Natural Beauty with Baby
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Parenting

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If you’re adjusting to life as a parent or you’ve been in the thick of it for years, then find solace and advice here. It’s a messy, beautiful reality, and this section can help you find your parenting flow!

Natural products to help your toddler sleep
Children's Skin Care

Natural products to help your toddler sleep

In this post, I’m talking about creating a gentle toddler sleep routine, and I’ll be looking at some of the best natural products to help your toddler sleep. A sleep routine has nothing to do with strict bedtimes and sleep training, but is a calming way to help your toddler to relax and pick up on the cues that bedtime is near. Jonah’s biggest sleep association is, of course, the boob. But we’ve found it helpful to introduce a routine that he recognises and has come to expect. For instance, bath, nappy, massage, story, breastfeed, then bedtime. Natural bath and bedtime products can be a huge part of such a routine. Bathing, massaging, and enjoying familiar fragrances together creates a lovely bond between parent and toddler, and the practise is very comforting and soothing. I’m talking about massage and foot oils, pillow mists, and bath products to help calm and relax…

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The Gentle Eating Book
Parenting

The Gentle Eating Book review

I was so pleased to be sent a copy of Sarah Ockwell-Smith’s new book, The Gentle Eating Book (£9.99, Amazon). I’ve followed Sarah and gentle parenting since Jonah was born. I’m going to apologise in advance for the length of this post, but reading this book has moved me in so many ways. I’ve found it to be very healing. I’m so excited to share it with you! Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book to review. My opinions are my own and unbiased. Sarah is a founder of the gentle parenting movement, which is a shift away from authoritarian parenting approaches of the past. Gentle parenting aims to be a child led, respectful, and mindful way to raise children. Sarah’s other books include Gentle Parenting, The Gentle Discipline Book, The Gentle Sleep Book, and The Gentle Potty Training Book, amongst others. The Gentle Eating Book follows similarly by…

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Messy Little Thing Bib review
Food

Messy Little Thing bib review

We’ve just got back from a gorgeous babies brunch where we got to try out the brilliant Messy Little Thing bib. Those a-ha moments in parenting, where you wish you’d discovered something sooner? I’m going to share with you just one of those moments. Jonah is almost 19 months and we’ve been weaning him since he was 6 months old. He still eats with his hands and isn’t that great at using a knife, spoon, or holding a open cup. He’d much rather make a huge mess and get stuck in with his hands! In true baby led weaning fashion, almost every meal he gets messy. We don’t avoid the mess. We use an eco stain remover to soak his clothes. At the beginning of weaning, we did an awful lot of soaking. We still have a hard time keeping Jonah clean when we eat messy meals like tomato sauce pasta,…

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My extended breastfeeding story for Columns by Kari
Breastfeeding

My extended breastfeeding story for Columns by Kari

I was so bowled over to be invited to guest post my extended breastfeeding story for Columns by Kari in her World Mama series. This gorgeous series highlights amazing stories from parents all over the world. It gives a really broad perspective of life as a parent. In the post, you can read my experiences on breastfeeding a baby over 1 year old. Sometimes, it’s lovely to breastfeed an older baby. Often, it comes with challenges, too. You can also find tips on how to make breastfeeding work if you hope to go beyond a year. Have a read! My extended breastfeeding story for Columns by Kari I’ve been a fan of Kari and her blog since we met on Instagram. Her feed is so beautiful! Have you checked out Kari’s blog before? She features beauty and parent life with her gorgeous family in both English and Dutch. Take a…

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My toddler's first haircut
Parenting

My toddler’s first haircut

This week, we booked my toddler’s first haircut. It’s safe to say I’ve been quite anxious about it all week. If you’ve been following my blog or Instagram, you’ve probably experienced the loveliness that is my son’s hair. It’s beautiful, and fast becoming part of his personality. But it does seem a little untamed when he’s next to his peers with their neat haircuts. I often ask myself, should we get his first haircut? Then, my I berate myself. His locks are so precious, how can I contemplate getting them cut? They’re soft, slightly curly, and beautifully wild and natural. I’m feeling hesitant about my toddler’s first haircut – especially since he’ll lose those beautiful first baby curls and may come out with a grown-up look. My worries are that a haircut will somehow take something away from Jonah, and that changing his look might change how I feel about him.…

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Birchfield Farm Dairies Pumpkin Festival review
Parenting

Birchfield Farm Pumpkin Festival review

Birchfield Farm Pumpkin Festival runs from the 14th to the 15th October, and the 21st to the 31st October 2017. It is open from 10am to 4pm. The farm is in Summerbridge, a few miles out of Harrogate, North Yorkshire. It’s in the valley of Nidderdale – an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. We travelled about an hour from Teesside to get to Birchfield Farm Pumpkin Festival. The Pumpkin Festival and the farm in general make a great family day out for children and adults of all ages, although those with difficulty walking may not find it easy to navigate around the farm. The day centres around the pumpkin patch, where you can pick your own pumpkins straight from the field. There are lots of family-oriented activities to take part in at the farm, and I will cover them in this review. Let’s jump straight in! Car parking at Birchfield Farm…

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Seven Minerals Organic Aloe Vera Spray
Children's Skin Care

Toddler first aid kit – the first aid & home remedy items you need

This post will help you put together a handy toddler first aid kit. Mobile babies and toddlers get in so many scrapes don’t they? Many of these ouchies are treatable at home with lots of cuddles and a few choice first aid kit items. When Jonah started to walk at 13 months, we realised we needed a first aid kit to treat his minor bumps and scrapes. We didn’t want to buy a first aid kit off the shelf, because we wanted more than just practical items like plasters, bandages, and dressings. We also wanted toddler-friendly and natural remedies that would ease common complaints and support Jonah’s body to heal itself. My husband and I aren’t very physical people, so we don’t get injured that often. And luckily, we don’t tend to get poorly much – apart from when Jonah brings the lurgies back from play group. Reflecting this, our…

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Enjoy the flowers – Jonah and Mummy
Parenting

Photography post – Jonah enjoys the wild flowers

Stockton-on-Tees is our home town – we live just outside of the centre of Stockton in a village called Norton. Along with Billingham, it’s one of the most northerly places in Stockton borough. This year, local people have been getting really excited because the council seeded beautiful wild flowers instead of planting rigid rows of traditional bedding flowers. And they look so beautiful! And the pollinators love them! Well done council! We thought we’d take Jonah down to one of the sites on Bypass Road in Billingham to have a look since he’s very much into flowers, trees, and running around like a small boy who’s just found his legs. Weeeeeee! We’re really happy with the photos we took. You can never have too many photos of your toddler, since they grow so quickly and change fast. We’re both camera nwerds and Jonah is the perfect subject! We’ve used a…

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Together after Jonah's birth - Jonah's birth story
Parenting

Jonah’s birth story – a day of love, tears, and pushing

It’s long overdue, but I’d like to share Jonah’s birth story here on my blog. It seems such a long time ago as Jonah is now 14 months old. Sitting here to write it makes me feel so happy and gooey, as it was such a beautiful day full of love, tears, music, and pushing! I’d hit 40 weeks and Jonah’s due date knowing that only 5% of babies actually arrive “on time”. I knew he’d arrive a bit later than his due date. North Tees hospital kept moving our dates forward at scans, and since I knew the exact day I fell pregnant, Jonah was actually just measuring big for his dates. We’d followed a HypnoBirthing course with the excellent Vicki Lund, so we had birth preferences in our hospital folder. Jonah’s birth didn’t go exactly as I’d hoped, but it was a completely positive experience! I’m so glad…

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Why I'll never sleep train our baby
Parenting

Why I’ll never sleep train my baby

In this post, I share why I’ll never sleep train my baby. We were gifted an old-fashioned crib by family, but went out and bought a Snuzpod sidecar crib so we could co-sleep safely. When expecting, we said we’d never bed share because we’d read all the advice about how bed sharing could lead to SIDS and was dangerous. We’d never put Jonah’s health at risk! We stayed two nights in hospital to get breastfeeding support, and were surprised that Jonah didn’t sleep well in his crib. He’d cry when we put him down, and found it very hard to settle in that little plastic box. In my ignorant new mother haze, I genuinely believed there was something wrong with him. I even asked the midwives why he wouldn’t settle anywhere but in my arms. The belief that babies sleep in cribs was so strong with me. After Jonah’s birth,…

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