One Year! Celebrating My Blogiversary!

This past weekend, October 16th to be exact, marked the one year anniversary of The Monarch Mommy. Did you know I’ve only been blogging for a year? It’s true, but I’ve been storing potential blog posts in my mind for so much longer than that. I’d wanted to start a blog for YEARS, and a handful of people in my travels had encouraged me to start one up. It wasn’t until a blog celebrity moved to my town that I decided it was time to do it. My dear friend Maman Loup’s Den (who I affectionately refer to as my blogging Yoda) said something to me that triggered the start of my blog. I was telling her about all the topics I could cover and all the posts I wanted to write when I started my blog. You know what she said? She said “You’re going to have a blog going in about a BAZILLION years!”. She was right. I was overthinking it (no surprise there). The very next day I bought my domain and a year of web hosting, picked a theme on WordPress, and started writing. The Monarch Mommy went live less than one week later. Fast forward a whole year and here we are! With 180 posts, 52 reviews, 85 giveaways, and almost 4000 comments from my readers, you could say it’s been a busy year! In honour of getting my first year of blogging under my belt, I thought it would be fun to go back and look at the top five posts I’ve written over the last year.

Let’s do this countdown style, so I’ll start with number five!

5. Pink or Blue? 7 Pregnancy Test Tips (Published December 17, 2015)

What can I say? You guys love to read about pregnancy tests! This post was something that had been swirling in my head for a really long time, and is filled with advice I used to dispense on the regular to my friends that were trying to conceive. Did you know that blue dye tests are more prone to evap lines and false positives? There’s a whole lot more pregnancy test info over on that post, in case you missed it!

4. Four Steps To Night Time Potty Training (Published November 6, 2015)

Tired of changing the sheets at 3am? Maybe you’d like to be done with diapers for good? I’m no expert, but I will tell you how we did it with The Heir! Maybe your little one has a magical pee hour too, and the secret is just in finding out when it is. This one might be worth a look if you think potty training is in your future!

 
3. The REAL Cost of Cloth Diaper Laundry (Published June 7, 2016)

I don’t know what it is about this one, but apparently it was much loved! Here I was pouring over utility bills from years past and doing a little math (which is not my strong suit, by the way), and you loved it! Or you hated it. Some people really hated it. But that’s okay! My main objective with this one was to crunch the numbers for myself, and if I was going to go to all that effort I might as well share it. Turns out, our electricity rates have been shockingly low compared to others across the country. It’s not about the cost as much as it’s about the total usage. Don’t take my word for it, take a look for yourself!

2. When You’re Afraid of Giving Birth (Published February 17, 2016)

This is where I get real about the fear of giving birth. It happens, and I’d hazard a guess that at some point every pregnant woman will go through this. It happened to me during my pregnancy with The Heir and again during my pregnancy with Petit Prince (when I really didn’t expect it). I went over some things that really helped me work through that stage of pregnancy in this post, and I can only hope that what brought me through it has helped others too. Did you miss this one? It’s a good one!

Okay! It’s time to reveal the post that was read the most out of all the ones I published over the last year. Curious? It just might surprise you!

1. What You Need To Know Before You Take Your Baby Swimming (Published February 3, 2016)

Maybe it was the revelation that no swim diaper holds pee? Maybe it was my description of the process of getting a baby and yourself ready for the pool? Whatever it was, this post was easily the most popular of all the ones I published in my first year of blogging. It’s a little fun, it’s a little serious, and there’s an adorable picture of The Heir hung up on the wall in a change room. Not to be missed!

There you have it! The top five posts of The Monarch Mommy year one. I owe a special thanks to all of you, my loyal blog readers who come back to check things out day after day. You have no idea how much I appreciate each and every one of you. Thank you for helping to make The Monarch Mommy a fun place for me to tell you my stories, share my advice, and bring you my unfiltered thoughts about everything from diapers to car seats and pregnancy tests to breast pumps! I can’t wait to see what this next year of blogging will bring!

Did you know that I’m on Facebook and Instagram? You can follow along with my day to day mom life there and keep up with the latest news from The Monarch Mommy!

Did your favourite post make the top five? Which post was your favourite and why?