dawniebrown

dawniebrown

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Posts by dawniebrown

Quinny Buzz Review

2
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

When it came to deciding on a pram for Zara, we had a few essential items on our list which needed to be met.

1) It had to have an adjustable handle as I’m 5’10″ and my husband is 6’3″ and neither of us want to be stooping down to reach the handles or baby all the time. The QB was about the only pram we tried (and we tried dozens) which felt comfortable for us both to push.

2) It had to be convenient, we love the QB for this. We teamed the QB with a Maxi-Cosi Cabriofix car seat and an Easybase so we were able to fasten the car seat to the QB frame if Zara was asleep and push her around the supermarket etc. She loved sleeping in the Dreami Carrycot – in fact she preferred this to her moses basket. Now Zara has outgrown the carrycot we now use the memory foam seat which she loves. It can be parent facing or outwards facing and has various recline positions which makes it so adaptable. It also fits in my Ford Fusion quite easily.

3) It has to be stylish. Now I admit some of the prams considered stylish at the moment are becoming a bit too “common” for my liking and wherever you go people seem to have them but the QB still looks great and isn’t being used by every parent within a 50 mile radius.

4) It has to be good on most terrains. We like to go for walks down country lanes and here in Durham we have lots of cobblestones to steer over so a pram that can handle relatively rough terrain is a huge bonus.

5) It has to be easy to use. This is where the QB really beats the rest of the market hands down. It has a rather nifty self opening facility and so there is no fiddling around with pushing and pulling buttons and levers, you just pop off the fold latch and voila the frame is up and then you just pop in the seat. So easy even my husband could master it.

There are a couple of downsides to the QB but I think these are far outweighed by the advantages. The back wheels on the QB are quite wide which can sometimes make negotiating small shop aisle a bit tricky. I’ve never found myself unable to fit down them but it can sometimes take a bit of careful moving. The QB can also be quite heavy to push – this only really applies when going uphill and again I’m not really sure how this compares to other prams and it certainly doesn’t put me off using it.

Overall I love my Quinny Buzz – we’ve had almost 8 months use out of it so far and when Zara eventually outgrows the memory foam seat we can switch to the XL seat which also comes with it so we can carry on using it for even longer. This is probably one of my best baby buys so far :)

Photos show us both using the QB on Christmas Day 2009 in the Snow

Am I a closet hippy?

1
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

I’ve been thinking recently that I may be rebelling against my organised, professional, accountancy, middle class, home owning side and turning into a hippy.

I can’t pinpoint exactly when it started happening though I have a feeling it began around the time I met my now husband. He’s vegetarian and with me not really being a meat eater anyway, I decided I might aswell become veggie myself seeing as it is easier all round if we are both veggie. What started out as just doing it for convenience 4 years ago has now turned into a passion and I’m almost militant about it. In our house we like animals so we don’t eat them – simple. The same will go for Zara – she will be raised as a vegetarian until she is old enough to choose for herself and even if she does decide she wants to eat meat at some point then she will have to accept that meals cooked in this house are vegetarian and I won’t be cooking her anything with meat in it.

So I turned veggie and the onset into hippydom (if there is such a word – which there probably isn’t) continued. The biggest shift happened when Zara arrived on the scene. I didn’t actually realise my choices put me in the hippy category but apparently it’s what hippys do!

Hippy Hint 1: I chose to do baby led weaning with Zara. How radical! The truth of course is that I chose to do BLW simply because I read the book and liked the idea of building a positive relationship with food from an early age, not having to bother spoon feeding her and just because it fits in with out lifestyle and meals anyway. 90% of our meals in this house are a) healthy, b) have fresh vegetables in them and c) don’t have any salt in them and so for us BLW was simple, just give Zara what we are having from the start. 2 months on from starting it, mealtimes are a pleasure, Zara sits with us, eats what we eat – and does remarkably well, she loves her food and watching her choose what she eats is amazing. A bit of cucumber, followed by a piece of tomato, followed by a drink, followed by some breadstick etc etc. She concentrates so hard on what she is going to eat next, it is fascinating to watch. There is no pressure on Z to eat anything at all, if she doesn’t eat anything then that is fine as I want her to grow up being happy to experiment with food and not feel under pressure to eat just because the books say we should replace bottle 2 with a meal at so and so stage. There’s probably not many 7 month olds who love curry, love olives, love marmite (in v small doses as aware of salt content), loves garlic bread and in fact loves pretty much anything we give her. The only thing she really hasn’t been interested in that I have given her has been raspberries.

Hippy Hint 2: The second hippy sign is apparently my fondness for carrying Zara in a sling. In fact of course we do this for convenience and because Zara loves it. I’m also a pram addict aswell and love my Quinny Buzz and Quinny Zapp but at times we also love to carry Zara in her sling because it makes life more interesting for her seeing the world from our viewpoint and not staring at everyone’s knees all day. Shock horror even Daddy likes to wear the sling aswell – definitely a bunch of hippies!

So there we have it, I may be an accountant and a business woman but apparently I’m also a vegetarian, babyledweaning, babywearing hippy! :)

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Can’t resist showing this off!

2
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

I’m going to write a review of Zara’s new dress once we’ve had a chance to wash it etc to see how well it stands up to day to day life but I took this photo today and couldn’t resist showing off Zara in her new Sophie4Sophie dress.

and the other side

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Nursery Rhymes to give your little one nightmares (part 1)

6
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

Since becoming a parent I have become familiar with many nursery ryhmes and I have to say, I’m shocked at how sinister many of them are. Is it any wonder Zara wakes up crying in the night when I sing songs like this to her!

Take for instance the classic – Rock a Bye Baby. Ah a lovely nursery ryhme to sing whilst rocking your baby off to the land of slumber I hear you say – Wrong!!

Rock a bye baby on the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all.

I mean let’s examine this innocent ryhme more carefully. Firstly who in their right mind would leave their baby in a tree top (well unless you are a bird I suppose and that is acceptable – but still risky I might add!). And what on earth inspired the crazy parents to put it up there in the first place. I mean, were they just out for a nice country walk and saw a big tree and decided “oooh that looks a suitable place to leave my darling child to sleep!”. Why on earth do we sing this song to our cute little babies, do they fall asleep with visions of a crib falling down out of a tree and a poor baby falling to the ground with mulitple fractures, probably ending up in a wheelchair as a result?  Hmm I think I’ll strike this one off my evening repertoire.

OK so what about Ring-a-Ring o’Rosies. Ah another lovely sweet song, how can our little darlings not love this one. Again – Wrong, it’s actually almost sick this one.

Ring-a-Ring o’Rosies
A Pocket full of Posies
“A-tishoo! A-tishoo!”
We all fall Down!

For those of you which aren’t lucky enough to be married to a history teach like me, this ryhme is actually singing about the Black Death / Bubonic Plague. Oh how lovely, maybe we should also sing songs about Swine Flu, Malaria and other mass killers to our little darlings.
Ring-a-Ring o’Rosies refers to the rosy red rash in the shape of a ring that you would get on your skin as one of the symptoms of the plague. Oh how lovely, lets sing about the fact you’re probably going to die!
A pocket full of posies relates to the belief that the disease was caused by bad smells and carrying a posy of nice smelling herbs in your pocket would ward it off.
A-tishoo, A-tishoo – that will be the violent sneezing that was another symptom of the disease. Lovely, death is imminent, keep singing.
We all fall down – yep, you’re dead!
Oh what a lovely sweet ryhme to sing to your little baby as you lovingly try to send them to sleep.

I really think I’m onto something here, maybe the reason for sleepless nights has nothing to do with being hungry, etc etc, it’s just that we are terrifying the little sweethearts and giving them nightmares!

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The Gallery – Holidays

7
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

This post is this weeks entry for The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers. The theme for this week is holidays.

Now this prompt really got me thinking, should I go for a photo of my year living and working in Australia before I went to uni, should I post a photo of family holidays with my parents and family, should I post a photo of my honeymoon…choices, choices, choices.

In the end I opted for this photograph:

This photo was taken in 2006, about 6 months after I met my husband and it was on this holiday he proposed to me. We went to Lindos in Rhodes and late one evening we went for a walk up to the Acropolis in the dark and up there he dropped down on one knee and proposed. I said yes and almost 4 years later here we are, married with a baby. I look at this photo and it’s like looking at another person, I look so much younger there and so full of life – compared to how I feel at the minute having had a lot of sleepless nights over the last 7 months.

The only holiday we’ve had since then has been our honeymoon and since then we’ve been so busy moving house twice, both of us starting new jobs, being pregnant and having a baby – that holidays have been kind of neglected :(

I have a feeling our next holiday will be slightly different with a toddler in tow and it will certainly add a different focus on what we do – but I think I’m ready for one now :)

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She’s growing up so fast

4
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

Today I’ve ordered a next size car seat for my little baby and it’s made me feel kind of sad.

It’s like when I put away all her 0-3 month clothes, or her 3-6 month or 6-9 month clothes – they are all in little boxes packed away in her closet in case we have another girl. At first we had drawers and drawers of beautiful clothes and as time has gone on we’ve packed them away and we are now in 9-12 month clothes and those tiny clothes for tiny legs and arms are no longer used :(

I feel like when she finally sits in her new “big girl” car seat she will no longer be my little baby. She is fast turning into a toddler in front of my eyes. I love it, I really do. I love watching her trying to crawl or trying to chase the cats in her baby walker. I love listening to her trying to sing along to songs on the tv, I love watching her laughing when playing with her daddy and I love seeing her personality develop and a little girl appear.

But I can’t help but feel sad that those days of being a baby are almost over. Today she fell asleep on me after her lunchtime bottle and I sat with her asleep on me for 15 minutes just looking at her before I took her upstairs to her cot. It happens so rarely you see. I remember the days when she would only sleep on my and I’d quite often sit on the sofa for an hour with her lying on my chest, listening to her breathing.

It makes me realise that no matter how bad the days are I really should cherish each and every one of them as time is going by so fast and they will soon only be distant memories. :)

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Lifft Sling Review

0
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

As part of the Get Your Hands Back review panel I was asked to try out a Lifft Sling with Zara.

You can find out more about Lifft slings on their website here Lifft Website

The lift sling costs £49.99 and so is cheaper than some slings that are on the market and when it arrived it looked extremely simple to use. It is basically one large loop of fabric with a stretchy panel in it. No buckles or ties to fasten, just fold it, put it over your shoulder and insert baby. Great!

As Zara is now a 20lb 7 month old baby, we were limited in the carry positions that we could use with the Lifft. It has 3 main carries that you can use; a Front Lifft (suitable for newborns and smaller babies where the baby is carried in a lying down cradled postion), a Little Buddha Lifft (for babies from 2 months old that can’t support themselves yet but want to see what is going on) and the Side Lifft (suitable from 6 months old). With Zara I could only use the Side Lifft which was a bit disappointing as I would have loved to be able to try this sling out with a newborn baby as the Front Lifft looks like a lovely position.

As you can see from the photo, Zara enjoyed being carried in the Lifft. I was initially a bit concerned that if she wriggled too much she may slip through the bottom of it but despite her best wriggles she still felt nice and secure. I did find that after carrying Zara for around 20 minutes that I could start to feel the weight on my shoulder and I don’t think I could use this sling for long days out but for short trips it would be very useful and quick to use. It also looks good to, I particularly liked the colour options.

One downside to this sling which disappoints me is that you buy the Lifft to fit yourself (I used a Size 1 Sling which fits UK Size 8/10) and whereas this is good in that it gives you a nice secure fit, it meant that my husband was unable to use the sling. In our family we like to share carrying Zara on days out and it would mean buying two of these slings for us to do that.

Overall a lovely looking and easy to use sling, just a shame my husband can’t use it and a shame I haven’t got a newborn baby handy to try it out with. :)

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Zara goes swim swim and today I let go

2
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

One of the things I regret from being younger is that I never had proper swimming lessons and as a result I’ve never been that confident in water. I’m not a strong swimmer and although I’ll go snorkeling etc when on holiday I’m never completely relaxed about it. So when I found out about waterbabies I really wanted to take Zara as I want her to love swimming as much as her dad does.

We’ve been going for about 6 weeks now and we are both loving it. From an early age Zara has loved bathtime and we first took her swimming when she was about 4 months old. Today I took my camera along and was kindly allowed to take some photos.









Today was a scarey day because we did an underwater swim combined with letting go and letting her swim to the surface by herself, you really have to fight your instincts when it comes to letting go, I was definitely more worried about it than Z who seemed to enjoy not being held back by her mum for a change:

Somewhere under that water is Z swimming by herself:

and up we go…

we were also learning to hold onto the side:

I love our swimming classes, they are expensive but I guess giving Zara confidence in the water is worth it – she won’t be able to swim by the time the course is finished as they need to be 2-3 to really understand how to swim, but she will be confident in water, know to hold her breath under water, know how to get back to the surface, know how to turn around and get back to the side and how to hold onto the side so if god forbid she ever falls into water she will at least have some basic life saving skills and won’t panic. I’m guessing that is what I am really paying for :)

For anybody who is considering waterbabies and is worried about the cost – I’d definitely recommend it :)

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I’m lonely and it’s all my fault

13
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

Today I’m feeling down, today I’m feeling lonely and it’s all my fault.

It’s my fault because I don’t make friends easily.

It’s my fault because I was once betrayed by my closest friends and since then I don’t let people get close.

I don’t have a single close friend up here in the north-east, nobody to just talk to, nobody to go out for a drink with, nobody to go to the cinema with – yep nobody. I’d have loved to go to the cinema to watch SATC2 but I had nobody to go with and I didn’t dare go by myself.

I’ve 128 friends on facebook, 358 followers on twitter but I’m lonely.

I am lucky if I speak to anybody except my husband in any single day. I think my only interaction with an adult today was to order a coffee in Starbucks. I sat there drinking my coffee with Zara and looked around. I was the only one by myself. There were couples talking, groups of friends chatting over their coffee and I had Zara to talk to.

I stopped going to my NCT groups meet ups because they clashed with Zara’s nap time so she would just get overtired and scream.

I thought I had a close friend up here, we set up a business together and then when I was 8 months pregnant she decided to move abroad and dumped me in it, leaving me to carry on the business by myself. I was doing VAT returns for a client two days after giving birth.

I miss my family, I miss my horses, I miss having people to talk to, I miss being able to go out for a drink.

 The only thing that makes me smile today is knowing that Zara will always be there for me to talk to. She may be tired and grouchy today, she may have just thrown up her entire bottle over me, she may be teething and super grumpy but at least she listens to me. She doesn’t understand a word I’m saying and she’s too young to realise that mummy’s crying because she is sad today – so she looks at me with that cheeky grin and it makes it all a little easier to handle.

And because this is a miserable post I’m not even going to bother tweeting it because if nobody reads it I don’t really mind – I just wanted to write something seeing as I’ve nobody here to tell it to.

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Dyson Air Multiplier – Is it worth the money

2
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

OK so yesterday our lovely dyson air multiplier arrived. We have been looking for a solution for our super heated bedroom for a while as sleeping in temperatures of around 29C was proving difficult.

Well the air multiplier certainly looks interesting – I’m not sure whether you could call it beautiful or stylish, it reminds me of the Stargate but rather than using it travel through wormholes in space to different planets I was hoping it would just cool our room down a little.

Well the cats were certainly interested in it, Izzy attempted to use it for jumping through whereas Indie thought it would make a good scratching post (bad kitty). Zara was fascinated by it, in a way that only a 7 month old baby could be. At least she won’t be able to get her fingers trapped by spinning blades with this fan.

The noise – I have to admit the dyson is noisier than I expected it to be, even on low settings but after a while you kind of tune out from it. It’s a low consistent hum which to be honest is actually quite a soothing sound compared to the whirring noise you get from traditional fans.

The air – now this is where it gets hard to describe, with a normal fan you feel the breeze but with this one the airflow is really gentle so it doesn’t really feel like a breeze, you can feel it but its more refreshing if that makes sense. It’s certainly a lot more comfortable sitting in front of the air multiplier than a normal fan. It also seems to cover a wider area than normal fans, we didn’t have it rotating and it still managed to cool both myself and my husband lying in our super size (7ft) bed.

The lack of blades – this is certainly an advantage, especially when it comes to little baby fingers and cleaning it. I hate having to clean normal fans, taking off the cover, wiping all the blades, putting it back together again etc, with this one I can just wipe it with a duster and job done.

And so nightime fell and the big test began – ok so last night was actually cooler than most so we couldn’t test it in extreme conditions but it certainly felt lovely. It was pleasant, the air felt nice and comfortable without feeling I was being blown away. The noise certainly didn’t interupt our sleep at all and when I woke up this morning the room felt lovely, I assumed it meant it was a cold day outside until I went out of our room and down the hallway to realise it was actually hot and sticky out there.

The big question however is, is it really worth the RRP of £199.99 – hmm its a tough question to answer. I like the fan a lot and it certainly does the job, but could I have just lived with a normal fan and paid a fraction of the price – probably!

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