Our gorgeous boy is 20 months old today! It’s been a joy spending extra time with him over the last few weeks for Christmas etc… It will be a struggle going back to work tomorrow!
Development
The main thing that’s changed since the last update is his vocabulary, not that I was ever worried that he was behind but his language has come on a long way… At the moment he seems to say a new word every day… Some of his new words are toast, cheese, please, bus, car, bath, water, shoes, up, down, all gone….
He can recognise animals in books, and he can do animal noises eg if you ask him what noise a lion makes, he roars… So cute!
He’s still going through a sorting/ordering phase. His favourite thing is lining up cats, all facing the same way… Then moving them to another spot… All in the same order, facing the same way! He literally spent all of Boxing Day doing this!
Behaviour
After the last update I wrote, possibly because of the croup, he became really clingy to his dad. He’d scream if he left the room and followed him everywhere. Thankfully he seems to have moved on from this, and generally he’s had a calm, well-behaved month… He still pulls the occasional tantrum but usually when he’s tired.
Routine, health etc
After the last update we also hit a few weeks of sleep regression where he was waking a few times a night eg midnight and 3am. Again this seems to have gone and we’re back to sleeping through from 7pm to 5-6am.
He still has a 2 hour nap, usually about noon. Sometimes earlier, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer.
A couple of weeks ago he had a bit of a dicky tummy and we had some horrible diarhea nappies, even though he seemed fine in himself. This settled and in the last week or so he hasn’t stopped eating! He loves toast, banana, cheese, pasta, pizza, ham, grapes, oranges, apples…,
And he still loves drinking water, I’ve still not given him any squash/watered down juice yet… He gets plenty of sugar from the little pieces of chocolate his dad sneaks him 😉
Oh he also loves feeding himself yoghurt.
Speaking of sugary treats, I still don’t know if all his teeth are through and still haven’t taken him to a dentist! Bad mum but he does love brushing his teeth twice a day 🙂
Other things we need to start thinking about as well as registering with a dentist are:
-potty training – not saying he’s ready yet, but he does tell us when he’s having a pee or poo, so I might get a potty soon just for him to get familiar with it
– a proper bed – he’s climbed out of his cot bed once in anger (in the sleep regression phase I mentioned)
What we’ve been up to
The weather’s been so awful lately that we haven’t had as many nice walks as we’d have liked. We’ve tried out a few more soft plays! Christmas was nice, he was spoiled with cars and car garages… And a smart trike… And so many toys!
Forgive me readers, I haven’t written one of these updates for a few months now but last week our big boy hit his 18 month milestone 🙂
Vital statsÂ
The health visitor came to do a home visit to check in on him, first time we’d seen her in a year! She was very happy with his progress as he was babbling away to her and trying to share his toys with her!
He weighed 26lbs/11kg which puts him in the 75th percentile which I was quite surprised about as he seems so small to me, compared to others of his age! We wanted to measure his height but surprise surprise he wouldn’t stand still for it!
His shoe size is now 5G… And I think he has 16 teeth… Only 4 to go til teething is behind us!!
Nappies: size 5
Clothes: 12-18 months, some things are getting a bit tight so will start getting the next size up now
Routine: wakes 6am ish, breakfast an hour or so later, snacks/meals every couple of hours… Still naps for 2 hours (bliss!!) from 12-2….. Dinner at 5, bath at 6, in bed by 7….. The only bottle of milk he has is before bed…. 9 times out of 10 he sleeps through 🙂
Health
Well after a run of very good health apart from teething and the odd cold, we were hit hard last week by a bout of croup… When a cough had turned into a bark and he was struggling to breathe at 2am we phoned NHS direct and they phoned an ambulance so we had our first trip to A&E!
They gave him steroids which started working pretty quickly, we were home a couple of hours later and he was fully back to normal within a few days… Phew!
Development
As you know, he’s been running around for many months so the most recent developments have been his language… He babbles a lot, enjoys conversations, understands a lot of instructions (eg if you ask him to fetch something, or put something away) and knows about 10 words… Mama, dada, puss, banana, go, car, yeah, ummm, no, bye… And his favourite word… More! (Need to teach him some Welsh words now :))
He’s showing signs of knowing when he’s peeing, I mentioned it to the health visitor who said we could potty training but if you start this early it can take longer…. So I think we’ll wait a while!
Personality
He’s still very much the fearless, independent, confident little boy he’s always been. Not much phases him, fine with big crowds, goes straight up to dogs (aaargghh!) and jumps off anything (aaargghh!)!
He’s always on the go, very rarely sits still. I’m always in amazement when parents with similar aged toddlers post photos on their Facebook of them snuggled on the sofa watching a movie… Never happens in this house!!
He’s usually happy and loves life but my God has he also started having tantrums, which can include head butting walls/floors etc! Managing those is our current parenting challenge 🙂
Loves
Stories at bedtime… Julia Donaldson books among others
fave TV show: Bananas in Pyjamas
fave food: still cheesy pasta, also loves fish fingers and beans
fave snack: banana
fave cuddly toy: tigger
He loves being outdoors and we were blessed with beautiful autumnal weather over the last few months… So lots of trips to the park etc… Shame winter is now here 😦
We recently spent 7 nights at the lovely Bluestone resort with our 17 month old. If you’re heading there with your toddler here’s some of the things you can get up to…
1 – Swim/paddle in the Blue Lagoon
Staying at Bluestone gives you free entry to their swimming pool complex, the blue lagoon. Most mornings we tried to head there for the 9am opening, and W loved it. He would wander as far into the main pool as he could, and then keep running back to the toddler pool where he could steer his ship and explore the ‘rock pools’ – brilliant place, and nice spacious family changing areas too!
2 – Circus soft play
W loved this too, a big playroom in the Adventure centre. Plenty to keep them occupied from a push along train/roller coaster thing, to bubbles, to little teepees, really great and again free to use!
3 – the rest of the Adventure centre
We didn’t really use this as much as it’s better for slightly older kids, but your toddler could use the softplay on the ground floor too, ball pools and a bouncy castle!
4 – throw stones into the stream down at Camp Smokey
This is an outdoor eating place in a little valley, but we actually wondered down there for a walk when it was closed so eerily had the place to ourselves… And precious memories were made with dad showing W how to throw stones into the stream… So cute!
5 – a dinner show at the Wild wood cafe
We loved this, we paid about £20? £25? for the ‘shelby snail’ dinner which involved a lovely fairy telling stories, a platter of food and a chance to meet, and have photos with, the character of the show which in our case was Shelby snail! And we loved that it was an early dinner… Running from 4.30-6pm with food brought out about 5.15 – perfect for us!
6 – eat out at the Farmhouse Grill or Knight’s tavern
We had a meal at the pub, the Knights tavern, which was ok but we much preferred the Farmhouse grill. We had the Sunday carvery there and a mid-week dinner, the food and service was great both times with 2 added bonuses for toddlers.. A fab little indoor play area, and they start serving dinner at 4.30pm!
Tenby half lobster at the farmhouse grill
7 РBook them into the cr̬che
We used the creche a couple of times and found it great, good staff and facilities, when we went to pick W up he was having a whale of a time! It cost £24 for 3 hours and seems to be on every few days.
8 – go to the Spa while they’re in the creche!
The spa is fab… A big outdoor jacuzzi, 2 saunas, 2 steam rooms, a salt room, and an ice room. Very relaxing 🙂
9 – try one of the toddler classes
We went to a toddler sensory class, which was £7 for an hour. Half an hour of that is ‘free play’ in the free-to-use circus room which I thought was a bit cheeky… The second half was fun though, singing and dancing (the adults… While all the toddlers were running off in all directions!)
They run a few messy play sessions that we missed, would like to check them out next time!
10 – Carew inn
Just a few miles away from Bluestone, we stumbled upon a lovely pub called the Carew inn. Good food, good value, and lovely, helpful staff… Oh and it has this fab outdoor play area….
11 – Carew castle
Just across the road from the pub is a beautiful, derelict castle. Entry was £5 each per adult and W loved running around these magical, eerie grounds with lovely views across an estuary.
Carew castle
12 – a day trip to Tenby
We went to Tenby a couple of times during our week there, I hadn’t been for a few years and had forgotten how lovely it is (especially off-peak!)
We found a cute little park overlooking South Beach (the park with best views ever!) and had a nice cuppa tea in the lovely cafe/bar/restaurant on South beach… after a run around on the sand!
Hope you find this useful if you’re heading to Bluestone… If you’ve already been, what did you and your toddler get up to?!
Small print: unlike most bloggers, I paid for our trip to Bluestone and opinions are my own 🙂
I mentioned in my last post that at the age of 16 months, we finally got W’s hair cut.
Why ‘finally’?!
Well ‘people’ have been suggesting I get it cut since he was about 6 months old! His hair grew quickly so by the time he was 1 he was already looking much like a little surfer dude…
Long-haired boy
I was loving this look, rats tails and all but in a heated moment of madness while he was in the bath, I decided to trim those mullet rat tails but the leave the rest.
Of course, when we got up the next day I realised that I’d totally messed up the back of his head and decided I’d prefer to cut it all off than look at my failed barber attempt every day. An emergency appointment followed, he did really well sitting down for his cut and only cried when the hair around his ears was being trimmed! Weeks later I have grown to love his new cut. He does look more grown-up, he looks totally different. I do miss his long locks though and hope they grow back soon.
He got mistaken for a girl quite a few times pre-haircut, but that didn’t bother me at all! I don’t dress him in the most masculine of clothes (follows his mum with Breton stripe tops, mustard leggings and the like) and he still plays with pink toys, but post-haircut he hadn’t been mistaken for a girl once.
I’m kinda bittersweet about it. Proud of my gorgeous boy looking all grown-up. But sad that society thinks he should have short hair, and that longer hair is a girly thing. Isn’t it a bit sad that we’re already judging them and defining them at such a young age?! Isn’t it a bit boring conforming to norms? Surely this is EXACTLY the age where it shouldn’t matter what he looks like? He has a lifetime of school, work and life’s norms and rules to conform to… So for now, could we let him be? And let his hair be wild and free?!
I’ll write a whole other post about it, but I had to get W’s haircut for the first time. There was nowhere else I would think of going other than Funky little chickens… I’d gone there for our baby massage classes and been well impressed with the  cars to sit in and dvd’s to watch, to keep the little ones distracted while they get their chopped off!
Since then they’ve set up shop in Cafe junior, Roath so I thought we’d kill two birds and try both!
Firstly I was mega impressed than when I phoned on a Friday afternoon they could fit W in at 0920 the next morning… A perfect time for us as we’ve already been up a couple of hours… And the traffic/parking is dead quiet at that time!!
I can’t remember the hairdresser’s name but she was lovely… She got straight to the task in a no-nonsense kind of way but she was very caring and great with W too.
He LOVED the car and it made him so happy that it took him several minutes to realise that something was happening to his hair!
The haircut was all done in about 10-15 mins. I think it normally costs £8 but of course I got carried away and spent the £4 for a certificate and lock of hair in a box! As well as a great product and service, I do love their branding and little touches!
So, haircut done and this gave us free access to Cafe junior, a cafe/softplay that also opens as a family-friendly bistro in the evenings. I’d wanted to try this place out a lot when I was on maternity leave but the parking in Roath put me off every time!
But here we were, we finally made it! We were the first ones in that morning so W loved having the run off the place while me and the other half were able to have coffee/brekkie on a comfy sofa… Very relaxing atmosphere with even relaxing music being played!
I loved it… Totally different to the bigger softplay places that can feel a bit claustrophobic and loud. Cafe junior has high ceilings and a very, light airy feel.
Cafe junior
I’d take a punt and say it was the most middle-class place of its kind in Cardiff. While we were there, Â some dads met for breakfast/toddler play dates (never seen that before!) a well-to-do French lady and smart Italian man (not together!) enjoyed a coffee while watching over their kids.
It makes a refreshing change that you can sit comfily and even if your little one is ever so slightly out of sight, you know they’re fine… No hoards of big kids trampling over them, no ‘big kid’ equipment that they’re trying to clamber over… Just lots of excellent toddler toys… Wendy houses and the like.
I wonder how busy this place gets on a Saturday afternoon? We’ll definitely be back on a Saturday morning again, hopefully before his next haircut which could be another 16 months away 😉
small print: I wasn’t asked, or paid, to write this.. Just wanted to share our experience with you!
As you know, Baby W has been walking properly for about 6 weeks now. Since he started moving around (crawling and pulling himself up) I never put any shoes or booties on him so that they didn’t get in the way of his development but now he’d been walking for a while it really was time to get him shoes… as walking outside in socks is a little dangerous 😉
So on my week off last week I had the chance to take him to Clarks… where else would you go for that special first pair?! They have such a good reputation for baby and children’s shoes – I remember going there for all my school shoes when I was a little girl.
First shoes from Clarks
The experience itself was a bit underwhelming – I was expecting all the sales assistants to be as excited as me about getting his first, proper, pair of shoes… but of course they deal with this day in, day out – it must get a bit boring 😉
But I was still excited…. he got measured while he sat in his pushchair.. and he’s a 4F!
Now, I hadn’t anticipated how expensive baby shoes were, but thankfully Clarks had a sale on… I picked the only pair of 4F’s they had in the sale which worked out well as I love them! And they were down from £26 to £8!
Baby W’s first shoes from Clarks
I put them on him straight away…. and straight away he learnt how to take them off. I didn’t think this was going to go well at all, but I took him straight up to the park so he could run around in them… and run around he did 🙂 It didn’t take him long to get used to them at all, they didn’t hinder his walking at all…
Toddling around Aberystwyth castle in his first shoes!
A week on and he still wears them when we’re out and about. Bonus points for being able to actually hear him walk about now – stomp, stomp, stomp! And he still tries to take them off when he’s sat in his pushchair or car seat!
As the sale was such a bargain, I got a couple of pairs in the next size up (4 1/2 F) – I don’t love these as much as his first pair but they are still cute…..
Bargains from the Clarks sale – £16 down to £10Clarks sale shoes – £18 down to £9
Not sure when he’ll wear those – it’s recommended they get measured around every 8-10 weeks. Hopefully the next shoe shop will co-incide with another sale – I do love a bargain!
My little baby is growing up fast!
Do you remember your baby’s first shoes?!
Small print: I wasn’t paid to, or asked to, write this by Clarks – just wanted to share our special first pair of shoes with you 🙂
Travelling abroad for a week with a one-year-old….
I’m a laid-back ex-backpacker. I used to travel light and ‘wing it’. I don’t think I’ve ever been so stressed as I was in the run-up to baby W’s first foreign holiday a month ago… so I thought I’d try and share everything with you, to hopefully ease your pain and stress!!
Deciding where to go
Ok, you’ve agreed you *need* a week abroad – well, what next? Here’s how we decided on our destination:
We wanted to fly (not drive to Europe)- we were happy to fly from Cardiff, Bristol or Birmingham
We didn’t want the flight to be longer than 2 hours-ish
This also meant the temperature should be ok – mid-20’s
The flight times had to try and work within baby W’s schedule – we didn’t want any evening/late night/ridiculous early morning flights
These options basically led to mainland Spain or the Balearic islands (Majorca/Menorca/Ibiza)
Then we had to decide whether we wanted a hotel (various board types) or self-catering (‘aparthotels’ or villas) – think about what your evenings will be like – do you need more than 1 room? (we did ok with ours but an extra room would have been nice!)
We didn’t want the accommodation to be on its own, in the middle of nowhere – we wanted a beach within walking distance and ideally a couple of bars/restaurants/shops – but we didn’t really want to be in a big, busy resort
Transfer times – if you’re flying, how far is the accommodation from the airport?
Can you see yet why I was getting stressed?!
After looking at various flight-only options vs package holidays, we decided we wanted a hotel…. obviously you will have an overall budget that you need to work to
then we decided we needed a hotel with a crèche so that mummy and daddy could have a few hours off!
So with the holiday booked a month before we were going… what was our…
Pre-holiday checklist
Make sure your passports are up-to-date and make sure baby has his/her own!
Make sure everyone has a free EHIC card – this entitles you to free healthcare within Europe – the official link is here, avoid any sites trying to charge you!
Even if you have an EHIC card, make sure you have travel insurance – in case your holiday gets cancelled, or they lose your luggage etc – I have a family policy free with my bank account but you can get it cheap enough from sites like Confused.com
If you need to, organise your airport parking – always cheaper to do it in advance. We went out of our way to fly from Birmingham as it was cheaper and the flight times were better – the money we saved meant we could spend a night up there before we flew- read about the Novotel stay and park deal  – remember that you will have a baby and extra luggage with you – we realised convenience of things like parking were more important to us than before, so you could even plump for a ‘meet and greet’ service?!
If you have pets like we do, don’t forget to organise a pet sitterÂ
Oh and don’t forget to give your nursery/childminder enough notice so that they don’t charge you 😉
Packing checklist for your baby’s foreign holiday!
So I went a bit overboard here – I envisaged us being so busy that baby W would need 2 or 3 change of clothes a day and lots more nappies than usual. In the end we took way too much (because he slept so much – we’ll come on to that!) but in a nutshell I packed for him:
2 outfits a day (t-shirts and shorts)
about 9 babygros/vests
9 sleepsuits (we didn’t end up using any of these as it was too hot at night for him!)
a pack of day nappies (I think there’s 31 in a pack)
10 night nappies
14 swim nappies (we used about 3 of these!)
Nappy bags
2 baby bath towels
4 packs of wet wipes
his teething essentials – Calpol, Nurofen, Anbesol
a handful of bibs and socks
his Tommee tippee bottles and sippy cups
washing-up liquid (in a travel size bottle, so no leakage!), tea towel and bottle brush
his bathing essentials – bubble bath, shampoo, bath toys, toothbrush and toothpaste
baby powder – I’d never used this but heard it was good for getting sand off babies – it’s true!!
3 x swim costumes (all UV50 protection)
1 swim towel
2 x sleeping bags (1.5 tog but we could have done with a 0.5 tog)
his bedtime essentials – comforter, sheepskin, couple of favourite blankets
Black-out blind (didn’t need it)
a buggy (ended up having to borrow one from the hotel as we’d forgotten the sun visor thing)
Snooze-shade – absolutely great product to safely cover your baby so he can nap in the buggy out of sun’s harm!
Baby carrier (Baby bjorn)
SPF50 – some quick-dry stuff
Sunglasses and sun hats (even though I knew he wouldn’t wear them – just pulls them off!)
half-packed suitcase for our baby!
Here’s a link to his holiday wardrobe –  I bought a lot of new (but generally cheap) stuff (I needed to stock up on his next size up anyway) to take with us as I couldn’t bear the thought of needing to do laundry on our first day back lol, and it meant I could start packing early.
Part of his holiday wardrobe!
I think I only forgot two thing which would have been quite handy:
his thermometer
some muslin sheets which we could have soaked and used them to cool him down
In the end, like I said, I took way too much – but I had heard things like ‘they don’t sell pampers in Spain’ – I was even worried that they wouldn’t sell normal cow’s milk!!! As it worked out, the supermarket opposite our hotel sold Pampers, Ella’s kitchen food sachets – the works – but I guess it’s better to be safe than sorry?!
Hand luggage
Neither me or my other half had anything in our hand luggage for ourselves (apart from money, passports etc!) – it was all stuff to keep him busy on the journey (and when we got there) so we had:
Bottles (for milk and water)
Snacks – raisins, baby crisps, bananas
Books – his favourite 2 plus  new ones I’d borrowed from the library
Wet wipes
Couple of nappies and nappy bags
His comforter an favourite blanket
Couple of small toys e.g. his toy tablet
A few change of clothes (for all temperatures – I didn’t know if he’d get cold on the plane! He didn’t!)
We both used soft bags, so we could stuff them underneath the seats in front – easier than needing something from the overhead compartment when the seatbelt sign is on!
And we split everything between the bags e.g. pack of wet wipes one, just in case one of us wandered off with a bag!
The airport – some tips
So I was dreading this part – our flight was at 7am so we needed to be there about 4.30am – even though we were staying right opposite and figured we’d be early, there was already a huge queue!
So, we paid about £10 each to go ‘priority’ – this meant we could jump the check-in queue, security queue and our luggage would be first off – money well spent for us!
we checked our buggy in at check-in and carried him in the carrier – but you can take the buggy with you right up to the gate (so have a think about logistics, what if they fall asleep in the buggy etc?)
Now, I knew at security that they would let you take formula milk through – but I had no idea about cow’s milk?! Well they do let you take baby bottles full of the stuff, so we filled ours up at the security desk (so now you know, you can do it in advance)
Don’t forget your bottle insulators to keep the milk fresh for a couple of hours!
After security we headed straight to the comfort of the airport lounge – another perk that I have with a bank account. I’m not sure how much these cost as a ‘day pass’ but if I were you I’d seriously consider it – you’re guaranteed somewhere comfy to sit and you help yourselves to hot/cold/alcoholic drinks and snacks (bacon rolls in our case!) – so when you add up how much you might spend at an airport it could be a good deal?
We started giving baby W his milk in the lounge, hoping he’d fall asleep but he was still wide awake when we got on to the plane, which is what I was dreading the most!…..
The flight – with a one-year-old!
Lots of people had said that giving your baby a bottle for take-off/landing was a good idea as it helps with their ears popping. This seemed to work a treat for baby W, plus he eventually entered his usual milk coma not long after take-off and slept on his dad’s lap for a good hour (so half of the flight). The other half was taken up with a walk up and down the aisle, and using all the toys and treats from the hand luggage to keep him entertained.
He wasn’t happy about sitting still for landing, but at least it’s only about 10 minutes of moaning 😉
We had transfers included in our package holiday but we could see from the website that it could take up to 90 minutes (because of all the drop-offs etc) so we figured we’d speak to a rep when we arrived and pay for a taxi (30 euros, 30 minutes) if it was really going to take 90 minutes.
Well, we had a lovely surprise on arrival – because our holiday was with Thomson but our flights were with Thomas Cook, we were in a minority and so the Thomson rep gave us a taxi slip and we got a free taxi to our hotel, instead of getting a bus 🙂
The taxi ride ended up being the hardest part of the day – baby W having to sit on our lap for 25-30 minutes. It was hot. He’d had a nap but hadn’t slept as long as usual, so he was grouchy and basically wanted to be on the move – he’d sat down for way too long by this point! So he cried and moaned most of the way and nothing would distract him but we got there in the end!
So have a think about how long your transfer might be on a bus etc. Our luggage came off early (as we’d paid for priority) but in hindsight, it might have done baby W some good to run around and burn some energy in the airport before we jumped into the cab….
We didn’t take a car seat with us for the transfer – he just sat on our laps which is legal apparently. But I’m pretty sure most airlines let you take a car seat (as well as the buggy) with you if you want – obviously check with your airline. If you’re hiring a car then obviously this would be handy otherwise you’ll have to pay to hire one over there. If you’ve got a bus transfer then you might be able to belt it in but not sure if they fit – if we’d have had a bus transfer he would have been on our lap for that too. Just something else to consider I guess!
On holiday – our new routine
We expected the weather to be about 20-25 degrees, but we arrived during a heatwave and for the whole week the temperature was 30-32 degrees! This was tough and basically baby W was not himself for the week, which I think was a combination of the heat but also teething (his back teeth were coming through). It wasn’t too bad, he was ok and did have some fun, he just wasn’t his usual, happy self.
Within a day we’d fallen into a new routine, we all know how much babies/toddlers love a routine – I’ve shared ours below, but you will of course find your own routine – I guess the point is, that your baby/toddler might be very different on holiday to at home so be prepared for that in case you were hoping to do excursions, go out at night etc!
6am – wake-up!
6.30am – 8am – play-time (softplay/wendy house area) or one morning we went to the beach (the swimming pool didn’t open til 9ish I think)
baby W early morning play
8am – breakfast
8.30-10 – walk and a nap – we’d have a lovely walk along the sea, and after a while we’d zip up the snoozeshade (turned out to be a holiday essential!)Â and baby W would have a 30-45 minute nap
10-12 Рbaby W went into cr̬che 3 mornings, played with us the other 3 mornings. As I said in the post about the hotel, the cr̬che was brilliant and meant we had a little break from him (and most importantly, he loved it!)
12-1 soft-play!
1 – lunch
1.30 – 3.30/4 – nap time. Before holidays he’d cut right down on his afternoon nap but the teething/heat combo meant he basically slept all afternoon, every afternoon! This worked out great as daddy caught up with sleep and mummy caught up with sunbathing and reading books!
4-6 playtime – swimming/softplay
6.15 – dinner!
6.45-7 bath, bottle, bed for baby W – we tried to stick to him home routine as much as possible here.
One night we tried taking him out, asleep, in the pushchair, so we could enjoy a sunset drink, but he stirred too much for our liking, so every night we’d just sit on the balcony with beers and books instead! A couple of nights my other half went to watch the footie, which was fine with me – we’d be in bed for 9.30-10 anyway!
Our flight home was at 1pm, so it was a nice time to travel. The taxi transfer was less stressful this time, but baby W was a bit grouchy in the airport and we had to queue a fair bit – we didn’t have the cash for priority queue-jumping here, and there was no airport lounge in menorca airport!
A bit of milk on the plane, and baby W then slept for most of the flight this time! Picked up our luggage, a trolley is a must as of course you have an extra suitcase, transfer bus to the car park and eventually home sweet home!
Summary
Holidaying with a 13 month old is great fun, but does need a bit more planning and preparation than usual! If you choose the right place for you and settle into a new routine, you can all have rest and some fun 🙂
I hope I thought of everything, and hope you found this useful – if you did, I’d love it if you could share it with your friends and peers on Facebook/Twitter! (And if you want to follow me, I’m @yummyblogger on Twitter) and if I missed anything, please do leave a comment!
I have 2 dilemmas – now that baby W is over a year old, should I be calling him toddler W?! It doesn’t have the same ring to it…. the other dilemma, well I was wondering whether to carry on with these monthly updates after a year but he’s developed loads in the last month so yes I will carry on haha!
New developments
So I told you the day after his birthday, he took a few steps – well a month later and he is proper walking, a lot! The last week has been so much fun watching him, we all get so excited!!!
He’s tries to use his fork and spoon now – I haven’t been trying to teach him this so not sure if he’s got it from copying me, or whether it’s something he’s picked up from the childminder… either way, it’s very cute and grown-up but it does mean he’s eating less food as not much food is making it on the full journey from table to cutlery to mouth!
He brushes his own teeth now! (with a little help from mummy/daddy)
I should have stuck with baby signing – I hardly do any with him now but the one baby sign he has learnt over the last month or so is ‘all gone’ – so he loves dropping things (especially food) and then looking at me with his big eyes and opens hands to an ‘all gone’ gesture! the cheeky little monkey 😉
He knows which buttons to press on the remote control to turn the TV on!!
If I’m in the room with him and the TV isn’t on, he hands me the remote for me to switch it on (both signs that we watch way too much background TV!!)
A few days ago he pointed at me through the window and said ‘mama‘ – melted my heart!
Blows on hot food with a ‘frrrr‘ sound, again copying what I do!
He can climb up to, and get on, the sofa – eek!
Watching TV while walking!
So yeah it’s been a busy month!
Jabs, health, routine etc
Baby W had his 1 year jabs and then a week later seemed to suffer from side-effects including a rash – but it co-incided with teething with his first canine (tooth #9) trying to come through – so we all had a tough few days, poor thing!
Other than that, all good – still not had him weighed. He’s outgrowing most of his 9-12 month clothes, but everything 12-18 months seems massive on him!
He’s still on milk first thing and last thing every day, and we’ve got into a bad habit at home of giving him milk with his naps.
It’s funny, he’s dropped his afternoon naps at the childminders, and yet on the Fridays he’s at home with me, he has 2 really long naps – I think she tires him out and then Friday is his chill-out day!
Apart from the teething, still a trooper at sleeping through from about 6pm to 6am (sometimes a bit earlier, but can’t really complain!)
Making a right mess in the library!
Other news
This momma was fortunate enough to go on a fab hen weekend a few weeks ago, 18 girls in one HUGE house called New Yatt farm in Oxfordshire – check it out here, it was amazing! 2 nights in with good friends, lots of booze… and a hunk in trunks.. and we went punting and disco dancing, it was ace – just what the doctor ordered although I was absolutely drained the week before and after – really need our holiday now!
In other news we need to find a new childminder as ours is moving out of the area – gutted 😦
Thanks for calling by, see you same time next month! xx
What did you do with your baby’s clothes once they’d grown out of them? Here’s some ideas in case you don’t know what to do with them!
what to do with outgrown baby clothes…
1. Keep them for baby no.2 and/or sentimental reasons – I’ve kept a few bags of my favourite items for baby no.2 – and if we don’t have baby no.2 then I will probably keep most of them for sentimental purposes – will be funny to look at them in a few years time when baby W is all grown-up! I haven’t kept all of baby W’s clothes as we don’t have the space, and some were so cheap we will just top-up for baby no.2
2. Turn your favourite items into a keepsake – we haven’t done this yet but we will at some point as I love the idea- you can turn their favourite babygrows into a keepsake – like a lion or elephant! They cost £25 and the same lady also does blankets (from £60) and cushions (£35)
I’ve also seen yummy crafty mummies change babygrows into bunting – I love this idea too but I am not crafty so luckily – I’m sure you could pay someone to do it for you 🙂
3. Pass them on to family/friends – we were lucky to benefit from lots of hand-me-downs, I haven’t really had anyone to pass mine on to apart from a couple of nice items I’ve given to colleagues…. if you have anyone to pass yours on to, you’ll be saving them a potential small fortune 🙂
4. Donate them to your local maternity ward – when I was wondering what to do with the load of newborn/0-3 month babygrows and hats we had, colleague and fellow blogger Emily suggested this idea to me. As her twins had spent some time in special care, she’d unfortunately seen other babies who didn’t have anything to wear 😦 I’ve also heard that, in special care, the hospital supplies the clothes (maybe due to infection risk??), either way when I donated a couple of bags worth, they were delighted to receive them 🙂
5. Donate them to a ‘mother and baby’ hostel – another way I tried to help mummies in need in the area was by donating a load of our 3-9 month old clothes to a local hostel, along with some of my clothes and some nappies we’d grown out of. Again, they were really thankful as a lot of these women are young mums who have had really tough lives…. so maybe see if there’s one in your local area you can donate to?
6. Donate them to schemes like NCT – some NCT groups run a ‘baby bundle’ scheme where they give mums in need a pack of baby clothes made up from donations. High street store JoJo MamanLeBeBe were doing something similar with Barnado’s but I think that scheme is finished now.
7. Donate them to a charity shop – if numbers 4-6 are too much hassle but you still want to pass them on to someone who’s more in need then you, then dropping them off at a charity shop makes for an easy option! Some will even pick them up from your house (watch out for bogus charities doing that though!) Again, I’m sure charities will be very thankful for your donations, but I preferred doing 4/5/6 so I knew they were going directly to someone in need, whereas a lot of charity shop goodies are snaffled up by pro-eBay sellers and sold on. (Still great for the charity of course!)
8. Sell them! Now, I haven’t tried this – way too much effort for me as most of the stuff that could have raised a few quid I’ve saved (see #1) but obviously if you want to make some money (or recoup the money you spent!!) then there are loads of ways of doing this like selling them individually or in bundles on eBay, local Facebook buying and selling groups, NCT nearly new sales, car boot sales etc.
9. Exchange them for H&M vouchers! Apart from all the charitable donations, this has to be my favourite tip… if you take a shopping bag’s worth of clothes into H&M, they will give you a £5 voucher to spend in-store! If you read my tips for new parents, you’ll know that rain gets out stains – but for the ripped/stained/bobbly-beyond repair stuff that would be no good for tips 1-8 above, then take them to H&M!
They don’t check what’s in the bag, and even if they did I don’t think they’d care – whatever can’t be donated or re-used is recycled – read more about it here – I think it’s an excellent scheme as I hate the thought of any clothes (especially baby clothes!) ending up in landfill!
And I guess that was the aim of this post – I hate the thought of this stuff going to landfill, especially when there are probably some women in your area who would really appreciate your help! I hope this has inspired you to make a difference – if you found it useful, please share it on Facebook/Twitter, thanks!
We made it! Our beautiful baby boy turned one year old last weekend – wow!!
The big day
Months ago, we had already decided to spend his birthday up at my parents’ in Mid Wales. Unfortunately my dad passed away a few weeks ago, but we stuck with our plans and we think he was watching over us on the big day….
1st birthday cards
We woke at 6 (standard!) and opened some cards and presents, played around then about noon we headed over to Fantasy Farm – I might write a review if I get a chance but in a nutshell we had a great time – it was the first time we’d taken baby W to a farm park and he loved seeing and touching all the animals – cute little kids, lambs and rabbits. We had a ride on a trailer and we also had a sunday carvery there which baby W enjoyed!
Meeting the lambs at Fantasy farm
When we got back in the afternoon, I gave him some chocolate cake for the first time (as he got teeth so early I try and be really careful with his sugar intake – it’s the one thing I’m strict about!) and he wolfed it down – never seen anything disappear so quickly!
He had lots of lovely cards and presents – clothes, toys, books, money – but I think his favourite present was this scooter that my sister bought him from notonthehighstreet – I love it, so retro! And he laughs when he’s being pushed around on it 🙂 We knew he’d get lots of presents so we only bought him a little ball pool – something he loves at the childminder’s house but of course he hardly goes in his new one at home :p
Cool scooter from notonthehighstreet
Progress updates
Since the last update I wrote 2 months ago, baby W has got faster and more confident with crawling, and has been standing and pulling himself on everything – we still haven’t baby-proofed the house properly which we need to do as he’s in doors and drawers all the time!
It’s amazing watching him grow – every week he can reach something new, higher up!
And some big news… the morning after his birthday, he took a couple of steps! He’s done it once since at the childminder’s too – he’s a big boy now!
He’s getting more chatty – babbles a lot, and still says ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ a lot although I’m still not convinced he knows what they mean! He’s started copying sounds a lot – it’s great fun chatting to him 🙂
Health, eating and drinking
Still haven’t had him weighed (it’s been about 6 months now!) but he’ll be having his jabs (and I guess his 12 month update?) soon so we’ll see how much he weighs then but I’m not worried – he’s mostly in 9-12 month old clothing, and size 4 nappies.
To celebrate his birthday we switched over to whole milk and he took to it straight away – good boy! He still has quite a lot of milk which I am trying to cut down on but again, not too worried. He has a bottle when he wakes up (about 6am) and he loves having another bottle a few hours later before his morning nap (about 9am). Then he can usually get through the day without it til his bottle before bed (about 6pm) but if he’s really grouchy in the afternoon, a little bit of milk can help us all out 🙂
Something else I’m aware I need to do is get him to stop using bottles. He enjoys drinking water (hooray!) out of various sippy cups/beakers, but still has milk in a bottle which at some point I should try and change…..
He generally eats well – loves pasta, fish, chicken, yoghurt and cheese. Doesn’t really like fruit or veg so much so I sneak veg into pasta sauces, and fruit purees into yoghurt. As we went down the baby-led weaning route, he still makes quite a lot of mess and enjoys throwing half of his food but he eats the other half so I’m happy!
For some reason (I let her carry on, despite telling her numerous times she didn’t need to!) the childminder always blends/purees his food – and now she’s wondering why he won’t eat any solid food there (even pasta, which is fave at home!)- I think she’s created a rod for her own back 😉
Personality, likes and dislikes
He’s generally a happy chappy – great with people, but also quite independent – happy by himself! He’s started having mini tantrums if he doesn’t get his own way (e.g. if we take something off him that he shouldn’t be playing with) – will cry until he’s quickly distracted by something else! He’s adventurous, fearless and always on the move – does not sit still for long!
Escaping from a Messy Madness class
Likes
Trips to the park to play on slides and swings
Opening and closing cupboard doors
Playing with coasters, keys and remote controls (who needs toys?!)
Dancing to music and cartoons
Watching the washing machine and trying to press all the buttons 🙂
Pushing his walker around
Washing machines – best thing ever!
Dislikes
Not getting his own way
Being dressed/nappy changes – this can be quite hard work, I try and make it as fun as poss!
That’s everything I can think of for now, we’re hoping to have our first foreign family holiday over the next month, and of course we’ll have the dreaded 1 year jabs – wish us luck!
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