At iVillage we’re passionate about supporting Australian bloggers. That’s why we’ve created iBlog Friday.

It's a chance for bloggers introduce their favourite post of the week to iVillage readers and for our community to read what Aussie writers are up to.

Here are the bloggers who have sent their submissions this week. Happy reading!

Renee Wilson of Mummy, wife, me talks about how hard it is to change your life and run your own race in her post Being true to yourself.

People like my husband, Dave, are effortlessly true to themselves. Dave is confident in his beliefs and in himself. He is his own man and runs his own race.

I don’t find it as easy. I feel that I have spent a large portion of my life doing things to please others and to live up to their expectations. I’ve let people talk me into doing things that I was never really sure were right for me. As a result, I’ve made some life choices that weren’t my choices at all. I have always spent too much time worrying about hurting people’s feelings and not being who THEY want me to be. I have my own opinions and my own thoughts, but I’ve often been too afraid to make them heard.

Read the rest of Renee's post here.

Keri Arkell of Awesomely Unprepared takes us through struggle to sleep while her little one decides not to in her post Awake is the new sleep. Which is the new awake. And so on.

At 19 months of age, the Little Mister has decided that sleep isn’t so cool anymore. While he’s always generally been a great sleeper, we have been through our share of regressions and teething issues! Throw in the sniffles a few times and it’s fun times for everyone!

Whoever tells you that you become an expert at cry analysis is an idiot (and if I ever tried that on you in the past, let’s just put it down to naivety)! Did you know that toddlers are very inventive? Well, they are. They’re like Apple – always creating new versions of old cries so you have to pay more for the updates. And when I say ‘pay more’, I mean with sleep. You pay with sleep. You’re always playing the catch up game. Awesomely unprepared for what comes next.

Read the rest of Keri's post here.

Nicola of Mindfulnes, Gratitude and minor moments of madness talks about missing lost loved ones at odd times in her ost Edelweiss.

For this reason, it doesn't come as a surprise to me that lately I've become drawn to Nana things. I find myself quoting her, retelling her stories, buying lentil soup, and pouring a ridiculous amount of salt into it, because that's how Nana made it (yes, trips to her house were often followed by a curious extreme thirst).

And then there's Edelweiss. To me, The Sound of Music was, is, and always will be all about my Nana. So I press play, Julie Andrews beautifully drawing out bittersweet waves of love and memory.

Read the rest of Nicola's post here.

Bree Katsamangos of Twinkle in the eye explains exactly how to steer our children in the right direction in her post Teaching your children the art of good choices.

I often look at my little boy and wonder at his innocence, for him all of life is joy and life is to be lived and laughed at. For him, choice and risk are confined to the limits of the play ground, but this won’t always be the case, there will come a time when the choices and risks are much more complex and much more dangerous.

As a Youth Development Officer, I have spent a great deal of time educating young people about the risks associated with drug and alcohol use. We live in a culture where binge drinking is the norm and drugs and alcohol are readily available.

Alarmingly, studies show that teenage girls are more than three times as likely as boys to drink alcohol at least once a week and are more at risk of the harmful effects then their male peers.

Read the rest of Bree's post here.

Angela Rodriguez of Grace Makeup Blog takes us through some simple steps to beautiful looking skin in her post Beauty from the inside out.

Something we forget is that our skin covers our entire body; it is the largest organ and makes up approximately 16% of your body weight! That’s a fairly amazing figure. So why do we often forget about our skin? Why do we make so much time for so many things but forget to spend a little extra time taking care of our skin. So let’s add a few super foods to the diet to get some super supple skin.

1. A few squares of 70% cocoa dark chocolate. Cocoa hydrates your skin, making it firmer and more supple. Dark chocolate contains high levels of flavonols, a potent type of antioxidant.

Read the rest of Angela's post here.

Pinky Neven of Pinky's Bits writes a fascinating post about her journey from performing at schools to teach children about bullying and now having to teach her own children in her post Dealing with Bullies.

Our daughter has been copping some of this at school, she knows what to do as we've spoken with her teacher but the solutions are not always working for her.
I remembered my 'Theatre of the Oppressed' work last weekend. We were in the car on the way to the shops chatting about school so I decided to do a role play with her. She really enjoyed it and was smiling in the end once she got a few responses to say back to kids, other than, 'Stop, I don't like it' or 'I'm telling the teacher'.

Then, she asked me to reverse roles, I would be the victim, she would be the bully.

Read the rest of Pinky's post here.

Caylie Jeffery of Distractions of a busy mother cracks open a pen and writes a letter of thanks to some special women who touch her life in her post A letter to a woman who wrote letters in Brisbane.

Do you know why I like to write with a pen? Because the speed of the words, as they flow onto the paper, exactly matches the pace of my thoughts. Not much gives me greater joy than putting pen to paper — except maybe finding something similar in my own mailbox. The art of letter writing is becoming rare, and is a precious gift to both give and receive. When I open a penned letter, I know that someone has spent thoughtful time alone with me, for me, in a place where I am not.

Right now, I want to spend thoughtful time thanking some women I heard speak today during “an afternoon of literature and correspondence” called Women of Letters, hosted by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire. A dear friend invited me along, knowing I would feel at home with these women who chose to share some of their lives through the medium of hand-written letters. The topic for each letter was, “A letter to your wake-up call”.

Read the rest of Caylie's post here.

Lisa Berson from the Mummy Manifesoto is a midwife and talks about her own struggles with motherhood, explaining why all mum should feel free to speak up when they are struggling her her post Postnatal Depression.

A routine quiz in my pregnancy, I ticked all the right boxes to stay under the radar. I knew which ones were red flags to the midwives because I am a midwife, amongst other things.

I appeared happy and upbeat. I laughed off my concerns. I rattled off a number of people that would support me even though we lived a few hundred kilometres from our baby’s grandparents. I blamed my tiredness on the baby and his colic. I blamed my tears on lack of sleep and hormones.

Sound familiar? The excuses? Pushing people away so they don’t know that I am struggling to be a good mum.

Read the rest of Lisa's post here.

Stephanie Rogers of She Said What? shares with us her concerns about her son and then a special moment in her post My special little guy has finally started walking.

The moment Jude was born I knew he was different. He needed me in a way the others never did. He clung to me. He needed to be attached to my breast constantly. And I mean constantly all day and night. I handed him to his dad while I took a shower and he screamed the whole time. Apart from that we were physically attached to one another 24/7. It transpired that he had severe reflux, to the point where he almost asphyxiated and died one night. His quick-thinking dad cleared his airways and saved his life. He couldn’t be lied flat, the constant feeding alleviated the pain for him.

He didn’t sit up and move around until he was 10 months old, and then it was a butt scoot (there’s a GIF in that Black Box Warnings post up there), because he couldn’t lie flat so never did tummy time or back time. He got to the ripe old age of 12 months and copped a label of “developmentally delayed” because he couldn’t roll from front to back or back to front. Couldn’t get up into a seated position from lying down. Couldn’t crawl and couldn’t walk.

Read the rest of Stephanie's post here.

If you're a blogger and you want to appear in our next iBlog Friday roundup please send the link to your blog to us at [email protected]

We will be posting all the blogs we receive in a round up every Friday morning so make sure we get your blog by Thursday at 12 noon.

Produced by Jay-Z, the soundtrack includes songs by Beyonce, Florence + The Machine, Gotye, Lana Del Rey and Bryan Ferry.