Theraline Animal Neck Pillow

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In a few weeks time we're off down to Delightfully Delicious Dorset for a week's holiday and therefore my mind is filled to bursting with all the different things that we're going to need. That includes all the things that will make a possibly three-hour journey (depending upon the damned M5 around Taunton) easier for us, especially me as I'll be in the back next to a crotchety two-year old who has started to refuse to sleep in the car.

One such item that will make him more comfy (and therefore more likely to sleep) is the Theraline animal neck pillow that we've recently been sent to review. We chose a sheep one because we're Welsh but they come in three very cute and cuddly designs to keep little boys and girls happy. Made from a soft and cuddly materials and filled with fine sand-like micro-beads, I already know that The Boy is going to enjoy cuddling up to sheep, and when he falls asleep I can pop it around his neck to support and make it more comfy for him.

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Listography: Five Things I Want To Do This Summer

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Kate's a bit busy this week setting up the marvellous Parent Blogger Network on Netmums, so our apprentice Listographer extraordinaire Keith is hosting the Listography for her. Not content with running such a tight-ship as he does, he has decided to set himself five challenges for the Summer holidays with his children.

I have been counting down the days 'til the Summer holidays start since Easter. It's now only three more weeks to go (or six days in school, one on a course and one as INSET. See told you I'd been counting them down. Do you want it in minutes?) until I get to have six fantabulous weeks with my gorgeous bundle of mischief and I can't wait. We have a few necessary items to do and some fun things as well.

Here goes:

  • Potty-train The Boy.

I know! I'm a bit worried about this, and also thinking 'ewww' a lot. Guess I'm going to be getting very familiar with poo over the next few months hey?

  • Tidy the spare bedroom.

It is an abyss of detritus. I now open the door, stand in the two square foot that are clear because the door pushes the stuff out of the way, and sigh. Then I close the door and declare to hubby that we need to tidy it soon. It is horrendous. There is a computer in the corner that we don't use anymore because we have the laptop. It's only use is as a print server and storage device for some photos. There is a bed-settee covered in The Boy's outgrown clothes that need to be boxed and put in the attic. A step-machine and abdominal roll doo-dah, both pointless and serving as a clothes rail at the moment. Countless cardboard boxes that are either from The Boy's toys (keep the boxes, the toys sell for more at a nearly new sale in the original packaging!) or from review items (they might come in useful!) and jiffy bags. Plus a gigantic wooden bowl that's about three foot across which my dad made, but now I have a baby it is impractical to keep on the dining table or it gets covered in playdough, paint and Dairylea. The room needs sorting out for God's sake!

  • Make a start on losing some weight.

I'm contemplating the possibility of a sibling for The Boy at some point. I was fortunate not to gain any weight (at all!) with The Boy, but I can't be so certain next time around. I want four stone gone by November 24th (my 10th wedding anniversay). Or else!

  • Family Time

I do not want the weeks to whizz by and not have done anything in them. Weekends will be spent doing things as a family unit. Week days will hopefully be filled with socialisation (for him and me), craft activities and playing in the garden.

  • Retrain our sleep habits

We are rubbish at going to bed before midnight and our son wakes up at half past six. It is impossible to survive on that, it needs to stop now! Along with this, we need to get The Boy off the habit of being cuddled to sleep. I think I've built it up into a bigger thing than it is, but he will learn how to go down by himself. Won't he?

Where's my bed?

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I'm shattered, I really am!

For the past year, The Boy has religiously had his nap between 11 and 1pm every day. If I've tried to make him last longer, the poor sausage starts falling asleep and getting tetchy. Hand on heart, so do I! I need him to have a kip around then as well so that I can have a little break. The only problem with that recently is that he's been taking longer and longer to get to sleep then, and then he doesn't wake up 'til nearly two. By the time he's had his lunch it's half past two (which is craziness when he's having his tea at 5.30pm) and I'm beginning to go bonkers not having done anything!

And so I've had the marvellous idea to change his sleep times.

My mum has been under instruction this week to give him his lunch at 12pm on the dot and he needs to be in bed by 12.45. She's stuck to it and he's fallen asleep more easily. Of course, we have to do the same thing on the weekend don't we?

Only that now means we don't get our lie-ins anymore!

Whose clever bloody idea was that then?

However, we have been busy bees today: up, breakfast, drop hubby's car off for an MOT, go and have photos taken under a 'free' deal, play in the park, home for lunch, nap time and all by 1pm! We then both needed a little rest at the same time as The Boy, and then we rounded the day off with a quick shopping trip to buy new shoes and wellies. Because you need wellies in July when it's 24°C.

But now, now I'm knackered!

Test-drive 2: Return of the Mac

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I've had the Techno XLR about a month now and it's fair to say that I love it! I have not used my iCandy Cherry once, which to be honest I am rather heart-broken about as I do adore it. However, the Maclaren is so much easier to use when getting in and out of the car, and because it is an umbrella-folding pushchair, it also provides so much more space for other essentials, like the shopping. Just look at how much room I now have in the boot of my Scenic for other items:

This is excellent news for us. We're going away for the weekend soon and will have to take the travel-cot with us for The Boy. I would normally be panicking by this point in the run-up, but not now. Usually, there hasn't been space in the boot as the frame of my old pushchair took up three-quarters of the floor space and once the seat part was laid on top, half the height of the boot had disappeared as well. The travel-cot usually had to go on the floor in the back, which meant that I had no space to put my legs (I sit next to him on long car journeys, while hubby drives). Now we can get the travel-cot in the boot too, meaning I'm more comfortable and it's a safer car journey with less loose objects to do damage in the event of an accident.

I've used the Techno XLR a fair amount around town, but also in off-tarmac locations. We went to a local country park in the squelchy mud and it more than handled the ruts and pot-holes. It was also a freezing afternoon and The Boy was able to tuck his arms under the apron of the foot-muff and was toastie-warm. The top of the apron is designed to fold back, and he's quite happy to rest his arms out, but the minute he thinks it's a bit chilly: "armies in!"

We popped to the beach last weekend and took the pushchair onto the sand with us. Down the slope, walk onto the sand and we had the usual anticipation of the pushchair getting stuck in. Not this time. It must be the way the wheels have been designed; they're far smaller than the iCandy and are what I'll call 'double-wheels' for want of a better phrase. They move better on 'unstable' surfaces and so we were able to push the Maclaren across the sand rather than have to drag it. And it did look rather attractive on the beach waiting for us to finish paddling.

The Boy love his new pushchair and finds it incredibly comfortable. Following a Monkey Music session a fortnight ago, I had to pop to a couple of the shops in the town centre. I knew I was pushing it for his nap-time, but I really had to get a few things and he ws quite happy chomping on his snack and observing the world. I nipped into the library and having picked up the information I wanted, I asked The Boy if he was ready to go home for his sleep. No reply. I glanced down and he'd fallen asleep! He was so snug and warm that the silence of the library had pushed him over the edge. The Techno XLR is so easy to adjust as it has four positions for the back, so I reached down and pulled the lever on the back which lowered him down to almost flat. He could have gone lower, but the change bag was hanging off the back so I didn't want to knock his head.

Finally this brings me to the last point that I wanted to make about the Maclaren Techno XLR. I had had a minor gripe about the size of the shopping basket underneath, in comparison to what I was used to. However, I also couldn't stand my change-bag anymore because it was an inconvenient shape; big but the wrong dimensions. So I bought a new one in the style of a messenger bag which fits in the shopping basket with room to spare for smaller items of shopping, but is far more convenient slung over the handlebars. I can get to my purse and his drink more easily, and it frees up a lot of space in the shopping basket for its intended purpose. Loads of space for grocery shopping in the town centre!

The Maclaren Techno XLR is suitable from birth to toddler as a 3-in-1 travel solution. It has :

  • a 4-position seat with single-hand recline,
  • extendable hood with sun visor and viewing window,
  • height-adjustable handles (I'm 5'9 and have them on the lowest setting, hubby is 6' and uses the heighest),
  • all-round suspension and linked brakes,
  • extendable calf-rest,
  • footmuff, and
  • raincover (which is really easy to put on & can store in one of the pockets at the back of the pushchair).

A soft carry-cot is available as an additional extra for use from birth, and it also take the Recaro Young Profi Plus car-seat, with adaptors. Excellent news for us as we already own that.

This pushchair was provided for the purpose of this review.

DreamGenii: Twinkle Togs

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I have recently been sent a DreamGenii: Twinkle Tog to use with The Boy.

I was more than happy to be asked to review this revolutionary sleepsuit because he doesn't keep still in his cot. Quite frankly the concept of putting him under a sheet or blanket was ruled out when at the age of 1 month he would end up with it scrunched up under his armpits in the morning because he'd been flicking his legs about in the night. He's become progressively more acrobatic during the night ever since. It is not at all unusual for him to do a full 720°!

We use sleeping bags with him but sometimes he becomes frustrated that he can't move his legs very much. The Twinkle Tog is different because it is an all-in-one wearable bedtime quilt and, the one I have, is 2.5togs in thickness, therefore ideal for the Winter months. They do a lighter weight one for the summer too.

"If you travel in the car during the evening, the dreamgenii® Twinkle Tog allows your toddler to be unstrapped easily from their car seat and transferred to bed without unnecessary disturbance. With a quilted outer, and a soft jersey lining, the dreamgenii® Twinkle Tog will ensure that your toddler has a comfortable, undisturbed and cosy night – quite simply A Magical Night's Sleep."

The fact that it can be used in the car is fabulous. We've got a couple of trips coming up which are going to involve evening travel. We'll be able to get him into his pyjamas and the Twinkle Tog before strapping him into the car-seat and it won't interfere with the safety straps. For parents who are looking for an alternative to a Gro-bag, this is ideal!

As you can see from the photo, The Boy is extremely comfortable sleeping in his Twinkle Togs; he had far more freedom and slept just as soundly as in a sleeping bag, but had more independence prior to bed, and after waking up. I'll definitely be using this for a while yet!

Available in Summer and Winter tog weights and in a variety of patterns and age sizes.

Exclusively available in the UK from www.Mothercare.com and selected Mothercare Stores

Follow these links to view the different designs on the Mothercare website: Bubbles, Sheep and Zebra.

The lovely people at DreamGenii sent me this Twinkle Togs to use with The Boy. I was not given any other reward and my reviews are, as always, honest.

The Chair

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So what do you do?

When I was pregnant, we discussed this and there was no way on earth I was going to put up with it. Yet here I am! What am I waffling on about?

Bedtime practices & night-time disturbances.

I was going to be a 'put him down awake' type of mummy. I was going to be a 'he must learn to settle himself' type of mummy. Guess what? Turns out that I'm not!

When they're tiny weeny you can be cuddling them and all of a sudden they've fallen asleep. "Oh!" you say, "when did that happen?" So what are you supposed to do? Wake them up so you can then put them down in their moses basket awake (and screaming because they don't know why they're not asleep anymore)? What a prize bitch you'd have to be!

Anyway, I digress. We started with the bedtime 'awake under his cot mobile' malarky and it worked. Until he was 5 months old and learnt to roll over & grab the mobile. Hmmm, that went a bit wrong. Drop cot down a level, tuck end of sleeping bag in = sorted!

Then he got a bad cold. And he couldn't get to sleep flat on his back because his throat and nose got clogged up and he couldn't breathe and got scared. So to help this we cuddled him to sleep.

Oops!

And I say 'oops' because that's what we still have to do every night and he's 18 months old now.

Hmmm…

To be fair, I think it was also the change of milk-feeds that exacerbated the problem. If The Boy falls asleep in my arms having his bedtime bottle, what am I supposed to do; poke him 'til he wakes up & then ignore his tears? Just so I can do what Gina Ford says? (or as she is known in this house, 'evil, nazi woman')

So why am I sat here in this Ikea chair (you know the one; cream bucket chair, looks comfy but not when you've been sat in it for an hour and your arse is numb) holding my sleeping baby? 'Ignore him' you say. 'Let him cry it out' you say. 'No, bog off, he's my child' I say. I cannot listen to him cry. Can't do it. I'm not an advocate of controlled crying, I actually think it's a bit cruel (* disclaimer at bottom)

The reason why I won't use it is because The Boy does not wake up or play silly buggers at night. He slept through from 10pm – 6am at 6 weeks old! He goes down at 7.30pm & wakes up about 6.30am+. If he cries in the night, it will be because he's suffering from wind (he still gets colicky pains sometimes) or teething pains. And then he's sobbing in his sleep. I can't ignore him when he's hurting, it goes against every cell in my body.

So we cuddle him. It's not like we're going to be doing it forever. Can you imagine? 15 years old? Exactly.

And we have stopped excusing ourselves because he's our child! I don't criticise you for using a dummy with your three and a half year old child, or when he nutted The Boy on his 4 month old nose, so don't condemn me. (Oh I appear to be having a go at a work colleague here. How did that happen?)

And anyway, look at him…

God, my arse is numb.

(* I apologise to anyone to whom I may have caused offense: I'm not implying you're bad mothers if you use controlled crying, you're braver than I am. That's why your child is asleep, and I'm awake at 2am!)

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