How to toilet train a toddler

I have two little ones that have been successfully toilet trained with minimal fuss. Both are dry through the night and I'm not having to use night-time nappies/pants or whatever they are called! We had very few accidents & I only carried around spare clothes with me for a few weeks (& importantly I never needed to use them!). My daughter did wet herself when we were at a friends for lunch & we had to borrow clothes, and there were a few incidents at nursery but that has been the extent of her mishaps. My son has had zero accidents, with me anyway.

So, what's my secret?

That's it folks, no real secret. The key was waiting for the right time.

I was in no rush to toilet train the kids. As long as they were using the toilet confidently before starting school, I wasn't overly concerned if they were 2, 3 or 4 years old when it happened. Every child develops differently.

My son was out of nappies first, aged 3.5 years. He decided one day that he fancied wearing big boy pants (which I had purchased in advance, anticipating that this moment would come), and so I put them on him and there was no going back. I cancelled all plans and we stayed at the house. We had a few accidents on Day 1 but I stuck with it and by Day 2 he was a pro! We had been reading Pirate Pete, the potty training book, and this probably encouraged him somewhat.

One point to note - I decided against using a potty. I think they're pretty foul, so we just bypassed this and went straight for the big toilet! I had bought a little seat from the supermarket for it & I had a step too for them to climb up.

I had him in nappies at bedtime, but he really didn't need them and so after a few weeks these disappeared. I also didn't need to lift him before I went to bed as I've heard some parents doing. I started to cut back the huge drinks of milk before bed and so long as he went to toilet before going to sleep, he's managed to go through until the morning.

I've not had to change a single wet sheet, for either of the kids. Phew! 

My daughter was a bit younger when she decided she wanted to wear big girl pants. And at about 2.5 years old we started the toilet training.

She had quite a few accidents at nursery. Never too many with me, but I was more on top of her & checking if she needed to go I guess rather than her being in a busy room with lots of children at her nursery. As I said before, we had only the one accident when we were out & about. I think I probably could have waited and the accidents would have been less, but as she was so keen I just went with it.

Their dad was equally supportive and we were both on the same page with the toilet training which certainly helped.

Get stocked up. Buy some big boy/girl pants and a potty or toilet seat and have them ready in your house for when the time comes. Get plenty pairs of cheap pants - you may end up having to wash lots in the first few weeks. I also got a few pairs of elasticated shorts for my son to wear - easy for him to get on and off himself.

And then wait. Wait until your child is ready. There's absolutely no need to rush.

Easier said than done, but try and relax. It's not a big deal if they have an accident. These things happen. Get them cleaned up, mop the floor & move on. I bought waterproof mattress covers but turns out I didn't need them, but best to be on the safe side!

Give lots of positive reinforcement & encouragement when they manage to go to the toilet without an accident. A sticker reward chart or a marble jar might be a good idea & they could pick a new toy when the jar is full.

Get a storybook from the library about using a potty, again good to reinforce what you're teaching.

Don't confuse them by going between nappies and no nappies. If you're going to let them wear the big boy/girl pants, then do so and keep doing so. You can't do it one day and then not the next. The sooner you can ditch night time nappies the better in my opinion.

What are your tips for toilet training?

Yay - no more nappies!!!

{Simple Smoothies}

Laura, Life as An Hourglass, gave me the great tip that I should freeze any bananas that are starting to go off and then use them in a smoothie! I hadn't even considered that freezing a banana would be possible. What a great idea!

My eldest loves to make smoothies, and I have a Magimix processer which is perfect for the job!

We normally make strawberry and banana smoothies with fresh ingredients, but this time I had frozen banana and blueberries to use, as per Laura's suggestion above. We threw the fruit into the Magimix along with some natural yoghurt and some honey. It was delightful... tasted like an ice cream milkshake without having to use ice cream! (Frozen yoghurt is delicious btw... have you been to Cheer Me Up yet?).

Getting everything organised and ready to go!

I love my grey striped straws!

Laura has loads of great recipes on her blog and think she has some more juicing recipes coming soon. Next on my list is her carrot cake. Mmmmmm!!! 

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{Vegesentials - fruit & vegetable smoothies & juice}

The kids and I were recently sent some Vegesentials smoothies and juice to try.

My little ones love their fruit, but are less inclined to eat all their vegetables. I sneak vegetables into Bolognese sauce and chilli and serve carrots, sweetcorn and broccoli with every other dinner, but the concept of getting some extra goodness into them in the form of a Vegesentials drink appealed to me. Unlike the adult drinks which are half fruit, half vegetable, the kids range has a higher ratio of fruit but each one contains 100% pure & raw ingredients.

Having a Vegesentials tea party :-)

The pink Groovy Beet and Strawberry juice was the favourite of the littlest, and the eldest preferred the orange Cheeky Carrot and Peach one. Neither of them were that keen on the green Cool Cucumber and Pineapple smoothie which surprised me - perhaps due to the colour, I'm not sure.

Vegesentials website

For the adults there is a choice of 6 different flavours:

• Celery, Apple & Kale Juice
• Beetroot, Pomegranate & Carrot Juice
• Carrot, Peach & Cucumber Smoothie
• Carrot, Mango & Parsnip Smoothie
• Cucumber, Pineapple & Spinach Smoothie
• Beetroot, Blueberry & Cucumber Smoothie

The story behind the brand is quite something, which you can read in full on the Vegesentials pages here. I can fully appreciate the thinking behind changing your dietary lifestyle to improve your health. 

The drinks contain raw, fresh, pure fruit & vegetables. No added sugar, water, additives, pre-packaged or artificial ingredients, dairy, gluten, concentrates, preservatives, ascorbic acid or heat pasteurisation. That's some list!

Drink Fresh. Feel Fresh.

Look Fresh. Stay Fresh

with VEGESENTIALS

I'm a sucker for packaging, and I love the Vegesentials bottles. 

I have a very sweet tooth (lover of all things pick n'mix and cakes!) and if I'm honest I found the adult drinks too savoury for my liking. However they do say that there's one for every palate... so I don't think it was expected that I would like them all. I found the beetroot ones very earthy and felt it would have been nicer served hot as a soup (obviously defeating the purpose of them being raw). My favourites were the orange ones - with the Carrot, Peach & Cucumber Smoothie being my favourite. I do love a bit of cucumber (normally with Hendricks though!).

I think if you were determined to make the change to a healthier lifestyle and were keen to introduce raw juice to your diet then the convenience of these drinks is the real winner, and I'm sure I would get used to their taste if I stuck with it.

I thought the kids drinks were much more palatable, and I'm glad that they were enjoyed by the little ones, the youngest in particular.

It's certainly something that I would consider buying for them in the future, and I may even start throwing the odd vegetable into the smoothies we make ourselves here in the Glasgow Mummy kitchen.

We were sent complimentary juices and smoothies to try in exchange for an honest review. Opinions as always are my own.

{Ideas for the Activities with the Kinder}

The title says it all really! The kids and I have loads of fun painting, drawing, playing with Lego, Play Doh, gardening, jumping on the trampoline, baking cakes etc., but sometimes it's handy to have a few activities up your sleeve that don't take much organising and that will pass the time for half an hour or so whilst dinner cooks or whatever.

Here are some of the suggestions that I've come up with, lots others can be found on my Ideas board on Pinterest. Do come and say Hello and check out my other boards whilst you're there :)

Start with a magazine or newspaper clipping and let the child expand the picture. Genius! From artmommie.blogspot.com

We love Cheerios and we love the birds that visit our garden. What better idea than these Cheerio bird feeders from happyhooligans

Marble races with a pool noodle or you could construct a track out of toilet & kitchen rolls. This idea is from myhomespunthreads.blogspot.com

And whilst you're out with the marbles, why not try and spot of marble painting? theschoolsupplyaddict.com

Make colourful salt dough ornaments, from two-daloo.com

I've got a number of heart decorations hanging here and there in the house, and it would be nice to replace these with some homemade ones :)

Trace your outline and decorate. Looks great! From passionatehomemaking.com

You'll also find some other ideas over on an older post of mine, here.

What are your go-to activities for entertaining little ones?

{Disney on Ice is coming to Glasgow}

I am yet to take my little ones to the cinema, theatre or the like and so when the opportunity came up to review the newest Disney on Ice show, Worlds of Fantasy, at Glasgow's Hydro I of course said yes!

The show is coming to Glasgow's Hydro on 27th - 30th March 2014 and looks set to be a great performance.

Produced by Feld Entertainment, Disney on Ice presents Worlds of Fantasy... a captivating adventure taking Disney lovers (like me and the kids!) across the auto-racing terrain of Cars, Andy's bedroom for some Toy Story 3 fun, under the sea with Ariel from The Little Mermaid and into Tinker Bell's mystical Pixie Hollow.

The excitement begins when Mickey Mouse embarks on his adventure with Minnie (who else!?) to uncover each world of fantasy, but their plan goes awry when their car breaks down. Donald Duck and Goofy try to fix it, but it takes the assistance of the coolest Cars on ice to get it working again!

Worlds of Fantasy offers the perfect combination of elements for fans of Disney On Ice. “From the contemporary feel of Cars and Toy Story 3 to the timeless quality of The Little Mermaid and Tinker Bell, audiences will see four completely different Disney worlds brought to life,” says producer Kenneth Feld. “All of this provides a value that is truly unparalleled in the world of live family entertainment. More than ever before, there’s something for everyone.”

I can't wait!

The facts about the show are really interesting too...

• Each life size car took 2,000 man-hours to build
• It takes over 12 hours to set up the show at each new site
• 13 production trucks are used to take this show from city to city
• There are 79 different paint colours in the show

Under the sea!

(The hilarious thing is that I still have that exact shirt for my Ken doll!!!!!)

Tinker Bell and the other fairies

{Trick or Treacle recipes with Lyle's}

I was sent this adorable 'Trick or Treacle' retro tin of treacle from Lyle's today. Isn't it cute!! There was also a helping of Spooky Popcorn Clusters for us to try and it was yummy.

Here are some recipes for you to try:

Lyle's Witch's Severed Fingers

{Ingredients}

125g plain flour (plus extra for rolling)

95g unsalted butter

110g mature Cheddar, grated

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp salt

1tsp Lyle's black treacle

1/2 tsp boiling water

24 flaked almonds

You will also need 2 baking trays lined with parchment paper.

{Method}

Preheat oven to 190 deg C (Fan oven 170) / 375 deg F or Gas mark 5.

Mix flour & butter in food processor for 20-30 sec until they resemble fine breadcrumbs.

Add cheese, cayenne and salt and pulse until dough is formed.

Transfer to lightly floured surface and knead to make smooth dough.

Chill for 20 minutes (cuppa perhaps?).

Roll dough to make a rectangle and cut into 24 strips.

Transfer to the baking trays.

Round the tops of each strip into a fingertip shape.

Brush the tips with a little warm water and press and almond 'nail' into the tip.

Put the treacle into a small bowl and stir in the boiling water.

Brush each 'nail' with the treacle mixture.

Score shallow 'knuckle' lines in each finger and bend it in places to make it look knobbly.

Bake on the top and middle shelves for 10-12 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool.

Lyle's Spooky Popcorn Clusters

{Ingredients}

100g microwave sweet popcorn

185g unsalted butter

110g Lyle's black treacle

275g light soft brown sugar

2 tbsp Halloween sprinkles

{Method}

Microwave the popcorn according to instructions.

Combine butter, treacle, sugar in a large pan and stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved.

Bring to the boil without stirring until the mixture reaches 149-154 dec C. If you don't have a thermometer you can check it is ready by dropping a tsp into a bowl of cold water. It should harden instantly and when removed be brittle and easy to break. If not, carry on boiling.

Carefully pour the treacle caramel over the popcorn, scatter with Halloween sprinkles and using two large spoons quickly stir it all together before the caramel cools and sets.

Spoon into clusters onto a baking tray and leave to cool and harden.

{Ikea - October Holiday Activities}

The other night I was at Ikea Glasgow to pick up a desk and some shelving for my new office space - I had to get organised you see before the BT engineer came along.

I think Ikea can be a bit like Marmite, you either love it or hate it. Unlike Marmite, I do actually like Ikea. The opening hours are good, there is plenty of parking, the restaurant is totally family friendly and I've found the staff to be pretty helpful. I also don't mind doing a bit of DIY and assembling flat pack furniture!

Next week for the October holidays, Ikea Glasgow are running a series of free workshops and entertainment in their restaurant area.

I thought I'd share the details with you here in case you fancied popping along. Unless stated otherwise, the workshops are running from 11.30am until 4pm:

Monday 14th October
Storytelling and drawing a story
Face painting (from 10am - 4pm)

Tuesday 15th October
Colouring in with the Woodland Trust and making robots

Wednesday 16th October
Playing ping pong and cake decorating workshops

Thursday 17th October
Storytelling and Halloween games
Magician (from 10am - 4pm)

Friday 18th October
Giggle yoga
Balloon modeller (from 10am - 4pm)

What do you have planned for the October holidays?

{Is it okay for my toddlers to see me naked?}

At the moment, my children (son aged 4 years and daughter aged 2 and a bit years) see me naked in the mornings as I'm getting showered and dressed.

I've started to wonder at what point should I be covering up. The general consensus at work was that when my son starts school I should be more careful with my nakedness because he'll tell everyone else and it may become an issue. (Not sure if I've mentioned the Barbie story, but he said to me the other week "Mum, you look just like Barbie apart from you've got nipples"!!).

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I do own a bath robe / dressing gown / house coat (whatever you want to call it!) but I rarely wear it. I only wear my house coat in the house when I'm cold, hence why I would call it a house coat. I don't tend to wear it when I'm getting dressed.

Let me stress here that I don't walk about naked for long, and it's only in the mornings as I go from the shower to my bedroom to get dressed. So we're talking all of 15 minutes or so.

I'm really self-conscious about my body and part of my reason to not cover up was to try and teach the kids that they should accept their body and not be ashamed of it. If they ask me questions, then I try and answer them as best as I can and for the most part we've been calling body parts by their proper names (although we've been using "front bottom" instead of the v-word!). 

My son has stripped off a couple of times whilst in our house during the day, and once or twice it's been when my friends have been round. The other male 4 year old joined in and the two of them were jumping around like lunatics on the trampoline, whilst the 4 year old girls looked on in disgust!! But that's just boys, right? 

I'm thinking now is also a good time to start talking to them about "The Underwear Rule". The statistics are frightening... 1 in 20 children in the UK have been sexually abused. My son has absolutely no stranger danger and he's super confident about talking to anyone and everyone when we're out and about. I don't want to scare him or affect his confidence either... what's the best approach for these chats??

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

PANTS - The Underwear Rule

{Messy Play}

Messy play is a few of my friends worst nightmares, but I'm all for it! I love to let the toddlers get creative with paint, glitter and glue and we are very messy bakers with flour and sugar everywhere!

This week my eldest had one of his friends over for lunch & a play, and I set up some messy play for them.

My inspiration came from Pinterest, as always!, and the two boys were very excited when I said we were going to create a foaming car wash.

I've seen lots of reference to Tuff Spots, but on seeing them in B&Q that morning I decided to get two slightly smaller trays which were just as sturdy from the gardening section - easier to store!

I set up one tray with baking soda and the other I filled with water. After letting them shunt their cars about in the 'snow' we then added some vinegar.

The baking soda started to fizz and expand, but it didn't last long and to be honest we were all rather disappointed.

Thankfully, I had also purchased a cheap canister of shaving cream which we squirted into the tray instead. It worked a treat and the three kiddies had great fun.

from What Do We Do All Day? blog

A recent email from Galt Toys has prompted this blog post. I don't think it will come as a shock to find out that technology has had a negative impact on some children's playtime at home and apparently playtime with mum and dad is less than an hour a day. The statistics are quite frightening. 

I've never owned a tablet or laptop computer and rarely spend time on my iMac whilst the children are awake. (I admit that I'm known to send the odd tweet, upload the occasional photo to Facebook or check my emails whilst they're around, but I'm not glued to my iPhone). I made the mistake initially of letting my son play with my iPhone, but he now does not get to use it. I do have some toddler friendly apps downloaded and would use them if necessary to keep him amused but only as a last resort, for example if we had a long wait at the GP surgery.

I definitely believe that traditional playtime is better.

"A parent is a child's first teacher"

You'll find me running round the house or garden on 'missions' or we're escaping from imaginary monsters. We're jumping up and down in fits of giggles on the trampoline or we're at the kitchen table with paints and Play-Doh. 

Don't get me wrong, I do think that technology has it's place. We will occasionally sit at the 'big computer' and watch some short videos on YouTube - number songs usually - and we also watch CBeebies or Disney DVDs for quiet time when we've had hectic days and we all need a rest.

What are your thoughts?

{Guest Post: Children's Party Ideas}

It is my littlest's birthday in just under two weeks time! Hard to believe but she's going to be two... yikes! Where did the time go?

Anyway, this guest post from Air Inflatables, a leading UK bouncy castle sales specialist, has come at a good time as it has five fun & affordable children's party ideas.

Children love to be creative and it’s hard when you’re on a budget to provide them with activities to ensure they have fun at the party, it’s particularly difficult to keep a group of children entertained for extended periods of time too – that’s where we come in!

Here are 5 creative yet affordable ideas to keep your children entertained at their party:

Egg Decoration

Egg decoration is an old favourite that doesn’t need to be confined to Easter! It’s simple and can be very cheap too. You need a pack of eggs - free range eggs are bigger and better quality but if your budget is tight then buy a pack of chef’s eggs from the supermarket, they’re very cheap and come in large quantities! Then you need to hard boil the eggs; pop them in a pan of cool water with a tablespoon of vinegar and half a teaspoon of salt in and gently bring them to the boil (this will help to avoid cracking) then boil them for around 2 minutes, take off the heat, cover and leave for approximately 12-15 minutes. Then remove the eggs from the pan and place in a bowl of ice water to cool down, cover in a container and when they’ve cooled pop them in the fridge ready for the party. All you need now are some paints, maybe some simple colours for hair and eyes, and then get the kids to paint the eggs, this could be themselves a superhero or a princess - the possibilities are endless!

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Make your own pizza

Another fun food favourite - why not get a few readymade pizza bases from the supermarket , these shouldn’t be much more than 1 or 2 pounds and as well as great value they also come with cooking instructions on the back of the pack. Spread the base with a basic sauce; we recommend passata for a tomato sauce but you could use barbeque or even pesto. Then cover with the toppings you desire, this could be ham, pepperoni, mushrooms or mozzarella. You can literally let the kid’s imaginations run wild with this activity and you don’t need to worry about lunch either as they have arranged it for you!

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Pot a plant

We love this idea, all you need is a bag of soil (or soil from the garden) a pack of plastic party cups and some seeds. For our example we’ve picked a French breakfast radish which look great and don’t need transferring to a garden. Get your plastic cup and fill it with soil, leave an inch space at the top to avoid overflow then place a radish seed a half inch deep. Let the children know to water the plants a little every couple of days (not to put too much in) and after around 30 days the radish should poke out from the soil and be ready to eat - easy, simple and fun!

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Bouncy castles

Bouncy castles can seem to be a more expensive item at a party but we’ve found that if you have a search of your local dealers you can pick them up from as little as £45 for a couple of hours or £50 for the day which is a huge bargain considering the amount of time the children will spend on it. We think that a couple of hours is great for working up and appetite for lunch or towards the end of the party so they are ready to relax in front of a film before their parents pick them up. 

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Pencil Stationery

Another great arts and crafts activity is to buy a big pack of pencils online, it’s really simple to get bulk packs and they aren’t too pricey either (24 pencils for £2 on eBay), then get a used plastic bottle and some PVA glue, spread the glue over the bottle and stick the pencils to it with the rubbers on the bottom and the points facing upwards (make sure they’re not sharp!) then leave the pots to dry and they can now be used as stationary holders. This is a really handy activity that gets the children a useful gift and may even get them interested in their school work!

That’s our ideas for some fun and affordable children’s party ideas; the best part of it is that you don’t even need to make party bags as they’ve made their own gifts during the day! Even though you may be faced with a lot of clearing up, we think these activities are great, but we’d also like to hear what affordable, fun and creative ideas you have too so please leave any comments below.

Watch this space to see what we did in the Glasgow Mummy house for the littlest's birthday :-)

{January Joy - 25th Jan}

The #JanuaryJoy prompt for today is 'do something/go somewhere you have never been before...'. 

Hmmmm..... this certainly got me thinking!!

What could I realistically do that I haven't done before?? *puts thinking cap on* (and wheesht you all with the dirty minds!!!!)

Today is Burn's Night and I've never hosted a Burn's Supper before, but it's sort of short notice to organise something... next year perhaps!

I'm reckoning I should try and do something Scottish to celebrate Robert Burns so I think this morning the kids and I will bake some shortbread. This is something I've never done before, but it's one of my resolutions to bake/cook more with the children and I've managed quite a few things in January so far.

 

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We're also going to a friend's for lunch so it would be nice for us to have something homemade to take with us. 

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If we can get a recipe that works, perhaps this will solve the problem of what to put with the heart straws for our Valentine's Day favours!

Next week is the last week of Florence Finds #JanuaryJoy - I've really enjoyed it and Rebecca's prompts have certainly got me thinking. Just 4 more to go... can you believe January is nearly over already!?!

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