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Dear Daisy, It is your first day at school...

A baby Christmas wishlist #1

Daisy and I have been busy writing her list to Father Christmas and thought we would share a few bits that we've seen that we love!!

There are lots of things from House of Lilah that we love but this has to be top of our list:



The same goes for Jackandjillaroo where we have spotted the most gorgeous bibs ever:


H&M is always a good stop point for us and there is always something we've got our eye on in the kids section. To be honest we either love things or really aren't fans of them in there but in the most at the moment it's LOVE:




Baby Zara is also a huge favourite, I love this whole look:



So just a few bits of clothing mainly, we have many, many more bits on the lost but that's a sneak peek for now!

Love Hayley & Daisy xxx

7 months old??? How?

How is this possible? My tiny baby is now 7 months old. Crazy.


This month has been all about weaning really and I'm pleased to say she's got to grips with it nicely. She's still not convinced on meat but she's getting there. She would live off yogurt if I let her but I do make sure she eats various things each day to keep tickling her pallete and get her to used to different tastes and textures. Some favourites T the moment are bannana, yogurt, apricots and croissant! A girl after my own heart!!! 

I am now combination feeding her and it's going well. I feed her when I want to and mix in bottles here and there in the day alongside her food. I had to get her to this stage as I'm back at work on Monday- scary I know.  :( so her dad needs to be able to feed her too when I'm not here. I go back to work on Monday and am still feeling so sad about it, but am much more comfortable with the idea than last month. I think seeing how good she is with her dad has let me relax a little and knowing I'll still be around quite a bit makes me realise it won't be so bad. 


Her sleeping is a little all over the place at the moment, one night she will go through and then the next she will want feeding once and then other times she will wake up at 5/6 and won't go back to sleep! Or she will when I'm holding her but I put her down and she's wide awake! I think part of it is she's growing and becoming more aware of everything and also it's chilly! So when I put her into her cot it's colder than if I hold her, who can blame her. 

We still have no teeth.. The dribble is still coming thick and fast and her cheeks areso  rosy they burn sometimes, as well as everything going in her mouth all of the time but no toothie pegs! 

Daisy is now pretty much into her 6-9 months clothes with the exception of a few bits I can't let go of like her little rabbit dungarees! But I really do need to pack them away now as sad as it is. 

We have now finished rhythm time and sadly didn't make it to our last one because I had a nasty migraine but I think we will see her little buddies and their mummies again soon anyway. We will really miss our Monday mornings with them. I am going to have Wednesdays off as my four day week pattern and so I'm planning on taking her to swimming lessons then. It will get us out and about and means we can still do some mummy- baby socialising! As well as obviously getting her used to the water!!! 

Lots of love,
Hayley xxx

Nuk first choice vs Tommee Tippee closer to nature bottles



I always knew I wanted to breastfeed Daisy, and actually my second Alex. But with both I knew I would have to try all kinds of things to be able to combination feed.

When pregnant I automatically purchased Tommee Tippee closer to nature bottles without a second thought. I didn't even look at other brands, I think the main reason being they were on a great promotion in the Asda baby event and so just chucked them in my online basket.

I knew I would try to breastfeed Daisy but thought I would need bottles if it didn't work out or if I expressed or even combi feed her. Fortunately the feeding took off beautifully albeit a tad painful those first few weeks. I expressed a couple of times in the first few months mainly when I was engorged but we also had a period of giving Daisy her evening bottle so Ben could do it. 

She always fussed a little bit with the bottle and it always seemed hard work for her. I then got lazy and didn't offer bottles for around a month. When it came to introducing them again it was awful, she point blank refused at first! She would scream until she was sick. Each day I just kept trying her with two ounces to see if she would get used to it, it was hard going. That will teach me for being lazy and confusing the poor little lady!! It took around a month but she then started to take four ounces (that's her limit for some reason, boredom maybe), slowly and with fussing but it meant I could start not to panic too much about leaving her and even returning to work soon. 

Tommee Tippee



Then this month we got sent a NUK first choice bottle in our Nonabox (see link here). If I'm honest I'd never have picked it up off the shelf, it's got green rims and features Winnie the Pooh on it. I've since looked and they do some lovely versions which are much more my taste. 

I tried her with a few ounces in it as a test and she downed it in minutes! It takes her ages to have a few ounces in the Tommee Tippee, so slow that she gets bored and gives up after four usually. 

NUK




I wish I'd tried the Nuk earlier!! 

Lots of love,
Hayley xxx



The countdown

Be warned this is probably going to be one of those over emotional, whingey posts that I write from time to time. But hey I'm going to write it anyway...

So I have two weeks to go, in fact less than two weeks now. Until I go back to work. Except I'll be returning as a mum.


You might think and what? Lots of women and (gents of course) who are parents go to work every single day. But this muma is yet to try this out! 

I feel quite anxious about it and I think part of it is down to going back to a brand new job, although I do know that I feel better about this than returning to my old one. There wasn't anything wrong with the old one really just how the role would now sit with my home life, I've had to make some changes to fit in around my favourite times of the day, morning snuggles and bath time etc. Or at least try to anyway. 

I'm sat writing this at 4am because Daisy has a bit of wind we need to shift before she drifts back off. I would usually be losing my patience slightly by now but today I'm feeling a little careless about the lack of sleep and instead savouring the moment when I don't need to worry about driving miles and entertaining a client in a few hours. Instead I'm cherishing those cute little smiles that keep looking up at me (she is so cheeky!), even the little scratches I'm getting as she runs her tiny fingers over my face and chest are making me smile and I feel so lucky. 

It's now no longer a ridiculous time in the morning but the next evening. You'll be pleased to know the wind passed quickly and we were all back to sleep in no time. 

Back to the post. So the point of this was that I've been thinking and wondering what I'll be like on the return to work. I'll be professional and do my best at all I do but will my standards be as high? Will I not be thinking about getting back to my baby and how I'm going to teach her to say dada and mama, how to army crawl across the floor and how to actually swallow meat rather than letting it sit on her tongue for ten minutes? Will I not just be wishing the day away so I can close my laptop, switch off my phone and be mummy rather than an account manager? 

I guess I don't know. In one respect I need to teach myself to tear myself away from Daisy and work is going to force that on me even if I don't feel ready to. But I don't want to, I don't want to have to leave her. But it's in all of our interests to some extent that I do. Hopefully in my new job it won't mean all week away from her but days here and there and I'll be around to pick her up from nursery etc when she is in. 

In one respect it will be nice to have a little me time, driving to my interview the other week made me realise this. I was all emotional leaving her and had a little weep but after an hour I relaxed. I enjoyed listening to the radio or my music and having my own thoughts. Also wearing clothes that I don't need to consider to be feeding friendly will also be an added benefit. And the money of course will also be nice. A little more adult conversation too. But that's about it! 

Any tips on how I can make it feel less stressful and lessen the anxiety?!

Lots of love,
Hayley xxx


Our 1st family holiday #3 Padstow & The Eden Project

Here goes... the last post of our family holiday and probably the most picture heavy!

It's making me quite sad actually writing this, our holiday was a lifetime ago now :(

First up Padstow. I have been here before with my family when I was a child, and you see it a lot on the tele. To be honest I was disappointed, it didn't live up to what I was expecting this time. I was expecting it to be bigger and probably more high end than it was. i wonder if it would be different in peak times?

It wasn't as quaint as I remembered either. Rick Stein has definitely got the monopoly here, everything has his name on!






And then the Eden Project. I wasn't sure what to expect here but I had a lovely day, and Daisy really enjoyed it too! 















Lots of love, 
Hayley xxx



Sentimental shabby chic cushion cover

I'm sure any of you that have babies will know how many clothes they have when they are tiny and how sad it is to pack them away bit by bit or even worse when you can't keep all of them and need to sell them off to make space for more!



I've seen a few different ideas like making blankets, stuffed toys etc out of them. If you've seen my latest post on the pocket organiser you'll know I'm trying to teach myself to sew. I have enough to do with a little baby but hey why not put more on the to do list!!!! 

I've found it relaxing and really satisfying really. 

So back to baby clothes. I thought a patchwork blanket was a bit out of my stretch so thought I would try a cushion cover first! Eek!

First up I cut out a pattern piece from a piece of stiff paper and then cut lots of pieces out from the clothes I had. I laid them all out on the table so I knew how they'd lie on the cushion and I knew I had enough pieces to put together. 

Then started sewing them up in pairs. Before sewing altogether. And then backing on to a piece of old material I had knocking about to strengthen it before making into cushion cover.



I had a nice piece of green material to back it with so used that. It's in two pieces so I could make as envelope opening to save putting in a zip or buttons! 

Okay so this isn't my finest craft work... You can see how wrinkly it is in the above pictures but the idea was to practise sewing, teach myself how to use my machine and make something out of baby clothes. 

See together inside out and then turn the right way when done, ta daaaaa! 


Lots of love,
Hayley xxx

Eating as a family alongside the seasons

There are lots of reasons to eat in season and to be honest until Organix sent a little reminder into my inbox I've never really thought about it.

Well that's a bit of a fib,  I do eat some things in season purposely but only because we've grown them ourselves and then we are kind of forced into it, things like courgette, cooking apples, pears and strawberries. But I don't purposely look for seasonal things when wondering the supermarket aisles, I don't really think about it. 


If you eat foods in season that haven't really travelled too far the taste is supposedly much better, this makes sense I guess. I gave Daisy some strawberries yesterday and they are a great example of a fruit that tastes so much better when they've been picked in the summer, the ones I got from the supermarket yesterday barely tasted of much at all! They're still good for you and full of vitamins but they're not quite the same are they. 



This calendar shows us what it seasonal and when! (Provided by EAT seasonably)

I think as Daisy gets older I will aim to incorporate this into our eating, for fun and memories really. So going to pick strawberries in the summer, a task I remember doing with my auntie when I was little! Picking pumpkins in autumn, collecting the tomatoes from the greenhouse and of course going and getting the stinky sprouts for Christmas! 


Lots of love,
Hayley xxx

In association with Organix Wean team, all opinions are my own


Daisy's weaning journal #5 & Nuby Mash N Feed

So this week has been a little more ummmm... Challenging. We have had a few days where she has jammed those cute cherub lips shut so nothing was to pass them. I guess we all have days where we lose our appetite but it was a little frustrating at times, I think I get a little hung up on the idea that she needs to eat when in truth she has milk so gets all she needs from that for now anyway, and shall do for some time yet.



To overcome this I ended up just passing her a few things to try chew or suck and let her be Miss Independent and it did work on occasions. Foods included rusks, banana and mainly toast. Although we have a new favourite snack... Organix banana finger biscuits!! She goes mad for them and it will actually disappear where as most things look as if they do until you take her out of her chair and in fact she's just stored it in tiny pieces like a squirrel instead!!

I think my attitude on weaning has changed slightly this week and it's now more about let Daisy lead the way on what she wants and when she wants it. I will keep offering her food, puree and finger foods but not get too worried when she refuses. She will eat when she is hungry and like I've already said she has milk anyway!



We were lucky to be sent a Nuby Mash N Feed by Organix this week for a wean team challenge, anyone else tried one of these? The first thing I used it on was banana, how tricky is it to mash banana unless it's super duper ripe? Especially if trying to do it in your babies bowl where there's no room to get your spoon or fork in to mush it up? Well this is fab! It reminded me a bit of a pestle and mother, a baby version though of course! And a much more fun version! It was so easy! The bowl that it comes with has like ridges at the bottom which helps the masher bit rock over it, which mashed it up perfectly! Winner! 




Other things I've tried in it are potato and broccoli, obviously they do need to be cooked to an inch of their lives if you are going to mash those!! But it worked perfectly! For these photos its pear!

My really favourite thing about this little contraption is that you just chuck it in the dishwasher after and it cleans perfectly! Sometimes with those masher things you have to scrub them to death to remove the food out of their "teeth"!



It also comes with a long handled spoon, at first I though it looked like a sundae spoon but it's by far my best spoon yet. (How sad that I have a favourite spoon) Its shape is like a little scoop and so easy to feed Daisy with!

I highly recommend this, and it's a bargain for how easy it makes things! It will be perfect for on the go too! Only £4.99 on Nuby Online but I have also seen it in Boots at the moment for £3.99!!!


I have a post coming up shortly about eating as a family in season... 

Lots of love,
Hayley xxx

All opinions are my own

Our first Halloween with Daisy (Photo post)

Just thought I would share our little pumpkin...

Little outfit from Florence & Fred for Tesco.





Lots of love,
Hayley & Daisy xx