8 February , 201431 July , 2017 - Sarah 22 Comments

Toby doesn’t like swimming anymore

We started going to Turtle Tots baby swimming classes when Toby was just over 3 months old. He’s never really seemed to love it but up until Christmas he didn’t have any problems in the pool and only ever cried for a couple of seconds, if at all. But since we went back, after a few weeks off over the holidays, he suddenly seems to hate it.

For the last three weeks Toby has spent at least part of each lesson crying. Sometimes it’s just a bit of sticking out of the lip and wimpering, but sometimes it’s full on screaming and it breaks my heart! This week he even had me crying too because he sounded so upset. I think getting Toby used to the water, and hopefully swimming while he is still very young is a fantastic idea but I’m not sure I can keep taking him when there is something about it which is clearly upsetting him. This week he started crying before we even got in the pool.

There are any number of things that might be wrong with him. First of all, the lesson is at 9:30 am a twenty-five minute drive away. Normally, Toby gets up about 8:30 am, has a bottle, a bit of a play, then another bottle and back in bed by 10 am at the latest. On swimming days I have to get him up early, he only has one bottle and (unless he has a quick nap in the car) he doesn’t get his morning sleep until after swimming is finished. The second problem could then also be that he is hungry – he’s normally had one and a half to two bottles within a couple of hours of being awake. Although, having said that he will never take a bottle straight after swimming so I don’t think he’s that hungry. In fact he’s always fine again as soon as we get out of the pool. So the last thing I can think of, and I’m hoping it’s this because it’s more easily fixed, is that he is feeling the cold. I don’t know why this would be bothering him more now than it did before Christmas, maybe the pool is a bit colder than it was. Anyway, he already uses a BabyWrap which I have mentioned before but I have now ordered a Warm in One from Splash About which is a full wetsuit with arms and legs. It’s fleece lined too so if he is cold then hopefully this will help. If not then my only other plan is to try and move to a class at a different time and see if that helps.

I don’t think I can go through many more weeks of my baby crying and screaming because of something I am making him do. I know I shouldn’t really blame myself; my husband has been great and tried to make me feel better by pointing out that Toby cries when I put his pyjamas on too, but that’s something that has to be done. I don’t have to take him swimming. Our Turtle Tots instructor has been great too, telling me that lots of babies have wobbles and Toby will get back into the swing of it. I hope so. I really don’t want to stop swimming lessons with Toby so if anyone else has any suggestions of what the problem might be and how we can fix it then please do let me know. Fingers crossed the new wetsuit does the trick and I’ll be sure to let you know how we get on. We have an underwater photo shoot booked for the end of March so I hope we get it figured out by then and Toby starts to enjoy his swimming again!

24 January , 201416 March , 2014 - Sarah 4 Comments

Knitting Friday #6

It’s taken two weeks but I have finally finished sewing all the bits of Toby’s bear suit together. It was fairly straight forward apart from the feet (which I’m still not sure I got right!) although I did realise it’s much harder to sew up knitting when you didn’t do the original knitting yourself.

Anyway, here’s Toby modelling the finished product. Isn’t he just too cute?!

22 January , 201423 November , 2017 - Sarah 5 Comments

Review: Splash About Après Splash All-in-One

If you read my post about Toby’s swimming lessons you’ll already know we’re big fans of Splash About. I first came across them because our swim school, Turtle Tots, insist that all babies wear a Splash About Happy Nappy. As Toby was quite young when we started swimming (about 3 months) and he’s so skinny (so no fat on him to keep him warm!) we also bought a BabyWrap. Since then we have added to our Splash About collection with a hooded towel, a change mat (which the Splashers kindly sent us because they liked seeing Toby’s cheery pictures in his swimming gear on Twitter), and now our latest addition is the Après Splash All-in-One, which was a Christmas present from Grandma!

The Details

The Après Splash All-in-One is made from the same cotton bamboo charcoal towelling as the Splash About hooded towel. There a poppers all down the front and legs, so the whole thing (apart from the arms) opens out flat for easy dressing. It comes in four sizes – 0-3 months, 3-6 months, 6-12 months and 12-18 months, with either turquoise or pink trim.

The Pros

- It’s very practical – the Après Splash All-in-One makes getting dressed after swimming an absolute doddle! I just dry Toby off, put his nappy on then lie him on top of the all-in-one and do up the poppers. It’s so much easier than trying to wrestle a tired and slightly cranky post-swim baby into everyday clothes.
- Because it’s towelling it doesn’t matter if Toby is still a bit damp when I put it on. The suit dries him off then keeps him nice and cosy for the journey home.
- It’s nice and roomy so great for wriggling in (as ably demonstrated by Toby in the photo below).
- It’s very easy to take off again – as we discovered when it got covered in porridge last week! I just undid the poppers while Toby was still in his highchair then lifted him out leaving the porridge covered all-in-one behind.

The Cons

The only minor niggle for me is the sizing. I know Toby is very long but even so he is only 6 months old and the 6-12 month size there isn’t much length in the arms and legs for him to grow into as you can see from the photos.

The Verdict

We love the Splash About Après Splash All-in-One. It has made our post-swimming experience much less hassle. I can imagine it would also be fantastic to use on holiday as it would be so easy to pop on your little one after they had been in the pool or the sea. You could even use it at home instead of a bath robe.

**Disclosure: I was not compensated in any way for this review. All opinions are my own.

11 January , 20142 July , 2016 - Sarah Leave a comment

Toby is six months old!

Wow! Six months old already. It only seems like five minutes since I was writing his five month update. It’s been a busy month though. We’ve had Toby’s first Christmas and a visit to see both sets of grandparents (which included an epic seven hour trip home during which Toby didn’t cry once!). The other big development this month is that we’ve started weaning! More on that later though.

So Toby is continuing to grow steadily – he weighed in today at 17lb 7oz so slowly creeping up the centiles but still very long and skinny. He’s in all his 6-9 month clothes now (and has been for a couple of weeks). There is no way most of those clothes are going to last until he’s nine months though! I’ve just had to order new 6-18 month sleeping bags too as his feet are right in the bottom of the ones he’s got at the moment. If this carries on he’s definitely going to be the tallest kid in the infants!

Sleep has been going fairly well lately, although I have a feeling that might be about to change temporarily. Toby has been continuing with his sometimes sleeping through, sometimes waking up for one feed and his naps have been great lately. However, in the last couple of days he has really got the hang of rolling over. Which means he rolls on to his tummy and then wakes up and realises he doesn’t want to be on his tummy and cries until someone comes to rescue him. I really hope he learns to roll back over himself soon so he can just be whichever way round he fancies. Sitting up is going well too. For some reason though Toby is fantastic at sitting up on his own at Baby Sensory, but then we get home he just starts toppling over again. It’s so weird! He’s still trying really hard to crawl as well. As soon as he is on his tummy his legs start kicking away but they still aren’t really getting him anywhere yet!

Despite all the teething symptoms last month we still don’t have any visible teeth. That hasn’t stopped us starting to offer Toby some food to try though. We’re mostly going with baby-led weaning; offering Toby the same things we’re eating. He’s very happy playing with his finger foods but doesn’t seem to quite have the dexterity (or the inclination) to put them in his mouth yet. He has eaten a little bit of a few things when we’ve held them for him, toast seems to be the favourite so far! I’m sure if we just keep offering him different things he’ll figure it out sooner or later. As far as his reflux goes, I’ve heard it can improve when they start solids but for now we’re still on the Gaviscon and ranitidine. Whenever we try and reduce the does his symptoms come back so we’ll just stick with it for now.

So that’s it. I can’t believe my tiny 6lb 10oz baby is a strapping six month old. Half way to one. It’s just crazy. Bananas!

10 January , 201416 March , 2014 - Sarah Leave a comment

Knitting Friday #5

After a little break for the Christmas holidays, I’m back with Knitting Friday. I’m afraid though I’m going for a massive cheat this week. Because all the knitted pieces you can see here….weren’t knitted by me! My mum is the one responsible for the knitting here. It’s a cuddly bear all-in-one for Toby which I bought the pattern and wool for ages ago but then I couldn’t be bothered to make it so I gave it to my mum. She very kindly obliged but she hates sewing things together so gave the pieces back to me!

Come back next week to see the finished article – hopefully being modelled by Toby. Don’t forget to pop of to The Laughing Owls too. Becky managed to finish Little Owl’s jumper last week so I’m waiting to see if she’s started something new this week.

3 January , 20147 October , 2020 - Sarah 6 Comments

Toby’s first Christmas

Throughout the run up to Christmas I read lots of blog posts about ‘Baby’s first Christmas’ and to be honest I was slightly baffled by the efforts some people seemed to be going to when their babies weren’t old enough to even be aware of Christmas let alone remember it. Toby was just over five and a half months old on Christmas day and I knew for him it would just be another day. He quite liked playing with our fibre optic Christmas tree but apart from that Toby had no idea anything was going on. And so I didn’t really see the point of doing anything to make his first Christmas ‘special’. Some people may think that’s a bit mean-spirited of me but I think it’s just that I’d rather save the fun stuff for when Toby is old enough to get excited about it.

We did make one concession to it being Toby’s first Christmas and that was to stay at home on Christmas day rather than go to my parents’ house like we usually do. That was a bit of a political decision too really – my in-laws usually go on holiday for Christmas so for the three years we have been together the hubby and I have always gone to my parents and there hasn’t been any worry about offending anyone. However, this year my mother-in-law is recovering from an operation on her neck and can’t travel so they were staying at home. My parents live in Blackpool and my in-laws in Manchester while we’re up here in Scotland so visiting everyone in one day just isn’t possible. By choosing to stay at home we didn’t have to decide which set of grandparents Toby would be with on his first Christmas morning. Instead we stayed with my parents on Boxing Day so we could see them and my brother and sister-in-law too and then we went to visit hubby’s parents for a few days after that which worked out well for everyone in the end.

I did buy a ‘My First Christmas’ bauble from Mamas and Papas but it does have the year on too so it’s a nice keepsake and something we can put on the tree year after year. We didn’t get Toby too many presents either. A couple of toys and books and some clothes. Seeing as Toby wouldn’t know what he was unwrapping (he did manage to help a bit with pulling the paper off though!) I didn’t tell the hubby any of the presents I’d bought and he got Toby something that I didn’t know about. That way at least someone got a nice surprise when the presents were opened. I don’t think I would have even bothered wrapping them this year if we had both known what was inside!

Playing the keyboard — Toby playing with his present from daddy

We still had a lovely Christmas day together and I got the chance to practice cooking my first Christmas dinner. But for Toby it was still a normal day. I did get him some new pyjamas for Christmas Eve but I didn’t bother with a Christmas Day outfit – he’s just moved into his 6-9 month clothes so there are lots of things he hasn’t worn yet. We managed to fit most of the day in around Toby’s usual routine pretty well though. And after weeks of waking up at least once during the night Toby gave us the best Christmas present he could – he slept from 6:30 pm on Christmas Eve until 8:30 am on Christmas Day without waking up at all! So then after we all got up and had our breakfasts we opened a few presents. Toby then went back to bed for his morning nap, we opened some more presents and I got started on the prep for dinner. After nap time we opened the rest of Toby’s presents, had lunch and a bit of a play then it was back to bed for Toby. The plan was to have our starter while he was still asleep but he woke up slightly earlier than planned. He was quite happy having a play on his baby gym while we ate though. Then we put in him in his new highchair while we had our main course and we gave Toby his first solid food to play with. We are planning on going down the baby led weaning route (more blog posts on that to come!) and although Toby isn’t quite six months yet we thought Christmas dinner might be a nice time to give him something to have a look at. So he played with a few carrot and parsnip sticks (although none made it into his mouth) while we ate our dinner. After that it was bed time for Toby and we eventually had our dessert (sticky toffee pudding – yummy!) at about half past eight.

Christmas dinner with baby — Christmas dinner!

So for us there was no disappointment, no anti-climax. Toby’s first Christmas was exactly as I expected it to be. It was a bit strange for me not to be with the rest of my family for only the second Christmas in my life, and I actually had a little bit of a cry in the evening because I realised I’d missed them, but overall we had a lovely time just the three of us. I’m not sure what we’ll be doing next year. The idea of going to my parents’ is actually quite tempting – at least then I might get a bit of a break. Although our Christmas day was great we still had to do all the things we do every day; nappy changes don’t stop for Christmas! I even had to do a nappy wash because we were going away the next day. And I had to cook Christmas dinner! At least at my mum and dad’s someone else would do the cooking and there would be other people to entertain Toby for a bit. I might even get my traditional Christmas afternoon nap myself! I know next year will be totally different anyway. Toby will be 18 months old and I’m sure he still won’t understand what Christmas is about but he might be able to open his own presents and maybe enjoy playing with some new toys – or the wrapping paper and boxes anyway!

If you had your first Christmas with your baby I really hope you managed to have a good one. If you want to read more about how babies’ first Christmases don’t always turn out how you planned then Donna has written a great post over at Redhead Babyled. And if your baby’s first Christmas wasn’t quite how you’d hoped then remember there are lots more Christmases still to come.

21 December , 201316 March , 2014 - Sarah Leave a comment

Knitting Friday #4

Alright, before you say anything, I know it’s Saturday – but it is Christmas so I think you can forgive me!

So last week I posted pictures of the (almost) finished elf hat. And this week I actually finished it. I’ve added the pompom to the top and sewn in an inner fleece hat which serves the dual purpose of making it warmer and also keeping it on. I didn’t use any sort of pattern for the fleece, just cut a piece out and then shaped it by using pins worryingly close to Toby’s head!

I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out in the end though – and I’m sure you’ll agree my little elf looks very cute in his new hat.

Becky over at The Laughing Owls has a Knitting Friday post too – Christmas Shopping has got in the way of her knitting a bit this week but she’s getting there with Little Owl’s jumper!

20 December , 20132 July , 2016 - Sarah Leave a comment

When will my baby sleep again?

All I want for Christmas…

…is my happy, smiley, sleeping-through-the-night baby back. (Or his two front teeth!). Will my baby sleep through the night ever again?

It would seem Toby is teething and already I hate it. I know this is only the beginning, that once these teeth appear there will only be more to come. It’s just so horrible to watch him in pain and especially as these are the first teeth he has no idea what is happening to him. There has been a lot of dribbling and hand chewing for a while now but at the weekend the inconsolable crying started. And bless the little bear, he was trying to smile but then would just dissolve into tears again. We’ve given him Calpol and Nurofen, and teething gel. We’ve got a few teethers but he doesn’t seem interested in them at all (although I know his Nana has bought him a Sophie la Girafe for Christmas so we’ll see if that’s any more successful). He does like to chew on a muslin though so I make sure he’s always got one nearby. The teething seems to be affecting his appetite as well – after half a bottle he is shaking his head and pushing it away. Which of course then means he is hungry and waking up for a feed in the night, or just waking up crying because he’s in pain. It doesn’t help that whenever I try and give him medicine (even firing it into the back of his mouth with a syringe) he spits half of it back out again. And while we’re on the subject – why does Calpol have to be so bloody sticky!!

So anyway, my conclusion is that teething sucks! I just hope this first tooth (or teeth) shows itself soon and then we have a bit of a break before the next ones show up. If anyone has any miracle cures then please do share them and spread the Christmas cheer our way.

13 December , 201316 March , 2014 - Sarah Leave a comment

Knitting Friday #3

It’s finished! (Almost). When I had completed the hat it was slightly too small (from the top down the sides) so I picked up all the stitches along the neck edge and free-styled a band in red wool to match the band around the face. I just knitted a couple of rows and then five rows of knit one, purl one rib to match the other bit. I then decreased on two rows before casting off.

I am still planning on lining the hat with fleece but I haven’t hand chance to do it yet. There is still a pompom to be added to the plait coming from the top too. I’m going to do that tonight so that Toby can wear it for his party tomorrow. And I promise I’ll post a photo of Toby in his whole elf outfit after we’ve been!

Becky over at The Laughing Owls has a Knitting Friday post too – last week she had just started on the sleeves for Little Owl’s jumper so why don’t you pop over and see how much progress she has made this week.

12 December , 20132 July , 2016 - Sarah Leave a comment

Toby is five months old!

Another month gone. Time really does fly! Toby is now five months old and he is an absolute superstar! If you read my post about a possible four month sleep regression (and are possibly going through the same thing!) then you’ll be pleased to hear that things are almost back to normal in the sleep department. Toby is back to sleeping from 6:30 pm to 8 am probably five days out of seven and if he does wake up it’s just for one feed then straight back to sleep. That three weeks of waking up two, three or even four times a night must have been some sort of growth spurt I think because Toby went from 14lb 2oz to 15lb 13oz in three weeks, when he’d only put on 14oz in the four weeks before that! He is getting longer and longer (or taller, depending which way you look at it) too. I measured him the other day and he is 69cm which puts him almost in the 98th centile for his height, while he is only in the 25th centile for weight! He has grown out of all his 3-6 month sleepsuits and vests now, although separates are still OK. I can’t believe how quickly Toby is going through clothes – it’s good news for my friend’s two month old twins though!

We still haven’t got much movement – Toby has managed to roll from his front to his back a couple of times but it isn’t something he does often. He can also sit up unaided for a minute or so but still loses his balance quite easily. The newest development is that Toby has just found his feet! Whenever he is lying on his back he lifts his legs up and grabs his toes. It’s funny to see the slightly confused look on his face when he’s got stripey socks on! He loves to stand up when we hold his hands too. I can see he’s just itching to get moving. He gets really frustrated after a few minutes on his tummy because he’s trying so hard but just can’t quite work out how to move anywhere.

We haven’t started weaning – and on that note, no teeth yet either, although I don’t think they’re far away. We’re planning on waiting until Toby is six months and then going down the baby-led weaning route. He is starting to get more interested in food though. I’ve been sitting him on my knee while I eat lunch and he’s started grabbing (and squishing!) my sandwiches, although he hasn’t tried to put any food in his mouth as yet. We’ve also started keeping him up a bit later a few nights a week so he can sit with us (in his Bumbo seat on the table) while we have our dinner to get him used to the routine. The hope is it will be more normal for him when he comes to start eating with us. I’m really looking forward to starting our weaning adventures – I can’t wait to see Toby’s face when he tries different tastes for the first time!

Toby’s personality is showing more and more every day. He’s so noisy these days, always making funny squeaks and babbles. It’s the cutest thing and he really does sound like he’s joining in a conversation sometimes. He’s growing up so quickly. I know people say you shouldn’t wish away the baby years because you’ll miss them when they’re gone…But I have to admit that I’m enjoying Toby much more now than when he was a tiny baby. I found it really hard work looking after him when I didn’t get any reaction from him but now he smiles and laughs (and hardly ever cries!) and it’s just so rewarding.

So over the coming month we’ve got Toby’s first Christmas and the start of weaning to look forward to. I can’t wait to see what else it has in store!

Toby Goes Bananas

A family lifestyle blog

Family