the eating in about a month or so. Unlike Madeleine, I am doubtful that they will taste like chocolate cake. On the other hand, I am hopeful that they will be delicious. Do you have any recipes using preserved lemons that you'd recommend?

ps. more from Madeleine's diary here and here

Handy printable - what not to eat when you're eating for two

This post is slightly off-topic but it seems a lot of my friends have fallen pregnant lately, and some of the questions and comments they've been sharing are pretty familiar. And I thought if they were raising these questions and I had raised these questions, then quite possibly a lot of other people would have these questions too. So I thought I'd share what I discovered in case you or someone you know might find it handy.

So first of all, hey Mama! Congratulations!

And secondly, arg! How annoying is that 'pregnancy elimination diet'!?! That gigantic list of things you're not supposed to eat when you're carrying around a little one inside you, that miraculously as soon as you CAN'T eat them you really, really want to? Yeah that one.

Of course deciding what you will and won't eat while you are pregnant is completely your decision, and I'm not here to judge. But in case you found this entire field as tricky to navigate as I did, I thought I'd share this handy printable list I created, to help you out.

Basically, the key reason it's recommended that you avoid certain foods while pregnant is because of the risk of consuming a bacteria called Listeria monocytogenes. The risk of Listeria infection is low, assuming you eat properly prepared and stored foods. So a lot of people don't worry too much about it. I get that. But if you DO happen to consume Listeria, even a mild infection can cause your baby to be born prematurely or be very sick when they are born, or even cause miscarriage or stillbirth. As a chronic worrier, that was something I wasn't going to risk, so I was all up in the faces of the FOOD DON'T lists.

I found the most difficult time to follow a "pregnancy safe" diet was when I was eating out. Which happens to be a lot. You could almost guarantee that there would be at least something on any menu item that was on the DON'T list. So I created myself a little check-list, the size of a business card, that I carried around with me. Wherever I was, I could look up the food on my list to see what was safe to eat and what wasn't.

(Embarrassing confession: this list came in especially handy with all the cheeses - simply saying "no soft cheese" wasn't enough for me because there are so many cheeses that half the time I didn't know what they were called. I'd think I was reading the name of a mushroom or something.)

Alongside Listeria, the other thing the health experts recommend you limit when pregnant is your mercury intake, which can damage the foetus and is found at high levels in some fish. This isn't a big risk because you'd have to be eating these types of fish quite regularly for the mercury to build up in your blood (and it is recommended that you do eat fish during your pregnancy), but I included the high-mercury-content fish on my list, just to be sure.

My food card is a kind of amalgam of the NSW Food Authority list of foods to avoid when pregnant, and a similar list from the Victorian Government Better Health Channel. Bear in mind that my list is by no means authoritative, and you should do your own research and/or check with your doctor if you are unsure. Also, I erred on the side of caution in most cases so if the lists said "don't eat unless you have done X, Y or Z," I just put it on the "don't eat" list, because honestly that was easier to remember!

>> Here is my Pregnancy-Food-Safety-Card. It's business-card sized, so you can simply print it off then stick the sides back to back (or just print it double-sided if you have that kind of printer). I laminated mine so that it would survive nine months in my purse.

>> If you want to adapt the card to your own food-choices, here it is in Word format so you can edit it.

I hope this helps! xx

Do you have any handy tips or resources from your own pregnancy that you can share with other mums to be?