A harsh reality check

I've sat here today, feeling frustrated about the house I live in.  It's a nice house, we've made it our own and renovated it inside a lot over the last year (mostly before Squidge was born). We have a sunny south facing conservatory, and live in a quiet sleepy neighbourhood.  Sounds good right?

While I'm ever grateful that we have a roof over our head, running water, electricity and that we're all healthy (seriously, these are things many people don't have), this house is also holding us back... we're effectively trapped here.  For the first few years of owning this house, we were in negative equity and have only just recovered into profit.

We've always said we'd like 2 children.  After having Squidge, I could even stretch that to 3, but for us to grow our family further, we'd have to move, there's no two ways about it. There's physically nowhere a cot could fit in the house, it's a tiny 2 bedroom terraced starter home. Our bedroom just has enough space to walk around the bed, and the nursery is a box room.  My biological clock is ticking (I'm 36) so I don't have many baby-making years left, not safe ones at least.  The way our house is situated, there's no room to add an extension either. 

But in reality, today I've come to realise we may never have a second child, a realisation that has caused many tears today.  For us to get a new mortgage, we'd need to pay off the massive unsecured loan that came with buying this house (yep, we had a sub-prime mortgage).  And, according to the mortgage calculators I've tried today, we'd get a good 20k less as we're now a family of 3 (why?). Then take into consideration I'm having to go back to work part-time, so on a reduced wage, that leaves us with less than 100k in a mortgage, not enough to buy anything bigger than what we already have, even going right out of Cardiff... 

That means the only hope we have of leaving this house, and growing our family, is something along the lines of a lottery win... I'd never even really considered not being able to have a baby #2, but now I just don't see any way we can possibly do that :(

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Bathtime Essentials

Now that Squidge has out-grown his Shnuggle Bath, we've moved him into the big bath, with varying success!  We had a bit of an 'incident' the first time we put him in it - we had no bath mat, put him in there (I was stood there and hubby was kneeled down by the bath with him), Squidge lunged forwards and went flat on his face in the bath - he was only there 1/2 seconds as hubby immediately picked him up of course, but it frightened Squidge so much we couldn't calm him down.

Next bath, Daddy got in the bath first and then we put Squidge in, he had a tiny cry and then was fine. By this time I'd bought a bath mat for him too.  He's now had loads of successful baths and really enjoys bathing with Daddy :)  Daddy keeps him steady, and after a bit of a play with some bathtime toys, I give him a wash and I cuddle him dry - it's a lovely experience :)

In readiness for switching to the big bath, I had a bit of a splurge and bought a few bits and bobs, all of which really are essentials, or at least, variants of them.

A bath mat

While this one is colourful and fab, it actually isn't that grippy - so I'd really recommend having a bath mat to help grip them (obviously your baby needs to be able to competently sit up unaided to be able to do this).  There are other options like little seats (whether upright or lying back) but I'm yet to try one of them.

Toys & somewhere to put them

Having a tidy for your toys is a must! We opted for the Munchkin one, it's colourful (in the picture on Amazon it looks navy blue, but the one that turned up was a bright aqua blue), sticks to the tiles in the corner above the bath, out of the way.  So far (touch wood!) it hasn't fallen down.

I also bought a range of toys for him, I bought a little submarine (it's fab, you fill it with water and when you hold it up, water pours out of it like a shower), some stackable toys that have moving parts inside when filled with water, and a selection of rubber toys that can be chewed and squirt water.

Skincare/Bathing products

Squidge has suffered with a little eczema since he was born - at the moment it's at it's best which is almost non-existent, but to keep him like that we only bath him twice a week otherwise his skin dries out too much.  He's still got a little cradle cap - I think it's more that it's left over from when he had it, but as his hair is longer it's not coming away, plus I love the gentle scent of the Dentinox Cradle Cap shampoo.  Up until I moved him to the big bath I had been using the Oilatum bath wash too, but I've not used it since (trying to work out if he still needs it) - it does leave a greasy residue in the bath which is dangerous for mummy and daddy (it's hard to get rid of).  I've started washing him in the Johnson's baby bedtime wash too, again this leaves him with a lovely soft gentle scent :)

Kneeling pad for mummy/daddy

One for the grown ups! I bought this so we had a soft cushion for our knees as we have a wooden floor in the bathroom.  I really liked this one as it's really colourful and fits in with his other bathtime toys, but a gardening one would also work if you had one handy.  Or, if you don't want to buy one of these, a couple of folded up towels would work too, but might be a bit slippery.

Bath thermometer

When he was in his Shnuggle bath, I used to fill it up from the shower, we'd keep the shower on the same number for all of us, so once I knew what the perfect temp was for him (he likes it quite warm!), I didn't need the thermometer (I'd obviously test it with my hand, but it'd always be the same).  But now he's in the big bath I really need this - I have to fill the bath up with hot water first to warm the bath, then add cold to bring it down to temp.  The first bath I did for him in the big tub I filled it from the shower as I always did, but the water went cold really quickly, I'd forgotten that you need to warm the actual bath first!

Do you have any other bathtime essentials?  Obviously we have towels too, and we do sometimes use some baby oil afterwards if his skin feels a little dry.

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From Garden to Plate

Nestled in spectacular views with the river Usk meandering around, The Newbridge on Usk is a restaurant with a difference.  Owned by the Celtic Manor 5* resort you really are set up to expect quality food and excellent service.

The Celtic Manor run a range of cookery demonstrations and live cooking experiences, but this was the first at the Newbridge.  It was run by the head chef Adam Whittle, a local chap who really has the passion for food you'd hope for in a head chef - he's always looking for ways to reduce food miles and keep food as local as possible.  The Newbridge also have their own kitchen garden run by head gardener Anthony Maw which we were lucky enough to not only walk around, but sample some food from.  Adam's ethos is to keep the food 'from nature to plate' as much as possible, which even includes some foraging. 

The kitchen garden

The day kicked off at 11:30 with coffee and tea in the bar, and an introduction by the general manager Ronan Hunter.  From there we moved onto their new patio, I'm not sure you'll find an outside area in a restaurant with better views here in South Wales - on the tips of our toes was a bend in the river Usk, home to a small family of swans and their babies, and the view in the picture at the top of the page (taken from the patio).

It was here Adam began the demonstration with his soux chef, Rob Maw.  Adam prepared two different types of meringue (Italian and French) to show us their take on the eton mess (which we were lucky enough to have a taste of - delicious!).

Adam making the meringues

While Adam was finishing off creating the meringues, Rob started preparing some scallops.  He showed us how to get them out of the shell without damaging the meat, and then seared them in a hot pan (I didn't have a taste of these as I'm vegetarian, they did smell great though) and served them with a little burnt aubergine purée.  The scallops they use in the restaurant are pretty much the best you can buy, their hand-dived off the coast of Carmarthen, and brought straight down to Cardiff.  That was actually Adam's pro-tip with scallops - to go as expensive as you can, as the quality becomes so much better as you pay more - so if you can afford hand-dived, that's the best (the price averages £2-5 per scallop if you opt for this yourself).

Rob preparing the hand-dived scallops

After all the food was prepared we were invited to come and take a closer look and a taste.  I obviously made a bee line for the eton mess, which was served with a strawberry soup and edible flowers (grown in their kitchen garden), it was so pretty and tasted amazing, so many different but lovely flavours.

The Eton Mess with some rosewater meringues (as well as normal)

When the demonstration was over, we were given a cocktail each - an apple and blackberry mohito made using a local blackberry bramble sirop which was exquisite!

Apple and Blackberry mohito's

After that we moved to the upstairs restaurant.  I was sat on a round table with 4 other couples/pairs. It was lovely to get out of my comfort zone and get talking to other people, all who were passionate about food and cooking (in case you didn't know, I love to cook, especially bake).

I'm afraid, here's where my details get sketchy, by this point the cocktail I'd had was making me feel a little fuzzy (I'm so not used to drinking in the day, or at all now that we have a baby).  They'd created a special vegetarian meal for me which wasn't on the menu card, so I can't quite remember what I'd had... they did serve up a glass of white wine (pinot grigio) to accompany the starter, and a glass of red wine (I think it was cabernet sauvingnon) to go with the main course - I didn't drink either as I was going to be looking after my baby very shortly after that and wanted a clear head, so I stuck to the water.

My starter included a cucumber sorbet (which was amazing!) and I'm not sure what the main feature of the dish was, I know, I should have written it down! It tasted like a goats cheese souffle, or something like that, either way, it was gorgeous.  The presentation was fantastic too.

My starter

After that it was on to my main course which was a (I think...) spinach and ricotta roulade (pasta) - it tasted amazing.  It was served with new potatoes, roasted carrots and some seared asparagus.

My main course

I had to dash off before the dessert of fresh strawberries was brought out as I had a prior commitment, but I must say,  of all the restaurants we've been to, and all the time we've spent in this neck of the woods, I've never dined with such a spectacular view, a view I'd never tire of.  The food was excellent and not your run-of-the-mill cuisine.  The cucumber sorbet was probably my favourite, it was delicately sweet and so refreshing, as cucumber is.  And as you'd expect from any establishment linked to the Celtic Manor, the service was excellent too.

If you'd like to find out more about the different live cooking demonstrations and masterclasses the Celtic Manor run, you can check out the events here (the afternoon tea masterclass sounds fantastic!). This particular live cooking demonstration (with lunch) was £45, which all things considered, I think is a very fair price.

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*Attendance was complimentary, views are my own

I'm not being rude but...

Since having a baby, there's been lots of occasions where I've felt like people think I'm being very rude, and to be completely honest, I'm not, I'm just putting my child first.

Take yesterday for example - we arrived at a notoriously busy lift in St Davids 2 here in Cardiff, there was one middle-aged couple waiting too.  As we arrived, the lift dinged.  The other couple very quickly darted across in front of us, ensuring their place in the lift.  Yes, they were there first, but was that polite? I was brought up to always let people who are older, or with prams, or in a wheelchair etc, go first, whether that's onto a bus, on a train, through a door or in a lift.  It's simple manners. Yes I'm able bodied - but I've lost count of the amount of times at that specific lift, I've had countless people push in front of me, leaving me not able to get the pram in the lift, and I've been there waiting for 20 mins trying to get on a lift as no one would let me on - I ended up giving up on trying to get to those shops on the next level up.

I'll give you another example.  When I'm walking down the road with the pushchair, I walk on the side of the pavement that's farthest from the road, so hugging the houses.  I will not move out of the way if you're walking towards me.  My child is the most important thing in my life and I will do everything I can to protect him - if that means putting someone's nose out of joint because I won't push him into the traffic, well so be it, or letting someone think I'm being rude, fine.  Countless times recently I've encountered some very nasty looks from people who refused to move and in fairness, it's not their fault.  Before having Squidge, it never would have crossed my mind to move to the outside of the pavement for a pram, but now I get it.  Just last week I was walking home, and a couple were walking towards me with their dog, they walked single file hugging the wall to give me room to get past, which was nice, but again, that would be me pushing my child towards the traffic - not going to happen - as a result I received some disgusting looks for barely moving out of their way.

Am I the only one that does this? I certainly get out of the way of prams now when I'm out and about now that I've had a child myself.

Hopefully if you're reading this and have always wondered why people with prams might not move out of the way, you'll know it's not because we're being rude or arrogant, it's because we're trying to protect the most precious thing in our lives, our children.

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My Weaning Essentials

We've now been weaning Squidge for just over 4 months and in that time we've tried out lots of different products, some of which were great, and some not-so-great.  With that in mind, I thought I'd share with you some of our most used bits and pieces that make up our weaning kit.

Steamer/Mixer

Having a steamer has really transformed how I prepare baby food - before I'd boil it, which boils out all the goodness in vegetables.  The Nutribaby from Babymoov (£99.99*) has 2 levels in the steamer, which from my experience is enough for 2 good meals for your baby (if you fill up the trays pretty well). What I'm trying to get into the habit of doing, is having his food steaming in the night while I'm cooking mine and Daddy's dinner, ready for his feeds the next day.  Once the food is steamed, I tip it into the blender, add a splash of cows milk and pulse the blend a few times (I want texture, not purée). The Nutribaby has loads of settings so you can also warm jars/pouches/bottles, whether room temperature or from the fridge, and even steralise.

Storage jars/pots

I go through almost all of these on a daily basis - each meal I'll put prepared food in different pots, like his main food in one, rice cakes in another, sticks of cucumber or another veg in another etc, so that each feed I could go through 3/4.  All the ones pictured are from Babymoov - the ones on the left (£13.99*) are their silicone ones which collapse when you want to store them (they're collapsed in this picture) - the pop out really easily and the lids click on better than any other tupperware I have (you don't have to squish the lids down).  The tubs on the right (£6.99*) are better (in my opinion) for when you're at home as at least with mine, the lids don't really stay on - so they're fine if you're putting them in the fridge, or don't need lids on them and there's no risk of them being upside down :)

An assortment of spoons

Everyone has their own preference, this is why we have 2 different sets of spoons - the short ones are weaning spoons from Tommee Tippee (£7.99) (the ones designed so babies can feed themselves), the spoon part is shallow and wide (the hubby prefers feeding Squidge with these). The other ones are from Nuby and are my favourite (£3.99) - apart from being lovely colours, they have a really nice deep scoop on them - they fit in his mouth really well and they have rubber handles, so are easy to grip.  The only problem with the Nuby ones is that because the handles are so long, they never stay put in the bowl, they usually end up tipping it over, so something to be aware of.

Feeding bowls

We have 3 bowls for Squidge all together.  The one that's a plate with separate compartments is from OXO*, this is great for offering them finger food or BLW - the plate also has a rubber grip on the bottom to stop is sliding around, and the coloured ring around the edge can clip off too. The other two bowls we have is the orange one from Tommee Tippee (£8.95) we actually, we have 2 of these but there's only 1 in circulation - we also have a Winnie the Pooh one (pale blue, my personal favourite but currently discontinued, so it's appearing in Poundland).  If I give Squidge pouches at home, I tend to squeeze them into one of these bowls so I can give it a good mix.

Free-flow sippee cup

This one we were given by our health visitor at a weaning party they threw (this sounds SO much more exciting than it was, lol).  With the cups that are spill proof, you have to suck really hard to get any water out, and if you're teaching your baby to drink water out of a sippy cup (£2.50), they really won't have the motivation or understanding for it, whereas with a free-flow one they only have to tip it and they'll get water from it.  You can move on to a spill proof one once they get the hang of it and certainly when they're older - but we've had the most success with free-flow ones (in fact, the orange plain Tommee Tippee one is the best we've found, but it's nearly impossible to get the lid off!).

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*Post contains PR samples, I'm also an ambassador for Babymoov - all opinions are 100% honest and my own

8 Month baby update

I honestly cannot believe as I'm writing this, that Squidge is 8 months old... 8 months! Where has the time gone? What's more, I'm now on a countdown for going back to work, I've got just over 5 weeks to go, and over the next few weeks we're super busy, meaning it'll fly by faster than ever.  Don't get me wrong, I'm so grateful that I've been able to have this time with Squidge, and that I have a job to go back to (and part-time) at all - but I just want to spend every waking day with him - as I'm sure most mummy's do.

CLOTHING

He's still in 6-9 months clothes, but some of them are getting a bit small for him, like his sleep suits (legs and feet are too short/small) and some of his tops barely go over his head.  In the picture above, the trousers are 6-9 and still fit really nicely and the shirt is 9-12 (we didn't have a smart shirt for 6-9 and I had this waiting for his next size, so we put him in this - we were going for a nice Sunday lunch and to a 3rd birthday party). Just in case you're wondering, the shirt is from Next, and the trousers and socks are from John Lewis.

TEETHING

Still no teeth but an awful lot of teething! He has developed two tooth-shaped bumps on the front of his gums (top and bottom sets) and they're getting closer to the top, so I think any day now we'll see them make an appearance.  We've certainly had our fill of excessive drooling, fist chewing and general grouchiness. 

SLEEP

What a mixed bag it's been.  Generally he's sleeping much better - he typically sleeps from about 7ish until about 5am, he wakes for his dummy and then is ready to get up around 7/8am.  However, since he started going through his latest leap (about a week ago it started) it's turning into a nightmare to get him to sleep - his bedtime is 6, but we're lucky if he'll fall asleep by 8pm - those two hours are filled with him screaming his head off... nightmare.  His day naps are different too - his first nap which is around 9am often lasts for 1 - 1.5 hrs now, but then where he used to nap at about 11am/12pm he's pretty much dropped that.  He'll have his lunch at 1pm and then go down for a good nap, and maybe if I'm lucky, he'll have a third nap around 4pm after his next feed.

FEEDING & WEANING

Weaning is going great! We're definitely not going down the BLW route.  I am feeding him more pouches than homemade food at the moment, which I'm not overly comfortable with - and it's so much more expensive this way... but I honestly don't know where anyone finds the time to cook the food... just recently he's gone nuts if I've left him to go into the kitchen (the rooms are tiny and joined so I can see him at all times) so it's really hard to find the time, and pouches are just so easy.  I really should make more of an effort and plan better, he does love my homemade food.

PROGRESS MILESTONES

So the last couple of days have heralded some big progress!  He's been commando crawling for quite a while but in the last week he's really gotten good at it! He'll see something and be able to navigate the room to be able to get it.  On Thursday morning the hubby was up with Squidge and saw him crawl! He said he moved about 2 steps forward using both hands and knees at the same time (I haven't seen it myself yet though).  He's also gone from sitting, to kneeling, to standing!  He's sitting up really well too, only falling over if he wants to lie down or get onto his tummy.

OTHER BITS

* Still no mama or dada - but lots and lots of babababababababa :)
* We've had a big proper giggling fit from him, he was pretty much in an infectious laughter fit
* I think we're ready to sell his Jumperoo - he barely goes in it now and when he does it's not for long
* I've taught him to high-five and wave - early days, but he holds his hand out :)
* He cries when we leave the room
* He throws proper tantrums when we stop him rolling over when we're changing his nappy - he does an explosive scream and slams his legs and feet down as hard as he can

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Change table essentials & tour

Over the last few months since Squidge was born, we've managed to get our nappy change routine down to a T.  We've worked out what products we need, and which we don't.  With that in mind I thought I'd give you a little tour of his change area and go through what we use the most :)

At the end of the table are the products we use the most, Hydromol for his dry skin/eczema (which is ok at the moment), some anti-bac for mummy and daddy to use after changing him (especially after a poop!), some Sudocrem for those sore/red bum cheeks, and some baby wipes - currently we're using up our stash of 'Huggies Pure' - having a look at the ingredients, they're pretty far from pure, so we'll be switching to Water Wipes when these run out.  The change table we have was from Mothercare, they've since discontinued it but if I recall it was about £170 - I wanted one that was a proper table with drawers and 4 closed sides.

In the top drawer of the change table we keep his nappies, and stock of wipes (we're currently using Pampers Active Fit size 3+ nappies - when we've run out of these, he'll be going onto size 4), and his baby oil, spare Calpol and a couple other bits and bobs we're not really using at the moment.  This is the most used drawer :)

Middle drawer is where we keep our muslin cloths (clean ones), all the little samples you get when you're pregnant and a new mummy and our spare nappy bags (the Aldi Mamia ones are our fav, they smell amazing!).

Then the bottom drawer, this is where we keep the refills for his Tommee Tippee Sangenic nappy bin (a must have!) - if only these were scented!  We've also put his cot mobile in here as we don't have it up above his cot any more.

I like to have it so that everything I need is right in front of me so that I don't have to leave him, especially as he is constantly trying to roll over when he's on the mat now (but I don't let him).  If I'm changing his clothes too - I put him or leave him in the cot while I pick out his clothes, I know he's safe then, and I place them by the change table, again, that way I don't have to step away from him.

Gosh, it was all so much easier when he was tiny, now he throws a tantrum almost every time we change his nappy, slamming his little legs and feet down several times in anger and screaming his little head off!

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My breastfeeding story

After reading Mother Distracted's blog post, I decided to share my breastfeeding story too - I have blogged my journey as it happened, but I thought I'd summarise it and explain the choices I made, and didn't make.

Before I had Squidge, I always had serene visions of us sat in his nursery, classical music playing on the radio, and us sat there in the middle of the night while he breastfed.  The reality was pretty far removed from this idyllic vision.

When he was born, he was really bunged up, and his little chin and tongue were pretty far back (without being actually tongue-tied).  He tried and tried but wasn't able to breastfeed.  In the couple of days after he was born when we were still in hospital, I had midwives come around a few times and try to help him latch on, but it just didn't happen - all that happened was he'd scream and scream.

Once we were home I'd try to breastfeed him several times a day, we even had breastfeeding support workers visit the house on several occasions - it was only with their support that we had successful feeds - and by successful, I mean he'd latch on - he'd still be hungry afterwards, and it was only if I was wearing a Medela nipple shield.

From the moment my milk came in (the day after we came home from the hospital - he was 3 days old) I expressed several times a day, and continued this for 2 months until my supply eventually dried up.  Yep, in theory I could have expressed more frequently to get my supply going again, but as he was awake and really quite needy, I found that I didn't have time to express.  I was still attempting to breastfeed him, but again, he wouldn't latch.

I persevered for as long as I could, and eventually I realised I needed to stop expressing.  I was lucky if I'd get 10ml from a half hour pumping session (using the Medela Swing), which I realised was totally fruitless - there wasn't even any point in keeping such a tiny quantity.

I quietly stopped, felt like a total failure and was really quite upset about it.  But I did feel good in knowing that he'd had the best start, even though he couldn't breastfeed, he still had all the milk I could produce/express to give him that protection he needed.

Since I stopped I've seen so many people talking about how shameful it is to feed babies formula, and that they should be breastfed, people being really rude and horrible calling people who feed their babies formula names like 'uneducated' and 'morons' - what so many people don't realise are the silent struggles we're going through, and how many of us would love to breastfeed but physically weren't able to.  Lets stop the shaming and accept that all mummies and daddies go through an incredibly difficult time when they have a new baby and that they'll be doing the best they can, for THEIR child.

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Why we aren't buying plug socket covers

When I was pregnant with Squidge, we talked about baby proofing and something Chris kept saying was that we didn't need to get covers for our plug sockets because they were already safe... I just put it to the back of my mind and thought 'we WILL be getting them'.

Well, as we're reaching the point where we need to actually baby proof it's something we've researched, and I've completely changed my decision, we most definitely won't be buying them.  I'll get to why, but basically it's much more dangerous to have them.

Back in the 1940's a female electrical engineer called Caroline Haslett designed the current sockets we use.  Her main goal was to design it so that children wouldn't be able to electrocute themselves by putting their fingers in the sockets.  She built a couple of safety features in - such as the holes being small enough so that a child cannot get their finger in far enough to reach anything bad, but just in case there are insulated shutters.  

The top pin on a plug opens up these shutters, that's why it's longer than the bottom pins of a plug. The problem with plug covers is that they can be manoeuvred so that only the top pin is plugged in, leaving the bottom holes open and live, so that if a child put something in those holes, they would be electrocuted - but this isn't possible with a standard plug (seriously - if you try and plug in upside down it won't happen!).

The UK has some of the safest plug sockets in the world, all thanks to Caroline Haslett.  I'm not saying 'don't buy plug covers', but certainly research it yourself and read the information available before you make your decision.  You can read more on it here.

We certainly won't be buying them.

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