6 June , 2016 - Sarah 3 Comments

Living Arrows 23/52 (2016)

It’s been a fairly quiet week for us by all accounts. Gabe is mostly recovered from his chicken pox (although his sleep is still all over the place) and Toby has been, well, a toddler.

Gabe is really a pro-crawler now, he is literally getting everywhere and into everything. This week he has also started pulling himself up on the furniture. He’s pretty confident with kneeling up but has also managed to pull himself onto his feet a few times too. I’m really hoping that as he can move more and be more independent he will start being a bit more content to explore by himself and entertain himself. At the moment if you are holding him he is desperate to get down and sometimes even almost dives out of your arms, but if you put him down he starts crying again after a few minutes. And quite frankly it’s driving me bonkers!

Toby has been spending a lot of time outside, both at home and at nursery, in this lovely sunshine we’ve been having. Mostly he’s been loving it but it seems to be totally exhausting for him so we’ve had a few tired meltdowns this last week too. Generally though he’s still just his usual cheery self…

3 June , 201626 March , 2021 - Sarah 4 Comments

The car seat dilemma // Is it the end of extended rear-facing for Toby?

I am a big believer in keeping your children rear-facing in the car for as long as possible. The statistics are hard to argue with – research has shown that it’s five times safer to remain rear-facing. In Scandinavia children must stay rear-facing until they are 25 kg (around four or five years old) and they are very unlikely to die or be seriously injured in a car accident.

In the UK it used to be very common to turn a child to a forward-facing car seat as soon as the law allowed, that is when they reached 9 kg. Thankfully, as more people become aware of the benefits of rear-facing seats, attitudes, and the law, are changing. The new iSize re gulations say that a child must stay rear-facing until they are 15 months old. The different stage seats are then based on height not weight. At the moment iSize is running alongside the current regulations so existing car seats can still be used but eventually all car seats will have to comply to the new regulations, which also include more rigorous safety testing.

Most infant carriers (Group 0+ car seats under the old regulations) can be used until your child weighs 13 kg. For a lot of children this is somewhere between one and 18 months. However, if you have a very tall child, as we do, then they may well grow out of their infant carrier by height way before they reach the weight limit. In an infant carrier your child is too tall when their head starts to come above the shell of the seat. This happened when Toby was about 8 months old and I think weighed about 8.5 kg. He wasn’t heavy enough for a Group 1 forward-facing seat and even if he had been we still would have kept him rear-facing.

After a lot of research we decided to buy Britax Dualfix, which I reviewed here. Even though it was only two years ago there weren’t a lot of extended rear-facing options. The swivel feature of the Dualfix really appealed to me, and I was incredibly grateful for it when I was heavily pregnant and having to wrestle an uncooperative toddler into his car seat.

The Dualfix can be used until your child weighs 18 kg which for the average child is around age four. However, as I have since found out, it has quite a short shell (something it has in common with some of the other swivel seats) so at a month off 3 years old, even though Toby only weighs just over 15 kg his has almost outgrown the Dualfix. In this kind of seat it is OK for the child’s head to be above the shell as long as the straps are at or just above the shoulders. Toby is now 102 cm tall and with the headrest at its highest Toby’s shoulders are right up under it. If he grows another cm or two he’s not going to fit in this seat any more. Just to be clear though – this is nothing to do with Toby’s legs being too long or it being uncomfortable. He has never once complained about facing backwards, or not having enough space, it’s simply that the length of his body means the harness won’t fit safely soon. You can see in this picture that he is still perfectly happy in his rear-facing seat.

Gabe is also getting close to having outgrown his infant carrier too so we’ll need to move him into the Dualfix soon.

So here is the car seat dilemma – what do we do with Toby? I am a firm believer in extended rear-facing and there are seats available which can remain rear facing up to 25 kg and have a much bigger shell. If we got one of those seats Toby would be able to stay rear facing until he was maybe 5 or 6 if he continues to grow at the rate he is now. But having already paid £300 for the Dualfix we would need to spend a similar amount again on another rear facing seat, and then when he outgrows that buy another seat for him to use until he is big enough not to need a car seat at all (which at the moment is when a child is 12 years old or 135cm tall, whichever comes first). We might be able to use the new rear facing seat for Gabe, but there’s a chance he would grow out of the Dualfix before Toby grows out of the second rear facing seat and then what do we do? Buy another seat for Gabe? I’m all for being as safe as possible but at between £200-300 per seat we could be looking at a very expensive few years.

The ideal option for me would be a seat which can be used rear facing until 18 or 25 kg but which has a tall shell, and can then be turned round and used either with the harness or as a high backed booster with the adult seat belt. I have found a couple of seats which fit the bill – the Joie Every Stage and the Klippan Triofix. The main problem with the Klippan seat is that there is nowhere nearby that stocks them so I would have to buy online and hope Toby fits in the seat OK.

The Joie Every Stage is more of a possibility but there are couple of things I don’t like about it – firstly it is secured with the seat belt and the way it is routed round the car seat means you either have the put the child over or under it to get them in the seat (Plus, our car seems to have short seat belts so I don’t know if it would even fit. The second niggle is that it has to be in the most reclined position when rear facing and I don’t think Toby would like lying back after being more upright for so long. There is a local shop that stocks the Joie seat so I suppose we could always go and try it and see what we think.

I would love to know if anyone has any experience of either of these seats, and what you think of them.

The other alternative is to buy a group 2/3 forward facing seat for Toby, put Gabe in the Dualfix until he grows out of it then get a similar forward facing seat for him too. Although I know the statistics about extended rear facing being the safest option, unfortunately there comes a point where we have to look at the financial implications too.

I think I have found a seat though that will be a good compromise. The Britax Advansafix II SICT is a forward facing seat suitable from 9-36 kg. Up until your child reaches 25 kg it is fixed in the car with both isofix and the car seat belt and the child is secured using a five point harness. Isofix on its own can only be used to 18 kg so most seats switch to using the car seat belt to secure the child after that but because the Advansafix uses both the child can be harnessed for longer. I think the longer I can keep Toby in a harness the better as the car seat belt would give him too much freedom to move around and get up to mischief! I also like the fact that after 25 kg when the seat is in its high backed booster mode it is still held in the car by the isofix so you don’t need to fasten the car seat belt when the child isn’t in the car. This seat also has additional side impact protection which can be moved depending on which side of the car the seat is on, and it has fancy guides which make sure the seat belt is positioned correctly when it is being used.

As you can probably tell I’m actually pretty sold on the idea of this seat already but I would love to know if any of you have used it, or indeed if you have any other solutions to my car seat dilemma that I haven’t thought of yet….and that won’t cost me the earth!

31 May , 201621 December , 2017 - Sarah 1 Comment

Me & Mine // A Family Portrait (May 2016)

It’s a bit late in the day but I am at least managing to publish this month’s Me & Mine post on the last day of the month. It’s been another month of ups and downs for us. There has been even more illness with Barry and the boys all having a stomach bug, and then Toby and Gabe have both had chicken pox too. There have been quite a lot of tears (a lot of them from me!) and not a lot of sleep. But amongst all the illness we also had a lovely holiday at Center Parcs, and sold our house!

That last one is a very exciting bit of news – after 13 years in Scotland, 5 of them living in this house with Barry, we are moving back to the north west of England to live nearer both sets of parents. It’s all very exciting, but also very stressful. Although we’ve sold our house and our buyers want to move in at the end of the first week of July we haven’t bought anywhere yet! It looks like we might be moving in with my mum and dad for a few weeks this summer! Fingers crossed it will all work out one way or another.

Anyway, this month’s photos were taken during our holiday at Center Parcs. We got a few funny looks from people walking past as we balanced the camera on a bin and Barry dashed back to get in the shot before the timer went off. I do like this month’s picture though – we’re even all looking at the camera!

And I just wanted to include this one too – because although we’re not all looking at the camera on this one I love our happy faces…

31 May , 201631 May , 2016 - Sarah 5 Comments

Living Arrows 22/52 (2016)

If you read Gabe’s nine month update you’ll know he had got the chicken pox last week but only had a few spots. I was hoping it was going to be a mild case but by Friday he was covered and we had a couple of really bad days, and nights with him where Barry did lots of pushing him round the houses in the buggy and nobody got very much sleep.

Thankfully his spots seem to be all crusted over now and although he looks a mess he’s feeling much better. Last night he even managed to sleep from 6:30pm to 7am and only woke up once for milk at midnight then went straight back to sleep. Fingers crossed his scabs heal quickly and don’t cause him too much trouble…

And Toby is still just being Toby. He’s been really good when we’ve had to spend all our time looking after Gabe and hasn’t really complained at all.

His hair had been getting really long again the last few weeks and had got to the point where he could hardly see! I usually cut it while he’s stood in the bath but he’s always distracted by toys and getting him to stand still is a nightmare…leading to some very wonky haircuts! I decided I would try and actually cut it properly this time, I even got a hairdressing cape and some of those clips that hairdressers use to keep some sections out of the way.

Toby was really good and just sat still watching the Octonauts on my Kindle while I did it. I actually cut quite a lot off the back this time because it was getting a bit ridiculous (and always full of knots). The front still isn’t quite even but overall I’m pretty pleased with my efforts this time. And I might be biased but I reckon Toby looks awesome with his new haircut!

27 May , 2016 - Sarah 2 Comments

Gabriel is nine months old

I’m a bit late with this month’s update – Gabe was actually nine months old last week while we were on holiday at Center Parcs but with that, house viewings and the chicken pox I’m only just getting round to writing this.

Well in last month’s update I said I hoped there would be less illness this month but unfortunately that hasn’t really been the case. On top of his habitual cold Gabe has also had a stomach bug which he caught off Toby but whereas Toby was just sick a couple of times then back to normal after a couple of days, Gabe had really nasty nappies for almost two weeks. Almost as soon as he got over that Toby got the chicken pox and then it was inevitable Gabe would get it too. His first spot appeared on Monday and today he’s still only got about 10 so I’m really hoping that is it and he is going to escape with only a mild dose of the pox. On top of all that he is still suffering with his reflux, particularly it seems at bedtimes, and our paediatrician appointment which was scheduled for 17th June (already about three months after we were referred by the GP) has now been moved to 15th July!

On a happier note Gabe hasn’t had any more teeth this month, although I did think he nasty nappies were due to teething for a while. Weaning has been a bit all over the place, along with Gabe’s appetite this month. He’s still being spoon fed most of his meals but he is getting much better and chewing lumpier food, and at picking different foods up and eating them himself. Rice cakes and yoghurt have been firm favourites this month along with lots of different pouch meals (we’ve mostly been using the HiPP Organic 7+ month ones). We’ve also changed Gabe’s formula to HiPP Organic this month. I’d heard that a lot of reflux babies find it gentler on their tummies, and I was also hoping the prebiotics in it would help get his insides back to normal after the stomach bug. I don’t know if it has actually made any difference but he isn’t any worse so we’re going to stick with it for the moment.

With all the illness, and the disruption of a holiday sleep is still rather illusive. We’re having lots of night waking still but whereas I used to be able to settle him with his dummy and a rub on the back or a cuddle now he nearly always needs milk to get back to sleep. I’m pretty sure this is because of his reflux rather than hunger as Toby used to be exactly the same. It never made any difference how much he ate during the day he would still need milk if he woke in the night. At least for now Gabe does usually go back to sleep quickly after he’s had his milk so I don’t have to be awake for too long in the night. We’ve been doing quite a bit of co-sleeping this month too – mostly when he wakes for the second time at about 4 am and isn’t that keen on going back to sleep. Usually if I bring him in bed with me at that point we manage another hour or two of sleep.

The big development this month has been that Gabe has started crawling! He started off just commando crawling but in the last few days he’s pretty much crawling up on his hands knees. Which means nothing is safe any more and we’ve had to break out the playpen again. Gabe isn’t a huge fan for any length of time but at least it gives me somewhere safe to put him for a few minutes while I go to the loo or something!

I haven’t had Gabe weighed for ages now but using the probably very inaccurate method of weighing myself then both of us together he weighs 19lb 3oz. He’s still wearing 9-12 month clothes but I think we’re going to have to move into the next size soon, at least for sleepsuits as he is so long, especially with a massive night time cloth bum too!

I think that’s all for this month, I just really, really, really hope Gabe makes it to 10 months without getting ill again!

26 May , 20162 July , 2016 - Sarah 6 Comments

My Wild Ones // Mini Trekkers at Center Parcs

Last week we were on holiday at Center Parcs in the Lake District. As I’m sure most of you are aware there are tons of different activities to do…and most of them cost extra! You do get quite a lot of emails before you go urging you to book things in advance but seeing as we didn’t know what we would feel like doing, or what the weather would be like we didn’t really book anything before got to Center Parcs.

It was a good job we didn’t as it happened as Toby’s chicken pox weren’t fully scabbed over until our second day there so we couldn’t really do anything when we first arrived. We did go for a walk around to get our bearings and saw the Mini Trekkers course.

It’s a baby version of the high ropes course where the kids get to wear a harness and cross different bridges to collect the pieces of a jigsaw. We asked Toby if he’d like to have a go and when he said yes we booked it for later on our second day.

This was a great activity for Toby, and it was lovely to watch him overcoming his fears.

He was a bit nervous at first but soon got into the idea.

By the end he only really needed my help to step from the platform onto the walk ways and then he was quite happy holding onto the ropes and walking along by himself.

It helped that he had to collect the jigsaw pieces on some of the platforms and he was so pleased with himself when he finished the squirrel picture at the end of the Mini Trekkers course.

And even more pleased when he was given a squirrel toy to keep as well.

23 May , 201622 May , 2016 - Sarah 11 Comments

Living Arrows 21/52 (2016)

Well, despite the pox we made it to Center Parcs and we had a brilliant week! We couldn’t do much the first day or so as Toby’s spots hadn’t completely crusted over but it didn’t really matter. We made sure we did plenty of activities in the rest of the week, and ate lots of delicious food too. I’ll be writing more about what we got up to in some other posts but safe to say we had a great time and I would definitely recommend Center Parcs to anyone looking for a family holiday.

This week’s Living Arrows photos are a couple from while we were away. Toby was a trooper throughout his week of chicken pox, he hardly complained at all, and he still slept really well which was a relief. It was a tiring week away for him though (and would have been even without recovering from illness) and we had a few meltdown moments but on the whole he just enjoyed the whole experience. It was fab to see him trying things he wouldn’t normally do and the big smiles on his face when he did them.

Gabe spent quite a lot of his holiday napping and we did have disturbed nights from him too. He loved exploring the lodge though, his commando crawling is really getting him everywhere he wants to go now…and lots of places we don’t want him to go! He’s so determined, but still gets frustrated when he can’t do something he wants to. Just look at him though – I’m sure it won’t be long before he’s properly crawling and pulling himself up, and then nothing will be safe!

16 May , 201615 May , 2016 - Sarah 10 Comments

Living Arrows 20/52 (2016)

If you read this post you’ll know we’ve been having a pretty rubbish time of things recently. However, as I write this Gabe has finally got over his stomach bug or teething or whatever it was that was making his nappies so awful. The last couple of nights he’s actually slept reasonably well, for him, and even though he had me up at 5:30 am when he’s this cute you don’t mind too much. Of course now we’re just waiting to see how long it is before the chicken pox shows up but at least we might manage a few days without too much grumpiness.

And as for Toby; he is coping remarkably well with his chicken pox although thankfully I don’t think he has too bad a case. He is a bit up and down, one minute he’s tired and lying in front of the TV and the next he’s charging around the house, like when I grabbed this shot.

A lot of his spots have crusted over now so I’m just hoping the rest of them do soon so he can at least enjoy a couple of days of our holiday at Center Parcs. And just cross your fingers that Gabe doesn’t show any symptoms until after we’re home!

15 May , 2016 - Sarah 3 Comments

Siblings // Toby and Gabe in May

Amongst the illness of the last month the relationship between Toby and Gabe is continuing to develop. Things haven’t really changed too much though; Gabe still absolutely adores his brother and is always ready with a smile or a laugh for him. He’s starting to discover the joy of playing with all Toby’s toys too and now he’s on the move nothing is safe from his little hands. Toby still seems to see Gabe as a mixture of someone to entertain and give the odd kiss to, and something of an inconvenience who takes up far too much of mummy’s time still.

I am though catching more and more glimpses of what their relationship might be like in another year or so, when Gabe can really interact and they can properly play together. Yesterday I left them in the living room for two minutes whilst I was tidying up in the kitchen and came back to this sight…

Now pulling tissues out of the box is a favourite game of Gabe’s so I said ‘oh Gabe, what a mess you’ve made’ to which Toby piped up ‘And me!’ They’re going to get up to some mischief aren’t they?

Gabe is a very grabby baby, and he loves to grab people’s hair, especially Toby’s if he can get near him. We’re trying to teach him to be gentle and he is slowly getting the idea. And Toby is trying to be a bit more patient with him too, instead of immediately just crying and shouting for him to get off!

We are also trying to encourage Toby to share at the moment which is something he is still struggling with. However, one thing he has almost definitely shared with Gabe this week is his chicken pox! Especially after Gabe had this Duplo in his mouth (it’s a crocodile’s mouth in case you weren’t sure) which had been in Toby’s mouth just a minute earlier. It’s almost inevitable that Gabe will get the pox so we’re just playing a waiting game now.

And the last picture for this month is one of those glimpses of what is to come. They were both concentrating on the bricks and for the briefest of moments neither of them was trying to take anything of the other and I’m sure that it won’t be long before we are seeing more and more moments like this between my wonderful brothers.

15 May , 20166 July , 2020 - Sarah 3 Comments

Term time holidays // Where do you stand?

I still can’t quite decide where I stand on the issue of term time holidays. The subject has been in the media again this week when the high court ruled that father, Jon Platt had no case to answer when he refused to pay a £120 fine after taking his daughter out of school to go to Disneyland in Florida. I read a post on the matter from Hannah at Budding Smiles who stands firmly on the side of parents being allowed to take their children out of school for holidays during term time so long as their attendance the rest of the time is high.

Reading Hannah’s post made me really consider my own position. On the one hand I think it is perfectly reasonable for a child who attends school 90% of the time to be taken out of school for a week to travel somewhere with their family where they will experience a different culture, language and so on. But, are there really any educational benefits to a week all inclusive in Tenerife where you never leave the hotel? Or ten days at Disneyland? Perhaps the benefit comes from simply leaving the country and spending time with family and that’s fine but it does annoy me a bit when people seem to think that all kids being taken out of school for term time holidays are getting some massive educational benefit from the experience.

Speaking as a teacher I also know how incredibly disruptive it can be, not only to the learning of the child taken out of school, but also to the rest of the class. Because in my experience, whatever the parents say, the kids rarely make any effort to catch up on the work they’ve missed and I end up having to go over things again. And you might not think that having one child out of class makes much difference but in a class of 30 that is potentially someone out nearly every week. Or perhaps parents would think that taking their kids out close to the school holidays would be less disruptive and then you end up with half the class missing which makes doing anything useful with the half of the class that are there something of an exercise in futility. And I’ve heard the argument that ‘you never do anything in the last week of term anyway’ but apart from perhaps the week before the summer holidays, for me at least that simply isn’t the case.

I totally understand the argument that price hikes during school holidays mean that some families simply can’t afford to go on holiday unless they go during term time. I don’t necessarily think that fining parents is the answer but neither is allowing them to take their kids out of school whenever they feel like it. I live in Scotland where there are no fines parents who take their children out of school for family holidays. Here it would seem though that parents are taking advantage of the system – the number of children taking unauthorised absences almost doubled in the decade from 2003 to 2013.

In Scotland schools have the ability to authorise term time holidays in exceptional circumstances so perhaps the solution would be to leave it up to the schools to make individual decisions based on the circumstances of each family and, heaven forbid, use a bit of common sense! The school could look at the educational and/ or emotional benefit of the holiday, and also the amount of disruption to that child and to other children in the class that an absence would cause.

Of course I doubt that will happen. What is more likely to happen is that the government will try and close the loop hole in the law which refers to ‘regular attendance’ at school, and parents will continue to take their kids out of school during term time and pay the fines, because it’s still cheaper than paying to take your family away during the school holidays.

And as for me, will I ever take my kids out of school for a family holiday? Well, apart from the fact that if I am working as a teacher myself I can’t take term time holidays, I won’t be taking my kids out of school unless it’s absolutely necessary. There are ways of having holidays outside of term time without it completely breaking the bank and that’s what we’ll be doing. Unless of course some fantastic educational opportunity presents itself somewhere down the line…never say never after all!

I’d love to hear what you think about term time holidays – are they ever justifiable?

Toby Goes Bananas

A family lifestyle blog

Author: Sarah