Our experiences flying with a one year old

We have just gotten home from our first overseas holiday as a family of three and Lilly's very first plane trip. To say I was anxious about flying with her is a massive understatement. Our flight from Brisbane to Auckland was only 3 and a half hours but the thought of having a crying and upset toddler for that long gave me nightmares. I spent hours trawling the internet for ideas of what to pack to ensure our flight was nice and easy.

I've put together a little post explaining what we packed in my husband's backpack to make the flight a little less stressful and a little more enjoyable. I hope you find these tips useful!

First let's discuss the backpack. Hubby excitedly purchased this while Lilly was in special care. He didn't want to lug around a nappy handbag when it was just the two of them so he wanted a manly bag. It was perfect and fit everything inside it comfortably, including her big coat for when we arrived in New Zealand! We attached her dinosaur toy to the zip because it was too big to put in the bag. It was her favourite toy while we were on holidays!

What was inside the bag?

 - A zipped up lunchbox with her sippy cup, packaged foods and disposable bibs. If you're going on holidays anywhere, do yourself a favour and get some Heinz disposable bibs. So good not having to cart yucky bibs around everywhere!

- Several nappies, wipes, nappy bags and an entire change of clothes in a zip lock bag. When we go anywhere, I always pack 2 more nappies than I would usually use if we were at home. We also learnt while we were away to always have a spare pair of socks. I won't go into too much detail...but...poo explosion.

- Entertainment! I packed Lilly's favourite board book and a zip lock bag of various toys. Most were relatively new but the wooden worm is one of her favourites at home. I take it with us everywhere! There's also a dummy in there even though she won't take one, it was good for her to chew on while we were taking off and landing because she wouldn't stay on the boob. I also packed the iPad which I haven't even turned on in the entire year we've had Lilly. It is still full of educational games and apps from when I was teaching so I figured it might come in handy. I was wrong. Lilly just kept pressing the home button over and over.

- A nice, thick blanket. Sometimes the plane can be really cold so this was very handy to have. I also used it to shield my boobs from other passengers as I fed Lilly to sleep. I had packed a light muslin cloth too but we didn't use it at all.

- Drugs. Not the illegal kind of course, but the 'what-if-she-gets-really-sick' kind. Lilly has allergies so I made sure to pack her allergy medication just in case. We also packed nurofen and bonjela because she's teething. I never leave the house without my thermometer because I'm a great mum anxious mum. Actually, this entire case never leaves my nappy bag!

So how did our flight go?

Our first flight from Brisbane to Auckland was at 9:30am which is when Lilly is generally sleeping at home. We let her sleep in the car on the way to the airport (about 40 mins) from 6am and then kept her busy and stimulated as we went through all the customs lines. Once we got to our gate, we had breakfast and Lilly crawled around/walked around to use up all that crazy toddler energy!

Once we boarded the plane, she was well and truly ready for a big breastfeed and long sleep. I had planned to wait until we were on the runway but she was starting to grizzle and I was very anxious about what the other passengers would think if she was 'already cranky.' I popped the blanket over my shoulder to shield her face (and my boob) from the view of other passengers and Lilly fell asleep feeding almost instantly. She slept for almost the entire flight! I think she would have slept for the entire thing if the passenger beside us didn't need to me to move so that she could use the bathroom. I even got to watch an entire movie with hubby!

We only had to entertain her for about 30 minutes! What a relief. The passengers behind us were amazed and didn't even realise there was a baby on the flight. That's a big win! 

Our second flight wasn't as smooth but was still a success in my books. I held off her afternoon feed and sleep for as long as possible as we were due to fly out at 4pm. Lilly normally maps at around 2-3pm so I was very worried when she fell asleep in my sling at the airport! She slept for about an hour while we ate lunch and walked through customs so it worked out quite well.

Once we boarded the plane, she was getting grizzly again so I ended up feeding her to sleep again, just like our first flight. She fell asleep as we left the runway and I thought to myself "this is soooo easy!!"  Fast froward to 26 minutes into my movie and Lilly's eyes were wide open! I spent the next 15 minutes trying to feed her back to sleep but she wasn't having a bar of it. She was happy enough though so out came my bag if tricks. She played with her toys and we read our books together which kept her happy for most of the flight.

Hubby and I took turns eating and Lilly sat with her Nana and Poppy for part of the flight too. When dinner came, she had a little feast and even played a game on the in flight entertainment system. The last hour was tough though. She was getting tired but just wouldn't settle enough to get to sleep. I tried shielding her face with the blanket but that just upset her more. She even threw up some milk because she was so full!

Overall, Lilly was fantastic to fly with regardless of whether she slept or not. She didn't cry or scream once and all my stress was for nothing!

Lilly's first painting experience

As many of you know, I am a big supporter of sensory play for little ones. A friend of mine did some cute little paintings with her bubba which inspired me to paint with Lilly too!

I headed to the $2 shop and grabbed some bright, non-toxic paint (just in case) and some canvases. When we got home, I put an old sheet on the floor and dabbed some paint onto the canvas. Next I wrapped some cling wrap around it and popped Lilly down for some painting fun.

She loved smooshing the paint with her feet and her fingers, but I think Mumma had more fun! This is a great little craft activity and the resulting canvas is now sitting proudly in her Learning Nook.

Books for Babies

Reading is such an important activity to do with your babies and children. It helps to develop vocabulary and speaking skills and also fosters a love of reading from a very young age. As a teacher, it is quite obvious which students have been read to from a young age. 

Even though it feels kind of silly, I believe it's important to start reading to the youngest of babies. I can remember one particular day when Lilly was 8 weeks old. She was fussing and whinging a lot so I sat down and read to her - she instantly cheered up! My husband took a photograph of us together and it is one of my favourite photographs now.

So today I thought I would share some of our favourite books to read together at 9 months old! We started to incorporate books into a bedtime routine but found that normal picture books were a bit tough with Lilly and her busy hands. We now read mostly board books which is what I want to share with you today.

At the moment, Lilly is loving books with a sensory element to them - anything she can feel with her hands is a winner! We absolutely love reading the Hungry Caterpillar playbook and the dinosaur story book. The Hungry Caterpillar book is SO MUCH FUN! Lilly loves feeling the lion's mane.

I looked everywhere for the 'Guess how much I love you?' board book as it was a favourite of mine as a child. I often like to read this one at night time. It has such a sweet storyline and I remember my mum and sister often saying "I love you THIS much!"

The farm animal and ocean animal books were part of a big vocabulary pack that I found at Big W and are perfect for little ones who are learning to talk. 'I went walking' is a repetitive book that is commonly used in Prep and Kindergarten which I absolutely love because it builds animal and colour vocabulary.

So why is it important to read to your children lots and build up their vocabulary? It's a very well known fact that the brain develops most in the first 5 years of a child's life. Exposing babies and children to a wide variety of words in these early years will help develop important literacy skills down the track. Here is a fantastic article about building vocabulary with your little ones.

Spaghetti sensory play

Sometimes I worry that Lilly gets bored of me during the day. We tend to do the same things day in day out when we are hanging out at home together. We have play mats set up in several different rooms of the house with different toys at each. She has a jumperoo which she enjoys playing in while I cook dinner....but I still can't shake the 'bored feeling.'

Now that Lilly is sitting up, we have started some sensory play which is super important for her brain development and her understanding of how the world around her works. As an early childhood educator myself, I have been aching to get started with some fun play experiences. I am trying to set aside one day a week for some new play activities. Our latest play experience was spaghetti and boy did she love it.

I simply boiled a big pot of spaghetti and added a few drops of food dye while it was cooking away. You can definitely skip this step or use natural food dyes such as beetroot or spinach to add some colour.

As you can see, the spaghetti was very well received and Lilly couldn't help having a little taste, an important part of sensory play especially for little babies. I'm not sure who had the most fun though, me or her! I just HAD to help her pop some spaghetti on her head - it was really funny and sweet to watch her try to work out what was going on and how to solve the problem of not being able to see!

A lot of people shy away from sensory play because it can be very messy (as is baby led weaning!) but it really is so much fun! I am so looking forward to trying lots of new sensory play with Lilly as she grows.

Sensory play with homemade paint

Lilly loves playing in her highchair so I often pop her in there with some toys while I do the dishes. Today I decided to whip up some homemade paint for her to play with and she loved it!

You will need:

• 1 cup of plain flour
• 1 cup of water
• 1 squirt of dish-washing liquid
• Food colouring
• Bowls and spoons for mixing
• Ziplock bag
• Tape

First I measured out the flour and slowly added water until I had a nice paint-like consistency. Then I added the squirt of dish-washing liquid and separated the mixture into cups. I decided to make two different colours so I had a lot of mixture left over. Next time I will just make a tiny little bit! Once I had my two sets of paint, I used a spoon to put the blue paint down one side of the ziplock bag and pink down the other but you could use as many different colours as you like!

Next I used ordinary tape to attach the bag to Lilly's highchair. At first she wasn't too sure what to do so I helped her moosh the paint with her hands. She loved kneading the paint with her fist and using her palm to squash the paint.

Next time I must remember to make sure her nails aren't too sharp because she did pierce the bag towards the end. She really enjoyed this little sensory play activity and I can't wait to try a few more with her over the coming weeks! 

Our experiences with baby led weaning

My views on parenting have definitely changed since I had Lilly. Before her, I thought mothers that baby wore, coslept and breastfeed for longer than a year were crazy hippies! Now that she's here, I am definitely embracing the natural parenting and gentle parenting ways of doing things and that now includes baby led weaning. I had read a little about it before Lilly was born and thought I might give it a go and mix it with some puree food. My online mother's group have been very supportive and we have all been learning about the ins and outs together and I eventually found myself in a Baby Led Weaning facebook group which taught me a lot.

So what is baby led weaning I hear you say? It's basically letting your baby feed themselves finger food without the use of any puree's. There's a big emphasis on baby deciding how much they want to eat (and how much to moosh). There are lots of benefits in doing solids this way. It teaches them fine motor skills and boosts their coordination. Baby led weaning also exposes them to lots of textures early on which is supposed to help avoid having a fussy toddler down the track. The chewing motions are supposed to help with speech development which is a big win too. But most of all, it's a whole lot of fun! Lilly is always so happy when it's time for food and we always know when she's had enough because the smooshing, throwing and smacking of food begins. She is learning how much food she can handle and when she's ready to stop eating. 

 

With Lilly being a preemie, we weren't really sure when to start introducing her to food. Once she hit 6 months real age, we sat her up in the high chair and I gave her a little taste of my mango smoothie. To say she was unimpressed with being spoon fed is an understatement. The look on her faces says it all.

 

After that experience, I thought that maybe she wasn't quite ready yet. I did some more research and read that true baby led weaning doesn't involve any puree food. I read that babies are ready when they can pick up and move toys to their mouths very easily; can sit unsupported or with little assistance; and when they are making lots of chewing motions when playing. With this, I managed to convince my husband that we wouldn't know if she was ready until we tried. We decided to give her a little piece of toast one morning which she chewed and sucked on quite happily. Success! Later that day, we gave her some mango which she also loved. And so our baby led weaning journey began!

 

 

Over the next few weeks, Lilly tried lots of new foods. We had sweet potato, potato, pumpkin, banana, avocado, pear, carrot, spaghetti pasta and broccoli - her very favourite! I was very anxious watching Lilly eat. I would scoop any chunks out of her mouth that she happened to gnaw off. I knew it was the wrong thing to do but I was so scared, especially when she gagged. I tried to stick to relatively soft foods until we both built up our confidence. As you can see by the photos, she was always very happy as she ate.

We did have one minor set back when I introduced yoghurt. I was pre-loading the spoons for her and letting her feed herself. It looked as though she was loving it but a rash quickly developed. We raced her up to the doctors and found that she was allergic to something in the yoghurt. A few weeks later we sought another opinion and we are now waiting for further testing.

 

 

By Christmas, Lilly was 7 months old and we had been powering on with lots of soft foods and I had stopped scooping food out of her mouth. I trusted in her ability and she was doing so well! I even stopped cooking separate meals for her and embraced baby led weaning in the way it was meant to be.

 

We are now a month and a half into our baby led weaning journey (7.5 months old) and we now offer Lilly whatever we are eating most of the time. I have started packing lunches for her when we are out and about and we are generally having 2-3 meals a day and maybe a few snacks here and there too. I am mostly struggling with lunches though so I have started doing meal plans to keep me accountable and trying new things. At the moment, she is loving fruits! 

 

To begin with, we made sure all foods either had natural handles (meat on the bone, broccoli, banana with skin on the bottom etc) or was cut into my own finger length sticks. This was much easier for Lilly to hold on to and bring to her mouth. Now that we have been doing this for a little while, we is much better at manipulating foods so we don't worry as much with this. In the last week, we have tried some different shaped things like strawberries which she has LOVED!

 

I am so pleased we chose this path and couldn't be prouder of our clever little girl!

 

 

Keep in mind that this is just my experience with baby led weaning. Please follow the advice given from your own medical practitioner and make sure to read up on the benefits and disadvantages of anything you want to try.

Huggies Little Swimmers VS Aldi Mamia Swimming Nappies

Lilly and I love to go swimming! We go to the local pool every week, either for Aqua Rhyme Time where we sing nursery rhymes and splash about, or just for a little swim. We also have a blow up pool in the backyard which we use a lot now that the weather is getting much warmer. However, swimming nappies can be expensive! I am a bit of a huggies snob but at $14.99 for 12 nappies, I thought I would give another brand a go. Enter the $6.99 Mamia nappies from Aldi.

Both nappies suit babies that weigh at least 7kg but I have found the Little Swimmers by Huggies fit smaller babies much better. There are no smaller nappies on the market (that I know of) but I have been using the Little Swimmers since Lilly was a tiny 3kg. They can be tightened with the little tabs whereas the Mamia nappies cannot be adjusted. If you have a little bubba like me, the Little Swimmers are the way to go size wise! Lilly is now weighing 6kg and fit both styles quite comfortably now, but I still prefer the Little Swimmers by Huggies.

Aesthetically, I would go with the Huggies Little Swimmers every time. Look at Nemo on the front there! So cute! It is also really easy to tell the back from the front with the huggies version. I have been using the Aldi Mamia ones for a few weeks now and only just discovered some very faint 'back back back' text on the back of the nappy. So I'm fairly certain I've been using them back to front for weeks.

Lilly has yet to do a Number 2 in either nappy so it's hard to tell which is the most absorbent on that front. I do know that neither are designed to hold wee inside. A mumma from my pregnancy group found this out the hard way when she ran out of normal nappies and used a swimmer until she got home. Baby wee went everywhere!! I noticed yesterday that the Aldi Mamia's seemed to fill with water. I know on the pack it says that they don't swell (which is true) but when I lifted Lilly out of the pool, lots of water slowly trickled from in the nappy. This could be a good thing too though because it sort of shows how the nappy keeps everything inside?

The Aldi Mamia's also have these 'easy tear' sides that you rip to take the nappy off....maybe I'm not skilled enough but I can't get mine to tear very easily....then we struggle to pull them down over Lilly's almost-chunky thighs. I love that the Huggies Little Swimmers are like a normal nappy where you just undo the sides.

I have been using the Aldi Mamias in our blow up pool and use the Huggies Little Swimmers when we go out. Maybe I feel less judged? I don't know, but I do prefer the Huggies hands down. If money is a big thing though, I would use the Aldi Mamai's to save some coin. We are heading to Stradbroke Island for a week before Christmas and I plan on stocking up on the Aldi Mamia's to keep us going because we'll be living on the beach. I have also heard of some mummas washing their Huggies Little Swimmers to get more use out of them...but I wouldn't really recommend that!

Starting solids...but not quite

Lilly is approaching the 6 month mark very quickly, too quickly in fact! She is now 5 months old and solids have been on my brain for the past week or so. Under the current guidelines, we would be looking at starting solids in the next month or so...but Lilly is only 3.5 months corrected.

I have been googling like a mad woman and there are so many conflicting ideas - wait until she is 6 months real age...wait until she is 6 months corrected age...wait until she starts grabbing your food. It's all very confusing, especially with no guidance from the hospital we birthed at.

I know she still has the whole virgin gut thing going on and I don't want to ruin that. We are also just starting to kick breastfeeding butt so I don't want to ruin that either...but am I the only mum that thinks starting solids is the most exciting thing ever?

Hubby desperately wants to wait until Lilly is 6 months corrected around Christmas time but that hasn't stopped me from buying all of the food related things I can find!

This week alone, I trawled the baby food isle reading ingredients and deciding that we will puree' our own food to begin with and move into baby led weaning. I also hit Aldi and got some cool eating utensils to put in Lilly's Christmas gift hamper. Today I even added some baby teething rusks to my shopping cart.  By the time we are ready to start, we won't need to buy any supplies haha

You would think all this shopping would satisfy my need to give Lilly solids...but it hasn't. I decided to chop up some of my frozen milk stash and pop some cubes into Lilly's little mesh feeding toy thing-a-ma-jig that we got at the baby shower. And just like that, my desire to start solids has been met. Kinda.

Dream Big Little One - Free Nursery Printable

Even before I fell pregnant, I knew I wanted a yellow and grey theme for our nursery. This was mostly so that I could get started right away before we even found out the gender of our baby haha. I decided to have a play around and design my own wall art for the nursery and just love how they turned out. We often get asked where we got the prints from so I figured I would share the PDF with you all so that you can print a copy for your own yellow and grey nursery. Click here or the image below to grab a copy.

Documenting pregnancy and our new baby

Being a photographer, it means a whole lot to me to be able to photograph my journey into motherhood. I had so many great ideas (or maybe I borrowed a lot from Pinterest!) and I begun documenting them all as soon as I fell pregnant.

I also became a serial belly photographer! I sort of wish I had of taken these with my good camera but it's still good to have these to look back on - I can't believe how little my belly was for such a long time!

My one regret was not taking one last belly photo before my baby shower. I had planned to take one that morning but my hubby went out fishing and he was always the one that took the photos for me. I was also incredibly sick. If I had of known that Lilly would arrive the very next day, I would have sucked it up!

I had planned to start the series below the day Lilly was born but with her being in the nursery, we had to start at 1 month when she arrived home for the first time. I am loving how it's turning out though, I can't wait to finish it for her first birthday! I've been using magnetic letters from kmart for the words.

I also ordered some baby milestone cards. I put these on my baby shower wish list and had planned to order them if I didn't receive them at the shower. Lilly came the next day so I didn't get to start this project from the beginning either but I'm glad to have them and get started now - they are such a great idea! You can buy them from here.

Do you have a special photography series or project for your pregnancy or little one? I am going to start a photo a day series once my new Canon 6D arrives!

My nappy changing caddy

I have an awesome nappy changing station set up in our nursery but sometimes I don't feel like walking all the way into the nursery to change Lilly - especially late at night! I decided to put together a little nappy changing caddy which I move around the house depending on where we are.

Sometimes I put it at the top of Lilly's bassinet which we wheel around the house, but most of the time it lives on our couch - easy access throughout the day! We have honestly only changed Lilly maybe 5 times in her nursery haha. I also bring this into our bedroom at night so that I can change her on the bed without even having to get out from under the sheets - bliss!

So what do I have in the caddy?

• 5-10 huggies nappies
• Unscented huggies wipes
• Pink vinyl changing mat
• Am-o-lin nappy rash cream
• Hand sanitiser
• Nappy sacks
• Singlet and onesie just in case there's a poo explosion! 

This caddy makes life just a little bit easier - I'd love to know what neat little things you do to make life a little easier with a little baby in the house?

Lilly is smiling!

Lilly is smiling and it's just about the cutest thing I have EVER seen! She has been smiling for a few weeks now but she has just started this big toothless grins that absolutely melt my heart. My sleepy, cuddly newborn is slipping away and my crazy, babbling baby is approaching very quickly!