This morning was the first Tunbridge Wells Mum Club daytime meet up organised by the lovely Jess. Hosted by The Inside - a beautiful new cafe in Calverley Adventure Playground. It was such a lovely morning! Léon was at preschool so I went solo but it was a great turnout! Lots of mamas with their children who had bubbas as young as 4 weeks up to 4 years. A gorgeous space nestled inside Calverley Park. You can grab a hot or cold drink, cake and they offer lunch bites too! Plenty of entertainment for kids too. Love all the decor at The Inside. What a great way to display their hot drinks. All the bags are filled with toys! The lovely Laura (genius behind The Inside), she’s literally thought of everything! Hand warmers for you or your kids and gloves for your kids. Inside one of the toy bags. So creative and I imagine kids will love this. Their menu 😍 bites for adults and children. Their opening times are: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 10-2 and Saturday and Sunday 10-3. They are closed on Wednesday. There are some fabulous events coming up too so make sure you follow them for details. It was honestly the loveliest morning. I love meeting new people and it’s a great opportunity to meet new friends if you’re new to the area. Mums supporting mums is what it’s all about! Fantastic idea Jess! Can’t wait for more (especially some cocktails and dancing 🤣) Make sure you visit The Inside and come along to the next Twells Mum Club get together.
More details by following these lovely ladies: @twellsmumclub @the.inside.tw
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There’s a new cafe in town! Tunbridge Wells has really needed a place like this and it’s now open 🙌 Babycino is located in Chapel Place, Tunbridge Wells. I love the decor! The furniture, the colours, everything has been so carefully thought out and it looks just so inviting and warm. Hannah has created a gorgeous family friendly cafe spread over 2 floors. They offer an array of savoury food as well as lots of cakes 😍 I had the mozzarella, tomato and pesto panini which was delish as well as the chocolate cake 🙈 It’s details like this which make it such a lovely cafe. Book shelves both upstairs and downstairs to entertain your kids. and downstairs... More seating and the most stunning play area 😍 Hannah has selected gorgeous toys including a wooden kitchen, market stand, fresh mart till, work bench and lots more. Léon definitely approved! He had a play with everything 😀 Another big positive for me are the highchairs. You can properly strap baby in. Léon has a tendency to try and escape and succeeds with other highchairs but there’s no escaping from these ones. The changing facilities are so pretty and clearly thought out well as more than one bubba can be changed. We’ll definitely be visiting Babycino often!
For the past week now, Gus and I have dreaded putting Léon to bed. Something changed where our poor bubba is just so upset when we lie him down to go to sleep. The first night it happened, we were like “what the ***k is going on”. We’d gotten into a routine where Léon would just go to sleep like 5-10 minutes after putting him down. So the first night it happened, one of us was going back into his room every 5 minutes or so to try and settle him. He was just so upset until we picked him up and we noticed that he was burping or farting when we did. After an hour of on and off crying, he eventually went to sleep but then woke up around 1am and then again at 5am. This then continued for a week.
I was racking my brain to what I may have done to make Léon so windy. I asked my NCT girls for help (naturally) and I think the culprit is ONION!! I batch cooked a bunch of meals a few weeks ago and did put more onion than usual as I was cooking for all of us and just portioned out Léons stuff. That’s all I can think that we’ve changed. So for the last 4 days, I’ve cut out onion (or given meals where’s it’s definitely not much onion). The last 3 days have been the same with taking an hour to settle, but tonight so far....has been fine. Today I bought some gripe water and given that to him and I’ve also massaged him belly more throughout the day and cycled his legs. I’ve no idea though if I continue to give him gripe water with every meal? He’s never suffered like this before with wind and find it strange that it’s happening now as he’s older but I guess their tiny little bodies do go through a lot. I’m also still breastfeeding so was also trying to think if I had changed anything in my diet but I haven’t. I still eat crap 🙈🤣 I really thought Gus and I had finally crushed it. We had figured out our boy and nailed this bedtime routine and sleeping through the night but then a sickness bug hit, teething hit and now the bloody onion 🤣 We can do this 👊🏻 Léon loves bathtime! We couldn’t give him his first bath until he was around 4 weeks old because his cord just wouldn’t bugger off. We then just gave him a bath once a week and now we do it every night as part of his bedtime routine. Baby Towel Here’s Gus giving Léon his first bath, 12th November 2017. I chose the Cuddledry towel as my sister recommended it and we’ve loved it. It’s really soft. You can wrap it around your neck for support and it’s held by poppers so easy to pull off. It also has a hood 👍 Baby Bath Seat Simply put, my sister wasn’t using hers anymore so we borrowed it from newborn till around 7 months. When doing research, this was a very popular choice. Also comes in handy when you need to pee as you can pop baby in it 👍 Now that Léon is more sturdy when sitting up, we now use a bath mat. He clearly much prefers this and splashes around. I got this one off Amazon for £8.99. Baby Sponges Boots Ramer Ultra Soft Baby Sponges. They come in a pack of 2 and are £2.19. Not much to say here as they’re sponges. Very soft sponges and I felt many sponges for research 🙈 Baby Wash I had heard good things about Aveeno and it was on offer in Boots so thought we’d try it. It smells so good and can be used for hair and body. Baby Shampoo You’re probably wondering why do we use a different shampoo when the Aveeno can be used on hair too. To be honest, I’ve no idea. I probably didn’t even notice that the Aveeno said for hair and body and picked up this Dove one. It does smell really good and it’s good value. Bubble Bath We’ve only started using bubble bath. We were in Boots and thought that Léon might enjoy bubbles so we chose this one. Purely based on the scent really. Moisturiser Gus moisturises Léon with this every night since we’ve started bathing him every night. He has incredibly soft skin so it must be down to this moisturiser. It’s not cheap at £8.50 but I use the subscribe and save on Amazon which brings it down to £6. The NCT girls also use it and rave about it. Toy Storage We’ve accumulated a large amount of bath toys now so I bought this mesh toy storage that sticks to the wall. It was £1.99 off eBay.
Toys We have the obligatory duck toy for the bath which Léon loves to chew on. Otherwise, I haven’t yet invested in specific bath toys. He’s quite happy with this plastic measuring spoons and ducks. I started introducing solids to Léon at around 5 months. My sister gave me some good advice where if you start weaning a bit before 6 months then you can go at a slow pace and won’t feel so rushed and I’m so glad I did.
Léons now 7 and half months and he LOVES food. He’s on 3 meals a day as well as boob milk and water. A typical day consists of: Breakfast Aptamil 7 months plus cereal Some fruit purée (homemade or ASDA) Some yoghurt (Ella’s kitchen or ASDA) A biscotti stick Lunch 1 or 2 cubes of homemade food or half a cow and gate jar Some fruit purée Some yoghurt Ella’s kitchen melty sticks Dinner Same as above I’ve no idea if this is too little or too much but he’s really enjoying it all and I can tell when he doesn’t want anymore. What have I learnt about teething? So far, it’s a bitch! A few weeks ago, Léon had quite a few bad nights and all I could think that it could be was teething. If I didn’t believe this then I may have lost my mind. He was dribbling loads, chewing his hands, crapping around the clock (no idea if that’s a sign) and he was generally rather unhappy and we ruled out everything else it could be. Now one of his bottom teeth has poked through!! Hallelujah! After having such an unhappy bubba, it’s good to see there was a reason. Rather scared of breastfeeding though 😬😬😬 Below are some things I’ve found useful: Teetha - a homeopathic remedy. Little satchets of granules that you put in baby’s mouth. This works a charm on my friend Emily’s baby. Calms her down so quickly! Abnesol Liquid - there is a liquid and gel version of this but I’ve found the liquid to be easier to apply. Léon fat tongue always gets in the way and the gel went everywhere. You can use this every 4 hours if needed. Teething Toys - we’ve got quite a few that he likes including Sophie Le Giraffe, Matchstick Monkey and Banana Brush. Calpol - we’ve given Calpol a couple of times at night too when he’s so upset. He loves the taste and it calms him as well as helps him sleep. If anyone knows of any other teething remedies I should try then do let me know 😀
The time has come for Léon to be shipped off to his own room 😬 He’s been next to me for just over 5 months and now it’s his time to sleep in the big boy cot. Gus went to Homebase and bought a £16 blackout blind, which looked easy to put up and Léons room is perfectly dark. Click here for the link to the blinds. His first night started well but then he got pretty upset at like 330am so I brought him back into our room. His second night was great! He woke up twice for feeds and woke up for the day at 630am. His third night also went well but 3 feeds this time and woke up at 7am for the day. He keeps crapping during the night so have to change his nappy which must wake him up a fair bit but I just put him back down in his cot and he drifts off when he’s ready. I have our video monitor set up in his room so if I want to see him then I can just turn the monitor on but his room isn’t far from ours and can hear him pretty clearly if he needs us.
It’s been quite a smooth transition so far. He must like his own room and not hearing us snore or Gus chatting in his sleep 🤣 I thought I’d miss him more but to be honest, really like having our room back and being able to cough or sneeze 😂 Every year, I search for a nice photo of my mum and I to wish her a happy Mother’s Day. This year it’s my first Mother’s Day and I can now truly appreciate what my mum has done for me. Of course I appreciated her before but now becoming a mother myself, I understand a whole lot more. I like to think when Léons older, he’ll find this photo and wish me a happy mamas day 😀 I absolutely love being a mum. Every day is different. I love seeing how Léon is developing. At the moment, he’s blowing lots of raspberries and generally making a lot of strange noises. I feel incredibly lucky to have this gorgeous bundle of chubiness. Léon got me a beautiful bunch of flowers and a Missoma charm with the letter L on it. We also went for brunch at The Royal Wells hotel where I got pancakes!! The perfect first Mother’s Day 😍 Happy Mother’s Day to all the mamas out there! 😘
Firstly, go to your local breastfeeding cafe! Even if you aren’t experiencing any issues, I’d suggest going and talking to the lactation specialists. They are so knowledgeable and can suggest a variety of positions for you to try. It's also a great place to meet other mamas and eat cake. You can find your local breastfeeding cafe by clicking the link at the bottom of my blog post. If only I went to the breastfeeding cafe straight away, rather than waiting 7 weeks (I blame irrational decision making due to the fact I just gave birth). To be fair, I wasn’t having big issues. Léon was piling on the pounds, so he was definitely getting milk. I just found that I had to use a pillow every time I fed him to get comfortable. It also felt like I was feeding him all the time (possibly not feeding effectively due to the positioning or latch). It got to 6-7 weeks and I still hadn’t seeked help and Léon was starting to hurt me (must’ve been the positioning in hindsight). I couldn’t do the typical cradle position when feeding Léon mainly due to the fact gravity hasn’t been kind 🤣 I finally went to my local breastfeeding cafe which is at Manna Cafe on the High Street in Tunbridge Wells. It's on every Friday during Term time from 10-12. My lovely NCT friend Harriet came with me for support. You get free cake and tea when attending the cafe too 👍 A lovely woman came and spoke to me and I explained the issues I was having and she watched me feed Léon and within seconds she had shown me a position to try and it was amazing. I was much more comfortable and most importantly, no pain. This is me at the breastfeeding cafe once I’d just been shown this position to feed Léon. My massive boob is totally blocked by his head 👍 I’m really enjoying breastfeeding. Don’t get me wrong, it was super painful for me at the beginning. I thought my nipples were going to fall off, but with the help of nipple shields and cream I got through it. It’s amazing to think how my milk has kept Léon fed and growing so well. I hope to continue it for as long as I can.
Here's a photo of Léon fashioning a breastpad béret. I found it hilarious for some reason. Must be the sleep deprivation. The all important topic of the bedtime routine. We started doing one for Léon quite early on but then stopped because I thought to myself "this is a lot of work", “is this really doing anything?” and “surely he’s too young?”. Now he's a bit older (15 weeks), we’ve reintroduced the bedtime routine and hopefully he'll sleep a bit longer. I really can't complain regarding his sleep. A lot of other mothers have had it worse e.g my sister! Typically, Léon would sometimes sleep for 4 hours, then 3, then 2 then 1. It always seems to get shorter and shorter as it creeps to morning. Then again some nights are up every 2 or 3 hours. He's been waking up 3 or 4 times a night and I assumed it is hunger as to why he is waking up, but last week, when he woke after 3 hours, I thought I'd try and stroke him back to sleep as opposed to feeding him and he went back to sleep. Clearly, he is capable of going for longer without food but just wakes up.
I'm reading a sleep book that my sister has lent me and it says that babies love routine and a bedtime routine is key for them to realise that when certain things happen, it means bedtime. It may be a bath, a song, a book, a massage or even all of these things combined. Our bedtime routine: If he woke up from his last nap at around 17:00 then we might start his routine at around 17:30. 17:30pm - feed 17:45pm - bath (I didn't want to bathe him everyday as its just not necessary but he loves the bath and splashing around which I feel burns energy which in turn will help him sleep) 18:00pm - moisturise, pjs and night time nappy 18:10pm - massage (mainly legs but might do a full body soon - lucky bugger) 18:15pm - put in his sleeping bag and start feeding again He may feed for as long as 40 minutes. It really does vary but I try and feed him as much as possible in hope he won't wake for a while. I also try and put him down in his bed awake but the past few nights, there is no waking him. If I am able to put him down awake but sleepy then I'd sing Frere Jacques (he's a part French baby, so had to be this song really haha) The results so far: 1st night: 6 hours straight!!! then up for a feed then 4 hours - he's never only had one feed in the night, I thought "omg its worked!" 2nd night: 4 hours then 4.5 hours then 2 hours - still a pretty damn good night 3rd night: 4 hours then 3 hours then 1 hour then 1.5 then 40 minutes - he randomly decided to stay awake for an hour during the night then the random 1 hour sleeps (those are tough) That's the findings so far. Lets see what happens tonight! |
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