23 May , 201622 May , 2016 - Sarah 11 Comments

Living Arrows 21/52 (2016)

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

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

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

16 May , 201615 May , 2016 - Sarah 10 Comments

Living Arrows 20/52 (2016)

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

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

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

15 May , 2016 - Sarah 3 Comments

Siblings // Toby and Gabe in May

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

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

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

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

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

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

15 May , 20166 July , 2020 - Sarah 3 Comments

Term time holidays // Where do you stand?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

9 May , 20168 May , 2016 - Sarah 11 Comments

Living Arrows 19/52 (2016)

We have, at last, all been relatively well this week (well, at least after Barry recovered from the bug that Toby had the week before). Nobody has got a cold for, I think, the first time since about February!

Gabe is still teething though and he has been having the most horrific teething poos ever – nearly every one leaks out of his nappy and requires a full change of clothes. The one at 2 am the other night that went right through to his sleeping bag was a real treat! He’s been OK in himself though – off his food a bit but I can’t say I blame him. I’m just hoping these next teeth come soon and we can all have a break.

I haven’t had the big camera out all this week though so both Living Arrows photos are iPhone snaps – I took this one of Gabe when I was pushing him up to the shop. He isn’t the easiest of babies sometimes but when he looks at you like this it does make all the sleepless nights worthwhile.

And I took this picture of Toby and his daddy at bedtime the other night. Toby has got really into his books in the last few months and we always have a bedtime story (or three!). Usually we end up reading the same stories over and over again for a few weeks and then he’ll have a change of heart and move onto something else, but the other night he chose a Noddy book for his daddy to read. This book actually belonged to me and my brother when we were little and I’ve had it (along without about six other Noddy books) for years, ever since I left home I think. I don’t know if you’ve ever read a Noddy book but they’re quite long so he’s been having one chapter a night. I wasn’t sure if he’d have the patience to sit through a longer story but he seems to be enjoying it…and I just love watching my lovely husband and my biggest boy enjoying time together.

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.

5 May , 20164 May , 2016 - Sarah 5 Comments

My Wild Ones // Weaning: the story so far

The lovely Hannah is on holiday in Italy this week so she has asked me to host My Wild Ones which is very exciting! I’ve got a slightly different post this week – instead of just sharing a day out as I often do I’m going to shift the focus to Gabe and share some photos of his weaning adventures so far.

We started weaning with Gabe when he turned six months old so we have been going for about two and half months now. Just like with Toby we launched right in with a mixture of finger foods and spoon feeding. We’re not doing full on babyled weaning but equally I have never pureed anything either.

Gabe took to solid food straight away. The first thing he actually ate was some cinnamon and raisin bagel – perhaps not the textbook first food but it happened to be what Toby was having for lunch so I just gave him a bit!

He tried some melon that day too, although I don’t think he actually ate very much of it.

Since then Gabe has had all sorts of bread products – breadsticks are still a firm favourite, as well as lots of different fruits and vegetables and things like yoghurt, Weetabix and porridge too. Most mornings he has his practice at picking up Cheerios too – not only a tasty breakfast but also a fantastic way of developing fine motor skills!

What we have found though is that although Gabe is happy to feed himself he still doesn’t manage to eat an awful lot that way, but he really likes his food and seems hungry. He also started waking for night feeds again, having not had them since he was about three or four months. So in an effort to get more food into him during the day, and hopefully fill him up, he has been having half of one of the seven month plus pouches for lunch and dinner, alongside some finger foods at every meal too. He is still perfectly happy to be spoon fed too – and loves to play with the spoon after he’s finished. I’ve not been brave enough to let him try and eat off the spoon himself yet though!

We are now starting to try and move on a bit from the pouches (which have lumps but are still soft) and introduce more textured food to he can just eat what we eat. He’s got six teeth now so biting shouldn’t be too much of a problem! Last week we were having Swedish meatballs with pasta and broccoli and he had a really good go at that so I think he’s getting ready to move on to the next stage of weaning.

Although he’s always been pretty good at picking things up and getting them in his mouth he’s definitely getting more accurate and generally better at it now – even when it’s slippery banana.

I’m also very excited that we are going to be working with Babymoov on their Stress-less Weaning project over the coming months. We’ll be trying out some of their products and working with a nutritionist too answer all our weaning questions too. You can see Gabe’s snazzy new Babymoov highchair in some of the more recent pictures and you’ll be seeing some of the other goodies we’ve been sent very soon.

So now it’s over to you – I’d love you to link up your posts for My Wild Ones here while Hannah is away.

A few guidelines for linking up:

Link up one post per week with the theme of My Wild Ones. It could be a post about your child/children exploring inside or out; the idea is that it’s a photo project of candid childhood photography.
The post can be a one photo, a series of photos, or a combination of text and photos.
Comment on at least one other blog.
Please pop the badge at the bottom of your blog post
Don’t forget to tag me on Twitter – @tobygoesbananas – and I’ll retweet your posts as many times as you share them! You could also use #MyWildOnes to share, if you fancy.
Linky opens every Thursday and closes the following Monday.

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.makedoandpush.co.uk" title="MyWildOnes" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.makedoandpush.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/IMG_4195.jpg" width="250" height="250" alt="MyWildOnes" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

An InLinkz Link-up

4 May , 201627 July , 2017 - Sarah 11 Comments

Review: Cosatto To & Fro Stroller

When I found out I was pregnant with Gabe one of the first things I started thinking about was that it would be the perfect opportunity to get a new pushchair. With Toby just turned two when his brother was born I knew we would probably need a double pushchair for longer trips but there would be times when I would only need to push one of the boys. When Cosatto got in touch and asked if I would like to review their new To & Fro 2 in 1 reversible stroller it sounded like it would be a great solution.

So firstly, a bit of information about the To & Fro…

it’s an umbrella fold stroller suitable from birth
can be parent or world facing (from birth in both modes)
adjustable recline
UPF 50+ sunshade hood with a unique pull through design and different pattern for each mode
storage pocket and viewing window in hood (world facing mode only)
converts to a travel system with the addition of the Hold car seat (sold separately) and included adaptors
comes with reversible foot muff, head hugger, chest pads and rain cover
auto-lock and free-standing when folded
height-adjustable handles
lockable front swivel wheels and all round suspension
cup holder included
comes in three colourways – Pitter Patter, Firebird and Charleston
RRP £290

We were sent the To & Fro in Pitter Patter, and the Hold car seat to go with it. I was quite heavily pregnant when I got it out of the box and I have to admit it wasn’t quite as simple to set up as some other pushchairs I’ve used. Getting the hood on was particularly tricky and actually for the first few times we used it it would pop off whenever the stroller was folded. It turned out I just hadn’t pushed it on far enough to the clip on the frame but it wasn’t the easiest.

The hood is a very clever design though – and it is easy to pull it through to switch it from parent to world facing. I like that the pattern is different on either side too.

A parent facing stroller isn’t something I have seen before and Gabe was certainly comfortable in the seat with the included head hugger. In parent facing mode you do have to use the foot muff (or at least the bottom part of it) as it holds a wedge cushion to make the seat flat. Because of his reflux Gabe never liked being laid completely flat so it is good that in parent facing mode you can incline the seat slightly.

There are a couple of niggles in parent facing mode – firstly, the basket becomes almost completely inaccessible. Cosatto have added zips at the corners of the mesh so you can sort of post a few things in but it really does make it pretty unusable.

The other thing is that the hood doesn’t quite come down over the back of the seat fully leaving a little gap, which would be OK with a bigger child but with a newborn you don’t really want the wind whistling in through the gap.

The stroller can be folded with the seat facing either way but as I mentioned you have to use the foot muff in parent facing mode but I then found the To & Fro very difficult to fold and it ends up being really quite big – as you can see it took up quite a lot of our (messy!) car boot.

Another unique feature for an umbrella fold stroller is that the To & Fro can also be used as a travel system by attaching the Cosatto Hold car seat. You have to put the stroller in world facing mode, then the seat easily attaches to the included adapators.

There is a really nifty feature with the adaptors – when they are not in use you can leave them on the stroller but the spin around so they are neatly tucked out of the way.

In world facing mode the To & Fro performs as you would expect from most umbrella fold strollers. There is a lot of head room – even for my very tall two year old but the seat doesn’t seem very deep which might be a bit of an issue for bigger children.

Gabe was very comfy in there though and now he’s a bit bigger he liked being able to sit up more and see what was going on.

And he was so comfy he fell asleep!

In world facing mode it is also much easier to access the basket but it is still pretty small (as is the norm on umbrella fold strollers). We managed to fit a couple of bottles of milk in there though so it’s fine for popping to the shop.

There’s also a pocket on the back of the hood – perfect for your purse and keys, or for keeping little gloves in. The pocket is hidden under the flap for the viewing window and held closed with a magnet. The viewing window is a great addition – the To & Fro has a really big hood, like all Cosatto pushchairs which is brilliant, but it does make it harder to pop your head round the side to have a look at your wee one so the viewing window solves that problem.

So, in both parent facing and world facing modes the Cosatto To & Fro is a fab stroller, it folds easily, has a very effective clip to keep it closed and a handy carrying handle. I did find it needs to be on a completely level surface for the free-standing foot to work though.

But… I found switching between the two modes was a complete faff! If you set the seat up in world facing mode you have to have the footmuff on and an extra piece of head pad that slots inside the seat back to make it more supportive. To switch to world facing mode, you have to remove the footmuff, which requires unclipping and reclipping the straps, take out the head pad, undo some Velcro, flip the seat back up, then pull the hood through so it’s facing the other way. If you also wanted to adjust the straps – if like me you had been using the stroller parent facing for baby then wanted to use it world facing for a toddler then you also have to re-thread the straps (each seat had its own harness but they are connected at the shoulder so you can’t have them at different heights) which is really fiddly. This is the tab that needs to be pushed through the slot, followed by the clip at the end of the strap and it’s quite a tight fit.

There are lots of great things about the To & Fro – it is really smooth to push and is a comfortable ride with suspension on all four wheels. It’s also easy to push one handed, which is really important if you’ve also got a wayward toddler!

It has height adjustable handles, and comes with the footmuff, head hugger, raincover, car seat adaptors and even a cup holder included! Of course it also comes in Cosatto’s signature bright and bold prints which are just fabulous.

We were also sent the Hold car seat in the same print as our pushchair, along with the isofix base. The base was easy to fit in the car, with handy indicators showing when it is fitted correctly. Gabe seemed very comfortable in the car seat too – we used the infant insert when he was smaller and then more recently have been able to use it without. There is a bit of a knack to tightening the straps – at first I thought I was being a bit daft but I asked a mum at one of my baby groups who had the same seat and she had had the same trouble. It’s a bit hard to describe but you need to pull the straps through from the back of the seat a bit before pulling the strap to tighten them. Other than that small issue it is a great seat and I love that it comes with its own raincover too.

So, overall, for me and my particular situation the Cosatto To & Fro just doesn’t quite deliver. With a baby and a toddler, I was hoping for a stroller I could use with both of them and quickly switch between the two. Even now Gabe is big enough to be world facing I still find it’s a real palaver to change the straps so Toby can use the stroller too. Regularly switching between the two modes, or even adjusting the height of the straps is too much of a faff for me to use the To & Fro with both kids.

However, if you just wanted to use the stroller for one child, to have them parent facing for the first six months or so then change to world facing then the To & Fro could be a great solution for you.

**Disclosure: We were sent the To & Fro in Pitter Patter, a Hold car seat and the compatible isofix base. in return for this review. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.

3 May , 2016 - Sarah 3 Comments

Living Arrows 18/52 (2016)

I’m a bit late with this week’s post after a busy weekend away at Blog On in Manchester. Toby had a sickness bug at the end of last week but he seems mostly recovered now. Luckily Gabe seems to have mostly avoided it, but Barry is currently in bed feeling awful – I’m just hoping I’m not next in line!

These photos were taken last week before the bug struck…

Gabe is mostly loving his food (when he’s not feeling a bit poorly) and I think you can see how much he had enjoyed his spaghetti bolognese.

And although Toby perhaps spends a bit too much time on the tablet some days I love how much he focuses and concentrates on it. I think he was reading a Clangers story on the CBeebies Storytime app here.

Toby Goes Bananas

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