Squidge | 18 month update

I almost feel a little choked up writing this, my little boy is 18 months old as of today! I miss him being a tiny baby, but I absolutely adore the little person he’s turning into. This last week he’s really started saying ‘Mummy’ (and perfectly!), he says Daddy all the time, and finally he’s started saying Nanny :)

He understands EVERYTHING we say, and I mean, everything. You can give him complex instructions, and off he goes to do it. He loves nothing more than being outside – it almost doesn’t matter what you’re doing, he just loves being outdoors – it’s all one big adventure and he wants to be part of it. He also really loves snuggling up to me and watching a film on the sofa, usually anything Studio Ghibli (the boy has good taste).

Clothes

Left: Top & socks: Mothercare, Jeans: Tesco F&F. Right: Top: H&M, Trousers: John Lewis

Apart from a couple items of clothes, he’s now fully in size 18-24 months and has been transitioning for about 2 months.

Sickness

He has started throwing up a bit though, which is a little concerning. Twice he’s thrown up his night bottle almost straight away – both times after feeding very well in the day (we think he was over full), and the other night he threw up a belly of pasta in his cot – we didn’t find out until we got him up in the morning (about to leave for work) and there was mulched up pasta all matted in his hair (nightmare!).  He’s got a bit of a cough again too, but other than that he’s been doing great.

Toys

I know this is a pic of a pic, but I love it all the same :)

He plays so differently these days, it’s almost hard to say what his favourite toys are.  He does keep going back to this little castle he had for Christmas, he loves opening the door and putting everything and anything in it, and playing with the little knights and horses that come with it. He likes having a quick ride about on his trike and absolutely loves being read books. He also loves feeding his stuffed animals from his sippy cup - we have little tea parties in the lounge with the stuffed animals, he loves that :) 

Speaking

His speech is really improving quickly, some of the latest words (other than Mummy, Nanny etc) he’s learned are:

* Pear

* Wheel

* Owl

* Wow

* Apple

* Stuck
* Bumble Bee :)

* Thank you (which he says, often unprompted when you pass him something! Amazing!)

I have to give a special mention to the word ‘Happy’.  He doesn’t just repeat it pigeon-fashion, he says it when he’s happy.  So if something happens that he likes, if we give him something he likes, anything like that, he’ll start saying ‘happy’ again and again while he plays. So amazing.

Crafts

He’s old enough to start having a go at crafts too.  He loves sticking things down and scribbling with pens and crayons.  I’m starting to do some painting with him too – I really want to nurture his creative side.  I’m very creative, from a very artistic background, whereas the hubby is very scientific and logical – I’d love for him to have a healthy balance of the two, but we’ll see :)

Eating

Squidge eating the chocolate from the Easter egg hunt at Dyffryn Gardens

He goes a bit back and forth with food.  He’ll have weeks where he practically eats nothing, and weeks where we can’t fill him up enough.  Overall he’s pretty good, albeit fussy. He’s great with a fork and spoon, often preferring to use these over his hands. The only ‘puree’ type food is has, is the odd fruit pouch as a dessert after his dinner – he has about 1 a day, maybe 2. Sometimes if he’s struggling to eat anything, I’ll give him a pouch as it’ll often give him an appetite for his main food.

Typically he’ll eat food like pesto pasta (or plain pasta – he hates tomato sauce!), fish (cod, salmon), black Kalamata olives, raspberries, kiwi’s, orange (he LOVES blood orange!), new potatoes (the only kind I have really been successful with), broccoli.

We’re still keeping him away from foods that give him wind – peas in particular are a nightmare and usually result in a terrible night for all of us – we also steer clear of beans, onions – anything like that.

He's such a happy little boy, we really are incredibly lucky. He's so gentle and affectionate too

 - his tantrums feel like they've eased off, and if he does have them they're usually pretty short lived, and make most of their appearances when he's really tired.

All in all he's doing great and we couldn't be prouder of him :)

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Grobag Travel sleeping bag

Squidge fast asleep at 7am in his sleeping bag, it was so horrible waking him up!

I work 4 days a week, Mon-Thurs and each day we’re out of the house pretty early, usually when it’s still very cold. Each morning we drop Squidge off at his grandparents (Teddy Bears and Cardigans) before heading to work. But we were struggling to keep him warm in the car – even with putting 3-4 blankets on him to keep him cozy.

Back in December I discovered that Grobag sell something called a  Travel Gro Bag – it’s a sleeping bag that you can use with a car seat – there’s a hole (covered by a flap) at the front and back so you can harness them into a seat safely. We thought we’d give it a go – it can’t be worse than the blankets?

The Grobag in it's packaging

Of the sleeping bags we have for Squidge, the Grobag Travel is by far the nicest. It’s thick and beautiful quality. The cotton is really soft.  I’m also totally in love with the pattern on the front (dinosaurs). We opted for a 2.5 tog as we were heading into Winter at the time, and his room can get quite nippy in the middle of the night. It costs £29.99* for his size, and you can really feel the difference in quality compared to the £15 supermarket ones we’ve used before.

Squidge in his sleeping bag, safely strapped in to his rear-facing car seat

It took a few go’s to get the hang of getting the strap through but as long as you make sure the sleeping bag isn’t bunched up on your little one it should be easy enough.  Once strapped in, he feels really secure, I’m confident he’s not going anywhere!

Most importantly, he arrives at his grandparents nice and warm and cozy J  He’s starting to grow out of this one and the weather is warming up, so we’ll be purchasing the next size up soon, but in a 1 tog ready for Summer.

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*PR Sample

Squidge | 16 month update

It’s been a while since I’ve put a Squidge update on here... no wait, it's been a while since I've put any post live on here for ages! Anyway, as he’s just hit 16 months old I thought I’d share a little update with you all. It’s so hard to believe that in 2 months time he’ll be a year and a half old!

"Lets take a selfie"

I’ve already started collecting his next-size-up clothes for him as he’s starting to grow out of some of his 12-18 months ones (mostly tops as they’re struggling to fit over his head) and some trousers. But saying that, he still wears some 9-12 month clothes too.

He’s coming on leaps and bounds. He’s been walking for 5 months now and is really steady on his feet. 

Chilling on his fav chair, watching is fav film (Kiki's delivery service)

Current toy loves:

• His little Squirrel trike

• His Next 2014 teddy bear (he cuddles it and kisses it on the nose)

• The seat his Grandad bought for him

• His little wooden kitchen (although, he loves taking the sink out and standing in the hole)

• His little basket of plastic fruit (flinging them across the room is a firm favourite)

He’s becoming such a gentle and affectionate little boy, it’s just the loveliest to see.  He regularly gives us kisses and cwtches up to us resting his head on our shoulder. But he’s also not a pushover. If another toddler shoves or hits him, he’ll seek them out and shove them back :P I love that about him, I love that he sticks up for himself – not something we’ve taught him to do yet either.

"Smile for Daddy"

I don’t want to write this because I feel I’ll jinx it, but he’s become a really great sleeper (OMG, I drafted this 4 days ago, that night (Weds) he was awake nearly all night! I had 2.5 hrs sleep... and then the same again the next night! I actually jinxed it!).  He’s pretty much slept through every night for the last 3 weeks now, only waking up a couple of times in a couple evenings for his dummy. But I’m also painfully aware that the 18 month sleep regression is looming!  He’s still in his cot and still in a sleeping bag. I’m not planning on changing that until he can climb out of it, and at that point we’ll just put the side of the cot down and put a stair gate on his room.  He’s still far too mobile for a bed (he does laps of his cot when he sleeps!).

New words;

• Wee wee
• A'wight
• Flower (well, 'wower')
• Door
• Don't touch
• Vroom (car)
• Beep beep (Microwave, lol)
• Stuck - this one is really amazing. He doesn't just understand the word, but the concept. He'll say stuck if his foot gets caught in the cot, or if a toy is caught on a chair, or if his fork gets caught on his bowl - so clever.

There's loads more, but they're the main ones :)  He's also really good with animal sounds, so far he can do: Monkey, Lion, Dog, Cat, Pig and Horse (he does the click, clack with his tongue for that).

His favourite things to do:

• Go outside to play - usually with a watering can and some water
• Empty out the contents of things (baskets of plastic fruit, buckets of wooden blocks)
• Help unpack the shopping, one item a time :)
• Snuggle up on the sofa and watch some Studio Ghibli (I've taught him well!)

There's loads more, but I have to stop somewhere :)

Every day he makes me proud. The way I see him play with other children, how smiley and gentle he is, and how affectionate he is.  I could never have hoped to have such a great child, and for the most part, he's really well behaved too.  He plays up a little if he's really tired, but that's it.

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Life with a baby toddler

Squidge has only just turned one, but already we’re seeing him turning into a toddler.  He’s become very adept at throwing tantrums when he doesn’t get what he wants, well, more like when we tell him he can’t do something, or take a scrap of paper/fleck of stuff out of his hands before he puts it in his mouth. We’ve also noticed when he’s teething, he has absolutely no tolerance to hear the word ‘no’ or be told off in any way.

At the weekend, he reached over and turned the computer off, as I saw him reach I said ‘no no no no no’ – not to tell him off, but to try and stop him doing it as the hubby had the computer on to do his uni work, and really didn’t want it to be turned off.

Well, just me saying that was enough to see his bottom lip quiver, and a full on meltdown ensue. Don’t get this confused with a tantrum, this is like his world falling apart, he’ll sit there and cry his little eyes out, tears pouring out, almost inconsolable.  In fact, the same say when he was grinding his teeth I said ‘Oh Squidge, don’t do that it sounds horrible’ – ensue hysterical inconsolable crying again.

Aside from tantrums and other toddler-specific events, he’s also walking.  Not just with a walker, but independently – every day I see him do better and better, and can now walk a good 20-odd steps before either falling over or reaching his destination.  He can walk, stop, bend down, pick something up, and carry on.  And he’s on the cusp of just being able to stand up without holding on to anything – he tries but can’t quite do it.  The funniest thing is the little zombie walk he does - arms out in front of him as he toddles from side to side, hilarious! 

I appreciate he’s far from being at the terrible two’s, but after experiencing his tantrums where he throws his head back and arches his back, puts his arms up in the air when you try to pick him up (so you can’t grip onto him), screams in protest and clenches his fist in anger, I’m cautiously nervous for how much worse it might get.

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BABY | Squidge 1 year update

I almost can’t believe I’m writing this… but Squidge is now 1 year old!!!! Oh my gosh, where did the last year go? Seriously!

It’s so incredible to see how he’s developing, every day he makes me such a proud mummy, and full of amazement in all the things he can do.  I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much in my life, as I have in the last year, he makes me laugh with the things he does, and says, every day :)

The weekend before his birthday we had a very small party for him.  We had a few friends over and a few family members, to celebrate him turning one.  His birthday was last Tuesday (6th), so we had the party a few days early when most people could make it.

Sleeping

We’ve gone through quite a few ups and downs with his sleeping, but we’re currently in an ‘up’.  He goes to bed a little later than before, it used to be 6, but now it’s about 7pm.  We take him upstairs, sit in his nursing chair and feed him his last bottle.  After that, we give him a quick cuddle while standing by the cot, kiss him goodnight on his forehead, and put him in the cot, placing his comforter on his tummy.  It goes one of two ways.  Either he’ll get straight back up (this usually happens if he’s left quite a bit of his bottle), we’ll go straight in and give him the rest of the bottle (he literally won’t do this unless we go through this specific routine!), or he’ll fall right asleep :)

He tends to sleep through until about 6am take or leave an hour, so getting a bit less sleep than he used to (about 2 hours less).

Day naps have changed too, he now only has 2.  His first nap is about 9am and can last anything from 30 mins – 2 hours (typically about an hour).  And then an afternoon nap at about 2pm, again, anything from half an hour, to 1.5 hrs.

Eating

He’s still a bit on the lean side.  He’s so active we really struggle to get enough food in him.  We can still see his vertebrae and ribs, so could do with having a bit more fat on him.  He eats well, but is getting fussier.  He loves eating poached or steamed fish, he can pretty much eat an entire fillet by himself! He loves feeding himself anything he can hold, like chips, roasted veg, fish fingers (he loves my homemade ones) etc J  He’s firmly on 3 square meals a day, although he never seems to have much for breakfast.  Lunch and dinner are the big meals J

Teething

We’re still teething on and off! Does it ever end?  He’s now got 6 teeth all the way through, with another 1 right there in the middle of breaking through. 

Development

He’s officially walking by himself! He can pretty much walk across the room and will walk without encouragement just because he wants to :) He can say loads of words, but understands almost everything you say to him.  The other week when we went to pick him up from his grandparents.  His Nanna grabbed a ball of his socks, and said to him ‘Can you pass these to your mother?’.  He looked at her and the socks, took them, looked at me, and passed them to me – I was amazed!

He can say: Dat (cat – although he’s also started using ‘dat’ when he wants to know what something is called), Duck, Bruum (car), Dettle (kettle), Dada, Gandad (Grandad), Ta (thank you – although, I’m really trying to teach him thank you), Door… I’m sure there’s more but I can’t remember, is that bad? :)  Oh and in the last couple of days, he's said Mama a couple of times, melts my heart!

He’s also learned some colours and shapes.  If you have a book with a cat in it (even if surrounded by other images) and you ask him to point to the cat, he’ll point right to the cat.  Similarly if you have a picture of 3 balloons (one red, one blue and one yellow) and ask him to point to the red balloon, he’ll point to it, and if you have a red balloon in the room, he’ll go and get that :)

He can communicate what he wants.  When I’m feeding him, I’ll often hold two pieces of food up, tell him what they are, and ask him to point to the one he wants, which he always does. 

He’s starting to learn to give kisses, although so far when I’ve asked him to give me a kiss, he’s sucked the end of my nose… it’s not quite the same as a kiss on the cheek, but he kinda knows, lol.

Favourites

His favourite thing to watch on the TV is definitely My Neighbour Totoro, he get’s SO excited when the intro music comes on!  He also really likes In the Night Garden, and loves Iggle Piggle :)  He loves having books read to him, his favourite is Elmer’s Friends.  He doesn’t really have a favourite toy yet, although he does love giving his IKEA kitten teddy a cuddle :)

The face he's pulling in the pic above is his fake strain, it's so funny!  If you do a fake strain to him, he copies you, but he does it properly, turning his little face red and making the sounds :P

He's also pretty adept at throwing tantrums and forgetting he's 1, not 2 - you can read more about all that on his grandmother's blog here as she blogged about all his tantrums a couple days ago.

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Twilight Turtle

Something that can really help soothe a baby to sleep and give them comfort in a dark room is a night light.  When you have a baby, you'll see there's a lot of different night lights out there and it's hard to know which to choose, what will work for your baby?

A few months ago we were lucky enough to be able to try the Twilight Turtle: Starry Nightlight out on Squidge.  

The turtle has 3 different colour settings, green, blue and orange.  You can also set it so that it cycles through the different colours.  It has a hard shell on the top, with star constellations cut out so that when the light in the shell is on, it projects onto the ceiling.  The rest of the turtle is soft and squishy. It also automatically switches off after a certain amount of time, so it doesn't waste the batteries.

Sorry for the grainy pictures, I had to take this in a darkened room so you could see!
(we did still have a lamp on in the room)

Did this help Squidge sleep?  Not exactly, but that's ok, we use it in a different way.  For us, if we put anything like that in the room when he's trying to sleep, he gets stimulated and goes mad wanting to play with it.  However, what we have found is that if he wakes up early in the morning, too early, then if we put that on, it does keep him mesmerised for 10 mins so we can get a little extra sleep.

I think it's the kind of thing that would have either helped when he was much smaller, more like a newborn, or maybe when he's older.

The twilight turtle can be bought from the Wicked Uncle online store for £29.99*.

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*Post contains a PR sample

Miffy's Back!

This post is for all of you out there with little ones :)  Do you remember Miffy? The cute little rabbit? Well she's back, and celebrating her 60th birthday (awww).  A new show is being launched over on the Freeview channel, Tiny Pop.  Tiny Pop is one of Squidge's favourites (we don't have Sky or Cable) - every time the ident comes on singing 'tiny pop' he stops what he's doing to happily watch, it's really very cute.

The new show is called Miffy's Adventures Big and Small and launches on Friday 2nd October at 7pm.  Sadly, Squidge will be in bed when this is on, but I will record if for him so he can watch it when he has his breakfast on Saturday morning.  This is the first time Miffy has been immortalised in CGI too, if the stills are anything to go by, it's been done really well :)  The show will see Miffy exploring the world around her with some happy singing too.

To celebrate the launch of the new series, they're also holding a twitter party where they'll be giving away goody bags (and cake?), this is on Friday 2nd October at 1pm - just be sure to tag @Miffy_UK in your tweets and use the hashtag #miffytime :)

What's your child's favourite shows to watch?

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BABY | Zara + H&M Clothing Haul

I can't believe it's been 2 weeks since I've written a blog post! I must say, I am loving the balance I have right now, lots of time for crochet and playing on the Xbox :)

Little Squidge is coming up to being 1 year old (where has the time gone!?) and will be needing the next size up in clothes soon (12-18 months).  He's still got quite a bit of wear in some of his current size clothes (9-12 months) but aside from that, I also need to start incorporating warmer clothes into his wardrobe - stupid me expected a nice summer so bought loads of romper suits (short legs and sleeves) and he's had hardly any opportunity to wear them.

I've started picking up some bits so they can be washed, dried and ready for him to wear.  The first things I picked up were from H&M - I was waiting for a lift from the hubby and popped in there while I was waiting - I saw a couple of great pieces I just *had* to buy him :)

Then when I was chatting to someone at work about baby clothes, they reminded me how fab the Zara baby stuff is, and in my opinion, not too expensive either (considering the price of their grown-ups clothes!).

I ordered these online - I did order one other thing (some cartoon leggings, which have since arrived separately).

From Sainsburys (I don't have pics) we also picked up some bibs (over the head ones) and next size socks too (these are still too big for him and go up to his knees!).  I still need to get him vests, sleepsuits/pyjamas, a jumper and a cardigan or two, and a couple more tops and trousers, oh and a new coat, and possibly and all in one snow suit for when it's really cold.

I'm pretty happy with these - my only issue was with the red leggings from Zara, there is quite a lot of excess thread inside them, so I'm going to need to do some work on those to sort them out before he wears them.

I also have some John Lewis vouchers to buy him some clothes with, I've already got my eye on a navy blue body warmer from them which I'll be getting him :D

What do you think of these picks?

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FASHION | What Baby Wore Today #WBabyWT

A little while ago I was invited to take part in a really fun campaign run by Asda, their #WBabyWT (What Baby Wore Today) campaign (how fun is that!?).   Well, if you follow me on Instagram, you'll know I'm very fond of photographing little Squidge, and he loves the camera on him too (such a little poser).  So when I was asked to collaborate, I jumped at the chance (any excuse to photograph him in cute clothes eh!).

I've long been a fan of Asda baby (and grown up!) clothes.  They're really good quality (very soft) and very affordable.  Miles and miles better than Primark in terms of quality, and pretty much the same price, as well as really lovely designs.

First up, Squidge models the 2 piece check shirt and shorts set (£8*).  Now seriously, how cute is he in this outfit!  It's lovely quality, the shorts are a thinner denim so more comfortable, and the shirt is a light cotton - perfect for Summer (lol, like we've had a Summer this year!).

Next up, Squidge models the Mr. Happy t-shirt and shorts combo (£5*)(I really really love him in this!). This is made out of 100% cotton too and is really soft.  Other than it being a very apt top for him (he's really become a happy chappy recently, more so than normal, constantly giggling at things), I love that it doesn't have poppers to do up on the shoulder, instead it's very stretchy.  Considering his head is 98% percentile (BIG!) and this still fits, that's pretty awesome.

The next two outfits are part of one set - I love good value finds like that! It's the sea creatures print 4-piece set (£10* - now discounted to £6).  The first outfit is a romper suit where it's an all one one, so the vest part is actually part of the actual romper.  Once again, made of cotton and really soft against babies skin.  I really adore this romper suit - I'd bought loads and loads of romper suits for him, thinking that it was going to be a nice hot summer, but he's had hardly any opportunity to wear them as it's been pretty chilly and rainy.

Another great outfit and romper suit is the Finding Nemo All-in-one stripe and socks set (£8* now down to £5).  I love that the socks match the outfit and have a yellow top, a really nice touch.  Again, all made of cotton so it's nice and soft.

Yet another romper suit picked by me! This time it's the Mr Men Mr Tickle romper suit (£5*).  I really love seeing him in grey, I think it really brings his eyes out :)  I love the blue stripes on the sleeves too, a really nice touch, better than it just all being plain.

I have also bought him this Superman swim suit (£8*), I was planning to put him in it when we get out his little paddling pool, but we haven't had good enough weather to get the paddling pool out, and I doubt we will until next year... I just hope he gets to wear it before he grows out of it! It just seemed so mean to be as he's a 'Kent'.

What do you think of my picks?  Have you tried Asda baby before?

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*Clothes are PR samples, opinions are my own
All of the clothes modelled were in size 9-12 months