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Two Pieces of Advice That Would Have Saved Our Sanity as New Parents.

Posted by Amy T ·

Having a child is one hell of a journey! There are plenty of ups and downs but we wouldn’t change it for the world.

Here are two pieces of advice that would have saved our sanity as new parents. 

1. Don’t compare your baby to another baby.

If you are comparing your baby to other babies you will set yourself up to fail!

No two babies are the same! 

In the first few weeks you will spend close to 5-8 hours feeding per day.

You might spend most of that time on your phone, researching milestones and your baby's development.

A multitude of topics relating to your baby of course!

I’m sure every new mother in the past few years has done this at least once or twice or 100 times a day!

Comparing and questioning everything, why is my baby doing this, or why is my baby not doing that?

You may read that so and so's baby slept for 7 hours straight but yours only slept for 3 hours, so you must be doing something wrong.

You aren't doing anything wrong!!!

As we said before no two babies are the same and there are too many different variables in each situation that you will never get a true comparison.

Setting unrealistic expectations in your mind will only lead to frustration. 

If you're busy comparing your baby to the next, you'll miss out on valuable time that you could be bonding with your baby.

Time is one thing we can never get back.

99.9% of what you will scroll through will be the very best of parenting!

Babies and toddlers have the ability to melt your heart one second, and rip it out the next.

Be prepared for everything and anything!

2. Trust your instincts.

Just think back to your parents or grandparents or even great grandparents.

They had next to none of the information that we have access to today.

They had to trust their instincts or asked a relative because they couldn’t google their problems for a solution.

And you’re still here right, so they must of done a great job!

When you scroll through the internet searching for answers, you second guess your instincts.

There is so much conflicting information out there.

Don’t get me wrong the internet is a fantastic tool to solve problems but go with your gut and what feels comfortable to you and your situation.

Our journey.

We are parents ourselves of two beautiful young children Aston and Isla and we’ve had our fair share of ups and downs as well.

From post-natal depression, to breastfeeding and sleep issues but we’ve made it through stronger.

We fell into these traps ourselves and looking back it would have saved us a lot of stress and grief. How hindsight is a wonderful thing.

With Aston I had breastfeeding issues from the beginning.

I was even told by nurses whilst in hospital just to bottle feed because he was struggling to latch.

We ended up back in hospital with him as the maternal health nurse was afraid he hadn’t put on enough weight at his first check up even though he was happy and having lots of wet and dirty nappies.

You can imagine how bad we felt as parents, that we were led to believe that we were failing our new son.

It was only until the midwife on night shift came in that night that it put our mind at ease that we were doing the right thing.

We can still remember her coming in the room to check on Aston's feeding.

She was an older lady and she wasn't the warmest of characters. 

She was going through her checklist and asking us the same questions that we had been asked by the previous midwives. 

We were waiting for her to politely tell us in a round about way that we weren't giving our son enough milk and we needed to top him up with a bottle. 

We were quite mistaken. She asked us why we were here!

We explained the maternal health nurse had recommended us to come into the hospital.

She shook her head, rolled her eyes and told us there was nothing to be concerned about.

He was getting plenty of food, was a very happy baby and had the right amount of wet and dirty nappies.

Needless to say we were out of hospital first thing the next morning! 

With Aston I had to use nipple shields while breastfeeding, as they were the only way that I could get him latch and feed.

I used them for 4 months before he learnt to feed without them.

Some of what you read online says that they shouldn’t be used for that long or used at all, but he was feeding well so we trusted our instincts and kept using them as long as necessary.

Our second child Isla was a great feeder, but wasn't as good a sleeper as our first. In reality she wasn’t really that bad of a sleeper.

We were frustrated because we were compared her to our first child who was a text book sleeper.

Our second child was getting the sleep she needed, but we were trying to improve her sleep instead of managing her and our own sleep better.

The turning point for us was reading a great book called ‘Sleep like a Baby’ by Pinky McKay.

The first chapter goes through a series of parents and the sleeping patterns of their babies. What we got from the book was a change of mindset.

It reminded us that every baby is unique.

Some will be happy with 10-12 hours instead of the recommended 12-15 hours sleep.

It’s common sense when you look at it but sometimes you get carried away when you are a bit sleep deprived.

When we stopped comparing Isla to Aston the weight of frustration and expectation was lifted from our shoulders.

She’s now just over 2 years old and has slept through the night from around 16 months.

She wakes at the crack of dawn almost every morning, which is not ideal, but she always greets us with the biggest grin first thing in the morning!

The best way to start the morning. 

Our parenting journey led us to opening an online store dedicated to help make life easier for parents. Parenting is hard, with so many twists and turns.

We source the most useful, efficient and high quality baby and toddler products from all around the world so you don’t have to waste your time scrolling the web for hours on end.

We wish you all the best with your baby journey and hope our advice can help you on your own parenting journey.

Amy and Matthew xxx

Feel like those sleepless nights will never end?

Posted by Amy T ·

We we’re once sleep deprived parents too.

It’s such a struggle in the early weeks when your new baby arrives.

They’re waking every few hours for a feed or they have a pain that is keeping them awake.

You feel so helpless and mixed with lack of sleep you find yourself very emotionally and physically drained.

You then get to a point where you start to research how to get you’re baby to sleep more or longer or how to settle better.

The problem is you find 20 things and you’re so overwhelmed. Where do you start?

You might try one or two and they don’t work, then you get more frustrated and because you are so tired it just makes you more emotional.

We went through this for the first few months and then we were lucky enough to come across Ewan.

We’d just started this business and we were researching madly to find the best baby products on the market.

The reviews were mostly positive so we thought we’d try it for ourselves.

We were sceptical to start with as we tried a few techniques that hadn’t worked and you start to doubt yourself whether anything will work.

When we first introduced it to our son Aston it was like he was hypnotised by the sounds and the glow and he was transported back into the comfort of the womb.

It helped him settle much quicker back to sleep so we could start to get the rest we needed to recharge.

When you look at the logic behind Ewan it is so simple.

Ewan plays real recordings of womb and heartbeat sounds that your baby has been used to hearing in the womb.

It also has a calming pink glow, when combined with the womb and heartbeat sounds, helps babies and toddlers drift into a peaceful sleep.

Unfortunately every baby is different and we can’t guarantee that success for every baby, but from 45 customer reviews there are almost 90% 4 or 5 stars review proving that he does get great results for most babies.

He does chew through batteries in the early months and expect to change them every 2-3 weeks but who cares when your baby is drifting off to sleep so peacefully right!

Amy xxx

Why you shouldn't use cloth bibs.

Posted by Amy Trott ·

Why shouldn’t I use cloth bibs? 

Because there is a better alternative!

When we had our first child we inherited a lot of hand-me-down items from my sister.

Amongst the hand-me-downs were about a dozen cloth feeding bibs.

As you do when you’re a new parent you just go ahead and use what you have.

You don’t really know of the alternatives unless a friend recommends it to you or you across something in a shop.

Even if you do see it in a shop most of the time you don’t realise the benefits of a product unless there is a sales assistant to guide you.

After compiling a list of products for our initial launch in 2014 we came across the Weanmeister products. At that stage they only had the Freezer Pods, Adora Bowls and Silicone Bibs. 

The silicone bibs were one product that really solved a problem for us.

Matthew and I used to hate the cloth bibs!

They did the job in protecting clothes but they were just a pain to wash.

We had a soaking bucket in the laundry just for the bibs, so after every feed the bib went straight in the bucket to try and avoid the stains setting.

Once the bucket was full it went in the washing machine, washed, hung, folded and put away (you know the drill).

Unfortunately it wasn’t after our son was finished with the messy feeding stage we discovered the silicone bibs.

Needless to say once our second child started on solids the cloth bibs were banished to the bin, never to be seen again.

What are the benefits of silicone bibs compared to cloth bibs?

Number one for us is they are so easy to wash. You can literally have a silicone bib washed and dry within 30 seconds, ready for the next feed.

Or if you are feeling lazy you can just put in the dishwasher.

Another benefit is the built in crumb catcher. Instead of the food being lost in the crevices of their high chair or all over the floor it is caught by the bib. Less cleaning up for you!

They don’t fade in colour. They don’t go crusty. They don’t stretch out of shape. You’ll also actually save money in the long run as you won’t have to use your washing machine as much. The list is endless.

If you are about to embark on your feeding journey this is the one investment we would recommend you put at the top of your list.

Amy xxx

How a water bottle has changed our life!

Posted by Amy Trott ·

 
We came across this meme above the other day and it was totally us a few months ago. We were serial disposable water bottle users! Buying a 24 pack every other week and throwing out half of them that were warm from sitting in the car and half full.

The bit of lawn next to our bin is the greenest in our yard from all of the water it got from the half empty bottles!

We can’t go anywhere without a bottle of water in summer and we can’t bring ourselves to paying $3-4 for a bottle of cold water from a shop.

We even started carrying a small esky in the car to try and prolong the bottles going warm but when you have two kids there’s not much extra space in the car for anything else.

HERE IS OUR STORY...

One of our wholesalers had just bought out a new product, a stainless steel water bottle that claimed to keep contents cool for 8 hours.

At first I thought that was a good piece of sales text but anything sitting in the hot car all day would go warm within an hour unless it was in an esky, but we usually give most things a try to see what they are like so we went ahead and ordered some.

We were at the warehouse soon after they arrived and we had forgotten to bring our trusty plastic disposable bottle with us.

Being a hot day and totally parched I said why don’t we give these new Montiico bottles a go. They’re pretty trendy looking water bottle with cool colours and a hook that you can attach to your bag or stroller so you don’t lose it, quite practical for a water bottle lover.

Now a couple of days had passed and we were still quite happily using them but surely it was only a matter of time before they got put in the cupboard, forgotten about, and the plastic disposable bottles would rule again.

The weekend came around and we were packed ready to go out for the day with the family and our new Montiico bottles are filled with cold water.

It was a hot summer day; about 35 degrees and we had a kid’s party on at the park (luckily a well shaded park but still very uncomfortable heat). So as a parent, you find a parking spot, get all the essentials out (which looks like you’ve packed for a weeks holiday) and proceed to the party.

When we get over to where the party was set up we realise we’ve left the drink bottles in the car. It was a fair stroll from the car so as the party was well catered for, there were plenty of cool drinks to keep us hydrated, which saved one of us a long torturous walk through the desert like conditions.

A few hours later the party’s all wrapped up, so we lug all of our belongings back to the car while carrying two very weary kiddies. We get back to the car, open all of the doors to let the hot air out, put the kids in and crank up the air conditioning to cool it back to a reasonable temperature.

Of course what happens as soon as you get kids back in the car, they ask for the one thing that you don’t have! They want a drink! Their drink bottles had been out in the sun they were as warm as bath water. Gross! We can’t give them that but try explaining to a two year old that the water is too hot. NO CHANCE!

Hang on we’ve got the Montiico bottles sitting in the car! I pick one of them up from the console and the outside of the bottle is warm. I don’t like my chances here so I take the lid off and stick my finger in to check the inevitable, that we have another drink bottle full of warm water. As my finger dips into the water to my surprise it was actually cool. No way!

It wasn’t ice cold like it came out of the fridge but still cool enough to enjoy a refreshing drink. I was in complete shock. As the bottle is double insulated it works like a thermos and can keep things colder (or warmer) for longer.

From that day we have not bought a single plastic disposable water bottle! That has saved us about $10 a week, or when you add it up over $500 a year! We are also drinking more water as a result of using the Montiico bottles as it stays cooler for much longer than a standard bottle. 

All for the small investment for the bottle we can enjoy cold water wherever we go and we are doing our bit for the environment by not creating unnecessary waste.

They are perfect for school age kids and adults. 
We wouldn't recommend them as suitable for smaller kids (5 years and under) to use as their own drink bottle as they can be heavy for a toddler when full. However we take the Montiico bottles everywhere with us now and use them to fill our 2 and 4 year olds drink bottles.
~ Amy ~

Neckerchew...dribble bib and teether in one!

Posted by Amy Trott ·

As we journey through parenting and are past the (what seems to be never ending) newborn stage we approach the teething phase! The drool….the drool that seems to go on long before the first tooth ever appears! The wet trail that is all over your little ones neck, chest and clothes! When you’re constantly wiping away dribble and constantly picking up and sanitising dropped teethers from the floor or the back seat of the car!

The solution….a dribble bib and teether all in one! Introducing the Neckerchew, a reversible chewable dribble bib that soaks up copious amounts of dribble and cannot be dropped on the ground, discarded or lost!!

The Neckerchew is the original chewable dribble bib that was created by two Edinburgh mums who like a lot of us were constantly picking up and washing teethers. Tackling the teething double of dribble and soothing irritated gums without having to constantly pick teethers up off the floor, the Neckerchew is both absorbent and chewable! Each bib features an absorbent layer in the middle acting as a barrier to help prevent moisture coming through the other side. Resulting in your child’s neck staying dry and their clothes drool free!! The silicone teether is designed to massage and sooth sore gums. No assistance required to hold the teether, it’s perfect for tiny hands.

Made from super soft jersey cotton each bib is also fully reversible so you coordinate the bib with more outfits.

Amy xxx