New from the makers of the famous AnyWayUp cup is this clever ole 360° Junior Cup.

What Amadeus say is so true – I was a BIG fan of the AnyWayUp cups when the boys were small. But they get too old for ‘baby’ cups lo-o-o-ng before they’re ready to be trusted anywhere but sitting at the table with a ‘grown up’ cup.

Which throws up problems if you’re used to having snuggle-up drinks with stories, drinks for poorly boys in bed (why do they never understand that if they try and drink lying down their neck is going to get very wet??), early morning in-front-of-the-tv milk (and much much more if you’re not strict about all drinks being at a table).

The 360° Junior Cup is actually far easier to drink out of than an AnyWayUp Cup. There is no spout, so like drinking from a proper cup anywhere on the rim will do (360° cup, geddit?). We have tried and tried, but I have to report that it’s true – it can be knocked over and dropped with no major spillage. This cup is NOT utterly leak proof, mind – it is not intended to be. At this age they are generally passed the wave-it-wildly stage. That said, Ella has just started to drink from it at 14mths, and lobbing it from the highchair hasn’t yet caused it to leap apart and flood the floor.

And how’s this for an age range and value-for-money – not only does Ella used hers, but my biggest man Cameron (who’s scarily NINE) used it only recently when he was struck down by really bad tonsillitis – curled beneath his duvet, he could drink warm milk and not worry about spilling any.

Its a clever ole design. Because there’s no valve at all, no power-suction is required to gain your juice of choice. The top screws off the bottom for filling (Note – don’t fill it too high, or when the top goes back on you’ll overflow all over your hands). For cleaning you just pop the top apart, and rinse. No tricky spout, no icky valve – and apparently because they’re made with Steri-Touch, they stay germ-free between washes for longer too.

The 360° Junior Cup – does exactly what it says it will. Just the way life should be.

Over the years of filling the bathtub, plonking in dirty kids, scrubbing them clean and diving for the soap among the flotilla of bath toys bobbing on the surface, I’ve tried quite a few different ways of dealing with the aftermath of wet toys. Attempts have been made at just leaving them there (too untidy), trying one of those sits-across-the-top-of-the-bath trays (just not practical) and banning all bath toys (too many tears from sad children).

Along came the Küster bath toy bucket and bathtime happiness was restored. It works, it really does. At the start of the bath you just, whoosh, tip all the toys out with a flamboyant splash. When bathtime is done you just pull out the inner bit of the bucket (the bit with the legs and holes in the bottom) and scooooop up all those floating things and plop the inner bit back in the bucket. There it sits, full of the draining-toys, all neat and tidy in the corner of the bathroom, ready for the next soggy session. Perfection. Stylish too, don’tcha think?

£15 from Kuster

*Kuster seem to not be making currently, but Mebby seems to have brought out the same bath toy storage.

A towel for drying your baby is just a towel, yes? Well, yeah, that’s what I thought… but….. there is a better way, a much better way.

The Cuddledry original baby bath towel is a marvel and JUST the sort of product we, here at LittleStuff, really like. It has been cleverly designed to make life easier and just that little bit nicer for parents and babies at bathtime. And, most importantly, it really, truly does work better than an ordinary towel. Clipping the towel to the grown-up, apron style, so both hands are free to scoop up wet-and-getting-cold-too-quick baby from the bath and wrapping that precious little bundle into a thick, soft, warm towel is utter perfection. Being made from a well-thought-out mix of bamboo fibre and organic cotton, the Cuddledry is very absorbent, it kinda just sucks up the water. No more do we have to juggle wet baby with towel tucked under our chin as our own clothes get soaked. Never again do we have to swoop baby from bath to the towel laid out on the floor, causing a huge squeeeeel from baby because the rush of cold air on wet skin is rather unpleasant, thank you.

Did I already mention how impressed I am with how thick this towel is? The organic cotton and bamboo fibre makes it an amazingly soft texture. It feels like it is actually two towels put together and the benefit of that is the towel does not get wet through as lesser, thinner towels do when you’ve scooped up soggy baby. I’ve also got to add that this towel is BIG, (hoorah!) and what a relief that is. With my first son, we bought those thin, never-big-enough square towels with a little hooded corner and we ended up using two each bathtime or a grown-up’s towel that would swamp my tiny baby boy.

I’ve also been using the Cuddlemitt mitten-flannel as part of the Cuddledry product family and being a fan of mitten-type-flannels for some time I can see how this one has the advantage of rounded corners that are less ‘pokey’ than the traditional square ones when wanting to clean around those teeny tiny noses and ears.

The Cuddledry is all the towel you will need until toddlerhood and beyond. Ben is now nearly 2 years old and we still use it because the Cuddlemoo towel has been commandeered by older brother Jacob. The Cuddlemoo is the same thick, supersoft, hooded type of towel (but without the apron bit for parents). It has been a big hit in this house with it’s funky moo-cow patch design and is just the right size for a little person to wrap around themselves and run away from parent-wanting-them-into-pyjamas!

We will be using the Cuddledry towels and Cuddlemitt wash cloth flannel for many years to come, regardless of how big the boys get because first and foremost they work better than ordinary cotton towels. I suspect that these babies will last so long that I maybe handing them down to my grandchildren, one day…. A long, long, long time from now, you understand. ;-)

Lis has reported back with her first-impressions of the Maclaren Beginning gift packs she received before Christmas.

“The Maclaren range is really lovely! I will write you the full review asap but my absolute faves are the baby balm (soooo handy for my change bag) and the lovely cocooning massage oil…Matthew loves it!”

That’s looking like a big thumbs up from Lis for Maclaren – keep your eye on our reviews section to see the full version, just as soon as the still-very-poorly Lis gets it to us.

Well. For me, the Red Castle Shop n Jogg IS my Pushchair Moment. Honestly.

I can tell you right now that it’s not for everyone. This is not a review that will interest a town-Mumma much. For this is not a pushchair that will interest a town-mumma much. Oh no. It’s a real proper grown-up all terrain pushchair (ATP), this one. For getting off the tarmac and heading onto the fields, moors and beaches. Or, as Katy sweetly pointed out ‘For outdoor-offroad-nutty-families’.

But for me, this is it.

It isn’t utterly brilliant in town, it’s too long, and the shopping basket won’t hold much shopping.

But unlike some of the other big ATP’s, it does handle beautifully, and the front swivel wheel means that manoeuvring around the streets is a breeze.

The seat doesn’t sit absolutely upright, nor does it lie completely flat. It uses a zipping mechanism to change the angle, and Red Castle say it is suitable to use from birth.

This is a BIG pushchair. It’s solidly built (though not heavy), and doesn’t fold down to teeny proportions – I was concerned about fitting it in the restricted boot space of my ‘baby bus’. But it fits. Just.

Take the Red Castle Shop’n Jogg offroad, however, and it really does come into its own. The overriding, best, most genius piece of design work is the lockable front wheel. We all know you need a swivel wheel for in the town, and a locked wheel for off road use on bumpy ground, yes?

How many of you have had the locked wheels come unlocked as you’re bouncing down a pot-holed lane? Or even when locked there’s still some give, and the wheels wobble and jam on a stony path? The Shop’n Jogg locking mechanism is a stroke of genius; once it’s fixed there’s no moving it, and you have the perfect truly-locked front wheel needed for the roughest of terrains. It is honestly the best mechanism I’ve seen – and I’ve tried a few.

You can see us putting through its paces last week right here – we really tried hard, but nothing stopped it.

The next fab thing about the Shop’n Jogg is the handlebar. The pushchair is quite tall, but the bar is fully adjustable, so my 6’ frame is not stooped, nor is my 5’2” sister struggling to push it comfortably. And the whole thing is wrapped in soft non-slip textured foamy… stuff. Which means that even if you’re halfway down a tricky hill in the pouring rain your hands will not slip off as you watch the pushchair bounce merrily away.

Ooohhh, there’s so much I could tell you about this pushchair. The nicely padded and interminably adjustable straps, the gorgeous big and comfy seat which fitted Pink at 10mths, but will still take a 4yr old easily (so is still practical for those longer walks, instead of you having dead-weight-tired-child on your shoulders for the last mile). The high clearance of the basket, making rough ground a breeze. The properly ratcheted sun hood which stays where it’s put. The removable safety bar. The easy-clean fabric. Even the choice of colours is pretty good for a proper ATP!

The tyres are a standard size, so replacement inners are available from any bike shop. (NB – make sure you check the outer tyre before replacing the inner, just in case you might, on the faint off chance, have a whacking great thorn still resident that will gleefully pierce your new inner tube the minute your back is turned…*ahem*).

So. Red Castle ‘Shop’n Jogg’.

I quite like it. ;)

The all terrain pushchair shop have the full range currently at a very sweet £365. bargain. Go. Buy one.

Okay, let me start by saying that there are a zillion pushchairs in the market for a very good reason. We all want something different. But that’s a good thing – and I truly believe that out there is the right pushchair for every Mumma. Have you had your Pushchair Moment yet? When your eyes sweep across it on the street, in a shop, on the internet, and without realising they’ve doubled back to take a second look. And you can see yourself with that pushchair. You read the blurb, and you think ‘YES! That’s the one for me!’
Then you get to meet – maybe in the safety of a large shop, maybe in the more private setting of your own home. You stand it tall, and step back and marvel at its sleek good looks, or sheer solid practicality. You touch your hands on the handle bar and there’s an instant connection. It just feels ‘right’. You give a gentle push, and that warm fuzzy feeling grows inside you as you see how it moves. You investigate all the little extra’s that are now yours, smiling at the cleverness of it all. You lovingly stroke the beautiful fabric… okay, that’s going a bit far, but you know what I mean. And hopefully there’s a lot of you out there who have had that pushchair moment. And sadly, too many that haven’t yet found their pushchair match from heaven.
Well, I’ve been reviewing the Red Castle ATP – the Sport Shop’n Jogg.  And right at the beginning I had that Pushchair Moment, and nearly 3 months later I still get a happy feeling when I’m pushing it!
Here’s us out last week, putting it though its beautiful paces…

Congratulations to these lucky six winners who won either a Blankie Bear or Blankie Bunny from Gagagoogoo in our recent competition;

Sarah Smith – Blackley
Simon Sims – Stourbridge
Karen Langridge – Gwynedd
Ian Yates – Clitheroe
Emma Clarke – Pontypridd
Kirsty Bartholomew – Sheffield

We hope your children love these beautiful little critters as much as we do.

A stairgate is a stairgate, right? What’s interesting about a stairgate? It either works by keeping the little cherubs out of harms way or it doesn’t. Right? Well, sit back and take note, this stairgate is not like your usual garden-variety stairgate. It has this magical ability to read your mind. It ‘knows’ that you want it to help you as you have just juggled and shifted the zillion things cradled in your arms (toy car in need of new battery, basket of laundry, dirty nappy to be disposed of, nightlight for the recharger and more) to one side to free one hand so you can open said magical gate. Aggggh, quick, gate is now open but the fragile pile is about to lose balance and crash to the floor so free hand is quickly scooped back under teetering pile as you step forward and hear that satisfying ‘click’ behind you as mystical magical gate gracefully shuts, firmly, behind you. Aahhhhhhh. Oh there are a thousand and one scenarios I could waffle on about how an automatically closing stairgate is a godsend.

So, yes, the Bettacare Auto-Close gate does exactly as it says on the box. I have it setup with an extension panel across the door from the playroom-that-used-to-be-a-dining-rooom to the garden. On sunny days (what precious few we’ve had this summer) Mr Independant 4 year old is able to come and go from garden to house (oh please mind the carpet with your mucky shoes!), totally absorbed in whatever mind-boggling but very important task he is dealing with minus any tutting and sighing from Mummy as he no longer has to remember to close the gate as Speedy-Gonzales crawling 10 month old makes a break for freedom. Phew.

Yup, this gate is good. It comes in the usual white variety or a snazzy wooden flavour with various sizes and extension panels. It’s price is only a smidge more than lesser, non-auto-closing gates and, in our opinion, is worth that bit extra.

Yup, a big thumbs up from LittleStuff.

Auto-close safety gate direct from Bettacare for £30