I love Christmas, all the excitement and build up;  the fun and  family; wrapping presents and wrapping up

A wonderfully evocative time

warm; eating and drinking, carols and singing.

And it is almost upon us, Christmas to me is all about wonderful smells, warming mince-pies, juicy satsumas, bubbling mulled wined and the most wonderful smell of all…Christmas trees, nothing like it.

Smells are such an evocative sensation and the use of aromatherapy and essential oils can be extremely helpful in relaxing your baby and creating a wonderfully calm environment in your babies nursery.   Baby massage is a fantastic way of connecting with your child and helping to create a soothing and relaxing bed time.  You can also try adding a few drops to their bath or you could try using  oils in a vaporizer in the nursery to create a calm and sleepy environment.

You must always check that the essential oils that you want to use are right for your child and be careful to keep the amount of aromatherapy oil very low.  The most suitable oils for a bath or massage for a baby are the most gentle ones: rose, lavender, chamomile, sandalwood or tangerine and the best carrier oil for children’s massage is almond oil.

One of the best known essential oils for promoting sleep

These are the best essential oils for use for children to help them relax and prepare for sleep

• Lavender -you can use this essential oil in a warm bath or with a diffuser, it is one of the most popular essential oils and little lavender bags are wonderful too, it has been found to be especially good at calming the nervous system, relaxing the body and enabling blissful sleep.
• Frankincence - one of the first ever Christmas presents ! Frankincense essential oil is known to calm the mind and dispel anxiety.
• Sandalwood -To get the right intensity of oil from the trees they must be at least forty years old, but the older the better and a tree eighty years old will produce better oils. Sandalwood is a calming agent; it relieves nervous tension and help relaxation.
• Camomile - chamomile plant only the flowers are used to make this excellent therapeutic essential oil. It has a fruity slightly sweet fragrance and is also good for  for cradle cap and teething
• Bergamot  - which comes from citrus fruit rind, it’s  lovely citrus scent that will help make your baby feel refreshed and gives a sense of well-being. Interestingly bergamot is the main ingredient in earl grey tea…
• Mandarin - which has two different types of oil, one green and the other red. It has several advantages one of which is that it is gentle enough that you can use it with babies and mandarin oil is a very successful treatment for sleep difficulties almost rivaling lavender.

I hope that these wonderful smells help you to get the fantastic nights sleep you and your baby deserve and that you have a wonderful Christmas, don’t forget you can just click on our website now to buy our wonderful Ladybird bedding range and have a little look at our lovely new ready made curtains - they are gorgeous !

HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

Finally some pictures have arrived more to follow…

Its finally here just in the nick of time as they say !

The beautiful crisp white 100% cotton bedding looks scrumptious with little bright ladybirds smiling away on it!

We stood back and admired the new curtains as well yesterday, the new candy stripe readymade curtain ranges look stunning, really bright and fresh  and the matching fleece blankets are just gorgeous and really snuggly and warm.  The green gingham readymade curtains with the little ladybirds is just adorable. I am doubly excited as well as I am going to decorate our new nursery as soon as the baby show is done and I am going to use the new green gingham curtains with all the ladybird bedding to make it all fresh and lovely for the new arrival in January.

So now we have packed it all up ready to hit the Baby Show at Earls Court, make sure that you come and see us on the stand B73 and have a look yourself.

Have a lovely week.

Rhi

We are so excited about going to the Earls Court Baby Show next weekend.  As ever it has been pretty hectic in the lead up to the show and we were really hoping  to have some fantastic pictures of our new range of gorgeous embroidered 400 thread count pure cotton bedding to show but it is still on it’s way here !!

Nevermind it will all be alright on the night as they say and you can visit us on Stand B73 and see the new bedding plus our gorgeous new range of ready-made curtains.  We have come up with three gorgeous new ranges, Candy Stripe Pink and Candy Stripe Blue and wonderful Green Gingham with applique ladybirds.

BABY SHOW COMPETITIONS

We are offering a 10% discount on all curtain and blind orders placed at the show as well as running a competition to win £100 worth of vouchers as well !!

And finally here is your chance to win two tickets to the Baby Show answer the following simple question…

“What is the first quilt picture show on the QUILTS page on the Nursery Company website”

email: info@thenurserycompany.com with your answer and address and the first five people will each win a pair of tickets…

Good luck !!

See you at the show xxxx

The changes in your sleeping patterns and trying to get your baby to sleep through the night are bound to become the one of biggest  hurdles once you get your baby home.  Like most new parents you are  going to spend an amazing amount of time discussing the baby’s sleep, planning sleeping times and trying to get some yourself !

To try and help you worry less and see the light at the end of the tunnel we have compiled some great information and useful tips allabout sleeping.

How Much Do Babies Sleep ?

In general babies sleep as follows,

You will be amazed how much time you will spend thinking about sleep

• (0-3 months) - up to 20 hours throughout the day
• (3-6 months) - 12 hours at night, plus 3 -5 hours during the day
• (6 - 12 months) - 12 hours at night, plus 2 - 4 hours during the day
• 12 months and up: up to twelve hours at night, plus one or two naps until about the age of 3.

However, and there is always a ‘however’, there can be wide variations, some babies manage five to six hour stretches of sleep at night by three or four months but many do not, just keep your fingers crossed !

In the first two to three months a typical sleep pattern is a longer sleep in the morning and a couple of shorter naps in the afternoon.  Waking in the night is normal and may continue for some time.

By about six to eight months, your baby can probably manage without a night feed and may sleep six to eight hours unbroken without waking.  Your baby gradually learns how to fall asleep and how to get back to sleep when she wakes during the night.  If you want her to learn to settle herself you need to make sure that you are putting her down before she actually nods off.

Many of my friends worked really hard at getting into a routine to help their baby learn to sleep throughout the night and it certainly works for some, although you can find yourself totally beholden to your baby’s routine and it can be isolating.  What I think works really well to have a look just a couple of the zillions of baby books available to see what people recommend and then pick and choose to make sure that it works for you - after all a happy mummy makes a happy baby.

Top Ideas for Difficult Settlers

If you have already got your baby at home with you and you are finding it difficult to get them to settle at night then see if these tips help you:

• Decide on a bedtime routine, for example, bath, bottle, bed.
• Give your baby some time to settle, although it’s really tough don’t go straight backto them when you first put them down, definately don’t leave them just crying for too long but give them a little chance to go back to sleep themselves.
• Keep things peaceful before bedtime, make sure that you have some wind-down time, we don’t switch from action to sleep so try and make sure you aren’t expecting them to do the same, for example make the room darker before you enter, be peaceful and calm and try not to hurry or get anxious about putting them down as babies can sense stress.
• If  you feel better staying near your baby as they fall asleep, try putting them in the cot and then sit nearby rather than holding them.  Once you can see that your baby is settled you can move away, the idea is that over a week you can gradually move further and further away until the baby happily settles alone.

Good luck with geting your little one settled - just remember the sleepless nights don’t last forever !!

Rhi