baby sling

How am I going to cope with a toddler and a baby? A question I often asked myself when I was pregnant with Flixster. With the boy still in nappies and not quite in a toddler bed yet I wasn’t sure how I was going to cope. I would reason with myself that many millions of people had survived before me so surely I could…maybe….right? Flixster is now almost 8 months old and so far I’ve survived, ok it’s on very little sleep but I’m here, I’m still standing (sort of!) So without further ado I’ll let you know my top tips for surviving!

1) Alcohol – start drinking, anytime, anywhere!
2) Lower your standards – your appearance, your expectations of food, your hopes for a tidy home etc

Now of course I’m joking about the above, although there have been times I’ve looked longingly at my open bottle of red on the top of the fridge, wondering if a small glass at 2pm would see me through until Daddy gets home! In reality though I only have the odd glass once the babies are in bed on a Saturday night.

What follows below is my serious list of hints and tips!
Organisation – now you’re probably thinking that of course I’m talking about being generally organised and although many of us would love to be organised in all aspects of life it’s just never going to happen! I’m talking specifically about getting yourself organised each night just for the next day.

1) So first and foremost if you’re going to be leaving the house the next day get your bag and the car packed. If you’re going to need the pushchair or pram then put it in the boot ready. Don’t think that it doesn’t matter and you can do it in the morning, good luck with that! Trying to juggle a baby and wrangle a toddler whilst folding a pushchair and ensuring no one accidentally ends up in the road is nearly impossible, you only have two hands – take it from me!

2) Make sure your changing bag is packed, be sure to remember everything you might need, drinks for toddler, nappies, wipes etc. In the early days of having two I used to really enjoy watching “What’s in my diaper bag” videos on YouTube. They would give me an idea of what I would need to pack and how to organise the bag. If you’re going to be staying at home, then make sure you have everything you need downstairs so that you’re not running up and down,holding a baby, or having to leave the two alone. The first time I did this for 20 seconds I came back to the boy trying to share his banana with Flixster who was only a week old!

3) Sling – This should probably be top tip number 1, it wasn’t until I had two children that I realised how valuable having a sling/baby carrier would be. You can get far more done with the toddler if the baby is in a carrier close to mummy. Be sure to buy a good one though and I highly recommend hiring one from a local sling library (if your lucky enough to live near one) before you invest your hard-earned money. There is a sling/carrier out there to suit everyone but not all types will suit you. Finding the one that suits you and your lifestyle well will bring you the joy of being hands free to deal with a toddler. I started out with a stretchy wrap for Flixster and now I have a material wrap alongside a ring sling for quick up and downs and a mei-tai style one for daddy to use. They get used multiple times a day and I’m not sure how I would have survived without them. There are lots of cheaper baby carriers out there on the market but most are not recommended as the baby hips aren’t kept in the correct ‘M’ position. A good place to check if the carrier is suitable is to have a look at the TICKS baby carrier list which you can view here.

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4) Toilet – No nobody likes toilet talk but it is a part of everyone’s life. What if you need to go when you have sole charge of two small people? If you have a downstairs toilet then you’re probably ok, but what if you don’t? I take both children with me, place Flixster on the floor and get a book for the boy to look at. I have stair gates so I know if he leaves the bathroom he’ll be ok. What if you’re out in public? Try and find a disabled toilet so that you can all fit in together. If you have a double pushchair then strap the little ones in so that the toddler doesn’t go around touching everything while you have a wee! Yuck!

5) Feeding – Being a breastfeeder it’s a little harder to control a toddler while I’m feeding Flixster as I need both my hands for feeding. So if you can find a corner of a coffee shop and block the toddler in while you feed then great but what if you can’t? Do you have a pushchair where you could strap the toddler in safely while you feed? Perhaps the toddler could look at a toy, phone or book for distraction? Is there a feeding room where you are that you could go to in order to keep the toddler contained? Many large shopping centres have them now so just ask to see if the one you are in has one.

Believe me it’s not easy looking after a baby and toddler at the same time, there have been times in the early days where all three of us have been crying at the same time, but you live and learn and hopefully my tips will help. Good luck mummies and daddies, if there are any tips I’ve missed please feel free to let me know and I can add them on!

The List

Monday, as a day, is my least favourite of the week, everyone is back to work the lovely weekend with hubby/daddy is over and I’m facing a day with two little ones to look after by myself. I love my children with all my heart but with Flixster being 5 months and the boy just turning 3 it’s hard to keep them both happy all day long…alone! So over the last few months on Mondays I’ve either been visiting my mum or she has been to visit us. My mum and dad live near Lytham which is about a 50 minute drive from my house on a good day with no traffic. Where they live is lovely and only a few minutes from the seaside which is ideal for the boy, there are lots of lovely parks nearby too which have been fully explored by us all over the summer this year.

I’ve definitely become closer to my mum since having my babies, I was always close to her but much more so after realising how much she has dedicated her life to bringing up myself and my brother. I now realise how much hard work having young children really is! So seeing her regularly has really strengthened our bond as mother and daughter. I now call Mondays ‘Mummy Mondays’ not only do I get to spend time with my mummy but the boys get to spend quality time with their mummy too….me. Having an extra pair of hands with the boys is fantastic, I get to spend lovely one on one time with the boy whilst my mum gets to spend time with Flixster. When I’m on my own with the boys Flixster takes up a lot of my time as he’s so young still and needs a lot of attention. He’ll only nap on me in the sling so even when he’s asleep during the day I find it difficult to play properly with the boy and I certainly couldn’t spend time on the trampoline or run around with him.

Today it was our turn to travel up to my mums house. I try to time the journey to coincide with Flixster’s nap, if I can get it right he’ll have a little moan in the car then fall asleep for most of the journey. If I don’t get it right he’ll scream in the car which I can’t bare so I have to keep stopping to cuddle him. The boy doesn’t like it when he cries either, he covers his ears, so when I know we are going to be travelling for a while I let him have the iPad and headphones to play with in the back of the car, it saves him from getting upset at his brothers distress. This morning after another bad night sleep wise Flixster was getting ready for a nap around 8:45am, the signs were begining to show, the moaning had begun and I needed to leave quickly to get in the car before the screaming started! I left the house in a hurry forgetting coats for both the boy and I and also forgetting my glasses. Thankfully the weather turned out to be nice and warm, so we didn’t need coats in the park and I was able to wear my prescriptions sunglasses to drive in. We arrived at mum and dads by 10am and soon settled into some coffee, toast and playing with the toys (this is almost always the first thing we do, raid the cupboards, isn’t it what all children do when visiting parents?)

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As the weather had turned out to be so nice we made plans to go to a local park called Lowther Gardens, one the boys and I hadn’t been to before. It is only 10 minutes up the road by car so we all travelled together in one car. At the gardens we parked up and I asked mum if she fancied wearing Flixster in the sling as he was due another nap, something she’s not done before. I wear Flixster all the time in a sling so he’s very used to being all wrapped up and close to people. I never thought I’d prefer baby wearing to pushchairs being a big pushchair fan (I have had many and currently have 3 on the go!) but I do prefer him being close and me having my hands free to deal with the boy. Mum couldn’t wait to get him snuggled up and he was asleep within minutes, giving me chance to play with the boy on the play area.

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IMG_3442The boy adores being with his grandparents and particularly enjoys time with Grandad, true on both sides of the family. After time spent running around the playground, climbing, swinging and crawling we went for a walk around the gardens, I tried to take in their sheer beauty, even in late September the flowers are blooming and the gardens looks beautiful.

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We decided to have lunch in the cafe within the park and as it was so sunny we sat outside enjoying the weather. The boy was desperate for ice-cream and had to be persuaded to eat his lunch before we treated him to one.The cafe had a wonderful old cash register, the kind where the number go round, it as fantastic and made a fab noise.IMG_3469IMG_3475

Before heading home we had another play in the playground and I fed Flixster sitting on the park bench, something I would never have done with confidence when the boy was small. Breastfeeding Flixster has been a totally different journey than the one I took with the boy.IMG_3486 IMG_3491 IMG_3497

We headed back to mums before heading home ourselves, thankfully Flixster slept most of the way home, I thought the boy would have fallen asleep as well but he was so engrossed in his Cbeebies game on the iPad that he stayed awake. I don’t know why Flixster doesn’t like the car, but if he’s awake in there he’s usually screaming, if anyone has an ideas how I could stop this I’d be very grateful!

Lyric x