Sharing my experiences and lessons learned as I navigate motherhood, marriage and homemaking in this mom to mom blog. Read as I share what does (and doesn’t) work for our expanding family. I’m guessing that if you’re reading this then you’re a mum too. I hope that you find this motherhood blog a source of information, companionship & inspiration. If nothing else I hope you have a few giggles as I share the highs and lows of my motherhood and homemaking journey.
Welcome to my Motherhood Blog Hennys Home
I’m Olivia Henny, wife, and Mum living in the Northeast of England. In October 2021 my boyfriend proposed and on Christmas Eve we got married at the church across the road.
Three weeks after our wedding we found out that we were expecting. Just a few weeks before my due date we moved house. Relocating from our terrace house in the city, to the Northumberland countryside. As we unpacked the last box I went into labour (a week overdue).
We had our first daughter by a natural home birth using a private midwife (without using the NHS). We now have two daughters. Having already done two-under-two, we’re about to add a third baby to the chaos that is our home. And I couldn’t be more excited!
Follow along as I share the highs and lows of my motherhood and homemaking journey.
First things first. You can follow along as I share the highs and lows of my motherhood and homemaking journey here. I’ll be sharing what does and doesn’t work for our family. From sleep schedules, recipes and baby products, as well as my insights into motherhood and homemaking as my experience grows. Hopefully there will be lots of tips for new parents too.
Our Story
My husband Simon and I started dating in 2019. I relocated ‘up North’ just before the first of the many lock-downs hit the UK in 2020. Later that year we bought our first home together in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. It was a fixer-upper and we spent the next year knee-deep in DIY.
Not long after we started dating I knew that Simon was someone special and thankfully he thought the same. In October 2021 he asked me to marry him. After a short engagement we got married at the Church across the road on Christmas Eve. We had a very small ceremony and went for an afternoon-tea for two in our wedding attire straight after tying-the-knot.
We started trying for a baby not long after our engagement. Less than a month after our wedding we found out that we were expecting!
Our beautiful terrace house in the city, which we had just finished refurbishing suddenly seemed wrong for our expanding family. While it was beautiful, with three bedrooms. We wanted to get out of the city and find a home with a big garden. More suited for the next chapter of our family.
So before we knew it we were packing boxes, and moving house. By this point I was about eight months pregnant. We quickly settled in and unpacked, and waited (not so patiently on my part) for our baby to be born.
What else do you need to know?
I’m currently thirty-three years old. Felicity is our first child and at the time of writing/editing is two years old. Our second daughter Primrose has just turned one… and I’m expecting again!
I’m an only child, and have always longed for a big family. Becoming a mum has been my biggest wish since I was a little girl. The last few years have been the best of my entire life – I feel very lucky. I’ve loved diving into homemaking and cooking for our growing family. Does that mean I have found motherhood easy? Absolutely not! I have had the biggest highs and some deep lows along the way. But the highs have far outweighed the lows.
The Highs of Motherhood so far
My Natural Home Birth
Becoming a Mum has been an epic journey. Having our first daughter at home, with just my husband and two private midwives was the most amazing experience. Was birth painful, scary, and hard? Definitely. It was also one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life, and something I am truly proud of. My experience of a natural home birth was 100% positive, you can read more about it here.
Watching my husband become a Dad
Watching my husband become a Dad was the thing I was most excited about whilst I was pregnant. The real-life experience has not disappointed. Simon and Felicity’s relationship is so special, and the older she gets, the better it gets. Simon has taken fatherhood in his stride. He has even coped with all the food splatters and baby paraphernalia that has overrun our home. Now a dad to two, I have been able to watch as he shapes a completely different relationship with Primrose. I can’t wait to see him hold his next little baby in his arms.
All the love…
Every mum out there will say the same thing. No one can prepare you for the love you feel for your baby. I can confirm it’s true. It’s not like falling in love or like the love you have for your family, it’s a totally different feeling. For me at least, even in my most uneasy moments, the love I have for our daughters has not wavered. Even when its hard. Even when they scream (or smell), I still love them. It is an amazing feeling.
I look at my daughters with total awe. Every day they change, advance, and amaze me. It’s incredible. I find myself wishing time will rewind and fast-forward at the same time. One minute you can’t wait to see them achieve the next milestone. Take their first step, or try a new food, or smile for the first time. The next minute you want to go back to when they were small and snuggled up in your arms. It’s truly wild and so rewarding.
The Lows of Motherhood so far
Baby’s sleep and bedtime!
Sleep (or more specifically bedtime) has to date been the biggest challenge. From day one, our daughter Felicity was a great night-time sleeper. We’ve been very lucky in that regard. To be honest the first six weeks were so much easier than I thought they were going to be. She slept well and I had no problem waking three to four times a night to feed her. She went straight back to sleep after a fifteen-minute nibble and that was that. We co-slept after her first waking (more on that later) and it was fine.
Then she got older and woke less at night. BUT… daytime naps were non-existent unless my nipple was left permanently in her mouth. Her lack of naps made her cranky and overtired. As she got older the transfer from boob to crib at bedtime soon became a daily battle. She became too big to co-sleep like we had when she was a newborn. Suddenly sleep was a major issue.
Honestly, the lack of a daytime break soon got to me. I just wanted ten minutes to go to the loo. I wanted her crying from over tiredness to stop. I wanted to escape the evening struggle to get her into her crib. By the time she was three months old I was done. Had Felicity come with a returns policy, she would have been sent back to where she had come from. (I think Simon felt the same way about me!)
Deciding to sleep train
Once our daughter was five months old we had had enough and decided to hire a sleep consultant. Let me tell you it was worth every single penny! I had read a lot of books about baby sleep before we hired a professional. I probably knew enough to sleep train our daughter on my own. But what I needed was someone else to tell me that what I knew to be true was right. That my daughter would still love me. And that I was doing the right thing for our family and situation. I would 100% recommend sleep training.
The results from sleep training were amazing. I was so impressed (and relieved) that I continued with my research. I soon decided that I wanted to help other families to transform their baby’s sleep too. So when the time is right, I hope to embark on the training. Sleep training was totally transformative for our family.
I wish I could tell you that second time around getting our baby to sleep was easier. It wasn’t! Our second daughter Primrose was an even more challenging sleeper (and baby)! She is now one, and just like her sister, we cracked sleep in the end. She went from screaming morning til night, to the happiest little soul. Training Primrose to sleep independently was a totally different experience to our first baby. As the sleep consultant I used first time round told me, “no two babies are the same.” Well she was right.
Honestly my postpartum experience (and pregnancy) were a lot harder second time around. I think many of the challenges we faced with Primrose’s sleep were more to do with my state of mind than hers. She is a wonderfully sensitive soul, and I think unknowingly my stress became hers. Of course we did find our groove in the end, and by six months we nailed sleep. Now my girls room share and both sleep through the night.
Working from home with a baby
I’m self-employed. I have my own business, I’m a professional and have clients and families who depend on my services. The work-baby balance has been so much harder than I thought it would be. And I knew it would be hard.
I had organised my work so that I could have three months ‘maternity leave’ first time round. Being a one-woman-band (so to speak), this proved hard. It has been much harder trying to get back into my pre-baby work routine since then. In fact, it’s not been possible. I’m sure that there are many women out there who absolutely smash the work-baby balance, but I haven’t. The main issue is that I don’t have the same passion for my business since having Felicity. Since having Primrose my focus and time just can’t keep pace with the demands of running a business.
Work has become a time-thief, stealing precious minutes from my day, time which could otherwise be spent with my daughters. So much so that I am trying to sell-up and become a full-time mum with a motherhood blog. Thankfully I have a wonderful husband who has supported and even encouraged this decision. I can’t wait. But for now, I’m still limping along, doing my best to juggle my various roles: mother, wife, homemaker, professional.
That’s a wrap for now…
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