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!
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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
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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!
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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!
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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
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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
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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
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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

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