Candyfloss & Dreams

Category: Lifestyle

lifestyle blog posts focusing on home, lifestyle, parenting, pregnancy, family life and home and style. Home decor and working at home, working at home as a self employed freelancer and blogger. Family lifestyle blog posts including family reviews, family products and saving money as a family. Being a more eco friendly family.

Trying Out ECover ZERO Range (#AD)
With a young baby in the house one of the things I’ve been trying to do is find a washing detergent that works for all the family. I’ve recently been trying out the Ecover ZERO range thanks to recieving a sample as it’s supposed to be great for sensitive skin containing 0% fragrances and 0% colourants. I received the sample of Ecover ZERO liquid non-bio in exchange for this feature.

ecover ZERO sensitive non-bio laundry liquid contains no colours or fragrances and is suitable for sensitive and allergy prone skin.

Ideally I am wanting to be more eco concious so I’m interested in brands that have a eco consideration to them as well as products that are good all rounders for the family. Ecover ZERO is from an eco concious company, suitable for all the family and vegan friendly. The bottles are made from a minimum of 25% recycled plastic with the rest formed of PlantPlastic, which is reusable, recyclable, and renewable and reduces the need for fossil-fuel based plastic. The bottle isn’t something I could reuse personally, however, Ecover are available in a lot of refill shops which is great so it’s good to know this is a brand that can work with these small businesses to help eliminate some plastic bottle use. There is however, a box of non-bio available which is of course much more environmentally friendly.

The ZERO range has plenty more to offer too, not just detergent but a multipurpose cleaner, fabric softener and dishwasher tablets amongst others. It is good to see a good variety in these ZERO products which are designed for a greener clean and to minimalise allergies. This has been approved by Allergy UK. With the detergent we can maximise this as our washing machine has an allergy setting. No one in the home suffers with any obvious skin allergies but we do have sensitive skin and a baby to think of. I know sometimes harsh fragrances can be too much for babies and this has no fragrance added at all.

This does mean however that the clean laundry doesn’t really smell of anything. I do miss having a lovely fragrance, especially on the bedsheets but it’s not really an issue especially as theses fragrances can be quite harmfull. I was really suprised at the lack of any fragrance to be honest. Compared to other fragrance free brands this really does not have any scent whereas others have had some kind of chemical clean scent. Hopefully this is just because its a greener clean and trying to make this as suitable and eco friendly as possible.

The best thing about the Ecover ZERO laundry detergent is that a capful cleans a full load of washing and no one has had any reactions to this detergent. It’s a brand I would use in the future however I would more likely opt for the box next time rather than the plastic bottle as I always feel I get more for my money when it comes to detergent powder rather than liquid.

Ecover have some fantastic aims that they want to reach by 2020 to try and continue being as green as possible.
- By 2020 Ecover aims to only use 100% recycled plastic (PCR) in all its bottles
- By 2020 Ecover aims to trial the use of alternative biodegradable and bio sourced packaging
Disclosure: I received a sample of ECover ZERO washing detergent for the purpose of this feature. All opinions remain my own.
September 18, 2019
Isle of Wight Holiday 2019

Last week we had our usual summer holiday caravan trip at Thorness Bay holiday park on Isle of Wight. It’s our third time there and we still love it. It was really nice to explore a different part of the island too. We had a day out in Shanklin which is a beautiful seaside place to visit and a day out at Blackgang Chine which is a small theme park on the southern part of the Island close to Ventnor.

Thorness Bay had everything you need really but it’s not a park I want to return to. It’s not that anything was bad as such it was just a park in the middle of nowhere. It felt a little bit too quiet for us as a family and I think we prefer the resorts on the eastern side of the Island. However, it was a nice break away and had what you would expect on site including an entertainment lounge, bar and resturant, swimming pool, play park and multisports court. There was also walking access to a private beach and bay.

Driving there from the east cowes ferry terminal was fairly straight forward and took around 30 minutes or so. We got to the park, checked in around 3.30pm and unloaded the car before heading back into Newport and going to morrisons for a quick food shop. We also had some dinner in the cafe there as we were all pretty peckish. We decided to skip the evening entertainment on the Monday night as Felix wanted to move around the caravan. We also had trouble fitting the travel cot in any room other than the living room so we had to co-sleep on the first night then we made a sort of makeshift bed on the floor for him. He actually slept pretty well, it’s just a shame Adam and I didn’t.

The surrounding countryside was beautiful to wake up to I have to say and the whole park was really quiet which was nice. We had an early drive down to Shanklin in the morning for a walk along the beach, had fish and chips for lunch and then spent the afternoon at the Sandown zoo. We got back for some time at the indoor swimming pool which Evie and I did alone as Felix wanted to move around again after lots of time in his car seat and then push chair. We went to the evening entertainment that evening after dinner and it was nice to have a little stroll around the park.

Wednesday was spent on site, we had a pretty chilled out morning and then a late morning swim. Felix had his first time in the pool which was really nice for him. He really enjoyed being in the water. I liked the fact that you could walk down into the pool using steps rather than trying to climb down a ladder with a baby in your arms. He had a lot of fun splashing about so we will be taking him swimming again.

We headed back to the caravan for lunch and some chill out time watching TV and giving Felix some time to crawl around on the floor. Holidaying with a baby requires a lot of chill out time really as they get overwhelmed quickly and where crawling and cruising is so new for him now he’s nine months being stuck in a pushchair is just the worst and I don’t blame him really. We then headed back to the resturant for dinner and a bit of the kids entertainment. Evie spent a lot of time in the park and a bit of time in the arcade too.

Evie struggled this holiday. Her behaviour was not perfect and there was a lot of slamming doors and stomping. It was the worst behaved she’s been on holiday and it sort of ruined it for us actually. We really try and put the most into giving her a good, fun summer holiday every year that’s within our budget and the lack of gratitude was really hard to deal with. I know kids don’t see the behind the scenes stuff like the cost and time and effort planning but she was incredibly vocal about how disappointing it was. I am sort of at my wits end with her extra challenging behaviour these days and I’m not quite sure where to turn.

The last day was spent at Blackgang Chine on the south side of the Island and it is a lovely, fun day out. We got there for 10am opening and started walking around. The backdrop is absolutely stunning views of the sea and there is loads to look at. Evie even braved a few of the rides and Felix had his first Mr Whippy ice cream (well, he finished off mine!) We also purchased Trevor the Sloth.

The holiday was fine but it wasn’t the break I was desperately hoping for if I’m honest. It was nice to get away but the holiday park was too quiet with not enough friends for Evie to make which frustrated her. Our caravan was too far from the park so we couldn’t really let her just go off and play to burn off some steam as it was too far for her to go on her own. The beach area was nice but not really ideal for babies. I think it just wasn’t the holiday park for us really. However, it is always nice to have a break and see a few new things and it was full of plenty of firsts for Felix as well as getting loads of lovely photos. We also got a little video of our time there.

July 11, 2019
Felix at 9 Months

My baby boy is nine months old already. Time is absolutely flying by and his 8 to 9 month of life has brought plenty of changes. He now has his first two teeth and his top two are just there moving down about to break through. We can see them pretty clearly but they haven’t cut through the gum yet.

We have had our first holiday as a family of four where Felix enjoyed ice cream, the sand, the sea, bubbles and swimming. He was constantly crawling and cruising around the caravan and showing us how fast he can go. He’s a real climber and he is just starting to lower himself with some control back down to the floor.

He has been blowing kisses and waving a little bit recently although its more of a hand flop but he will imitate in his own way when we blow kisses and wave at him. Some of his sounds say like he’s saying hello and no but most of his babble is just funny baby speak. It seems he is starting to recognise Adam as dada and me as mumma. He’s also said a little bit of Nanana which is quite cute.

He is a pretty smiley baby and has his own little cackle although he doesn’t really laugh out loud very much. It’s more of a throaty growl noise to be honest which is pretty funny. He loves to kick his legs out when he’s happy. He follows us around a lot too and has a lot of distrust in the hoover.

Food wise he does seem to suffer with constipation from time to time, particularly with heavy fibrous foods like cereals so we are experimenting with getting the right amount of fibre and fruit for him. He is doing a lot more self feeding now too. He is still having around 5 bottles of 6oz milk a day at the moment. I know he will have a 9-12 month review with the health visitor so I will ask about this. We are planning on moving over to oat milk rather than cows milk at the age of 1 but we will see how that goes.

He is an early riser which I am really struggling with now. He is often awake around 5am and it just makes the day feel very, very long. It’s particularly hard on one of Adam’s work days because he is asleep most of the day and I feel like I’m parenting solo a lot of the time. It got to a point where I said that on some of his days off we need to swap so that he gets up with Felix and does the school run in the morning just so I can have a little bit of a break which does seem to help quite a lot.

Most mums would be returning to work around 9 months. I have been working on and off for the last nine months being self employed however I am going to try and put in a proper work type schedule over the next few months and hope to have a good working routine in place by the time he’s one.

July 8, 2019
Cosatto Woosh XL Review

A couple of months ago we purchased a new pushchair for Felix. We originally had a travel system which was great for the birth – six months bassinet type pram but when we flipped it to parent facing Felix looked uncomfortable, the straps were at odd angles and the soft cover foot muff didn’t really stay in place. Getting him in and out for the school runs was becoming an absolute nightmare. So I went back to Cosatto’s website and selected the absolutely beautiful Woosh XL in the Mister Fox design. Both Felix and I absolutely love it!

The Cosatto Woosh XL is lovely and slim. The design is beautiful and Felix fits in it like a dream. He’s a long but slender baby so having something on the narrow side has worked wonders for us as he has plenty of room. Opening the box the pushchair came with a cute Mister Fox soft toy, raincover, cup holder, generous under pram storage and a full hood with sun shade. We decided to purchase the additional reversible foot muff too for the colder weather.

Folding the Cosatto Woosh XL is simple and it folds up quite small compared to other brands we have used which is ideal for taking out and about and will be perfect for our holiday in July. You do need to make sure the shopping basket underneath isn’t extended out to fully fold down. Bringing back up is nice and simple too so we’re no longer stood outside the car in a busy car park setting up a pram for ten minutes.

I am really, really happy with our pram. It’s a great size, folds up well and Felix is comfortable in it.

July 8, 2019
Felix at 8 Months

Felix is now 8 months old. I have no idea what he weighs as I haven’t taken him to the clinic. Now we have a car we may do but he is growing, he’s eating well, he’s moving well, he’s sleeping well so I kind of feel weight shouldn’t be an issue. He is supposed to have the 9-12 month development check soon so I’m sure they will weigh him then.

He’s going to need to move into some of his 9-12 month clothes shortly as he’s just very long. He’s very slender though so things that fit him well over the bottom aren’t really good with the length. Still at least it’s summer now so he can wear a few less layers.

Physically

Felix is commando crawling everywhere now and occassionally gets up on his knees to crawl too. He is starting to take one hand off the floor to reach up to things and pull himself onto things but not quite pulling himself to standing. He now sleeps on his front because he flips onto it as soon as he’s ready to sleep. He sleeps better than when we tried to flip him back as he would just wake up and cry. We’ve also transitioned into a cot from his co-sleeper crib and he’s done brilliantly in there for the last week.

Socially

He is very vocal and chatty now saying mum ma mum ma, dadada and nanana amongst all the other little noises. He has a great cough-laugh which makes me laugh a lot. He likes to look in the mirror and he’s very smiley. He also whines and whinges a lot at this age to get our attention if he wants picking up. It’s different from the cry he would usually do.

Routine

He is now on three meals a day with a variety of purees and finger foods. We offer him water with his meals and he’s still having five bottles of 6oz of formula milk. He wakes up around 5.30 am and is usually ready for bed by 6.30pm. He likes a bit of a change of scenery from time to time but if we go out he can get a bit of FOMO and sometimes won’t nap which can lead to him becoming overtired. We had a night away in half term and he did really well with a different bed so hopefully when we’re on holiday next month he will do well sleeping there too.

June 4, 2019