The Gruffalo's Child | New Theatre Cardiff

Today has been a rare treat, a mummy & Squidge day out together. Seeing as he's nearly 4, he feels the right sort of age to start to enjoy the theatre. We've taken him to a couple productions before (Goldilocks ballet & Ben & Holly) but that was a year ago and he was really too young to enjoy it.

So when The New Theatre got in touch to invite us along to review The Gruffalo's Child, we jumped at the change! As Dot is only 11 months old he is totally the wrong age to go - if he was younger, he could have just lay in our arms, or older, he could enjoy it, but he'd have just wanted to get down and walk/crawl. So just Squidge and I went, and made a proper little trip of it.

We started off heading out at 9:30am, with my fresh driving independence (passed 7th June), I drove us to the park & ride that's 20 mins away (to save us parking and driving into the city centre), and we had a fun little bus ride into town. From there we went straight to the Theatre, picked up a little stuffed Gruffalo's Child (£12!), some sweets and headed to our seats.

The stage looked fantastic, simple, but practical and enchanting. The woods backdrop reversed to reveal the Gruffalo's cave, and the tree's you can see moved about the stage as well. We waited patiently for the show to begin.

Up until this point we'd been big fans of The Gruffalo, having read it to Squidge as a bedtime story for years, but we hadn't read The Gruffalo's Child. I'd headed over to Asda on Friday and picked up a copy, we read it lots before the play so it felt familiar.

The show kicked off with three actors who play all the characters (I wish I had photo's here to show you!), and their costumes were great! What I really liked is that through story of the Gruffalo explaining to The Gruffalo's Child how he'd met the mouse, it was like a recap of The Gruffalo story.

There were lots of songs and audience participation (which Squidge tells me was his favourite part (clapping slow, then faster!)) which help keep the kids engaged. I loved the bit with the fox as the music went all ska-like.

The show itself lasted an hour with no intermission. Personally, we'd have preferred it to either be shorter, or have an intermission as Squidge really struggled when we got to about half hour in.

The show was great, well produced and entertaining. The only thing that would have improved it for us, would have been it being a little shorter.

Once that was over, we headed to St Davids 2 to get Squidge some ice cream, we were heading to the Gelato place, but as we got there it had gone, and in it's place was a Thai-style ice cream place, I gave him the choice of that or a Krispy Kreme donut, he wanted ice cream.

After that I took him for another surprise, to the Build-a-bear workshop for his first bear. I told him he could pick any bear he liked, and he went straight for Skye :) We accessorised her with some clothes and her jet pack, and carried her home, Squidge absolutely adores her :) 

After that, we headed straight home on the park & ridge bus, absolutely shattered, but happy :) 

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*The tickets to the Gruffalo's Child were gifted for an honest review

5 things I'll do differently next time

With Squidge now being a year old, I find myself reflecting a lot on how his first year was, not just for him, but for us.  And what his first days and weeks were as a newborn (gosh I miss those days!). 

It’s no secret that we’re dying to start trying for baby #2, and will be fairly soon, and if and when we manage to have another baby, there’s a few things I’d do differently.

Make more effort to breastfeed

Squidge just didn’t take to it, he screamed and screamed and screamed and I cried because he was screaming.  It just didn’t happen.  I’d try every day, but to no avail.  Just hearing him cry/scream was super stressful – we’d never had a baby before and the last thing you want to hear is your baby crying.  Well, I’m a bit more accustomed to it now and feel more confident dealing with a crying baby.  So for baby #2, I would definitely try on many more occasions to get them to breastfeed (assuming they struggle in the same way Squidge did), instead of a couple times a day, I'd make sure I try and every single feed.  On reflection, I could have made more effort with this with Squidge, and should have.

Wear them more

I’m a big fan of baby wearing and we still put Squidge in a sling fairly regularly.  He likes it and we love it.  Something I didn’t really do though was to wear Squidge around the house when he was a newborn because at that stage we didn’t have a sling.  We didn’t buy one until he was about 2 months old.  Well, for baby #2 I’ll be wearing them from the first few days for the extra bonding and closeness.

Baby led weaning (BLW)

We haven't quite managed it with Squidge, we've done a bit of a combined approach; spoon feeding him purée's and giving him finger food to feed himself.  But with the next baby, I'd love to really give baby led weaning a proper go from day one, and ideally wait until they're 6 months old.  With Squidge we started weaning him at 17 weeks as that's when he seemed ready, but I would like to try and hold out for him to be more developed and able to feed himself for BLW to be a success.  Aside to this, I'd also like to try and refrain from giving them any jar food, and make the effort to give them only homemade food.  At the moment, most of Squidge's food is homemade (poached salmon with veg etc), but I still rely on jars when I'm out and about or if he's being fussy.

Get a co-sleeper

We moved Squidge into his own room earlier than planned as his Daddy got the flu when he was about 3.5 months old and it was keeping both of us awake.  I made the decision to move Squidge to his own room so he could sleep a bit better and it went really well, but oh my god did we miss having him in our room, waking up and seeing his smiling little face.  Next time I'll get a ridid co-sleeper to keep next to the bed that'll sleep them for up to 6 months.

Print, file and frame photos

Something we haven't really done is print photo's of Squidge.  I really want for him to have his own photo album to look back at when he's older.  Until mine was lost, I loved being able to go and look at all my old baby photo's; I'm not sure any exist of me any more :(  If not a photo album, they maybe something like project life - I know it all takes effort, but it's still something I'd love to make the effort to do.  Also, just as a little extra, I'd definitely get Milestone Cards, I think it's lovely being able to glance back and see them at these little milestones.

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