Party Baby Fleece Soaker review

Now, another wonderful item that’s been kindly donated to the nappy library has been undergoing extensive testing over the past few weeks.

The lovely Debbie at Party Baby has donated a fab fleece soaker to the library and, as this soaker is a little too small for my Monkey, I asked a friend of mine to have a go with it.

If you’ve not heard of fleece soakers, then you’re – quite frankly – missing a very major cloth nappying trick. Fleece is a miracle fabric that is one of the best things that you can invest in, in my humble opinion. Fleece works like magic, drawing moisture away from the baby and allowing the skin to breathe. It allows the moisture to wick through the fabric and evaporate away, which is rather brilliant.

So, if you don’t like PUL waterproof covers (especially at night) then fleece (or a wool cover) are a good idea to try. You can get soakers, which are like little shorts that cover the nappy, longies (trousers) or even fleece sleepsuits.

The gorgeous little soaker that Party Baby sent for the library has been a real hit. My friend used it on her little one overnight, over the top of a fitted nappy (she uses Little Lambs) and it’s been brilliant. There’s been no leaky patches, the fleece comes out of the washing machine almost dry and she’s very impressed with it.

The funny thing about fleece is that it’s one of those things that you really have to try for yourself, to see how great it is and how easily it works. Thank you, Debbie, so much for sending over the soaker from Party Baby. I know it’s going to be very popular in the library!

daisytheclothbummum was sent the soaker as a donation to our nappy library. I did not receive any payment and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

The yoomi warming pod and feeding system

For those of you who regularly read the blog, you’ll know that I’m a now an exclusive breastfeeding mum. Breastfeeding is something that I’m so pleased that we’ve got down to a fine art, after a rather rocky start (with some combi-feeding) – and something that I’m immensely proud of!

But, even though I adore feeding our little man, there is always a time where it’s useful (in my eyes) to be able to feed some milk (expressed, in our case) from a bottle. Great example being when I was full of a cold and had an horrendous sickness bug as well – being able to give Monkey some previously expressed milk was very handy, as my milk supply always seems to dwindle a bit when I’m not well. Monkey isn’t a big fan of bottles, if I’m honest (he’s getting picky in his old age) but he settled down to drinking from this one quite well (after a little fuss!)

Previously, I’ve blogged about the yoomi feeding system here . This is a system that is quite different to any other on the market, in that there is a rechargeable warmer that slots into the top of the bottle, under the teat. This is a great idea as it can gently warm feeds up to the natural temperature of breast milk in under 60 seconds. Obviously, you should always make your feeds up correctly, but this system comes into its own (in my opinion) when you’re using expressed breast milk or the pre-mixed milk that you can get in cartons, if you choose to formula feed.

yoomi bottles have a nice, wide-necked anti-colic teat that are very breast-like in appearance, which is why I think Monkey has objected far less to these bottles than he has to others! The teats has six anti-colic vents, which is fantastic – and I only wish that I’d come across these earlier when we were combi-feeding him in the early months as he suffered really quite badly with colic. There’s nothing quite like those awful, heart-wrenching screams that a little newbie makes when they’re suffering from colic and it’s very difficult when there’s not that much that you can do to make it better.

Giving a feed from a yoomi bottle is a real breeze. You just firmly press the orange button of the yoomi warmer through the teat and once the warmer is active and heating up, you turn the bottle upside down so that the milk runs over the warmer and into the teat. After 30 seconds it’s ready to be used and the milk will be warmed to a temperature akin to breastmilk, which is perfect for us. The warmer keeps warm for an hour, which is very handy if your baby takes feeds slowly or just wants a bit at a time!

The yoomi warmer is the thing that really makes this system something quite different and rather useful. You can pre-charge warmers up and then have them at the ready, which is really helpful for warming milk in the middle of the night, or for when you’re out and about. It’s also a very handy little case for your pods!

When I did my last review, there were two ways that you could recharge the pod. You could either put it in an electric steam steriliser for 25 continuous minutes (with four times the amount of water that the steriliser normally needs) or put it on it’s side in a pan of continuously boiling water for 25 mins. It’s has the same stuff in it that hand gel warmers have, so it needs to be recharged between uses. Once it’s charged up, you have to leave it for 75 minutes to rest and cool down. If you use it before that time is up, you can permanently damage it.

Even though I really didn’t find doing all that much of a faff, I did think that the time it took to recharge the pods was something that could be off-putting to some people. What I didn’t know is that the clever, clever folks at yoomi were working hard to come up with a solution! The yoomi charging pod!

This little pod takes away all the time and potential hassle of charging up the pods and really does make the whole system a breeze to use. You can charge up a pod in 2 minutes, or less, depending on the wattage of your microwave. Pods need to cool down after they are charged (this takes about 75 mins at room temperature, or 20 mins in cool water) but you could easily just leave them when you’re doing other things around the house. Once they’re charged, they stay charged – so you can pop one beside the bed for the night feed, pop one into your changing bag for when you go out or just have them at the ready around the house!

The yoomi pod , in my eyes, has turned a very clever system into an immensely clever and sensible feeding system. It takes away the time element that recharging the pods took and I really love how easy it is to use. Although we don’t use bottles that often, the yoomi makes it so much simpler for my husband (or myself) to give Monkey a feed at a temperature that he’s used to.

Daisytheclothbummum was not paid for this review and gave my time freely to do so. A yoomi feeding system was sent to me for review but all thoughts and opinions stated here are my own.

Mealtimes with Monkey!

Since our little Monkey has been eating solids, I’ve made a discovery that actually quite surprised me. I know this is going to sound rather silly, but I really didn’t realise just how much more food I’d be buying and how much my food bill would go up by!

I think the main reason that our food bill has escalated is that we’re buying an awful lot more fresh fruit – and, my goodness, they’ve really gone and got expensive recently! My Monkey can devour a banana in mere seconds, so we’re getting through a fair few.

Even though he’s eating mostly a toned down version of our meals, it’s still incredible how much it all adds up. I obviously was rather naive – but I do think that food bills have increased so much anyway over the past few months.

What has been rather interesting is just how much he loves food with lots of flavour. I know, I know – that sounds rather silly – but bear with me. If you think about those, ahem, lovely jars of food that they sell in the shops that are pretty much ALL THE SAME COLOUR (how come that happens?), they really are rather boring and bland. The notion is that babies like plainer foods and progress onto more complex flavours as they grow.

I’ve really not found that to be the case at all. Perhaps it’s because Monkey is breastfed and, therefore, gets different flavours coming through in my milk. He absolutely loves anything that has garlic in it, adores spices and relishes flavour. If I give him the more bland options, he generally (apart from his porridge in the morning) turns up his nose at them.

So, I’ve started experimenting more and more. He will polish off a baby-version Thai green curry quite quickly and really loves one of our favourite meals, Chicken Zorba (chicken marinated in various herbs with pitta). It’s so nice to watch him polish off homemade meals with gusto and, I have to admit, I get a kick out of the fact that I made it – rather than just grabbing a pouch/jar.

Don’t get me wrong – I use pouches whenever we’re out and about, if I can’t be bothered to pack up a full lunch/tea from home. They’re great and really come in useful, but oh my goodness – they’re expensive. You’d have to be loaded to just feed your baby using those and they’ll be missing out on so much goodness that you get from a home-cooked meal.

Plus, I think it’s good that Monkey has to wait for his tea. There’s not often an instant meal out of a packet, unless I’ve really just had one of those days or am feeling rather ill! He sits in his highchair and watches me – we sing, we laugh and we talk (kind of!) but it’s a great interaction time and one that will, hopefully, carry through to when he’s older. That could then become the time where we talk about our days/ get some homework done.

Anyway – I’m planning on putting up some recipe ideas on here – things that I’ve made that he seems to enjoy. With having a lactose and cow’s milk protein intolerant baby, it’s been far easier to make my own things as I know precisely what’s gone into them! Hopefully they may be of some use to someone, but equally hopefully – some of you lovely people may put up your own ideas so that I don’t end up cooking the same things in a lovely, repetitive fashion!

Speaking of which – it’s teatime…. Ooooh – what are we having tonight? Eggy bread with banana sugar-free muffins and fruit salad. YUM!!!

Thank **** for fitteds!

Now, in the past I’ve written about all different kinds of nappies – what I’ve found good, or not so good about them. Over the past few months my staple, go-to nappy has been the pockets (such as my bumGenius, Baba+Boo and the like), my itti bitti d’lish nappies and my Tots Bots Easyfits. They have been remarkably easy to use and I’ve never had any problems with them.

Until this past week. Monkey has pretty much managed to outpoo almost every single type of nappy we own, which has resulted in some pretty horrendous explosions that have coated his highchair, his Jumperoo (ugh), his pram (really ugh) and to top it all off, his car seat (that one was particularly foul).

I was really, seriously, starting to lose the fluffy love. So much so that I couldn’t post on here as I didn’t want to sound negative. It wasn’t nice. At all. However, when we switched to disposables for a couple of days (it was all getting a bit much for us), it was actually 100% WORSE. Those flimsy things couldn’t hold anything in, so instead of just getting leg leaks, we were getting full-on, up the back, into his hair poosplosions. BLERGH.

I moaned on my cloth nappy online group about the fact that I was feeling down. Then someone lovely mentioned to me, why don’t you use fitteds?

DOH! How silly of me! I’d utterly forgotten that I had a whole stash of size 2 Little Lamb nappies stored under the bed, that I’d just not got round to using due to the fact that our pockets were working so well. I’d actually forgotten about them because I’d decided that fitteds were unnecessary to use anymore (we loved them for those early breastfed poo stages). I was so, so wrong.

Fitteds have, quite frankly, save mine and Cloth’s relationship! They are marvellous and have held in torrents and torrents of horrendous stuff. We’re not sure if Monkey is teething (probably), not very well (think there’s a bit of that too) or had a reaction to some fish (that’s pretty likely as well) but, oh dear god, what I really want to say is…

THANK **** for FITTEDS!

Gumigem Bubba Bangle GIVEAWAY!

Well, I’ve been mentioning this for a little while and – yes, I’ve finally got myself organised and here it is!

I have one lovely www.gumigem.co.uk Bubba Bangle to GIVEAWAY to one lucky person. These really are fantastic and I wear mine all the time. Monkey reaches out for it when we’re out and about and I love the fact that if I forget any of his toys/teethers then I have something there on my wrist that we can use!

The brilliant thing about Gumigems is that they really don’t look like teethers at all. Pretty much everyone who’s seen mine has been rather astonished when they’ve felt it as they thought that it’d be hard, like stone or wood.

So – yes – would you like to be in with a chance of winning one? You would? Excellent!

In the past, I’ve got Monkey to pick names out of a hat and I’ve documented it with pictures but I’ve made a decision recently that I’m not going to be photographing him fully anymore for the blog. Now that he’s coming into his features and turning into a little boy, I just feel that he deserves his privacy. So, he will be doing the draw but I’ll just crop the photos a little!

So, to enter the competition, all you have to do is finish off the sentence below, in less that ten words (not including the ones that I’ve started you off with!)

A Bubba Bangle will make my life complete because…

Obviously, please be as creative and dramatic as you can – the ones that make me giggle will be more likely to be put into the draw! Mr Clothbum and myself will pick out 10 entries and put them into the ‘hat’ (his fabric sorting toy) for Monkey to pick a winner from.

The competition is open as of NOW and will close on Friday 8th June at 5pm, with the winner announced asap after that.

As you can answer the question via three online locations (via Facebook, Twitter or the Blog) that gives you three chances of winning! Not bad, eh! Of course, it’d be fantastic if you share the competition as well, so I suppose that you can get an extra entry if you share it, and then let me know! (just one extra entry, not three – I’d find that a nightmare to keep up with everyone!)

Remember to let me know via the FB page or add #daisybubba to your Tweets, or I won’t be able to keep track of you all.

The T&C are as follows:

The competition will close at 5pm on Monday 11th June 2012.
The bangle will only be posted out to a UK address.
The winner will be decided by daisytheclothbummum and is final.
The winner will be notified, and announced, as soon as possible after the giveaway closes.
After the competition closes, I’ll pick out ten entries that are (in my eyes) the most creative and they’ll go into the ‘hat’. Monkey will then pick out a winner and I’ll document this via slightly cropped photos for you!
If the winner has any problems with the bangle then he/she must contact Gumigem directly.

Disclaimer:
daisytheclothbummum gives her time freely to run this giveaway and is not being paid for running it.

My, how things change! My altered parenting views

As a first time Mum, I had all these grand ideas in my head of what kind of Mum I’d be. What I’d do and what I wouldn’t. I had a very specific birth plan that I really hoped would work out (waterbirth, TENS, Gas & Air and, god forbid, no other drugs). My baby was going to wear cloth nappies, I was going to just breastfeed, I would only feed him/her homemade organic food, I’d never allow him to get into a routine of falling asleep on me and of course he’d sleep in his lovely moses basket/ crib/ cotbed. I’d try to use a sling but I’d have a pram as well, I’d never even vaguely consider elimination communication and I did think that attachment parents were making rods for their own backs. Whilst I wanted to be close to my baby and nuture him/her as much as possible, I wanted him to ‘learn to self settle’.

Oh god. Things have changed. My perspective on many things, including the above has altered HUGELY. It’s amazing how utterly unprepared you can be for such a little, teeny person invading your life, albeit in an amazing way that you wouldn’t change for the world.

Luckily, for me, a lot of things I wanted to do have worked out. I got the birth I wanted, even though (apparently) I did yell that I wanted a ******* epidural at the time when my son’s head was crowning. Yup…that was obviously not going to happen! I was very lucky – there’s only one waterbirthing pool in our local hospital, and I got it. Lots of other ladies aren’t so lucky. I was also incredibly fortunate that there were no other complications at birth for me, or Monkey and that I have a happy, healthy little boy. I count my blessings for that every single day.

Yes, I got to (so far) use cloth nappies on my little one, although I have had to use some disposables at night due to the thicker night nappies making his reflux much worse. I wasn’t a happy bunny when that happened, but it wasn’t the end of the world. I absolutely (obviously!) LOVE using my cloth nappies and get a real kick out of seeing his cute, fluffy bum. There’s something so nice about seeing a baby with a padded cloth bum and I thoroughly enjoy my ‘nappy stuffing’ time in front of the TV. I find it very relaxing (aren’t repetitive things like that quite soothing!) and I get a sense of satisfaction when I see the nappies all looking rather funky and ready to be used. Yes, I know that they’re poo-catchers – but at least they’re nice, soft, breathable and well, ok – pretty – ones!

Breastfeeding has been a huge struggle for me and I’m now in the amazing position where not only is Monkey pretty much exclusively breastfed, I’m actually managing to pump and freeze a good amount for sending to nursery with him. I still have some prescription lactose free formula just in case, but thanks to the amazing support that I’ve had from my local breastfeeding specialists, I’ve managed to achieve that goal. The nursery I’m sending Monkey to have been very supportive in my decision to send in frozen breast milk for them to defrost and use as required and the whole system that I’ve put in place is working really well so far, along with pumping at work (which is something that initially concerned me).

As far as food is concerned, yes I do actually mainly manage to give Monkey homemade stuff. But a few (organic) pouches of food have crept into his diet and I’m fine with that. I was originally going to do just Baby Led Weaning, and I was very passionate about it – but after the specialists told us that he needed some purees/ porridge to help with his reflux, I did relent and there was a massive improvement. He loves his food and is really starting to enjoy playing with finger foods now, which is great. Seeing him shove a stem of broccoli into his face is hilarious and he adores sucking on French toast! Sometimes being a bit more relaxed about things is better and I’m happy with the balance that I now have. I did beat myself up about not doing pure BLW, but he’s happy – so I am!

Attachment parenting is a whole other issue! After Monkey was born, Mr Clothbum and I went with what felt right after struggling with a baby that just would not settle, no matter what we did. We soon discovered that he had very bad colic and reflux and that cosleeping, with him in a more upright position, was the way forward. And we haven’t really looked back. Monkey does go into his cot at night but in the early hours of the morning he’s usually in with us, cluster feeding on Mummy. It works – brilliantly – and we both love having our baby so close. He’s gradually learning to settle himself but it’s a slow process and we’re fine with that too. He’ll get there – when he’s ready. The only downside is that I’d love to be able to sleep in a position that’s actually (properly) more comfortable for me, but when Monkey is with us, that’s not something that is achievable. Mummy just sleeps in which ever position she’s allowed to lie in!

I know that it means that he won’t go easily to others overnight at the moment, but that’s really not an issue for us. We have no family that live near us, so there’s no one that Monkey will be going to stay with on his own, really. Also, as a breastfed baby – its easier to keep him near me anyway. Then I don’t have the hassle of expressing more than I need to.

Since having him I’ve started to read more on the subject and found that a lot of the things that we’re doing (that I had no name for) are linked to the work of Dr Sears (and attachment parenting – yes, I really had no concept of it before!) His way of thinking, in my book, is well worth a read and I also absolutely love Mayim Bialik (she used to play Blossom). Her approach to parenting is a very refreshing one and one that sits very well with me. There’s a bit of a debate about her decision to circumcise her sons, but in my opinion, that’s her choice as a Jewish person. I personally wouldn’t circumcise unless there were medical grounds, but I’m not religious and I don’t want to judge others and their beliefs.

Elimination communication is another area that I’ve been reading into with a degree of fascination. I’m nowhere brave enough to attempt this, but I am going to start putting Monkey on a potty after his meals once he is stronger and more secure at sitting up. That’s the method that my mother-in-law, and other people of her generation, used with their children and lots of us potty trained much earlier than children do nowadays. But if Monkey does PT early – I’ll have to stop using my lovely nappies!

Food for thought! Right now, there’s probably someone reading this who’s making umming and ahhing noises about me making virtual rods for my own back. Yes, I probably am! But I’m going to have amazing posture as a result!

Clever Kit! The Yoomi Bottle and Warmer Review

As I’m now working part time, which is involving a lot of weekday mornings, we have been looking around for solutions for feeding Monkey in the night, so that I can get a little bit more sleep in preparation for the working day.

As he’s a mainly breastfed baby (we have some prescription, lactose-free formula but that tends to be used in emergencies and in cooking), having Monkey feeding the countless times throughout the night that he sometimes still does is not really practical, so we started to look at bottles.

The only problem is that they take just so long to heat up, if you have to muck around with the kettle. By that stage, what might have been a bit of a whimper or a half cry, where he would usually pull himself across and land back on a boob, or be picked up from his cot and settled down to a feed, has often escalated into a full-on war cry of high pitched proportions that really isn’t good for creating a calm, sleepy environment for anyone and makes settling him back down a much more tricky operation.

So, when I came across the yoomi bottle, I was intrigued. http://www.yoomi.com I really wanted to have a play with one and the nice folk who make them sent me one over so I could do just that! The bottle is a rechargeable, self warming and BPA free bottle – it has a special warmer that slots in under the teat and heats the milk up within 60 seconds.

To use the heating element, you have to either put it in an electric steam steriliser for 25 continuous minutes (with four times the amount of water that the steriliser normally needs) or put it on it’s side in a pan of continuously boiling water for 25 mins. It’s got the same stuff in it that hand gel warmers have, so it needs to be recharged between uses. Once it’s charged up, you have to leave it for 75 minutes to rest and cool down, but it remains charged until you need to use it. If you use it before it is fully rested, you can permanently damage it. Each warmer is good for 100 feeds.

Ok – so I have to be honest – when I first read all that, it seemed like a little bit of a faff but I wanted to keep an open mind and went for it. We boiled up the water and charged up the heater. Whilst it’s a little time-consuming, it’s not really a hassle if you’re doing other things in the kitchen. I charged mine up one lunchtime when I was batch-cooking and feeding Monkey. Didn’t really take any extra time out of my day and I left it cooling whilst we went off to play and then have a little nap!

We got the bottle ready for a feed in the afternoon, thinking that this would be a good introduction to it as it’s quite a different shape from the ones that he’s been used recently (Dr Brown ones – the teat isn’t as wide). The bottle itself is nice and wide, with a breast-type anti-colic teat (which I really like as Monkey had dreadful colic when he was little). Without the warmer, it’s a very light bottle but I have to be honest and say that the warmer does add a significant amount of weight to it.

However, this weight is actually completely well worth it when you get to use the bottle and warmer together. I put breast milk from the fridge in the bottle and then went to use it. I pressed the orange button on the bottle warmer and followed the instructions carefully. The warmer rattles when it’s not ready to use and stops rattling when its ready and you give it a little shake. This takes about 30 seconds. You hold the bottle so that the teat is full of milk and you’re ready to go!

It worked remarkably well and I was very impressed. Monkey is really fussy about new bottles and cups but didn’t seem at all phased by this new one and the milk was at the right temperature for him. What a fab invention!

The only downside to the yoomi bottle is that once you’ve used the warmer once, then it has to be recharged (which involves a bit of time again). However, the bottle can be used without the warmer and you can buy warmers individually which would make the system work well as you could then always have a charged one at the ready.

As a bottle that we can use at night to give him a quickly warmed feed, it’s brilliant and does the job really well! The prices of a yoomi do look a little steep when you first see them, but they’re actually not bad once you take into account what you get with the feeding systems that they have on offer. For the ease and portability that you get with them, I think they’re a good item to have at home.

As I don’t really use bottles much, the yoomi does provide me with a useful bit of kit that will hopefully help Mr Clothbum to quickly give Monkey a calm and correctly-heated feed at night and allow me to get a little bit more sleep before I have to do the next feed. We will probably invest in a second heater and bottle just in case we need two but it will fill in that gap nicely before Monkey joins us in bed for a bit of co-sleeping and open-bar snacking in the early hours of the morning!

Daisytheclothbummum was not paid for this review and gave my time freely to do so. A yoomi bottle http://www.yoomi.com was sent to me for review but all thoughts and opinions stated here are my own.

Announcing the winner of the bumGenius Freetime!

Things are sometimes sent to test us, aren’t they!!!

We got home and got ready to do our prize draw that has been kindly donated by Nappy Go Lucky http://www.nappygolucky.co.uk/. Master Monkey was getting all excitable, flapping his arms around like a windmill.

I got ready, poised with the iPad to take snaps to upload for you all, to document the occasion…

Then he started howling, threw himself back on the rug and got himself incredibly, heart-wrenchingly upset. Bless him! Obviously he DIDN’T want to be a prize picker.

I put the iPad down and went to get him and… I found squidged up in his damp little hand – a winner!!!

I’d be so busy being a worried, ahhhhh I’ll hug you, kind of Mummy that I hadn’t noticed he’d picked someone! (I’m not completely certain he noticed either in all the kerfuffle!!!)

Anywaaaaay! We have a winner!!!!

The lucky lady is KATIE HOLDSWORTH!

Well done! I’ll be contacting you with more info soon!

Thank you yet again to everyone who entered the giveaways – and thank you to everyone who follows the blog. It means a lot that people are still following! Makes me smile!!! Xx

To hold, or not to hold. That is the question…

It’s been suggested to me, by the nursery that Monkey is going to be going to, that he should bring in something from home that can act as a comforter/ familiar object. That’s a great idea, in principle, as it’ll have smells from home and will be something that he recognises.

But, I have a little problem with this. Apart from his Jumperoo, he’s not really attached to anything yet – and that wouldn’t really pack down very well! He doesn’t have a toy that he makes a beeline for, no dummy that he sucks on madly and no muslin/ comforter that he clings onto.

I actually think that’s a good thing. He obviously is happy enough and it’s much better for us as we don’t have the issue of having to remember ‘Bear’ or a bit of rag that he’d suck on. I’m fairly pleased about that. As a child I never had just one toy or object that I took around with me, although my little brother did. I remember the absolute nightmare that we had once when we were on a plane and he suddenly realised that he didn’t have his bear with him. It was like his little world had ended. I can’t remember whether we had it in our hold luggage or whether we had to manage on holiday without it, but his anguish at not having it on the plane was awful.

So, I’m slightly torn about what to do. There is one little blue rabbit comforter/puppet that he seems to play with a little more. I’ve been sensible and found two more that are winging their way to me, thanks to Boobox. I searched everywhere online for this rabbit and they were the only people that had any in stock, thank god. But – do I put a lot of emphasis on his rabbit? Do I try to encourage him to have it more? Ugh – I don’t know!

Answers on a postcard please…

And the winner of the Baba + Boo Nappy is…

Well, Monkey has been a busy little boy and has managed to pick out a winner!
The lucky lady will be able to choose from a wide range of fantastic www.babaandboo.com nappies. I personally absolutely LOVE these nappies – they are pretty much bombproof and are really lovely! They have a good fit and will last my little one ages as they go up to a really large size.

So,

At the bottom is our photo journey! Monkey was far far too interested in shaking around the ‘HAT’ and then chewing several bits of it, but eventually managed to jam his hand in there and pull out the name of the lucky winner. That then went into his mouth too – but Mummy managed to get it out quickly.

Then I was faced with a bit of a dilemma. You see – the winner of the giveaway is actually a friend of mine – someone that I know in real life. And that looks like a fix.

But I swear that it wasn’t – this lovely lady has entered all my competitions (along with many of my mummy friends who have supported me and the blog since the start) and there has been one time where I had to pick again as she had won (I was worried that people would think that I was giving her something and fixing my giveaways)

BUT – Monkey picked out her name and I really think that this time, she should win (and that I shouldn’t redo the picking process).

She has wanted to try cloth nappies for a while, has just got hold of some nappies from the local council and I think that this will be a fab way to start! Real Nappy Week is all about promoting cloth to newbies so, yay!

So – HELEN DRYBURGH – lovely lady, You won!

I’ll be contacting you with details about how to get your nappy!

Thank you so much, everyone, for entering. There were some fantastic entries – those amongst my favourites included Joseph and his technicoloured stash and the Tinkle Tinkle little Star for a beautiful little Angelbaby.