Baby brain!

Agh! Seriously go away already. I am tried of doing stupid stuff. The main one lately is for the past 2 weeks every time I have gone to buy magnesium tablets I somehow get home with something no where even close to magnesium. I have no idea how the F**K I keep picking up the wrong ones.
Tomorrow I have to head out specifically to get them. Nothing else to think about or do just get them. Maybe then I will get it right!

Not much really happening boys are all good, sleeping well, happy most of the time. Tyler gets whingy at times but its part of being a toddler I think.

Blake is starting to change before my eyes. I love seeing this stage. He has more strength, has started understanding and playing with more complex toys like spinning the wheel on the jumperoo thing. He recognises he is going to be picked up and is so much more interactive. He has started drinking out of a sippy cup at dinner. He still needs my help as even though he tried doing it himself and knew what he needed to do and got the teat thing in his mouth he didn't have the strength to lift the cup up. I put him in the walker yesterday for the first time. He has no idea what he is doing lol but he likes playing with the toys.

I am coming up to ovulating in a couple of days. Will be interesting to see if it all happens like it used to.
The exercise is going great and I am eating well. I just don't know why the weight isn't falling off. Just going to take more time if I guess. It's just frustrating to put in so much effort for workouts but achieve nothing. Well not nothing I can see I am losing centimetres and I am getting some definition back all over really (not lean muscle definition the not a big ball of fat definition!)
Bridesmaid dress shopping on Thursday. Just so disappointed I didn't lose those last 2kg I wanted. :(

Loving the sleep!

Ahhh little Blake has settled again and is sleeping from 6:30-5:30! It's fantastic!

Other than that not much really happening at all!
Can't believe we are coming up to Blake being 5 months and Tyler being 20months. I have started thinking about birthday presents. I will buy all the birthday and Christmas presents in the mid year sales.
For Tyler I want to get him a little push bike with training wheels!
Blake will get his big boy bed like Tyler did but other than that not sure.
Maybe a trampoline for Christmas.
Hopefully B will be able to start the jungle gym soon so they will have that too.

So we have also decided to postpone the family holiday I wanted to go on at the end of the year :( I so need a holiday but With my sisters wedding in August and it being interstate and going to cost us a small fortune we simply won't be able to afford another break this year. We might go in a small camping trip or something but certainly not the kid resort thing on the coast.
If we so fall pregnant we may or may not go the following year. Too much can happen between now and then.

Something I have been trying to decide on is do I go private again to have bub3?
I have had 2 pretty straight forward pregnancies and births. I loved the extra care of private and the scans I could have at each appointment but the extra out of pocket costs in hospital are they worth it? I have too hospital cover but it didn't matter we still are a few thousand out of pocket.
Then will I be too stressed to not have that extra close monitoring at the start of the pregnancy? I know if I was to lose another there is nothing I can do but I want to know if everything is ok or not. It's the not knowing I don't like.

Sitting & More gender sway research

So little Blakey can finally sit unassisted. Its only for a little bit but he is certainly gaining strength quickly. This morning he sat for about 15seconds. This has certainly helped the boys to start interacting even more which is so beautiful to see.

We did have a bit of an incident this morning. Tyler doesn't get the whole be gentle thing.  He is certainly a boof head boy. Anyway Blake was lying on the floor playing and Tyler decided to sit on his face! :( poor Blake was very upset.  I was sitting right next to him but it all happened so fast and Tyler doesn't understand that what he did was wrong. Everyone is fine now though thank goodness.  I am sure we will have many more of those episodes. Tyler is a little jealous and really doesn't like Blake playing with his toys! That kind of thing isn't supposed to set in until they are 2 but Tyler has always been a bit ahead so basically mentally and physically he is at a 2 year old level. Glad I didn't wait till he was 2 to have the next one. Wowzers we would have been in trouble then.

So I have been doing more research on this gender swaying. This is point form of what I have found so far. Some I have mentioned before but I will write them down again so I keep a log of everything.

2 main natural methods.
1- Shettles: DTD 3-4 days before ovulation
2 - O+12: DTD 12 hours post ovulation

Diet
- Increase Calcium, magnesium and cranberry
- Limit coffee
- Peppermint tea
- No lemon juice in warm water, pineapple or apple juice as these promote boy
- Low salt

BDing position and pH
- Vaginal pH 4-5 (7-9 boy friendly)
- Sperm pH 7-7.5 (9 Boy friendly)
- position Missionary, shallow finish no big O and toilet immediately after DTD

Acidic Douches - still to look into this but have read some successful stories of where women have used them

Hubby to wear undies and take a hot bath immediately before DTD. NO COFFEE before DTD. Abstain for as long as possible as older ejaculate is believe to contain more girl sperm.

Sudifed or psudoephedrine based Cold and flu 1-2 hours before DTD to dry the environment out

Supplements for both to take
- Calcium and Magnesium
- Acidilophis
- Cranberry
- Vitamin C

Supplements to avoid as they improve CM
- EPO, Green Tea, Fish Oil, Grapefruit Juice and L-Arginine

So I have started some supplements I am needing to get to the chemist to get a couple more. I have ordered some pH strips so I can test myself and B and see if we are boy friendly. My guess would be a definite yes lol! But will also enable us to continue to test to ensure the diet is working to change our pH to girl friendly.

I have mentioned some of this to B, we have been crazy busy and the boys have been off the last couple of days with Tyler teething his eye teeth and Blake having his needles on Tuesday but we still have time to get this into place before we actually start trying.

I am still undecided on what method to try. The first one is much easier and their are success stories. I wonder if I change everything to be girl friendly then the first method might have more of a chance but do I want to take that chance?

Sleep!

Little Blake is back to sleeping again! Yay. That 4 month sleep regression lasted forever! So he is sleeping 6:30-4:45 which is fantastic. I would love him to sleep 1 more hour as thats when Tyler wakes up but hey I am happy with a sleep through. I feed him and he goes back to sleep until 7 so hopefully he sleeps through that feed eventually.

Tyler is really whingy at the moment. He won't eat anything at all :( wish I had his no eating problem when ever he is sick or in pain etc. at the moment he is teething his eye teeth. His left top one has popped through but waiting in the other one.

I am going to get B to build him a big outdoor jungle gym. To buy they are around $4k but B should easily be able to do it under $1k. It's just that i took him to a play centre yesterday as his whinging as doing my head in. He happily played for hours and even though he was so exhausted he just didn't want to leave.

He has some outdoor play stuff but he is so bored with it all. He needs something to climb. Might save him climbing all my furniture. The other day I caught him doing something very scary. I try and supervise him all the time but there are times u just can't like when I am feeding Blake. I thought I had baby proofed but we reached another level. He pulled the dinning chair over to the kitchen bench and climbed up. He then had proceeded to put everything he could find on the bench into the toaster which was plugged in. So scary. It was so lucky that it hadn't caught fire or electrocuted himself. I now unplug it after every use but still shows no matter how baby proofed you think things are they aren't!! He also uses his toys by dragging them to the bookcases and climbing up as high as he can.

So yeah I need something to expel some of that energy in a safe way. I might look at baby proofing the back yard too so I can let him go out there and if I can't be right there beside him I know he is safe. I always go out there with him but if I need to put Blake down for a nap or get him up I drag Tyler back inside even if only for a minute as its just not safe.

On the TTC#3 AF had left this cycle and I have started temping. I will do so until 3 days after ovulation. I will check it twice a day to see a pattern form and see if we can pin point ovulation down to the hour.
I have started calcium and magnesium supplements and cranberry juice.
Working on the losing weight thing etc.
all underway for a few months time. August/sept will be here before I know it. I have also started taking a pregnancy multi again and will start taking folate 5mg soon too as if takes a few months to get into the system.
We only have 1 shot at this so I am throwing everything I have at it. :) once I am pregnant its all decided. If its a little boy I know it was just meant to be.

Interesting and completely confusing info

So I have been doing a little more reading regarding gender swaying.

Wowsers that stuff is confusing. So there seems to be 2 main methods.
First is the shettles method which says to DTD 3-4days prior to ovulation as girl sperm are Longer lasting. Then abstain until well after ovulation has past as DTD too close to ovulation the faster swimming male sperm will get to the egg first.

Then is the 0+12 method which is the opposite of the first method and u need to pin point ovulation down to the hour which is no small feat and then DTD 12hours later. It also requires the man to abstain from ejaculation for as long as possible as this is believed to increase the number of girl sperm as the boys will have died off. DTD 12hours later means the fertile CM is gone and the more hostile environment kills the weaker boys sperm.

Apparently one thing that is agreed is lowering the pH of the vagina using things like cranberry juice, magnesium and vitamin c helps this.

Apparently taking a pseudo based cold and flu 1-2hours prior to DTD can also help sway toward girl as this drug dries u up again making that environment hostile!

It certainly seems gender swaying for a girl is much harder than for a boy!!

Lots lots more reading to do because at this point I am just getting more confused! Wish I knew more from when we fell pregnant with pearl.

Looks like I will be charting in more detail though to see if I can pin point ovulation in case I do decide the 2nd method is the way to go. Might look into some pH strip things to see what it's like before I do too much altering with diet etc! Be interesting to see if it is boy sperm friendly.

I remember back when I was a work a colleague was telling of a new scientific method on gender swaying. Basically they found that boy and girl sperm have opposite charges. So if u wash the sperm through an ionised column of different charge depending on which gender u wanted. U would then separate the sperm and insert only the gender sperm u wanted.

I would still like to conceive naturally but this is certainly interesting.

Ttc #3 whoa

Lol no not right now but B and I have had a talk and we r going to start ttc #3 sooner than originally planned.

I have been thinking about it all a lot lately and there are many reasons why I want to just get the pregnancy and new born stage out of the way. Yes that may sound dismissive but I don't overly enjoy the new born stage. I love the cuddliness and watching them grow and learn but the sleeplessness and the its better and easier to stay at home rather than drag the kids around is exhausting for a few months.

There are other reasons, I have decided to roll enrol the boys into a catholic school. This of course does involve school fees. In order to pay these I will need to return to work. Tyler is due to start prep in 2017. If we have had all the kids and returned to work we can settle into a routine. Yes having lots of little ones will be very hard work but it will get easier. It just means in the long run I get to be at home with the kids for longer. If I wait and Tyler is at school it means returning to work soon after having the baby in order to pay fees etc.

We also had a chat about increasing our chances of having a girl. I really really want a girl. If we did end up having a girl we would probably stop at 3. It means we don't have to upgrade the car or house etc.

Then there is the age thing. Not only does pregnancy etc get harder as u get older as u get older ur kids are still so young. I would like to have some younger years left with the kids. If I put off ttc for 2 years that's 2 less years I could have with them later in life.

So we have made the decision to start trying in August after my sister wedding. I need to lose this last 15kg in the next few months and B has agreed to improve his fitness too. We are also going to DTD stopping at CD10. I am going to do some research on diet etc as well to see if it might help too.

I am still following my cycle but I am wondering if I should start charting properly. My AF was 3 days early this month giving me a 25day cycle. Totally crap! Ttc a girl is going to involve some effort but fingers crossed it pays off.

If we did have another boy that's ok too I am a big believing in everything happens for a reason and it means he was meant to join our family I just want to improve our chances of a girl and hope that our little pearl comes back to us.

Exhausted

It was a bad Night last night and I feel so guilty. I am just so exhausted and need sleep but just not getting it.

I went to bed early but Tyler woke up crying a couple of times. He didn't get of bed which was good but still woke me up.
Little Blake woke at 1:15 for a bottle but he is in the habit of having awake time.
What am I doing wrong? Tyler would just have his bottle and go back to sleep, Blake nope. He is awake every night and its a fight to get him back to sleep. At 3am i ended up giving him another bottle and he finally settled.
What upsets me is in that 2 hours I get so annoyed at him. I know it's not his fault but I can't help it. I just want to go back to sleep but he just won't.
I only use a tiny night light, I don't talk or engage him but he still wakes up.

I don't know what to do to correct this. Night time is for sleeping! And this is what I start saying to him as I get frustrated. I just hate that I get frustrated with him.

After he finally went down to sleep at 3:20 Tyler woke at 5 crying so I went in and had to fully change him as yet again he wet through and gave him a bottle and he slept till 7. Little Blake only slept until 6.

I know Blake is going through a growth spurt but surly they don't last this long. It's been nearly a week. He is also only cat napping during the day. He was such a good sleeper and is now just crap. I know things can get disrupted when they are sick but comeon!
30-40mins naps that's it. He is sleeping like Tyler used to. He just doesn't self settle anymore. Even while he was sick I still put him down awake but its that refusal to settle when he comes up into the light sleep after 1 sleep cycle. I don't know how he broke out of his normal routine. I am going to try a new technique and leave him in his bed unless he is upset. He needs at least 2 sleep cycles before I will get him up.

At what point will I not feel so utterly tired anymore.