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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