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Last Wednesday Athena and Arlo accompanied me to a play date so nothing unusual there really, apart from the fact that was a play date in London complete with some amazing entertainers, lots of toys and activities and then a scrummy lunch!! Whilst Athena was being entertained and worn out I was off learning about Colic and vitamin D, and got to meet and chat to some lovely bloggers too!

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Colief asked invited us along to this brilliantly organised day to help spread the word about their products but also to learn more about general health and wellbeing of our children by letting us loose with three experts covering different fields. I had a really interesting chat with Maggie the psychologist about how my parenting style has changed and we also briefly spoke about ‘gentle parenting’ as I mentioned that I wanted to cover it a lot more on my blog as we experience things with with the children. Then it was onto a new room with Dr Jumoke Thomas who covered what Colief drops do (in a nutshell they contain a natural enzyme that helps to break down the sugar-lactose in milk, be in formula or breastmilk but find out more here) and she also spoke about how often other symptoms of a dairy allergy or intolerance can be confused as having other causes, rashes for example. I’m quite lucky in that neither Athena or Arlo suffered/suffer too badly with milk related issues, apart from the odd bout of bad wind but I plan to use the colief drops when making up bottles of expressed breast milk for Sam to use with Arlo, although he’s currently refusing a bottle at the moment which is making it a bit tricky currently!

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We were also introduced to the new Baby Scalp Oil, containing Rosehip, Vitamin E and Chamomile, designed to help with cradle cap, but i’ve actually been using it on the little dry patches of skin that Arlo gets, behind his ears, sometimes on his back and also in all those lovely little leg rolls he has! He’s not had cradle cap at all so far, which is a bit of a shame really as I spent many a fun evening picking at Athenas head when she was his age!

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Our last session was with Judy who is a nutritionist, and was all about Vitamin D. Now this is something I knew very little about before our chat so it was really interesting to find out more about it. Vitamin D helps promote healthy bones, teeth and immune system but very few of us actually get as much as we need. Naturally found in biggest quantities in sunlight even in the summer we miss out because we slap super strength sunscreen on our kids immediately the moment we leave the house! It can also be found in fish and eggs, neither of which we eat much of in my house! Coliefs Vitamin D drops are the perfect way to add vitamin D into the diets of everyone in the house, and definitely something I’m going to carry on using! I just pop a few drops into Athenas morning milk, and into my own tea! Job done! Vitamin D supplements are recommended for all children aged up to 5, something I never knew before!

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After some scrummy lunch for mamas and little ones we listened to Hannah (who blogs at Budding Smiles) talk about her quite frankly not very pleasant experience with colic in her son, how it affected him, her husband and of course Hannah herself. She also spoke about the help she received and the actions she took to try to help him through it. You can see her presentation here.

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Colief have also just started running an online Clinic from 1pm till 2pm on Thursdays on their Facebook Page, which will cover various topics. I joined in last week and got some good ideas from Dr Thomas about trying to get Arlo to take milk from a bottle! I’ll be joining in again soon as it’s great to get some instant ideas and answers when you need them from a proper Doctor! There is also the ‘Mum Centre’ on their website with lots of helpful information too.

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So a HUGE thankyou to Colief for organising such a fantastic day, they really put the children’s needs at the heart of the their planning and worked from there and it made taking both little ones to London a lot easier! With special thanks to my mum too for coming up with us on the train to help keep Athena entertained, and The Giggle Company for their amazing entertainers during the day, I wish I had their insane amounts of energy!

 

One thought on “Colief playdate

  1. Sounds like a fab day out, with loads of useful advice. I didn’t know about vitamin D either, will have to look at supplementing O’s diet. Athena looked like she had a great time playing.
    Xx

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