Dexter’s comprehension skills are incredibly advanced for his age. At 2.5 years he’s able to fetch random objects from around the house (even things I can’t remember ever teaching him!). Unfortunately the same can’t be said for his speech and he’s now attending speech therapy sessions to coax more out of him. From what we’ve seen, we aren’t doing anything wrong, it’s just all about encouraging him and making it fun. Even if what he says is incomprehensible, we have to keep him talking.
Reading books such as these two from the Little Snapper series with bright and engaging illustrations are cracking weapons in our armory. They allow us to continually point out characters and objects out to him until they sink in. We can also ensure he’s watching us mouth the words far better with a book than we can a television programme. Finally, it means we’re spending time one on one with him without his baby sister stealing the limelight.
So what are they?
Cheep Cheep Pop-up Fun & Snip Snap Pop-up Fun are the latest additions to the Little Snapper series written by Jonathan Litton and illustrated by Kasia Nowowiejska. Out in February and available from Little Tiger Press, they are perfect for children from two to five years with large flaps and colourful pop-ups animals on every page. They’ve been a HUGE hit in this household and a firm bedtime favourite for Dexter.
The stories are very similar with Snip Snap featuring a series of different animals asking “who is hiding / splashing / playing” behind various jungle foliage, and Cheep Cheep set in a farmyard with the same premise. For Snip Snap, the pop-up animals include a lion, monkey, elephant and giraffe each of which are beautifully illustrated and robust enough to cope with excitable hands. For Cheep Cheep the animals hiding are predictably a horse, chicks, cow and pig. In some instances the animals have open mouths and big teeth inviting little ones to plunge their hands in…
Who’s lying in the wavy grass
with peeking, watchful eyes?
It’s Lion and he likes to give
a roaring big surprise!
The rhyming text allows a child to learn through expectation, and makes it oh-so-much easier for Craig and I to bring the story to life. Having the pop-up pages as a prop guarantees even more giggles from our little fella - he’s just amazed with them and spends 10 minutes at a time working out how they’re put together. As the flaps open and close the animals move up and down and adding an extra layer of fun.
Both books are hardback making them great for clumsy hands, and the pages are extra thick to cope with year-long bedtime story requests!
The books are both priced at £6.99 and available from Little Tiger Press from February 2015.
Bobux might not be familiar to many of us Brits, but the New Zealand-born children’s shoe designer is set to make a real splash here in the UK this year. Their shoes replicate Barefoot Freedom for little people all over the world, with contemporary shoes that support the natural development of their feet. It makes perfect sense really - Children’s feet undergo momentous changes in a very short amount of time, and need room to grow and flex.
Some 24 years since launching, the Bobux collection has grown to include some really fresh designs for the style-savvy tot, and their new X range is possibly their boldest move yet. Part of their SS15 catalogue, they’ll be hitting the shops around Feb 2015 and are set to shake up the children’s footwear market. The range is informed by extensive research with Bobux quizzing mums to find out if, and how, their current choice of children’s shoe is letting them down. Based on their findings, the X range aims to address every concern the modern mother might have.
For the style-conscious!
There’s no getting away from the fact these are a seriously funky pair of kicks! As these shoes were sent to me as part of a seeding campaign prior to launch, we were only given a narrow choice to choose from, so I opted for the most girly of these for Heidi. When the range is launched, it will be available in 9 colourways over 3 styles; Origin (with a leather upper), Freestyle (with a cotton canvas upper) and Arctic (with a leather upper and merino lining) and will retail at around £27.
Heidi’s is an Xplorer Origin shoe, designed for babies and those new to the walking game.
Designed by footwear Sean Masiano (who has created for the likes of Adidas and Prada) these look great with jeggings and black leggings, but otherwise they do have a tendency to clash with her outfits. I didn’t ever intend for Heidi to become a cloud of baby pink, but it seems she has, and these definitely don’t work with the prettier pieces in her wardrobe. For boys, and sporty girlies however, they look pretty cool. I love the neon soles with X insignia, and Heidi seems to too as she can’t stop fiddling with them!
For the traditionalist and health-conscious
The premise behind the shoes is that whilst there are soft sole shoes available for indoor use and cruisers for outdoor use, there aren’t really any shoes that work for both. The Xplorer shoe has been created to address this concern, and design-wise, they’re pretty clever. They’re so soft you can fold and scrunch them within your palm, yet with robust soles perfect for outdoor conditions. The EVA sole features dozens of little bubble grips which means they really hold their own on laminate flooring, tiles and even wet decking.
There are no seams rub or chafe little feet, and the soft soles have proved great for Heidi as she goes about her daily adventures; pulling herself to her feet, crawling, strutting around with her baby walker. When she stands, they enable her to stay flat-footed and in constant contact with the ground thus improving her core stability. For children who are brand new to standing and who tend to favour tiptoes, they also boast a micro-armour toe-cap to prevent scuffing.
Any niggles?
Putting the shoes on is a bit of a struggle. I don’t want to be too harsh here as it’s notoriously to get any shoe on a wriggling Heidi, but we do have to pin her down to ease these on. The trouble is, they’re so soft, there’s nothing to leverage her foot against. Don’t worry though, once on they do stay put.
Overall
I can’t wait to see the rest of the range. The high canvas tops sound really exciting and if they come in white, I’ll be buying them. I’d highly recommend them for performance, value for money, and flexibility.
If you can’t wait until February, head to the website to see some of the other ranges Bobux offer including the step-up and i-walk ranges which offer the same clever technology for more confident walkers. You can also follow Bobux on Twitter and Facebook.
Whether you’re pregnant or have already welcomed your baby into the world, one of the most expensive and essential new baby purchases you’re likely to make is a baby monitor. Given newborns start their nighttime sleep routine next to mum and/or dad, you might not have one ready to go on Day One, but you’ll certainly need one when he or she gears up for that first night in a room of their own.
If you, like I and many mothers before me, have spent ages reading website blurbs, scouring forums, and seeking out blogger reviews of baby monitors, you’re no doubt slowly losing the will to live. You want something with video and sound, you want something with a big screen, you want a camera with a built-in motion detector, and most importantly, you’ll want something reliable. The criteria isn’t massive, yet finding one that ticks all the boxes is pretty difficult.
Well how about one that does all this, and more?…
… Babymoov Touch Screen Baby Monitor!
I’m not misleading you. As a parent blogger, I’ve tried dozens of baby monitors. Perhaps strangely, they’re all very different. Some say their USP is camera quality, others pin their hopes on a sleep-pad (I hate these things, hate, hate, hate them), then there’s the “sync with your iPhone” function…
Many of these thing might appeal on face value, but what all parents are looking for (and will quickly come to realise) is a sensitive yet intuitive monitor that is the next best thing to them standing guard over their baby’s cot.
This monitor does it all. If the sound in the above video got on your nerves (it did me), then here’s the lowdown:
It offers the simplicity of use that your iPhone does, with a 3.5’’ touch screen interface It has a HUGE range of 250m You can capture moments when you’re not even in the room, via photo AND video, with a zoom x10 function, micro-SD card holder, TV connection and USB port You can soothe baby via walkie-talkie, and 3 lullabies The possibility of connecting to 4 cameras (see below) It has a programmable movement detector, and alarm - all remotely activated 5 different languages
I suppose I have to mention that this also has a temperature alarm, but this comes as standard for any half decent monitor, and if it doesn’t… then buy one! > this should never be your deciding factor.
Oh, and it also has a LIFETIME GUARANTEE - I can’t stress just how important this is
Enough of the spec, does it work?
Yes, yes, yes and yes. This is one of the smartest, most easy-to-use and stylish monitors on the market. I seem to find something to moan about with every monitor I’ve ever tried, but I’m very hard pressed to find anything other than its price tag (was £159.99, now £143.99 yet even this compares favorably to some of the others on the market) to have a pop at.
From the box, you get a camera, touch screen monitor and two chargers. The touch screen is a rechargeable unit (be warned, if it needs charging it’ll beep LOUDLY), and the camera is plugged into the mains during use. These arrive pre ‘paired’ so there’s no faffing around trying to “find” the partner unit. My only slight niggle is that the 3.5mm jacks do slip from both unit and camera very easily. This means you can’t knock them when they charge or are in operation or they’ll slip out.
Style-wise - it looks great. I love the big touch screen and it’s so simple you can operate it straight out of the box without dragging hubby in to help you get started. It’s ergonomically designed so is easy to grip, lightweight and the interface itself is plenty big enough with thumb-sized icons on the main menu.
The camera is really quite genius. I’m almost a million per cent sure that one of the big manufacturers will soon bring out a camera that physically moves around the cot with baby (like CCTV, tracking her every move), but until they do, this really is the smartest camera I’ve found. This one has a handy free-tilt action to allow you to better capture your cot action (many other devices will limit you to 3 set tilt positions). The resolution and image quality (even in the pitch black) is among the clearest I’ve seen, and there’s the capability to add up to 4 additional cameras to the device to cover every angle. This is great for particularly wriggly babies.
The night light on the camera is another familiar yet welcome function. It offers a subtle, warm and reassuring light for baby, and is bright enough for us to totter around her room for closer inspection during the night. Neatly, this can be switched on and off remotely using the touch screen which sets it apart from other camera/nightlight combos.
I love that you can record and take pics of baby too. This might seem like a gimic, but we’ve found it very useful with Heidi She often wakes up 180 degrees to the position we put her in and I’ve always been really concerned about how she handles her bulky covers and blankets whilst we’re alseep. This has given me peace of mind that she’s handling her covers excellently. It’s also quite funny watching her whilst she’s in a dream state.
The Talkback function is also welcome (but not unique to Babymoov) - if your babe in arms is as much as a fan of In the Night Garden as Heidi, you need only talk your way through the opening credits and she’ll quieten down and patiently await your arrival. Unlike some other brands, there’s virtually no feedback noise if you stand close to the camera with your control unit too, meaning you can carry it to baby’s room whilst soothing her.
For practicalities sake, the touch screen monitor can stand on its side on your bedside table at night. You can also opt to have it light up when it detects movement in baby’s cot, which is a useful function if you are anxious about leaving her yet don’t want a noisy alarm to inform you she’s just stirring.
It really is a smart bit of kit that’s well worth the investment.
