Must Have For Mums - Gro-Egg

Worried about the temperature of your babies bedroom? The Gro Company have many products but the one we have found so easy to use and brilliant is their Gro-Egg.

The Gro-Egg not only tells you the temperature of the room, but it shows you! It can light up in four different colours. Blue will tell you it's cold in the room, yellow means it's a good temperature, orange means it's a bit warm and red means it's too hot. Easy! Not only that but it has a funky and modern look to it and makes a simple but effective night light too.

You can find this product in Mothercare, but Amazon have it at a much lower price right now.

Must Have For Mums - Ikea POÄNG Armchair

Are you considering getting a feeding chair for the nursery? You will be in for a shock when you see the prices! But do not worry as there is a cheaper option to buying a £150 rocking chair. Ikea have saved the day with their POÄNG series of Armchairs, perfect for feeding your baby in as they are comfortable and you can gently bounce it to rock your baby in your arms for those nasty nights.

The POÄNG series of armchairs has a modern and simple look to them and have been pointed out by other mums as being a really good and cheaper alternative to a nursing chair. They start at much lower cost then a nursing chair (which I will point out are comfy, but I simply cannot afford one!) at just £60.60 for the chair and cover and you can buy an extra cover for less than £15 or higher if you would like something a bit more fancy. They are also lightweight and fairly simple to put together. We have ours next to the cot and use it for the bedtime feed and if nothing gets him back to sleep then I'll set up shop there in our POÄNG and let him cuddle up to me until he settles down. And for someone who suffers with a bad back I can say this chair really does help due to it's unique shape. If you don't mind paying a little more for the rocking chair version you their starting prices are £90.90 and go up depending on the design you would like. But the cheap version can still be gently bounced and Baby Al seems to find it soothing. There is also a stool to go with the POÄNG chairs, which starts at £16.33 and goes up depending on the fabric. A nice little extra option to consider so you can put your feet up and relax.

We were actually fairly lucky in how we got hold of ours. My parents bought one back when there was only one version of the chair and decided as they had moved house and gotten new sofas in their living room that they would like to go a bit fancy and get a leather POÄNG that went with the sofas. In the end they bought a whole new one and offered the original one to us. It's the very basic one with the very cheap white cover, but I don't care much for the colour, heck at least white goes with both a boy and girl room!

Must Have For Mums - Ice Cube Trays

Ice cube trays are the greatest thing ever for a busy parent who has a hungry child. Some days just flash right past you and before you know it, dinner time is here. Ice cube trays in your freezer are brilliant and will save you so much hassle.

So what am I talking about, you ask? Well if you a simple ice cube tray then stop wasting it on frozen water you will probably only put in a drink in the summer time! When your child isn't around, is in bed or when you have the time just start cooking some vegetables on their own. You can cook some carrot in one pot and potato in the other then tomorrow perhaps do peas or lentils. You can then pureé or mash these up and put each vegetable in their own separate cubes. Once they are frozen all you have to do is squeeze one of each vegetable cube out, defrost them and either leave it as an all veggie meal or you can add some cooked meat that perhaps you are currently making for the adults and just mash/blend this in with the ready vegetables. I find the silicone trays to work real well as it's easy to pop the food out into a bowl compared to the plastic ones where you have to knock them about and you may end up with a veggie you didn't want popping out! And remember you don't have to buy one that say "baby" on them, any ice tray will do the trick!

Must Have For Mums - Mothercare Medicine Dispenser

When our son went through his first teething pain he was pretty upset about it all and we turned to the well known teething gel. This has got to be the biggest waste of time and money ever as any parent will tell you their child will simply lick it off and the numbing effect that it should give on the gum doesn't stand a chance. Baby Al would suck the gel right off my finger, all because I blinked for a second! So our back up plan was some Calpol. We bought the two months old and over stuff and tried giving it to him using the spoon but he didn't understand and most of the time just choked. It was a bother and we felt awful hearing our boy crying due to the pains he was having to go through

But then one day I saw this little gadget and grabbed it straight away! And it is the most used and most handy product I have ever bought. The only issue I have with it is you cannot sterilise it in the microwave, only cold water. I learnt that from doing rather than reading! Of course this works much better when baby is on their back otherwise doesn't get all of the medicine and also just fill it up with spit, the reason he's sat up on the photograph is simply to show it off and leave me free to take the picture. I do think this is well worth the £5.99 price tag.

Tricks of the Trade

Some people have asked me how the hell do I have time to cook my own baby food and blend them. Well for one I tend to do large batches of at least four portions, freeze them until they are required and then they I just left to defrost until the time comes to eat. However even cooking these batches of tasty meals can be troublesome for a parent. Some days your child will not be calm and easy to handle and there will be moments whilst cooking they will scream because you dare walk one step away from them. So here's some helpful things for all busy mothers or fathers as well as families who wish to save a bit of money where possible.

Morphy Richards Slow Cooker
on Amazon for £24.99

• Slow Cooker - We bought this when I was pregnant and made large portions of meals for dinner then put anything left over into the fridge or freezer and eat it over the next few days. It's so easy as you just put everything in and leave it be. You can use it for making baby food or even food for the whole family to enjoy! You can find some Slow Cookers at a decent price and they are really worth having in your kitchen.
• Small Plastic Pots - They don't even have to be the ones you can find in baby sections of the Supermarket. You can buy real cheap small tubs that are perfect for storing baby food and are usually very cheap compared to baby branded ones. These are perfect for storing all the food you just made for your little one in your freezer, specially ones that ideally stack on top of one another.
• Ready-made Sauces - I admit... I don't make my own sauces for baby as they can sometimes take too long and also the ingredients list can be stuff we normally don't stock in our cupboards or would cost loads just to buy them all. Companies such as Heinz have a baby club and sell pouches of sauces, including a Three Cheese Sauce which is perfect for broccoli and cauliflower. It's always good to sneak in some of those greens!
• Ready-made Milk - As our son is now 8 months old he's only on three bottles a day, including his night time feed. I do my best to keep on top of making his bottles but if I'm in a pickle or have to go out suddenly and not got the time to make and keep a bottle warm then simply having a few ready-made cartons on hand really does the trick. They aren't cheap but if you just have two or three on stand-by or to give the grandparents when they have your child for a few hours then they are a great thing to keep around in your kitchen.
• Local Markets - This is something I do for two reasons. For one I find I can spend £1 on a small amount of vegetables in stores compared to at my town's market where I can sometimes get a great deal and get double what the supermarket would sell. The other reason is they tend to have fresh local vegetables and you are helping local farmers.
• Re-usable Bags - Keep a few of these with you when going out. I normally have two under the pushchair just incase I end up buying something. At first I was always forgetting to keep some on me and would find myself piling up on plastic bags, but now they are always on hand!
• Finger Foods - Sometimes you are just busy trying to cook or doing some cleaning and little one won't  let you get on with it. It's close to meal time so why not place a few finger foods onto the highchair  table? Organix have a great selection of tasty snacks to keep your baby interested without filling them up too much before their meal is ready, giving you the time to get on with what you're doing. You can also cut banana into sticks. Slices were too slippery for my son to hold and he found the feel of this in his hands to bit gross. The outside part of a banana isn't wet and slippery so sticks are great! Any left over banana you can enjoy as part of a healthy diet!