12 May , 20142 July , 2016 - Sarah 2 Comments

Toby is ten months old!

Another month gone – Toby is ten months old and we are getting closer and closer to his first birthday, I really don’t know where the time is going!

Toby has been doing some more growing this month. I finally got round to having him weighed the other day and he is now 21lb 10oz and happily sitting just below the 75th centile line. I’m not surprised though – he loves his food and is still eating everything we give him. He’s now wearing all 12-18 month vests and sleepsuits and some other clothes too. I’m sure it won’t be long before he’s grown out of all his 9-12 month clothes too. I know some people find it sad when their baby grows out of stuff but I’m just happy that Toby has new clothes for me to put him in! I’ve got him some really cute things to wear on our holidays, and I hope we get some nice weather this summer so he can get plenty of use out of them!

The big development this month has been that Toby is properly crawling on his hands and knees now. He still drops down to his tummy and commando crawls sometimes but whichever way he chooses to move he is very speedy! He is almost managing to sit himself up now too and has started reaching up for things on tables and shelves although he isn’t really trying to pull himself up yet.

He still has six teeth but I’m fairly sure the next bottom two are only a few days away (at least I hope so). Toby seems to suffer much worse with the bottom teeth than he did with the top ones and he’s been waking up in the a lot for the last few nights. It’s so horrible to hear him in pain and not really being able to do anything about it except administer Calpol and cuddles. Talking of sleep this month has been OK on the whole, although when we were on holiday it was a nightmare trying to get Toby to go to sleep. He would properly scream whenever we left the room we were sleeping in and I ended up lying on the single bed in there for ages most nights until he was calm enough to go to sleep. Once he was asleep he slept all night but it was horrible because it’s just something we’re not used to. At home we give Toby his milk, put him in his sleeping bag, say ‘night night Toby, sleepy time now’ and leave the room. And that’s it, he goes to sleep on his own. I think there were a few things contributing to the screaming on holiday though – firstly, now he’s older he’s much more aware of his surroundings and he knew he wasn’t at home. He hasn’t slept in the travel cot since Christmas either so that was different. It was really hot in the cottage too, even with no heating on, so hot that eventually I ended up just putting him to bed in his sleepsuit, without his sleeping bag at all. And lastly, the room had a skylight. There was a blackout blind but there was a small gap letting light in and I think looking up at that maybe freaked Toby out a bit too. I’m sure being out every day and not getting his proper naps didn’t help either. He was back to normal as soon as we got home so it wasn’t too much of a disaster – I’m just hoping we don’t get a repeat performance when we go on holiday to France next month!

He’s still such a cheeky little boy, always ready with a smile and a giggle (despite the teething!). It was lovely when we were away that he seems to have started to recognise his grandparents – he certainly had big smiles for them all when he saw them. He babbles away all the time too, although despite Barry’s best efforts to teach him he’s not really managed to say Dada yet, apart from a couple of times which I think were more luck than intention! He’s new way of communicating this month though, which I’m not quite as keen on is squealing. It’s so high-pitched and so loud too! I think he must be trying to shatter glass or something. It can be very cute though – when I had been in Dundee for the day for my Spanish course, and left before Toby got up he did the biggest squeals of excitement when he saw me walk back through the door.

So I think that’s it for this month – Toby is ten months old already, and he’s developing so quickly. I wonder what the next month will bring?

9 May , 201429 March , 2021 - Sarah 61 Comments

I’m a Konfidence Swimologist

I have written before about taking Toby swimming – we have been going to Turtle Tots classes since Toby was three and a half months old and, after a bit of a hiccup after Christmas, it is something that we both really enjoy. I am super-excited then to announce that over the next few months we will be working with Konfidence as official Swimologists! Konfidence chose the name Swimologist after finding this fable – it concludes with this which echoes the Konfidence ethos:

You may study all the “-ologies” of the world, but if you do not learn swimology, all your studies are useless. You may read and write books on swimming, you may debate on its subtle theoretical aspects, but how will that help you if you refuse to enter the water yourself? You must learn how to swim.

Konfidence is a family run business based in Cornwall. The company is Europe’s largest designer and manufacturer of baby swimming products, buoyancy aids and UVPF sun protection clothing and wetsuits for children up to 14 years. Their multi-award winning products, are now sold in 22 countries worldwide, including 14 countries in Europe, North America, South Africa, Malaysia, China and Hong Kong. As part of our role as Swimologists we have been sent some of these products to try out (more on that in a minute) and will be telling you all about them in future posts. We will also be continuing our Turtle Tots classes and letting you know how we are getting on over the next term.

I learnt to swim when I was very young, in fact I can’t really remember not being able to swim. I’m not a fantastic swimmer, I certainly won’t be winning any races any time soon but I enjoy being in the water and I can happily swim a few lengths of our local pool. Perhaps more importantly it also means I’m confident in the water with Toby. I knew before Toby was even born that I wanted to take him swimming. Turtle Tots had been recommended by a few people and they run lots of classes locally so it was easy to get signed up. Toby has now passed the Level 1 and Level 2 baby swimming courses (and has certificates to prove it!) and we are now into Level 3. It’s pretty awesome what Toby can already do and I want to make sure we keep going to classes until he can actually swim on his own. We’re going on holiday to France at the beginning of June so I’m sure we’ll be spending plenty of time in the pool then and I know we’ll all have much more fun with Toby already being used to the water. I hope it’ll be the first of many holidays with lots of time for swimming.

To help Toby continue to enjoy his swimming Konfidence have sent us some of their best-selling baby swimming products to try, and they have kindly offered my readers the chance to win the same products, worth £50! Complete the Rafflecopter below and you could win the following products in your choice of size and colour:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

5 May , 201411 February , 2018 - Sarah 6 Comments

Using cloth nappies on holiday

I know one of the things that often puts people off using cloth nappies is the thought of having to deal with them when you are out and about. Maybe you could be convinced to use cloth nappies in the house when you knew you weren’t going anywhere but don’t fancy the idea of having to bring your dirty nappies home with you when you’ve been out. Or even worse – what about using cloth nappies on holiday? Doesn’t that mean a lot of work when you should be relaxing?

Well, I thought I’d share our experiences of using cloth nappies on holiday and when we’re out for the day at home, because it really isn’t that difficult! I wrote last week about how we were coming away to the Lake District for the best part of a week and that I wasn’t sure whether to use our cloth nappies while we were there. We’re back home now and I’m happy to report we did use cloth nappies all week and it was really no more effort than it would be at home. It certainly didn’t make me feel like I wasn’t on holiday.

I made sure I did a nappy wash the day before we were going away so that most of our nappies would be clean and ready to use. As well as the clean nappies though, I also took our nappy bucket with the remaining few dirty nappies with us. There were a couple of reasons for this; firstly it meant we had all our nappies with us. We have enough nappies to wash every three days but if I left some at home then I would need to wash more often while we were away. Secondly, it meant I wasn’t leaving dirty nappies sitting at home for the whole week.

We then just used our nappies exactly as we would at home and I did two nappy washes while we were away. I probably could have managed just with one but the second wash meant I was bringing mostly clean, rather than mostly dirty, nappies home with us. The only tricky part was figuring out the right programme to use on a different washing machine to the one I’m used to. The first wash I used the machine to dry the nappies but it didn’t seem to have a low setting so I was a bit worried about damaging them. They were fine but the second time I just hung our all-in-one nappies on the clothes airer and only dried the night time bamboo nappies in the drier. I also took our washable wipes with us – it’s not much extra to take or wash and if we’re using the nappies we might as well use our wipes too.

The only thing that was a bit more difficult than at home was going for days out while we were away. We use cloth nappies all the time at home but even if I do take Toby out somewhere we’re only likely to need one nappy change at the most while we’re out. Cloth nappies definitely do take up more room in my changing bag than disposables would, but when I’m only carrying one it doesn’t matter too much. I have a couple of disposables in my changing bag too in case of emergencies but I have never had to use one yet! I have a small wet bag that I take few of our washable wipes in and then another zip up wet bag to put any dirty nappies and wipes in to bring home again. If we’re out all day then it does mean carrying more nappies so the changing bag can get a bit full, but other than that it really isn’t too much of a problem.

The only other small problem I have come across when using cloth nappies away from the house is when we have a dirty nappy and the baby changing facilities we are using don’t have a toilet. With our cloth nappies we always flush any poo down the toilet before putting the used nappy in the bucket to wait for washing. But if there is no toilet in the same place as the baby changing then there are only a couple of options; either put the dirty nappy, poo and all, in the wet bag and bring it home, wrap the poo in something and put it in the bin with the disposable nappies, or take the dirty nappy into the toilet afterwards and deal with it there. To be honest we have never actually had this situation but it is something I do worry about when it’s time for a nappy change out and about.

So, having said all that, if you use cloth nappies at home (or you are thinking about doing) then there really isn’t any reason why you can’t use them away from home too (as long as you can wash them – I’m not sure what you’d do if you were staying in a hotel with no washing facilities). Having this week in the Lake District has pretty much convinced me to take all our cloth nappies to France for our holiday at the beginning of next month. I know we have access to a washing machine and hopefully the weather will be nice enough that the nappies will dry quickly outside. I have taken advantage of some Real Nappy Week discounts to buy an extra night time nappy (we use the Tots Bots Bamboozle) and a few extra day time nappies too so I should be able to stretch the nappy wash to every four days rather than every three. And when it comes down to it, I love our cloth nappies, I know they work for us and I just don’t think I could bring myself to put Toby in a disposable now!

Have you ever used cloth nappies on holiday? I’d love to hear if you have any experience of using cloth away from home.

11 April , 20142 July , 2016 - Sarah 1 Comment

Toby is nine months old!

We’ve made it to one of the big milestones – at nine months old Toby has now been out of my tummy for as long as he was in it! He’s actually 39 weeks old but as he never made it to 40 weeks (he was born 8 days early) he really has been out in the world for as long as I was pregnant. It makes you realise just how long pregnancy is because although time is flying it feels like Toby has been with us forever.

So what’s Toby been up to this month? Growing it seems! He was weighed a couple of days after he turned eight months old and was 20lb 1oz. He’s not been weighed yet this month but I did measure him yesterday and he has grown 9cm in the last two months. He has always been in the 91st centile for his height but he is now off the top of the chart! No wonder he’s already growing out of some 12-18 month sleepsuits.

On the movement front Toby is well and truly commando crawling. He does get up and on his hands and knees, and hands and feet in an impressive downward dog, but since he figured our his commando crawling he seems to have given up trying to crawl in the more traditional way. With his new found movement skills he is getting into everything. His favourite for now seems to be exploring our fireplace. We got some foam stuff to put round the bottom so he doesn’t hurt himself on the marble but all he wants to do now is eat it – so we are making our first real forays into trying to teach him what ‘no’ means. I’m rubbish though, he looks at me with such mischief in his eyes that I can’t help laughing!

Since last month we have got four new teeth so that makes six all together. Toby’s top four teeth have all come through at the same time but luckily for him (and for us!) they don’t seem to have caused him as much trouble as the bottom two did. It has made for a pretty grumpy month though, and lots of disturbed sleep although he is still only really waking up once a night at most and sometimes still sleeping right through.

Eating is still going very well. Since we got a second car a couple of weeks ago Barry is getting home from work much earlier so Toby is now having three meals a day and staying up with us for his tea. Broccoli (or brocco-lollies as we call them because Toby holds it like a lolly and sucks all the end off!) and banana seem to be favourite foods so far but he still eats everything we put in front of him. He has three bottles a day (first thing, before afternoon nap and before bed) but he isn’t always that interested in milk. We have been trying, without much success, to get him to drink water and I’ve been a bit worried that he isn’t getting enough fluids but he seems fine and is still having plenty of wet and dirty nappies so I guess he’s OK. Big news this month (which I’ve already written about here) is that Toby isn’t taking any medication now and seems to have well and truly grown out of his reflux. Hurray!

Although it’s a bit of a nightmare chasing Toby all over the house making sure he doesn’t get up to any mischief I am loving seeing him exploring everything. He has such a cheeky personality and is always smiling and laughing. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about Toby has started giving us cuddles – well his latest thing seems to be trying to give us kisses too. At least that’s what I’ve decided he’s trying to do when he licks our necks and faces – it’s either that or he’s turning into a vampire baby and is just trying to eat us! He likes to give himself kisses in his mirror too!

I got Toby’s photo taken yesterday too so we can apply for his first passport ready for our holiday to France in June (which we haven’t actually booked yet!). We’re all looking forward to our first holiday abroad and Toby will be almost one by then! Before that though we’ve got a week in the Lake District to look forward to at the end of this month and we’ll see how Toby copes away from home now he’s a bit older and more aware of his surroundings. Hopefully the change to his routine won’t bother him too much.

So that’s it for this month’s update – time is going so quickly but I’m loving seeing my baby turn into a cheeky little boy.

8 April , 2014 - Sarah 4 Comments

No more reflux!

Toby was diagnosed with (mostly silent) reflux when he was about six weeks old. I wrote about his diagnosis and treatment here. Once we got Toby on the proper medication he reflux was much easier to manage. He was very rarely sick and as long as we gave him his medicine he didn’t seem to be in any discomfort. A few times over the next few months I had to call the doctor and get them to recalculate the dosage of ranitidine – the dosage can be increased in line with a baby’s weight gain so whenever we noticed Toby’s symptoms returning we would increase the dose. The last time we did that was when Toby was about six months old, around the same time we started weaning.

I had read that babies often grow out of reflux and this can coincide with the introduction of solids. In fact some parents are even advised to wean their babies early to try and reduce reflux symptoms. The difficulty is that, if your baby’s reflux is well controlled with medication there’s no way of knowing if it is improving or not without reducing the medication and waiting to see what happens. We had tried this a couple of times before but Toby’s symptoms had always come back but when he got to six months we thought we would try again. (We had already stopped using the Dentinox Colic Drops the month before – I really don’t think they were doing anything anyway!) We started off by reducing the amount of Gaviscon in his bottles. He used to have one and a half sachets in an eight ounce bottle so we slowly reduced this over several weeks. We cut down to one sachet per bottle and kept it at that for a week with no ill effects. So we then reduced to two-thirds of a sachet for another week (this one was a bit tricky but as we always made three bottles at a time it just meant two sachets split as evenly as we could between the three bottles). That went OK so the next week we went down to half a sachet. Toby was sick a little bit as we reduced the dose, which was a bit strange for us as the Gaviscon had previously meant he was never sick, but it was nothing more than a bit of spitting up occasionally after a feed. We finally had a week with a third of a sachet per bottle before stopping the Gaviscon all together, although we could have probably skipped the last week.

After that we started reducing Toby’s ranitidine. This was the one I was more worried about because without it previously the reflux caused him real discomfort and I didn’t want to put him through that unnecessarily. Again, each time we reduced the dose we kept it at the new level for a week before reducing again. At its highest, Toby was taking 1.5 mls of ranitidine morning and evening and 1 ml at lunchtime. The first week we just dropped the lunchtime does completely. The next week we reduced the morning dose to 1 ml and kept the evening at 1.5 ml, the next week both doses were 1 ml. A week later we cut out the morning dose. We kept just the evening dose of 1 ml for two weeks just to make sure all was well – Toby’s symptoms had always been worse when he went to bed. And finally we dropped that last dose and that was it – NO MORE REFLUX MEDS!

I have left it a couple of weeks before writing about this because I wanted to make sure Toby really had grown out of his reflux and we weren’t going to have to go back to medication. And so far so good! To be honest we probably could have reduced his medication much quicker but it’s so hard to know. We didn’t get any guidance from our health visitor or GP (although to be fair I didn’t ask!). I wanted to do it slowly to make it easier to monitor Toby’s condition. He suffered from silent reflux so there weren’t really any visible symptoms – we got pretty good at spotting the signs of when he was uncomfortable but as he has been teething the last few months as well it would have been easy to confuse the two and go back to the reflux meds when that wasn’t really the problem.

I’m so glad we have managed to wean Toby off his medication. It makes preparing feeds a lot easier, it’s easier to go out without worrying about taking medicine with us, but most of all I’m just glad that my baby boy is OK and doesn’t need to take medication every day any more.

We were lucky really, in that Toby’s reflux was fairly mild and managed well with medication, and that it didn’t seem to be linked to any kind of lactose or cow’s milk protein allergy which is very common. I know there are a lot of parents struggling to deal with reflux babies and perhaps not getting the support they should from their healthcare professionals. I am glad that I stuck to my guns with my health visitor and GP and pushed for medication that worked for us. I would say to other parents in a similar situation to trust your instincts; if your baby’s reflux still isn’t under control keep going back to your doctor, push for a referral to a paediatrician if you need to. There are medications out there that will help. And although it can be really annoying when people tell you that they will grow out of it eventually, it is true. It might take a while but sooner or later that reflux will be gone.

11 March , 20142 July , 2016 - Sarah 4 Comments

Toby is eight months old!

I know I say this every month but I can’t believe another month has gone already. I suppose February was a particularly short month but even so it only seems like a couple of weeks since I was writing that Toby was seven months old! But there’s nothing we can do, time is definitely moving forwards and Toby is now eight months old!

I don’t actually know what Toby weighs at the moment as we haven’t been to the clinic since the beginning of last month, but he’s definitely getting bigger. He’s been wearing 9-12 month sleepsuits and vests for a while now (in fact he’s almost grown out of some of them!) and I have just had a wardrobe reshuffle and moved him into all his 9-12 month clothes as well.

We still haven’t got any crawling but Toby can definitely move pretty much wherever he wants to just by rolling, spinning and shuffling backwards! He’s got doing a full 360 spin on his tummy down to a fine art now. He also gets up on his hands and knees on his own but just hasn’t quite figured out how to move his arms and legs so he moves forwards yet. He is much more stable sitting up now too – we’ve set up a little corner of cushions on his play mat so he can sit safely without falling backwards and banging his head (which has happened a couple of times when I’ve left him sitting unsupported – bad mummy!).

The two teeth which were just starting to make an appearance last month are now well and truly here although they haven’t been joined by any more yet. You can definitely see the top teeth and the other bottom ones sitting under the gum waiting to come through now though.

Despite only having two teeth Toby is doing really well on solids now. He has two meals a day with milk in between – usually porridge, toast or yogurt and cereal for breakfast and then for dinner he has whatever we had the night before. So far he’s had meatballs and pasta, chicken curry and rice, mince and tatties, Spanish omelette and last week he had his first pancake too! He eats anything we give him really – I can’t actually think of anything he has refused to eat so far. We are slowly finding our own way of weaning that is best for us – basically we are following the babyled weaning principal of Toby just eating the same food as us, but if he needs help to eat then we help him, whether that is by spoon feeding, or just helping him put things in his mouth. Having said that he is getting much better at picking things up and putting them in his mouth himself now – he surprised me yesterday by being able to pick up single Cheerios and get them in his mouth!

As far as sleep goes Toby is still a little star really! He has two naps a day, usually about an hour and a half to two hours each, and then bedtime is a 6 pm. He always goes to sleep on his own with no bother and most of the time he sleeps through until around 8 am, although maybe once a week he will wake up once for a feed during the night. All in all though his sleeping is great and we don’t have any complaints!

The last thing I want to mention in this month’s update is something I’ve already written about, but this month we took Toby on the swings at the park for the first time! He didn’t seem to enjoy it too much the first time but I think he was just a bit confused by the whole thing and there were lots of other bigger children running around being noisy. Today I took him to another, smaller park at the top of our road and as you can see from the photos I think he had a lot more fun this time! Let’s just hope spring has really sprung and we can get out even more in the lovely sunshine.

21 February , 201422 October , 2019 - Sarah 7 Comments

Review: Vital Baby Weaning Set and KidiSipper Tubby

Toby has only recently started weaning and we’re always keen to try anything that might make life easier. He already has four different sippy cups as I keep buying new ones in the hope he’ll work out how to use them! We were recently given the chance to try out a weaning set and sippy cup from family-run business Vital Baby. Vital Baby sell a whole host of baby feeding products along with various other things such as bath toys, teethers and skincare products.

The Details

The Vital Baby Weaning Set is a shaped bowl with a lip to make it easy to hold. It also has a lid with built in spoon storage and the spoon to go with it. The Weaning Set retails at £3.99 and is available in pink, blue or orange. We were also sent the KidiSipper Tubby to try out. This is a non-spill sippy cup with a soft, flexible spout. It also has a removable cover to keep the spout clean.The KidiSipper Tubby retails at £3.49 and comes in blue, orange or purple. Vital Baby products can be purchased direct from the company and are also stocked at Boots, John Lewis, Mothercare, Toys R Us, Ocado, Mamas & Papas and Amazon.

The Pros

The Weaning Set is a really useful product, whether for use at home or out and about. As Toby doesn’t stay up with us for dinner I usually save a bit for him to have for his lunch the next day. This lidded bowl has been great for keeping things fresh in the fridge.
The spoon that comes with the Weaning Set is a perfect size for Toby, either for me to feed him or if he is (attempting) to feed himself. It has a soft tip which I really like – Toby has a tendency to dive at the spoon if I’m holding it and with this one I don’t need to worry about hurting him with it.
We haven’t actually taken the Weaning Set out anywhere yet but when we do I’m sure having the built-in spoon cover will be really handy both to keep the spoon clean before and to keep the dirty spoon away from anything else afterwards.
I have used the Weaning Set in the microwave and dishwasher without any problems.
The KidiSipper Tubby is a good size for Toby at 7 months. He seems to find it easier to hold the handles than on some of the other sippy cups we have.
I like the soft spout of the KidiSipper – again Toby likes to take a dive at his cup to get it in his mouth so I don’t need to worry about him hurting himself. This is very similar to the Nuby sippy cup we already have.
The non-spill valve works well – even after being thrown on the floor we didn’t have any leaks. Although the valve is non-spill there doesn’t seem to be too much effort required to get the water out. Toby is managing to get plenty – in fact the only spills we’ve had are when he decides to fill his mouth with water and then just dribble it down his chin rather than swallow it!
The lid on the KidiSipper is interchangeable with most of the other cups and bottles in the Vital Baby range which is a good feature.
We haven’t used the top for the cup while at home but again, this will be a useful feature when we take it out with us.

The Cons

There are honestly no downsides to these products that I can come up with!

The Verdict

I really like both products that we tried from Vital Baby, and looking on their website there are plenty of other products that I would like to try. Some of the other cups and bottles look great for when Toby is a bit older and I also think the Unbelievabowl looks fantastic. I’ve tried to give Toby the bowl to feed himself occasionally but he just wants to throw it on the floor so one that suctions on to the highchair would be ideal! All the Vital Baby products are very reasonably priced too – I would be happy to recommend them to anyone looking for baby or toddler feeding products.

**Disclosure: I was sent the Vital Baby Weaning Set and KidiSipper Tubby in return for this review. All opinions are my own.

18 February , 20142 August , 2017 - Sarah 9 Comments

Toby swims again! (A baby swimming update)

You may have read my post a couple of weeks ago about how Toby has been crying at every baby swimming lesson since Christmas. There were a few things that might have been causing the problem and I got lots of advice from all you lovely readers.

Well, I have good news to report! Last week we couldn’t go to our normal swimming lesson because I was going to work, so instead we went on our own to a different leisure centre where they have a warm water pool. We also went in the middle of the day as I had a feeling getting up early and missing his nap was also upsetting Toby. It was a success! We did everything that we normally do in a lesson, including submersions, and Toby didn’t cry once. I wasn’t sure whether we would actually be able to swap our lesson to this other pool but our lovely Turtle Tots instructor sorted it out for us. The new lesson is at 11 am, rather than 9:30 am so it also means that, although it is still during nap time, Toby can either get a bit more sleep in the morning and a nap in the car on the way there, or if he is up early there is time to go back to bed for a quick nap before we go.

We went to the new lesson yesterday and it was great. Toby still wasn’t smiling and laughing but he wasn’t crying either which was a massive improvement. I’m sure as he gets used to it, and realises swimming doesn’t mean being cold anymore, that he will start enjoying himself soon enough.

And swapping baby swimming lessons has also had a useful side effect – we were going to move to the next Baby Sensory class (for 7-13 month old babies) which was at 10:30 am and so again I was worried that this would be a problem as it is during Toby’s usual nap time. The only other suitable class was at 1 pm on a Wednesday afternoon, which we couldn’t do as we had swimming in the morning and it would have been too much in one day. But now with swimming on a Monday we can go to Baby Sensory on a Wednesday and fingers crossed that will mean smiles all round!

17 February , 20142 August , 2017 - Sarah 15 Comments

Review: Freeva cloth nappy

As you’ll know if you’ve read this blog before, we love our cloth nappies in the Toby Goes Bananas house so when new cloth nappy company Freeva gave us the opportunity to review one of their nappies we jumped at the chance.