by iamcrabstix | Sep 20, 2019 | general parenting
I wasn’t planning on sending my first to a nursery, but a fantastic one opened up close to where we live and I was sure it was going to have a waiting list when people found out about it. It was everything his Dad and I wanted for him; to enjoy being a child, to be outside and to have play at the heart of everything… so we put him for 15 hours per week, just before his second birthday. We did this to be sure that he’d get a place in the year he turned three and to also give him a little bit of routine for when his brother joined us last September. It didn’t quite work out as smoothly as I would have liked, but I have never regretted my decision to put my child in a nursery before the age of three, even though we didn’t need any help with childcare.
The staff have been so fantastic with him. We’ve noticed a lot of things that R needs help with, as he develops, such as his speech, confidence, attention span and all of the other brilliant things he’s given me to worry about on his three years on this earth. He has a long way to go, but he’s already come so far and a lot of that credit has to go to his key worker. I’ve never had a child before, she’s been my go-to person for questions and advice. Another member of staff, who is also a mum, has said things to me at pick up time that I really needed to hear. They weren’t prompted but telling me that he’d starting forming friendships, taking pictures of this and putting it on his tapestry account was just what I needed to hear when I’d been losing sleep about him always playing at the side of the other kids and not with them. Staff have become part of the village that I need to raise this little character. He’s started to be invited to children’s birthday parties and little things like that have given him confidence boosts where it is noticeable in his speech.
R was the first child in our family to go to nursery school before hours were available at the age of three. E will go at an even younger age than R did and although we are in a luxury position where we always have a grandparent available to look after them, I feel nursery gives them so much we simply cannot:
It helps prepare them for school
I had no idea that nursery works under the EYFS curriculum. You are able to look at the age in which your child is working in a range of areas, which will be assessed at school. As R is a summer baby, this is particularly important to us as some of the children at school are up to nine months older than him, which is a lot when they are so young.
It helps them socially
Making friends and having the ability to learn through peers has become our biggest driver for both children going to nursery. We don’t have any close friends that have children the same age as R, therefore our ability to offer him social experiences with people his own age are few and far between and this isn’t good for him. He has strong relationships with his cousins, but three of them are older and one of them is two years younger, so nursery has been crucial for this aspect of his development. It has been an area in which he has needed extra support in too as because his speech is a little later than some of the other children, this has affected his confidence and the ability to be able to form friendships.
Helps develop life skills
I’m just mum. R, until very recently, has operated an own agenda style of communication with me, I’ve been there to get him things and to provide his basic needs. There would be a mighty rage if I would try and teach him anything (I’m putting this down to his younger brother being born). He wouldn’t engage in anything such as reading (that’s for daddy), baking (grandma) and playing in the garden (everyone else). So nursery has been crucial support in helping him develop skills such as serving himself at mealtimes, using cutlery and drinking from a cup, again down to his communication styles. As his confidence has grown we’ve moved onto having a social communication style and now I’m allowed to roll down hills, play shops, sit and do phonic cards, jigsaws, role play with his house and animals. It was great to have nursery supporting that side of his development until he felt that we were all able to move between roles.
So when my baby starts nursery in January, at aged one year and three months, I won’t feel bad because I am doing it for all of the right reasons, for him and his development.
by iamcrabstix | Aug 23, 2019 | eet
I can’t believe you are already eleven months old, little man. Where has the time gone? It feels like you’ve always been here!
You are such a lovely, smiley happy little boy and your FOMO doesn’t seem to be disappearing anytime soon. You rarely cry, in fact, I think that the only time you do is when your brother takes a toy off you or we try to get you to sleep.
Sleep has been an ongoing battle with you since you were born. You don’t like to sleep much, you like to be ready for action. I do worry that you’re not getting enough quality sleep. The longest stretch of sleep you’ve ever had is five hours and that happened only once. Three seems to be optimum for you and nap times seem to be 40 minutes. Looking at anything online to do with sleep makes me worry as you don’t seem to be getting enough by any experts advice. Your awake times are so long in comparison too, you’re probably awake twice as long as you should be.
Moving forward, for both of our sakes, we’re going to have to change things as it can take between one and a half and two hours to get you to sleep in any kind of structured routine time. Hopefully, when I get the chance to look at building a sleep plan with Nicole who is a baby sleep consultant, we should both be more rested! You’ve been getting stronger on your feet for the last six weeks or so, in the past three weeks, your reluctance to go sleep has grown, so it must be related to you trying to master new skills!
You now have eight teeth, with at least another two imminent as you are really struggling and have your hands constantly in your mouth. You refuse to use any kind of official teething toy, but will quite happily put anything else in your mouth to try and ease your pain. You are comfortably in aged 6-9 months clothes now and the last time you were weighed about 4 weeks ago you were 18lbs 2oz. So you’re still teeny tiny for your age. I’m not sure why as you seem really long to me, but you must have petit features. You still feel really squidgy. You have the softest, most beautiful skin and still have little rolls, which are just the cutest. The ones on your wrists seem to be disappearing and where they were on your wrists is lilly white compared to the rest of your arm!
We still haven’t found much that you will not eat. However, you do seem to be showing a great enjoyment of eating everyone else’s food, even if you have the exact same thing on your plate. You dart over to anyone who you can see eating and point at their food, letting them know that you want some. Or in my case, just take it off me. You like to be treated exactly the same as your cousins and brother, despite them being a lot older than you. So you protest if they get ice cream and you don’t, to the point that you will just take theirs.
You recently tried shoes on for the first time and hated them. You would not stand up, you were sat glued to the floor trying to work out how to get them off of your feet for the entire time. It is the most I have known you sit still since you could crawl and you have refused any attempt of trying to put them on your feet since. I tried them on as you are on your tiptoes, I was told shoes would help and since you seem to be so desperate to walk, I thought this may help.
Your relationship with your brother just gets stronger and stronger, although you’ve already learned how to annoy each other, pretty well. You have started to show that you’re not an easy target and will simply accept him taking toys from you anymore. There have at times been instances where I have seen you try to bite his hands when he has been trying to prize something away from you, I’ll be honest, I’m quite impressed! I don’t want you to be pushed around because you’re little and I don’t think you’re going to allow that to happen!
You share a love for music with your brother and you both love bashing the pots and pans. We usually only have to say or show you something once and you’ll repeat it, which blows our minds. You say HIYA to everyone you meet and wave goodbye too. You know Dada, Mama, Cat and you can call for the cat and you still call your brother HUH, but we always know what that sound means. You’re very good at pointing to what you want, letting people know when you want to be picked up and when you are hungry. You’re so very different to your brother and I love that as every experience with you is like having a baby for the first time again.
We recently went away for the night to CBeebies Land Hotel and to the rides at Alton Towers, you made this experience so much better than I could have ever expected. You and your brother were absolutely in your elements. We thought you’d just sit in your pushchair and enjoy looking at everything, but you absolutely embraced everything. You were at the front of the performances with the older kids, enjoying the rides, watching the entertainment in the hotel and getting your picture taken with your favourite characters. You absolutely loved the In the Night Garden ride and your little face when you saw the characters was brilliant. I underestimated how much this experience would be for you as you’ve only watched TV fleetingly and your brother pretty much dictates that you must like Bing because it is always on!
You recently had your first sleepover at Grandma’s House and you had her up as much as you have me up during the night! So we are going to do that a little more often than once every 11 months as I think our feeding journey may be coming to an end soon due to us both needing a little more sleep and me returning to work in a few months time. I can’t believe we made it this far, although I do wish sometimes that you would take a dummy instead of trying to use me as one!
Excited to see what you will get up to ahead of our next update!
by iamcrabstix | Aug 19, 2019 | general parenting
When looking into childcare options for RLT, I noticed that childcare vouchers were soon to be unavailable to new applicants (October 2018). As I was already pregnant with our second child, I decided to head straight to opening a tax-free childcare account, so that I would only have to manage my childcare payments in one place further down the line.
What is tax-free childcare?
Tax free childcare is a system available in the UK where the government will give you £2 for every £8 you spend on childcare via a tax-free childcare account if you are earning (typically this is looking ahead to the next three months and you’d expect to earn at least £1,707.68 – the National Living Wage for people over 25, to qualify).
As my partner and I both work full-time, but we earn under £100,000 each, we qualify for this.
This is how I have found using the tax free childcare account system:
Simple to set up
The process was all completely online and I managed to do it in less than the twenty minutes specified, I just needed a few simple details about my national insurance number, employer and likewise for my partner.
You can only have one account for your child
If more than one person pays for childcare, you would need to use the one account, which only one parent can apply for. There is a sort code and account number you can provide for other people to add money to the account, there is also the option to make a card payment when you log in.
Logging in can be a bit of a pain
Every time I log into the government portal, it sends me a text message and I can’t proceed any further until I add in the code, it says that this code is valid for 7 days, but every time I log in, I get another code. It sometimes provides an error message too when I sign in, the government portals can definitely be more user-friendly, but they’re secure and during office hours they’re very good at responding to issues on twitter.
It takes a few days for the money to hit the account of your childcare provider
I have been able to automate my payments, so I have a standing order that leaves my bank account, hits my tax-free childcare account, gets topped up and then goes back out to my childcare provider (who has to be set up to take tax-free childcare, our nursery found the process of getting set up difficult and slow because they weren’t sent letters with codes on that were promised, this lost me around £180 in top-ups!). The process of my standing order hitting my tax-free childcare account tends to take 48 hours, it is topped up automatically and tends to take about four working days to get to our nursery when my balance is showing that the payment has been made. So please make your payments in advance of your nursery invoice due dates to be sure.
You will have to reconfirm your financial situation every three months
You will be prompted to log in and confirm your financial situation to ensure that you are still entitled to tax-free childcare. If you fail to reconfirm your entitlement will be stopped.
You can still benefit from tax-free childcare when you are on maternity leave
This was a big welcome surprise in our house! When you are reconfirming your eligibility it asks if you are earning a minimum amount per week. If like me, you’re on 12 months maternity leave and you don’t earn anything between months 9 and 12, you may think that you will not be eligible, but you are! As long as you’re on maternity leave you will get tax-free childcare (but not for the child you are on maternity leave for, which makes sense, really!)
If you have a tax-free childcare account they will automatically contact you when you are entitled to 30 hours free childcare
When I reconfirmed my situation for the last time before my child turned three years old, I had a message which advised me of his code for 30 hours free childcare and when we would be eligible to use it. I found it to be so easy and much more straightforward than I anticipated.
You can still use tax-free childcare even when using 30 hours free
If your childcare hours exceed 30 hours, you are still able to use your tax-free childcare account and top-up as required.
How much you can top-up by is capped
You can get up to £500 every 3 months (£2,000 a year) for each child. If your childcare bill is heavier in some months more than others, for instance, if your child is term-time only. You may want to be mindful of using your top-up allowance each month so that you don’t exceed the limits in some months and not use them at all in others.
by iamcrabstix | Aug 16, 2019 | Reviews, Travel
There are many places to visit with kids in County Durham, including public parks, so selecting which one to visit can sometimes be difficult. One potential option to visit is Hardwick Park in Sedgefield, which is located next to Hardwick Hall Hotel. We visit this park a lot and I would go so far as to say that Hardwick Park is up there with my all-time favourite places to visit with my children, RLT and EET. We have made a lot of memories here. Reasons I think that you should consider visiting Park in Sedgefield, include:
Educational for kids
There is a massive wicker Gruffalo at Hardwick Park, as well as the other characters, so you can do the Gruffalo trail (packs are available at the visitors’ centre). There are also toddler trails, forest school activities and many other things provided by the education team at Durham County Council. They’re very active on facebook, which seems to be the best way of finding out about events happening throughout the year.
It’s open all year
The park is even more beautiful in the winter than it is summer. Opening times of Hardwick Park in Sedgefield stay the same all year and the only fee you pay is for parking – which you don’t mind paying at all because all of the money raised by the parking charges goes into back into maintaining the park.
Fees are:
- cars – up to two hours £2.00/full day £3.00
- coaches and minibuses – all day £9.00
- motorcycles – free
- blue badge holders – charges as above
Opening times are:
- park gates – 7.30am to 8.00pm
- cafe – 10.00am to 4.00pm
- gift shop and exhibition – 10.00am to 4.00pm
Play facilities
There are two different play parks for children of various ages. One bigger than the other, both with different sets of equipment for children to enjoy. Picnic benches are also available.
There is hot coffee!
A bonus for many parents of young children is that there is a cafe in the park, meaning that you can grab a coffee for walking around! Likewise, if you wish to stay longer than you’d anticipated they do hot and cold food, including children’s packed lunch boxes. Oh and ice cream for the warmer months (or colder if like R, it’s an unwritten rule that you get one at the park!)
Lots of space to explore
You can go off the track, play amongst the leaves as well as following the paths and trails. Perfect for little explorers.
It is beautiful
Durham County Council has done a spectacular job improving this park to be one of the best in the North East. It is a Visit England quality assured visitor attraction and you can see why when you visit.
by iamcrabstix | Aug 12, 2019 | Reviews
We have been to the Cbeebies Hotel at Alton Towers twice now in just over a year, so I thought that I could offer an honest review of our experiences for other parents.
The first time we went our son was 2 years old (it was his birthday present) and the second time we went back we also had his little brother with us, RLT was 3 years and 2 months and EET was 10 months old. The second time was a last-minute treat from the boys’ Dad as there was last minute availability at the hotel and he had booked a week off work.
CBeebies Hotel Entrance and Check-in
Booking at the CBeebies Hotel provides you with the opportunity to park outside of the hotel and get the monorail to the theme park. When you pull up in the car park of the CBeebies Hotel, you can’t help be impressed with the entrance giving fun and welcoming vibes. One of the Bugbies is waiting to welcome you from an aeroplane outside of the hotel with music playing. A hotel worker will also be waiting at the door to ensure you’ve got a reservation and to direct you to check-in. You can’t go up to your room until 3 pm, but staff are more than happy to check you in, give you your room keys and take your bags up to your room for you for 3 pm. More importantly, they direct you to the toilet, as I’m guessing most people have travelled there to make use of the theme park for the day so need baby change and toilet facilities after the car journey.
The hotel foyer is impressive and instantly takes kids’ breath away with the interactive elements, bright colours and general buzz of the place. Everything is very straightforward and lifts are to the side of the foyer, toilets to the other side, restaurants in front and before that there is a musical meadow – the place where the entertainment happens up until 9.30pm from the check-in time. I did notice that the interactive storybook was not working on our second visit, the installation in the middle of the foyer used to spin and change colour, so the entrance had less of a dramatic impact this time. The musical meadow floor had started to lift so there was a strip of electrical tape holding it down right across the width of the floor, which looked rather amateur given that the pieces of vinyl on the floor were beautifully illustrated.
Hotel rooms at CBeebies Hotel
There are general CBeebies rooms within the hotel, which are the standard price or themed rooms decorated with characters from particular CBeebies programmes, which come at a premium price and are classed as suites as they sleep more than the standard rooms. We have always opted for the CBeebies rooms as our son thinks that the hotel is the CBeebies House studio from TV. The rooms are generous in size and sleep five, six if you include a little person in the provided cot, and have a separate bunk bed area from the double bed area. Again the rooms are decorated throughout, including the bathroom. Beds are comfortable, toiletries and towels are provided as are tea and coffee facilities, iron and ironing board and a bottle warmer. There is also a small fridge. The rooms are certainly getting a little run down now, our carpet was covered in what looked like bleach splats and drops of something green, which because the carpets are patterned looks even worse. We found some used tissues pushed underneath the pull-out bed, which were not ours, but otherwise, the room was immaculate.
Given that our youngest was only 10 months old on our visit, we didn’t expect that he would love it as much as he did. But he was smiling from ear to ear the moment we got to the hotel. It was fantastic to be able to have an experience that they could both enjoy given what different stages they are at developmentally.
Entertainment
The hotel entertainment is really what you pay the money for. The musical meadow is a little toddler paradise with a large tv screen which shows CBeebies programmes in between the exclusive 15 minute shows provided by the hotel entertainment team, when they are joined by CBeebies characters.
Bing, In the Night Garden, Octonauts and Postman Pat all have segments which end in a meet and greet so you can get your photograph taken with them, with the queues obviously being a lot smaller than they are in the CBeebies Land tent area where you can do the same.
There are also Swashbuckle, Andy’s amazing animals and other segments such as Let’s Dance and musical sessions which are run by the entertainment team without the characters.
Restaurant and food at CBeebies Hotel
The aesthetics of the Windmill Restaurant are great, but unfortunately, that is as much as you will be impressed. The dining experience lets the entire place down, not only is it expensive for what you get, the food is of poor quality and the menu is extremely limited. We were warned about this beforehand last year by Mark’s boss and he even wrote about his experience in his review of the grand opening of CBeebies Hotel, in which he was invited to with his family. I didn’t notice it so much last year as my vegetarian lasagne was ok, but this year we opted to get the family burgers which were £40 and the burgers tasted like they were weren’t even beef, just cheap nasty rat burgers, the buns were dry as sticks and the number of chips you got for a family of four were minimal. I think even my 10-month-old baby managed to eat what they had put together as an adult portion. The quality of the breakfast wasn’t much better. The beans were awful, the bacon incredibly dry, the sausages again tasted cheap and horrible and were covered in fat and the variety of breakfast cereals on offer, given that it was a children’s hotel were shocking. There were cornflakes or rice crispies or all other varieties covered in sugar. Service on a morning was really bad. I was shown to a table by a grunting young lady and not offered a high chair when I had a baby in my arms, but I could see every family around me had been offered that service. Service on the evening was better, but slow. Although I think the poor guy realised when our 3 year old couldn’t sit still any longer, so his Dad had to leave with him whilst I paid the extortionate £40 for the dry, horrible burgers, as he gave me a voucher for a free drink when I left. I must have looked like I needed it! I don’t have any pictures from any of the times I’ve been in the restaurant as I have obviously been preoccupied (probably by the terrible food but more than likely by my child who we struggle to get to sit and have a meal anyway).
Pricing
Hotel generally comes with 2 day passes for the park. In 2018 we paid £488 for 2 adults and 1 child for 2 nights hotel and 2 day park. In 2019 we (Mark) paid £360 2 adults 1 child and 1 infant for 1 night hotel and 2 day park. We had been pricing up for many months to take our little boy back for his birthday in June but were looking at around a £200 increase on price from last year.
My thoughts
On reflection, the hotel did not feel as busy this year as it was last year, it made the entire experience better in terms of the entertainment was less crowded and you were able to get a seat. Maybe the new price point is to provide a better level of experience through less occupancy? I don’t know, but we had a great time, both times. Even more so with the two boys enjoying different elements. I thought the baby would be too young, but he absolutely loved it, so it definitely felt better value for money for two children to enjoy at the new price point. They loved it. RLT had not stopped talking about it for an entire year, and given how little he has talked until recently, that’s a big thing so it’s definitely worth it for making memories.
The images used are a mixture of 2018 and 2019 images. All opinions are my own and not paid for.
