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How much does a baby cost in the first six months?

As we’ve hit the 6 month mark and I start preparing to go back to work, it’s got me thinking about money – I haven’t been totting up how much we’ve spent on baby W as we go so though I’d try and remember it all and probably give myself a heart attack in the process…

Nursery

Cot bed – Mothercare summer oak – £160

Chest of drawers/changing unit – Mothercare Summer Oak – £200

Mattresses – £100 (1 for cot bed, 1 for moses basket)

Bedding – £20? (1 set for cot bed, 1 set for moses basket)

Wall stickers – £40

Lamp – £20

Sleeping

Gro bags – £40

Ewan the dream sheep – £40

Tranquil Turtle sleep aid – £40

Angelcare monitor – £80 (this is one of the worst decisions I made, hardly used it and now W rolls around rendering the sensor mat pointless!)

Bathtime

Bath, duck thermometer, sponge support, sponges – £40?

Hiding in the fisherprice jungle play gym!

Play-time

Fisherprice Woody friends bouncer – £30

Fisherprice rainforest playgym – £40

Fisherprice rainforest jumperoo – £70

Some Lamaze toys – £20

Snug chair – £30

Changing equipment

Changing bag – £30

Changing mat – £5

Nappies – now I reckon on average we got through a box of Pampers every month – we used more at the start when we were changing nappies every half hour, but we now only change his nappy a couple of times during the day and once at night – so I estimate we’ve spent £90 max

Baby wipes – we use Huggies pure wipes and, as with nappies, stock up on boxes during supermarket baby events – I reckon we’ve spent a max of £55 here (that’s assuming 1 box per month when actually I think we’ve used a lot less but hard to remember)

Bepanthen nappy cream – £20ish

Nappy bags – £10ish (again, we use far less of these now but when we do, I prefer the thicker, scented, more expensive ones!)

Feeding

Tommee tippee steriliser kit (inc bottles etc) – £70

Travel steriliser – £12

Breast shells – £13

Breast pads – I have no idea how much I’ve spent on these – £40?

Breast milk storage bags – again no idea – £40?

We now do combination feeding and buy ready-prepared Aptamil milk for the evening feed – I reckon about a tenner a week for the last 3 months, plus a bit more for day feeds when someone else is looking after him – £120 (ouch!!)

Weaning

3x books – £20

Bibs – £4

Highchair – not bought yet but plan to buy the Ikea one at £18

Food – as we’re doing baby-led weaning, we’re not spending any extra on food but I have bought a few other bits ‘n’ bobs e.g. baby rice, baby rice cakes etc – £5

Cutlery set and dinky cup – £10

Teething

Sophie le Giraffe x 2 (we lost 1!) – £34

Then I reckon we spent £30 on Calpol, Nurofen, Anbesol, Bonjela, teething powders and a couple of teething chewy things

Clothes

I like to think I’ve saved in this area where others might go mad!

Before baby W arrived we spent about £50 on neutral, newborn babygros etc

0-3 months – we got through purely on gifts and the stuff we bought before he was born (and it was a hot summer so he mostly lived in vests!)

3-6 months – got through on gifts, hand-me-downs from a friend and a £20 haul from an NCT nearly new sale, oh and £40 on Next sleepsuits! And a Halloween outfit for £6!

Now as he’s getting into 6-9 months, I’ve just spent £28 on a snowsuit and £13 on a Tesco outfit, £21 in Mamas and Papas, and £13 on another NCT nearly new haul.

Other

Photo shoot – we spent about £200 on a newborn photo shoot (I know it’s a lot but we bought all of the digital copies as opposed to just buying a small number!)

Classes – baby massage (£50), tinytalk sign class (£55), 20 x swimming lessons (£200) mother and baby yoga (£96 for 12 lessons)

Thank you cards – (using photos from the shoot) – £50

What we didn’t have to pay for:

Bugaboo cameleon – we bought this second-hand for £350 but our parents kindly bought it for us. Oh that’s just reminded me, I bought my other half a Babybjorn miracle carrier = £70

Moses basket and car seat were kindly lent to us by friends

Breast pumps – I was gifted a manual, and electric pump

So…… the grand total is…..

£2,518!

Does this surprise you?! Did I forget anything? How much do you think you spent in the baby’s first six months?!

Baby W and Mummy’s 7 month update

Last week baby W turned 7 months old eeeek! Before starting this draft I thought not much had changed in the last month but I guess it has….

Weight/health etc

I’ve had him weighed twice in the last month – he now weighs 16lb 8oz – every so slightly under the 25th percentile where he’s been since he was born. He now has 5 teeth! (2 more than the last update!)

He’s had a healthy-ish month apart from a lingering cough/cold that he’s had on and off for a couple of months now. Keeps coming and going (and is at its worst when he’s teething). You’ll be pleased to know that he poos 2 or 3 times a week now instead the once a week explosion he was doing 🙂

Milestones

He’s pretty good at sitting up unaided now.

Still lots of rolling and clambering around but not crawling yet.

He loves standing up (with this hands being held!) and he still loves bouncing whether being held or in his jumperoo!

Feeding and weaning

The biggest change this month has been that we started weaning. You can read our latest update here – it was going quite well until I wrote that update but since then he’s gone off his food a bit… unless it’s a finger of toast… I don’t think he’s ever refused buttery toast!

He still has 4 milk feeds a day – one first thing, one mid-morning, one mid-afternoon and one before bed (about 6.30/7pm) – still combination feeding, mostly breast but a bit of formula too 🙂

Weekly and daily routine

I’m finding our daily routine has been all over the place since we started weaning – as feeding can take an extra hour or two of our day (including prep) so has a knock-on effect on naps etc.

Our weekly routine stayed much the same as what I wrote in our last update but as we enter December, the classes and groups are coming to an end in line with the end of my maternity leave

Sleep

You’ll know that we’ve never had great sleep, well in the last month we definitely turned a corner. We had one night where baby W slept through til 5.45am! And a couple of nights he’s slept through til 4/5.

I was always against ‘sleep training’ as I thought babies will sleep through when they’re ready. However, I was also aware that baby W waking every 2-3 hours was not for hunger, it was just for comfort. Through a mix of mothering instinct, the book ‘no-cry sleep solution’ and emailing Lisa Clegg (blissful baby expert) we tried:

-giving him water instead of milk during the night

-and/or getting him back to sleep through shushing/patting him etc, then leaving him (I often find that he cries more when I’m in the room with him!)

And these have largely worked although teething and coughing get in the way quite a lot 😦

So we’re not quite there, but we’ve definitely turned a corner!

What else we’ve been up to

This month my other half was away a LOT with work, and had a work-related exam. Tough times for us all, as he was busy and stressed and missing spending time with W. And I felt like a single mum for a good few weeks – very tiring!
I had my first weekend away from baby W and survived! (actually really enjoyed it! Read about it here)
Lots of settling in sessions with the childminder, including a full day – these have gone really well, I’ve felt fine leaving him and he’s had a good time over there!
Keeping in touch days with work – I did a couple of these over the last month – was nice to catch up with everyone 🙂
Lots of autumnal walks with baby W and baby W had an underwater photoshoot!

Q&A Interview with Julie Clark (author of Baby-led weaning: step by step)

As you know, we recently started weaning and we’re going with a mostly baby-led weaning approach (with some limited spoon feeding). On our journey we bought a really useful book and by chance the author, Julie Clarke, got in touch with me on Twitter and I asked here if she’d be happy to do an interview for the blog… well here it is 🙂

How did you become an expert/interested in baby-led weaning?

This is actually quite an interesting question and my answer may surprise you! Before I had my first baby I had not even heard of BLW. Being a Nutritionist I was determined to plan and eat well before my pregnancy and during my pregnancy but then reality hit me and I found myself craving things I wouldn’t normally eat such as ham and cheese sandwiches and my perfect nutrition went out of the window. I then had the most horrendous labour ending in an emergency (& very distressing) c-section. I then struggled with breast-feeding and bonding with my baby and the vision I had of the perfect pregnancy and delivery left me feeling such a failure. I was then determined not to fail at the weaning stage and wanted to introduce my baby to a good whole food diet. It was by chance that my health visitor asked me if I’d heard of BLW. As mentioned before I had not so she simply said look it up I think it will resonate with you. Well, resonate doesn’t even begin to sum it up, it was like a light bulb moment for me and it has since changed the direction of my career. I love BLW, as a Nutritionist I obviously know what foods a baby needs as well as their nutrition requirements but using a method that encourages a good relationship with food, reduces the risk of being fussy and obesity is absolutely huge. I found that my friends with babies were asking me lots of questions and asking me for recipes and eventually they persuaded me to run a course. I guess becoming an expert in this subject comes from my experiencing with both my children, my knowledge of nutrition and the fact that I have helped 300 or more parents wean their children this way.

I’m guessing that spoon-feeding is the norm, but have you seen growing interest in baby-led weaning? if so, why do you think that is?

BLW is growing in popularity at a rapid rate. It seems to stem from the fact that we used to wean at 4 months when a baby could not feed themselves and purees/spoon feeding was used but move on 6 months and many babies are refusing to be spoon fed. At 6 months the vast majority of babies are more than ready and capable of feeding themselves. They do not want to be spoon fed and this had led many parents down the road of BLW. The method is not new but the phrase is and as more people get to know about it and see the benefits the more the word is spread. You also have people like me who are looking at ways to improve a child’s relationship with food and getting in at the weaning stage is the best possible place to start.

I’ve seen a bit of snobbery among mums who BLW, they can look down on mums who give babies puree, I would have thought they give BLW a bad name – what’s your view on this?

I have seen this myself and I do not have an issue with people spoon feeding or mixed feeding as long as they are doing the right thing for their baby. I do get frustrated when I see a Mum trying to spoon feed a baby who clearly wants to do it them self. I truly believe that if a Mum had all the facts they wouldn’t just spoon feed their baby unless there was really no other way (i.e. due to medical reasons etc). I’m on a lot of BLW groups and it does make me laugh how people can react to someone wanting to mix feed and most of the time it’s the people looking down that actually do not really understand the method. I see people say you are not doing BLW if the baby uses a spoon and only finger foods are allowed, this is completely ridiculous!

One of my friends started their baby on home-made purees, and missed the ‘gag reflex’ window so the baby is now struggling to eat ‘proper food’ – do you think there’s more that can be done to help educate new parents on weaning? If so, how? e.g. should everyone have a compulsory weaning check with their health visitor?

Yes I absolutely 100% agree that all new parents be given some nutrition and weaning education which is why my weaning course (Happy Little Eaters) is a 6 week course covering both nutrition and weaning. The biggest problem with keating this to the health visitors is that 1) there are not enough of them and they do not have the time and 2) they do not have any nutrition training!

And some more practical questions…

Baby W loves omelettes – do I need to limit how many eggs he has in a week?!

Eggs are a great food, packed full of essential fats, protein and nutrients. However, egg is one of the most common foods for babies and young children to be allergic to! There is no limit to amount of eggs you can use and babies are very clever and will only eat what they need.

When giving baby W fish I’m petrified that there will be a bone in it – do you have any tips on this or do I just need to carefully check each morsel?!

I still worry about this myself and my children are now 3 and 5 years. I always tell the fish monger (and this can be at the supermarket) that I’m giving this to young children and I need the fish to be filleted without bones. My local farmers market fish monger gets out a magnifying glass and tweezers to fillet the fish!!! Then even when I’ve cooked it I will go through it carefully before giving it my children.

Jenna from Tinyfootsteps asks: I’d like to know when 3 meals a day should be fully established? Jasmine (nearly 8 months) still only has 2 meals a day but still isn’t overly fussed about food. We are BLW.

Most babies will be having 3 meals a day around 9-10 months so it sounds like your baby is doing just fine. Remember that all babies are different though and when your baby needs 3 meals a day she will eat 3 meals a day!!

Sarah asks: Please ask Julie for meal ideas for dairy and egg allergic children. Particularly along lines of pancake and muffin type recipes. I’m at a real loss as to what to cook.

I often post up recipes on my facebook page and recently added a guide for allergy substitutions. For example you can substitute egg as a binder in recipes with mashed banana. Dairy alternatives are easy because you can use lots of different dairy free milks and spreads etc. Have a look at my page Spring Nutrition.

Hannah from hannahsays asks: Our little boy is 5 months at the beginning of December. We’re being recommended by the health visitor to keep breastfeeding up to six months and then start to wean. He’s starting to get upset at meal times because we all sit down to eat but he doesn’t get any but also if he’s on our laps rather than in his chair he tries to steal food from the plates (it’s happened once or twice on the last week or so).

We bought a high chair last week and so now at meal times we put him in the high chair so he knows “now we eat” but actually it’s not his mealtime. I give him his weaning spoons to play with rather than toys to distinguish further than now is a meal time.

When can we start and what should we start with as there seems to be mixed opinions.

Hannah you need a copy of my book!!! The recommended age for weaning is 6 months but some babies may be ready earlier. Getting him sat up with some spoons and a beaker of water is a great start. You can also give him a raw carrot to play with and gum. As soon as he is showing all of the signs – sitting up unaided, holding head up, showing interest in food then give him something to eat that he can play with and taste. At 6 months anything goes if a baby can pick it up (with the exception of honey, salt and anything processed). The best food to start with is fruit and vegetables. Try giving some steamed veg and see what he does. Do not wean earlier than 5 months though unless advised to do so on medical grounds.

So there we have it, thanks Julie for doing the interview and for some really helpful answers! If you’re interested in more about Julie, I reviewed her book here where you can also buy it, and you can follow her on facebook and Twitter

Exploring Cardiff: Street food Cardiff

I’ve been living in Cardiff for about 14 years and I think the coolest thing that’s happened to it during that time is happening now…. Street food Cardiff!

Friday night I headed down there with my sister and some of her friends and I LOVED it – they’ve basically taken over a warehouse on Dumballs road (random road, mix of industrial estates and apartments!) and filled it with pop-up food stands, bars etc…

It’s on every Friday and Saturday night between now and the end of the year. We got there for 6pm when it opens, and there was already a large queue…. as soon as we got in we walked around to choose what food we’d have. I think the food changes every night – this was the menu the night we went…

I finally got to try pulled pork from Hangfire Smokehouse which I’d heard such good things about. Only £5 for a big bap of pulled pork and slaw and it was delicious.

The queue for Hangfire Smokehouse was huge and so Burger and Lobster (who are opening soon in Cardiff) were giving away samples of their lobster roll to people in the queue – that was also delicious and a nice starter for me!

I thought I’d be able to sample a few more food stands but the pulled pork had stuffed me up like a pig so the only other thing I was able to eat was a crème brulee from the brulee bar – my sister and I shared a ‘sticky pud’ and ‘blue moon pie’ – both were great but we agreed that ‘sticky pud’ was the winner!

The place was heaving and I loved the mix of people in there – from babies to oldies with lots in between! The décor was pretty cool – lots of random things like cars on their side, tuk tuks, fairy lights oh and they were projecting movies onto the wall.

I hope to go back again over the next few weeks and try out some different food. I don’t think I’ve done the place justice with this post but I urge you to check it out – I honestly think it’s the coolest thing happening in Cardiff!

Oh and go early, when we left about 8.30pm the queue was huge and I think they were working on a 1 in, 1 out policy.

Exploring Cardiff: Rhiwbina

One of the things I said I wanted to do in my maternity bucket list was to explore parts of my city that I wasn’t that familiar with.

I had a few hours away from baby W last week, so had the opportunity to check out the lovely suburb of Rhiwbina….

I’d already been there the week before he was born for a massage and pedicure at Vanity rooms and knew there were some cute shops to look around…

So I started with lunch at the Snails deli – I went for lamb cawl (Welsh broth/soup) and it was delicious. It was a Friday lunchtime and it was jam-packed, I was lucky to get a seat at the window-facing bar so I could watch the world go by.

I loved the décor and atmosphere – rustic, friendly, bustling. I’ll definitely be back!

From there I went a few doors down to a shop called ‘Cwtsh bach’ – a very cute, little gift shop selling a lot of (but not only) Welsh and Welsh language gifts. I saw lovely felt cushions with the words ‘Mamgu’ (Grandmother) and ‘Tadcu’ (Grandfather) on them so I’ve bought those for my parents for Christmas 🙂 (similar style to the ones you can see in the photo) – PS I’ve just realised that they sell most of the stock online if you click on the link above!

On the same street (Beulah road) as the deli and Cwtsh bach, is another cute gift and card shop (Ginger White’s) they were selling local jewellery, candles and smellies and a range of other stuff.

Ginger White's, Rhiwbina — Ginger White’s, Rhiwbina

I turned the corner onto Heol-y-Deri and went to ‘Nest vintage’ – I had been to this shop before but since then they have moved into larger premises.

This is an absolutely gorgeous shop that looks very homely – they have little rooms and snugs everywhere selling everything from Cath Kidston to Orla Kiely to local Welsh goods.

I didn’t buy anything but did get some ideas which I hope to go back for before Christmas. They also had lots of Christmas decorations and it smelt lovely in there as they were burning some Christmas-selling candles…. lush!

Opposite they have opened a new shop called ‘Little Nest’ for children’s and baby gifts – lots of pretty wooden toys, felt animal heads and cute baby leggings…. I was running out of time by this point so didn’t get any pics sorry.

I did manage to pop into Victoria Fearn art gallery on the street – and cue more unique gifts and decorations – as well as some lovely art pieces!

In addition to all these gorgeous gift shops, Rhiwbina has everything else you need from a wine merchant, yoga studio, barbers, chemist, florist and I think it even had a wedding dress shop!

It also had this very cool but random bench – I would love to know why it’s been decorated in this way!

Seeing as I’m publishing this on ‘Cyber Monday’, I hope it inspires you to Shop local, and support local businesses – you really could do all your Christmas shopping in Rhiwbina – I will be popping back there this month!

Weaning – a month on – 3 meals a day, proteins and poos!

So you’ll know from our first update that we were taking things relatively slowly, I was happy to just try one meal a day for a while – we were also loosely following the #5stepweaningplan and working up to the final 2 steps of meat/alternative and then 3 meals a day.

But a week ago today, I took baby W to get weighed for the first time in about 6 weeks. At 6 and a half months, he weighed 16lb 3oz – all good but he had slipped every so slightly under the 25th percentile for the first time.

Nothing to worry about, but the health visitor suggested ramping up to 3 meals a day, and giving him some protein (meat/fish/egg) to make sure he didn’t slip down the growth chart any further. She was really happy with our initial approach to baby-led weaning but just wanted him to start actually consuming a bit more of the food instead of just nibbling on it 🙂

So, for a week now we’ve been having 3 meals a day – still very much finger-food led, but I have been spoon-feeding him a bit, when spoon-feeding him I try to guide the spoon towards his mouth and let him guide it in so that he still feels like he’s in control 🙂

So here’s some of the foods he’s had:

Finger foods

Carrots
Broccoli
Banana
Cucumber (he loves this – so easy to eat!)
Rice cakes – his favourite food so far, I started with plain ones and also tried Organix apple ones – he loves both!
Potato waffles
Hard-boiled egg
Plain omelette (SO much less messy than the hard-boiled egg!)
Pasta – plain, and with some tomato sauce on it
Avocado – he finds this too slippery to eat so I might just mash it up next time and pop it on a spoon… or on a rice cake?

On a spoon

Flakes of cod mixed with sweet potato mash, and normal mash
Yoghurt – I bought Rachel’s diary yoghurt as a) no added sugar b) they’re made in my hometown (Aberystwyth)
Baby porridge – the only thing he hasn’t really liked so far! We tried it with some puree that Cow&Gate sent us and he definitely preferred it with the puree!
A jar of lamb/sweet potato puree – due to our baby-led approach, I wasn’t going to bother with purees but seeing as we were sent some, I thought we might as well try it – we tried the meaty one to up his protein intake – and he quite liked it!
Weetabix – this is our usual breakfast

We like these Rachel's yoghurts - no added sugar! — We like these Rachel’s yoghurts – no added sugar!

Our learnings so far

Now we’re pretty much past the gagging phase, we’re enjoying it! He puts most of the food in his mouth and I can tell by his weekly poo that he’s definitely swallowing more and more – it’s starting to get more solid – gross!!!!
I think both find finger food more fun – it’s so cute watching him grab something and hold it in his fist while he munches on it – I gave him yoghurt the other day but he still had omelette in his fist which he would NOT let go!
His favourite thing so far has been Rachel’s banana yoghurt – he was kicking his legs in excitement for this one!
Our daily routine is out the window as having 3 meals a day probably takes about 2 hours of day in total (prep/eating/cleaning up)
It’s nice to give him undivided attention for that time – obviously he needs to be supervised while he’s eating so it means proper quality time where I can’t do any chores and I make a point of not checking my phone!

Baby-led weaning: I am NOT letting go of the egg!

Next steps

I need to get better at eating with him – although when I do, I’ve finished mine in 2 mins while he obviously takes ages so I’m not sure if it really matters! (well practised from when he was younger and I had to snaffle my food down!)
Meat! I want to give him meat but it seems so grown-up! Not quite sure if he’s ready for it – might practice with some more textures first??
Water – I’ve kinda given up giving him the doidy cup with every meal, but every now and then I give him some water using it and ‘directing’ it into his mouth
I’ll take him to get weighed next Thursday – hopefully he’s back on the curve 🙂

If you have any questions about baby-led weaning, I recently reviewed the ‘baby-led weaning: step by step’ book and will be interviewing the author next week – so leave a question here by Dec 1st if we can help at all!

Joined up to #BinkyLinky

REVIEW: Baby-led weaning, Step by Step by Julie Clarke

Before we started weaning, I bought a few books to help us through it as I found all the information online a bit overwhelming! We wanted to try baby-led weaning so we bought a book by Gill Rapley as a lot of peers named her as a guru. In case this route didn’t work, we’d need to try purees so I bought a book by Annabel Karmel who is known as the queen of weaning through puree recipes!

While buying these, Amazon also recommended ‘Baby-led weaning, step-by-step’ by Julie Clarke, and this ended up being the most useful book of the lot!

I found Rapley’s book very theoretical – one big, long advert on why you should do baby-led weaning (the most useful bit being lots of quotes from parents who had gone through it). But I’d already decided we wanted to do weaning the baby-led way, so I wanted something more practical on what foods to try and when etc.

This is where Julie Clarke’s baby-led weaning book excels – it’s very practical – full of advice and tips including:

which highchair to buy
which yoghurts to buy that aren’t packed in sugar
what mix of food types you should try and give your baby
an example menu schedule
ideas on which first foods to try
how and when to drop milk feeds

The other big selling point for me is that there’s a real-life case study running all the way through the book – you get to follow baby Rosie’s weaning journey – it’s always useful to hear real-life stories e.g. how they initially missed a few meals due to nap times etc (something we’re trying to work our way around!)

The chapters are split by the age of the baby, but obviously not all babies are the same and they might not follow these months religiously! Like with everything, I tend to read and then do things my own way – so for example, the book recommends starting straight away on 3 meals a day, but we wanted to start with 1 meal a day initially (check out our first weaning update) – so I’d recommend you use this book as a guide to suit you, not a rule book! We’re also doing a bit of spoon-feeding (or guiding the spoon in the right direction) and initially tried a bit of baby-specific food like baby rice – the book recommends against this but isn’t judgemental about it – again, do what suits you!

That’s all I can really say about the book without giving away all the tips! The only thing I would have liked a bit more info on is gagging – it does mention it, but it would be good to know a bit more about what to expect when it happens, I’m not sure exactly what I was after but it was definitely the thing I was most nervous about when starting our weaning journey!

So overall I highly recommend the book, it’s already been really useful and I’m sure it will be over the next few months! It’s very easy-to-follow and understand, and very practical – to buy it, support your local bookstore or click on the Amazon link in the image…

Q&A with the author, Julie Clarke

Co-incidentally, I’ve ended up chatting to the author on Twitter and I will be interviewing her for the blog about all-things-baby-led-weaning! So if you have a question for Julie, please leave it in the comments section below by Dec 1st (2014!) and I’ll give you a mention when the interview goes live early December!

Another NCT Nearly new sale haul!

My first NCT haul post is one of the most popular posts on my blog, so I figured you’d love to see what I got on my second visit last weekend…

This time we arrived quite late as we had our underwater photo shoot at the same time, so who knows what bargains we missed out on… but there was still plenty left to choose from, and it was a lot less crowded! Also, as I had baby W with me this time, sleeping in his pram we couldn’t make it upstairs to the books, toys etc 😦

This is my favourite item from the day… a H&M cardigan that he can wear straight away (cost £3)

And a hoodie he can wear right away – this is our first piece of clothing from Zara’s baby range 🙂 (cost £1) I should have taken a close-up, but I love the ‘toggle’ button detail 🙂

And another hoodie, we love turtles so I had to buy this – it’s Marks and Spencer and was only 50p! I love the detail of the lining and the elbows…

As well as hoodies and cardies we need some long-sleeved tops so got these… this one is from Next and I love that it has detail on the back… only 50p!

This one is perfect for Autumn – foxes seem to be ‘in’ at the moment! This was £1 and originally from George at Asda’s.

Another long-sleeved top, this time for when he’s a year old – a bit forward-thinking perhaps but it’s a Diesel top so I HAD to buy it!! This cost £2.50 but it originally would have cost about £28 (!!) – I must say the fabric does feel more expensive than any other baby clothes we’ve had thus far – I would never spend that much on 1 item for him so it’s nice to get it at such a good price!

You can buy baby boy tops for a few quid in the supermarkets, but bottoms are always a bit more expensive so I was chuffed to find him another pair of jeans that he can wear straight away – these are from Mothercare, I love the style and also they’re lined with cotton on the inside so hopefully he will find them warm and comfy 🙂 (Cost: £2)

And because bottoms are expensive, I found a couple of pairs of cords that will fit him when he starts wearing 9-12 months clothes. They cost £1 each – H&M on the left, Next on the right…

Now the first time I went to a NCT sale, I made the mistake of buying the next size up in the wrong season i.e. a lot of summery clothes that weren’t warm enough to wear by the time he could fit in them! So I tried to be more sensible this time around – I’m sure he will get wear out of all the items above… but I HAD to buy this T-shirt for him which he might not wear now that it’s Winter (although thinking about it, he could wear it over a long-sleeved top :))

I don’t even like the idea of babies wearing clothes with skulls on them BUT I do love photo-print style T-shirts… and it was only 50p (Florence and Fred, Tesco)…

So a good few items that he can wear straight away plus a couple for a few months time, all in excellent condition and the grand total was a bargainous £13 – the cost of 1 new outfit from most stores (if you’re lucky!)

So I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – it is worth checking out NCT sales in your area – much less hassle than ebay and you get to help raise money for the NCT charity in the process 🙂 The next one in Cardiff is scheduled for 7th March 2015.

Thanks for calling by – do let me know what you think and which item is your fave 🙂

REVIEW: Cow and Gate’s 5-step weaning plan

I was delighted to be asked to be an ambassador for Cow and Gate’s ‘5 step weaning plan’ and even more chuffed when our box of goodies arrived to go with it!

The ‘5 step weaning plan’ is pretty self-explanatory – it’s a website that helps you wean your baby onto food in 5 easy steps!

Step 1 – first spoonfuls (e.g. baby rice, banana puree)
Step 2 – Introducing breakfast (e.g. porridge)
Step 3 – Introducing variety (e.g. fruit/veg)
Step 4 – Meat/fish/alternatives
Step 5 – Establishing 3 meals a day

I used this on my smartphone and I was very impressed with how good the website looks, and how easy it is – you register with an email address and password and you’re good to go – working through the 5 steps with lots of useful tips and recipes along the way.

My favourite bit has to be the ‘eaticons’ – cartoon faces you use to rate food to remind you whether your baby liked or disliked something – so cute!!

If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know that we’ve already started weaning and that we’re trying the baby-led method which involves giving baby W finger food from day 1 e.g. a piece of banana instead of pureed banana. The ‘5 step weaning plan’ is mostly about purees, but I think you can use it like I do and just use ‘proper’ food instead of purees if that’s what you’re doing?

We also mixed up the steps a bit, so we did steps 1 and 3 together (first tastes/variety), then step 2 (breakfast) then step 5 (3 meals a day) and we still haven’t started step 4 yet (meat/fish although we have given him egg as a protein alternative!)

So however you intend to wean, I think you can use this plan as a really useful guide but personally I wouldn’t stress if you go ‘off-plan’! Use it as a guide not as a rule book 🙂 As well as useful tips and recipes, Cow and Gate also email you money-off vouchers for their baby food so it’s definitely worth signing up – register here 🙂

So overall pros and cons…

Pros:

Really easy to use
Perfect starting point for weaning
Mobile-friendly, lovely-looking website
Lots of tips and recipes – you can either make the food from fresh or buy it in jars!
Money-off vouchers

Cons

Not a con as such, but as I said I tweaked it slightly to suit us – the 5 steps might not suit everyone but Cow & Gate don’t say anywhere that you MUST stick to it rigidly!

Suggestions

Some improvements I would love to see Cow and Gate make are:

the ability to add your own recipes and foods that you’ve tried e.g. baby W loves rice cakes so it would be great to be able to add that as a reminder – it’s easy to forget what you’ve tried!
wouldn’t it be great to turn this into a bit of a community where parents can share their baby’s likes/dislikes and share recipes etc? Now that we’ve started weaning, I notice there’s quite a lot of banter on Twitter about foods to try etc – so I think this website could be a really interactive community for weaning parents

Since our first weaning update, we’ve moved to step 5 (3 meals a day), which I’ll blog about this week including reviewing some of the food that Cow & Gate sent us!

Disclaimer: I wasn’t paid to write this review but I was sent a box of goodies (weaning equipment, food and cuddly cow!) before trying it out

11 question blogger challenge

Months ago, the lovely Jenna at TinyFootsteps tagged me in this blogger challenge – go over and take a look – turns out she’s a fellow Pink fan!

You’ll know I love taking part in these (here’s my previous efforts) so here’s my answers:

1) If you won the lottery, what would be the first thing you’d buy?

I’d pay off the mortgage… and my sister’s mortgage…. then I’d head to the travel agents…..

2) How did you meet your partner?

Well, I had just joined Match.com and I was in the work kitchen telling a colleague about it, when another colleague overheard and said ‘I didn’t know you were single, I know someone who I could set you up with….’ and that was that 🙂 (So I always say I wouldn’t have met him if it wasn’t for Match.com!)

3) What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done? (Come one, it’ll be like therapy!) 😉

I honestly can’t divulge all here but let’s just say I have a couple of poo-related travel stories!

4) If you could banish anything to Room 101, what would it be?

Polystyrene

5) If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?

Oh god, everywhere!!! But my heart is here in Wales, so I would just have to settle for holiday homes in all matter of exotic locations!

6) What was the last film you watched and what did you think of it?

Wolf of Wall Street – good film, racier than I was expecting! Reminded me a lot (too much) of ‘Blow’

7) What’s the one piece of advice would you give to a new mum?

Hire a cleaner – even if it’s just an hour a week it will be the best tenner a week you spend 🙂

8) What items are you unable to resist when you’re out shopping? For me, it’s baby clothes and cute stationary!

Scarves. Percy pigs.
9) If you had to eat the same meal for dinner every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Roast dinner

10) Tell me about your proudest moment (I’m talking before babies!)

Going travelling alone and getting a 2:1 in my degree are up there but probably my proudest moment is winning a Manager’s award in work last year, nominated by my boss only 12 are awarded each year out of a workforce of a few thousand!

11) How would your best friend describe you?

Laid-back, disorganised

Now, I’m supposed to nominate some other bloggers but everyone I know has already done one of these so I’ll leave this one here for now – if you enjoyed it, nominate yourself and share your answers with me 🙂

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