Sassy Baby Toys Review

How did I not know about Sassy baby products before now??? They are bright, high-contrast yet colourful, easy to grasp, full of textures and exploration points and totally perfect for babies like Holly who are starting to explore the world around them.

Sassy baby products are distributed by East Coast Nursery. Sassy make quite a phenomenal number of different baby toys and accessories for babies from birth upwards.

All of Sassy's toys are designed to try and encourage your baby to use their sense and explore touch, sound, smell and taste. Techniques that they use to do this are high contrast patterns, bright colors, symmetry, multiple textures, specific color language and sounds. Holly has been trying out a few of their products. All of their products use plastics that are safe for baby and they are incredibly durable - they FEEL good in your hands.

Sassy Flutterby Teether

I Love: The mixture of different textures on the teether and lots of bright colours that make it look as lively as a butterfly can be.
Holly Loves: The bumpy textured wing to chew on and the soft and squidgy water-filled area.

Sassy Ring Rattle

I Love: The fact that it is easy to grip and it combines colours with high contrast so is suitable for small babies whose eyesight is still developing.
Holly Loves: Shaking it about (A LOT) and bashing it against things, she likes the noise of the rings rattling against other toys.

Sassy Click Clack Keys

I Love: Watching Holly's face when she realises that SHE made the toy make a noise by pressing the buttons.
Holly Loves: Shaking it like nothing else on earth. This is holly's No. 1 favourite toy right now.

Sassy Rescue Vehicles Bath Toy Set

I Love: The little lighthouse whose light glows red when it is floating in the water - it fascinates me!
Holly Loves: Watching her big sister play aeroplanes in the bath, delivering Holly's bottle of shampoo on the hammock it carries!
Lara Loves: Squirting her baby sister with water from the little tug boat!

I am really impressed with the Sassy baby range and will be hunting out some more pieces for Holly for Christmas.

  

I want life to slow down

I want life to slow down.  I NEED life to slow down.  I can't believe how quickly Holly is growing up; she isn't a tiny newborn any more and that scares me.  Before I know it, my maternity leave will be over and I will be back at work.

Last Friday I worked.  Actual proper in-the-office work.  I'll admit that it felt good and not only because it gave me a whole day away from the constant barrage of conversation that is Lara.  I felt like I achieved something - it was a very productive day and it felt a bit like life was normal again.  As normal as it ever can be after becoming a parent.  Friday was one of my KIT (keeping in touch) days.  I don't intend to return to work full time until into the new year but I genuinely do want to keep in touch.

Friday did also highlight to me how far down the line of maternity leave I really am.  Holly is 15 weeks old today.  She is beginning to lose her dependence on me and enjoys other people's company a lot.  I am still breastfeeding her but she does know how to take a bottle (if still somewhat grudingly) and delights in the company of both sets of grandparents which is handy for when I need a babysitter!  Before I know it, Holly will be weaning, crawling, talking, walking, telling me off for not singing the right words to her favourite songs.  Sigh, her life seems to be rushing by and I can't catch up.

Holly is growing quickly.  She is still nowhere near as big as her older sister ever was, but after feeding like a baby possessed during our holiday, she has now moved out of all her 0-3 month clothes and is definitely now into 3-6 month ones (or bigger if she is wearing a particularly bulky reusable nappy).  Holly has character now - she is a little monkey and I enjoy playing with her.  I'm aware that when Lara is at home Holly doesn't get quite as much playing, reading or singing as I want to give her, but on days when it is just the two of us, we have a lot of fun together.

I don't want this fun to end.  I'm enjoying myself.  I love going to meet other mummies, visiting my family during the day, chilling out with Holly in the garden and taking sneaky naps in the afternoon.  I don't want this to end.

But...On the other hand, I do want to go back to work.  You know me, I love what I do (and I need the money).

It's a funny old thing - The conundrum of the working mum.

For the time being, I just want life to slow down so that I can enjoy every single moment of my maternity leave with Holly.

Britax Baby Carrier Review

Since Holly was just three weeks old I have been using the Britax Baby Carrier to carry her when I am out and about. I always wanted to do the same when Lara was tiny but she hated being in a carrier and I would get stressed putting her into one but this time things are very different - find out why...

One of the main barriers to me using a baby carrier with my first daughter was my own confidence. I found it hard to put a small baby into a carrier without someone around to assist me. The Britax baby carrier is pretty damn easy to put Holly into even with no-one there to help me and so this has given me the confidence to use a carrier more often. Undoubtedly this confidence wears off on Holly who doesn't feel stressed when I put her into it. The front of the carrier flips down to place Holly inside and then I clip the support up around her head.

The Britax baby carrier is suitable for babies from 3.5kg (more or less Holly's birth weight) up to toddlers of 14.5kg. In these early stages, Holly is placed on an insert which keeps her position really high up against me (close enough for me to kiss her head) and, combined with the leg straps for small infants, this ensures that her legs are kept in a safe position to reduce the impact to her hip joints and keep her comfortable when we are on the move.

At present, Holly can't keep her head upright so I haven't yet tried her in the forward-facing position but when I do so there is a handy white machine-washable dribble catcher to keep the carrier clean and make it a softer place for Holly to rest her chin and face.

I find the Britax carrier really comfortable to wear. Much more so than I remember my old carrier that i used for Lara. I have done day-long trips into London carrying Holly with me both there and back and have felt fine afterwards. I really like the thick padded waistband that tightens around me - it feels really secure.

The Britax carrier is available in Black, Blue or an Organic light brown. I think they all look very smart and they are all unisex enough that Daddies are happy to wear them too - in fact, I couldn't help but notice that nearly all of the Dads in the movie "What to expect when you're expecting" are sporting Britax carriers! Mr. B is certainly happy to be seen in ours.

  

Babies are gross!

I never realised babies could generate so much vomit. No, really, this is all new to me. I wasn't well enough prepared for baby sick!

I had a whole stack of tiny baby bibs packed away in a box from when Lara was a baby, all totally unused and now I realise what they are for! Protecting baby clothes. My purchase of a bumper-pack of muslin cloths shortly before Holly was born was a bit of an afterthought as well. I really never needed them for Lara. But for Holly things are different.

People always talk about how babies puke all over the place and I'd previously just dismissed them as being a bit wet. I was only going on experience. Lara has only ever vomitted 7 times in her life (that I recall) and every single one of those occasions has been since she turned One (thus producing actual real vomit rather than just milky dribbles). Two of those vomit occasions have been in the past month! Lara never did the whole baby sick thing. She wouldn't have wanted to waste valuable milk!!!

And so baby sick has come as a bit of a surprise to me. My poor old shoulders have seen far more milky deposits than I care to mention and my hair is frequently sticky at the ends. I have had warm vomit between my boobs (a very offputting feeling) and a very near miss when dangling Holly directly above my face. Eeeew.

I wonder what it is about babies that make them a sicky one, or a not sicky one? Vomit; just one of the many differences between my two little girls. Motherhood brings new experiences every day!

Fisher-Price Woodsy Friends Comfy Time Bouncer Review

If you have been following my blog posts, twitter feed or facebook status then you can't have escaped the photos of my scrumptious bundle of deliciousness, Holly, frequently posing in her new bouncer from Fisher-Price.

The Fisher-Price Woodsy Friends Comfy Time Bouncer was a gift from Fisher-Price that quite conveniently arrived on the day that we were about to go out and buy a rocker or a bouncer ourselves and it is absolutely perfect colours for us - neutral yet not plain.

There are three things I look for in a baby bouncer. 1. It must have a manual, gentle rocking or bouncing motion... nothing too fancy for us in the Mellow household 2. It must have a calming vibrating function - we literally couldn't have survived Lara's first few months without a vibrating bouncer as it was the only way we could calm her sometimes. 3. It absolutely has to have a cover that is easy to remove in order to clean it. The reason why we never kept our first bouncer was because the cover was too stressful to remove when it needed cleaning! The Woodsy Friends Comfy Time bouncer meets all of these needs and more.

The other thing I remember from when Lara was tiny was that when the toy bar was above the bouncer, you had to remove it or else there was no way you would be able to get her out. This was particularly frustrating when she was screaming her head off! The toy bar on the Woodsy Friends bouncer doesn't go the whole way over the chair which means I don't have to move it in order to lift Holly out. The toy bar features a removable 'teether in the shape of a green apple and two rattling red apples that are also removable. My favourite part is the owl which, when Holly is older, she can pull on and it will either twit-twoo or play a little ditty. At present Lara's favourite pasttime is to pull the owl and then prance around the living room to the short burst of music! I'm not sure Holly is that impressed by her antics.

The fabric on the rocker is a nice thick, slightly padded and smooth fabric that can just about be wiped clean. There is an integral harness and also an extra padded area you can flip into place for tiny heads. We use our Woodsy Friends bouncer every evening to sit Holly in while she watches us eat our evening meal around the table - it is very mobile and easy for me to carry between rooms. For us, you couldn't get a much more perfect baby bouncer. Thank you Fisher-Price.

Surviving a Newborn - A Mellow Guest Post

Today's Guest Post has some extremely mellow undertones. Ella from Bells' Little One shares her tips for remaining mellow with a newborn - I shall have to try and remind myself of these tips in a few months time.

Four months ago (almost to the day in fact) my life changed forever in the most amazing way. No matter how many books I read, classes I attended, websites I browsed or veteran mummies I spoke to... when it came to it, I really still had no idea! However, we humans are adaptable creatures (well most of us!) and although you can never 'perfect' parenting, you can at least get to a stage where you start to feel comfortable and (dare I say it?) confident in your ability to look after your baby.

Those first few weeks are definitely a 'sink or swim' moment for anybody's relationship (and sanity!) Luckily myself and my husband both chose the swim option and we quickly fell into a routine of sorts when it came to attending to this demanding little person's every whim. As I breastfed for the first three months, it would have been easy for him to feel left out of things but being the amazing daddy that he is, he quickly carved out his own little niches - and to this day, Oliver's daily bedtime bath (and now feed) is always 'daddy' time.

While at times I felt that I'd really been thrown in at the deep end, I soon found it was very important for me to recognise the things that I was finding the most difficult to cope with and address them quickly before it all got out of hand. Especially with all those leftover hormones floating around, things can soon escalate and before you know it things can seem like the end of the world. One of my pet hates was the nights - I really grew to dread them - I found the constant wakings extremely tough, especially as I was breastfeeding and could never pass the responsibility on. Eventually I realised that if I stopped trying to get back to sleep in between feeds and just expected to be awake most of the night for a while, (I moved into the lounge with baby, watched TV, drank tea and dozed when I could) it suddenly didn't seem so bad. Also from doing that I noticed that a lot of the times I would normally have woken up, Oliver was in fact still asleep and just making lots of noises (he's still a noisy sleeper now). So eventually, going against any health visitors' advice, we moved him into his own room at about three weeks old (closely monitored) and we have all slept a lot better since.

So I guess the moral of that story is another good tip for survival in itself - that health visitors (and midwives, doctors, parents, in-laws and anyone else you can think of) are there to support you and advise you (when asked!), NOT to tell you that you are wrong and make you feel like a bad mother. I very quickly learned to just say "Mmmm hmmm" to most of the'helpful' advice I've been given and then carry on my own way 99% of the time anyway. It is easy to feel bulldozed and pressured as a first time mummy but just stand up, be strong and do things your way anyway! No two babies are the same and nobody knows your baby better than you (and that includes your mother-in-law, no matter what she says!)

Essential One Newborn Clothing Review

The Essential One is a beautiful website that I discovered last month when they sent the most gorgeous box of clothing for me and my panel of reviewers to sample. There seem to be a whole host of newborns in my life at present – my boss, my friend and obviously my own bump brewing for April 2012.

I gave my boss (and his wife – my newly recruited Mellow Mummy reviewer) some newborn essentials from The Essential One as a gift for their first child. The long-sleeved baby sleepsuits and short-sleeved baby body suits are the kind of thing you simply can't have enough of for a new baby. I was really proud to offer these to my boss because they are amazing quality and they come in a lovely draw-string bag which makes them into a great gift.



Apart from the great quality (you can feel it in the softness of the 100% cotton fabric and see it in the tidiness of the seams), the thing I liked most was the colours. I'm fed up of cheap white baby suits that stretch after the first wash. I loved the fact that almost all of the colours on offer are gender neutral – often vital when buying a gift or stocking up for your own bump. By neutral, I don't mean boring. The beiges are mellow and there are also yellows and greys but my favourites are the bright colours – perfect for any baby.

The Essential One was set up to help mums to be avoid the confusion of what is really an essential for a newborn, and what the big brands tell you are essentials! They specialise in baby's first year- 0-12 months - and offer a limited range deliberately focused around 'things you really need'.

The Essential One do not use synthetic fibres and focus around 100% cotton as this is not only thermally the best fibre to keep babies cool when it's warm and warm when it's cold but is the best fabric for delicate skins. I love the thoughtful little touches such as the cotton draw-string bags and the fact that all appliques are backed in soft fabric so as not to scratch babies skins. It is really interesting that all of their sleepsuits have fold back scratchmittens right the way up to 12 months which is great for babies with eczema.



I love every single item of clothing that I have seen and tried from the Essential One – my absolute favourite has to be the cable knitted cardigan which looks warm and snuggly with a hood and a button-front.

From the moment you open the package of products that arrives from the Essential One, you feel like you are being treated. There is gorgeous light paper wrapping (no plastic to be seen) with a very gentle scent that evokes the new-mum feeling.

Please please do go and take a look at the essential one or visit them on facebook – I think you'll like their simplicity and general mellowness.

Baby Of The Family No-Longer

It is the end of an era. Lara is now no-longer the youngest grandchild in Mr B's family. Lara's new baby cousin has arrived, bringing Lara's cousin count to 7.

I have mixed emotions about this. Firstly, it is an undeniable sign that my little baby is growing up. She is no longer the little baby. She's just a baby, perhaps even a toddler (she's not quite toddling, but you get the idea).

Next, it means that she will no longer be the centre of attention when we get together with the family. Most of me thinks this is a good thing – it takes some of the pressure off me to tell exciting stories about Lara's latest tricks, and to dress her up in cute clothes and generally impress people. It is about time for Lara to learn that she isn't the centre of everyone's world. I suspect, given that she spends plenty time around other children with the childminders, that this will be an easy lesson to learn but I'm glad that it's happening now rather than if or when we decide to have more children ourselves.

Finally, it means that there will be a little one about and this spells trouble. Broodiness. I'm not entirely sure how my brain and body will respond... we shall see! All I know is that before Lara came along I was really uncomfortable around other people's babies and never wanted to hold them but that this time around I know what I'm doing and will feel more confident. I will probably be wanting a snuggle.