8 April , 201520 December , 2015 - Sarah 4 Comments

Living Arrows 14/52 (2015)

Last week was the last week of term and I was definitely ready for breaking up on Thursday afternoon. My parents then came up to visit for the weekend and we had a busy few days including an IKEA trip, a visit to the farm and a walk in the woods. After an initial bit of shyness Toby really enjoyed spending time with his Grandma and Grandad, and I think my Dad enjoyed it a lot more this visit, now that Toby can play and interact a lot more. It was nice for Toby to have a few days off nursery too and we all enjoyed some time together as a family.

On Saturday we went to a local fruit farm. There were some animals too so we got to see some lambs, piglets and chicks but I think Toby’s favourite part was sitting on the tractor in the play area!

2 April , 201520 December , 2015 - Sarah 1 Comment

Living Arrows 13/52 (2015)

Not much to report this week, and I’m late again! We’re all still just plodding on here. Hopefully the next couple of weeks, with the Easter holidays and family visits things might get a bit more interesting!

When Toby was smaller it was almost impossible to get him to wear a hat, as soon as he’d worked out how to take them off he would. But one of his first words was ‘at and now almost anything can be ‘ats! As is clearly demonstrated in this week’s Living Arrows picture. (Also, I know his haircut makes him look like a bit of a ragamuffin but that’s because last time I tried to cut it he really wasn’t enjoying it and refused to keep his head still so I just had to do the best I could!)

31 March , 201521 December , 2017 - Sarah 3 Comments

Me & Mine: A Family Portrait (March 2015)

Hurray! I managed to publish this month’s Me & Mine post on the right day, in the right month and everything! To be fair, I only managed to take the photo this afternoon after we got in from work and picked Toby up from nursery so it’s not the most exciting picture ever but this is pretty much the reality of our lives at the moment.

We haven’t had a very exciting month again this month. I seem to have been ill for most of the month, first with some sort of 24 hour stomach bug and then an awful cough which has hung around for weeks. Barry had the stomach bug too but thankfully Toby managed to avoid it. He’s just had his standard snotty nose this month and we think his back molars might be on their way too. On top of all that I’m still suffering from a dry socket where I had a wisdom tooth taken out so it’s taking ages to heal. It is slowly getting better though.

Reading this it sounds like it’s been a miserable month, and it has at times. But on a more positive note, Toby has been sleeping much better overall, we’ve had some nice trips out at the weekends even if they have just been to the park or to a garden centre for tea and cake. And of course we had the 20 week scan and found out all is well with our new baby boy!

Hopefully April will be a better month for everyone. I’m off school for two weeks of it which I’m hoping will give me a chance to rest a bit and get over all my ailments, and we’ve got visits from our families planned too. Fingers crossed we get a bit of sunshine too and we can all get outside and have some fun!

28 March , 2015 - Sarah 3 Comments

Is it time for a big boy bed?

Toby is now 20 (and a half) months old and his sleep issues are already well documented on this blog! Actually, his sleep has been getting much better over the last few weeks and he even seems to have stopped the screaming when we left the room which had become a feature of bedtimes recently.

I have been starting to wonder though whether Toby’s sleep might be improved by a move out of his cot and into a bed. Although he’s very tall he still has lots of room in his cot and (so far) hasn’t attempted to climb out. He does bump against the sides quite a bit when he’s going to sleep and sometimes in the night and I wonder if this is disturbing his sleep.

He’s going to have to move into a bed sooner or later and with the new baby arriving in August I’m keen to move him before we need his cot so he doesn’t feel like he is being evicted! Eventually both children will have to share a room (until we move house) but I’m hoping that we will manage to keep the baby in with us for longer than we did with Toby. We put him in his own room when he was six weeks old because his reflux made him very noisy in his sleep and we all slept better when he wasn’t in with us.

My main concern with moving Toby into a bed is that he will then have the freedom to get out and potentially cause chaos. He loves going in the drawers and wardrobe in his room and unless we put locks on everything I can see us waking up to find everything all over the floor! I think we would also need to put a gate across his door as he can easily open all the doors in our house. We currently have a gate across the hall which means Toby can still get to our room. This is fine if we’re there but if we were downstairs I think he might be out of bed and running around all over the place.

Of course, I might be wrong and he might just love a big boy bed and stay in it all night. I know the only way to find out is to make the leap but I am more than a little apprehensive. I think we are going to get a bed in the next few weeks (and I’m planning on going straight to a single rather than a toddler bed) and then we might put it in Toby’s room and see what he makes of it. We’ve booked a caravan holiday in May too and Toby is going to have to sleep in a bed, with a bed rail, then as he’s too big for the travel cot now and I think maybe getting him used to a bed at home first might be a good idea.

I’d love to hear when you moved your little ones into their big beds. Are there any issues I haven’t thought of or was it all plain sailing and I should just stop worrying and do it?

27 March , 20155 December , 2017 - Sarah 8 Comments

From poppy seed to pumpkin: It’s a . . .

Yesterday I had my 20 week scan. Everything is looking great with the baby; everything is where is should be and the measurements were all right in the middle of the ‘normal’ range. It was lovely to see the baby again, and to see that little heart beating away.

We did find out that I have a low-lying placenta which is close to the cervix at the moment. I’ve been booked in for another scan at 32 weeks and hopefully as everything grows the placenta will move up and out of the way. If it doesn’t then I’ll be looking at a caesarean section and my plans for a home birth will be out of the window. There’s absolutely nothing I can do to change it though, whatever is going to happen will happen. So I’m going to try my best not to think about it or worry and just hope for the best. Apparently, in the vast majority of cases the placenta does move up with the growing uterus and doesn’t cause a problem for delivery, let’s just hope it works out that way for us.

At the end of the scan the sonographer asked if we had any questions…so it was time to ask the big one…can you see the gender? And so here it is, the big news!

Yes, another boy! Toby is going to get a little brother. If you read my gender preference post then you’ll know I was kind of hoping for a girl, and I was a bit sad for an hour or two but I’m fine now and looking forward to having two little boys running around the place!

26 March , 20152 August , 2017 - Sarah 3 Comments

Review: Cantaloop Pregnancy/Nursing tank top

I still have all my maternity clothes from when I was pregnant with Toby so I’m hoping to get away without having to get too many new things this time round. What I did find useful last time was having long vest tops that I could wear under my normal tops and jumpers making them suitable for accommodating my bump. I also had a few vest tops which could also be used for breastfeeding after the baby arrived too which was very useful and meant I got more than just a few months wear out of them. When I was offered the chance to try a Pregnancy/Nursing tank top from Cantaloop I was pleased to have another addition to my maternity wardrobe.

The Pregnancy/Nursing tank top comes in black, white, red or turquoise and has an RRP of £28.49 – I went for basic black as it goes with pretty much everything. The top is made from very soft microfibre material which is very comfortable. Its only downside is that it does have a tendency for static build up.

There is a built in bra within the tank top and although it is reasonably supportive I would say that if you are on the more ample side up top then it might not offer enough support on its own. I’m a 36G when pregnant and I would wear the tank top on its own around the house or to sleep in but I think I would need a bra underneath if I was going out in it.

The tank top also has nursing clips for easy access when breastfeeding. I have to admit though I am slightly confused as the front of the vest itself unclips but still leaves the bra part in place which you would then have to pull down out of the way – this seems a little odd, but maybe it’s just me!

Overall the Cantaloop Pregnancy/Nursing tank top is very comfortable and there is plenty of material to accommodate my growing bump. I’m sure I’ll get plenty of use out of it, both while I’m pregnant and as a nursing top after the baby is here.

**Disclosure: I was sent a Cantaloop Pregnancy/Nursing tank top in return for this review. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.

23 March , 201520 December , 2015 - Sarah 2 Comments

Living Arrows 12/52 (2015)

A little bit late again this week. We have mostly recovered from last week’s illnesses – I’m still coughing but I’ve got my voice back at least and Toby is just snotty (as always!) and has also got a bit of a cough. Just as I was starting to feel a bit better though I went to the dentist and ended up getting a wisdom tooth taken out so now I’m having to put up with that pain too, and it’s rubbish not being able to take anything except paracetamol! On top of all that I’ve also got a sore, pregnancy related, hip although that just seems bad in the morning and eases off when I’ve been up an hour or two. At least we break up for the Easter holidays next week and I can hopefully get a bit of rest!

Toby has been very funny again lately. He’s answering yes or no very emphatically whenever he is asked a question, although still sometimes means the opposite of what he says! He loves running up and down our living room and this week we took the room divider out again so he’s got a free run of the place again. Yesterday he decided he was going to start collecting all the phones and remote controls from around the living room and put them in the washing basket which was waiting to go back upstairs. (Apologies for the washing on the radiator!)

He kept going for ages, adding all the car keys and house keys, and pretty much anything else he could find. He had himself quite a collection in the end…

19 March , 2015 - Sarah 7 Comments

Gender preference?

This time next week, all being well, we will have found out the gender of our baby! When we were having Toby we found out at the 20 week scan that we were having a boy but decided to keep it to ourselves, although I did tell my mum and dad because I kept almost accidentally telling my mum every time I spoke to her anyway! This time though, if we can find out then we’re quite happy to share the news with everyone.

So the big question is what is it going to be? Another boy? A few people have asked me if I have a preference whether it is a boy or a girl and the honest truth is that if I had a choice then I would like a girl. I think this mostly comes from the fact that I grew up with an older brother who is exactly two years older than me (to the day!) and barring a few childhood arguments we have always got on really well. Toby will turn two in the month before this baby is due so there’s going to be a very similar age gap as there is between me and my brother. I think having grown up with a brother I don’t know any different and I just can’t imagine having two boys!

There is of course the slightly more frivolous reason for wanting a girl, which is that there is so much more choice when it comes to girl’s clothes! Every time I go to buy clothes for Toby I’m always drawn to look at all the lovely girls clothes you can get. And if I had a girl she could wear dresses in summer and show off all our cute cloth nappies too!

I’ve always said I only want two kids so whatever this one turns out to be will be it. I really have no inkling what we are going to find out at the scan next week, and of course above all else, I just hope that the baby is healthy. I’ve been trying to convince myself that it’s going to be another boy so that if it is I won’t be disappointed and if it is a girl it will be a happy surprise. Either way I’m glad we get to find out now and have plenty of time to get used to the idea whichever one it is. I guess all I can really do for now is just wait and see what next week reveals. (And don’t worry, all will be revealed here too!)

It’s something we don’t talk about very much but did you have a preference when it came to the gender of your baby? How did you feel if the gender wasn’t what you were hoping for?

18 March , 201520 December , 2015 - Sarah 1 Comment

Living Arrows 11/52 (2015)

I’m late again this week. The weekend was a bit of a write off with me being sick on Saturday and then Barry succumbing on Sunday, although whatever bug we had it seems Toby has somehow managed to avoid it. I’ve now got a cold as well and have had hardly any voice for the last few days…it just never ends does it?

Anyway we did manage a trip to one of the parks near our house on Sunday morning and Toby was absolutely loving the slide. When we first started taking him to the park he used to hate the slide but now it seems to be his favourite thing, he was just going round and round, off the bottom and back up the steps again. It was very cute!

(I also realise that a lot of my Living Arrows pictures lately show Toby in the same hat and coat, he does have other clothes I promise!)

18 March , 2015 - Sarah 3 Comments

The return of reflux?

I mentioned this briefly a few weeks ago but I wanted to write a proper post about it.

If you have been reading my blog for a while you might know Toby was diagnosed with silent reflux when he was about 6 weeks old. He was on Infant Gaviscon and ranitidine until we managed to wean him off them when he was about 9 months and we thought that he had grown out of it and we had seen the back of reflux for good.

Fast forward 8 months and I started to suspect the reflux hadn’t gone after all. Apart from a golden period between 10 and 18 weeks when Toby slept every night from 6:30pm to 8am he has never been a consistently good sleeper. Even when his poor sleep continued after we weaned him off the reflux medication it never really occurred to me that reflux might be the problem.

He was still waking up for two or three bottles a night but I assumed it was because he was hungry. Giving him more to eat during the day didn’t really help although as he tends to sleep better at the weekend when he seems to eat more than he does at nursery I still thought hunger might have something to do with it.

Up until a couple of months ago I don’t think there had been more than a few days in the last 8 months when Toby hasn’t either had a cold, or been teething (or both). I always assumed that these things were affecting his sleep too. I was probably right but it wasn’t until a few months ago that I started to make the connection that these things could also be causing reflux flare ups.

However, Toby’s first molars came through just after Christmas and we knew he definitely wasn’t teething but we had got to a point where it was usual for Toby to wake up for at least two bottles in the night, or sometimes three or four. On a bad night he was drinking almost 2 pints of milk. That is not normal for an 18 month old boy! We tried to get him back to sleep but he just wouldn’t settle without milk. I also started to notice he would arch his back and stiffen up (while screaming) which were typical signs of his reflux when he was younger. He never seemed to have any trouble during the day but then I suppose he is now upright for most of the day so gravity is helping to keep the acid down.

And so back to the doctor we went. I asked if we could try ranitidine again and luckily our GP agreed that although it was hard to be sure if it was still reflux the only way to find out was to try him back on ranitidine and see if it would help.

It hasn’t been quite the miracle cure I was hoping for but it has definitely helped. We still have some nights where Toby wakes up and although milk still helps him to settle he isn’t desperate for it like he was before. We’ve had quite a few nights recently where he has slept through the whole night as well so I’m really hoping things are improving.

Unfortunately, with the better sleeping at night has come a different problem; even when he was waking up three or four times a night we never had any problem getting Toby to go to sleep in the first place. In the last few weeks he has started crying whenever we leave the room and we’ve ended up having to sit in his room until he goes to sleep. This isn’t too bad at bedtime but not so much fun when he does it at 2 o’clock in the morning.

Anyway, I can only stay positive and hope things will continue to improve. I know Toby shouldn’t really need to be having a bedtime bottle at 20 months old but my plan is to try and get him consistently sleeping through before we get rid of the bottles all together.

If anyone has any experience of reflux in older babies, or any ideas on how we can all get a better night’s sleep then please do let me know!

Toby Goes Bananas

A family lifestyle blog