Midweek Musings: Baby Bottles and Nursery Progress

Hello there! I don't often do reviews on here (mostly because the things I am offered aren't usually relevant) but when Scandi brand Twistshake got in touch with me and offered me one of their new baby bottles to review, I couldn't say no. (That sounds so cheesy and hackneyed but it's true).

As Daphne has always been bottle fed, we've been through our fair share of different bottles - we started out with the ones that came with my breast pump, then we moved onto Dr Brown's Anti-Colic, which I think were good but were a right palaver and a half to wash up, and then we moved onto Mam's Self-sterilising Anti-Colic bottles which we currently use. They've been pretty good and I don't have much to complain about with them (although Daph hated their fancy teat and so we still use Dr Brown teats with them), but the Twistshake is quite frankly genius thanks to one thing - the little powder box it comes with.

When we moved onto powdered milk, this really worried me - how would we store the powder when we went out? I know you can get little plastic boxes but they looked fiddly and lots of people said how much they leaked. To avoid the issue completely, we usually make up a bottle then flash-cool it and take it with us, keeping it in a cool bag (or fridge if we're at a friend's) until Daph needs it. I'm pretty sure the NHS would string me up for this, but touch wood it's been OK so far. But today I went to my mum's and I roadtested the Twistshake and it was just brill - I simply scooped out the powder required into the little powder box then tucked that neatly back into the bottle. Then topped it up with slightly cooled boiled water when I needed to make up Daph's feed.

I've seen that you can also use this powder box to store snacks for older kids (like cucumber sticks etc) which is another brilliant idea. I do like a multi-functional invention!

The bottles are bright and colourful (I hated the look of the Dr Brown ones) and very easy to use, with a special powder filter that stops any lumps from clogging up the teat. They're Anti Colic too, although Daph no longer has colic so I can't comment on that. They kind of look like grown-up drinks bottles I think! I love the fact that the colours are bold and not insipid or very clearly gender-specific. We use blue Mam bottles (as well as pink ones) and it annoys me that the pictures on them are clearly designed for boys.

The only downside of the Twistshake is that (as far as I can tell) they are not self-sterilising like the Mam ones - this is a real plus for me as we don't have space for a separate steriliser in our stuffed-to-the-brim kitchen. Otherwise though, I'm impressed, and very happy to recommend them. They're available on Amazon

In other news, this week we've been getting Daphne's nursery ready for her to move into when she's six months old (in just over two weeks). Sniff! Part of me can't wait to move her into her own room because quite frankly, she's a noisy little bugger and between around 2am and 5am just basically makes noise non-stop - singing, gurgling, shouting, crying, you name it. But then part of me is really soppy and can't bear the idea of her not being next to me anymore, all soft and snuffly and smelling of babies. I will miss her!

As we're hoping to move house at some point this year we didn't want to spend too much money on the nursery, so we've really just made do with what we've already got, and bought a few new touches like a rug (not the horrible old one in the picture!), some artwork and a cot mobile, to try to make it nice for her. I'll do a proper nursery 'tour' post when it's all finished but the cot is in and looks fab, and my mum is busy adjusting the existing cheap Ikea curtains (finally cutting them to the right size for the window and lining them with blackout lining). She's also making a cot bumper for me. My mum is a superstar! I really need to learn how to do this kind of stuff - seriously considering a sewing course at some point...

The one thing that I have yet to manage to source is a nice lampshade for the boring pendant light fitting. We have a bright pink one (also Ikea) up now that I bought when I first moved in and it's just dull dull dullsville. I'd love something quirky but not too expensive. Or cheesy. If anyone has any bright ideas, I'd love to hear them!