11 April , 20163 May , 2017 - Sarah 22 Comments

To the man who told me I should be enjoying my baby

Dear Man at the crossing,

You probably don’t remember me, just another mother with another pushchair who you made a passing comment to as we both waited for the lights to change so we could cross the road. But let me remind you – as we walked towards each other, approaching the crossing from opposite directions you saw a mum, pushing a buggy with one hand and a mobile phone in the other. I imagine you thought I was texting my pals, or checking Facebook or maybe even taking a selfie like you’ve heard people do these days.

After a minute or two you saw me finish whatever I was doing and put my phone back in my pocket. As we neared the crossing you said ‘Glad to see you put that phone away, you should be enjoying your baby’. In my shock the only response I could come up with was one of those upwards nods of the head and a ‘yeah’.

But as we crossed the road and headed off again in opposite directions I thought ‘how dare you!’ ‘How dare you tell me what I should or shouldn’t be doing. How dare you imply that I was somehow neglecting my son’.

Because let me tell you a bit about what had happened that morning, about this baby I should be ‘enjoying’. This baby is poorly. He’s only got a cold but he’s had it for about six weeks now. Oh, and he’s also teething. He’s currently cutting his sixth tooth in as many weeks. So last night he woke roughly every hour after going to bed. And it had taken over an hour to get him to sleep in the first place which meant I didn’t get to put my other son to bed, or to kiss him good night like I usually do. Then, the baby woke crying every hour and I had to settle him back to sleep. That carried on until about 2 am when he ramped it up to every half hour. And when it got to 5:30 and I couldn’t get him to go back to sleep any more my husband got up with him and took him downstairs so I could get a few hours sleep. Normally he wouldn’t be able to do that because he leaves for work at 6:30 but today he’s at home because he’s ill too. Oh I didn’t mention that part yet? As well as the baby being ill my husband and I are too. We’ve got some weird flu virus thing that’s left us exhausted, with temperatures and glands so swollen we can barely swallow. By rights we should both be tucked up in bed with a Lemsip but who would look after the kids then?

So anyway, the baby had been up since 5:30, the toddler got up a couple of hours later and was being mercifully well behaved. We managed to give everyone some breakfast and most of us were wearing clothes that weren’t pyjamas.

It was then time for the baby’s nap – he’d been up for over four hours and crying for most of them after all. I took him upstairs but instead of going to sleep he decided that screaming in my ear and trying to grab fistfuls of my painfully swollen neck is a much more appealing idea. So I brought him out for a walk.

I left the toddler at home with his dad, which I could only do because he’s off work sick and I wrangled a crying baby into the pushchair. I left the house to the sounds of my two and a half year old saying ‘don’t go, I want to go with mummy’.

I have a wonderful little boy who entertains himself while I deal with the baby, a little boy who has watched far too much TV in the last seven months because sometimes I can barely function enough to get him fed and dressed after a few hours sleep so there’s no way I’m going to worry if he watches a bit too much CBeebies if that’s what we need to do to get through the day.

So anyway, my lovely, sweet little boy has been asking to go swimming every day for a week now. He hasn’t been in a swimming pool for over a year so I don’t know where he’s got the idea from but that’s what he wants to do. But he hasn’t got anything to wear to go swimming so as I was walking down the road, pushing the buggy with one hand I was using the other to order my older boy some swimming things so we can take him next week, that is assuming everyone is well again and the baby hasn’t kept us up all night. And when I’d finished my order I put my phone away.

Just in time for your comment that I should be enjoying my baby. My baby who cries for probably half the time he’s awake. My baby who I have to prioritise over my toddler nearly every day. My baby who makes me cry almost every day because I don’t know what’s wrong with him or how I can help him.

My baby who was fast asleep in his buggy and couldn’t give a shit whether I was on my phone or not.

So next time you feel the need to pass judgement on someone’s parenting, sir, I urge you to think about the rest of the story that you can’t see from a two minute encounter in the street.

Yours,

The knackered-looking mum pushing a buggy with one hand and a phone in the other.

9 April , 20165 August , 2017 - Sarah 5 Comments

Review: Certaslim meal replacement diet

I’ve mentioned before that I have done a few different meal replacement diets and although they’re not for everyone I have always found them a relatively easy way to lose weight, and to lose weight quickly. Of course if you go back to your previous way of eating after then the weight will come back but they are good way to boost your weight loss if you are planning a lifestyle change, and they can also be very useful if you have a lot of weight to lose.

I hadn’t heard of Certaslim until they got in touch and asked if I would like to have a two week trial of their products. Certaslim has several different plans, some of which include ‘real’ food and some don’t. The plans are designed so you can switch between them, rather than coming off the plan altogether so that it is easier to make it fit in with your lifestyle.

I chose the Boost plan which is a complete meal replacement plan. The other plans are Rapid, Flex, For Life and even D2 which is for people with diabetes or who want to control their blood sugar for some other reason.

Unlike some other diets I have tried which only have three meal replacements each day, Certaslim Boost has four meal replacements and one snack. I chose a mixture of shakes, soups and meals, and I also tried some of the Certaslim snacks.

Getting started

I ordered all of my Certaslim products online. It was very easy to do – you just choose which program you want to follow and for how long and the online shopping cart shows you how many products you need to choose. You can also add individual products if you like but it is cheaper to buy several weeks in one go. The products arrived quickly and were well packaged in Certaslim boxes. These were also very handy to store the products while I was following the plan.

As well as the option to order online Certaslim also has consultants who run groups where you can be weighed and get support. You can also purchase the Certaslim products directly from one of these consultants.

What were the Certaslim products like?

I tried all of the shake flavours (of which there are nine) and I liked most of them. I wasn’t keen on the hazelnut, caffé latte or chocolate orange flavours but that’s really just down to my personal taste. I found all the shakes mixed well, some seemed thicker than others but I didn’t have any problems with them. I always use a stick blender to mix my shakes and would definitely recommend it over just using a shaker.

I also tried the tomato, vegetable, chicken and mushroom soups. Again, I liked all of these but I think I the chicken was probably my favourite out of all of them. I tended to have soup at lunch times and accompany it with a small side salad which counted as my snack for the day.

There are also some meal options, although perhaps not so many as with some other diet programs. I tried the Apple and Cinnamon porridge which was OK but more like porridge soup than actual porridge! I also tried the Savoury Cottage Pie which wasn’t too bad – a bit like instant mash with a few bits of soya protein in it. Lastly from the meals I had the Italian Style Carbonara Twist – despite containing real pasta which was reasonably palatable I really wasn’t a fan of the sauce and again the soya pieces. I suppose it is a matter of taste and I guess some people like these product or they wouldn’t make them but whenever I do this kind of diet I always find the meals disappointing and wish I had just stuck to shakes and soups.

For the snacks I tried the Salt & Vinegar and Cheese & Onion Incredi-crisps which were…odd, is the only way I can describe them. They weren’t unpleasant but they just tasted a bit weird as they are made from some sort or soya protein rather than potatoes. To be honest I think if I can’t have actual crisps I’d rather not have something that is pretending to be crisps either!

I did have a couple of the snack bars too – Chocolate, and Lemon Crunch and they were both quite pleasant. However, there is also a list of ‘real’ foods that you can have as snacks (fruit and veg, small portions of meat, eggs, low fat cheese etc) and I think if I were continuing the Certaslim program long term I would stick to snacks from this list.

Did it work?

Of course the big question – did I lose any weight? I did! In the first week I lost 6 lb and then another 2 lb in the second week. It is common with these sort of meal replacement diets to have a big loss in the first week and then for weight loss to slow down. If I were continuing the program I would probably expect to lose 2-4 lbs per week after the initial loss.

Was it hard to stick to the plan?

Not really. Of course I knew I was only going to be following the Certaslim program for two weeks but I think it would be relatively easy to sustain long term. Having four meal replacements and a snack every day means you don’t have time to get hungry. You also have a daily milk allowance and can have one tablespoon of oil and some condiments (handy for making salad dressings). If anything the only problem I had was finding enough time in the day to fit in everything I was supposed to be eating! Since finishing my two week Certaslim trial three weeks ago I have kept this weight off and managed to lose a bit more too. People often think that the weight will go straight back on once you stop this kind of diet but that isn’t necessarily the case.

Would I recommend it?

If you are looking for a meal replacement diet then Certaslim is definitely easy to follow and there are good selection of products available. There also seems to be a good amount of support available, either through the website or one of the local consultants. The Rapid and Boost programs cost around £8 per day depending on how many products you order in one go. This isn’t particularly cheap but I think it is a similar price to most meal replacement diets out there. If you want a pretty much guaranteed way of losing weight without worrying about counting calories or planning meals then Certaslim could be for you.

**Disclosure: I was sent the featured products in return for this review. All opinions are my own.

5 April , 20164 April , 2016 - Sarah Leave a comment

Nursery ideas for our new home

Before Toby was born we did the whole expectant parent thing of painting the nursery, getting new carpet, choosing the furniture – although actually we just matched the walls to the curtains we already had up in the room and the only new furniture we bought was a cot. For a while his room didn’t have any other decoration but when he was about six months old we decided on a space theme. We added solar system stickers to one wall and a Dr Seuss quote with some rockets on the other wall. My brother and sister-in-law bought him a space rocket rug and when he moved into his big boy bed before Christmas we bought space themed bedding too.

Toby loves his space rocket room and he can tell you all about the planets – Mercury is really, really small, Venus is really, really hot, Jupiter has a big red spot, and Saturn has rings – what more do you need to know?!

Poor old Gabe though, he hasn’t even got a room of his own. He’s heading towards eight months old and is still sleeping in his co-sleeper crib in our room. There are a few reasons for this; we have a three bedroom house but our third bedroom is full of Barry’s computer, bookshelves, the sofa bed for when we have visitors and all the other accumulated junk that doesn’t have anywhere else to live. We were hoping that the boys would be able to share a room but with Gabe still waking in the night, and usually up at between 4 and 5 am I don’t think we’re quite ready for that yet! So for now he’s staying in with us and we’re going to have to try squeezing the cot in our room soon as he’s not got much room left in the co-sleeper.

However, we are hopefully going to be moving house sometime this year to go and live nearer to our parents and we’re hoping the move is going to be sooner rather than later. We’ve been looking at four bedroom houses so that the boys would have a room each and then they can share when they’re a bit older. I’ve been Pinning lots of nursery ideas already. I really love the grey and yellow of this Snuz bedding so I think I might go with those colours as a start and then maybe go with clouds and rainbows. It would need to have lots of storage too – I’m a bit obsessed with buying clothes for the boys at the moment so we would need somewhere for them all to go, and somewhere for all the cloth nappies too! I’m mostly looking forward to him having a room of his own though, at least until he’s a bit older.

I guess then when the boys are older if they want to share a room they can. There are so many cool bunk beds and cabin beds out there – I know I loved having bunk beds with my brother when I was small, until I fell out of the top bunk when I was seven and split my eyebrow open on some Lego at least! I know when they’re a bit older I might not get my own way as easily but I’m hoping we can avoid the cartoon character bedrooms for a good few years yet anyway!

For now I’m just hoping we get our moving plans under way soon – I don’t really want Gabe to still be in our room when he’s one!

**This post is in collaboration with homify

18 February , 20167 October , 2020 - Sarah 1 Comment

The first 1,000 days // The importance of the right nutrition from conception to two years old

Did you know that the first 1,000 days of your child’s life, from conception to two years old, are some of the most significant in terms of their growth and development? Making sure that your baby or toddler is getting the right nutrition is something we have all worried about. I know I have! SMA Nutrition has teamed up with medic and weekly health columnist Dr Ellie Cannon to help parents further understand how important the protein levels and nutrition for your baby is during this time.

If your pregnancy is planned then the chances are that from the moment you conceive you will start thinking about what you are eating (or more likely what you can’t eat – no more runny egg yolks!) and how that might be affecting your growing baby. I took pregnancy vitamins and folic acid, and tried to make sure I ate well during both my pregnancies – although there were probably rather more biscuits in my diet than is strictly healthy!

And then once your baby has arrived, feeding them becomes one of the most important (and sometimes stressful) things in your life. I think most of us probably know that breastmilk is the best thing for our babies. It contains just the right amount of protein along with all the micronutrients that your baby needs to avoid any deficiencies in early life. What is unique about breastmilk is that the protein level changes as your baby grows. It always provides the right quality and quantity of protein to ensure your baby grows at a steady and appropriate rate, which can actually help to stop them becoming overweight later in life. You can read more about the protein in milk and its importance on the SMA nutrition website.

Knowing all of that, I really wanted to breastfeed both my babies. As a lot of you mamas know though, breastfeeding isn’t always easy. I really struggled with Toby due to a combination of things, and you can read all about our breastfeeding experience here. I was proud that I at least managed to partly breastfeed for six weeks, but in the end, particularly with Toby’s reflux, it turned out that bottle feeding was the best option for us.

With Gabe, breastfeeding was more successful, and I breastfed him for 10 weeks. Unfortunately, due to a combination of circumstances, including reflux again, we have ended up bottle feeding Gabe too. Although I know that exclusively breastfeeding for the first six months would have provided both my boys with the best possible nutrition, like a lot of women it just didn’t happen for us and I’m happy that formula exists and can provide my boys with the nutrition that they need.

Of course, after the first six months you’ve then got weaning to think about! We’ve just started weaning with Gabe and he seems to be enjoying his first solid food. I can’t believe he’s six months already though, the time has absolutely flown by!

We’re planning on following the same route we did with Toby, which was a mixture of finger foods and spoon feeding. That was mostly because I couldn’t cope with the extreme mess of pure baby-led weaning! We never gave Toby any purées though, he just had a little bit of what we were having, which made sure he was getting all the different food groups.

From weaning until he was nearly two Toby was a fantastic eater and would eat anything we put in front of him. As a toddler he has become more fussy, but I think that is as much about asserting his independence as anything else! I think his fussiness definitely increased when he started talking and could tell us ‘Toby doesn’t like it,’ which we hear quite regularly! On the whole though he still has a fairly varied and balanced diet, it’s just very frustrating for me when something that he loves one day is completely rejected the next! I hope Gabe doesn’t pick up on his brother’s picky eating habits. Even though we are already past the first 1,000 days of Toby’s life I know how important it is to keep providing him with appropriate nutrition as it is so vital for his healthy growth and development.

There is an awful lot of information out there about baby and toddler nutrition but I know sometimes it’s hard to find out what you really want to know. Everyone seems to have different advice, and this is one area where speaking to friends and relatives doesn’t always get you appropriate information, as the guidelines and recommendations have changed quite a lot over the last few decades. When I was a baby I was started on solids at just 10 weeks old. That’s completely unimaginable now but was the norm at the time!

If you have a question, something you would like to know about protein and nutrition during pregnancy or in the first two years of your child’s life, then leave me a comment below. Some of these questions will be answered by Dr Ellie Cannon and I’ll be publishing the answers in another post in a few weeks time.

Update: You can read the Q & A with Dr Ellie Cannon here.

*This post is in association with SMA nutrition

2 February , 2016 - Sarah 4 Comments

This is my reality // Behind the scenes at Toby Goes Bananas

My friend Donna at What the Redhead said has written a post today about the monochrome trend which seems to be everywhere you look at the moment. This isn’t a post about that but it got me thinking about how much my blog, my instagram feed, and the thoughts and pictures I share on Facebook and Twitter actually differ from the reality of my life.

Now I don’t hugely edit my life for the blog and social media but I wonder how much other people do. When I scroll through my instagram feed in the morning and see flat lays of coffee and croissants on rustic wooden trays with a posy of flowers for good measure, being eaten on pristine white sheets…is that what life is really like for some people? If it is then I am hugely envious, but I suspect the flat lay is so popular because it cuts out all of the surrounding chaos!

I’m not saying I’m innocent of this – you may have noticed I’m a fan of close up photographs of my kids. Apart from the fact I just like pictures of their faces it also means I can crop out all the mess in the background. I’ve even been know to Photoshop out a bogey hanging from Toby’s nose before now. I’m sure we all know that a carefully chosen instagram filter can hide a multitude of sins but like I said I don’t think my online life is overly edited.

That doesn’t mean the online representation of my life tells the whole story though so I thought I would share a picture that actually captures the reality of my life…

So here it is – this is my reality. There are toys, bibs, clothes and bags all over the floor, along with a selection of cushions from the sofa. We are sitting on a towel because Gabe could be sick at any moment, he really can’t be trusted to lie on the rug. I’m trying to change the baby while my own personal toddler-limpet clings to my side. And if you could smell the picture it would have that distinctive odour of nappy changes because with two children to look after it’s much easier to get them both changed and dressed on the living room floor than drag them both upstairs.

There you have it; when I’m not hiding behind instagram filters and careful cropping this is my reality. How much do you edit your online life? I’m sure I can’t be the only one…

25 November , 201524 November , 2015 - Sarah 5 Comments

Looking forward to forty

Yes you read that right. I’m looking forward to being forty. It’s still a few years off yet (2018 to be exact) but there are several reasons I’m looking forward to forty. It’s not the age as such that I’m looking forward too, more where my life will (hopefully) be in three years time…

We’re currently in the process of trying to relocate from Scotland down to England to be nearer both mine and Barry’s parents. Hopefully within the next six months or so we’ll have moved so in three years time my boys probably won’t remember a time when they didn’t see their grandparents every week or two, rather than only a few times a year like they get at the moment.

We viewed some houses just last week and we think we’ve found one we’d like to buy. It needs quite a lot doing to it in terms of decoration, plus it has potential to extend or remodel in the future but all that will take time, so it’s another thing that hopefully in three years we’ll be living in a house (even if it’s not that one) that is decorated to our taste and works well for our family.

Of course moving nearer to my parents has the added benefit of providing us with babysitters much closer to home. So in three years time I’ll be able to enjoy the odd night out, or even away, with my husband. We’ve only had one night away from Toby since he was born – that was back at Easter this year, and in fact that was the last time we went out as a couple at all!

The other thing I’m looking forward to is that the boys will be 5 and 3 by the time I’m 40 and hopefully a bit easier to manage. I know there will be different challenges as they get older but just things like being able to go on holiday, or even out for the day without having to take seemingly the entire contents of our house with us will be amazing. At the moment, with buggies, travel cots, nappies and everything else there’s barely room for us in the car! There’s also the fact that we’ll be able to go on holiday to places where the kids are old enough to join in with activities (and go to kids’ clubs giving us a bit of a break too!) and hopefully they’ll find it exciting going away and sleeping somewhere different rather than freaking out. The last holiday we attempted we abandoned after one night because Toby screamed his head off every time we tried to get him anywhere near the bed he was supposed to be sleeping in. (To be fair that’s better already – he slept in a double bed at my parents’ house last week and was been absolute fine).

Work-wise I don’t really know where I’ll be in three years time, or where I want to be. I can’t really see myself going back to full time teaching but you never know. I’d love to set up my own business teaching French and Spanish to pre-schoolers, and maybe doing some tutoring as well but I need to look into it in more detail and see if there’s actually a demand for it in the area we’re planning on moving to. If I do go back to teaching in a school, even part time, then Toby will be at school and Gabe at pre-school so we won’t have anywhere near the childcare costs we’ll have if I go back to work at the end of my maternity leave.

So although I don’t want to wish my life away, and I know I should make the most of these baby days with Gabe, especially because we’re not planning on having any more babies, I’m still very much looking forward to forty. Are you looking forward to being a particular age, or time in the future? Or are you happy with where you are now?

4 November , 201518 December , 2020 - Sarah 4 Comments

Eight photos of happiness

I was tagged an age ago to do this ‘Eight photos of happiness’ post by my lovely friend Donna at What the Redhead said and as with most things these days it’s taken forever for me to get around to doing it. It is exactly as it sounds; eight photos that make me happy.

31 October , 201530 November , 2015 - Sarah 7 Comments

Relocating: where do you start?

I think I have mentioned before that Barry and I have always had the intention of moving from Scotland back to the north west of England at some point in the future. I am originally from Blackpool and my parents still live there. I’ve lived in Scotland for twelve years now but before that I was working in France for six years on and off, and away at university so I haven’t really lived in Blackpool properly in nearly twenty years, although I still refer to it as home. When I met Barry five years ago he was living in Manchester near his parents but they have since moved to Cumbria. Barry moved up to Scotland to live with me about eight months after we first met and we always said we would probably move back to England eventually. Since we’ve had the kids the urge to move back ‘home’ has got stronger, particularly for me. Having no family support locally is really tough at times and although our parents visit fairly regularly it’s nothing like having them around the corner. Toby does now know his grandparents and he recognises them between visits but he was probably about eighteen months before he really started remembering them. And of course Gabe has no idea who his grandparents are! I grew up with my grandma living round the corner and I saw her all the time…I’d like that for my boys, and of course having babysitters a bit closer to hand won’t hurt either! There’s also the fact that although all our parents are by no means old, and they are all in relatively good health at the moment (apart from my dad who currently has his leg in plaster after busting his Achilles’ tendon because he forgets he’s not 25 any more) they won’t be young and sprightly for ever so living nearby will definitely make things easier in 10, or 20 or even 30 years when they are needing our support.

The other factor to consider is that we always said if we were going to move we should do it before Toby starts school. There are lots of differences between the Scottish and English school systems, not least the cut off date for starting school which I think could mean if we stayed here Toby wouldn’t start school until he was five, whereas in England he’ll start when he’s only just turned four. As he could be starting school nursery next year when he’s three, it seems like the time we have to move is quickly running out.

So, we decided that instead of just thinking about it we should actually start doing something about moving…but where do we even begin?

We know roughly the area we would like to move to. I don’t want to go back to Blackpool but I’d like to be within an hour’s drive of my parents at the most. I’ve spent many hours online browsing houses and I’ve found a few we like the look of. But we can’t move without a mortgage and we won’t be able to get a mortgage without at least one of us having a job to go to. Of course we’ll need to sell our house up here too before we can buy a new one, but the process of selling houses is quite different in Scotland than in England so that’s another thing to consider.

I think we probably need to get the job thing sorted first because without a job to go to we can’t do any of the other things. I’m still on maternity leave at the moment but previously I was on a temporary contract so I don’t actually have a job to go back to when my maternity leave ends. Luckily being a teacher means I can get a job anywhere there is a school and there are lots of schools within commuting distance of the area we are looking to move to. I just have to hope something suitable comes up, but probably not until the start of the next school year. I know my teaching qualifications are transferable to England too (which isn’t the case if you are wanting to move from England to Scotland to teach) so that makes life a bit easier. Barry is a software engineer which also means there are lots of options when it comes to where he could work so hopefully the chances of at least one of us finding a job are fairly high.

So then we come to houses… what if we see a house we like and want to put in an offer? Can we do that if we haven’t sold our own house? Or what if someone offers on our house but we haven’t got anywhere to move to? Should we sell anyway? There’s always the possibility of renting temporarily but I don’t want to have to move twice if we don’t need to! And then even if we manage to co-ordinate all that don’t get me started on the logistics of actually packing up a house full of stuff and two kids and moving us all 200 miles down the road!

You know what? On second thoughts I think we might just stay here!

In all seriousness though, if any of you have moved to a different area before and have any top tips on how we even begin to go about relocating then please do let me know!

21 October , 201521 October , 2015 - Sarah 5 Comments

A walk in the woods

First up, apologies but this is going to be a very photo heavy post, so sorry if it takes an age to load! And thanks to Barry for taking the pictures too.

On Saturday it was a lovely sunny day, just the kind of perfect autumn day that only seems to come around a few times a year (especially when you live in Scotland where the default weather seems to be rain). We’ve had quite a few weekends lately where we haven’t done much of anything, and Toby always seems to get a bit stir crazy when he’s stuck in the house all day so seeing as the sun was shining we decided to make the most of it and headed to Devilla Forest which is about 15 minutes drive from where we live. We drive past these woods all the time, but have only ever stopped and walked there once before. That was when Toby was 10 weeks old, and after a walk through the woods being carried in the sling he slept through the night for the first time, so of course I was hoping they would have a similar effect on Gabe!

There are lots of paths through the woods but from where we parked there is one that is waymarked – The Red Squirrel Trail. It’s only just over a mile so we thought it would be pretty doable with Toby. He had been in a bit of a grump about coming out, not wanting to get his jacket on and moaning that I’d made him wear his tights, but when we arrived and he saw all the trees he let out an ‘oh wow’. Once he was suitably attired in waterproof trousers and wellies we headed off towards the woods. From the car park there was a big wooden entrance and a wooden bridge over a small ditch which Toby had great fun stomping back and forwards over.

Once we were away from the cars and safely onto the path off he went. I think he must have walked twice as far as us as he kept running backwards and forwards.

Toby was absolutely loving being in the woods and was delighted by every tree he came to, running up to it, marvelling at how big they were and once he’d finished looking at one tree he’d run along to the next one and exclaim ‘a tree’ again. Oh to be a toddler and to find the simplest of things so exciting.

As Toby continued to explore we followed along at a leisurely pace. Gabe was soon snoring away in the baby carrier…

As we continued along the path there were lots of tree stumps along its edges. And of course Toby had to sit on every one.

As well as trees, and stumps to sit on, there were lots of interesting things to discover on the ground. There were hundreds of tiny pine cones (which Toby decided were eggs). He kept picking them up, then moving along and finding a better one. He was particularly pleased when he found three or four all still attached to a twig.

There were some handy logs to practice balancing on, with a little help from mummy.

And then suddenly the tiredness hit. Toby stopped in the middle of the path and declared ‘my home’…and he set off walking back the way we had come.

We tried to revive him with some raisins but decided we were better off just heading back to the car rather than continuing with a tired toddler.

Even after his raisins it was all just too much and so a carry from Daddy was needed to make it back to the car park.

It was so lovely to see Toby enjoying himself outside rather than glued to the TV or even in the organised fun of soft play. He was exhausted afterwards and fell asleep in the car on the way home and stayed snoozing on the sofa for another hour when we got in. We definitely need to make an effort to get out more over this winter, whenever the weather allows. There are loads of parks and woods we can go and explore near where we live and everyone always feels better for a bit of fresh air.

9 October , 20159 October , 2015 - Sarah 3 Comments

A new nursery

Last week Toby left the nursery he has been at since he was 13 months old and started at a new nursery.

There were a few reasons for this; there were always a few niggling issues with his old nursery, nothing that was serious enough for us to move him but things that given a choice we would have changed. The nursery he has moved to was actually my first choice when we were putting Toby into full time childcare when I went back to work. The only reason we didn’t send him there was because it didn’t open early enough for me to drop him off and still get to work on time. Obviously that isn’t an issue now so it was no longer a reason to keep him where he was. The other main reason we have moved him is because this nursery is a lot cheaper than the old one! This doesn’t seem to have any ill effect on the care the children receive, and it means we can afford to keep Toby going four afternoons a week for the same cost as three afternoons at the old nursery. The other thing that influenced our decision was that the old nursery doesn’t receive council funding to provide children with their free hours of childcare when they are three and the new nursery does. Although we are planning to move back to England in the next year there’s a chance we’ll still be here when Toby turns three and it was easier to move him now than wait until he is three and there’s less chance of getting him a space.

Anyway, last Thursday we went along to the new nursery for a settling in session. We had told Toby what was happening but I don’t know how much he really understood. I think he was pretty confused when all the staff were giving him cuddles when he left his old nursery on Wednesday! On Thursday Barry had taken the afternoon off so we all went along. As soon as we got there Toby went off and started playing. I spoke to his key worker for a while and then we went and sat in the manager’s office for half an hour and left him to it – I don’t think he even noticed we weren’t there! When our hour was up we headed home again, Toby seemed like he’d enjoyed himself and we told him he would be coming back again the next day.

On Friday we went again. The plan was for Toby to stay at least three hours but that I would phone after two and if he was doing OK then he would stay to have his tea and do the full afternoon. When we pulled up in the car I told Toby we were at his new nursery – ‘new nursery’ he said and seemed quite happy to go in. In the hallway I was explaining to Toby that he had to change into his special ‘inside shoes’ (he didn’t have to do this at his old nursery), and I showed him the cool slippers that look like trainers that I’d got him. One of the staff came out and at this point Toby started saying ‘home’ and trying to pull me towards the door. He’s only just learnt to say home and what it means so he likes to use it, even if it’s not necessarily what he really wants. I told him we weren’t going home and we went into the toddler room where he’d had so much fun the day before. At first he clung on to me and refused to go and play. Then he had a spell of lying on the floor. After ten minutes or so he decided to go off and have a look at what there was to do. I stood up and he came back to cling to my leg again. Then he found something else to do. I probably could have sneaked off without him noticing but I don’t really like to do that, so I said goodbye, and he cried as I knew he would. He has been going his old nursery full time nursery for well over a year and still cried at least half the time when he was dropped off so I wasn’t too worried. I left him to it and sat in the car outside for a while just in case they rang me straight away to say he wouldn’t settle. No call came though so I headed home. I called them a couple of hours later and he was absolutely fine so we left him there to have his tea and do a full afternoon session.

Unfortunately this week hasn’t such plain sailing. It’s been a struggle some days to even get him in the door. Yesterday when we pulled up outside he started crying and saying ‘no nursery’ and then ‘me home’. When I left him he was really crying for me (and it was the same on Tuesday) but there have been no calls to collect him early and we’ve gone to pick him up they said it’s taken no more than five minutes for him to calm down. I’m sure there’ll be plenty more tears of drop off but as long as he continues to settle down quickly I know he’ll be fine. It doesn’t change the fact that leaving him crying is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, and it doesn’t really get any easier.

I’m so proud of my biggest boy though. There have been a lot of changes in Toby’s life recently and he’s coping with it all so well. I guess he’s not my baby any more, my little boy is proper toddler and he’s a total superstar.

Toby Goes Bananas

A family lifestyle blog

Personal