23 July , 201420 July , 2014 - Sarah 5 Comments

First birthday (sort of) party

If you’ve been reading some of my other posts you’ve probably seen that Toby turned one last week. Originally we weren’t going to have a party at all. I know this might not be a popular view but I don’t really hold with massive birthday parties for one year olds who have no clue what is going on. I understand that for the most part these early birthday parties are as much for the adults as the babies but with Toby’s grandparents all living 250 miles away, and us not having many other people we would invite there didn’t seem much point.

However, as both sets of grandparents decided they would like to visit round about Toby’s birthday we decided we would just have them all at the same time, invite our friends Claire and Dave and their nine month old twins and we would have a BBQ and make a bit of a party of it.

I didn’t really have a theme and my only concession to decoration was a few balloons. I suppose it was a vague jungle theme as I’d made a monkey cake, the balloons had jungle animals on and Toby wore his funky banana leggings! As it turned out it wasn’t great weather for a BBQ on the day either but my dad was quite happy on cooking duties out in the garden under a gazebo! We had a bit of a BBQ buffet, including home made bread rolls that Barry made in the morning. I was quite pleased we decided to have a party in the end too because it meant I had an excuse to make a proper birthday cake! (If you want to know how I made the monkey cake there’ll be a ‘how to’ post coming soon.) Toby blew out his candle (with a bit of help) but I was a meany though and didn’t give him any cake. I did let him eat the monkey’s eyes though, which were his very first chocolate buttons!

My mum and dad were staying with us so they were already here. Claire and Dave arrived with their boys not long after midday and we gave the babies their lunch – the birthday boy got to be king of the castle in his highchair while the twins sat in their Bumbos on the floor which was quite comical! Then Barry’s parents turned up too, we had some present opening, some food and then began the fun task of trying (unsuccessfully) to get the babies to nap! We all had a lovely time though. I’m glad all Toby’s grandparents got to see him for his first birthday, especially as they don’t get to see each other very often.

The best thing about the whole day for me though was how well Toby coped with it all. He’s normally fine around other people but because we don’t often have people visiting our house he can sometimes have a meltdown when there are other people there. He still doesn’t really know his grandparents either, although I think he is starting to recognise them more as he gets older. He was fantastic all day though. We didn’t have any crying (until I tried to get him to nap!) and he was happy to give everyone cuddles. All in all a very successful (sort of) party I’d say!

21 July , 201427 March , 2015 - Sarah 8 Comments

Living Arrows 29/52

I feel like I’ve gone rather quiet on the blogging front lately. I just seem to have lost my mojo a little bit so I’m just giving it a bit of a rest until I get my inspiration back. Nothing sinister, I’m just not feeling the blog love at the minute. I couldn’t miss a Living Arrows post though!

This week has been all about teething and it’s been pretty horrendous. Toby has been refusing to nap, taking hours to settle at night and generally just being grumpy and crying most of the time. I really wish we could do more for him but apart from dosing him up with Calpol and Nurofen there doesn’t seem to be much else we can do. He won’t let me put a finger in his mouth to apply teething gel, he doesn’t want cuddles but he doesn’t like being put down either. We have had to resort to a few long buggy walks and even a drive in the car to get him to calm down and have a nap. He does seem to have been a bit better the last few days so hopefully he (and we!) might get some respite for a little while.

I don’t think the heat has been helping either, although we’ve not had it quite as hot as those of you down south. In an effort to distract Toby from his teeth, and cool him down, I got the paddling pool out that we had bought for Toby’s birthday. He wasn’t sure about it at first and he actually got chilly quite quickly, even with warm water, but I think he enjoyed it – especially when I got the bubble machine out too.

18 July , 201424 October , 2018 - Sarah 2 Comments

Child safety on the move with Lindam

Lindam is the name that comes to mind when thinking about child safety in the home – they are well-known for their safety gates, play pens, cupboard locks and all kinds of other ‘baby-proofing’ products. Did you know though, that they also have lots of products to help keep your child safe whilst in the car and out and about?

When we went to France at the beginning of June we spent three days driving to get there and two days driving home so Toby had to spend an awful lot of time in the car. We wouldn’t have managed without window shades and these ones from Lindam are great – I like the White Hot spot that lets you know if it is too hot inside the car, and also the two step release so if Toby manages to unstick the bottom of the shade it’s not going to ping back up.

The other thing we couldn’t do without is the Adjustable Back Seat Mirror – Toby is still in a rear-facing car seat and will be for a few more years hopefully so having this mirror means we can easily see him, and recently he’s just worked out he can see us in the mirror too!

The Lindam 2-in-1 Backseat & Pushchair Organiser now lives in our car to keep Toby’s toys and drink in, plus a few other bits and pieces that otherwise always seem to end up just rolling around in the back! And if you like you can easily unclip the organiser from the back of the car seat and pop it on your stroller instead!

Lindam also have this fantastic backpack with an optional strap to keep a hold of your little one. We haven’t really needed this yet as Toby isn’t walking. I’m sure it will come in very useful once he is though, and for now it was great for carrying Makka Pakka around and for me to try and stop Toby exploring the understairs cupboard!

Another great product for use at home and away is the FlexiGuard safety gate – a gate which is pressure fitted so doesn’t need to be attached to the wall and also folds up into it’s own case for easy transportation. This will be really handy for when we go on our next cottage holiday or even just visiting Toby’s grandparents.

I didn’t realise that Lindam had so many different products for use away from home! Are there other any safety essentials you’d recommend?

Disclosure: We were sent these items as a part of our role on the Lindam blogger panel. All opinions are my own.

16 July , 20142 July , 2016 - Sarah 2 Comments

Toby is one year old!

One year old!! The first update I wrote on this blog was when Toby was four months old and now he’s one. I know everyone says it but I really can’t believe how quickly the time has gone.

There have been a few developments this month; Toby seems to be getting bigger every day (and everyone comments on how massive he is!) but I still haven’t had him weighed since he was 10 months old. He’s still very long and skinny though, not your typical chubby baby in the slightest. He’s so strong though – he doesn’t stay still unless he’s sleeping and if we try and sit with him he wriggles away and crawls all over us. Nappy changes are often something of a challenge!

Toby now has eight teeth and had his first visit to the dentist today, although he refused to let the dentist actually look at his teeth! I thought we might get a bit of a break from teething for a while but his sleep has been all over the place for the last week and after a feel around his mouth today I think one of his first molars might be on its way. Did I mention that I hate teething?

Toby still loves to stand up but won’t do it unless he’s pulled himself up. He did actually let go and stand unsupported the other day but only for a few seconds and he hasn’t tried it since. He’s cruising a little bit but still mostly prefers to sit down, crawl to where he wants to go then stand up again. He got a push along trolley/walker thing for his birthday though so maybe that will encourage him to start walking rather than crawling. His favourite toy is still his stacking cups. He doesn’t try and stack them but he’s got very good at separating them then putting them back inside one another again. He’s started giving some of his soft toys cuddles recently too which is so cute! And he’s still giving us lots of cuddles too (and less biting which is good).

We still don’t have any real words – Toby does now say mama and mum as well as dada, and we sometimes get yeah and hiya, but I still don’t think he really knows what he’s saying. He’s very cute babbling away to us though.

Toby’s still eating pretty much anything we put in front of him, although he does have days when he seems to have less of an appetite than others. Breadsticks are a firm favourite (in fact, so much that I do worry slightly about how many he eats!) and cherry tomatoes are high on the list too. We have started to make the switch to cow’s milk but after lots of night waking we’re going to stick with formula at bedtime for now in case hunger is part of the problem. He’s accepted cow’s milk without any trouble though, although it is still warm and in a bottle so I wouldn’t imagine there’s much difference. He’s also doing better with drinking water – we couldn’t get him to use a sippy cup at all really, despite trying all sorts of different ones so he now uses a bottle with a silicone straw and is really good at drinking from it. We’re trying to make an effort to offer him a drink more often too, to make sure he is getting enough fluids throughout the day.

And I think that’s about it for this month. Toby’s such a little character these days and I can’t wait to see what developments will come next!

14 July , 201427 March , 2015 - Sarah 6 Comments

Living Arrows 28/52

It’s been a very busy weekend for us – Toby turned one on Friday and on Saturday all his grandparents came to visit for a BBQ party. I’ll be telling you all about that in another post but what with shopping, organising food, baking a cake and generally planning the weekend I’ve not had time for much blogging this week!

We’ve had a very mixed week sleep wise too so everyone has been feeling pretty tired. I think a combination of getting over last week’s cold and teething (possibly a first molar coming through!) has been disturbing Toby’s sleep; he’s been resisting naps and then waking in the night. On Wednesday night he was awake from half past two until nearly five o’clock! I can’t remember ever having a night like that before. There have been nights when he’s woken up a few times but he usually settles again fairly quickly after a cuddle and maybe some milk and medicine if he’s teething but on Wednesday night we tried everything and he was just wailing every time we tried to put him down. He then had two nights of sleeping straight through to eight o’clock but then last night he was awake for ages again. He refused to nap this afternoon and has already woken up once since he went to bed an hour and a half ago so I’m not feeling confident about a quiet night! You never know though, there never seems to be any logic to when he’ll sleep through or when he’ll wake. Fingers crossed for sleep though.

So to this week’s Living Arrows photo – this is Toby on his birthday having his first go on his new SmarTrike. Safe to say he likes it!

9 July , 201429 March , 2021 - Sarah 10 Comments

Weaning // Finding our own way

Toby is now almost one and it’s been just over six months since we first introduced him to solid food. Before we started weaning I’d read a couple of books ‘Weaning Made Easy‘ and ‘Baby-Led Weaning‘. Baby-led weaning made total sense to me – by bypassing purées and giving Toby the same things we ate, and letting him feed himself, he would be in control of what he ate and hopefully would develop a healthy appetite and relationship with food.

The reality, however, turned out a little differently…

In the very beginning Toby simply wasn’t interested in putting anything in his mouth. I know I could have left him to figure it out on his own but if I held something to his mouth then he would happily eat it so it seemed like it was more the putting it in his mouth himself than actually eating that was a problem. I wrote about this at the time in a guest post over on Redhead Babyled which you can read here.

Examining a rice cake at six months old

We carried on putting finger foods (veg sticks, toast, breadsticks etc) on Toby’s highchair tray as well as feeding him other bits and pieces off our plates and eventually he did figure out how to pick things up and eat them himself. We also carried on feeding him as well – either with a spoon or just by popping something in his mouth or holding it for him to take a bite.

I really wanted to embrace baby-led weaning and let Toby feed himself but there was one major stumbling block…

I just couldn’t handle the mess! I don’t know if this makes me a terrible person for letting my own feelings get in the way of something which perhaps would have been better for Toby but every meal was getting me so worked up that I couldn’t carry on. I tried loaded spoons a couple of times but so little food got into Toby’s mouth (and so much food got everywhere else) that I went back to feeding him things like porridge and yogurt myself.

Porridge face (before we gave up loaded spoons!) at seven months

If Toby is having something he can pick up himself without making too much mess (things like breadsticks, sandwiches, fruit and veg, dry cereal, chicken) then I put it on his tray and he feeds himself. He did go through a bit of a phase of just squashing anything we gave him but he seems to be getting over that now. Up until recently if I gave Toby more than one thing, or a big piece of something, he would just try and shove the lot in his mouth in one go – which led to our only proper, out of the highchair, choking incident when he shoved a massive broccoli floret in his mouth in one go (he was fine though!). However, in the last week or so I have been trying to get Toby used to choosing what he wants to eat so I put a few different things on his tray so he can choose what he wants and then I just keep adding more. He usually eats everything eventually but at least he is gaining some control over what he eats when. He’s got much better a picking something up, taking a bite out of it, eating that bite and then having some more. I am also trying to introduce taking things off a plate or out of a bowl, which is going OK as long as I keep a hold of the plate or bowl too!

Getting his own Shreddies out of the bowl at twelve months

I do still spoon feed Toby the messy things like yogurt or spaghetti bolognese and for the moment he seems quite happy to eat these things from a spoon. I am definitely not force feeding him – which is the criticism sometimes levelled at this method of feeding. If Toby doesn’t want something then he will let you know, and there’s no chance of getting him to open his mouth to eat it! We don’t do aeroplanes or play games. Mostly Toby will have his mouth wide open for the next spoonful before I’ve got back to the bowl and when he’s done that’s that.

I’ve read quite a lot of blog posts and articles about weaning and there seems to be a misconception from some proponents of baby-led weaning that if you aren’t following baby-led weaning methods to the letter then you must be spoon feeding your baby purées or mashed food and you are somehow doing something detrimental to your baby’s health and well-being. But that simply isn’t the case. We have found our own way with weaning. Toby eats almost exactly what we eat. He has his meals with us and we all have the same things on our plates. The only purées he has ever had are fruit purée in his porridge or Weetabix, or as a snack when we’re out somewhere. Feeding Toby the way we do means we have happily been able to take him to restaurants and cafés knowing he can share our meals and do so without me having a meltdown about the mess.

I’m sure in the next few months Toby will get even better at feeding himself. We’ll start using plates and cutlery more and I’m sure he’ll get the hang of those too. Weaning seems to be such an emotive subject at the moment but to be honest I don’t think it really matters how you choose to feed your child – as long as you are feeding them and they’re happy (and you’re happy) then I’m sure they’ll be just fine. By they time they’re five no-one is going to care whether they were spoon fed or put every morsel they ever ate in their mouth on their own. As with so many things in the last year, we found a way that works for us and I’m happy with that.

I’d love to hear about your weaning experiences, especially if you did a bit of a combination like us – I’m sure we’re not the only ones who have made it up as we went along!

8 July , 20142 August , 2017 - Sarah 3 Comments

Review: Plum Greek-style yogurt pouches

Toby generally eats whatever we eat but we do use fruit pouches at home and out and about, mostly because they are quick, easy and convenient. Plum have recently introduced some new fruit and Greek-style yogurt pouches and so when they asked if we’d like to try them I was keen to give them a go.

The Details

The Plum Greek-style yogurt pouches come in three flavours – kale and apple, raspberry and spinach, and mango and carrot. They come in a 85g pouch (the bigger size of pouch that you usually see) and retail for 99p each. They are suitable for babies over six months (I presume because of the dairy content). Plum have also introduced their ‘Mighty 4’ range for toddlers which are also fruit and Greek-style yogurt pouches but they also contain different grains so make a more filling snack for older babies.

The Pros

What I really like about these pouches is that they are yogurt that doesn’t have to be kept in the fridge (until they’ve been opened), which means they are great for using out and about. We took them on holiday and they were really handy to give to Toby when stopped for meals during the long journey.
Toby seemed to enjoy them and would happily eat a whole pouch in one sitting. He didn’t really have any preference for one flavour over another.
They were easy to feed to Toby either on a spoon or sucking them straight from the pouch (which is his new preferred method!).
The flavours were all nice (in the interests of a fair review I had to have a try myself!) – I was a bit dubious about the slightly unusual combinations but to be honest the fruit was the predominant flavour in all of them, you couldn’t really taste the vegetable.

The Cons

None really. I’m still not convinced the weird flavour combinations are necessary – they wouldn’t make those combinations for adults so why do it for babies? That said, Toby liked them so I can’t really complain!

The Verdict

I would buy these Plum Greek-style yogurt pouches again. We don’t use them at home because it is cheaper just to by regular yogurt but they are very useful to include in a picnic or lunchbox, or when travelling as they don’t need to be kept cold before use.

**Disclosure: I was sent a selection of Plum Greek-style yogurt pouches in return for this review. All opinions are my own.

7 July , 201427 March , 2015 - Sarah 5 Comments

Living Arrows 27/52

It’s been another fairly quiet week here at Toby Goes Bananas HQ. It’s the school holidays here in Scotland now so most of Toby’s activities have finished for the summer. We have had some nice weather though so managed to get out for a walk with my friend Claire and her twins (and a had a sneaky McFlurry!) on Tuesday. The end of the week has been mostly about staying in as Toby has come down with a cold. It’s his first proper, snot running down the face, cold but he seems to be feeling OK in himself. He really doesn’t like me wiping his nose though and in his efforts to escape always seems to manage to spread snot all over his face. Lovely! The snot-sucker has had to come out again too and we’ve had some delightful results there… Can someone tell me at what age they learn to sniff (or even wipe) rather than just letting the snot trail down his upper lip into his mouth?!

Moving on, on a slightly less disgusting note, we did manage to get out for a walk this afternoon. There’s a fun fair on the park near us at the moment so we went to have a look. But at £6.99 just to get in (it did give you unlimited rides but we didn’t actually want to go on anything) we decided not to bother. A short stroll in the fresh air and a go on the swings for Toby was more than enough fun for us this afternoon!

And lastly, I’ve just realised that this will be my last Living Arrows post with a baby under one! It’s Toby’s birthday on Friday and with all his grandparents coming to celebrate on Saturday, hopefully we’ll have some party snaps for next week.

6 July , 201420 December , 2015 - Sarah 6 Comments

Round and round the garden (The Ordinary Moments #25)

You know the rhyme…. Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear, one step, two step, and tickle him under there!

Well, at some point this has become one of our lovely Ordinary Moments. Toby now knows the rhyme so well he starts giggling before I’ve even touched him!

He keeps giggling as he tries to push my hands away. And by the end we are both laughing.

I just love what a happy, smiley, giggly baby I have. The sound of your baby laughing is something to treasure for ever. That pure, unadulterated joy. I hope he keeps hold of that for a long time to come and that to hear him laughing is forever one of our Ordinary Moments.

3 July , 20143 July , 2014 - Sarah 4 Comments

Baby swimming with Konfidence and Turtle Tots

I have been taking Toby to Turtle Tots swimming classes since he was about four months old. We’ve had our ups and downs with it but overall it’s been a great experience. We’ve just finished our Level 3 block of classes (well, there is one more class to go when we go back after the summer holidays) and we’ve signed up for Level 4 which is the last level of baby swimming before moving on to the toddler class. We’ve also been using Toby’s swimming kit from Konfidence for the last couple of months which I reviewed here.

So, after eight months of swimming what has Toby learnt so far? The Turtle Tots classes have been great and our instructor Amanda is fantastic. Each class involves lots of songs and games to keep the babies engaged and interested and each class builds on the previous ones. Since his first lesson when Toby started by getting used to having water splashed on his face he now goes underwater several times a lesson (and swims back up to the surface on his own), he can hold on to the side of the pool on his own (and climb out with a tiny bit of help), he can splash into (and under the water) on his own from the side and we’re working on him being able to turn himself round underwater and get back to the side. He can float on his back with just a little support of his head from me, he can kick his legs as I swim him along, and he’s just starting to get the hang of moving himself along with a short woggle under each arm and no help from me! All pretty impressive for a baby who doesn’t turn one until next week I reckon! We even got chance to have an underwater photo shoot to capture Toby’s baby swimming experience (although somehow the photos came out looking nothing like him!).

The main aim of Turtle Tots baby swimming programme is to teach babies water confidence and essential life-saving skills. Toby is by no means drown-proof but I’m fairly sure if he fell in water he’d manage to get himself back up to the surface at least. For me though, taking Toby to classes with Turtle Tots from such a young age has given me confidence to take him in the water that I perhaps wouldn’t have had on my own. I certainly don’t think I’d be doing submersions with him on my own if I didn’t know what I was doing! Now I would happily take Toby swimming on my own and practice all the things we’ve been doing in class. It was quite funny when we took him in the pool on holiday – there were quite a lot of amazed stares from other people in the pool as I put my eleven month old baby under the water and let go!!

If I’m honest, it’s still a bit hit and miss as to whether Toby actually likes being in the pool or not. I usually count it as a good lesson if we get through it without any crying! I don’t think it’s being in the water that he doesn’t like as such but there are so many things that can affect how he gets on from week to week – if he’s a bit tired or hungry that doesn’t help, if he’s teething then he tends to be a bit unhappy too (especially on his back), or the big one for Toby seems to be if he gets cold. We swim in a warm water pool which is supposed to be heated to 32° but sometimes it’s a bit less than that. Wearing his Konfidence Babywarma makes a big difference too but sometimes my skinny wee boy just gets a bit cold (and actually shivers) and he just doesn’t like it that much! I’m hoping that as he gets bigger he might be able to tolerate the colder water a bit better.

I would totally recommend baby swimming lessons if you have the opportunity to do them – I will say that they are fairly expensive when compared to just taking your baby to the pool on your own but worth every penny for the tuition and support that you get. We’ve been very lucky in that Toby’s grandparents paid for the first two blocks of lessons and then we were able to do the third block as part of our role as Konfidence Swimologists.

I’ll be keeping you updated on Toby’s progress in the pool. I really want to keep him going to swimming lessons until he is able to swim on his own. And with my massively long skinny baby, who knows? Maybe we’ve got the next Michael Phelps on our hands!