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.

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

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

Babies sleep better in dark rooms

Maybe you have used black out curtains in your home for years to help you sleep at night, keep out the street lights or maybe you live in the country or just sleep deeply without the need for blackout and wonder what all the fuss is about. However once your little bundle arrives they will become a vital element of your nursery !!!

Black out blinds and curtains cut out the light that is able to come into your child’s room, so how does this help you and your baby ?

Well, during the day whilst you are putting your baby down for a nap closing the black out curtains and making the room really dark can help them to associate darkness with sleep time, blocking out the light coming in will help them off to sleep and help them to understand that dark and calm is time for sleeping helping them to nap better whatever time of day.

In the night time black out blinds cut out the street lights or other light pollution coming in from outside and help to cut down on noise pollution as well.

Although our summertime may seem short, we do have light evenings throughout the late spring and summer months, having black out curtains in your child’s room will make bedtime easier - no cries of it being too light for bed ! And what will delight you all is that they will also help your little treasure sleep beyond the dawn chorus by ensuring that whatever time the sun is rising the room is still dark.

Black out curtains and blinds used to be a very dull option with little in the way of fun colours or pretty patterns, and this is what we have created. By lining all our gorgeous curtains and blinds with the highest quality black out lining we have made them beautiful as well as practical. Not only this but it is also a more cost effective solution as there is no need to buy additional black blinds or liners.

Beautiful curtains and blinds to make your nursery gorgeous that also help your baby sleep….now that’s something to make everyone rest easy !!

Welcome to the very first blog of thenurserycompany.com !!

We started the nursery company because we knew that there was a geniune need for really lovely curtains and blinds in nurseries and children’s rooms. I think that we have hit the nail on the head with our beautifully made curtains, blinds and accessories, unlike other ranges they are neither cheaply made printed fabric or mind-blowingly expensive. Our website shows all the collections but for closer inspection use our sample service to get them sent to your house so that you can see them in situ. The most important thing is that we are here to tailor make towards you - if you want discuss any alternatives or ideas then please do just call - look forward to hearing from you soon !!!

I am going to try and keep this blog full of really useful information for setting up your nursery or decorating your child’s room as well as some great websites and ideas that we have come across and think that you might like….hope you enjoy it and please do be patience this is my first try (after some great editing by my panel of friends !!)

In my first try I added absolutely everything that I could think of that I would have liked to hear when I was doing my son’s room, weekends spent dragging my husband round and round shops trying to work out what I actually needed might just have been better spent kicking back and relaxing before junior arrived, but it was suggested to me that the average person probably doesn’t have four hours to spare to trawl through it all so a sweeter and shorter version follows but will add more posts more often.

There are so many things that are deemed totally necessary for your new baby and tempting though they are unless you have a limitless budget in reality there are only a few things that are totally necessary.

Sleeping: In the begining any form of bed seems to swamp your little angel. It is recommended to a moses basket initially as it is nice and snug for them and means that you can move them around with you. Once they have grown out of the moses basket you can choose to either move them to a cot, as we did, or straight into a cot bed.  We put our little boy in a cot first but to be honest it probably wasn’t worth it as a couple of months later we had to move him into a cot bed which will now last for a couple of years. If you move them straight to the cotbed you can always use the dividers if it just looks too massive for them.

As I am constantly surronded by other mothers and have a fair few entrepreneurial friends I hear about loads of fabulous websites and ideas for babies that I would love to share with you.

Porcupine Prints is a fantastic website where Lettice Hagan has put together a collection of unique, charming commissioned prints exclusively for her company. These lovely pictures would be a treasured piece of art for your child or an amazing gift for a godchild, niece, nephew or grandchild - have a look - www.porcupineprints.com

Babybox London is a wonderful idea for all your friends who are having babies, not such a bad idea to buy one for yourself as well !! Beautifully wrapped and delivered to your door these boxes are filled with divine goodies for your baby, you can pick them for boys or girls or neutral ones - perfect for someone going on maternity leave. They also make the boxes for mothers to be and new mothers - a little extra joy at a really special time, www.babyboxlondon.com

For those of us who already have children you know the headache of lost socks and wrestling shoes on wriggling little feet, tot socks is a brilliant idea, they are unique socks with a soft rubber sole that are ideal for both indoor and outdoor use by babies and toddlers. Not only are they easy to get on but they don’t fall off !!! Best of all they have a great website where you can buy everything without having to leave the house: www.totsocks.co.uk

Where are we featured and where can you find us ?

You can see us in the Christmas edition of the brilliant magazine Angels and Urchins where we are featured on the interiors page  www.angelsandurchins.co.uk and we are going to be at the French Fair in South Ken in London on the 6th of December, you can find out more about it on www.frenchfairs.com

Have a lovely day !

Love thenurserycompany.com