Reading to the bump

So walking around a store one day i found myself looking at some children’s books. As i started to flick through them, i felt a little bit of excitement run through my veins. Soon i will be reading these books to my baby, and soon I will be getting a response. Anyway one book that caught my eye was Charlie Monkey, it’s simple book with not much content but I thought it would be perfect to read to the bump in the evenings before I went to bed.

This all goes back to giving the baby some familiar sounds whilst it is in the womb, so hopefully it recognises them when its outside the womb. I'm kind of hoping that by reading the same book over and over again the baby will recognise patterns in my voice which hopefully will help calm and relax her (I say her, but we don’t know what sex our baby is yet).

My wife never gets involved with this part of my bonding session, but she does find it amusing when I try to find new ways to read the book, be it singing it, making animal noises etc. One thing’s for sure I can see the smile it puts on her face so I know even if the baby can't hear me at least its helping one person stay relaxed.

If you get a chance, next time you are out and about try and pickup a baby book and read to your bump as often as you can. I'm sure this will help relax you and who knows might help the little one in more ways than you can imagine.

Baby I got you a Moses basket

Baby I got you a Moses basket

I still remember the excitement of telling friends and family our good news. Most people who have had kids would react with some sense of joy followed by a huge volume of advice. Since this was new to my wife and I we tried to take onboard everything people had to say, although information on babies can be overwhelming at times it was nice to get advice so that we could then make more informed decisions.

The one thing that came up the most was Moses baskets, we had a few offers to borrow ones from friends and at the time it seemed like a good idea. As the due date approached we found ourselves constantly in baby shops and we would eventually find ourselves looking at mosses baskets and thinking although cute there is not much too them.

From the outset i made it clear to my wife that i wasn’t really interested in borrowing one as i felt my child deserved a new place to sleep, i don’t think most adults would borrow a bed from someone so why would this be expectable for our new baby. The other reason for this was that the babies stuff had already started to burn a whole in our pockets and i couldn’t really see what difference the £50 or so for a Moses basket would make.

So whilst I was out and about one day my wife called me, "hey I’m in mamas and papas and they have a really nice Moses basket on sale with 50% off", my reaction was buy it.

One weekend my sister-in-law picked up the new Moses basket on the way to my house and I must say I am glad that we did go for a new one, I know it won’t get that much use but hey for the £50 we spent it is much cheaper than a night out these days or a tank for of fuel for the car.

The one thing that did get me was the stand, now you would think a stand to put this on wouldn’t be expensive but for something sturdy that looked like it would keep your baby safe would cost over £30, to me that sounds expensive but unless you have something else to put that basket on then you would need that stand. So we ordered one, my wife was not convinced we needed one or that spending £30 on one was worth it, but for the amount of time she had spent trying to find the same one cheaper on eBay I thought it was worth the money. I'm just glad that I don’t have to hear about the stand anymore.

So don't be put off by buying a new Moses basket for your baby if that's what you want. Friends should understand if you want something new for your little one to sleep in, I'm just glad we can now move onto the next item on our list and inch closer to the birth.