Recently I wrote this post about my precious little Juliet at the four week mark. After I published it I thought it might be an unpleasant read for some new Mums and that I should also mention where we were at when we reached the four week mark with Elise and Eamon. It was a very different space to the one we are in now.
Around seven and a half years ago I was a month into parenting my first baby. I was terrified! I felt hopeless and clueless and my Husband and I were beyond relieved the day my Mum arrived to help us out. I was having endless trouble breastfeeding and it was bringing me to tears on an almost daily basis. The exhaustion felt like torture and on top of caring for my newborn and feeding around the clock I also had insomnia. It was becoming increasingly difficult to settle Lu in her bassinet and I felt that as a mum I was doing everything wrong!
Jump ahead to three and a half years ago. Our little man is four weeks old and screaming the house down if I even look like putting him down or passing him to somebody else. Scrap that, if I wasn’t feeding he was screaming the house down. So I fed and I fed and I fed all day and all night.
On both of these occasions my wonderful husband was hiding somewhere in the background, doing the washing and feeling nothing short of terrified of the creature I had brought into our home.
As I write this post I’m lying in bed with Juliet. She has been sleeping, albeit incredibly noisily, in the bassinet beside me and I have consequently been awake since her 3am feed. Now that she is in my arms she is as quiet as a mouse and I’m wide awake!
We still feed every three hours, at best, overnight and my bigger babies rise at 6am. I’m also a shocking sleeper and seldom go back to sleep after the 3-4am feed.
It seems, at my place at least, the newborn game is always an exhausting one. But I’m going to side with many others Mums out there and say that for us it has got easier. It is still difficult and exhausting and so many other things, but it is certainly easier than it was on our first two rounds. Perhaps it’s because we now know that the hard days and nights will pass. With our first we thought it was never going to end! Experience has taught me that the light at the end of the tunnel is one that shines into my life and fills it with warmth and beauty and makes every crazy, stressful hour so very worth it.
Breakfast Muffins
- zest and juice of one orange
- 2 cups diced dried fruit*
- 3/4 cup coconut flour
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- pinch of salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 5 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups mashed pumpkin**
- 3 tablespoons coconut oil
- 1/2 teaspoon concentrated natural vanilla extract
- 1 rounded tablespoon honey
- 1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
Preheat your oven to 175°C or 350°F
- Grease 12 holes of a muffin pan.
- Place the juice, zest and dried fruit into a medium sized saucepan. Cover.
- Bring to the boil, reduce the heat to low. Simmer for five minutes. Checking to ensure the fruit does not stick to the base of your pan.
- While the fruit is simmering sift the coconut flour into a mixing bowl.
- Add the cinnamon, ginger and salt.
- Add the eggs and mix until well combined.
- Add the mashed pumpkin. Combine.
- Remove the fruit from the heat.
- Add the coconut oil, vanilla and honey. Combine.
- Add the bicarb soda. Combine.
- Add the fruit mixture to the pumpkin mixture, combine.
- Spoon the mixture evenly into your muffin holes and bake for 25-30 minutes.
- Cool in the tray for five minutes before moving to a cooling rack.
- Eat and enjoy.
*I used 1/2 a cup each of dates, apricots, raisins and currants.
** I roasted one large quarter of a kent pumpkin to yield this amount.
note – these muffins are delicious warm and spread with butter, almond butter or a mix of tahini and honey.
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