We Switched to Rascal + Friends Nappies and This is What Happened

It was about 6 months and 12 days ago that my obsession with nappies began. Before that I had absolutely no idea what size I needed to buy or how many times I day I needed to change our brand new baby, I think I'd changed about 2 nappies in my life before then.

Fast forward to now... over a thousand nappy changes later, pretty much every brand tried, countless al fresco poo explosions, intimate knowledge of all of the baby changing areas in a 10 mile radius and more baby bum sniffs in public than I'd like to admit.

We've tried pretty much every brand from supermarket own brand to premium, I eventually settled on Pampers Baby Dry for night time and Aldi Mamia for the day time but I was still getting pooed on more than I would like. We were recently gifted some nappies from New Zealand brand Rascal + Friends to try out before their UK launch and I thought I'd post a full review here in case you're interested in trying them out. They are now available in the UK and Ireland exclusively in Tesco so here's what happened when we made the switch!

Beautifying My Dressing Table

My dressing table has been an absolute shambles since I had Eva, a dumping ground for anything and everything from contact lenses and baby wipes to face oils and nappies. But in my Marie Kondo fuelled rampage around the house last week, my dressing table finally got a bit of TLC!

The lovely people at Beautify sent me an Illuminating Makeup mirror* and beautiful navy velvet Makeup Case* to make my dressing table a little bit more easy to use and actually enjoyable for once. I cleared off all the nonsense and just kept what I needed on a day to day basis so now it's a practical and relaxing place to be for the 7 minutes I have in the morning to get ready!

Six Things I've Learned in the First Six Months of Motherhood

It feels like only yesterday I was packing my hospital bag ready for Eva's arrival but here we are, parents to a six month old! Time is going ridiculously quickly and as much as I want to savour the moments when she's tiny and delicious, it is so bloody lovely to see her grow, develop and become more of a person every day. 

I've learned so much about her, she loves peas but hates broccoli, she's very into shiny things but hates being stuck in traffic like her dad and she is an absolute delicious squish.

I've also learned a few other things in my brief stint of motherhood so far so I thought I'd share on Eva's half birthday!

My Your Smile Direct Invisible Braces Journey: First Impressions

If you take a look through my Instagram or blog, you'll rarely ever see me cracking a big toothy grin because I hate my teeth. I had full on train track braces when I was 16 but sadly the year after I had them taken off, all my wisdom teeth came in at the same time so everything got shifted about again. My main problem is what I call 'snaggle', the tooth next to my front teeth sticks out at an angle and I am SO self conscious of it, both in photos and real life.

I've deleted or untagged myself in most photos with my teeth showing for about the past 10 years so I decided to treat myself to invisible braces while I'm on maternity leave and don't have to worry about meetings or presentations at work. I was very hesitant to spend that much money on myself and was quoted over £2k for Invisalign on my top teeth but then I was recommend Your Smile Direct which was much more affordable and everything can be done at home, ideal for me as I didn't want to have to drag Eva to the dentist all the time.

I've now had the braces in for a few weeks so I wanted to post about my first impressions so I can keep a diary as I go along. Hopefully it'll be useful if you're thinking of getting clear braces too.

Our 5 Month Baby Routine

Now Eva is a whopping 5 and a half months old we're in a pretty good routine that's evolved as she's grown and it's thankfully working well for us (most of the time).

I have absolutely no idea if what I'm doing is 'right' but it works for us so I thought why not share? I haven't shared anything like this before but I find it stupidly interesting reading about other people's routines so I'm adding ours into the mix! The lovely Claire inspired this post, after reading her weekly
routine with her gorgeous new babe, I wanted to share ours.