I had to write a 150 word summary about myself today and whilst I am usually at risk of waffling too much, it was quite difficult to write. It made me look closely at myself and what I believed in. I am usually someone elses biggest advocate but when it comes to myself, self promotion isnt my strongest quality but I do believe in myself. My daughters will grow up in the knowledge that you dont have to be first off the starting block in order to win the race and geniune personal attributes are to be celebrated.

I may not be the strongest but I have inner strength.

I may not be the cleverest but I am knowledgeable.

I may not always shout the loudest but I will make myself heard.

No one will deny me, no one will defy me, no one will tell me what I can or cant be.

Belief can change your world, belief has moved continents, changed lives and put a man on the moon.

Belief in myself will always carry me through.

Do you believe in you?

I have lots of roles in life, from mother, wifey, friend, cook, cleaner, taxi driver and chief bottle washer (this is not a joke) but the biggest responsibility has to be as a mother. It is ultimately my job to keep my children safe. From the moment they arrive in the world, keeping them from harm has been my sole objective in life.

So what do you do when something, outside of your control, affects your child's safety?

I was driving home, after taking my daughter to a show, and we were chatting away as we drove through the lanes on our way home, unaware of what lay ahead. I saw a car in a lay-by on the left hand side of the road and assumed that they had broken down but as I approached the car, they suddenly turned in the road. They literally took a U-turn in the road. I had nowhere to go, except straight into them.

People tell you that your life flashes before you or that the silence before the crash is defening but my instinct was to protect my daughter.  Ironically, she was looking in my bag at the time and on impact, she simply looked up and asked "did we crash?"

I was distraught, I felt like I had failed to do my job, regardless of the fact that she was fine. Adrenalin kicked in but when the Fire Brigade, Police and Air Ambulance arrived, I was in tears. It wasn't my fault but that didn't stop me from blaming myself.

It was a reminder that life is precious but it was also a reminder that other people are not as honest and you may be. The third party tried to pursue a claim after the accident and its a times like that you need to employ the services of road accident lawyers as they are the specialists. 

I shall just continue to specialising in keeping my children safe ... I can't say the same for my car though!

After successfully breastfeeding my first daughter, to the point where it was a struggle to make the transition to bottles, I never once questioned my ability to feed my new baby daughter when she arrived. With your first child you dont know what to expect, so I never put any pressure on myself and just maintained that I would be baby led and hopefully all would be fine.

However, the second time around, as an "experienced mother" (the midwife's words, not mine) I just assumed that my new baby would latch on the same. How wrong could I be?

For the first couple of days she just "snacked" and when the midwife weighed her on day three, she expressed concern that she had dropped lower than 10% of her birth weight and needed to speak to a consultant at the hospital. By this point, I was exhausted but had already recognised that feeding wasnt going as planned, so out came the breast pump! Anyone that has used one will know that this is quite simply the least glamorous piece of equipment ever invented (with the exception of stirrups maybe) and I started expressing and expressing and expressing. Amazingly, in complete contrast to my eldest daughter, the little one took the bottle straight away and whilst I was dissapointed that she wasnt breastfeeding in the traditional sense, she was still getting my milk, so did it really matter?

Those first few weeks seemed to be a constant merry go round of expressing, sterilising, feeding, expressing ... (you get the picture) and I joked that I was like a 24 hour cafe and I found it much harder than I had ever imagined.

The little one is greedy and my exhaustion didnt help the milk production either, so I replaced one feed, with a formula bottle. At the time I felt like a failure but I also knew that if  I wanted to retain some form of sanity, I had to do what was best for me and the baby. My health visitor was amazing and once I had "confessed" to giving her a bottle of formula milk, we talked through moving forward and how I felt. 

National Breastfeeding Awareness Week needs to be celebrated by mums, dads, grandparents and everyone else in between and its such a shame that the NHS simply dont have the funds to promote it as I was so grateful to have my health visitor to talk to and a local breatfeeding group to share with and these resources are invaluable.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I know that I gave both my daughters the best start I could but all mothers beat themselves up over whether they are doing the wrong thing or indeed anything right . The little one did eventually latch on and now at 9 months we have eventually stopped the last feed, so am I writing this with some pride and a little sadness. I did perservere, it was sometimes hard work, exhausting but ultimately totally rewarding to be the one she relied on but now at 9 months, she loves to feed herself and is already demonstrating strong signs of independance.

So for me, its the end of an era but for her, the food adventure is only just beginning.

National Breastfeeding Awareness Week runs from the 24th to 30th June 2012 but its ironic that the NHS simply dont have the funds available to raise awareness, so in step the bloggers!

As new mums, we have it drilled into us that "breast is best" but what is best for mum when she is in a crowded place with disapproving glances. (I was always thankful for my discreet Mamascarf)  Now I am a huge breastfeeding advocate but I am also not the breastfeeding police either, its down to personal preference and individual choice. I have many friends who simply balk at the idea of breastfeeding, whilst others have fed their little ones through weaning and beyond, so I genuinely think that awareness needs to be raised within the community, rather than with new mums.

Many women dont reach their breastfeeding goals, some stopping earlier than they wanted to through pressure or peoples preconcieved ideas. Many mums need to return to work but they do not have flexible work options or suitable areas to breastfeed, which seems strange because breastfeeding is the oldest and most natural process known to man kind, so how has our evolution bypassed the most basic requirements for a working mother.

So what do you think? Surely a baby has every right to "feed" in a restaurant as a child or an adult, rather than shunted into a toilet? Or would that put you off your dinner????

Please share any events or blogs raising awareness for breastfeeding this week on our Facebook page, here