Baby socks flower in a cup

These cute flower made of little socks are great and inexpensive for a baby shower or a new baby present. 

This is your shopping list in case you like to make it for a baby girl:

• Socks: 5 pairs baby Elle BE004 ankle socks pinks 3-5 (12-24 Months) I used 3 pairs for the top and kept 2 pairs folded in the bottom.
• Mug: I love my Mummy Mug
• Ribbon: 1m Baby Girl Pink Satin Ribbon - Card Making Scrapbook
• Pritt Glue Dots Repositionable 64 x double sided

It is very easy to do, just follow the instructions in the video:

Read more: How to make baby socks flowers in a cup

Ready Parenting Tip of the Day #6: Save money with Kidstart

If you live in the UK, you can save money for your kids using Kidstart. I wouldn't recommend it enough!... I have made close to £100 of savings for my kids already!


Kidstart is  a free website (shopping club) where members can collect money for their children. Anyone can collect cash: parents, family members, friends, colleagues, etc. Retailers offer a specific amount of money or per cent savings per purchase.


It's free, no hassle, you just have to go through the website to find your retailer and make the purchase, is that easy!


You have a statement that shows clearly your savings by retailer and by source. It also shows the amount transferred. You can add as many children as you have and split the savings. When you have a specific amount saved, the money is transferred to the children savings or ISA account or trust fund. If your child doesn't have any of those yet, don't worry, keep the savings until you open an account. But you better open one soon to get the interest.


If you are pregnant, open the account and remember to make your new baby shopping through Kidstart. There are lots of things to buy at that early stage so I recommend you to save some money.


My trick is:

• Use Kidstart to compare prices of the items to shop
• Use Kidstart vouchers if there are any
• Buy through Kidstart to get savings back for your kids
• Use a credit card that gives you points or miles to pay

And invite family and friends to buy using your Kidstart so you get savings back for your kids!


If your company allows it: buy flight tickets or stationery using Kidstart!


Be smart and save!!

London Olympics 2012 - family event

The Olympics starting day is approaching faster and there are plenty of activities to do to celebrate this great event.

The Olympic Torch is arriving to the UK today 18th May 2012. First stop is Cornwall and then it travels across the UK. I am one of the 95% people whose house is within 10 miles from the torch route. Well, I would say we are not even half a mile distance from where it is going to travel. Therefore most of the people in the country can line up to see it pass, you can bring the children too!

Olympic torch second bearer in Olympia
Source: London 2012

There is a new App London 2012 Join In that is available to download. It is the free companion guide for the Olympic games.


During the Olympic games, we will bring along Cuchi to see Women's Football and Women's Hockey. It's great children's tickets only cost the amount equal to their age!

I will write more about this great event shortly!



Keepsakes Mandeville and Wenlock

Ready Parenting tip of the day #4: Keep an eye on the soup

If you are like me, very busy at home. You are a multitasker. However, you have to be very careful to avoid burning the soup, like I did this morning.

When you make soup, you generally wait till it boils and then simmer it. I started to do something else out of the kitchen: tidy up, put baby in bed for a nap, etc.

The soup boiled for about an hour. When I realised I had to check on the soup, it was almost all gone! Fortunately this time I made a huge pot, so it didn't burn, but it was almost all gone. I had to replenish the water and made it boil again. Don't do this if it burns!

The tip is: put the timer: to be on the safe side I put 10 minutes to boil, so then I would reduce the temperature to simmer it. So keep an eye on the soup!

Ready Parenting Tip of the Day #6: Sing while you change a nappy

Sometimes toddlers are really difficult when it comes to change a nappy. They want to crawl away from you, they kick, roll, move all over... and cry!

I have a tactic that I generally apply when I am on my own: I sing!


But I don't sing nursery rhymes or the latest song in the charts, I sing the Do-Re-Mi song from the Sound of Music! One of my favourite movies from all times!

Yes, you must think I am a bit crazy, well it works, but it does when you really sing it loud and with all the power in your voice. Like how you sing when you are in the shower, if you do so.

I, neither have a great voice nor a great tune, but I feel it's not that bad as I know my toddler won't judge me.


When I start to sing: "Let's start at the very beginning..." trying to make Julie Andrews beautiful voice and tune. I also smile, make eye contact and vocalise as good as I can. I imagine the scenes of the movie, so that makes the whole thing more powerful. Boo-boo just stares at me... Let me tell you I did exactly the same with Cuchi and it also worked so I decided to share this tactic with you ;-)


For the  readers  in the UK                                             For the readers in the US:
                                                            

Mother's Day and Mother's Index

Sunday 13th (second Sunday of May) is Mother's Day in several countries. Do you want to check if your country is a good place for mothers?

Image: Naypong / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Save the Children recently published a report titled Nutrition in the First 1,000 Days that presents the Mother's Index.


The Mother's Index is a combined ranking from Women's Index and Children's Index:

• Women's Index covers: lifetime risk of maternal death, percent of women using contraception, female life expectancy at birth, expected number of years of formal female education, maternity leave benefits (length and % of wages payment), ratio of estimated female to male earned income, government women's participation.
• Children's Index covers: under-5 mortality rate, gross pre-primary enrollment ratio.

The top best places to be a mother are:	The bottom places to be a mother are:
1 Norway 2 Iceland 3 Sweden 4 New Zealand 5 Denmark 6 Finland 7 Australia 8 Belgium 9 Ireland 10 Netherlands / United Kingdom	156 Dr Congo 156 South Sudan 156 Sudan 159 Chad 160 Eritrea 161 Mali 162 Guinea-Bissau 163 Yemen 164 Afghanistan 165 Niger

The report also presents the Infant and Toddler Score card that shows where young children have the best and the worst nutrition. It includes the percentage of children that were put to the breast within 1 hour of birth, exclusively breastfed (first 6 months), breastfed with complementary food (6-9 months), breastfed at age 2 (20-23 months).


Four developing countries scored very good (9 out of 10 score): Malawi, Madagascar, Peru and Solomon Islands. The worse countries in terms of this score were: Somalia, Côte d'Ivoire, Botswana and Equatorial Guinea.


The report also presents a comparison among developed countries in terms of breastfeeding.


Have a read, it's very interesting and informative and then, go and get something nice to your beloved mother!

Tommee Tippee Easivent teats

If you have a Tommee Tippee Easivent bottles or another brand with a hole in the teat like the ones below:

Tommee Tippee Easivent teats

... I recommend you to always pinch the valve from the inside, especially when purchased and then after washes. Therefore, you will avoid the valve closing (being stuck) and stopping the air coming into the bottle. 


When the milk is drank, the air comes into the bottle. If the valve is closed, the teat will be suctioned as there is no air coming inside to replace the liquid.




If this happens in the middle of a feed, stop and change the teat. If you are still sterilising, I recommend you to always put two teats and two bottles at a time, it comes handy with something like this happens.


I love Tommee Tippee and these bottles, I have used them with my two girls: Cuchi and Boo-boo.


Good luck!

Ready Parenting tip of the day #5: Be careful with bath toys

Be careful with mildew growth in bath toys. I took some pictures of some the girls' bath toys and decided to do some research about mildew. Have a look at my latest article Bath toys: a mildew colony?.

I am sharing some of the pictures I took, have a look and see how disgusting it can be:

Look at the mildew grown inside, it can be seen from the hole.

This one has mildew externally

I cut the toy in half to expose the mildew. It's rubbish!!!

Disgusting!!!!

Be careful as mildew is very dangerous for your health. Remember children play with these toys squeezing the water out of them, so you can imagine what else is coming out of it...

What to do with the kids if you are organising a baby shower

Traditionally baby showers are for ladies or mixed with partners. Sometimes there are kids involved too. But, what would you do if you want to do the baby shower kids-free?


Besides, begging dads to take care of the children, you can organise the baby shower in a soft-play centre. Most of these places have extra rooms that you can rent for a couple of hours for the baby shower while dads take care of the children in the soft-play area.


This can be a solution if most of the guests have children between 0 and 11 years old.


Have a look at my tips on how to plan a great baby shower here.



Beware: you will have to provide some snacks and drinks for the children and dads at the end of the play. Below you can see some of the food we have at my last baby shower:

Good luck with your baby shower!

Ready Parenting tip of the day #3: Do not show other kid's presents to your kids

If you have girly girls like Cuchi (my 3 year old daughter), you are better off not showing birthday presents you buy for another girl. The reason is simple: they would like that present and would be sad.

I simply buy presents and wrap them myself without her, it is easier, uncomplicated and avoids issues.

If the present is for the opposite sex you might be fine showing the present to your boy/girl. I think boys are less complicated than girls in this matter anyway. But if you know your boy likes cars, avoid going shopping with him to get a car for a friend. Likewise, if you girl likes dollies, avoid going shopping with her to buy dollies for a girl friend.

If you are going to buy something your little girl or boy already has, you might be on the safe side!

Good luck!

New cartoons vs old cartoons

I remember the cartoons I used to watch when I was little:

• Scooby Doo that had scary scenes
• Tom & Jerry with fights between the cat and mouse
• The Flinstones, I don't think this was aimed at little kids but we used to watch them

I am just trying to figure out what these cartoons taught me. 

Cartoons from the new millennium are more inclined to teach something to children. Some examples of these types of cartoons are: Dora the Explorer, Little Einsteins and Go Diego Go. You can read an article about what they teach here.

My favourite episodes are: