14 February , 201712 November , 2018 - Sarah 47 Comments

Exante Diet Flexi Solution

Back in 2014 I tried out the Exante Diet Total Solution for one week and wrote all about it here. Since then I’ve had another baby and moved house, and found myself in need of losing some weight again. Having two small children though means that a total meal replacement diet isn’t really what I’m looking for any more. And so that’s where the Exante Diet Flexi Solution comes in.

Exante Diet Flexi Solution Giveaway

The Flexi Solution is a 1200 calorie flexible diet – it combines two Exante meal replacement products, one healthy recipe meal and an Exante snack every day. This kind of plan fits in really easily to my family life – I can have my meal replacements for breakfast and lunch but still eat dinner with the rest of the family. We try to eat healthy meals anyway so with a few adjustments we can still all eat the same meal in the evening. Read more

24 January , 201724 January , 2017 - Sarah 8 Comments

5 things I wish I’d known before having a baby

Before Toby was born I read loads of pregnancy and baby books. I went to antenatal classes with my husband. I signed up for all the ‘your baby this week’ emails…basically I did my research. That’s just the kind of person I am; I liked to be informed and therefore hopefully be prepared. But it turns out no amount of research can actually prepare you for that first night at home with a newborn. I’ve now had two babies and I thought I’d share some things I wish I’d known before having a baby.

5 things I wish I'd known before having a baby Read more

18 January , 2017 - Sarah 4 Comments

2017 // Hopes, plans and goals

I know I’m a bit late to the party with this one, what with us being three weeks into 2017 already, but I’ve been thinking a lot this last few weeks about what I want to achieve over the next year.

If I had to pick a word to describe 2016 it would be survival. Getting through the days on very little sleep, surviving a house move with two little kids, managing on one wage after my maternity pay ended in May. It’s not been the easiest of years but it’s done now and I am determined to make 2017 more about actually living than merely surviving.

Hopes plans goals 2017

I’m not one for new year’s resolutions, and often I don’t have much of a plan for life at all but I’ve been thinking about where I want to be this time next year and I thought I would share some of my hopes, plans and goals for 2017. Some of these are personal and some are blogging related, and I suppose some are a mixture of both… Read more

16 December , 201626 February , 2020 - Sarah 4 Comments

Choosing the right primary school (when you are an atheist)

Choosing a primary school when you're an atheist

It’s that time of year when parents all over the country are visiting primary schools so they can choose the right one for their child to attend next year. It feels like Toby only just turned three (well it was only in July) but it’s really not that long until he’ll be starting reception. But how do we go about choosing the right primary school?

We only moved to this area in the summer and part of the reason we moved from Scotland when we did was so that we would be here before we needed to apply for Toby’s primary school place. In Scotland the system is totally different. When a child starts school depends on how old they are at the end of February. With Toby being a summer baby if we had stayed in Scotland he wouldn’t start school until he was five but here he’ll only just be four. And Gabe will only have been four for two weeks when he starts school but we have a couple more years before we need to worry about that!

We have moved to quite a small town but there are quite a lot of primary schools here. Realistically though there are only a few that we would consider, and that Toby has a chance of getting into. To be honest I don’t really understand the big panic a lot of parents have about choosing the right school. Perhaps it depends on where you live but round here there aren’t really any bad schools, they all follow the same curriculum and I would probably be happy for Toby (and eventually Gabe) to go to any of them…but for one thing. And is one thing that is really concerning me about this whole process.

All but one of the schools in our town is a church school. There are two catholic schools near by and the rest are Church of England schools. Our nearest school is a ten minute walk away and it is one of the C of E schools. And yet we are atheists. I do not believe in any kind of god but I certainly don’t have any issue with those that do. What I do have an issue with is my children going to a school where they will have to go to church every week and where they will be taught Christianity as fact.

We went to the open days of the non-church school and our catchment C of E school a few weeks ago. Both schools had positive and negative points but overall we preferred the non-church school. It isn’t within walking distance but if I am back at work by next year (which I hope to be) then the chances are we wouldn’t be able to walk to school anyway. The only real problem with this school is that it is over-subscribed, we live at the other end of town, and it is unlikely that Toby will get in.

I feel quite strongly about this – I really think we should have the option to send our children to a non-church school if we choose, but I did wonder if I was making it more of an issue than it needed to be. So I asked some of my fellow bloggers if they had sent their children to church schools, even if they weren’t religious themselves and this is what they had to say…

Quite a lot of the bloggers I asked didn’t have a problem sending their children to church schools, even if the aren’t religious themselves, or follow a different religion.

I don’t see any harm its not like it’s rammed down their throat that they must believe in God. I’ve found its more to do with the values of the school.

Tammy, Mummy of 2 +1

I am a child of atheist parents who attended C of E schools and don’t remember any home/school conflict at all! I just grew up knowing that’s what Christians believe and that I didn’t have to be one but I could be if I wanted to. I think as long as that message is clear it probably doesn’t matter where you send them.

Amy, 2boys1mum

We have sent all of ours to the same C of E primary school although neither of us are religious … I have not found it too overpowering and each of the children know their own minds on the subject.

Mandi, Hex Mum

Even non-church schools have to include a “daily act of worship”, which is generally Christian in nature, so even though my kids don’t go to a church school they still get taught a lot of religious stuff at school. We have conversations at home about how different people believe different things, and encourage them to make their own decisions about what they believe.

Ruth, geekmummy

I think if you feel strongly against religion then a faith school probably isn’t for you, if you’re ambivalent and other factors are more important (mine were proximity to home, the other children attending that we knew and general ‘feel’ of the school) them give it a chance.

Pippa, Red Rose Mummy

I taught in a non church school and we still had to include daily collective worship. It’s also part of the curriculum to learn about other faiths and cultures and of course religious festivals are celebrated such as Easter and Christmas. I often explained to my class using terms such as ‘Christians believe/celebrate’, ‘Muslims believe/celebrate’. I think it is important for our children to understand and respect different beliefs without saying ‘this one is right, this one is wrong’. Personally I am much more interested in the standard and style of teaching, the provision, resources and opportunities available [than whether it’s a church school or not].

Sarah, Arthurwears

We’re Muslim and Z goes to a C of E school. The only difference is that we don’t believe Jesus is the son of God. He’s one of the greatest prophets in Islam and so I was happy with our choice. We pointed out to Z that difference and his reaction was “oh ok!” And that’s it! They cover all faiths but Christianity the most which is fine. They do prayers every day and lots of stories from the Bible (all the famous ones). They’re always told with a good moral behind them so they’re mostly just learning to be kind and compassionate.

Taslim, Not My Year Off

My children attend a C of E school and we are not religious in the slightest. My girls happily learn about religion. they are taught all religions and they know my opinion on it all. They know that it is their choice as to what they believe.

Chantelle, Mama Mummy Mum

As someone of firm faith who has worked within both systems, I’ll be happy to send my child to any school, provided the school’s ethos resonates with my family’s values.

Mo, Adventures of a Novice Mum

I’m not religious but taught for several years at a C of E school and absolutely loved it there. I would love them to go to a church school because I found the ethos was absolutely lovely and there was a much greater community sense than in the non-faith schools I’ve worked in.

Rachel, Coffee Cake Kids

But there were also quite few bloggers who have similar opinions to me on the matter…

Syd goes to a supposedly non religious school. They still pray daily and have been to church at Christmas and Easter. It annoyed me no end as we chose the school specifically because it wasn’t religious. We love the school overall, and I’d never move her now but my initial decision may have been different if I’d known then what I know now.

Tina, MotherGeek

I’m with you. We have lots of religious schools in our town, with strong links to their churches, and it was a big issue for me as I am strongly atheist, and as a secularist I do not believe in state funded religious schools.
I was concerned about her learning religion as fact, but also about myself not feeling I could fully engage with the school community. I also didn’t relish the idea of me contradicting what she may learn in school, but thankfully, we got into a secular primary.

Simon, Man vs. Pink

We didn’t look at or apply to any religious schools, my strong atheist, brought up catholic, hated catholic school boyfriend was very firm on that one! And yet our next best option was a non-secular academy run by a Christian organisation. It took me a good while to get over that contradiction, but since he’s started school my opinion has improved and I’ve realised my objection lies more with government and education rather than with the school itself. In an area with a lot of religious schools, I did find the lack of choice frustrating when we were applying for schools.

Chloë, Sorry About The Mess

We’ve gone backwards and forwards about what the best thing to do is; whatever we decide to do we will need to put at least one if not two church schools on the application. Barry doesn’t have so much of an issue with the church thing as I do, the church school is nearer and has better outdoor space but it still doesn’t sit right with me sending the boys to a church school when we are non-believers.

In the end we have decided to put the non-church school as our first choice and two C of E schools in second and third. Realistically though I know it is very unlikely we will get in our first choice as we live too far away and it is over-subscribed. But you never know, and by putting it first is the only way we will find out. I’m kind of resigned to the fact the boys will end up in our nearest school which is one of the church schools. And I’m just going to have to work out a way to deal with that.

**UPDATE – After writing this post Toby was indeed offered a place at the C of E school near our house. He’s now in Year 1 and there are still some aspects of him being at a church school that we aren’t happy with. Generally though we just continue to tell him that he is free to decide what he wants to believe in but that mummy and daddy think that it is all just stories. It wasn’t our first choice but we are making it work, we had to really.

Did you send your children to a faith school even if you aren’t religious yourselves? I would love to hear some more positive stories to help me stop worrying about it…

9 November , 20169 November , 2016 - Sarah Leave a comment

Hell in a handcart // My thoughts on the US election result

I’m no political commentator and I can’t claim to know the ins and outs of every campaign promise of Clinton and Trump but when I was awake with Gabe at two thirty this morning and saw that Trump was leading in the American presidential election I had a sinking feeling that we were going to see a result that was unthinkable a few months ago.

At two thirty though, as I kissed my baby and gently put him in his cot, there was still hope. Still a chance that the people of America would do the right thing. But I woke this morning to the news that Donald Trump is to become the next president of the United States. I would laugh at the absurdity of it if it wasn’t such an horrific prospect.

And just like in the last two general elections, and the Brexit referendum here in the UK it is predominantly the white, over 45s who are making choices which, when it comes down to it, probably won’t even affect them that much. But they will affect me, and they will affect my children.

This morning I am sad. I am sad for the world my children have to grow up in. But then I grew up when Thatcher was in power, my parents worked hard to keep us happy and fed, with a roof over our heads through two recessions. It is possible to survive these things.

So tonight I will hold my boys a little closer and I will continue to teach them to be kind, to be thoughtful, to try their best and to believe that there are good people in the world, even if they don’t always win elections.

And I will hold out the hope that sooner rather than later it turns out that not only is Donald Trump a liar, a racist, a bigot, a sexist and who knows what else, but that he’s also done something illegal somewhere along the line (because seriously, he must have right?) and maybe, just maybe, he won’t become the next president of the USA after all.

us-election

21 October , 201622 October , 2016 - Sarah Leave a comment

Learning to accept my post-partum body

I have written about my weight before on this blog but to save you going back through old posts here’s a recap…

I wasn’t overweight as a child, or even a teenager, but by the time I was doing my GCSEs I had big boobs and thought I was fat. I spent most of sixth form not eating very much and had a breast reduction when I was 18, during my first year at university. For about six months I was thin, I had small boobs and I was happy.

Then I went to France for the summer, ate too many pain au chocolate and started drinking beer. For the last year of uni I drank too much and I ate too much and by the time I left I was probably a couple of stone overweight.

Over the next five years I mostly worked in France where, although I was still drinking too much, my eating got slightly better and I had a pretty physical job so I lost some weight and was reasonably happy with my body.

Then in 2003 I moved to Scotland to work for the company I had been working for in France. Over the next six years my weight yo-yo’d a fair bit – I had times where I went to the gym a lot, and times when I did nothing. I lost weight for shows I was in, but then put it back on again after. Whenever I made a big effort to lose weight it was always for something, and when that thing was over I would starting eating again and put it all back on. Oh, and FYI, if you have a breast reduction then put loads of weight on your boobs will just come right back, and if you’re really lucky like me they’ll be even bigger than they were before!

In 2009 I was the heaviest I had ever been. I am very much an emotional eater and at that time I was pretty miserable. I was single, I had a job I didn’t enjoy, I spent a lot of time at home on my own eating ice cream…

But then in the summer of 2009 I left my job and went back to university to start my teacher training. I wanted to be happier with my weight and I knew that I would be teaching teenagers and teenagers can be cruel. So a couple of months before I started my course I decided to follow the Lighter Life programme. I had two shakes and a snack bar each day with a salad for lunch. I’ve done quite a few meal replacement diets since and I know they’re not for everyone but they do work. They take away any need to make decisions about food. I know some people prefer diets like Weight Watchers, or Slimming World where you can still have treats but I am rubbish at self-control – I can’t just have one biscuit, I have to have four biscuits, or no biscuits. So Lighter Life worked for me, after a week or so you stop being hungry and seeing the quite dramatic weight loss is very motivating.

I lost a couple of stone and although I still had a stone to go I stopped doing Lighter Life because I fell into the trap of thinking I had lost a lot of weight and I was so much happier with my body that it would do. But left to my own devices I put nearly a stone back on. So back to Lighter Life I went. I lost the remaining two stone (making just over three stone in total) and was at a weight I was really happy with.

But then I finished my teacher training, met my future husband then went on holiday to America for three weeks. I probably spent another 18 months gaining and losing the same stone until we got married in 2012. Another three weeks in a America, on our honeymoon this time, and then not long after I got pregnant.

I loved being pregnant. I ate whatever I wanted and for the first time since I was about 15 I didn’t worry about what I was eating. I had a big pregnant belly, I wore clothes to show it off and I put on about three stone over the course of my pregnancy.

I didn’t really do anything about that weight until Toby was nearly one. I had lost about a stone without really trying and then we were thinking about having another baby and I didn’t want to get pregnant again still carrying all the weight from my first pregnancy. So the meal replacements came out again and by the time I got pregnant with Gabe in late 2014 I was about the same weight I had been when I got pregnant the first time.

I did try a bit more in Gabe’s pregnancy not to go completely crazy with my eating. I think the second time I put on about two stone, not including the stone of baby, placenta and water that I lost on giving birth. I lost some of that gradually over the next six months or so but then we moved house, and Gabe still doesn’t sleep, and I still eat a lot of biscuits and chocolate.

I have always said, and I still think, that mostly what we eat for our meals is reasonably healthy, it’s all the other things that I eat on top of my meals that cause the problem. So for the last few months I have thought on and off about trying to lose weight again but in the last few weeks I have had something of an epiphany.

accepting-my-post-partum-body

The title of this post was ‘Learning to accept my post-partum body’ and the conclusion that I have come to is that, although I am not my ideal weight, although I have a big mummy tummy, that I have stretch marks, and big saggy boobs, this is what I look like now. And for now, that’s OK.

If I need biscuits, and cake, and coffee with all the sugar in to get me through the days, and to cope with the lack of sleep then that’s OK.

If I need to buy a few new clothes because most of my pre-pregnancy clothes are too small, then that’s OK too.

Because there is time, there is time to lose weight, and to exercise more. And that time will come when the boys are sleeping better, when they are at school and I have more time to myself, when I don’t have to be there for every single bed time, for every single wake up in the middle of the night. In two years I will be 40, and I think that will be the time, when life is a bit less full on, and hopefully I’ll be getting a bit more sleep.

But for now, my boys love me. My husband loves me. They don’t care if my tummy is a bit squishier that it used to be, or my jeans are a few sizes bigger than they once were. To Toby and Gabe, I am just mummy and I need to accept that, to embrace that, to stop worrying about what I should or shouldn’t be eating and to put my energy into loving them, and being there for them whenever they need me. I grew those two boys inside of me, they are part of me and I need to show them that we should always be happy with who we are.

And I think, I hope, that by accepting that for now this is just the way things are, by going a bit easier on myself, that I will be happier for it, and if I’m happier I can be a better mummy and a better wife.

So for now, this is me, as I am, and I can stop thinking I should be doing something to change that.

3 June , 201626 March , 2021 - Sarah 4 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

15 May , 20166 July , 2020 - Sarah 3 Comments

Term time holidays // Where do you stand?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

12 May , 201612 May , 2016 - Sarah 9 Comments

Excuse me while I scream

I just wanted to put up a quick post to say it might be a bit quiet round these parts for a week or so. Life is definitely throwing us lemons at the moment and I’m not sure I have the energy to make lemonade. It’s nothing really serious and I feel guilty for complaining when so many have it worse than us but….

If you read my posts regularly you’ll know Gabe has been ill and/or teething since about February. Well after his fifth and sixth teeth cut a couple of weeks ago he seemed much better and we thought he might get a bit of a break but he seems to be teething again but with no sign of any more teeth actually appearing.

Then two weeks ago Toby was sick twice then spent the next couple of days getting back to normal. We thought Gabe had managed to avoid it because he wasn’t sick but he’s had horrible sloppy nappies since, which I put down to teething, but after speaking to the health visitor it seems it could be that he had the bug too and it’s taking him a long time to get over it. The nappies are driving me mad – I’m changing him every hour almost and half of them are leaking meaning I have to change all his clothes too. He’s been really unsettled the last couple of nights too – going to bed at 6:30pm as usual but then waking up an hour or two later and just crying and crying and taking hours to settle again. Last night Barry ended up taking him out in the buggy at 10pm just to get him to sleep. I’m finding it really hard to deal with his constant unsettled-ness and I hate that I can never tell what’s wrong with him. I just can’t wait until these baby days are over, and it makes me sad that I feel that way.

On top of all this we’re selling our house and trying to get it ready to put on the market this week (more news on that front soon). We’ve had to start packing and putting stuff in the garage because our house is full to the brim and we need to clear loads out to get the photos done. I’ve made a good start and was counting on a couple of hours tomorrow afternoon while both boys are at nursery to get things finished before the photographer comes at 4pm. But it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen now because Toby has woken up with morning with what looks suspiciously like chicken pox!!

And we’re supposed to be going to Center Parcs on Monday too. I mean, seriously, you couldn’t make this shit up!!

So anyway, my point is…with all this going on blogging might have to take a back seat for a week or two. I’m really hoping we manage to get away next week and I know there isn’t wifi in the lodges anyway so I’m just going to switch off from it all for a week and hopefully we’ll see you rested and recovered on the other side!

6 May , 201615 August , 2018 - Sarah 9 Comments

I cuddle my children to sleep // Bedtime with a baby and a toddler

I cuddle my children to sleep. I hold them until they fall asleep and then I give them a kiss and put them gently into bed. And as long as they want me to I’m going to carry on doing it.

When Toby was a baby I read all the books, all the advice, about how you should put your baby in bed in that elusive ‘sleepy but awake’ state. As it turned out from a few months old I could put Toby into bed wide awake, say ‘sleepy time now Toby’, shut the door and leave him to happily go to sleep by himself.

Somewhere along the line though that changed. He would happily go in his cot but start screaming as soon as we tried to leave the room. It was about the same time that he started refusing to let his daddy put him to bed and so I always had to do it. I lost count of the number of hours I spent, heavily pregnant, sat on his bedroom floor, slowly inching towards the door as he fell asleep before I could eventually make it out of the room. In that stage no amount of cuddling seemed to help – he wouldn’t fall asleep on me but wouldn’t fall asleep without me there either. This happened in the middle of the night too and I spent quite a lot of time sleeping on his bedroom floor too.

And then when Toby was two we decided that his nap had to go. About the same time he also stopped having a bottle at bedtime. And without a nap he would get ready for bed, sit on my knee and quite often before I had even got to the end of Somewhere over the Rainbow (my bedtime song of choice) he would be fast asleep. When he was two and a half he moved from his cot to a bed and for some reason I decided I should be putting in him bed awake rather than cuddling him to sleep but after a couple of nights when we were back to the sitting on the bedroom floor until he fell asleep routine I suddenly thought ‘why I am doing this?’ Toby is happiest falling asleep on my lap, it makes absolutely no difference to whether or not he will wake up in the night or not, so why am I putting us both through this? Just because that’s what the ‘experts’ tell me I should be doing.

So now we’re back to our bedtime cuddles. Usually I do it but Toby is happy for his daddy to put him to bed these days too. And I will keep on cuddling Toby to sleep for as long as he wants me too but I fear our days are numbered. Some nights Toby decides he wants to get in bed to fall asleep, although for now he still wants one of us to sit in the chair until he does. I guess those nights will become more frequent and one day he won’t want bedtime cuddles at all.

But I’ll still have Gabe. I can count on one hand the number of times he’s been put in bed awake and gone to sleep by himself. In the very early days he would fall asleep after feeding and I couldn’t put him down straight away because he was very likely to be sick. We moved onto bottles and he would still often fall asleep while feeding or straight after but would need to be held for a while before he could safely be put down. And now, we have to wait until he’s fast asleep before trying the tricky manoeuvre of getting him in bed, on his tummy, without him waking up. Because if he does wake up then you usually have to pick him up and settle him all over again. It’s not always ideal but I know it won’t last forever.

One day neither of my boys will want me to cuddle them to sleep so no one is going to make me stop until they decide they’re ready to go to sleep by themselves.

Do you cuddle your children to sleep or do they go to sleep by themselves? I’d love to know if my experience is similar to other people’s. Also, you should consider getting the best baby mattress for your child. There a good chance that it can help them fall asleep and stay asleep longer.

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