Win Jumbo Games Eco Friendly Games

Ad - Gifted
Tomorrow is Mothers Day, not just a lovely day to take a break and out your feet up but a day to be able to enjoy the company of your wonderful children.

And what better way to do that than play some fun games!

To celebrate Mothers Day, Jumbo Games have 4 brand new games to give away to one lucky winner which are perfect for quality time with your children.

A Little Bit About the Games 

4 Brand new games from Jumbo Games which are all made from 100% recycled materials with all the excess packaging of the game ready to be recycled again. Making them super Eco Friendly. 

Even to save paper, these games come with a scan code, or link to be able to view the rules on the website. 

Each game is mini size, which is perfect for travel and easy for storage. All games are recommended for aged 3+ and are nice quick games to be able to play. 

Peek A Boo - A fun game of Peek A Boo, lay out animal cards onto the table, one by one hide them with a coloured square with peek a boo holes in. Roll the dice to see which colour square you need to peek through and then guess that animal! 

Catch The Mouse - This quick paced game is all about catching the mice who are stealing the cheese. One player is the cat and one the mouse. Roll the dice to see wether the cat can attack and try and grab the mouse. 1 Point to the mouse if it escapes and one to the cat if it catches. 

Honey Yummy - In this game the bee's need to move around the flowers to collect the honey and put it in the bee hive before the honey bear comes to steal it. A great game for hand co-ordination and you place each piece of honey in the holes. 

Colour Chameleon - Roll the dice and match the colours on the chameleon and fill the spaces with your coloured counters to complete your chameleons body. A brilliant colour matching game. 

Which of these games do you like the sound of? 

Enter below on the gleam app for a chance to win these games!

Win 4 Jumbo Games Eco Friendly Games

Schleich Pony Agility Training Set Review

AD. Gifted Review

We have always been a big fan of Schleich animals and so when we got offered to review the Pony Agility Training set which is part of the Pony range, we jumped at the chance. 

Lily was super happy to get the set and couldn't wait to play. I didn't imagine that the set would have to be put together but unfortunately it did come in lots of little bits. 

But luckily it didn't take to long to put together, everything easily slotted together and Lily also managed to help me do it. There was also a few stickers to add to the set.

About 10 minutes after opening the box it was ready to be played with.
Lily loved the pony's. The lovely thing about Schliech animals is that they are painted and finished to the finest detail, not a detail is to be missed and so this really does help the child get a real feel for exactly what the animal would look like. The pony's are no exception and are so adorable. Seeing them makes me want to have a horse. The horse also comes with a Bridal that you can put on and take off. 

The set also comes with a little girl who is also painted really nicely with such detail. She comes with a little riding hat that you can put on and off. 

The little Agility corse itself is really great. The fence clips together making a circle so its all contained inside and then there is a gate which you can push open and closed. It also comes with a little silver lock that you can push down to keep the gate shut. They really have though of everything when it comes to design. 

Also included there is a ramp for the horse to walk over, a set of jumps which is put together with 4 logs and 2 red sticks, and 2 cones with red obstacles on the sides. It also has an arch to make the horse walk through. The great thing about this set is that you can change things to make the obstacle corse different. You could put the logs on top of each other to make the jump higher or you could move the red sticks to the cones to create a different jump. 

Lily really enjoyed this set and she actually played with it for a long time. Which really is a good sign that she enjoyed it. It was nice to see that she had an early understanding of what would happen on an agility training corse and she was making the pony's gallop and jump and walk over the ramp. I think it is a toy that really encourages a child to have a think about ponies and the things they do.

Her favourite thing to do was open up the gate and walk the pony's in and out. I later gave Lily some of her other Schleich animals which included more ponies and she had a great time making them all line up to enter the ring. This shows that with this set a child's imagination can grow and they can enjoy playing with the toy for a good amount of time.

The Schliech Pony Agility Training Set is £24.99 and can be bought from Smyths Toy Stores. 

Is your child a fan of ponies? 

Defeating Children's Night Terror's

Night terrors are something I didn't really knew existed until Lily started having them. If someone would have told me in the past that their child had night terrors I would of straight away thought they were talking about really bad dreams. 

But actually that isn't what a night terror is. The difference between a nightmare and night terror is that a child would wake from a nightmare and remember their scary dream. But with a night terror, they are living their dream and they generally don't fully wake up and so don't remember what they was dreaming. 

So actually, night terrors as horrible as they may seem, don't effect our children as much as we think they do. Where as a bad dream could have the effects of making a child not want to sleep and therefor effect them more. 

That said, night terrors at times really aren't a nice thing for a parent to have to watch their child go through. 

Unfortunately for Lily, she has been having on going night terrors for about a year now. At one point Lily was having these every night and she also has a few different levels of her night terrors. 

A typical example of a not too bad night terror would be she would wake up, walk around a little bit, winge and cry a little and then get back into bed and go back to sleep. It is a little more like sleep walking with crying than an actual night terror. 

But a typical example of a BAD night terror would be that Lily would be crying loudly, even screaming, she sounds distressed. She is also very confused, walks or even runs around the room and sometimes is asking for me even though she is in my arms. At her very worst point she will end up making her self sick and has often thrown up during one of her night terrors.

Just like sleep walking they say you should never wake them up. Which is something I generally don't do. But I do let her come to me for a cuddle and pick her up if she is raising her arms to be picked up. It is very strange because she seems compleatly out of it, her eyes are sometimes closed, But she still initiates things like cuddles.

Eventually Lily will calm down and generally a big sign for me that she has come out of her night terror is that she suddenly takes a MASSIVE yawn and her body tends to flop a little more. Which I then just say to her "do you want to go back to sleep" she nods which shows she has heard me and she is with it and then I lay her back down. Pretty much in seconds she is back to sleep. 

Unfortunately I haven't managed to stop Lily's night terrors but I have learnt quite a few things to cope with them and thanks to advice from Health Visitor Sarah Beeson, I have managed to at least reduce down her night terrors. 

So I thought that I would share a few tips with you in hope that it helps anyone out there with a child having night terrors. 

Coping with Night Terrors 

- First thing I would say is stay calm. When Lily first started to have them I was frantic, and I really don't think it helped her. When I first go in, I go in quietly. If I have to talk to her then I use a quiet calm voice and try not to say to much. I rarely ask her questions that I used to like "whats the matter" and instead say reassuring things like "mummy's here". 

- Secondly, let them come to you. Don't run in and grab them. They are half awake and half asleep and so really confused. I generally say "Lily" and when she looks over she see's me with my arms out and she will come to me. Sometimes she will sit on my knee and cuddle but it literally will be like 2 seconds that she is on and then she is back off my knee walking and crying. 

- Which brings me to my third point of letting them get on with it. While making sure they are safe, if they want to go for a wander then let them. I have found that it can make it totally worse by shutting her bedroom door behind me where she can't get out. I just follow her around the upstairs rooms and generally only take her back to her room if she signals to be picked up. 

- Another thing I sometimes do is sing. Which sometimes helps and sometimes doesn't. I generally sing "You are my Sunshine" and sometimes I think she is so busy focusing on my singing that she slips out of the night terror. 

- And my last point is expect the unexpected. Lily half the time doesn't know it is me that is there. So what I do, (which is going to sound really silly) Is say to her " I will go and get Mummy". I then leave the room, wait for 3 seconds and walk in with my arms inviting her for a hug saying "mummy's here". Like I say, it does sound silly, but if your child is generally not knowing that it is you that is with them. It seems to work. 

But coping with the night terrors isn't enough and really, we want to make sure they stop or at least reduce down. Night terrors can be something that children just grow out of and there may not be a way to stop them. But every child has them for different reasons and so it is always worth trying some of the following things. 

Stopping Night Terrors 

- Lets start with the thing that I think has really helped reduce down Lily's night terrors. And that is FOOD! Firstly, I have cut out chocolate before bed. Lily was always having her 5.30pm tea time and having some chocolate straight after. Now I don't let her have any after about 2pm. Chocolate contains caffeine and so this may not be helping Lily to settle into a nice deep sleep. I also now make sure that Lily has an evening snack, and after nursery she has a really decent amount of food because they eat at different times to at home. She will generally have some pasta after nursery (6pm) and may have a yogurt or toast Etc as an evening snack before bed. She has always had biscuits and a drink just before bed but maybe her little tummy just wasn't full enough making her sleep not as good. Although this hasn't fully stopped her night terrors, it has reduced them down to a few times a week compared to every night. 

- Another thing I think may have helped is her comfort level. I have now moved Lily from a toddler bed into a single bed where she is much more comfortable. Lily's old cot bed still had one side up due to it being against the wall, and Sarah Beeson though that this may leave a child of Lily's age feeling subconsciously trapped. So if your child is around 3-4 years old, then moving them to a bigger bed may help. 

- Something that has been noted is if a child is waking and seeing something that is confusing them. For example faces, they make end up having a night terror due to being half awake and half asleep. Myself I often wake and have lucid dreams where something in my room is moving and I have to rub my eyes and I realise its not moving and its just my chair in the corner of the room. Lily had some faces on her clothing drawers and they faced across from her face. So I thought that this could be what was seeing when she was half asleep. I moved them to the other end of the room. Unfortunately this didn't help but I have heard stories of it helping other children.

- Temperature of the room is another thing you could think about. If your child is too hot, or too cold, they may not be able to drop into a deep sleep and this could contribute to a night terror. But do be aware that a child will have sweats in a night terror and so this doesn't indicate that they are too hot. I just tested this by having the room nice and toastie one night, having it cold one night and then having it mid temperature one night. None worked for me but that doesn't mean it might not work for your child. 

- One more thing that could be a factor to your child's night terrors is them being over tired. I did start putting Lily to bed earlier and initially it worked and she had a week with out them. Which made me think I had cracked the issue. But unfortunately she just wakes up an hour earlier now and so she can still get over tired. Over tired ness isn't an easy one to solve. We all know we can't control what time they get up in the morning and it can be at times hard to get them to sleep. But if you do at least try and reduce the late nights, I think it could help. If Lily goes to bed at say 9pm, then with out a doubt she will end up having a night terror. 

Night terrors are unfortunately a bit of a mystery. In Lily's case, I think it may be something she just grows out of but I am at least happy that I can control them a little better when she has them and also reduce down the amount she has. 

 I would like to say a big Thank you to Sarah Beeson for all her advice on the subject. 

I would love to know if you have done anything different that could help or even stop a night terror? 

Milton Cleaning Competition

Who is ready for their spring clean? I am lucky because Milton have sent me some cleaning products that are really going to help! 

And to help you... They have agreed to do a little competition to win some! 

Here is a little more info on the products from Milton that could help you with your spring clean.

The Antibacterial Spray and Surface Wipes both - 

• 3 in 1: cleans, disinfects and freshens
• Kills 99.9% of germs
• Leaves a lovely, clean and fresh fragrance
• Bleach-free and alcohol free

The Surface Wipes you get 30 in a pack, and the packet is resealable so it locks in the moisture.

Both are really handy for wiping down surfaces.

Here are some more factors about the wipes and spray - 

• Ideal for travel and quick clean-s ups at home or on the move with baby
• Suitable for soothers and teats
• Use for highchair, toys, changing mat, potty, baby’s bath, kitchen work tops, door handles, public facilities, at work, restaurants, telephone, toilets
• Kills 99.9% of germs
• 100% biodegradable tissue of natural origin
• Fragrance free
• No need to rinse
• Dries quickly
• Leaves no trace

Both can be bought from most highsteet stores such as Boots. 

If you would like to win both an Antibacterial Spray and a pack of surface wipes then enter on the Gleam app below. 

Win Milton Cleaning Products.

Lily's New Bed

Lily moving to her own bed has been way over due. Her cot bed was nicely sized, and she did fit into it well but being 4 and lately acting so grown up made me decide that it was time to move her to a single sized bed. 

Her cot bed was the size a toddler bed would be so I didn't see the point in buying her a toddler bed and so the next size up is an actual single bed. She is quite used to a single bed now as she has been sleeping in one for a while at my mums house so I knew that she would sleep fine in a bigger bed. 

Another reason to move her to a bed was to see if it helped with her night terrors. Lily has been having them every night for about a year now. I have tried lots of different things as apparently each child is different and so moving her to a new bed was a new attempt to get rid of the night terrors. 

I wish I could say it fully worked, she is still having them, though they aren't as often as they was and she will only have a couple of them in a week compared to each night. 

Even though it hasn't stopped her night terrors I am glad to move her to a bigger bed. I found one for her with a lovely pink head board and pink base, which also had sliding doors to be able to store things under. Though I do keep loosing things and then end up finding them in there, I think its Lily's new hiding place for things.

I then found the sweetest dover cover with animals on and hedgehogs on the inside which I just knew Lily would love. Not only that but it was made from the softest of material. I must admit I was slightly jealous of the comfort she was about to get. 

I popped all her teddies to the end of the bed, she has so many I did wonder if there would be room left for Lily. Then popped her new Unicorn pillow on the bed, which she chose out, and it was ready to be shown to Lily.

She was so excited to get her new bed and climbed on it straight away. She was very pleased that that night she was going to get to sleep in a big girls bed.

Lily has taken to her new bed really well, and I haven't had a single problem with getting her to sleep in it. The only thing I need to tackle now is her night terrors.

Here are some pictures of Lily and her new bed! 

What age did you put your child in a bigger bed? 

Sylvanian Families Concert Sets Review

Lily is a huge Sylvanian Families fan and her collection is really growing into something amazing. One of her favourite things about them is all tje different characters you can get that all act out a different role.

Which is why when Sylvanian Families offered me a Grand Piano Concert Set and a Violin Concert Set to review, I just knew Lily would love them. 

When they arrived Lily was so pleased and screamed out "Sylvanian Families!!!!"

The sets both looked brilliant in their boxes and Lily was excited to see 2 new characters she didn't already have. 

First she opened the Piano Set. This came with a Piano, a stool, a lion character, a piano notes book and a little story book.

I just love the detail that has gone into everything. Firstly the little Character himself. His outfit doesn't miss a detail. He even has a little red bow tie. His little outfit can be removed on and off. Which is something Lily does really enjoy doing.
The detail on the Piano is unreal. It has little peddles at the feet, and each little key of the keyboard is visible. Not only that, but the keys actually press down. Though not one by one. You can also open up the Piano to see inside and it looks just like a grand piano would inside.
The little music book folds up and there is a little section where you can lean it against for him to play music.

The little lion sits on his stool really well as Sylvanian Families legs and arms both move.

Next she opened the Violin Set. This set came with the rabbit character who wears a beautiful red and gold dress. A Violin, with bow, and a case. There is also a little white bracelet that you can place onto the rabbits arm so then she can even hold the violin. It also comes with a little story book.

The rabbits hand is positioned so then it can hold the bow and so making the character really look like she is playing the instrument. The Violin and bow both fit into the case so then the rabbit can take it with her places.

Again the detail on both the outfit is amazing. She even wears a little gold necklace with gemstone. It is such a beautiful dress with its golden trim.

The Violin is also in great detail with all the markings beautifully painted on it.

Sylvanian Families holds so many possibilities for the imagination to go wild. Lily was loving playing concerts and you could hear her making tunes while moving the bow along the violin and making the lion press down on the piano keys. She would then pack up the violin and pretend to be taking the little rabbit somewhere. Sylvanian families really does keep keep her occupied for a long time as she gets lost in a world of role play with them.

The Grand Piano Concert Set is RRP £19.99 and can be bought here.
The Violin Concert Set is RRP £13.98 and can be bought from here. 

Both are part of the Sylvnanian Town series.

Would your children love playing with these concert sets? 

Monthly Book Roundup - What we have been reading in February

Lily is a lot fussier with the stories I read her now, and she does go back to her old favourites a lot of the time, but I do get chance to introduce her to new books each month. Just don't get to read them as often as I would like. I think it is because she is getting older and the repetition of the same books doesn't interest her as much as it did when she was little. 

I still like to read 2 - 3 stories a night to Lily though. Usually we have one long one and 2 shorter stories.

You can read all my other book reviews Here

I introduced Lily to 3 brand new books in February, all with a love theme to fit in with Valentines.

Here is what we read -  

1. Ella by Alex T Smith 
This story is a twist on the tale of Cinderella, only instead of it being about a girl, it is about a bug called Ella. Ella has 2 evil step sisters who are wasps, and they treat her horribly. Just like in cinderella there is a bug trying to find love. This time he is an artist called Pierre rather than a prince. He puts on a bug ball to find his love. Ella sneaks her way to the ball after her fairy godmother helps her get ready, and there she meets pierre and he falls in love with her. But just like in cinderella she needs to leave at midnight and as she does she drops her glasses. So pierre searches the city to find who matches the glasses and thats when he finds her again and they live happy ever after. Lily enjoyed this story and I think I preferred it to the original Cinderella story. You can buy this book online.

2. Kiss the Crocodile by Sean Taylor
This was my favourite book I read to Lily this month. It was cute, and had a really fun storyline to it. The story is all about the animals playing games. Then they bump into crocodile, he tells them all about this great game called Kiss the Crocodile. To play the game, crocodile pretends to be asleep and each player much creep over to quickly kiss the crocodile with out waking him. Each animal creeps up and manages with great success to land a kiss on the crocodile. But now its monkeys turn, he tries to sneak up but lands a really big kiss on the crocodile and the crocodile chases him. Feeling afraid the monkey reminds the crocodile its only a game, and the crocodile agree's and wants to play other games with the group of animals. I think it is a lovely tale of friendship and is also a story that children can easily follow. You can buy this book from Walker Picture Books. 

3. The Fairytale Hairdresser and Beauty and the Beast by Abie Longstaff
This story is a twist on the tale of beauty and the beast but still contains the character of the beast in it. Beast meets a hairdresser called Kittie and her friend who was an artist called Bella. One day out and about they have to go into beasts castle because of the rain and they meet beast. At first beast was a little scary but over dinner the girls started to realise he was nice and they became friends. Beast falls in love with Bella who paints half a painting of him and promises to come back. But she never does. He goes to Kittie who had been very busy hairdressing and asks if she thinks Bella could ever love a beast like him. So Kittie decides to give beast a make over and invites him to the party. Lots happens at the party and beast gets the chance to show he is a hero and helps save a baby, but hurts himself. Bella rushes to his side, kisses him and turns him back into a prince.
The story has moments that are like the real beauty and the beast tale, but also lots of little random parts into it to which make it a compleatly different story. You can buy this book online.

Which of these books do you like the sound of?