Tag: daughter

Meningitis B Vaccination … Yes or No? 

BABY ADVICE

 It has been very loud recently about the Meningitis B vaccination. As you all heard (or not) in UK from the 1st of September 2015 all babies are receiving the Meningitis B vaccination. UK is the first country to roll it out to all babies being born. This news is great but what about all of the babies born after 1st of May 2015 who are not entitled to it ? 

 If you don’t know much about Meningitis B this is some general information available on NHS website:

Meningococcal group B bacteria is a serious cause of life-threatening infections, including meningitis and blood poisoning, worldwide and the leading infectious killer of babies and young children in the UK.

There are 12 known groups of meningococcal bacteria, and group B (Men B) is responsible for about 90% of meningococcal infections in the UK.

Meningococcal infections tend to come in bursts. In the past 20 years, between 500 and 1,700 people every year, mainly babies and young children, have suffered from Men B disease, with around 1 in 10 dying from the infection. Many of those who survive suffer terrible permanent disability, such as amputation, brain damage and epilepsy.

  Once I found out that Chloe won’t qualify to get the vaccination on NHS me and my husband decided that we will do it privately. Somehow though life got in the way … We tried to book an appointment and were placed on a waiting list… Then when we finally managed to get one we had to cancel it due to holidays …. And then with busy lives we forgot about it…

 Untill recently when a very sad story came out about a 2 year old little girl called Faye Burdett who lost her battle with Meningitis (rest in peace little angel). This story has shocked everyone and sent parents in to a panic to get their kids vaccinated. I was one of those parents, I just couldn’t risk it even if the chances of getting this awful disease are small. I must say that after the story has broken out it became almost impossible to get the vaccination ! There is a national shortage of the vaccination and most of the clinics have a very long waiting list with no date of when the vaccine will be awailable (hopefully in the summer). We were lucky to get it but it was expensive. What is very sad to see is all of the private clinics making a fortune from petrified parents. The vaccination costs £75 but most private clinics charge now £200 upwards!!!! This makes my blood boil!!!

 So what is your opinion dear parent? Would you pay for the Vaccination though in theory the chances of your child getting it are 4 in 100,000? Or do you think that we all got in to a silly panic after the case of poor little Feya? 

 There is right now a big debate going in parliament about introducing this vaccination to older children after a petition to the government was signed by over 800,000 people and became the most signed petition ever …. Let’s see what will be the outcome of it. 
You can reed more about Meningitis B on http://www.meningitis.org/menb-vaccine 
 

The V&A – A Museum of Childhood – Highly recommended day out in London 

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

 Are you trying to find fun things to do with your toddler ? You must visit the V&A’s Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, East London. 

 I was so pleased and surprised by how well organised the museum is and how much it caters to kid’s needs. 

 As you come in you have lots of space to leave you pram which allows you to move more freely. 

There are 3 floors :

 Ground Floor on which you have situated coffee shop and shops. 

Mezzanine : 

1. Creativity section – this section is divided into four sections – Imagine, Be Inspired, Explore and Make it Happen. It has a Sensory Pod and Build it Up and Knock it Down (building blocks) interactivities. Art Classes also take place every day from 14.00-16.00.

2. Moving Toys section – Moving toys section shows ranges from rocking horses and pull-along toys to more complex clockwork and battery-operated toys. Gallery has a wide variety of interactives for children to engage with, including rocking horses, Robbie the Robot, a train set, a peep show and zoetrope. Touchscreen interactives featuring moving toys games and quizzes are also situated throughout the gallery.

First floors :

1. The Childhood Galleries – are arranged into the following themes: Babies, Home, What We Wear, Who Will I Be? and Good Times. You can find here another set of interactive exciting things to do like a sandpit for kids to play in, puppet box so you can make your own show, kitchen and under 3’s area. 

2. Temporary Exhibition Space which right now shows a heartbreaking exhibition telling the stories of Britain’s child migrants who were sent to Canada, Australia and other Commonwealth countries between 1869 and 1970.

 On first impression I thought what have we done? Chloe is way too small for it at 15 months …but I was wrong. 

 As you walk around the museum looking at the toys there is lots of kids activities scattered around. Everything from sensory pod, sand pit, to kitchen and doll houses that kids are allowed to play with. Every time we thought that Chloe couldn’t get any more excited she would. 

 If you come at the right time there is a puppet show, which kids can enjoy for free. There is lots of free drop-in activities taking place during term time, including arts and crafts, tours, trails and storytelling (for list visit the website).

 Another added bonus is a lovely coffeeshop/restaurant which does lovely freshly made food. What is very handy is that they do a big selection of kids food with everyone being able to find something for the fussy eaters. 

 And if you all still have some energy left afterwards head to the lovely park just next door ! 

 This is  a great place for a family day out and I will recommend it to everyone ! 

http://www.vam.ac.uk/

   
    
 

  

CHATTERBOX! 💜❤️💚💜❤️💚

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

Chloe as you all know from my blog is a very happy baby/toddler (still can’t bring myself to call ther a toddler) . She always was quite vocal, making lots of different sounds and in recent months starting to say some words.

 I don’t know what happens but on Friday she got up and became a chatterbox !! She doesn’t stay quiet! She keeps talking in her baby language all the time. 

 I find it fascinating how overnight child can change so much ! How something in they brain “clicks” and they just start doing something ! Seeing her talk so much, and telling me long sentences (in her baby language- just to clarify 😂) got me really emotional ! I am such a proud mum! 

Christmas decorations out ! Babies stay away ! 🎄🎄🎄🎄

BABY ADVICE

 Christmas is just around the corner! Yes it is and yes I know it’s so hard to believe! Christmas is a very special and magical time of the year …. It becomes even more incredible and special once you have the baby….and a bit more hectic and difficult …. and a bit more dangerous … and a bit more stressful!!!!

 Chloe was only 2 months old when she celebrated her first Christmas and she could not have been less bothered by it; now she is a very curious and WALKING baby (still can’t bring myself to call her a toddler) and that means a very different Christmas for us😊

 I started thinking about what I will need to do differently this time not to make my house a health and safety hazard ! 

 You see I love Christmas decorations! Usually we have them everywhere ! Big Christmas tree, Reindeers and Santa on the floor, Christmas cloths on the tables, lights everywhere and pretty much the whole house gets decorated, you get the gist. From now on I will have to do things differently, why? Because I have a walking baby who keeps getting taller every day (I swear that she is able to reach higher and higher every day! ); a baby who chooses to ignore NO whenever she feels like it and a baby who LOVES lights and glitter. 

 CHRISTMAS TREE

 I am having a proper, big Christmas tree. I know that a lot of people choose not to have the Christmas tree when they have a baby/toddler or have a tiny tree on top of the highest furniture in the room; not me. 

 I will be putting the Christmas tree up and I will try to decorate it with Chloe ( I might change my mind 10 minutes in to the decorating 😂). (It’s all done now. Chloe was helping … to get all of the decorations out of the boxes, but I must say it was lots of fun and I am happy that I have done it with her) 

  

  

 I will decorate the tree with bigger decorations only (hooking hazard) and keep the most precious decorations in the box for the next 2 years just in case.(I have ended up putting out all of my decorations, with the most precious ones very high) 

 I will keep the bottom half of the tree (up to where Chloe can reach)  with minimum decorations on, and try to use mostly plastic/wooden decorations.  ( I didn’t manage to have only a few decorations on the bottom of the tree but I made sure there is no glass decorations there . Chloe loves to touch all of her decorations, and Chloe loves talking to them. Very good advice if you have an artificial Christmas tree: hang decorations and then bend the tip of the tree branch, it will stop your baby from pulling all of the decorations. I have also given Chloe a small box of her own plastic decorations which she is allowed to play with, which seems to keep her away from the real deal 😁). 

   

    
  The Christmas tree will be attached to the ceiling on a hook by see through cord. This is to make sure that Chloe won’t be able to tip the tree over. That’s exactly what my mum use to do for years (her tree was perfect each year and she had 4 kids) 

 CHRISTMAS TABLE/ TABLE DECORATIONS

 I love table cloths! I would have one on the table all the time; unfortunately they aren’t child-friendly 😁 

 We cannot have a table cloth because Chloe would pull it (with everything that is on it) off the table. This year I will purchase an amazing and over the top table runner and put out some gorgeous placemats to complement the table runner. 

 When it comes to decorating hallway, stairways etc I will do what I normally do which is go crazy and over the top 😊
And it’s all done !!!! 

This is the end result of my weekend filled with decorating

   

 Fireplace is the perfect home fixture for Christmas decorations and obviously Christmas stockings. But if you don’t have a fireplace (which lets be honest looks amazing but is a hazard with the baby for the first 4 years if not more – yes I am saying it to make myself feel better) like me that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a Christmas stockings. 
    
    
 After having Christmas Tree and decorations up for a few days it seems that the novelty wears off. I also think that if you get your little one involved in the process and let them touch all of the decorations he or she will be less tempted to be misbehave (we know that they want what then cannot have 😁). 

 

  
  We have also bought Chloe’s own little Christmas tree which she has in her room. We have decorated it together in small plastic decorations which has made the novelty of the Christmas tree even less of : uh what are you ? I want to pull everything off you and eat you and I want all of those shiny things 😂 

  
 I hope that you will love decorating your house with your baby as much as I did 🎄

SMASH THE CAKE BABY !!!

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

 I love the cake smashing photos of babies covered in cake, icing and chocolate ! I also like the idea of giving then some sugar for the first time and capturing theirs reaction on the camera. What I don’t like is the though of all of the sugar that they will eat!  That’s why I decided to make my own cake and get a “healthy balance” between sugar and healthy cake. I decided to make a bannana cake and cover it in normal icing. That way Chloe wouldn’t have that much sugar and icing would give her a taste of the forbidden thing.  

 Cake came up very tasty but I must admit bcause of the texture it’s not the best one for smashing…. Especially if your baby doesn’t like to get dirty …. 

 I was expecting Chloe to go gravy for the icing and the cake … But she didn’t ! She wasn’t too bothered about it (which outside of the photoshot is a good thing) and it took us a long time to try and get her a bit messy. I had to get pretty messy myself trying to I courage my daughter to play with the cake … That’s how uninterested she was about it! 

 Considering the amount of cake they actually eat (which isn’t a lot) and the texture needed for a good smas cake session I would recommend to make a normal sponge cake just with less sugar. 

 Below recipes for the healthy cake and obviously some photos of Chloe.

   
    
    
 

BABY BANANA CAKE 

Ingredients for the cake :

– 5 ripen bananas

– 1 1/2 cup flower (you can use white flower or whole grain 

– 3/4 cup Apple juice with no added sugar)

– 3 tsp vanilla extract

– 1 tsp cinnamon 

– 2 egg whites – bitten 

– 50g of fondant icing of a desired colour(if using)

Ingredients for the icing: 

– 250g icing sugar

– 125g soft butter

– 1 or 2 tbsp of milk

– 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

– food colouring (if using)
Cooking method: 

 Preheat your oven to 180C. 

 Mash your bananas (I blend them for the creamy texture) 

 Combine all of your ingredients (except egg white) together until smooth. Beat eggs white until quite stiff and fold in very carefully. Pour your mixture on to your forms which has been sprayed lightly with cooking pray. I have used 2 forms for the big cupcake cake and filled then half full, but you can use 2 small round baking tins (depends on what cake you want to make) 

 Put the cake in to the oven and bake for 25 minutes. 

 Prepare your icing my mixing your butter with half of the sugar, then add the rest of the ingredients and combine it well. If you are using food colouring add at the end. 

 When your cake is cooked, cool it and then start decorating. 

I went for the cupcake cake. I have used fondant icing on the bottom of the cake and butter icing on the top of it.

 If you are using fondant icing you will need to put a very thin layer of butter icing on the cake first so that the fondant icing sticks to the cake. A good tip when rolling out your icing : use a little bit of corn flower it will stop the icing from sticking to the worktop. 

 I have used a thin layer or butter icing to keep both of the cakes together ; it acts as a very good and tasty glue 😊. If you want to use something healthier soft cheese will do exactly this same job. 

 At the end I have decorated the top of the cake with turquoise butter icing. I was very pleased with the result …. Not so much Chloe 😂 
  

You all are sleeping tight  and me ?? No 

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

 4:30 am in the morning … Been awake for around 96 minutes …. And it doesn’t seem as if I am going to sleep any time soon, why? Trying to get Chloe in to her routine of sleeping through the night.
 You know when you reed that you shouldn’t be bringing your baby to your bed when she/he is unwell, that you shouldn’t be breast feeding them for comfort, you shouldn’t be picking them up and rocking … I can understand why they say NOT to do it. 

 Few weeks back Chloe has had her first cold and straight after she went through seperation anxiety,  this means a lot of getting  up at night and crying. I couldn’t see her being so upset and just leave her to it, so I breastfeed her (it was really working), cuddled her a lot and was sometimes even bringing her to bed with me (which I have never done before). Now I have my 11months old waking up between 4am and 5 am demanding to be feed, and not being able to go back to sleep without it. This has to stop as I can’t be doing it when I go back to work… I have been trying to do it now for over a week but always gave in to her demands so that me and my husband could get some sleep but now with hubby away on business trip I am on the mission to stop it and to stick to it. 

 I feel so sorry for her as she has been trying to go to sleep for the last hour without a success…. I think that this might be a very long night ….