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April 29th, 2009
Alright, following on from my out and about theme, let’s talk changing bags. I should say up front that I’m not a handbag type of girl. Shoes and handbags don’t do it for me, if I’m out and about on my own, I just take what I need in my pockets – after all, card, cash and lipgloss is all this girl needs.
I have one ’smart’ small black leather handbag for weddings and special occasions and a sloppy silver bag for more casual. So when it came to looking for a changing bag, I was always going to go for function over fashion. First time round, I went for an Avent Changing Bag. It had everything I was looking for;
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Shoulder Straps
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Good size
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Separate wet / dirty area
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Pockets for all the baby bits and pieces
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Incorporated changing mat
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Washable / Wipeclean outer (and believe me when you’ve wiped baby sick off your bag for the umpteenth time, you’ll be glad of this)
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Built in bottle insulator
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Not too girly for times when my husband would use it
It was great. It did everything it needed to and I could always cram everything I needed into it baby wise, even for a weekend away. It was matt black so it didn’t show any dirt, was comfortable to wear and easy to hang from the buggy. The inside was plastic coated, so again, you could wipe it clean easily. There was nothing wrong with it, but no-one would ever have had changing bag envy.
The downside was that it was just a bit drab. And the plastic coating inside got a bit brittle and tore on the bottle insulating bit, which gave me an excuse to get another one for baby no2.
This time round I went for a Skip-Hop one in red to match my buggy. It looked better, but still functional, and my husband would have been quite happy to carry it (not that he ever did you understand, chance would be a fine thing!) This time round I didn’t have the built in bottle insulator and instead carried warm water for formula in a thermos flask. This worked well, but was a bit bulky and I found it difficult to find things in the bag as it was limited on space – especially using washable nappies which are bulkier anyway.
By the time I’d got to baby no3, I’d realised that I didn’t need a specific changing bag with all the bells and whistles. My highest priority was a BIG bag to carry my essentials (phone, purse, lipstick) snacks and drinks for sons 1 & 2, nappy changing bibs and bobs for youngest 2 and finally bottles etc for no3. I’m surprised I make it out of the house without a giant samsonite suitcase to be honest.
I’m currently using whichever tote bag is bag of the week that week (switching between a big canvas beach bag and a lovely one from made in london). I’ve invested in a tommy tippee bottle insulator which holds one bottle and can just be bunged in when I’m ready to go out. I’ve got space for my Cheeky Wipes Fresh and Mucky Wipes bags (my Mucky Wipes bag doubles up as a wet bag for any dirty nappies) and I don’t bother with a changing mat – if there isn’t one around I just lay a muslin down first. Best of all the bags can be chucked in the wash, and given the propensity to accumulate random raisins, sticky bits of fluffy sweet and crumbly biscuit, that’s the most important benefit of all.
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Tags: baby, buying for baby, changing bag review
Posted in Buying For Baby, baby | 1 Comment »
April 27th, 2009
I’m writing this from the carriage of a train, en route to the Scottish Baby Show which I’m looking forward to. I’m hoping to get at least 15 minutes to have a mooch about at some stage to see who else is exhibiting and if I can pick up any (useful) bargains. The key word here is ‘useful’….I know from past experience that although baby shopping is usually very tempting, there’s only so many buggy snuggles / carriers / changing bags that you can actually use at any one time and there’s always SO many to choose from.
Which brings me nicely to my next topic. When you finally venture out of the house post baby (1st time round it took me 3 weeks to do this on my own and WHAT a mission it was. Trust me it gets easier!), what pieces of kit will you need to make this as easy as possible?
A sling is always useful. I’ve tried 3 completely different types which have their pros and cons. With no1 son I bought a Baby Bjorn padded carrier. At the time it seemed to be the most highly recommended and to be fair my husband got quite a bit of use out of it. This carrier had adjustable straps which were padded and it gave good support around your back too. It could only be used on your front, but the baby could face inwards or outwards. I didn’t use it a lot with no 1 son as I found it really tricky to put on myself, but I used it a lot more with no 2 son when I realised that it was easiest to keep one side completely clipped closed and then to slide the baby in, rather than trying to hold baby in place and then do the clips up.
As I said, I didn’t initially get on with the Baby Bjorn, so when no2 son was due I looked around again for a different sling / carrier. I liked the look of the fabric pouch type ones as in the pictures the baby always looked cosy and comfy. I eventually settled on a Hotsling because they came in lots of cool and groovy colours (even reversible) – to the point that I bought two of them to match different clothes before the baby had even arrived. Foolish girl! No2 son absolutely hated it, screamed blue murder every time I tried to put him in it. I’m not sure if that was because I didn’t get the right size, or wasn’t doing it right or whatever but it just didn’t work for me. What a waste! So I dug out the good old Baby Bjorn and had another go at using it and what do you know, I could do it. Probably should have waited until no 2 son arrived and tested it myself and then I would have saved myself £40, grrr.
By the time no3 was due, I was quite certain that I didn’t need another sling. What I hadn’t counted on however was a colicky, unsettled baby girl who couldn’t settle herself to sleep during the day. With two older brothers who still needed attending to, I tried the Baby Bjorn around the house. It worked in that my GG would sleep in it, but it felt quite bulky to use indoors and I felt quite constrained by it. So I ordered my 3rd and final carrier, a Kari-Me. I’d actually seen one in use by a friend and it was very simple. It’s just one long length of fabric which is wrapped around the wearer and the baby just slides in to be held securely and closely. It took me a couple of goes to get used to tying it at the right position, but I really loved it. It can be worn by anyone as it’s completely adjustable and baby can be worn on the front, facing inwards or outwards, or can be carried on your back, piggy-back stylie. The only downside is that it’s quite warm to wear, but I used to wear less layers if I was going to be using it. My husband preferred the Baby Bjorn still, but then he didn’t usually have to look after the other children at the same time. There’s other makes of slings like this available, one which is similar but less material is the closer sling which might lso be worth investigating.
Hopefully you’ll have a better idea now of what might work or not for you, you can avoid the mistakes I made!
Tags: baby, baby carrier review, baby sling review, buying for baby
Posted in Buying For Baby, baby | 1 Comment »
April 24th, 2009
OK, I talked a little bit about bottle feeding last time, which could be formula or expressed breast milk (ebm). Obviously ebm is best for baby, but I can honestly say that by the time baby no3 arrived I was happy to top up with formula for one feed a day.
For expressing you have a choice of a manual pump (the one from Avent was my preference) or an electric one, something like the Medela pump. I tried both. The Avent one was fine, it wasn’t especially quick but it did the job and was comfortable to use. I used the Medela Mini Electric Breast Pump for my last two. It was quicker and I could use it to express while I was feeding the baby from the other side, which saved me time (a godsend with no3, when I had to contend with doing the school run in the morning, so time was of the essence!) The downside to the Medela pump is that you do feel like Daisy the Cow whilst using it and it’s not particularly comfortable. As I explained to my husband if he fancied sticking his willy in the vacuum cleaner he might have a good idea of how it feels!
Other expressing related paraphernalia which is useful are milk bags to store any excess milk in. Avent and Lansinoh do some and they’re handy as they’re just the right size and you can write the date on them and pop them in the freezer. Just remember to use them up – even when you’ve started to wean, you can mix this milk with their purees. Don’t do what I did with no1 child and religiously freeze your excess milk, then forget about it and end up chucking it out 6 months down the line. Very frustrating because of the effort involved in getting it. Although it is quite funny to have extra breast milk on hand for making comedy cups of tea for your husband when he’s annoying you…well it made me smile anyway 
A steriliser is a must as you’ll need to sterilise bottles until 6 months. Again, I went for the old fashioned cold water steriliser which is basically a plastic tub that you pop sterilising tablets into along with some water. I know you can get microwave and steam sterilisers, but I like the fact that your bottles are constantly ready to use without any faffing around. You just change the solution once a day so it’s easy and takes just a few minutes.
So what else might you need? Well there are a couple more bits and bobs that make bottle feeding a bit easier. A little milk powder container is brilliant as it makes life much easier to weigh out milk for the next three bottles and it’s easy to take the correct milk amount out and about with you. I have a couple but found the one from Mothercare a little big bigger, so it works best.
And lastly you’ll ideally have something to keep water warm while you’re out and about (unless of course you always make your formula up using cold water – my wee ones never took to that!), but I’ll talk about those options in conjunction with changing bags – one for you to look forward to!
Tags: baby, baby bottle reviews; breast pump reviews, buying for baby
Posted in Buying For Baby, baby | Comments Off
April 17th, 2009
Although we all know the benefits of breast-feeding for mother and child, sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Even if you’re 100% committed to breast-feeding, your baby just might not get the hang of it.
In my case I fed both of my boys myself for 6 & 7 months respectively and fully expected to do the same with my girly girl (GG). Unlike my boys however, the GG never seemed to take to it in the same way and was very unsettled until we introduced formula at 4 months. I can honestly say it was like flicking a switch – we went from having an unsettled, grumpy baby to one who would simply fall asleep herself under her play gym. I should have listened to my Mum who had been telling me that she was hungry all along (and bless my Mum, she has yet to say ‘I told you so’).
So is it necessary to buy bottles and formula prior to the arrival of your new baby if you’re planning on breast-feeding? Well, yes I think so. There’s a couple of circumstances where it’s really beneficial.
Firstly, if you have a big, hungry baby like both of my boys then they might not be satisfied with colostrum until your milk comes in. By all means, offer them breast every two hours, but if you’ve got a restless baby giving them an oz or two of formula isn’t going to hurt them and might give you a little respite to have a snooze.
And in this instance, you don’t want to have to leave the house for a midnight hunt for an open supermarket. Much easier to have a couple of bottles on hand, with a couple of cartons of ready prepared formula. (Again, if you’ve never made up formula before, trying to work out the instructions with a screaming baby and fuzzy post labour head isn’t a pleasant experience – take it from one who knows!)
So what do you actually need to buy in terms of bottles / formula etc? I used Avent bottles for my eldest boy but switched to Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature for my GG. They’re the ones that are boob shaped and are specially made for Mums who plan to mix feed. Initially if you’re planning to breast feed, two should be enough for emergencies – and don’t bother with the small bottles as they’ll outgrow them and you can use the 9oz bottles from the start.
As I said earlier, if you’re a new Mum, have 2 or 3 small cartons of ready made formula on hand. You might not need it, but it’s better to have it there and not need it than have a panicked rush out to get some when you need it. As for which brand of formula, that’s up to you. I used SMA Gold because that’s what they use in the maternity unit that my Mum works in, but some friends recommend Milupa instead.
The other reason you might want to buy bottles is if you plan to mix-feed with breast feeding and some bottle feeding (either formula or expressed breast milk). It’s a great combination giving you some freedom and potentially getting your partner involved…but I’ll talk about that next time. See you soon.
Tags: baby, bottle feeding, buying for baby
Posted in Buying For Baby, baby | 1 Comment »
April 13th, 2009
When it comes to reusable pads there are 2 different types available, cloth or silicone. I’ll be honest upfront and say that although I liked these in theory, these didn’t work out for me. I found the cloth ones a bit scratchy to use and that they did smell of sour milk after a while. I stopped using them because I had thrush in my nipples (ouch, ouch, OUCH!) and wanted to avoid re-infection.
I also tried the fabulous Lilypadz which a friend recommended to me. These are silicone shaped pads which basically stick to your boobs and stop the flow of milk rather than just absorbing it. They work on the same principle that if your milk ‘let-down’ starts, you can stop it by pressing flat against your breast with your hand. I found that they worked really well for me although I believe that it’s best to start using them once your milk supply has settled down, past the engorgement stage as the pressure of milk might be too much for the Lilypdz to hold at that point.
The main benefit to using Lilypadz over cloth or disposable pads is that they’re VERY discreet. You could wear a white t-shirt over the top without those tell-tale shaped pads being visible. Not a good look. Plus they’ll probably work out cheaper if you’re planning to feed for more than a couple of months as I paid about £15 for my set. The downside to Lilypadz for me is that I had Eczema on my boobs while I was breast-feeding (anyone who says that breast-feeding is easy has obviously never had the thrush / mastitis / nasty latch-on experiences) and the Lilypadz exacerbated it so I couldn’t continue using them.
So what other breast related bits and bobs are useful? Well I found nipple shields to be a godsend. At some stage with all my children I needed to use nipple shields, usually around the 7 day old mark when I realised that I was dreading the next feed because my poor nipples were a blistered, bleeding mess. They’re great for using temporarily to give some respite and allowing your boobs to heal. Lansinoh ointment is fabulous stuff too in these painful circumstances.
Just when you thought that breast feeding was distinctly unglamorous, my last top tip for breast feeding necessities is a fabulous bra. I discovered the HOTmilk range during my third pregnancy and thought I should treat myself as I had only just stopped wearing my nursing bras after baby no2 and they were all looking grey and grubby (which is just how I felt too!). HOTmilk bras have it all: they’re gorgeous, give you a great cleavage but most of all are extremely comfortable, with no underwiring but plenty of support built in. And (whisper) I’m still wearing mine 2 months after finishing breast feeding as they’re now my favourite bras, so they’re good value for money too.
Hopefully that’s given you an overview on breast feeding buying tips, but if you’ve any comments to share, please feel free to post.
Tags: baby, breast-feeding, buying for baby
Posted in Buying For Baby, baby | No Comments »
April 13th, 2009
I thought I’d kick off the next of my baby buying tips with covering off baby feeding. Obviously the cheapest and most natural way to feed your baby is breast-feeding. You’ve got the equipment for it already in place and you can take it with you wherever you go. But check out the shelves of your local baby shop and they’ve got a bewildering array of breast and nipple related accoutrements which seem to be designed to confuse. So which of these if any do you need?
Well breast pads seem to be the obvious place to start. No matter whether you intend on breast feeding or not, you’re going to need breast pads to soak up leaks (and believe me when you’ve leaked milk onto your husbands back during the night, you’ll come to appreciate the benefits of breast pads!) Breast pads can be disposable or reusable and I’ve tried both sorts so am happy to share my experiences.
With disposable, I’d really recommend that you buy a well known brand because you definitely get what you pay for. I liked Johnsons or Avent because they were nicely padded and absorbent, but soft too, with no rough edges. I did try some supermarket brands (mainly because they didn’t stock any alternatives) and generally they were pretty rubbish. Not enough absorbency and irritating crinkly paper bits round the outside which itched and were very uncomfortable too.
The benefits of disposable pads are that you change them fairly frequently so from a hygiene perspective that’s good especially if you suffer from thrush or mastitis). Plus because you’re changing the pads, in theory you shouldn’t ever smell of stale milk (but given that you’ve generally got a splodge of baby sick somewhere about your person for the first 6 months of their life, that’s probably not as much of a bonus as it should be…).
The downsides are that they’re more expensive (about £4 for a pack of 30 which was enough for about 2 weeks for me) than reusables in the long run and obviously have more environmental impact as they are disposable. One word of caution too on disposable pads as they seem to have a life of their own and whilst I was using them I would keep finding them in strange places where they’d escaped from the confines of my bra and were making a run for the border!
Tags: baby, breast-feeding, buying for baby
Posted in Buying For Baby, baby | No Comments »
April 13th, 2009
OK, next in my list of big purchases is the car seat. In our case, we went for the maxi-cosi car seat because it fitted to the bugaboo. It’s still being used for child no3, however I failed to read the washing instructions and put the seat cover in the washing machine instead of just sponging it clean when preparing for the arrival of son no2. It got the seat nice and clean, but frayed the edges of the material so it looks a bit ratty. I now use it with a Car Seat Cover from Minnie Moo: http://www.mymoo.co.uk/. Not only is it cute, but it allows you to reuse car seats that would otherwise you wouldn’t want to be seen with (and tarts up a grubby car seat if you’re lucky enough to have one passed on to you, or if you find a little Ebay gem).
The last ‘big piece of kit to cover today is something for your baby to sleep in. We were very lucky to have a family crib for our little ones to use, which just needed a new mattress. I’m not sure I would have bought a moses basket as they grow out of them so quickly, but I can appreciate the benefits as they’re easy to move about the house and to pop in the back of the car if you’re going to visit friends and family.
I think if I was buying from scratch, I’d buy a cot bed from the get go. No1 son and the troublesome toddler have both used the same cot, which was inexpensive and did the job. They then migrate into a big boy bed when they reach the appropriate age (or maybe not for the troublesome toddler, I’m quite happy to keep him caged in his cot at the moment until he works out how to escape). On the other hand, baby girl went straight to a cotbed. It was more expensive, but will last until she’s at least five so you don’t have that problem of changing bed and the upset it causes?
Hopefully that will have been of help and if it has, just let me know – and be sure to pop back for my next updates.
Tags: buying for baby; car seat reviews; cot reviews; baby
Posted in Buying For Baby, baby | No Comments »
April 7th, 2009
There’s no doubt about it, having a baby is probably the most life-changing thing you’ll ever do. One day you’re part of a couple with a cool back catalogue on your ipod, no cares in the world and the ability to just pop to the pub whenever you want (oh those heady days!).
One pink line later and you’re trying to get your head around the fact that you’re going to become a family of three. Now, I’m not even going to consider the emotional impact of that momentous change, or give any advice about mentally preparing for baby (well not at the moment anyway!) I thought I would start my new blog by sharing some of my tips on buying for baby – whilst minimising cost and your environmental impact too!
Lots of the big high street retailers publish baby buying lists which are as long as your arm and mostly unnecessary. As someone who has been there and done that (3 children later) I’ve made my fair share of mistakes in buying things which are completely inappropriate for us as a family either because of size or because I impulse bought.
Remember, the best way to save money (and the planet) is to use pre-loved baby equipment. Unfortunately we were the first amongst our friends to have babies, so we didn’t get much handed down, but baby girl is the proud receiver of many, many bags of lovely girly clothes which I’m very grateful for. Obviously some things aren’t suitable for passing on, but generally with a bit of a scrub and TLC most goods can be used again.
I’m going to kick off with the bigger bits of kit that you’ll need to get the baby home from hospital: car seat and some sort of pram. We were very lucky when it came to our pram because my husbands lovely uncle (who is a design connoisseur) bought us a bugaboo frog when they were still very new in the UK. Although there’s no denying it was expensive, it’s now being used by no3 child 4 years later, so on a ‘cost per use’ basis, it’s probably been relatively good value. I have friends who bought cheaper versions, but because of their weight and bulk they ended up not using them much and trading down to a maclaren type buggy fairly swiftly. On that note, most people do end up buying this sort of buggy at some stage, so if you’re looking to economise, why not just go straight for a buggy suitable from birth immediately?
The first thing to consider when you’re buying a buggy is how you’re going to use it? Are you likely to be doing a lot of walking with it and want a light, easy to push model with pneumatic tyres? Is it going to be in and out of the car a lot? Is storage space an issue and you’d prefer an umbrella folding model? Other things to consider are:
- How light and easy is it to push?
- How easily does it fold down for storage ?
- Where will you store it when it’s folded?
- Will it fit in the car boot?
- If it’s a double buggy, will it fit through the front door (and is it a problem if it doesn’t?)
We’ve now also got an Out and About double buggy for using with the troublesome toddler and baby girl. It’s VERY light and easy to push because of the pneumatic tyres but it’s an absolute monster to store in the house as it’s MASSIVE! It’s also just a fraction too wide to push out of the house when it’s open which means that I have to lift it out of the house, open it up and then set the children into it outside the house. It’s a bit of a hassle, but I really wish I’d measured the front door before I bought it.
On a side note, if you’re an urban fox bobbing about on the tube and buses, you might be better of with a sling or baby carrier. I’ll talk about slings in another post, but it’s worth considering.
Tags: baby, buggy review, buying for baby, pram review, shopping for baby
Posted in Buying For Baby, baby | 4 Comments »
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