Review: Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature Complete Starter Set 0m+

After my recent bottle feeding fail with the Dr Brown's Bottles (I did a blog about it here) I wanted to share my bottle feeding successes with the Tommee Tippee brand.

Although we did look at changing bottles recently, hence the bottle feeding fail, we discovered that we really didn't need to. Our little chap is absolutely fine on Tommee Tippee, in fact nothing else will do (that has become obvious).

I originally started by buying the Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature Complete Starter Set 0m+ which we have been happy with and what this review is all about. But I would be remiss if I didn't mention my favourite Tommee Tippee product: Tommee Tippee Perfect Prep Machine.

I did a full review on this a couple of weeks ago, which you can find here, but of all the products we have for our baby this is hands down one of my absolute essentials! I thought I might have broken it yesterday and almost had a nervous breakdown! I am also gutted that I can't take it to France with me later this summer, I honestly don't know how I will manage (especially during night time feeds!).

But back to the Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature Complete Starter Set 0m+. This is a great set to start of with if you are going down the formula feeding route. It has absolutely everything you will need. We bought it before our son was born because we would need the bottles and steriliser for when I pumped milk (I was originally going to breastfeed). It would also be essential once he went onto formula after I went back to work.

However, due to early issues with breastfeeding we had to supplement our son's feeds with formula. If we hadn't of had this set to hand when we had to do a middle of the night dash to get formula then we could not have given our son formula when he needed it! (He had essentially become dehydrated as my milk took 7 days to come in).

It was great to have the bottles and steriliser to hand. It meant we could sterilise the bottles quickly (instructions are easy to read, even to a sleep deprived Mummy desperate to get formula into her screaming baby!) and give him the formula he needed.

The set comes with a lot of items, including:

• Electric Steam Steriliser
• Bottle warmer
• 4 260ml bottles
• 4 150ml bottles
• 2 thermal travel bags
• 2 medium flow teats
• 6 milk powder dispensers
• 1 bottle brush
• 1 pair of teat tongs
• 1 pure new born soother

It is also BPA free and comes with a 1 year guarantee.

The items we have mainly used are the steriliser and tongs, bottles, bottle brush and new born soother. For me I have found this to be a complete set for everything I have needed for formula feeding. It was also very useful for when I was pumping breast milk in the early days. I used the bottles and steriliser even then.

The steriliser is great as you just put in the bottles and water, press the button and it is done within a few minutes. It is also safe to leave the sterilised bottles in it for 24 hours and it keeps them clean/sterilised.

In addition to this the bottle warmer is great for warming ready to feed milk.

I would definitely recommend this set, especially if you can get it on offer, we got it during a Mothercare sale for £65. Mothercare currently has this deal on again, a link to it on the Mothercare website is here.

This is not a sponsored post.

Deal: Cosatto Giggle 2 Pram System on Offer @Mothercare

I was shopping in Mothercare this weekend and noticed the Cosatto Giggle 2 Pram System (in the Fable design) is on sale and you also get the Cosatto Hold car seat when you by the pram system at the moment.

Here is a picture of the deal in store!

I did a full review of the Cosatto Giggle 2 which can be found here, well worth a look if you are considering it. I highly recommend this pram system and car seat.

I also asked a fellow Mummy with the Cosatto system to look through the review I did to see if she agreed and this is what she said:

"I liked the pram review, thought it was a good all round review. I always get comments on what a cheerful pram I have!! The only thing I would say is we have to change the car seat now (our baby) is 6 months which if we went with another make they last a lot longer, so in hindsight we would have gone for another car seat. However on the plus side it's nice for short journeys that I can use a seat belt.

As boot space is an issue for us we are going to buy a spare buggy that is slimmer and lighter for when we go away. Overall I would recommend the set to anyone."

Click on this link to Mothercare to be directed to the deal.

I hope this helps anyone considering the Cosatto Giggle 2 pram system or Cosatto Hold car seat.

Oh and don't forget you can spread the cost of more expensive items with Mothercare, with their payment plan. This can be really helpful as babies require a lot of stuff, often expensive stuff!

5 Pregnancy and New Mummy Life Hacks (and advice)

I am by no means an expert at anything to do with pregnancy or being a Mum, but I have discovered a few things over the past 12 months. From trying to get pregnant to pregnancy, birth and eventually being a new Mum.

There is a few Mummy life hacks that I wanted to share. These are just basics, I plan on writing a blog for advice on each stage (conception, pregnancy and new mummy life) at a later stage.

Most of these are about what I did to save money on the costs involved with pregnancy and babies.

One: Pregnancy Vitamin Tablets
Firstly, I found that pregnancy vitamin tablets can be expensive (especially if you get unnecessarily drawn into brands). However, I found that Boots own brand pregnancy supplements did the job (it contains the important things like Folic Acid, Vitamin D and more), I had a healthy 8lb 15oz baby boy (and fingers crossed he will stay that way). I have two hints for the Boots vitamins (link to the ones I used here). The first one is that they have 2 options, a 90 tablet option at £9.84, or a 30 tablet option at £3.49. However, Boots always seem to have an offer on their vitamins, of 3 for the price of 2. So it is cheaper to buy 3 boxes of the 30 tablets, saving you £2.86 for 90 tablets!

In addition to this, I read that you can use pregnancy tablets after you give birth in place of expensive, branded breastfeeding vitamin tablets. I would always advise checking labels on tablets though and checking with your Doctor.


Two: Maternity Pads
Needing maternity pads after giving birth is inevitable and most women will need a decent supply of them! Mothercare do large packs of 30 which are usually £4.99, but they are currently on offer at £3.33 (link here).

Even at the regular price I felt they were inexpensive - but I found that they were also very handy for periods postpartum. Sorry to be going into detail but after pregnancy you may find that your periods are a lot heavier, and the heavy duty maternity pads were ideal for this (as well as being cheaper than many sanitary pads!).


Three: Baby Wipes
I know there probably isn't much sense in it, but I prefer the Pampers sensitive wipes over other wipes. They are just thicker, wetter and seem to be softer than many others. However, Pampers is generally one of the most expensive brands for nappies and wipes. So as a compromise I buy the Pampers sensitive wipes either in bulk or using a deal (Tesco currently have packs of 56 wipes for 2 for £2.00) and also buy cheaper supermarket own brand wipes (such as Tesco Everyday Value Fragrance Free Baby Wipes - 72 Wipes for 46p). I then use the cheap wipes for those really dirty nappies that seem to use 30 wipes to finally get your baby's bottom clean again, and only use the sensitive Pampers wipes to finish off and for nappies that are just wet. I find doing this keeps the cost down a little bit while also meaning I can use the wipes I prefer, most of the time.


Four: Breast Pads
I have two tips about breast pads, first of all I bought reusable ones and regret this. They were bulky in my bra and made my boobs look weird shapes and they would get lost in the wash (because they were so small). I would not advise buying them.

Secondly, you don’t need anywhere near as many disposable breast pads as you may think. I got given boxes and boxes of unused pads from female friends (recently given birth) who had bought loads of them and never used them. I barely used any of them myself!

Your milk (that leaks enough to need pads) comes in a few days after giving birth, and within a day or two I found that your milk is meeting the demands of your baby. So you stop leaking. This may be different for every woman but I believe it may be better to just buy 1 box of breast pads before giving birth, and then buying more in the unlikely event of needing more.


Five: Baby Bodycare
I have been given and bought so many baby moisturisers, soaps, shampoo and more. I just don't have enough bathroom space for it all and my baby barely uses any of them. We only use 3 items: sudocrem (for any nappy rashes), Johnson’s shampoo and Johnson’s baby soap with honey (you can buy a pack of 4 for £1.00 in many shops).

Basically my top tip here is not to go overboard on all the bodycare products for babies. Buy a couple of items to start with. Often soaps are bad for a newborn's skin as babies only have a thin layer of skin and soaps dry it out quickly. Some people even advise only using water to clean your baby for the first couple of months.