Birthday Presents For Boys

Mum life, time and work has run away with me, leaving zero time for blogging. Sorry about that. I'm actually mainly sorry to myself, because this is my outlet and I love chatting with you guys and sharing ideas & recommendations etc. So now corona has hit, Im trying to find time to dedicate weekly to my social platforms. Lets see how I get on lol. Anyway...

Recently quite a few people have messaged me on Instagram asking for boys birthday present ideas. The majority wanted 1st birthday ideas so here is what I brought Tayo or what he was given around that age that he's played with a considerable amount. I really find the key to kids playing well are not too many toys. I try to rotate Tayo's toys when I remember to, but these are the ones he will literally hunt out if I put them away lol.

BINIBAMBA giveaway worth £95

Who will you be snuggling with your new SNUGGLER ?

To make up for being completely MIA over the last few months... IM BACK with an amazing giveaway!!

Head over to my INSTAGRAM to enter and be in the chance of winning a BINIBAMBA merino sheepskin buggy liner of your colour choice, worth £95 !! Competition is running from 6PM Sunday to 8PM Tuesday , don't miss out !!

>>> @billiebrown <<<

Perfect for any climate these beautifully soft buggy liners keep baby cosy in the cold and cool in the heat.

Little bowel unblocker breakfast

During the weaning process and even after with an expanding diet,  I found Tayo to get constipated quite frequently. So these are my tried and tested breakfasts to kick start the day.

OATMEAL PRUNE PORRIDE

Oatmeal, Prune Juice, Dried Prunes - put in a pan, bring to the boil, simmer for 3/4 mins. Add more juice if it gets too dry.
Frozen fruits ( I used Strawberries, Raspberries, Cranberrys) Prune Juice, honey - Blend
Fresh Strawberries - chopped and put on top

Maxi Cosy Laika

Absolute pram of a city/travelling girls dreams. Here is why...

1. its so bloody light
2. it folds up AND down with one hand
3. it has a shoulder strap for ease of carrying
4. folds pretty damn small and flat
5. looks expensive but isn't
6. isn't a YOYO, everyone & their mum has one of those in the city lol
7. lays completely flat & has multiple recline positions
8. Tayo thinks its super comfortable as he happily sleeps in it

8 months out- what I've learnt so far

I'm aware I've barely posted recently, soz guys, Tayo is on the move and keeping me on my toes. Apparently an 8 month old requires A LOT of entertaining and chasing lol. So now he's almost been out as long as he was in, what have I learnt ?

Traveller by PHIL & TEDS

Well wow , this product HAS to get a big fat 10/10 from me. I’ve never needed a travel cot as we usually stay in hotels with cots but my recent trip to Dubai I stayed at my friends house so a travel cot was needed. 

I knew I just wanted a compact & light cot. No one wants to drag a heavy & bulky cot half way across the world. 

On doing a bit of research the one that stood out was the PHIL & TEDS TRAVELLER and it did not disappoint

• LIGHT!!! I was literally shocked at how light the whole thing was. 6LBS!!!!! That includes the bag, cot, mattress & fitted sheet. So good.
• Easy. So quick to assemble & take down so can quickly pack up and move it around 
• Mesh. Cool and free flowing air for warmer countries
• Zip down side. Perfect to use as a play pen

100% recommend this traveller and at £139 it’s super reasonable!! 

Click here to buy 

Travelling with a 6 month old

So after our back to back stint of travelling when tayo was 4 months old we’ve stayed put for a couple months in the UK until today. My mother, Tayo and I are currently enroute to Dubai for a weeks holiday. A forever friend of mine relocated to Dubai about a year ago and has always had an open invitation for us to come and stay and when my husband told me he was travelling for work for 12 days I decided to completely gatecrash my mums relaxing holiday. Lucky her !

A week leading up to our flight I realised travelling with a weaning , combi fed ,teething , alert 6 month old was probably going to be slightly more challenging than our very chilled sleepy 4 month old. I wasn’t wrong lol. There’s soooo much more to take. Food, milk, toys, teethes, the list goes on. Not to mention the mathematics that goes into working out how many feeds / foods to take on board. Admittedly I probably should of prepared a bit better but me being me was packing the day before our flight running around town to find his premade formula that had miraculously sold out of everywhere.... 

LESSON 1 learnt- preparation is key!!

Weaning

If any of you follow me on Instagram you would of seen I began slowly weaning Tayo around a month ago, when he was 5 months old. The NHS recommend weaning at around 6 months, but I kind of just followed his signals and milk just wasn't seeming to 100% satisfy him anymore. I'm definitely not pretending to be any kind of weaning expert, in fact I'm quite the opposite, however what I can do is tell you is what I've done and what I would do differently. So...

The Vaccination Debate

Well here goes, I'm breaking the unspoken rule of talking about the V word. It's such a sensitive topic as it personally effects lots of families on both sides of the argument. So I'm aware not everything I write is going to sit well with everybody but hey ho, such is life, so here goes.

Meet ELVIE

Silent and wearable are two words any pumping mum wouldn't usually associate with their pumps. However, women spoke and Elvie heard. Meet the worlds first silent completely cordless wearable breast pump.

When I first saw this through the wonders of Instagram's sponsored posts, I genuinely thought it was too good to be true. However ladies, I'm here to tell you its not!!! Small and compact enough to wear in your nursing bra, the Elvie pumps means you can pump quite literally anywhere. For mums getting back to work but still wanting to continue breast feeding and/or to keep their milk supply up or even just for mums who are spending the day/ evening out without their little one, this pump is perfect to discretely pump wherever you want. Gone are the days of pumping in the ladies toilets lol.

Bambino Mio Giveaway

Tayo and I have partnered up with the reusable nappy brand BAMBINO MIO for a fantastic giveaway. To win follow @bambinomio and @billiebrown on instagram and tag a friend and comment your last used emoji !

Up for grabs is their brilliant all-in-one reusable nappy, changing mat and wet nappy bag all in adorable rainforest prints. Get entering and GOOD LUCK !! Winner will be announced in a few weeks!

Yes Yes YESS ; Stokke Tripp Trapp

I've been eyeing up the Stokke Tripp Trapp chair for sometime now, even pre-Tayo. Something about a chair that grows with baby is just super appealing. So last month I was lucky enough to get one and let me tell you, I was NOT disappointed!!

Rather than writing paragraphs about how great it is- I'm going to bullet point the reasons you also need one in your life if your about to invest in a highchair... so here goes!

...

I know its been like forever since I've written a blog post, mainly down to being an uber busy mum but also down to MRS HINCH instagram lol (if you know you know). So now, every second Tayo is asleep, I'm cleaning and let me tell ya my house has never been so clean!! Clean house , clean head... its true.

If you don't have a clue what I'm talking about, check out @mrshinchhome. IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE lol. She literally makes you so motivated to clean and organise your home.

WARNING - its addictive lol

When Public Transport Gets You Thinking...

So today I was struggling up the stairs with Tayo in his buggy - my buggy is LIGHT but lets admit they're bloody awkward to lift alone. Anyway, 4 men walked straight past me. They saw me, but they chose not to take 2 minutes out of their day to help. Now I get it, sometimes we are in a rush and you just assume someone else will help, but really, four men in a row ?? After a lovely young lady, in heels might I add, stopped to help, I was sat on the tube looking at my son thinking...I'm going to raise you better than that.

Deep shit ey 

I grew up surrounded by girls and women, so is it different raising a boy ? I don't wanna be that person, but lets be real, women seem more empathetic to other women in those situations. When I was pregnant, 9/10 times it would be a lady that offered me her seat. Now the other 1/10 would be a younger guy, aged 18-30. Never in my experience has a man over 40 ever offered to help me, maybe I just happened to be surrounded by selfish old men, or maybe its a generational thing, who knows. 

Either way, when raising our boy, I'm going to do all I can to make sure when he's older he never walks by someone who could do with his help! 

Poppin Placenta Pills

Eating or encapsulating your placenta has become a more and more spoken about trend. Celebs, hippies and animals are doing it so I thought I’d give it a shot since I spent 9 months growing it :) There are plenty of benefits of consuming your placenta, some of them being hormone balance , milk production, assisting the uterus contract back, reducing post-natal bleeding & helping replenish depleted iron levels. 

Since I couldn’t see myself munching into my raw or even cooked placenta , I reached out to the lovely lady at Placenta Plus to encapsulate it for me. The process couldn’t of been easier!!! They send out a pack which includes all the instructions, two ice packs and a placenta bag. After having baby you literally just text the number provided and someone comes to collect your placenta in the bag that same day. Easy peasy ! The pills are then made and delivered back a day later. Super simple and quick ! 

Travelling with baby

So the first thing I want to say is DO IT!!! Travelling with Tayo was the best experience ever. Taking your little one around the world to see new places is both memorable and rewarding. We have just got back from a 10 day stint of travelling and when I say that , I don’t mean a 10 holiday. In those 10 days we took 5 flights in total , adding up to a massive 22 hours of flying in total. Whaaaattttt?!!! Lol. We started off flying out to NYC to surprise my best friend for her baby shower, she had never met Tayo so I thought it was a great time for that to happen. From there , we followed my husband to Milan as he booked a shoot there for one day. While at the airport he then got another message saying he was to fly to Barcelona straight after work then connect the following day to A Coruna for 4 more days of work. Since we caught the travel bug , Tayo and I decided to tag along lol. Finally on Friday we flew back to London. 

Now I don’t know if we were just blessed with a really good baby, but he slept every flight and only really cried once on our flight back to London!!! So, I hear you asking. What’s the trick ? I have a few tips that I seriously recommend you follow !! 

What should my baby wear to bed ?

Well hello cold weather. This sudden change in temperature can be challenging for new parents, mainly because you have to figure out what to dress baby in at night. Little bubbas can’t regulate their body temperatures on their own so it’s important they don’t overheat. This can be a real worry as it’s one of the leading causes of SIDS.

Tayo was born in a crazy heatwave , so for the first month of his life he literally slept in a short sleeve vest because our room was between 28-31 degrees every night. Soooo hot erghhh. When the temperature started lowering I found myself questioning what to dress him in. I found a great image online that tells you all you need to know really, so I thought I'd share !!

Leaving Baby Behind

Ahhhh so its most nerve wrecking time of any new mum...heading out for the first time without baby. Admittedly theres no 'right' time to take the leap but I'm thinking the earlier the better?

So I'm currently sat on the tube with the smallest bag I own with all of four things in it to take FULL advantage of not having to drag around a changing bag. Tayo is only just 3 months old and today I left him properly for the first time while I head out for a friends hen do. To say I'm anxious is an understatement, not because I'm worried about how my husband will cope, because I know he's going to be absolutely fine, its more how I'm going to cope being away from him for a day. Im sure after a few prosecco's my nerves will be calmed but that initial 'bye baby' was gut wrenching.

Got milk ?

From the start I knew I wanted a breast pump so I could share feeds with my husband, mainly so he had time to bond with our son, but as well as this, so we can share night feeds, and I'm not the only one awake at night. Funny thing is, once Tayo arrived, little did I know I wouldn't be pumping to share night feeds at all but so I could feed full stop...

#mumlife

Recently a girl reached out and said she’d love to read a post about day to day life while juggling a baby, husband, dog and social life. Well here it is ...