How to soothe a teething baby in a heatwave?  Breastmilk ice-lollies! Numbs their gums, keeps them cool and 100% natural.

Review: Monkey Mama Teething/Fiddle Necklace

www.tiarasandprozac.co.uk

I've spent a lot of time nursing.  In total I've nursed for over 7 years.  A lot of baby items I find superfluous and terribly gimmicky and thus refuse to be lured in by their ridiculous beguile.  Other items are just absolutely necessary.  Then there's those items that you never knew you needed until in a sleep deprived frivolous mania you buy one and then wonder why on earth you'd never bought one sooner.

If you're a breastfeeder chances are you've been scratched, pinched and poked by the talons of your vicious spawn mid feed as their wandering paws 'explore' your landscape leading to you exploring the depths of your blue vocabulary.  It's not that they're gits per se... They know not what they do. Honest.   They're just curious little beasts. They're also easily distracted and without something to focus on can become fussy at the best resulting in stretchio-nippleo syndrome (yes, I did just absolutely invent that term) as they attempt to pull away and look at something whilst still in the process of nursing.  Ouch. Sods.

With Thing Two I bought a 'nursing necklace' which was basically a long necklace of lurid plastic beads.  It was supposed to enchant her. It was supposed to entertain her. It was supposed to stop her gouging into tits with itty baby claws .  Yet the only thing it achieved was making me look like a prat.   Even The Dude wouldn't entertain it unless he wasn't feeding and he could wear it.  Much more fun to grab a fistful of my flesh and pinch whilst feeding.  But hey,  it's okay, he stared adoringly into my eyes as he did it.

The only thing that occasionally engaged their hands was a muslin placed between their grappling fist and my ginormo boob of doom.  If the muslin remotely attempted to impart an iota of modesty to us it was ripped off with an angry growl through a suckling mouth full of boob. What can I say?  My kids are proud of feeding and like to show it.

With Moomin being our last ever baby I'm on a mission to try the things I've been curious about.  I've been drawn to the beautiful simplicity of wooden fiddle necklaces for a while.  They're beautiful and wearable. They're understated and tactile.  They don't scream out baby or functional. Then I found the teething necklaces.   Thing Two was rather partial to teething on the leather strap of my Mother's handbag; strange child.  It still bares the teeth marks.   As I'm a babywearer it would be handy to have something always  at hand for Moomin to chomp on with the added bonus of being able to fiddle with it instead of yanking my hair. I bought mine from the lovely Monkey Mama Necklaces.

As soon as it arrived I put it on. It has an adjustable cord so can be worn as a long pendant when nursing for baby to fiddle with or to chomp on when sat on my knee. Worn shorter she can access it when in the sling.  Without a baby it simply looks like a funky necklace.

What can I say?  She loved it.  As soon as her hands began to stray and grab fist fulls of my flesh I'd dangle the pendant near them and she'd grasp it.  She's since fallen asleep several times clutching it tight.  It was invaluable at entertaining her at the recent influx of school performances keeping her occupied in my arms and on my knee as she fiddled and gummed it.  She evidently finds something satisfying and comforting about the tactile nature of the wood and the beads.

The only problem I face now is that as I wear it daily I find myself wanting a selection of them in different styles and colours! 

I highly recommend them regardless of wether you breastfed or babywear as all babies have curious hands and pesky gums. 

You can buy one from Monkey Mama Necklaces.  She makes a variety of fiddle necklaces and teething necklaces varying from natural to subtle to fun and colourful.

***Disclaimer: I received neither payment nor gift for this review.  I bought the necklace myself and was impressed enough to share.  All views and images are my own.

Please note these are not a toy.  These should be worn by an adult and babies and toddlers should be supervised at all times.

www.tiarasandprozac.co.uk

Milk Monster

The week isn't by any means over yet and so far it started with The Dog eating Thing Two's sausage roll that was lunch-box bound before school resulting in an impromptu trek to the super market and then to school to drop of a replacement lunch and last night I had to call out a paramedic for The Husband who was having an asthma attack.  In between all that we've got Thing One who's practicing being a vile teenager five years early with utter insolence and sheer obtuseness and The Toddler who has apparently banned all forms of sleep for himself and thus me.  Not to forget The Husband having to rush to school, following a drama-whorish call saying Thing Two was frightfully distressed and in considerable pain due to a toe nail apparently hanging off and could he possibly go there with some nail scissors to 'see what you can do'.  He was in a terrifically bad mood due to suffering from a migraine and had been somewhat of a total twunt so needless to say he was rather bemused to find Thing Two happily sat in her classroom, barefoot, having her lunch with her teacher.  One corner of a toe nail had been digging in to her toe. That was all.  I would have gone myself but I had the time critical task of supervising brownies baking in the oven. Shame.

The Toddler has near completed his training as The Sanity Assassin and having rather cleverly lulled me into a false sense of security at night deciding to do the absolutely unheard of and sleep for 5 hours straight only to then spend the past 5-7 days waking every 60-120 minutes and feeding fervently like a newborn, yes, at 31.5 months of age.  I'm so abysmally tired that my eyes feel like spinning metal balls in their sockets and my limbs feel like concrete blocks of pain.  Add this to the creeping onslaught of yet another M.E trough coupled with an accelerated dip in mood i'm rather more bits then pieces.

There is 'well you could night wean him' road to wander down yet unfortunately he is simply not ready.  You just 'know' when they are and it's untraumatic and surprisingly easy (see also potty training etc etc).  I actually have no qualms with a waking or two during the night and a quick boobie snack with added snuggles, however I do become considerably grumpsome when it becomes every 60-120 minutes, as you would.  We've tried the counting up to ten method which is what worked when Thing Two was a toddler and indeed The Toddler is on occasion been known to be somewhat amenable to this idea, which is nice.  It also proves our suspicions that he indeed absolutely understands the proposal.  However, more oft then not lately he'll simply shake his head and mumble around a mouthful of boob 'no'.  If I try and subtly remove said boob then well...all hell breaks loose.  Arse.

There is a possibility that he's still teething, again.  For now i'll go with that idea with it being terrifically more endearing then the alternative 'he hates me'

So for now he shall remain, the boob junkie boobie monster.

It has taken me several days to write this.  The Husband is now en route to Austria and i'm home, alone, avec The Spawn, and I have no chocolate.  This could get messy.  Thankfully The Grandparents are coming to my rescue and having Things One & Two for the night.  They're all currently in the bathroom (The Spawn, not The GrandParents) as The Toddler fights them for the bog.  I'm best off not knowing really.  I'm pretending to ignore the arguments and the 'MuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuM!!!!!!' calls.  Is it vodka o clock yet?  Oh Bollocks. I'm practicing neglect by hiding behind the laptop.  Tomorrow i'll be all smiles and weave lentils with them.  Honest.

Natural teething remedies

Seeing as The Toddler appears to be sprouting molars and has a history of literally taking several weeks to complete each teething episode I thought I'd share some natural teething remedies.

* cold peeled carot to chew on or frozen watermelon
* wet a muslin (water or chamomile tea)put it in a bag and put it in the freezer then let them chew on that.
* let baby chew on natural licorice stick (not the confectoinary!)
* rub a teeny amount of clove oil on gums (too much will give tummy ache)
* rub small piece of ginger root on gums
* Pure Vanillia. Rub a small amount on the babies gums to relieve the pain of teething. But it must be real vanillia not the imitation stuff.
* homeopathic powders  i.e nelsons, A&p's and boots  or just pure chamonilla.
* teething necklaces: although there is a debate behind the science of this, my personal experience is that out of the three spawn, The Toddler is the only one who has had a Baltic Amber necklace. He has worn it 24/7 since if was a few months old and other then the longevity of teething (and it triggering his asthma) he has been the easiest teether with the least symptoms and distress.
An alternative is a hazlewood necklace.
All of the above can be used in conjunction with over the counter items such as infant paracetamol, infant ibuprofen, anbusol and teething gels.

The Toddler

Following his recent aversion to socks, insofar as to say he takes them off at any given opportunity, The Toddler is now practising being a stripper.  Minutes after this photo was taken he was totally in the buff, which consequently meant I had about two minutes to get him upstairs to the loo.

He's learned the concept of 'wait'.  As in if I say it he'll wait at the top of the stairs whilst I close the bedroom door instead of setting off down the stairs and now, if I say 'wait' when he's taken his nappy off and asking for a wee he does indeed give me 2 minutes grace and waits.  Any longer and the carpet would get it.  This is also how he ensures I get up out of bed.  He'll take his pj's and nappy off.  I now catapult out of the bed like  Ninja on speed.

On the whole he is a darling little chap yet he is the most toddlerish out of all three.  He sulks all the time, he tantrums, he strips off and his latest?  He opens the gates and tries to mooch round the kitchen or better still, scampers up the stairs like a rat up a drainpipe.  Rinse and repeat.  I  never did care for step aerobics.

His empathy is shining through too these days, in a fashion.  Thing Two ran and tripped in the lounge and bawled her heart out.  Whilst I cuddled her The Toddler found a random piece of laundry and came up to her and started dabbing her tears and then he started to stroke her head saying 'shhhhh shhhhhh it otay' It made my heart fart it was that cute.  However he then decided to out do her and in a total comedic parody he re-enacted her trip complete with hammy facial expressions and humorous cry.  He's a dork and I love him.

His speech is coming on leaps and bounds following directly in the footsteps of Thing One who likewise waited until he was over two before he decided to really give the words thing a fair trial.  Every day he's coming out with new words and occasionally joins 2-3 of them together.  He said 'night night window' the other night, he'd never said window before.

I love this stage of speech when it's all so spontaneous and organic.  I love how 80% of what he says only we can understand.  I love how he shouts 'Git!' at the dog, instead of 'sit!'.  I love how he calls the dog a 'Woof woof' and all cats are 'meow-meows'

He still uses everything as a phone.  He had an imaginary one the other night, he pressed imaginary buttons on his imaginary phone whilst looking at the rain fall out the window and spoke into his imaginary phone 'Hello rain'

He's a clever little sod, he keeps escaping into Thing One's room and knows to turn the amp on before he starts to strum The Husbands bass, how?!

His imagination is coming on leaps and bounds, I adore ho he races round on his scramble bug alternating between saying 'nee naw!!! nee naw!!!' and 'choooo choooooo!'

The Toddler is also turning into what can only be called a geezer.  When he has a feed, he wipes his hand across his mouth and makes that 'ahhh' sounds blokes do when they down a pint in the local and then...burps.  He gets his charm from The Husband. He also keeps telling my boobs that he loves them....

He's teething, still/again.  Pesky molars.  He's refusing pain relief other then the gel kind which he loves, unfortunately I don't as he bites my fingers when I put it on.  As a result of said teething we had a few horrific nights last week when all he wanted to do was feed, feed and feed some more which resulted in no sleep for me. Joy.

Then, purely to throw my false sense of security he randomly had an epic lie in... I will never understand toddlers.

Spuds & Tantrums

Wednesday night was what one can only describe as abysmal.  The Toddler was feeding hourly due to pesky teeth so as a result I was dreadfully tired.  The Husband was kind enough to let me retire to bed in the morning yet I must confess, rather then sleep I read.  Still, it was nice to be alone and not be mauled and pawed for a while.  The Toddler appeared to be on a poo mission yesterday and rather then nap, he poo'd, several times in fact. Neither The Husband nor myself were particularly impressed to say the least.  Subsequently I then had to spend the rest of the day ensuring he didn't fall asleep and make bedtime even longer then it already is.  Hence The Toddler walking up the tree tunnel home from the shops, he looked rather too much like he was dozing off on my back in the sling so I evicted the wee fellow, mean mummy that I am.  However tantrums were rife when towards home The Husband handed him over to me as only daddy's hand will do, apparently.  I don't really cater to tantrums.  I figure he has a right to feel whatever emotion it is he feels, however it doesn't mean his way of dealing with it will change anything.  So I let him get on with his little tantrum, yes the full lie on the path and cry type, watching over with him until he was ready to accept that yes although he doesn't have to like it, that's absolutely his prerogative but he must hold my hand regardless should he wish to get home any time soon. 

Unfortunately The Toddler isn't the only tantrummer.  Thing One spent his pocket money on a plastic spud gun (I know I know, we point blank banned gun toys when he was younger much to his  utter dismay however, now he's old enough to fully understand what a gun is and what it represents...c'est la vie.  I played with a gun and I'm not quite a homicidal psychopath, well not all the time at least. He was given one rule with regards to playing with it, do not aim at anyone or hit anyone with the spud ammo.  Within five minutes I felt one on me.  He could have aimed at the floor, to the sides, behind him but no, he aimed at me and he was smirking.  Cue a huge tantrum when The Husband confiscated the offending item as Thing One simply refuses to accept responsibility for his actions with a complete inability to hold his hands up and say 'i'm sorry, I shouldn't have done it' First he blamed the maker of the gun, then he blamed Thing Two and finally blamed....the weather.  Needless to say the discourse only served to infuriate The Husband even more into a state of complete exasperation.  Then there was tea time last night, The Toddler did another impromptu poo, this time during tea, whilst we sorted him out I clearly heard Thing Two shout 'NO' at Thing One before the familiar stampede of Their feet to the stairs blathering and arguing as Thing Two accused Thing One of stealing her chicken and Thing One clearly denied it till he was blue in the face (or red actually) However I had a trick up my sleeve, I knew all he had left to eat was sweetcorn which he was dutifully eating when I went upstairs so I asked him to open his mouth.  What did i see on his tongue? The remnant of a mouthful of chicken.  His story then changed to 'She gave it to me!' to which I rationalised to him that if she gave it to him that suggests she wanted him to have it so why would she then shout no, burst into tears and grass him up?  Once again, half an hour later he admitted she was right.
 

The mystery of the missing book bag has been solved.  The Husband had phoned the taxi rank and the shops they went in and no book bag had been handed in.  However, yesterday Thing One jubilantly skipped out of school with his book bag in hand.  Apparently one of the school's dinner ladies has a friend, who had evidently used the same taxi that The Husband and Thing One had, found the book bag and gave it to her Friend to take into work who then in turn found Connor and handed it back to him.  It's the small things that restore an element of faith in humanity.

The Toddler remarkably went to sleep incredibly easily last night with the usual 3-4 wakings as opposed to the recent 10+.  Now I know The Husband would commit the relationship faux pas of saying 'I told you that you shouldn't let him nap so he'd sleep better at night' which is all very well in theory but he does need a nap most days otherwise he gets beastly tired then manic not to mention I need the nap too.  So although I rather enjoyed the better bedtime, I'm putting it down as an anomaly as opposed to a direct result of not napping.

After a shocking nights sleep the night before I should have made the most of it and slept, however, I finished my third book in as many days instead.  Oops.

Keeping the peace

The things you do to keep the peace when you're a mum.  The Toddler was somewhat restless last night, he's terribly full of snot and still teething three teeth.  I tried to creep away for a pee after spending an hour from 3am getting him back to sleep only for him to leap up with superhero speed and astonishing agility for someone who should be asleep and wrapped himself around my leg shaking, howling and crying every time i tried to escape.  It was a split moment decision, let him get more and more upset and possibly wake Thing One, Thing Two and The Husband or..... have a pee with him sat on my knee.  Can you guess which one happened? 

knackered.com

The Toddler is still teething, out of the three of them I've never had one who's taken so long to complete the process.  Thing One and Thing Two from a bump to a whole tooth would be a week, two max.  The Toddler however can quite literally take a month or two to complete the process.  I am quite thankful that the majority of the time the only clue to the fact he is teething is feeding even more then usual, which believe me is a lot. Other than that he's remarkably chipper, you'd never in a month of Sunday's guess he has three teeth emerging. 

Unfortunately (for me) this incessant feeding has royally buggered up the thin snippets of sleep I usually get, in fact we could say my sleep quota has progressed from sleep dieting to pure sleep anorexia. Even in his sleep he wants to feed and awakes as soon as I dare to liberate my boobs from him, which means I lay in a splendidly awkward position resulting in my shoulder being in pain whilst I can't sleep.  Sympathy is somewhat lacking seeing as he is teething and I choose to breastfeed therefore I should suck it up and deal with it.  When confronted with that caring attitude I almost wish he did dribble, drool and scream throughout the evening.  Surely The Husband should be thankful I can comfort him to such an extent that there is no interruption to the rest of the house?  The Husband also has a relatively low understanding threshold to M.E and the importance of rest.

Yet seeing The Toddler evidently in such good cheer as he awoke for the day and as usual waved his siblings and The Husband goodbye from the bedroom window as they started the school run went a long way to eradicating any residual grumpiness on my part not simple because I don't have to do the school run but  more that the toddler is so happy.  Upon his return The Husband scored some brownie points as he let me stay in bed a while, although frankly I deserved it especially after I copped the shitty nappy whilst he was out.  I'd like to say I had a sublime kip however, it was more my body rested whilst thoughts stampeded through my mind and veins like buzzing ants.

The Toddler enjoyed his nap as usual, me less so seeing as this picture was taken at the only window in time when he was not suckling furiously.  I swear my boobs must have morphed into calpol because they seem to be all he wants and needs to settle.  I suppose in a way I should be honoured that I'm able to provide this relief and comfort for him.  Nah, bollocks to that.

My ankle got a full test drive today as I bit the bullet and decided to do the 2+ mile round trip to the shops after school with The Husband and all three darlings. Once again The toddler was in great form and enjoyed shouting joyfully at full volume in the shops with grins and giggles a plenty. More importantly, I managed it and I'm not in excruciating pain (yet)!  Hoorah!