I cannot believe in just over 3 months my little baby will be 2 years old. Honestly, where has the time gone? It only feels like yesterday that we were preparing for his arrival and now I’m stressing over whether he’s going to be able to have a party for his Birthday! But I’m putting that stress aside to write this post.
Now, when Oakley was tiny I posted about my favourite baby buys, this time it’s my toddler must haves!
Having a toddler is similar to what I imagine having a tornado twirling through your home feels like… You spend forever tidying, moving things around to make it seem like you have your shit semi together when you have guests come over.. Then you blink and you’re making your way through a mind field of Hot Wheels cars and Duplo blocks, ready to break the ankle of any unsuspecting victims… Anyway! Back to the point of this post!
Footless, zip up sleepsuits.
Firstly, the person who invented these I LOVE YOU! These have made dressing my big toddler like a little baby because I’m not ready to accept he’s no longer a baby EASY!
I found these over in H&M and they’re super cute! Slip their little feet in and zip it up! Now, if your child is like Oaks and loves to play around with zips, you may find yourself walking in on a naked baby when you go into them in the morning… BUT they’re cute, so they make the list! I love them. No fiddly poppers of buttons to fight against when your child does the death roll when getting ready for bed! Genius!
They obviously come in an array of colours for both boys and girls and go all the way up to age 4 years!
https://www2.hm.com/en_gb/productpage.0660541014.html
Bamboo suction Plates.
Toddlers can be messy little buggers when it comes to meal times. I don’t just mean when they’re eating. We all know by now that toddlers HATE sitting still in one spot for more an 0.2 seconds, so meal times can be super boring for them. That’s when the food and eating apparatus start getting launched across the room, very well may I add… I’m thinking of entering Oaks into the Olympic Games in the Shot put or Javelin with the way that kid throws his shit about! With this being said I am SO glad that from day one of our weaning journey I invested in Bamboo Bamboos suction plates and bowls…
I mean, he’s now learnt how to get them off the table, BUT it saves most of the meal as he knows it doesn’t just move and therefore leaves it until he is done and fed up and prises it from the table, thankfully I manage to catch them before the hit the floor… Most of the time! I do highly recommend these! Not only are they fab for deterring destructive toddlers, they’re also plastic free! They come in a huge range of designs and they’re super cute!
https://www.bamboobamboo.co/collections
Baby Sonic electric and chewable toothbrush.
Brush the teeth of a toddler could almost be compared to wrestling a crocodile to brush their teeth… Not something I really want to get in to. I was brushing my teeth after attempting to do the same to Oaks, I use an electric tooth brush myself and he started to point and gesture for it… Sooo I obviously cleaned it off and handed it to him… Happily he put it in his mouth and “brushed his teeth”. At this point I wasn’t even aware electric toothbrushes were a thing for babies! But when I found out they were I knew straight away we needed one.
On a trip into town and ran (I certainly did not..) into boots and saw that they sold them. Brush Baby, baby sonic has been a complete game changer!! Oak is more than happy now to brush his teeth and loves to do it while I’m doing mine. We both sit down on the bathroom floor and do it together, or he does his straight after breakfast in his highchair. It’s no longer a choir or something for him to be scared of.
well as electric toothbrushes they offer a huge range of manual and even chewable ones, which we also have and Oaks LOVES! I tend to offer him his chewie once he has brushed his teeth and starts to chomp on his toothbrush, Plop a bit of tooth paste on and his teeth get an extra clean! More toothpaste I hear the mum police call?! Calm down, it’s Fluoride free! So it’s safe if swallowed! Oaks loves it! It comes in 2 yummy flavours of Applemint and Natural Strawberry.
https://brushbaby.com/
Tommee Tippee Light and Sound Sleep Aid.
These little blessings are fab! We have used white noise as a sleep aid since Oaks was tiny! It’s worked wonders for us and I cannot recommend these enough. If you want to use other sounds these are great, we used to use my iPad for Oaks, but I then wanted to use my iPad for ME… So we invested in one of these, Grofriends. There are 3 super cute designs that you can choose from Panda, Owl and Teddy bear. They make amazing baby gifts with their gender neutral colours. They have 6 natural soothing sounds that play from heartbeat, rainfall and white noise along with 3 lullabies. As well as sounds it has a dimmable light which is a cute heart shape on the belly. There is no need to worry about it being on for too long and disturbing baby, it turns off after half an hour.
Now, their are 2 versions of this sleep aid, they recently brought out a USB rechargeable one, which is amazing and I would 100% recommend this one! The other one is battery operated and unless you have an endless supply of AAs or rechargeable batteries it is was an absolute pain! I don’t advise trying to change over batteries at 3am in the pitch black because it’s died and no longer working its magic… GET THE USB VERSION! https://www.tommeetippee.com/en-gb/shop/sleep-aids
Grobags/Sleepbags.
These are another must have for keeping your big baby, little… No, seriously I love these. Oaks isn’t a fan of having a duvet and I think to be honest, it’s a huge comfort for him. We used swaddles when Oaks was tiny and they were amazing, they will definitely be something we use again! As he grew and started to escape the swaddle, we transitioned to a Grobag. I was so nervous about this as I wasn’t sure Oaks would find the same comfort and I was terrified of him having blankets in his cot, but he took it so well and has used them since he was about 6 months old and it is something we will continue to use until he is old enough to tell me otherwise!
These can be used from Birth and can even come as swaddles and you remove the arms once baby is ready to transition and you can even get ones that are footless for those little babes who hate having their feet restricted called steppees… OF COURSE THEY ARE!
If you are a new mum or a mum to be worried about safe sleep. Check out The Lullaby trust. and the Tommee Tippee website is fab for info in which tog you should use in which temp! When you buy any sleep bag upto 18 months they come with a free room thermometer, it is super handy and shows how you should dress your baby in what weather and heat!
I am obviously not a professional so please seek advice from one if you are unsure!!!
https://www.tommeetippee.com/en-gb/shop/sleeping
So, there we have it! 5 of my favourite toddler items, right now! I’m sure as Oaks gets bigger these will change and I will definitely share those with you.
Please also feel free to share YOUR toddler must haves, I would love to see them. I hope you found these useful and find them as needed as I do.
Until next time… Much love ♡
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