Outdoor play

I had a friend visiting from London last weekend, escaping the non-existent UK Summer! We had a nice lunch before she left at the Kempinski Hotel, down in their garden restaurant alongside the beach. They had a great little playground area all enclosed with a picket fence for little ones so we popped down there when we had finished eating.

Charlie had such a great time on the slide and see-saw and as I looked at him it occurred to me how fortunate both of us are be here. There he was having fun in the sun with palm trees behind him and lots of fresh air. It can be all too easy to get caught up with the negatives sometimes, but ultimately this is a great place to raise a child for so many reasons and this is just one of them.

Read more!

New Spanish online store - www.indybel.com

A new online store for pregnancy and baby in Spain has just been launched! Indybel specialise in British and International pregnancy and baby products as well as innovative and organic products for pregnancy, birth and beyond … and it is owned and run by two Mums who met on MumsinSpain.com! How great is that. Please support Sam and Lesley by checking out their website http://www.indybel.com/

The story of Indybel

Indybel was set up by Sam and Lesley who met last summer via mumsinspain! Here is their story in their own words. “Firstly it has to be said that our company Indybel would never have existed without mumsinspain.com! Our daughters are roughly the same age and we live near each other, and so via Claire’s website we became friends and baby confidents. A while after we met we found that a lot of our conversations were taken up with moans and groans about baby products we wanted to buy but couldn’t find here in Spain. We both relied heavily on friends and family bringing things over from the UK and we knew many others here who were in the same situation. That was October 2007 now nearly 11 months later http://www.indybel.com/ (named after our daughters India and Isabella) is finally here! Starting a business with two small (often grumpy) toddlers in tow has not been easy! In fact as they have got older it has become more difficult as our girls need more entertaining and we need more time to work. We have found working with babies to be a completely unpredictable experience, one day they’ll happily play together for hours on end, needing hardly any attention and we can sit at the laptop and smile over at our wonderful daughters, the next they act as if they can’t stand each other and cling to our ankles as if we were the meanest, least affectionate mums in the world. At times like these it’s almost impossible to work properly and we have come to realise that starting a business in Spain is all the harder because often there is less extended family around to support you and those that are here work full time. Aside from the complexities of actually setting up an SL company our main challenges have included the logo design, website design and deciding what we can afford to sell as opposed to what we would really like to sell! Choosing products has been really exciting. We started off with a wish list and changed our minds about a lot of products which were either too expensive and we felt wouldn’t sell, or weren’t quite what we were looking for. We have always been very clear about our aim, which is to offer the types of products that we have found we have needed over the last 18 months but just couldn’t find here in Spain, as well as a good organic range. As our babies grow we find there are more things we need ourselves and so we are adding products with experience! ( right now we are going through toilet training! ) We went to the Baby Show in London last year and found some brilliant new products and Lesley ( while pregnant with number 2 !) has managed to find the time and energy to pop over to Thailand twice to source manufacturers, suppliers and products for our own brand items! We are hoping to visit two more UK trade shows this October in order to continue to be able to offer the most up to date, exciting and innovative products on the site. There is so much still to do and most of our days are spent juggling babies, emails, meetings and whenever possible grabbing just a few minutes here and there researching on the net. But despite the sleepless nights, having to take our babies to meetings, working into the small hours once they are sleeping and the ongoing fear it could all be a huge disaster and we might be bankrupt this time next year, it’s been so exciting to launch our business and right now, we wouldn’t change a thing!!” Sam and Lesley

Read more!

Hard Spanish Surfaces

I remember when Charlie started to crawl at the very early age of 5 months that I was quite concerned about how his little knees and legs would find the hard floors that are so common in Spain. We have marble in our house and I had always assumed that would only be a concern when he started to walk, but of course crawling brings with it its own problems. Although Charlie's knees seemed to be fine, apart from the odd bruise from crawling over door frames some children do suffer. I did come across a rather unique product sometime ago for crawling babies, have a look at this:
http://www.bayon.es/cart.php?action=detalle&idp=3283&idSEC=48&categoria=&subcategoria=&inicio=0
what will they think up next! But I am sure it does help protect little ones.

If anything I found that the marble assisted Charlie crawling as he had less resistance than he would with a carpet, and certainly moved a lot faster! Good for him, not so great for me!!!

I made good use of those sponge squares that you can buy in packs on most supermarkets or toy stores. We used these are doorways where there was step or change of level so if he fell he had a soft landing, as well as simply setting out a big square in the room with his toys which was a little padded. They were great and inexpensive. The best things generally are!
Read more!

Looking for a mother and toddler group?

Looking for a group to go to with your baby or toddler in your area of Spain? We have lots of information on the site posted by myself and other members. From baby massage to yoga, straight forward mother and baby groups to singing and dancing!

http://mumsinspain.com/forum/index.php?c=11
Read more!

NEXT comes to Spain!

For those of you who miss shopping at NEXT, I have just come across www.nextdirectory.eu You can order all your childrens clothes, maternity wear and even buy something for the hubby if you like and they deliver to Spain for just 7.50 euros!! Hooray!
Read more!

Freecycle

The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,557 groups with 5,525,000 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them's good people). Membership is free. www.freecycle.org Lo and behold, we have a group in Fuengirola!!
Fab site, and the more members we have, the better it becomes!
Read more!

Great website for all things handmade

I came across this today and I am going to look at it a little closer. It is a community bringing together people who make things themselves to sell. Some lovely things on there. Maybe a Mum in Spain could use it to sell their own products.

www.etsy.com
Read more!

Baby Cheque of 2500 euros!

By the middle of April 2008 more than 10,000 families in the province of Malaga had obtained their 2,500 euros the government now gives out for every newborn baby or adoption. This amounts to some 25 million euros spent on the subsidy in this area, according to statistics provided by Socialist Member of Parliament Miguel Ángel Heredia. The benefit, which has become known as the “baby cheque”, came into force in July last year. The 2,500 euros increases to 3,500 in the case of families with three or more children and single-parent families.

You can view more information about the baby cheque and common questions on our discussion forum via these links:

http://mumsinspain.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=315
http://mumsinspain.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1887
http://mumsinspain.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1556&highlight=baby+check+cheque
Read more!

Bottled Water for Babies

It is pretty difficult to know what to do for the best for your little one sometimes - it seems to be a permanent pre occupation, especially when they are very little. You do need to be choosy when it comes to bottle water. The only bottled water that I have read is ok to give to a baby without boiling it is Evian. I actually used Lanjaron for Charlie and I boiled it. It states on the bottle it can be used for baby food. Another brand is Font Vella Junior.

Bottled water with a sodium level of less than 20mg is best to use for babies & children however, less than 10mg is preferable. Evian contains 5mg & Font Vela Junior 13mg. The mineral contents are printed on the labels of the bottles so do check them carefully. Current health advice is to boil all water for babies under 6 months so, if you intend to boil go for the lowest possible sodium content. Magnesium & Calcium levels should be higher than Sodium as these are minerals highly utilised by the body along with potassium & zinc.

Hope that made sense! If you are confused or perhaps on holiday and don't want to take any chances a couple of the supermarkets, Hipercor for sure, sell tetrapacks of baby water all ready to be used either for formula or to drink as it is. You will find it their baby aisle.

View our discussion on this subject:
http://mumsinspain.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1900
Read more!

Giving Birth in Spain

Well plenty of women have done and have lived to tell the tale, but for any new mum is can be a very anxious time! I had lived in Spain 9 years before I fell pregnant for Charlie so you would think I wouldn't be worried about giving birth in Spain, but despite speaking the language Spain still feels like a foreign country to me and I did know that giving birth was quite different than what you can watch 24 hours a day now if you want to on Discovery Home and Health!

It is this fear that got me thinking about setting up a community to help people feeling the same way and so http://www.mumsinspain.com/ was born. You can read about other mum's birth experiences on there if you follow either one these links. Like everywhere there are always horror stories, but they are in the minority. It certainly is different here in Spain, but different doesn't necessarily mean worse.

http://mumsinspain.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=2&sid=8b0c91c79e9a6a53586eb1249dbcba73

http://www.mumsinspain.com/index.php?mode=birth_stories_category

Read more!

Sorry for not being around

Having a little one can make you feel like you are missing a head sometimes, especially in this summer heat! I run www.mumsinspain.com so I have been adding all my news there, but I will make an effort to post on here too. Infact I am going to add some stuff today that I have already posted on my forum, hope you find some interesting bits of info.

Charlie will soon be 2 (in 2 months)! My little boy seems so grown up and has definitely matured. He is quite happy to play on his own now with his toys which is great for me as it means I can work from home more effectively, but also equally as nice to be able to watch him play like that....so cute! Kissing and talking to his toys! Car-mad Charlie is!

Claire & Charlie xx
Read more!