Diary of an (ex)London mum

One of the first activities that I wanted to be involved in after the birth was yoga.  I have always liked yoga, especially as relaxation after a run, but my practice has dwindled as I decreased my running due to a bad knee and from getting more involved in youth sport development in my spare time.  I thought yoga would be a good way for me to regain the use of my body after the birth and looked up classes on the internet.  There is no shortage of mum and baby yoga classes in London; in the end I chose one run by yogatherapy as it was easy for me to get to.  I love the yoga- it does what is needed for me physically- and it is a great way to spend time doing something fun with Sprog.  The teacher incorporates actions that keep the babies engaged in the yoga moves for mums, and there are specific exercises for the babies in each class.  She is also flexible with how the class is run such that the proportion of crying/sleeping/feeding babies are taken into ...

I am an academic.  This is a challenging job and to stay alive within the profession we very often allow work to spill into our private time, i.e. we essentially do not have time off.  I won't discuss what I think of this state of affairs in this blog but only brought it up as my work spills in to my maternity leave which is something that may interest the readers here.  It would be good to hear from you if you have anything to say about your work and how it has/hasn't affected your maternity leave.   I have effectively worked from home, rather than taken time off, in the last six months even though this is not reflected in my pay-check.  I am grateful for the help my mother gave me over the last few months- I would not have been able to do what is required of me at work and look after a new born if she had not been around.  I have stayed fairly relaxed throughout this time and now that Sprog is older and we are more settled I am better able to c...

We are keen climbers and, from the start of parenthood, we found the idea of carrying Baby in a baby carrier that is essentially a very good harness system, akin to our trusted rucksacks, appealing.  We thought, rather than carry him in our arms when he needed comfort, it would save us from hurting ourselves from carrying weight in bad posture if we carried him in a baby carrier instead.  We investigated what was available on the market and decided to go for a BabyBjorn Miracle .  Sprog loved being carried in it from birth and we love carrying him in it.  He often falls asleep while he is in the carrier, probably liking the rocking motion and the proximity to another human being. Sprog is now 4 months old and has graduated to being carried in his baby carrier facing forwards.  This offers him an opportunity to look at things around him while still feeling safe.  Lately he has taken to lunging in the direction of whatever interests him, which makes it ...

Let me start by saying that I have never been judgmental about people with babies crying in public.  I seldom noticed fussy babies until someone pointed one out- I wasn't interested in babies until I had my own-or, if I did notice one, didn't regard it as my problem and didn't think much more about it.   Sprog is generally a quiet crier; he is quite calm and doesn't really cry that much but when he does its not that loud.  We drew the long straw with this one.  However, his cries seem much louder when we are in public.  They aren't actually louder- my mother told me so- but I am probably more aware of them because they might disturb other people.  I do get stressed when I cannot stop him immediately, which probably makes his crying session longer.  Taking him on public transport can be a bit daunting because of the potential for him to decide he'd cry in a confined space with less potential for escape.  The prospect of him screaming his...

I have previously had trouble getting seats on public transport while I was pregnant.  The occasions when someone offered me a seat were rare and I think TFL need to rethink how they enforce priority seating if they want to be truly friendly to all travellers.  I can attempt to be understanding of the lack of lifts in some stations- this may be due to the cost/difficulties in the installation of lifts in an old underground system.  It is still an excuse and a truly modern transport system should have these facilities to be inclusive but I can see that a straightforward resolution is unavailable.  Enforcing priority seating does not require infrastructure changes so there is very little reason to do nothing about it. The reason I am bringing this up is because I travelled on public transport today to test the route to work with Sprog in a baby carrier- this was to avoid having to carry a pushchair up steps at my destination station.  On the way home, two ot...