Small changes make a big difference 

As I’m writing this blog post I’m in the final 36 hours of my second pregnancy and waiting for a planned C-Section in just over a day’s time.  In just the past week or so, as a family we have made some small (but significant) changes to daily living options and I’m overwhelmed at just how successful they have been. 

A week ago my husband came home with a list of “To do” tasks for our home, nothing major but just little bits and bobs to give some attention when we can as they might have slipped our minds. These were things like deciding to get rid completely of our TV licence and sky, changing our living room coffee table, washing down the bathroom floors, cleaning our curtains – lots of random small tasks but to get the house up to speed. We thought these tasks would take us weeks just to fit in whenever we could but to our surprise within a matter of days everything was ticked off due to the buzz of getting things done and seeing the results. 

With the near arrival of a new little one in our home this week too, we also have changed our toddler bedtime routine in preparation. I’m not one for strict timetables as life cannot always be planned, but generally we keep to the same timings for bedtime in our household. Toddler used to have bath around 6.15pm then milk and snack before books and bed around 7pm. This past few days though to allow for the baby to fit in and also to give our aging toddler more “chill down” time before bed with us, now we have added in some extra “downstairs play” time after bath with a later books and bedtime of around half 7pm instead. Just in the past few days I’ve seen that our toddler is calmer at bedtime (especially days when Daddy is home closer to bath time) as he is getting time to relax and be around us, and also sleeping better until 7am wake up. 

I’m hopeful than when we bring new little baby home next week that our time exclusively with toddler post bath time allows for him to get used to the new baby without feeling that the baby has got all the attention all the time. 

Similarly I have personally loved getting rid of live tv in the house and that is something that generally most people don’t think they can do. It has meant that instead of the TV becoming background general noise, we have to make a choice for everyone in the house what we watch and when we watch it. I’ve found that the few times I’m putting on programmes for little dude he is excited and engaged for that short time rather than distracted all the time from doing other tasks (such as playing). 

Life is an ongoing process and sometimes it is good for the soul to make small changes, and some might need changed straight back to previous efforts, but generally change offers new insight. Our major new change will be moving from three to four people in our immediate family in the next 36 hours, but I’m ready for another type of adventure to begin. This is the life I choose and hope I can make it the happiest content life I can with my shot at it. 

Love MFF xx