The Isle of Barra? Where's that?!

As I mentioned in my first blog post Heidi is 7 months old so as you can imagine we have already done a few trips with her. She has attended two weddings; one in Buckinghamshire and one in Yorkshire - lazy parent top tip is don't bother getting a fancy new dress or outfit for your baby. I bought Heidi two outfits from Vinted and she ended up wearing them for such a short amount of time it was pointless. Nice baby grows all the way for any future babies and weddings.

She has also been to the Isle of Barra..... never heard of it, yeh neither had I!!! But go to Scotland, catch a ferry and keep bloody going then you will reach the Isle of Barra five hours later. It is a beautiful island but remote. So so so so remote! It was a great but I don't feel the need to go back again...I found that I couldn't join in with a lot of the tours as they were just not safe with a baby attached. We used the Ergobaby a lot in Barra and barely used the pram but even with a carrier some of the fun trips such as a trip to the uninhabited island Mingulay (which I would have LOVED) just was not suitable. Dan enjoyed himself though.... not that I'm still slightly bitter about that particular trip!

The ferry was super easy with a baby, the only thing I wouldn't do again is take the pram up to the deck. It was a pain in the backside and we ended up using it as a family coat container! In reality Heidi was either with me or Dan or her Great Granny. With having such a premature baby I packed the kitchen sink when it came to medications Calpol - in the bag, Ibuprofen - in the bag, Olbus oil - IN THE BAG! Normally I wouldn't be too worried but Barra had a co-op...... that was the biggest shop it had so I was keen to make sure we had it all...obviously because we had it all she was fine and we didn't need anything at all!

Clearly as mentioned to begin with we packed everything plus the kitchen sink 'just in case'. Seven months down the line with a serial panic packer that is me not Dan - and we have started to get the hang of what we need, what we will actually use and what is just daft and can be left at home. Our most used item in Barra was probably the baby carrier (we have an Ergobaby which I LOVE!) and the pram was the least used (despite the pram being useless on that particular holiday I would still take it everywhere).

I am currently writing this from a beach house in Wales and as you can imagine from our first trip to this one Heidi has changed insurmountably! The first trips we did were relatively easy as she was super easy and happy to be cwtched (cuddled) by anyone and it was a case of feed, sleep, bit of awake time, repeat. By the time we got to Barra she was 5 months old (3 months corrected) and she was less tolerant of being cwtched by anyone other than me or her dad. Now we are in Wales she is 7 months, much more interactive, noisy, has opinions on what she wants and she can roll over so we are much more vigilant as to where we just pop her down for a second. Last but not least she has been trying solids which is messy to say the least! We packed less crap, we only brought Calpol, teething stuff (OMG teething is the WORST!) we have teething granules (which be warned can cause explosive nappies!), Anbesol (this stuff I have found works really well!) and a tonne of teething toys.

Whilst in Wales which is our first family holiday with nobody else she had one day of her being utterly unsettled, utterly miserable and I genuinely thought OH MY GOD this is it! This is our life now, we will never get the chance to have a relaxed holiday ever again........ turns out I was just being dramatic (who me?!) she had been fantastic every day thereafter despite teething!

So that's it, in a nutshell that is whistle stop tour of 7 months bobbin' about.