To pouch or not to pouch…weaning guilt…

Well, who actually knew there were so many ways to feel like a bad parent 😱 and that something as joyous as food could be the root of some pretttty heavy parent guilt (I feel I should answer my rhetorical question here and say “naaaat me sista”).

Reunah’s Birthday Gifts

I’m not going to list them all, but want to post about a few as I got some mega bargs that are really lovely quality and Reu loves them. I’m basically a child myself so wanted to fill Reu’s playroom with as many things as poss so a lot of them are things I really shopped around for at a cheaper prices.

The mystery of sleep…

I have googled the bazookas off sleep on the last 6 months, this is in fact my second post on it (which I forgot about until I’d already written this, cool.), to try and work out how to get Reu into the best routine and sleeping through.

Travelling long haul with a baby…

Haven’t blogged in ages, life just got in the way, but I have been on a long haul flight and thought it a good place to start for a new post.

I’m still actually in America and really want to write a post about holidaying with a baby but this post is just about the travelling (I’ll write the other when I’m back)…

How I got my baby to sleep through…

…I didn’t, another click bait title I can only apologise for 😂…

So I thought I’d make a list of all my thoughts on baby sleep as it’s been far from plain sailing/10 hours night for me…ill keep it simple and to the point and apologise in advance if I annoy anyone- I have full respect for babies that sleep well (do I though, or am I just pissed off at them…)
Disclaimer…these are my experiences, take them or leave them…I’m too tired to care…

The boobs and the bees…explaining Breastfeeding to children…

Formula is normula but breast can also be best…

So if you didn’t know, it’s breast feeding celebration week 🍒 and as you probably do know I don’t breast feed, but in the same way I hate it when people judge bottle feeders I also hate judges of breast feeders. After all they didn’t create the phrase “breast is best”…it really only exists cos it rhymes. I’m sure if breast rhymed with “good” that saying would be “breast is good”…I’d like to bow down and accept your praise for my new “formula is normula” saying at this point 😂…you are very welcome!

Top 3 off the shelf remedies for eczema, cradle cap & nappy rash

Eczema – Reu has suffered from really bad eczema since he was born pretty much. We have recently learnt this is due to a cows milk allergy but up until that point we tried so many lotions and potions to try combat the dryness and itchiness so I thought I’d share our learnings. It was so bad at points that he was making himself bleed and we even had a visit to the hospital when the rash got so extreme we worried it may be something more sinister. At first I just mentioned it to the health visitors at clinic and they prescribed me some Epaderm, this really didn’t agree with Reu’s skin, it was almost greasy and made it flare up worse so we soon sacked that one off and I went back to clinic for more advice.
This time they gave us Oilatum for the bath, this worked for about a month then he seemed to become sort of immune to it and it started to make things worse.
So, back to clinic I went, feeling like a hypochondriac mum! This time they gave me some Oilatum cream…I mean this worked ok but I had to put so much on about 6 times a day for it to have any effect and it wasn’t pleasant for Reu and didn’t help a great deal as he was still itching and scratching loads.
I’d enough of being fobbed off by now as I pretty much knew it was due to an allergy so insisted on seeing the doctor. She prescribed us with some derma silk vests for him to wear at night, these were good and helped with the scratching but didn’t solve the problem, just helped manage it. They were also totally impractical for warmer nights as they were long sleeve and, whilst really thin, too hot to sleep in. She also prescribed some zero base emollient cream which was actually pretty good, the best so far by a long was as it was a lot less greasy, absorbed well and seemed to calm the redness down.
So that’s what the doctors gave us.. but one day Reu was at my mums house and I forgot the cream. She suffers from really really bad psoriasis and had been using Aveeno to try help, so when it came to cream application time she used this instead. IT WAS AMAZING! I’d seen the Jenifer Aniston ads and thought it was a bit of a fad but the cream is totally amazing, sort of like water in a cream. Really soothing, not greasy, thin but effective and makes the skin so smooth and really helped to calm down the eczema. I would highly recommend! This wasn’t the baby specific one but it says on the front suitable for babies over three months and you can actually get it on prescription, but I think it must be the most pricey as I wasn’t offered it. I’m going to do a separate post on the cows milk allergy which sort of concludes his eczema story as it’s been such a traumatic experience!

Nappy rash – when Reu was prescribed a special milk for his suspected allergy it made him get really terrible nappy rash. We’re talking open sores and a bit of blood, my poor little man 😩But honestly I had been to the doctors so many times I was starting to get a complex and felt like I needed to find a solution myself. I started with sudocrem (obv) but it seemed to sting his bum and he’d cry loads when I put it on so I stopped pretty pronto. I then tried bepanthum which seemed to help and cleared it up, but quite slowly and I had to use loads each application. I then decided to start using bepanthum directly on his skin then layered sudocrem on top to create a barrier between his bum and he nappy to stop it getting sore. This seemed to work but again it took a while to clear up and kept coming back. On another trip to the doctors I bumped into a lovely lady who recommended metanium, which is a yellow chalk like cream that you apply in a really thin layer every nappy change. This worked so so well and cleared it up so quickly (like overnight) I can’t recommend it enough as it far exceeded the other two in terms of fixing the problem. I have found the other two good to use as a preventative measure when his bum is totally nappy rash free as they do create a barrier but metanium is deff best for curing 🙌🏼 again this issues was all caused because of his allergy to cows milk so I’ll explain more in my post about that.

Cradle cap – another issue made worse by the allergy was really bad cradle cap. Whilst it didn’t seem to bother Reu it wasn’t ideal as it looked a bit gross and seemed to stop his hair coming through as thickly as it wanted to. I of course asked the health visitors about it and they told me to put olive oil on it once a day. This didn’t work at all, I’ll say no more. We decided to find our own fix and James came across this stuff called Loyon. It comes in a little glass bottle and you spray or droplet it onto the head. I used way more then they recommended each application and left it on his head all day (they say three hours I think) and it started to lift pretty much immediately. I used a soft brush to sort of rub it in and then a comb to get the flakes out. It’s almost gone now and if it comes back a bit I just spray more on and it gets rid of it 😍

So there you have it 😊 I’ll keep sharing any more finds along the way…

How to get RICH in 7 simple steps…

Firstly apologies for the click bait title, I’m not about to tell you some secret to earning tonnes of money, so close the page now if that’s what you came to read, or better yet, buy a lottery ticket and read on…

Plenty of Highs but my Fair Share of Lows

I thought given that it was Mental Health Awareness Week I would share my experience of the highs and lows that came with becoming a new mummy for me.

How to stay in shape and still enjoy life!

To quote Kate Moss “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”, correction Kate- you have clearly never tasted the culinary delight that is cheesy chips, or been so lucky as to devour a fondent fancy or fat rascal (or both)!