Ever since Eric turned 8 months he refused to take bottles – so I started to teach him to drink out of a cup. We have tried them all – training cups with a spout that folds to prevent spillages, training cups with a valve that controls the flow, training cups with a straw that makes it easier for baby to sip - nothing worked. He would fold the spout instead of drinking from the cup, he would chew on the spout because the valve was making him suck harder and he didn’t like that, and the cup with a straw was spilling all over so I had to return it.

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Eric was approaching 11 months mark and I was still breastfeeding. To tell you the truth I never liked it and only did it because it was good for the baby. So once the level of “mom hormones” in my blood started to decline, breastfeeding became even less enjoyable.

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I had a problem: Eric didn’t want to eat his lunch. He was turning the head from side to side, trying to escape from the high chair, when he was clearly hungry – really exercising my patience. I had to come up with something, so my solution was to let him make is own soup – yes, that’s right.

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Did you notice how quickly they outgrow practically everything? I had a couple of months when I was shopping for baby clothes every other week - and I hate shopping.

So here is some tips I came up with to reduce the shopping and the hassle to the minimum:

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Many moms, especially new moms, won’t accept used baby clothes even from friends. For some reason they consider offering hand-me-downs an offense - when in fact there are many reasons to say “yes, please” and be happy.

1) The most obvious reason - it saves money that can be spent on something else your baby needs.

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At first I tried to sit on the mattress holding Eric in my arms and rocking him - but he was fighting and crawling away from me, so that clearly wasn’t working. Then I put him in the cot and he started to scream - I lied down on the mattress beside the cot, said good night to him, put my hand through the bars and near him and just lied still.

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Enough is enough - I had to get my baby to sleep like through the night and on his own, not in our bed. I think that our moving home created the opportunity for it - the familiar environment was changed and that made easier for me to break his sleeping habits. I tried to create new rules and get Eric accustomed to them.

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Our kids are a colossal challenge, aren’t they? Every minute of every day they can come up with a new trick and we’ve got to quickly learn how to handle it, otherwise we’re in trouble. And it is a known fact that what works for one family doesn’t work for another, and all kids are different. And when we finally find that something that WORKS, it will always work up to some point - and then stop.

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Have you ever felt like your life is over? Have you felt that there is no room for your wishes - only for the baby’s needs? That you are no longer you - someone else took over your body, changed your life and you don’t like it one bit? Have you ever looked in the mirror and thought “Oh my God, I used to be pretty, what’s happened to me?”

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If there is one thing I can tell you about moving home with a 10 months old baby, it is don’t expect it to be smooth and easy. If there is one advice I can give you - prearrange and outsource. Think about this day in all the tiny details and prepare everything you can beforehand.

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