Milky smile

My fondest memory so far of Dean is the moment when breastfeeding your tiny little baby, that they stop feeding to turn and give you the biggest milky smile. Even just thinking back to them moments gives me a warm little buzz.

Breastfeeding Dean when he was about two months old

It's hard work being a baby!

These are the moment that make being a parent worth it all!

More nappies!

More nappies arrived a few weeks ago! These are actually the first that I (attempted to) order, but they took the longest to arrive, so I was delighted to see the Alvababy package coming. The website says that delivery can take between three and four weeks, so they were actually early!

I LOVE the colours and patterns of the nappies I chose. It's nice to have a bit of variety, up until now I have only had solid colours, which are lovely, but the patterns make them look really special. A lot of the nappies also have a "minky" outer layer, which looks and feels so soft. The inside of the minky is PUL (polyurethane laminated fabric), and feels quite good in quality.

I also included 10 bamboo & microfiber nappy inserts in my order. It will be so handy to have spare inserts on hand, I find that these take the longest to dry, because there are so many layers. They are soft and a good size, so I am happy with these too.

I couldn't wait to try out the Alvababies and I have been pleasantly surprised with them! I am now spoilt for choice regarding colours, I can choose between stars and dinosaurs, giraffe print and Spider-Man pattern! I really  they have also been working really well, we have yet to have a leak, and they seem to be a really comfortable fit on Dean. I'm delighted, after all of the trouble I had when ordering, I was worried I had made a mistake ordering from them!

I will do a more detailed review of the Alvababies and the rest of the brands I have purchased to compare all of them to each other. Hopefully I might help some of you to decide on which brands to try out, if you are thinking of trying out cloth nappies. Keep reading for more!

M.I.A (and Happy Valentines Day!)

Sorry that I have been "missing in action" for a few days! I have been having problems with my iPad, and haven't had the time to sit down at the PC in peace!

I am working on a few new posts about going green, and some more personal posts too, about our daily lives.

My poor iPad still seems to be having trouble, so hopefully I won't be disconnected from cyber space for too long over the next few days.

I hope your all having an extremely lovey valentines day! Big kisses from me and Dean!

Freedom!

With Dean starting to walk, it has brought great freedom to him. He can now walk around outside (thanks to his new shoes, post coming about them soon!), and of course, he can get around the house much quicker then before too.

I also like to leave him to be free in other ways. I allow him to climb on everything he attempts to, and have discovered that he learns extremely quickly when left to his own devices! He has yet to fall down from something, and he seems to know his limits when he is trying something new. Obviously, I am always close by to make sure that he is safe, but I like to help him to make progress, rather than to just remove him from the situation. My motto is that you can't learn, if you can't try!

The stairs are a huge fascination to my little boy. Im guessing that about 100 times a day, I have to chase after my escape-artist son to take him away from the stairs. All he wants to do is climb up them, which he is brilliant at doing, but I can't risk trusting him to climb them all alone, so we chase and we chase and we chase! Eventually I will give in, and we will go up the stairs and explore wherever Dean chooses to go.

I long for the day when I can send Dean out to the back garden, with a pair of wellies (or bare feet in the summer time!), and a bucket and spade, and see what mischief he occupies himself with! I have visions of worms, slugs and god knows what else being shoved in front of my eyes by mucky little hands on a regular basis. I can't wait to see him venturing out into the big world, running and playing on the beach, in a forest, in a field...

I hope my boy is as enchanted by the outdoors as I was as a child, and still am. I love seeing children playing outside, there really is no better fuel for a child then fresh air and good food. My favourite memories of my own childhood all took place during various outdoor excursions. We spent a lot of time outside, and we had so much freedom while playing outside by ourselves. I hope Dean is lucky enough to experience the same kind of freedom that we did.

I hope that he is always free, free to be whoever he may be, and free to make whatever choices feel right to him. This is the first taste of freedom that I can give him, his first taste of independence, and I relish watching him grab the opportunity to do his own thing, at his own pace.

How lucky we are to experience this.

Long may all of our freedom last!

Tots Bots arrived!

Today a package arrived in the post (actually the nice post man waved me down as i drove by him to give me the package - thanks again mister!) with two Tots Bots v2 nappies that i ordered, and some flush able liners too.

The nappies look great, they have Velcro fasteners, instead of the snappers that are on the Babylands that I already have, and the inside is quite different too. I'm looking forward to seeing how well they work, especially in comparison to the other nappies I have, which were considerably cheaper than the tots bots. 

That was pretty much the most exciting part of our day. We went (window)shopping for a while, and had a lovely coffee and lunch in Starbucks. We also sent my ipad in to be fixed (the screen has been shattered for months now!), it will hopefully be ready tomorrow, I kept reaching for it only to remember it was gone today! How sad! 

Now I have a head ache so I'm planning on going to bed soon and catching up on some sleep. Dean woke up every hour last night, so I'm wrecked!

Sorry folks, but I just don't have what it takes to write about anything remotely interesting tonight! So I'm going to put my head in the sand for now, and hopefully be back in full swing tomorrow!

Night night,

Sarah.

P.S:

What a night - I'm freezing!

Lazy Sundays

I love lazy Sundays. As I type, me and Dean are sitting in the kitchen. I'm having the last few sips of my coffee, after polishing off a delicious pecan pie slice (thats after my lunch of pizza topped with mushroom and yellow pepper. Lazy but tasty, that will do for today). While Dean is still occupied eating and playing with his pizza, and a few pieces of my pecan pie!

After lunch, I will change Deans nappy (I sense a stinker in our midst) and then we'll all (Mama, Dada, and Baba) sit, play, read and relax in front of the fire for a few hours.

Perfect.

Dean may even have a sleep...

Even more perfect!

What's your favourite Sunday?

Teething

Dean is teething. He has been out of sorts for a few days, and hasn't slept much, but before now I didn't know for sure what was causing him to act like this. Then today after lunch I spotted them, two huge top molars are breaking through! Poor thing, It must be so painful!

Poor Dean almost falling asleep at lunch time

I've given Dean some calpol and teetha, which seems to have helped already. I hate when Dean is teething, it's so hard for him.

Still looking cool though!

What do you give your baby to sooth him or her when teething? Have you tried an amber teething necklace and had good results? I have been interested in buying one for a while now, but once he gets a new tooth and goes back to normal I forget all about it, until he starts teething again that is!

Another thing for my long, long list of things to do! Better get to it, I'm banning myself from the ipad for the rest of the day!

Bye for now,

Sarah

Sunshine and a nice breeze = dry cloth nappies

I washed my first batch of dirty cloth nappies (using soap nuts) this morning. They are now hanging up outside in the sunshine to dry. I will bring them indoors in a few hours to finish them off.

They washed really really well! They smell fresh and clean, there are no stains, and they are fluffy and soft. I was concerned that the bright colours would run a bit, but they haven't at all which is great! We'll see what happens when I wash the red one though!

They are drying pretty quickly too, especially the nappies, fleece liners and the muslin squares. The inserts are taking the longest to dry, but they are not doing too badly. With a few more hours in the sun (hopefully!) and the evening in front of a radiator or the fire, and I'd say they'll all be dry.

I have been using the cut up muslin squares that i mentioned above, with a spray of water and Castile soap (I filled a 50ml plastic spray bottle with water, and literally added a drop or two of almond scented Castile soap.) in place of baby wipes. I had a tonne of muslin squares already, that I had finished using, so I just cut them into smaller strips and squares. It was a really cheap way to switch to using reusable wipes, and they are cleaning Deans bum just fine. I find that I need to wet the strips quite a bit to clean his bum effectively, but I have still only used about half of the 50ml bottle in two days. They are also incredibly gentle on his little tush, which was a bit red before switching. The redness is completely gone now, I'm guessing this is because of the wipes, but also the nappies too.

I'm so happy to be getting such positive results with everything so far. I was optimistic about everything working well, but I didn't expect everything to run so smoothly from the beginning. I was expecting a bit of trial and error along the way, but apart from not using enough nuts in my first wash (which have still turned out grand) everything else has worked perfectly every time.

I have also been finding dealing with cleaning the soiled nappies simple. It really isn't half as *ick* as you would expect. I literally dump the poo into the toilet, pull out the insert and throw them all into the bucket. When I'm ready to wash, I pull the mesh bag containing all of the nappies out of the bucket, throw it into the machine and that's the hard part done! Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

I'm even more excited now for the Alvababy and tots bots nappies to arrive. In total we will have 24 nappies (10 babyland, 12 alvababy, and 2 tots bots), judging by how many nappies we've used the past two days, should definitely be a big enough supply to keep us going. I hope I'm as happy with the alvababy and tots bots nappies as I am with the baby lands.

Have you tried any of these brands, and how do you find them? Or what way do you find works the best to dry the nappies quickly? I'd love to hear how other people do things.

On a separate note, it's a beautiful day today. Chilly, but the sun is shining down, and there is a light breeze. It's amazing what a difference a little bit of sunshine makes to your mood. I love the sun, it's a pity that I live in a country where there's so little of it!

I hope your all enjoying this lovely day, And having a nice relaxing weekend! I'm off to catch dean, who has escaped the living room for the 50 th time so far!

Soap nuts work!

After trying two separate loads of washing with the soap nuts, I'm pleasantly surprised with the results!

The first wash that I tried them in, I could have added a couple more soap nuts, because when I took them out of the washing machine they had a slight damp-ish smell off them. I still put them on the clothes horse to dry though and the smell seems to be fading. I think I put too many clothes and too little soap nuts, plus I threw a few towels into the wash too, which I shouldn't have. We live in a very hard water area, and any thing that I've read about using soap nuts in a hard water area states that you may need to use a few more in each wash to ensure they wash properly. I have always used a little bit more washing detergent too while living here for this reason, so that seems fair enough to me.

The second wash I did, I threw about two more nuts into the same bag that I used in the last wash (you can re-use them a few times.) and this time the clothes smelt perfectly fresh when washed, so I'll just stick to this amount of nuts from now on (6 or 7).

Both washes contained grubby dribblers and clothes belonging to Dean and they came out perfectly clean (even the ones from the first wash). The real test will be washing Adams greasy/filthy work clothes (he works in the car trade), if his clothes wash well, I'm sold.

I have yet to try them with Deans cloth nappies, so that will be a good test too. I plan on washing some tomorrow morning, so hopefully it goes well. I have researched other people's results when washing reusables with soap nuts, and have that they are perfect to use as they leave virtually no residue, which can effect the absorbency of the nappies after a good few washes. They are also gentler all round on the nappies, so I imagine the nappies will last longer using them too.

So, so far I'm giving the soap nuts a big thumbs up. Well see how they work out over a longer period of time. I'm really hoping that they will help to improve Adams eczema.

So it's bye bye to Persil for now, and hello Mother Nature!

Ps:

I also bought a new clothes horse today in ikea for €20, it's really sturdy and fits a lot of clothes on it. Happy days!

Thank God it's Friday!

Happy Friday everybody! Have a lovely weekend!

I love the weekends, it's great having Adam here to share looking after Dean with, and just to spend some nice family time together.

We don't get out much, but occasionally we sneak out to the cinema and it's the nicest treat ever. This weekend we won't be doing anything like that, but it's still a break for me. I might even get a little lie in if I'm lucky!

Will you be doing anything this weekend?

Take it easy folks!