January | 2017 | Goddard Family

Our first zucchini and tomato in our new little veggie patch!

I am now 8 and a half months postpartum after the birth of Willow our 5th precious bundle. I have been slowly losing weight. At first, when I was still breastfeeding her, I lost nothing, then just a little here and there. Now that Willow is fully weaned and drinking from a bottle my weight loss has sped up. I have trouble feeding my babies past six months old (except for my first who fed for 13 months). My milk supply, no matter how hard I try, just isn’t enough for my hungry babies when they get older. But that’s another story.

I’m here to happily say that I’m almost there – 5.5kg away from my pre pregnancy weight. I have lost 10.5kg since coming home from hospital and have gone down a few dress sizes. The weight is coming off slower than previous postpartum times but I’m getting there. Progress, no matter how small, keeps me motivated. I gained a little weight over Christmas – whoops! But thankfully lost it again within a few weeks of being extra careful with what I ate.

How am I doing it? Trim Healthy Mama. This program is my go-to whenever I have weight to lose. I’ve used it after my last 3 babies to lose weight and it has been effective every time. I am learning to practice mindful eating and not just shoving food into my mouth whenever I feel like. I try to think before I eat.

As for exercise, I have a half hour slot in my schedule that I allow for exercise. I am loving taking my bike out for a ride. I find it really calming and it clears my head. I walk too, and sometimes run for a few minutes during my walk. My aim is to exercise 5 times a week – but usually I get in 3 half hour sessions.

I’m really thankful to have been successful so far in losing my postpartum weight. But I know that many of you haven’t been so successful. Yet.

I want to give you a big hug. Your body is beautiful, it has bore a precious child. Don’t be hard on yourself, your body changes SO much after you have a baby. Give yourself some time and you too can lose weight if you want to. Feel free to have a chat in the comments if you have any postpartum weight loss related questions. I’m happy to help or have a chat.

Blessings, Peta

Miss Savannah

I was first introduced to the concept of scheduling my family a few years back when my first three were all little from reading Erika Shupe’s blog Large Families On Purpose. Over the past few years I have tried a few different schedules but if they are run by the clock, it hasn’t gone well for me. I have a very loose schedule written up now. Well, it’s more or less a routine than a schedule because it doesn’t have any times on it – except for meals and bedtime. It works somewhat but it’s perhaps a bit too loose. There are moments in my day that aren’t working. And some things that I consider important are getting missed. I’ve been scratching my head for a while wondering and praying about how to order my home life so every thing works. I love the idea of the home running like a well oiled machine. Everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing and when and everyone working to help each other reach a common goal. My home doesn’t look like a well oiled machine…it looks more like 2 parts of the machine (me and Luke) trying our hardest to keep order in the home while the other parts of the machine cause chaos. It’s time to get every thing and everyone running smoothly.

Will you join me on my journey into scheduling? I have almost completed my first day of following my new schedule from start to finish. In fact; the only reason I am even writing this right now is because my schedule said

7:30pm – Blog.

I am amazed at how much I have accomplished today! The best thing about a schedule for me is that it ‘thinks’ for me. My mind is often a jumbled mess as I go about my day – especially in the mornings. This is because I have so much I need to do and all of it is reasonably urgent (change the toddlers nappy before it explodes, feed the baby, shower etc) and I often go running from one thing to the next trying to decide on the fly which thing is more urgent and needs to be done first. My schedule eliminates the stress of making 100 decisions because the decisions I need to make – such as feeding my baby her breakfast and when to put on the first load of laundry – have been made for me ahead of time. It makes me more efficient at getting these things done because I can work on the task at hand more wholeheartedly knowing that all the other things on my mind will get done when my schedule says so.

*Edit – I wrote the above in the last week of term 4 2016 – so around 4 weeks ago. I decided to make a schedule for myself for the summer school holidays too. The schedule has really taken the lethargy out of the holidays that I often feel after Christmas. Often I will sleep in (as long as I can) in the holidays and sluggishly go about my day. My mind would be a jumbled mess, full of things that I knew I needed to get done but I struggled to decide which task was most urgent. My school holiday days are going better and I feel like I’m living with much more intention. I also am making sure that I don’t get so busy with the urgent tasks and I allow time for things I feel are important. Like reading a story to one of my children. And exercising. I haven’t followed my schedule 100% of the time but overall I feel I am achieving more in my days then I was before.

Making a ginger bread house with all the cousins

We have begun a 10 minute ‘power clean.’ Just before the children’s bed time too. I set the timer on my phone and we all rush around and see how much stuff we can put away before the timer goes. After wards I am amazed at how much tidier the house can look in such a short amount of time!

My eldest two children have been busy this week with swimming lessons, so I tweak the schedule to work around us going out too. A home schedule doesn’t mean I am always home, I work it around our outings. But also I find a happy balance so I am not going out so much that my home responsibilities are not getting done.

Do you run your days with a schedule or do you use a looser routine? Let me know in the comments. Do you follow a schedule during the school holidays?