Sleeping through the night....

Well it has been 4 nights now and he seems to have cracked it!! With only one awful night since we started!! He has slept two nights in a row now and we have woken up at 7am, before BabyG has woken up!! What a result! I was expecting it to take much longer. Although, I may just be speaking too soon.... We will wait and see but for now, I am a very happy and rested MummyG!! I have been applying some of the advice to BoyG as well, like the pudding later on, and making pudding something like Total Greek Yogurt with mashed banana and weetabix. That seems to work with him as well, as he too has been sleeping much better! Keep up the good work boys!!

Operation Riley sleep through the night

At 9 months old, BabyG is still waking twice in the night for milk. We have finally asked a health visitor for some advice as we need some sleep.

The advice I was given was in two parts. First, feed tea at normal time but not pudding. Wait and give him pudding at 17:45 and give him full fat greek yogurt as this takes longer to digest so will hopefully keep him fuller for longer. Second, and this is the hard bit for me.... No milk in the night, just offer water as it is probably a habit to have milk and not because he is actually hungry.

The first night was brilliant! BabyG did so well and slept all night from 18:45 to 06:15. He grizzled in his sleep a few times but didnt actually need anything like milk etc.

Night 2 has been the opposite. He woke 5 times between 19:00 and 00:00!
He did have a dirty nappy at one point and is teething so that contributed. Its hard because a bottle of milk will settle him quickly and for longer which means I am back in bed quicker, for longer. He did actually drink some water and looked like he did just need a drink. I dont want to give in now and make a bottle or I will have to start all over again.

Apologies for any spelling errors but its the middle of the night, I am sleep deprived, and I am writing this on my phone whilst cuddling BabyG who is now asleep so I am going to put him back in his cot and head back to my own bed for another hour!

Night!

National Baby Massage Week with MamaBabyBliss

This week, 13th to 18th May, is National Baby Massage Week. MamaBabyBliss are celebrating thid year with events and promotions raising money for Bliss -the UK charity providing care for premature and sick babies and their families.

Baby Massage Week is to promote baby massage and its benefits, and to let parents know what resources are available for them.

I did a baby massage course when BoyG was a baby. I found it really helped me to bond with him more and it brought us even closer together. I will be looking to do a course with BabyG as well but I was worried that he was getting too big for it. BabyMamaBliss actually offer courses for babies or toddlers or even if you are pregnant! They offer baby massage, baby yoga, pamper parties and more. So I can relax now that I know BabyG is not too big for their courses!

Any money raised during the week will be used by Bliss to provide care and support for all premature and sick babies and their families.

In support of Bliss, MamaBabyBliss will be donating 10% of all product sales during the week to this amazing cause. This will include the beautiful gift sets, which are perfect for pregnant women, new mums and babies. Local MamaBabyBliss teachers will also be running events around the country to demonstrate the power of baby massage as well as raising funds for this worthwhile cause.

Justina Perry, the founder of MamaBabyBliss, comments: “Bliss is a fantastic charity, supporting the families of premature and sick babies. National Baby Massage Week is an ideal time to celebrate the benefits of touch and the power of baby massage in helping with a number of ailments and complaints in babies and young children, whilst at the same time raising money for this very worthwhile cause. The MamaBabyBliss teachers and myself are proud to be helping by donating 10% of our sales on products this week to Bliss, and we encourage all mums to come along to one of our events the local teachers are organising to try baby massage for themselves, knowing money raised will make a real difference to families and babies.”

To find out more about MamaBabyBliss classes in your area and the product range, please visit www.mamababybliss.com or call 01462 632499. To find out more about Bliss, go to www.bliss.org.uk.

Fish is the dish - Healthy Hearts - Quick and easy dinners

I just want to share a couple of dishes I did with fish for BoyG and myself. Just to show you can have a quick and cost effective meal using fish. Although I like to jazz up the dinners I cook and get a 'wow' from DaddyG or BoyG, I also love cooking meals that are quick, easy, and use few ingredients.

For a hungry and tired BoyG, I cooked some pasta (he chose the 'bumpy' spaghetti!), and put the steamer on top of the pasta pan to steam a piece of salmon. I flaked the salmon and mixed it with the pasta, some passata, ground pepper, dried oregano and dried basil. I was apprehensive as he is fussy but I know he has had fish and usually likes it.

Well, he loved it!! No complaints at all! So this will be done again for him! There was enough salmon for BabyG to have some as well.

And for a hungry and tired MummyG, I made up a packet of flavoured rice, put some wild haddock in the oven to cook through and then mixed the two together and served it with broccoli.

Two cost and time efficient meals that even FussyG, I mean BoyG will eat ;0)

Ronald McDonald Housing Trust - Fundraising

I am doing some fund raising for the Ronald McDonald house near Guys and St Thomas hospital in London. Here is just some background info so you can see why I want to support them.

My son was rushed to hospital at just 10 days old. We had no idea what was wrong with him. He was transferred by ambulance to the Evelina hospital in London where they found out by further tests that it was a problem with his heart and the aorta being much too narrow so the blood couldn't circulate through his heart properly. There were other issues too but this was the main problem and this is what needed to be dealt with. He had to have open heart surgery at 11 days old and was put on heart bypass.
He is such a fighter that he survived that big operation and was back home one week later! He is now 8 months old, strong and healthy.

This is Riley just before going into surgery

This is a happy and healthy Riley now

We have so many people to thank for him being here today. My brother is fund raising for the Evelina in August by arranging a fun day. I want to raise some money for the Ronald McDonald house that we stayed in. They let us stay in a room in the hospital so we had somewhere to sleep, rest, wash, store our things etc. Then they let us stay in a room at the house nearby for as long as we needed to. Again at the house we could store our things, we had somewhere to wash, a kitchen to use to prepare meals. Without this charity we would have had to stay in a hotel in central London which would have cost the earth and we wouldn't have been so nearby to our baby who needed us at his side. It would have all been an extra worry when we really needed to put all our thoughts into our baby.

We just want to raise some money for them so we can give something back, and so that they can continue to help other families who are unfortunate enough to be in the same position as we were.

I have set up a just giving page here so please feel free to donate via this page or by sending a text to 70070 with the code MCRA99 and the amount you wish to donate. For example MCRA99 £5. We are aiming to reach a target of £500 and then we can have a leaf on their 'tree of life' and have Riley's name put on it. The tree of life is in the Ronald McDonald house and you can donate money to have a leaf which is actually a plaque. You can then choose what words go on the plaque and everyone who visits that house will be able to see it.

I will be doing some more fund raising events to help reach this target so will update here on my blog.
Please feel free to follow my blog for updates and comment with any ideas, suggestions or thoughts.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post.

Rainy day idea - salt dough

OK so it wasn't actually raining when we played with salt dough but it is a good idea for something to do next time that it is raining and you are stuck for things to do with a bored small person.

BoyG loves anything crafty like this. I have never made salt dough before and the recipes I found all looked simple so I wanted to give it a go. BoyG had a friend over and we decided to try it out.

The ingredients:

Half a cup of salt, Half a cup of flour, 1 cup of water

The method:
Stir the salt into the flour and add the water slowly. If it is too wet then you can add a little more flour. When it is all mixed together you knead it like you would a bread dough and then it is ready to roll out and cut shapes from it with cookie cutters. Put the shaped on a plate in the microwave and heat for 2 mins and then check how they are doing. Then give them another minute if needed or you can give them 20 secs at a time if they are nearly done. When they are cooled they are ready to paint!

This was fun for all of us. We will be doing this again!

Milton travel dummy steriliser

I was given this travel dummy steriliser to review by Milton.

It comes with some mini Milton tablets and when they run out you can buy more in most Milton stockists. It also comes with instructions and a velcro tie so that you can hang the mini steriliser somewhere convenient. I stuck mine on the side of the change bag and it was very handy when out and BabyG kept dropping his dummies on the floor! It was in constant use!!

Once you have made up the Milton solution, it will stay sterile and ready to use for 24 hours. It takes just 15 minutes to sterilise a dummy and the dummy will stay sterile in the pot as long as the solution is less than 24 hours old. I found it best to have two dummies while out. One already to use in the steriliser and one ready to use for BabyG. That way he still had one to use while the other was being sterilised. Milton say that this is 100% watertight. I am always dubious when I read that kind of statement but in fact it really is leak proof and it did not leak once.

The dummy steriliser is available in blue, green or purple but we chose blue as it matched the dummies we had for BabyG!

I was given this by Milton while at the Excel baby show but these are available to but on line and in Milton stockists.