Helping a child with nightmares- Dream Pillow Review & Giveaway

It's heartbreaking, to hear my daughter crying out in the night. For around a year now, around 3-4 times a month, Isla has nightmares. Sometimes her nightmares are mild and she tells us about them in a hazy half asleep way, before dropping back down onto her pillow- but there are some nightmares where she runs around her room and doesn't understand she isn't asleep anymore until we come in and turn on the light.

It's not a huge issue thankfully, and we put it down to her having a very big imagination, but it does disturb her sleep and she worries about going to bed sometimes in case a bad dream hits.

That's why I was so thrilled to be contacted by Dream Pillow. They have created three beautiful soft pillows designed especially for children aged 2-12, to help them combat bad dreams and get a good night sleep.

Isla was sent the "Lamby" pillow, which came with a pad of cloud shaped paper for her to write down her wishes for good dreams. For her first night trying it, she drew a rainbow and said she hoped she would get to go "over the rainbow" like Dorothy, just without the witches! After drawing or writing what she wants to dream about, she just has to slide the dream into the pillow and get to sleep.

I hoped that her having the positive images in mind in such a prominent and happy format would stop her imagination running away into scarier thoughts, and it seemed to ease her mind as well as she was actually excited to go to sleep!

She didn't dream about rainbows, but she didn't have any nightmares and said she will just have to try harder in her dreams the next night!

Dream Pillow is such a fantastic idea, and the creators have also produced a revolutionary sleep mask that reduces all light and up to 40 decibels of sound- so once the kids are settled with their pillows you can rest easy (or use it to ignore a snoring husband like me!).

If you'd like the chance to win both an original Dream Pillow and Sleep Mask, please do enter in the widget below! Thank you so much Dream Pillow for the good nights sleep!

Dream Pillow & Sleep Mask Giveaway

I was sent one Lamby Dream Pillow and sleep mask in exchange for this review. All words, photos and opinions are my own.

Exciting News! 12 Weeks Pregnant

I'm so happy to finally be able to write about this- it's been a long 8 weeks of waiting and I've found my mind going blank when it comes to blogging ever since we found out. How could I bring myself to write when I couldn't yet talk about the most exciting thing we have going on!

I'm extremely pleased to announce that myself and Jack are expecting our third bundle of joy. Three children! Are we crazy? Many probably think so- we already have one of each and as I addressed in my previous post about feeling broody, we weren't sure that it was really the norm to venture past two children anymore.

But yes, little one is definitely on the way and the whole family is thrilled.

I'm 12+5 writing this today, and yesterday we had our 12 week scan to make sure everything is developing well with the baby- I feel very blessed to say it is.

Pregnancy so far has been surprisingly easy. With my first pregnancy, I didn't have morning sickness but I did faint all the time, even from the beginning. With my second, I had severe Hyperemesis almost from day one and ended up with acute SPD which started to ache almost from the beginning as well. We were of course nervous for what this pregnancy would bring, but the hormone gods have blessed me and I haven't thrown up or fainted or ached once!

At most, I'm tired. Wrangling two small children when all I want to do is nap lately has been hard and for some reason they've both decided that bedtime and wake up time are on a brand new schedule. Add in that I do have to get up to pee most nights and I'm definitely getting desparate for the second trimester energy.

The hormones are however, causing me to have more spots than I ever had combined for all my teenage years. My hair is annoyingly oily and I'm yet to crack the code for how often to wash it without it being too often. Breast ache has subsided but was a huge niggle for the first two months.

I'm definitely already in maternity jeans. I showed fairly quickly with my prior pregnancies and this one is no exception- they do say subsequent pregnancies can show earlier and at nearly 13 weeks there is definitely no hiding it. My uterus is way above my pubic bone already and I can feel it like a hard ball when I lay on my stomach (something I miss at night already, boo).

I'm so excited for this journey and to share it with you all!