Pregnancy, babyworld, toddlerdom and beyond
I received an email this morning from Campadre, a site selling clothes, shoes and interiors via limited-time sales, and I noticed that among their daily sales, they have Boob design maternity and breastfeeding clothes for the next few days.
You can register with them to buy or to receive these daily emails detailing their new sales. At the moment they also have sales on Rosti kitchen items, Ulrika handbags and Blink shoes among others.
Enjoy!
Following on from my post on maternity clothes (among other things), I received an email from one of the many mailing lists that I’ve signed myself up for over the years, saying that Jollyroom in Sweden are now stocking the autumn season maternity clothes from Mom2moM. So there is one more place to source maternity wear if you’re here in Sweden.
From asos.com
Looking at my stats page, it is interesting to see the different searches that bring people to my site.
The most common seems to be about where to buy maternity clothes in Stockholm. I have actually found this quite hard – the don’t think the choice here is so good. Zara used to have maternity wear but they have stopped selling that here and Polarn O Pyret have also stopped selling maternity clothes (but then I never bought from there anyway, as dressing in the same patterns as my newborn baby was top of my priority list). I used to buy most of my pregnancy outfits either at H&M or online (ASOS has a fantastic range as does Isabella Oliver).
I have also posted a few different Polyvore boards with maternity clothes that I’ve found online and loved:
Another popular search query is: the best hospital in which to give birth in Stockholm. I know I only have experience of two, but I would definitely say that the BB Stockholm ward at Danderyd Hospital wins hands down. It might have changed slightly now (as they now don’t have the same admission policy as before: no complications, no caesarians, no twins), but when Little O was born there, it was wonderful to be able to spend three nights in our little cocoon getting to know him. Even though he was born in the middle of a baby boom in Stockholm, we had a private room after the birth, where Husband and I could stay for the three nights with Little O and the staff were on hand with any problems or questions that we had.
Things were a little different when Baby E was born as it was all so quick that we did not have time to make it to Danderyd and went instead to Karolinska. Our experience there was probably not the norm as Baby E was born in an examination room (yes, it was that fast) and the ward was full so we slept in a birthing room, with Husband on the bed with the rubber sheet and me being woken by a gas mask hitting my head each time I turned over. We still received the same great care that you get when you give birth in Sweden, but it just had that more hospital feeling then BB Stockholm.
Another search that brought someone here was for “pregnancy test sweden”. This is something that I found a little odd at first here. When I took a home pregnancy test and found that I was pregnant with Little O, I immediately contacted my doctor and tried to book an appointment for her to do a test and confirm. But that just doesn’t happen here. Instead, you get straight in contact with a midwife and have a booking-in appointment with her. She then does tests for iron levels, various diseases (HIV etc), whether you are in fact pregnant and so on. So, really, all you need to do is get yourself to the apoket (chemist) and buy a home pregnancy test; then, if you are pregnant, contact a midwife. I would highly recommend the midwives at BB Stockholm – I think they are wonderful.
Someone searched for “taking a toddler to Stockholm”. Absolutely no problem! This city is so incredibly child-friendly and there are so many things that you can easily do with a toddler here. I find Barn i Stan a great resource for what to do with children in the city.
I love Libero nappies, so I think it’s great that someone found their way here by searching for that (although I cannot ever remember declaring my love for them on here). We tried out lots of different nappies for Little O but always ended up back with Libero, and so Baby E has not really been in any others. I also love the Libero club as on the site you can type in the code from the inside of each nappy pack and earn points. And we all know that points mean prizes! So far, I have redeemed points for a Lamaze toy, a Sweden football bodysuit, Duplo bricks and many 50kr vouchers off nappies. Also, if you’re a member of the club, Libero will send vouchers every few months. I don’t think I have paid full price for a pack of nappies since Baby E was born!
Hmmm, yes, that is very true! But there are very good reasons for this: as I said above, the city is wonderfully child-friendly, the state is also child-friendly, offering great maternity packages that encourage parents to take large chunks of time off with their children but also ensuring that they can return to work when they want and providing (very) low-cost nursery schooling that means that parents (mothers predominantly) can go back to work without the risk that most (if not all) of their salary goes on childcare.
Absolutely no idea on this one… I guess it has something to do with her performing barefoot? I know that I mentioned her once in a post and I guess I have also written about feet at one point. I just hope that the person searching for her feet was not too disappointed to arrive here!
Photo © English Mamma
How far along?: 39 weeks and 1 day
Total weight gain/loss: Probably around 10 kilos – maybe a little more. What I don’t understand is how this is possible. I will be the first to admit that I have not exactly been eating well in the past few weeks (far too much chocolate and too many sweet things) but I don’t seem to be putting that much weight on. I guess it could be that since I’ve stopped working out, all that lovely heavy muscle I have built up is turning back into fat…
Stretch marks?: Yep, still there and still horribly purplish.
Sleep: Well, that would be nice, but not really happening. During the day I am tired and even just taking Little O to preschool is a struggle, but the moment I switch the light off at night, my brain goes into overdrive, the heartburn/acid reflux kicks in and I am wide awake. None of this is helped by Little O waking two or three times a night and crying out in his sleep. Oh well, just preparing me for the sleeplessness to come, I guess.
Best moment this week: Sitting down with Little O and the three new books that we’ve bought him about the arrival of a baby. Since then he’s picked up the books again and again (mostly to point out the pages with “Cars!” on them), but I am still glad I bought them and that we’ve had some time to read through them and for me to ask him if he minds that we’ll soon have a little baby living with us. Not sure how much he really understands, but I guess it’s just good to talk to him about it as much as we can.
Worst moment this week: The nights without proper sleep…
Movement: Some days it all seems a bit quieter in there and I wonder “Is this it? Could today be the day?” (as I seem to remember Little O stopped moving so much in the days immediately before he was born), and other days, like yesterday, the kicking and squirming is very apparent.
Belly button in or out?: Still out, still horrid…
What I miss: Being able to get around without losing my breath and feeling exhausted. (Ha! Well, I guess that exhaustion of a different kind is heading my way, so I’d better just bite the bullet.)
What I am looking forward to: Tomorrow evening when three mamma friends come over here with takeaway for our regular girls’ night out (or in, in this case).
Milestones: Well, I think I was having some contractions yesterday evening, so I guess we’re heading into the final, final stages now. They stopped overnight though, so I think they might have been just caused by me doing too much walking and too much carrying of Little O yesterday afternoon. But still, a sign that we’re getting very close now.
This week, I learned that…
