Morrck or Sungglebundl

Which one is for you?

This is my question.  Since becoming pregnant again, I have found that over the last three years more and more baby products have been launched. Amongst them, are these two baby blankets.  Both are very similar but also very different. To me they both seem amazing and have intrigued me.  However, they both seem to have flaws and this makes it very hard for me to make my mind up on which one I should go for. 

Firstly, the Morrck was what I came across first and instantly fell in love with. Mainly because it’s a snuggly soft blanket that’s used instead of putting coats and excessive blankets over babies in the car seat, prams, etc.  Having a winter baby last time, I had Albert wrapped up constantly whilst out.  Thankfully, he was a snuggly baby and loved being warm, much like he is now!

Back to the Morrck. It has won many awards.  It can be used not only in the car seat for newborns, but in buggies and prams too – as a type of cosy toes to keep warm in all weather conditions. This is handy because you can very quickly unfold the blanket when in and out of shops, etc, rather than having to undo coats or zips on big foot muffs or cosy toes. The main reason I really like the Morrck is that it has holes for straps in car seats and prams, so it’s extra safe.  There are lots of great testimonials on their website, www.morrck.co.uk.

Secondly, the Snugglebundl is something that popped up on my newsfeed on Facebook, and I immediately loved the concept of being able to transfer my baby from car seat to pram with ease and safety.  I have discovered with reading up on on this product that there are many things to love about it.  They say it’s easy to transfer a sleeping baby with this product due to its unique design, and it’s very helpful if you find it difficult to bend over and pick your baby up with a bad back, or if you’ve had a C-section and still recovering.  It’s also great to use to discreetly breastfeed your baby whilst out and about, which is something that I’m really hoping works for us this time around.

This product has been officially tested and certified for babies up to 30kgs (66lbs)! Not that I think anyone would use it past the age of nine months, but it’s nice to know it can withstand a decent weight. It has also been safety tested to meet with European safety directories and has been “road tested” by over 4,000 babies.  Their testimonials prove that this is a product worth having. Snugglebundl state that it’s good for babies with reflux and colic as they like to be rocked, and it’s easier to lay them still in the blanket.  I can’t personally comment on this, as Albert had very mild colic and he was fine with having Infacol before each feed.

There are also many reviews and a long list of awards they have also won on their website www.snugglebundl.co.uk

The thing that concerns me about the Snugglebundl is that due to the ease of moving your baby in and out of car seats and prams, it doesn’t have the same holes for the straps in car seats.  It is unable to then wrap your baby up nice and warm whilst out and about like the Morrck does. 

However, I have watched both videos on how to use these products and they seem to be perfectly safe – both have sold thousands and are going strong. 

You can watch the videos here:

Morrck – 3 point harness – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvJucXeYYz4

– 5 point harness – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbhQ51R51Tk

Snugglebundl – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9crnF31I198

I love products that are made in the UK, and both these products have had a lot of thought and love put in to them to help families. I love all things made here in ‘Ole Blighty’, and I’m a strong believer of supporting our own UK brands; start up businesses; and mums who come up with great ideas of helping to provide for their families. 

I would love to hear your personal views on which product is the best, unfortunately I cannot have both.

Victoria x

Pregnancy Number Two

This pregnancy has not been as plain sailing as my last.  Albert’s pregnancy really was a walk in the park, until it was time for him to arrive and then he was 9 days late! Read about Albert’s birth story here.

At my (first) 12 week scan, we decided to take my mum along, as she didn’t join us on any of the previous scans for Albert and thought she might like it.  She loved it, but the sonographer complained that the baby was too small and I must have my dates wrong, I was a bit miffed as I knew I hadn’t, but she still put me back to 10 weeks!! So we had to wait a further 3 weeks for my scan as they were so busy.

Thankfully, everything at the scan went well, and we were free to tell the rest of the world, well, social media haha.

Then at the routine 16 week midwife appointment at the surgery, where she takes yet more blood etc and then checks the baby’s heartbeat, she took about 15 minutes and still couldn’t locate it.  She was freaking me out, whilst trying to be positive, but I could see she was concerned at the same time.  She called the day assessment unit at the hospital and told them I was on my way to be checked and possibly scanned to locate the heartbeat.  Thankfully I wasn’t on my own and my husband was with me, as was Albert.  I cried the whole way, I just couldn’t stop thinking the worst, who wouldn’t?  But when we got there, they were all so kind and comforting, yet it still took a midwife and a doctor 45 minutes to locate the heartbeat, they did need to use a special scanner where you could see and hear the heartbeat.  It was so lovely being able to get a sneaky peak at little babybee2 again.

My 20 week scan went well, but again there we found out I had an anterior placenta, which explains why we couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat and the lack of early fetal movement in second pregnancies. But due to this, she did have some trouble locating all chambers of the heart, bladder and liver and I had to be booked in for yet another scan!

We didn’t find out the sex – much to everyone’s disappointment. The second 20 week scan went well too and little babybee 2 waved at me, it was amazing.  I was actually on my own for this scan, there had been so many, I just had to get in and out quickly. I was really happy when the baby waved at me, it was like a little private bonding moment for just the two of us.

Due to Albert having shoulder dystocia at birth. I was put under minor consultant care, and she discussed with me that sometimes second babies can be bigger than the first. As Albert was 9 days late, she doesn’t particularly want me to go late again.  So at 39 weeks I have a growth scan and another appointment with her to discuss induction – If baby hasn’t already arrived by then.  I am really hoping babybee 2 arrives before this, 38/39 weeks would be perfect!

So, now I’m 32 weeks and things are going well.  Crippled with tiredness and heartburn/acid that makes me want to vomit and kill myself, but otherwise ok.  Second time round is definitely harder, I have to take care of a 3 year old at the same time, although I am lucky that he’s able to play by himself with his trains. He watches telly cuddled up next to me and we play puzzles and games on the table as I struggle to be on the floor.  Pre-School two and a half times a week helps me to get things done or just sit and relax in peace – before baby arrives that is!

As much as I am ready for this baby to arrive, I am loving how much baby moves and wriggles. I will miss it, just like I did when Albert was a few months old.  Who knows, we may have a 3rd.

Here’s hoping the home stretch goes fast with no hitches!

Victoria

Safari Park Antics

My husband Richard had been planning a piss up with his friend Andrew to Aberdeen for a beer festival event.  Thus leaving myself and Albert alone for the weekend. 

Andrew’s wife Lindsey asked if we would like to join her, their son Alasdair and a few of their friends to Woburn Safari Park, so we snapped them up on the offer and we headed off bright and early up to Bedfordshire. 

On arriving at Woburn we saw lots of animals roaming in the fields. We parked up to meet the others and have a quick toilet break and stretch our legs.  Then we all climbed back in to the cars and headed towards the start of the safari route.

We saw Rhinos and Zebras before we came to the Lion, Tiger and Bear enclosure.  We were queueing between the big gates to gain entrance, and Albert decided that it was a good idea to open the door!! I freaked out, and reached round and managed to slam it shut and Lindsey promptly clicked the child lock button.  That was an exciting start to the afternoon. The boys really liked the Lions but mostly kept pointing out the ranger vans “TIGER RUCKS” as Albert called them.

We then headed to the monkey section, this seemed to entertain the boys most, and also myself and Lindsey!! we saw a couple of monkeys on another car and as we cruised past them I snapped a photo.

This got the monkey’s attention and then jumped on to our car!! The boys thought this was highly amusing.  They then slid down the windscreen and jumped off the bonnet.  There was a Land Rover with a ladder on it and the monkey’s were instantly drawn to it and swarmed the car, and had a little scrap over who was going to sit on the roof! This was fun to watch too! We also saw some cheeky monkey’s rip off the rubber door trims to a car and try and take the ariel off too! We creeped past without notice and got away lightly.  On our exit another little monkey was taunting the ranger and jumped on the car, over the roof and  was jumping and bashing his feet on the rear view window, he jumped off when the ranger got closer, we all found this amusing.

    

On our way toward the picnic area we went past the rhinos again and one walked right in front of the car in front (friends of Lindsey’s) and it got very very close. 

We had a lovely lunch and Albert had run around the trees and watching the train take people on rides.

We left about 3pm and the boys had a long nap in the car on the way home, which meant a later bed time for my little dude. 

It was a great day, definitely a trip to repeat again.

Victoria

3 Years Later…

Well, It’s been a while since I last posted here and quite a lot has happened in that time.

Albert is now THREE years old (Where has the time gone?!).  We have had an extension on our house, and I am also expecting baby number 2.

I might do a post on the stresses of building work, but I’m not sure I want to re live it, it wasn’t the most pleasant of months!

I will talk about Albert though, he has grown in to such a cheeky, smart, kind and loving little boy and we could not be prouder of him.  September 2015 he started pre-school for 2 mornings a week and he has thrived from it.  His speech has improved and in the first half term (October) he was potty trained!! but only now at 6 months later has he finally (I hope it sticks!!) mastered pooping on the potty – for some reason he does not like sitting on the toilet, even with a nice child friendly seat!! I have also been only giving him a few sachets of movicol to “help” him on the pooping way a few times a month, so I think that’s a bonus too.

So, I am also currently 31 weeks pregnant and I’m due in June. We found out back in September, much to our surprise, as I had been out celebrating my sisters birthday in London and having a fair amount of what Albert calls “mummy juice” (wine, haha).  It wasn’t like we were preventing anything to happen, but we were back and forth from our house to my parents house (we had to stay there a while whilst the house was being done) as our house was being finished – we had moved back, then had to move out again 2 weeks later for the new flooring – lots of that stress I mentioned! So it was a bit of an exciting surprise, considering it took a fair amount of months to get Albert.

We are all very excited to meet babybee 2 in roughly 8-9 weeks.  I am really hoping this baby arrives on time if not a bit early.

Victoria

Mini Break

Back in June myself and Bertie went away for a couple of days with a very good friend Caroline and her daughter.  We are members of Tumble Tots and they were having a big Tumble Tot birthday celebration At Alton Towers.  There’s also a new part to Alton Towers called CBeebies Land.  The children were very excited about this, especially Caroline’s daughter as she’s a little older and has watched more CBeebies than the dude, at the time he was mostly in to Disney Channel.

Sunday morning I left early to collect Caroline and her girly, we were all super excited to get on the road, not before long and the children were falling asleep after a little sing along to the Frozen soundtrack.  We stopped a few times and I took a few wrong turns and we ended up arriving a few hours later than we would have liked. 

Once checked in, we headed straight to the park on the train that took us right to the entrance.  Our first stop was CBeebies Land, and we went on one of the CBeebies Bugs for a tree top tour, they absolutely loved it. After we got off the ride, we started seeing people wondering around with Tumble Tot bags, so we went in search for the building where the Tumble Tot party was being held.  However when we got there it was completely EMPTY, we asked for some help and know body knew anything about the event.  We decided to go back to the hotel and check again in the morning in time for the morning show.

We were staying in the Splash Landings hotel and as the children love swimming so much we decided to have a quick swim and play after dinner.  The children absolutely loved the pool, the slide mostly, We should have spent that whole day there, it was so much fun, I wish we could have taken a camera in too!!

They went to bed after a nice warm bubble bath and woke up bright and early for breakfast.  We got into the park nice and early, so I thought I would take the opportunity to go on a fast ride myself and we trecked all the way over to Oblivion, it was great, I loved it. 

We headed back towards the building for Tumble Tots but again it was completely empty, again we asked for help, again he had know idea what we were talking about.  He called over to the main office and they confirmed that the shows should be where we were but nothing was there.  We decided to go in to CBeebies Land again and went on the Postman Pat Van ride, again they loved it – they both got to sit in the front and “drive”. 

Through out the day we went on various rides, had a picnic lunch on the grass in the sunshine.  We kept checking in at the Tumble Tot building at the right times on the leaflet I was given back in our class In Henley – on – Thames but nothing. Yet we saw lots of people with Tumble Tot bags.  I am quite disappointed that we missed out when the reason we booked to go away was solely because of the Tumble Tot event. Luckily the children didn’t really miss anything as we kept them busy with other things in the Park.

It was getting quite late and we were all feeling quite tired so we headed back to the car, changed the children into their pj’s and prepared their milkies and last snacks. Not before long they were both asleep.

Sleeping or not sleeping

I touched on the subject of sleep in my last post from a year ago, I can’t remember exactly what happened back then, but i’ll recap as far as I can.

He did eventually drop his 2 naps a day, and then went to morning naps for about 2-3 hours then we would have the afternoon to play.  I found this lovely and annoying for a few reasons.  Bertie woke up increasingly early between 5 and 6am most days. Back then he couldn’t get past 9am without crashing and wanting to nap.  But that then didn’t leave a lot of things to do in the afternoon as most baby and toddler groups were in the morning.  This has now changed and he has a nap around 11am/12pm depending if we are out.

Looking back I think it was quite a difficult time, I was struggling, and I hate to admit it, but I was.  I couldn’t for the life of me get him to sleep in his bed at nap times, and gone had the time of him falling asleep in my arms with his milk on the sofa – I think it happened rarely.  It was his 1 year review that the Health Visitor advised I change his routine at bedtime to help with his daytime nap as I was strapping him in his pram and rocking him with soft music playing.  As much as I wanted to change his routine I didn’t take her advice of totally changing everything, I think we just tweaked a few things. 

I was talking to a friend one night when she was explaining to me that it takes around 3 days to change a routine and for it to stick.  She explained to me what she did with her own daughter, and thought it was great. However I still didn’t change anything. Until one night when things got really bad, Bertie just wouldn’t settle. We would normally spend up to 45 minutes putting him to bed as we would give him his milk and rock him to sleep whilst playing music and singing to him softly. It was that night I decided the next day we would change the way we do things.

We bath him as usual, he loves bath time, always splashing and playing.  Then we get dried and into pyjamas and then we turn off the lights, leaving the hall light on and the door open enough to read him a bedtime story.  Currently he still sits on one of our laps then once he’s finished his milk we put him to bed and say good night and tell him we love him. 

The first night he cried for 17 minutes, I remember this because it was heartbreaking sitting on the stairs outside his room listening, it wasn’t a hurtful cry, but a frustrated cry otherwise of course one of us would have gone to see him.  The next night it was less and the 3rd night was barely non-existent.  Now, 8 months down the road, he mostly is a dream at bedtimes and nap times, of course we have bad days/nights – what parent doesn’t?

Twice now he has point blank refused a nap in the day, this worries me as I know he isn’t quite ready to drop the nap yet, and neither am I!

Catching Up

It’s been a little over a year since I have last written anything.  Bertie has grown in to a very independent 20 month old. He’s grown so much it’s hard to believe how tiny he was and how big he is now.

I have wanted to sit and write about our adventures and goings on, but every morning when I would say ‘today is the day when I will sit down with the laptop’ I always managed to find that something got in my way, usually housework, baking, or quite frankly taking a nap myself.  I dread the day when Bertie stops his lunchtime nap!

I have also been struggling on how to express what has been going on with us over the last year, how to get every thing out with out rambling on.  So I decided to read back on what I have posted to see how much has really changed.  Some things have changed a lot and some not so much, more on that later.

I have decided to also write about cakes and baking as it has become a big part of my life the last few months.