Here are 5 simple self care tips that I do daily to help with my mental health.
I’ve struggled recently with stress, anxiety and insomnia and these simple tasks have really helped me. I hope they help you too.
What do you do when you need a bit of self care?
This 2 ingredient pizza dough recipe is one of the best baby led weaning meals I’ve tried. I love it, my husband loves it and Eleanor wants to eat lots of it!
It is so quick and easy to make, which is perfect when you have an attention seeking baby not wanting you to cook.
I’ve tried this recipe so many times. I first heard about it on a Facebook group where someone mentioned using about equal parts of yogurt and flour to make a dough. I’ve attempted this pizza 8 times now and the first few weren’t great.
I tried 1.5 cups of flour to 1 cup yogurt. I tried different yogurts. I tried different oven temperatures. I tried no kneading and just putting the toppings on straight away. But this recipe I’ve tried a couple of times now and everything seems to have clicked. This tasted amazing.
I used chorizo as a topping with some spinach as that’s what we had in the fridge. You could use anything.
Ingredients
Method
If you’d rather watch how I’ve made it, here’s the video.
This week’s meal plan we’re back on the dairy, mostly because neither of us can resist!
I’m trying a new curry dish one evening from the Baby Led Weaning Cookbook, which has been such a resource when finding meals we can eat as a family. I’m also super excited for the homemade pizza. It’s so easy to make and absolutely delicious!
Lunch: Cheese and cucumber sandwiches
Dinner: Marinated tuna steaks with stir fry
Lunch: Cheese and ham pancakes
Dinner: Beef stir fry
Lunch: Jacket potato with baked beans
Dinner: Homemade pizza
Lunch: Lentil soup
Dinner: Saag paneer
Lunch: Toast with peanut butter
Dinner: Pasta bolognese
Lunch: Drop scones with fruit
Dinner: Lasagne
Lunch: Out
Dinner: Out
Do you write a meal plan? What are your favourite meals for the whole family?
This week’s meal plan is a dairy free one (mostly). My daughter, who is 11 months old, will be having dairy and I will have a limited amount with her. My husband though is going completely dairy free this week – as far as I know, he better not sneak any ice cream at work or something!
He uses lactofree milk but always eats lots of cheese and other dairy products, so we’re trying to limit those to see if it helps. However delicious they are.
This food haul came to just under £25 from Tesco. We have a lot of meat and fish in the freezer that needs using up so my mission this week was to try and use as much as possible. All the minced beef is from the freezer.
Lunch: Out
Dinner: Pasta Bolognese
Lunch: Cheese and spinach muffins
Dinner: Sausages, mash and veggies
Lunch: Cheese and spinach muffins
Dinner: Homemade burgers, salad and chips
Lunch: Jacket potato with baked beans
Dinner: Homemade burgers, salad and chips
Lunch: Thick lentil soup
Dinner: Cauliflower alfredo
Lunch: Drop scones
Dinner: Haddock and chorizo salad
Lunch: Out
Dinner: Chicken curry
I am really looking forward to trying the cauliflower alfredo. I wonder how it will turn out. The homemade burgers are a favourite and they’re from the Flavour-Led Weaning Cookbook – although hubby’s burgers won’t have the hidden cheese inside!
Do you write a meal plan? What are your favourite meals for the whole family?
Yesterday the Aldi baby event started and I headed there as soon as Eleanor went down for a nap. I left her with my husband and rushed off to see what they had.
My local store isn’t huge so they didn’t have everything that I’d seen online. The one thing I wanted they had plenty of. I absolutely adore this zebra print plate set. At the moment my daughter doesn’t use plates or bowls but she will at some point. Am I the only one to just dump all the food on the table? The dinner set is made from bamboo and it came in a few different animal designs. But how could I resist the zebra at £4.99.
I didn’t buy the toddler reins backpack originally. I went home and then drove to Mothercare to look at car seats and noticed that their backpacks with reins were quite a lot more. So en route back we returned to Aldi and picked up the panda backpack. I think there were 5 designs, two pink and sparkly and two really cool ones with a rocket and robot. I went for the panda because I like monochrome. I really wish the other 4 designs weren’t so obviously blue and pink. I’d have loved some other really colourful designs.
The backpack with reins looks great for when Eleanor is walking. You could fit some snacks and maybe a change of clothes in it. It cost £7.99 so definitely worth looking at if you want something with reins.
I also picked up a Nuby drinking cup which has a straw. They had about 3 different types of cups and I thought we’d give this a try when Eleanor turns 1. It has a soft silicone straw for her to drink out of. She loves sneaking a drink from my bottle with a straw so I thought she’d get on well with this. It cost £1.99 so we’ll see how it goes.
They had so many other things that I liked but she doesn’t need a lot so I refrained. I love the look of some of the Nuby bath toys.
Did you pick up any bargains at the Aldi baby and toddler event?
I know we’re already half way through summer, but I want to make the most of the next 6 weeks before I return to work.
During this time I’m going to visit all of these National Trust places. Some are nearby (around an hour) and some are a little further afield.
I’ve said it before but I love our National Trust membership. I keep paying for it every year and we always make use of it. Not only do we have it but so do both our families so it’s perfect for group days out.
It’s part of my summer bucket list to tick off some more locations.
Here are the properties that I want to visit with Eleanor over the next few weeks.
Have you visited any of these locations before?
Nappy rash was unbearable when Eleanor was teething. We had 4 teeth pretty much come through all at once. The nappy rash caused her to scream in pain every time we changed her bum. It was so upsetting. Luckily her following 4 teeth weren’t so bad. So here are the top 5 things we’ve found that worked for us.
This yellow stuff was recommended to me by so many people. It really seems to help heal the sore red patches. It’s not a miracle worker like some people said. It hasn’t solved it overnight, but I think until these teeth come through we’re stuck with the nappy rash. This is helping it not be so much worse.
WaterWipes are really gentle as they are 99.9% purified water and 0.1% fruit extract. I was told not to use any other wipes as the chemicals wouldn’t help her bottoms but we’ve always used these so that wasn’t an issue for us. They’re endorsed by Allergy UK so don’t aggravate sensitive areas which is exactly what we need. And they’re great for getting off the Metanium from my fingers too!
After cleaning with the wipes we always pat her dry with a clean flannel to make sure she is really dry before putting anything else on her. Make sure not to rub and be gentle.
We’ve been bathing her more often at the moment to make sure she’s really clean. We don’t use any products in the water except Oilatum as our water is ridiculously hard. Bath time seems to calm her down and she enjoys splashing about.
After the bath, and if we get time during the day, we give her nappy free time. I grabbed some maternity mats from the hospital and also have some puppy training pads lying around which we put underneath her. I’m all for nappy free time but not at the expense of lots of poo on the carpet. I like doing it after bath time as the bathroom is really warm and she can have a proper naked kick about on the floor.
What are your tips for dealing with nappy rash?
