BabaBooty.comFab finds for funky tots

Clean Up Clean Up Everybody Everywhere…..

Every child has a ton of small stuff that needs to be tidied away and stored – matchbox cars, dolls clothes, building blocks, train set pieces the list could go on and on. The obvious answer to this issue is a storage container of one kind or another. For the most part such containers are wicker, canvas or some kind of very plain plastic – not terribly inspiring. Well, here’s something to change all of that – check out these funky alternatives to the usual drab storage solutions:

These giant Lego storage boxes come in four different sizes: large (with 8 Lego knobs on), medium (with 4 Lego knobs on), small (with 2 Lego knobs on) and the smallest version with a single Lego knob. They come in lots of colours and can be stacked together just like real Lego. They look so great that they would be a funky addition to any playroom or baba’s bedroom. I’m going to get a few for Mr Moo’s bedroom, my only problem is deciding which size and colour combination to get.

Amusingly, you can also get a storage box in the shape of the celebrated Lego head – I’m not sure if I fancy the idea of a big yellow head sitting on a shelf in my house (those eyebrows have always kind of freaked me out…) but it is a design classic and a bit of fun. The boxes range from £22.99 for the largest box to £6.99 for the smallest. Say good bye to wicker baskets and canvas boxes for ever !

This is a post that I have been meaning to write for a long time as I wanted to share a few gems of experience.

It’s almost been a year since Mr Moo wore his last nappy and even now, when I say the phrase ‘potty training’ a shudder still goes down my spine as I recall the number of times I tried to make the phrase “no, mammy isn’t cross, it was just an accident…” sound convincing. I’m gonna be honest with you, potty training is a really stressful time for parents (though hopefully it shouldn’t be for your baba!). As you put on the twelfth clean pair of little boxers in one day and read the back of the Milton spray to see if you can use it on car upholstery you wonder if this potty training lark really is worth it. How bad would it be if your baba is still wearing nappies as he or she heads off to university??

Well, I can’t tell you where you can buy more of the patience that you need to successfully train your baba nor am I really in a position to give counsel on the best way to go about the training itself (after all, one boxer short wearing son doesn’t exactly qualify me to dole out advice.), but what I can do is tell you where to buy the things that I found really helpful during the transition from nappy to potty!

Obviously, the most important thing that you need is a potty. You might think that one potty is pretty much the same as another but, believe me, they are not all the same. I know this because on one outing to my local supermarket, I popped a €4.99 potty into the trolley thinking that it would be a useful thing to have upstairs in Mr Moo’s bedroom  (our main potty lived downstairs and I didn’t fancy having to run up and down the stairs with it everyday). I was delighted at the bargain basement price and skipped upstairs to install Mr Moo’s new ‘en-suite’ in his room. Later that night, after bargain-potty’s first use, I discovered the pitfalls of poor potty purchasing! I brought the ‘full’ potty into the bathroom and nonchalantly attempted to empty it’s contents into the toilet…… I’m not going to go into too much detail but suffice to say a spillage ensued and the anti-bacterial spray, wipes and handwash all got an unexpectedly lengthy outing that night!! It turned out that the poor design of bargain-potty meant that it was impossible to empty with any accuracy.

So what potty would I recommend? The best potty we found was the Babybjorn Potty Chair:

This potty has a number of things going for it:

1. It is comfortable to use. The potty chair has a high back and arm rests which allow your baba to sit very comfortably. The potty itself is also at an ideal height. You wouldn’t want to tinkle with your knees banging into your ears and neither would your baba so avoid all those very low potties. In the early days of training your baba is likely to spend prolonged periods just sitting on their potty and they won’t be encouraged to do this if it isn’t a comfortable place to be.
2. It’s easy to clean. The white section of the potty chair, which is what we might describe as the ‘business end’ of the whole thing can be lifted out easily to be emptied and cleaned.
3. It’s sturdy. You don’t need me to tell you that a steady potty is a good idea!
4. It’s simple to use. There are lots of potties out there with an array of  bells and whistles but I steered clear of them, I didn’t want Mr Moo growing up thinking that every toilet in the world would give him a round of applause or toot a horn every time he performed!

A few other things that I found really helpful for potty training are:

The BabyBjorn Safe Step is a really useful thing to have around the house. During potty training, it is perfect to raise your baba up high enough to reach the sink for handwashing. As things progress, it can also be used to help your baba reach the ‘big toilet’. More recently, Mr Moo has used his to reach all kinds of things like light switches, the fridge, things on the kitchen counter etc. There are lots of different types of step available but I like this one because it is very sturdy,  has an anti-slip rubber mat and (don’t underestimate the importance of this!) is easy to clean.

Once your baba is a proficient potty user, you will want them to move to the big toilet and the BabyBjorn Toilet Trainer makes this transition really easy. The really clever feature of this seat which differentiates it from other models is the fact that it can be fitted to the toilet seat so that it doesn’t wobble about or slip when your baba uses it. You put it onto the main toilet seat and turn a wheel until the fins on the underside of the seat are flush (excuse the pun!) with the side of the toilet thereby securing it in place. I can’t think of anything scarier for a child than feeling like they are going to fall into the toilet. We bought a different type of seat for Mr Moo to use when he was in my parent’s house (the local shop didn’t have the BabyBjorn one) and after he almost fell off a couple of times  he soon became afraid to use it…..let me tell you, fear of the toilet is not ideal during potty training!

The last thing I’m going to recommend is the Potette Plus Travel Potty:

This really is a must have if you ever plan on leaving your house after your baba stops wearing nappies. It’s a small but usable plastic travel potty which folds down into an easily transportable size.  You line the Potette  with special liners (which are, effectively, nappy bags with an absorbent lining) which you can then remove, seal by tying and throw in the nearest bin. A clean and easy way for your baba to go to the toilet when you are out and about.  I keep ours in the car and it gets used all the time, particularly on the motorway when Mr Moo (despite having told me fifteen times before we left the house that he didn’t need to go) suddenly shouts out “Mammy, I need a wee!” when there isn’t a toilet anywhere within a 10 mile radius. You could also keep it under your pram or in your changing bag. A pack of 10 liners is really reasonable and the potty and the liners are all stored in a handy drawstring carrier bag.

Well, now you are physically equipped for potty training…..you just have to get mentally ready!

Decals (wallstickers to you and I) are, in my humble opionion, the cheapest and smartest way to transform your baba’s room. The cleverest ones are re-useable so that you can move them around without taking a layer of your carefully applied non-toxic emulsion with you! We have a number of decals in our house but one of our favourites is the Kidslab alphabet.

This is a set of re-usable really funky alphabet, number and animal decals which can be used to write your baba’s name, age or favourite words on their wall. We have used ours to put Mr Moo and Lollipop’s names above their beds and they look really gorgeous. Luckily we were able to get both names from one set and had enough left over to send my little nephew (Little T) the letters for his name too but be sure to check if there are enough of the letters you need in one set (see above) –  there are at least two versions of most letters with more versions of the vowels. You can always be clever and use one letter as another (i.e. ‘d’ for ‘p’, ‘u’ for ‘n’ etc) which may stretch one set a little further. The set also includes a number of animals and other characters (stars, hearts and dots) which can be used to embellish your words so let your artistic side go wild!

We have also placed a line of the numbers from 1 to 10 on the wall in Mr Moo’s room. As well as looking great, they are helping him with his counting – educational as well….result!  At €29.75 per set, this is a really economical way to decorate your baba’s room. Laurence Llewelyn Bowen eat your heart out!

Mr Moo always has slept in complete darkness but a few months ago he started talking about monsters in his bedroom (I’m not sure where that came from??). I hated the idea of him being frightened in his room and wanted to teach those pesky monsters a lesson so I decided to get a night light for him. There are buckets of night lights to chose from but in the end, as Mr Moo is animal obsessed, I opted for the Elephant Glow Light Mobile (pictured below). Its a really nice set of three accryllic elephants which are lit up by LEDs that slowly change colour. The different colours provide different levels of brightness but I really like the overall effect. They are battery operated (3 AAA batteries) and at £14 are really good value. You can also get a horse, butterfly or fish version.

But if your baba is not an elephant fanatic then there are plenty of other night lights out there to chose from. Here are the ones which made it onto my shortlist:

The Babytec Autofade night light is definitely a function over form option, lets face it, it’s not exactly beautiful. However, while you are unlikely to find it on the pages of a Danish design magazine it is clever. It is a conventional on/off lamp (which is operated by touch) but it also has an automatic fade function. When activated, this fade function gradually dims the lamp over a 15 minute period until it is completely off. I think that this is a really useful feature as it means you can leave the light on at bedtime and allow it to fade while your baba drifts off without you then having to sneak into their bedroom to turn it off (we’ve all woken up our babas trying to sneak into their room after they have dozed off…who leaves those squeaky toys on the floor???). At £21.99 it won’t break the bank so it might be worth giving this one a go.

Twilight Turtle isn’t exactly the cutest sea creature you’ll ever see but his secret is that he looks better in the dark. Once the lights are off, the plastic shell of this turtle projects a starry night sky onto the walls and ceiling of your baba’s room. Who wouldn’t want to go to sleep under the stars? This clever little turtle also has an educational side, amongst his starry projections are 8 actual constellations which you and your child can pick out (don’t worry you don’t have to be Patrick Moore, he comes with an illustrated Twilight Turtle Star Guide!).  He comes in at £27.99 and is operated by 3 AAA batteries. Usefully he also has an energy saving time out function.

This Toadstool is the budget buy of the list, at £3.79 it’s the recession-night-light. It is a compact 9cm high and is operated by 3 LR44 batteries which are included. The light itself uses energy efficient LED lights and has an on/off switch on the base. It has no wires which means that you can position it anywhere but it has no fade out function so that does mean the treacherous tiptoe across the bedroom mentioned above.

If cool looks are important to you and you want to go all out, these funky Candeloo Eco Lights are safe low energy night lights which are rechargeable (simply place them back on the base to charge). Their funky looks and tactile design would delight any child, in fact, I’d quite like a set of these myself. Plus they are mobile so they make the perfect companion for any of those scary middle of the night bathroom visits. At £49 they are a little steep but you get a pair of lights for that and the fact that they are rechargeable does mean a saving on batteries…..I can feel my budget-conscious resolve weakening…..

Now this is clever!

Grobag have created a duvet set which aids the tranistion between cot and bed. They have designed a bedding set which contains a fitted sheet and duvet which zip together. This ingeniously simple design essentially fufils two functions. First, it means that your tot can’t kick off their blankets (this is especially useful if they are used to sleeping in a Grobag where they could kick and turn as much as they liked without fear of loosing the covers). Second, and more importantly, it stops your toddler from rolling out of their new bed: no parent wants to be woken by the sound of their child hitting the floor….I imagine that distraught and bruised toddlers are not easy to get back to sleep !! This means you don’t need to buy a specialised bed with a barrier or invest in those rather cumbersome bed guards. The pillowcase is also attached to the fitted sheet which prevents the pillow from moving. The pillowcase for the cotbed size is quite small but we didn’t use a pillow when Mr Moo was in his cot and  the single bed version has a standard size pillowcase.

The set comes in two sizes, cotbed or single bed size. I bought both for Mr Moo. First he made the transition from Grobag to  a duvet while still sleeping in his cot and then I moved him to his ‘Big-Boy-Bed’. Having read that these moves sometimes cause huge upset to a child I was prepared for some upheaval but he took to using this bedding and ultimately his new bed without any difficulty. He doesn’t kick off the blankets (and he is a wriggler in bed) and he has been contained safely in his bed each night.

You can buy special duvets for both size sets which have buttons that clip the duvet to its cover to prevent the duvet moving but I have used a normal single duvet without any difficulties. There are a number of different designs to chose from.  As Mr Moo is obsessed with animals, he has the Cheeky Monkey version (pictured above) and he loves it Prices start at £44.95 for the cotbed size and £49.95 for the single bed size..

A success (and resulting good night’s sleep) for all concerned !