recycledbaby.co.uk

When you have a little one with very dry skin you are plunged into a world of washing trauma. Which one of the million different kinds of soap powder should you use, if any at all? In the UK we have the added joy of deciding between biological washing powder and non-biological washing powder. The difference? Biological washing powders use enzymes to get the stains out. There is some fairly reliable scientific evidence that these enzymes can cause exczema to flare up. You would be able to tell because where your baby’s skin touches the fabric closely they will get a nasty rash. Then you have to wash their clothes over and over to make sure the residue of the detergent is gone. I’ve seen some people claiming that 10 washes using regular detergent can add 2 percent to the weight of the washing. After 10 washes you can’t add any more  detergent in but you maintain the amount of detergent in the fabric. I’m not sure how true that is but I have done the washing without any powder in by mistake and it has soaped up beautifully in the machine and come out clean.

According to the UK’s National Eczema Society there is very rarely a real allergy to a washing detergent but it can aggravate already unhappy skin. Here are their washing guidelines.

Our little man is still aflicted with his infantile eczema. We hope he will grow out of it but in the meantime we have tried all sorts of washing alternatives – we live in a really hard water area so it’s kind of unfair on the detergents/nuts/balls, but hey, them’s the breaks.

Soap nuts – these did OK in a nappy wash. All poo stains removed, dried on the washing line, I felt like an eco-goddess. I understand the science, saponins in the nut shells are the cleaning agent released into the water to get the clothes clean. I just can’t get excited about them and I’m not sure they could take on the rigours of normal toddler washing. I have no scientific basis for feeling like this. It’s just my gut reaction. I sooo wanted to like them too!

Washing balls – a special kind of balls in my experience. In the battle of poo vs washing aid… the poo won!

Normal non-bio washing powders – we used Fairy, Bold etc. they worked fine and his skin remained ridiculously dry and itcy in the creases.

Ecover/Surcare – couldn’t cut the nappy test! The stains remained.

Simply Washing turned out to be my favourite. It’s the pure one, in the pink tubs (why pink? I have a boy, we do not do pink), and it gets the stains out and doesn’t seem to upset little one’s skin! Their website is here.  You can buy it online which is useful as the supermarkets don’t always stock it.

And our winner is....

What is your favourite book to read to your kids? I saw this blog hop recently and smiled when I saw Love you forever by Robert Munsch at number one.  It’s a great book but I can’t read it to my little boy because I end up sobbing my way through it. It’s so sad and when you read the back story about him losing a child and writing the story for them, well that just has me in bits.

OK so as this blog is in WordPress and it won’t accept Java we can’t take part properly but here is a link to the host blog.

We bought a playring for the boy now. He has been using the one at his friend’s house and it turns out he loves it. These things are quite popular on eBay. It seems that anything that works can hold its value quite impressively. The playrings are about £25 new but we were hoping to get a decent quality preloved one for about £15 including post and packing. After several attempts we finally got a ring and he has been playing in it ever since. It’s hilarious to sit him and a friend on the edge and then mummy bounces on the ring directly opposite so they bounce up and down. Lots of giggles to be had by all.

Note: The suit he is wearing is called a Wondersuit from a company in Australia called Bonds. It was sent over by my Aunt and it looks soooo adorable. It has travelled thousands of miles and was bought new so it hardly comes under the recycled baby heading but gosh we love it!

My boy in his play ring.

Being a new mum can be really isolating especially if you’ve been hard at work for years and don’t have friends living near your home. That is the situation I find myself in and although I have had visits from old friends but there is no-one close to home. It’s made worse by the fact that there is never a good time to make that telephone call. If I’m awake, my friends are at work or asleep. When they are at home, whatever time they call I seem to be wrestling an angry baby into bed.

There is also the fact that a lot of mums are either older with loads of kids, and therefore friends already or they are young and not interested in talking to some old bird with a new baby.

Thankfully when I was pregnant a friend of mine offered some sage advice. He said we should go to the National Childbirth Trust classes in our area. Not so we can learn to change a nappy or swaddle an infant, but so we can meet people like us who are about to have kids. It might cost £150 but it would pay itself back hundreds of times over. How right he was. We have now got a nice group of mummies who meet up with little ones, either at home or in a café, where we can talk about life the universe and everything. Some places are more welcoming than others but we do like free activities, or things that don’t cost too much.

John Lewis does a Mummy Monday in their café where new mums can meet up and no-one minds the marauding babies.

Our local Surestart centre has a number of stay and play sessions we can attend. They are all free and very useful for when the house gets really small. They also have a breastfeeding club.

Tea at the garden centre is a popular way of spending an afternoon. Old folks love babies.

The NCT has a breastfeeding club in town which is good to go to.

Mum and baby cinema sessions are popular as babies can feed and sleep while we watch something grown up but not too loud. Most cinemas also have a children’s screening so you can take kids along without fear of upsetting people.

The park. Baby screams do not sound as loud outside.

The Aqua babies session at the local swimming pool is good because Ellis likes a splash about and he gets nice and tired. We are lucky because our pool has a proper café attached so you can get a cup of tea while you feed him afterwards.

It is not easy to make friends and feel like you are part of something but one day you will turn around and find yourself having coffee with a group of people who are now your friends. That’s how life works these days.

Sometimes you see something that just chimes true. It makes you think OH MY GOD that is my life. In our house today it is these pictures. The originals can be viewed here on a cool site called www.howtobeadad.com

OK so if you are going through the teething hell then this news is disastrous. There is no medical evidence that these infant powders help with teething, they are a hang over from another age when chemists ground up random stuff and folded it into papers to sell. They are however, for some reason, invaluable when faced with a teething child who is screaming and drooling and chewing on anything they can get their hands on.

It seems that for some time there has been a problem getting hold of Ashton and Parsons powders. Various reasons have been given. I’ve heard tell of a fire at the factory and “manufacturing difficulties”. I called the customer services department at Alliance Pharma who make it. They said they had been asked to stop making it because of problems with the Marketing Authorisation required for any product sold as medicinal in the UK. This is apparently to do with Alliance Pharma’s purchase of Ashton and Parsons Powders at the end of last year (2011). The nice lady on the phone said that they did not know when production would start again but as soon as it did they would be distributing to wholesalers and getting the product back onto the shelves.

Ashton and Parsons Infant Powders are made from tincture of matricaria, chamomile to you and me, so there are alternatives out there. Nelsons Teetha powders are a homeopathic remedy.  Weleda do Chamomilla granules and the chemists Boots do their own brand of teething powders made from chamomilla.

Remember the other helpful remedies too. Cold chew toys, frozen bananas,  amber necklaces and paediatric paracetamol!

Teething is a rotten time for mum and baby so hopefully this will help point you in the direction of help.

A while back I mentioned a  bundle on eBay I was bidding on. Well I won it and it’s brilliant. The jeans are really useful, three pairs which is great for those little accidents, and the handknitted cardi is lovely even if there aren’t any buttons on it. (Another excuse to visit John Lewis if I needed one!) The coat was in there and it also contained a sleeveless jumper which is brilliant because I find it really hard to judge temperature. I just know I have to keep his little body warm.

My mum is always going on about making sure I keep Ellis’s kidneys warm. Not sure why his kidneys in particular need warmth. I thought they had their own fat cocoon anyway? Biology suggests they do and therefore the addition of a number of layers of clothes is not going to make much difference. Every time she sees her grandson she spends half her time pulling his jumper/t-shirt/top down muttering about keeping his kidneys warm. If you know why people do this then please share because it is beyond me! He is always in a bodysuit anyway so it’s not like his back is on display to the elements, this is apparently not enough. Maybe it’s a grandma thing? The scary thing is she can’t tell me what will happen if his kidneys get cold….. the mind boggles.

Ellis wearing stuff from the bundle

Just been on Jim Davis’ show on BBC Radio Leicester talking about what to do during the holidays. The recipe for gingerbread was on there.

You can listen here.

The holidays are here and it’s difficult to know what to do with kids sometimes. Let me advocate making iced treats and gingerbread biscuits.

I know cooking with kids can be a nightmare, I know that some people are filled with horror at the thought of their little ones loose in the kitchen. I know ladies who twitch at the thought of a creative activity getting out of control but stay with me for a moment. These activities can be done with kids of all ages and importantly – boys and girls.

 If you have boys you can make gingerbread MEN as well as cars/fish/horses delete as applicable. You are limited only by your cutter collection or your ability to cut out shapes in cardboard – and this is only for the older kids. Most babies and toddlers won’t care what shape it is, all they want to do is to mush it around on the table and eat the raw dough, which, by the way, you can make in advance and get out like a Blue Peter presenter  “here’s one mummy made earlier”.

Iced treats are easy because if you have younger kids you either make fairy buns yourself or buy a packet of digestives. Whip up some icing and let them loose with the sprinkles.

If you have older kids then they can make the buns with your assistance. It’s really easy and not too messy.

 Here are the recipes.

 Gingerbread People 

8oz plain flour

1 level teaspoon baking powder

1-2 level teaspoons ground ginger

½ level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

3oz room temperature butter

3oz soft brown sugar

3oz golden syrup.

Currants/glace cherries/chocolate drops/sprinkles/icing to decorate

Greaseproof paper for baking

Preheat the oven to 180C fan 200C Gas 6-7.

Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.

Seive the dry ingredients together in a bowl.

In a separate, bigger bowl, cream the butter, sugar and syrup well until soft and light. Work the dry ingredients into the butter and knead thoroughly. Roll out the dough and cut into shapes.

Put the shapes onto the baking sheet and put in the oven for 8-10 minutes. Check them after 6 minutes in case they are scorching.

Cool on trays and decorate as desired.

 Icing – mix enough icing sugar and water to give a flowing consistency and use a teaspoon to pour it onto the gingerbread people.

Fairy Cakes

Fairy cakes

 2 eggs

4oz or 120g flour

4oz or 120g butter

4oz or 120g sugar

Vanilla extract/lemon zest to flavour

Preheat the oven to 180C fan 200C Gas 6-7

Line a 12 hole bun tin with fairy cake cases.

Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until pale and fluffy.

Mix in the eggs one at a time with a tablespoon of the flour.

Sieve the rest of the flour into the mixture. Mix it all up quickly and gently.

Add flavourings if using.

(Alternatively put all the ingredients into a food processor and pulse until combined.)

Put a dessert spoon of mixture into each cake case.

Put in the oven for 20 minutes.

Cool and decorate with butter icing/water icing and springles or chocolate buttons when completely cold.

Buttercream

6oz icing sugar

3oz butter

Food colouring

Mix together until light, fluffy and spreadable.

Baby wipes are a bizarre thing. A package of wet cloths that help us wipe our babies bottoms, hands, faces, whatever else happens to need cleaning, which are then thrown away. When I was a kid I remember flannels and hankies wetted with grandma’s spit but no wipes. How did my mother cope? I have been guilty of using lots of wipes since Ellis arrived so I thought I’d have a look into making my own. Clearly I have too much time on my hands. My friend Jane has tiny muslin squares she’s been using at home which seems very sensible, but can you make a homemade wipe?

The answer, it appears, is yes. Although some of the people who do this are a bit odd. I found one website with some great recipes and then a link to an Elimination Control website – yes you too can spend hours watching your little one’s face waiting for them to start to pull a poo face so you can race upstairs, try desperately to rip their trousers down and dangle them above a toilet (it’s what the Chinese do out in the paddy fields apparently).

A bit of Googling has brought up a stack of websites and lots of recipes so I’m going to have a go. Many of the places I looked were American sites. Sometimes I think Americans are bonkers, other times I think they are just so far ahead of us in terms of reuse and recycle. It doesn’t seem to be about the environment for them, there are some wholly organic folk weave permaculture toilet types but most just seem to be trying to save money. There is a certain Blue Peter quality to a lot of the sites. You need a plastic box, a jug, a pair of scissors and some double-sided sticky tape for speed. I’ll let you know how I get on.

http://www.naturalbirthandbabycare.com/homemade-baby-wipes-recipes.html

 http://babyparenting.about.com/cs/diapering/ht/wipes.htm

 http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=273159