How do I stop breastfeeding?

Over the last couple of weeks I have been asked a few times about this so decided to write down all my tips on how I stopped breastfeeding both boys.

The first point was that the decision was made and made by me. In the first instance with my oldest son it was a case of necessity because he had a mouthful of teeth at eight months and was doing a lot of damage. It was no longer pleasurable to feed him and I had been to the doctor twice with severe bites!!! With my youngest son it was my choice at around nine months as I was comfortable that he was well nourished with food and it just seemed like the right moment for us to stop. This post is not going to tell you when you should stop as that is a personal decision. What I want to offer here is the how to stop.

So the decision is made but how do you go about finishing breastfeeding?

The first step for us was having an established routine. I fed both boys from birth and started to introduce solids between 4-6 months, gradually increasing the quantity of food and amount of times they ate. This was a very slow process and by eight months they were both on a routine that looked something like this:

6am Breastfed
7am porridge with stewed apple
9.30am fruit and milk (from a cup - either breast milk or formula)
11.30 lunch - veggies, meat, rice etc
2pm friut and milk
4.30 tea - similar foods to lunch time
6.30 breastfed before bed
If they woke in the night (eldest did but the youngest didn't) they breastfed 

Once we were on this schedule it was easy to reduce down and feed them with formula and by one year they both drank cow's milk from a cup. We were able to completely eradicate bottles after their first birthdays using beakers rather than bottles.

To switch the boys from breastfeeding to food was a slow process that happened over four months but this gradual approach naturally decreased my milk production allowing the transition to be more favorable! I always tried to offer food when they were not desperate for food and I avoided breastfeeding them immediately after food so they didn't associate eating with breastfeeding. 

But what about the poor mum whose breasts swell and can become pretty uncomfortable. Yes it happened to me! When they were so full it was painful I would feed or express the milk to empty them. This may seem crazy but at least you get comfortable! Straight after emptying them I would use ice packs to help prevent the production and easy any discomfort. Once that was done I could continue on the routine and repeat these steps when necessary. In one week there was so little milk left I had no cause for concern and was done with breastfeeding.

If you have any specific questions, please ask in the comments or pop over to facebook and ask directly there. And if you have any other helpful tips to share please feel free to comment.

Questions, questions, questions

If your children have reached the question asking age, you know how exhausting it can be! But it is also a time where you see their little minds racing and their desire to understand the world at its most heightened. I'm LOVING this stage!

Both boys have recently got into asking questions. At 4 the oldest is asking some pretty hefty ones including "How did people come to Earth after the dinosaurs died?" and "Where is Heaven?" These are definitely not easy to answer but slowly we are working our way through encyclopedias and YouTube videos to find the answers he needs!

Inspired by his older brother, our 2 1/2 year old is also beginning to ask questions. For his age we are quite surprised by their complexity. His include "How do you make pasta?" (which led us to try out some home made pasta). "Where does water come from?" (here, he didn't want the answer 'the tap' he was looking for the real source of water. And "Why does wee wee come out of my body?"

So why do kids ask so many questions?

Most children have a 'why' phase. This usually starts as a way to engage adults and the why continues because each why is responded to with a new piece of information. For example "Lets go to the park" 

"why?"

"So we can run around and go on the climbing frame"

"why?"

"Because exercise is good for us"

"Why?"

And so on!!!

The next stage is the deep questioning and this usually starts when the child is around 4 and can understand complex ideas and will not settle for quick answers. This moment is when a child is really discovering their world and understanding it on a new level. The more information you can provide the more they are able to contain. We are using many resources to help our sons understand the complexity of life including good old Google! Our preference is the many encyclopedias that are available to children (affiliate links below to several we have used with the boys).

Please leave a comment of the best questions you have been asked by your young children :)

Pencil grip

Today a quick post on pencil grip as it is something that we have been working on a lot lately after our eldest son picked up a few bad habits!

Why is pencil grip important?
When a child achieves the tripod grip they are able to control the pencil fully and begin the journey of writing with more ease and control.

There are three stages of pencil grip. First a small baby or child begins with a fist grip holding the pencil with all their fingers. They are able to make large up and down movements and practice pressure.

Next comes the four point grip and many children get stuck on this grip (even to adulthood). This is when a child holds the pencil between four fingers (not the little finger). They have more control and begin to draw circles, curved lines and zigzags.

The third and final grip is the tripod grip. This is the standard adult grip using the thumb, index and middle fingers. In my opinion the transition to this grip is the most complicated and often a child will resort back to the four point grip if they do not receive enough orientation. 

How can you help your child to reach each grip?
Normally the fist and four finger grip come very naturally to babies and young children. The tripod grip may also come without any adult intervention as it has (so far at least) with our youngest son. But to encourage this grip it is important for a child to see their parents writing and holding a pencil. Make a game of it by counting how many fingers can touch the pencil and if an extra one touches any time make a funny noise (this helped our son to become aware of his grip very quickly and with lots of giggles)! We try not to go on about the grip continuously each time, but at the beginning of any writing or drawing session quickly mention it in a fun way to make sure the right fingers get on that pencil!

There are several products that can help a child that may be struggling with the tripod grip (affiliate links below). We have used the pencils and they really helped us.

Apps for fun and learning

Our kids are growing up in a moment of heightened technology where information is everywhere and they will have to be computer literate on top of every other skill. In our home we recognize this importance but also limit it's effect on our, still young, sons. We have a hard rule that TV time is only for 30 minutes or so per day and only at the end of the day when we are all tired and it's dark outside! An alternative to TV time is now App time. There are some great free or low cost apps that can really help children to consolidate skills they have learnt or work on new ones. Both boys enjoy the apps we hand pick for them and so far it has been a very positive addition to our learning environment.

Maths apps: We are using three apps and the boys decide which they prefer each day although Maths 3-5 is a strong favorite lately. Maths 3-5, Maths 4-6 and Toddler Numbers
(all the apps will be listed at the bottom of this post with affiliate links).

We use DinoChess to play (or learn to play) chess. This is a lot of fun and as it is self learning (the pieces cannot move to other squares) they are gaining the basic rules of chess :)

For coding we use Lightbot Hour and Kodable. We also have ScrathJr but it is more game than coding.

We use Eggy words for reading. This is a sight word app and both boys enjoy catching eggs and splatting them too!

Our little treasure is My Incredible Body. A sure favorite and one that always ends app time on a high!

We also have BrainPop Jr as it often has interesting videos (a free video is released every Monday).

App time has proven to be a rich experience so we hope you like our list and if you have any suggestions, please let us know below.

Play or Learn?

Lately my Facebook feed has been inundated with pictures and articles about children not being taught, schools that let children spend the day outside and people who insist learning is for school! Well, I would like to say, there is no need to choose play over learning or vise versa. You don't need to worry that you are or are not teaching your child to learn (everything they do is a form or learning). And really every parent is doing their best so lets just get along!

In this post I wanted to state that we are teaching the boys many things but that doesn't mean they don't play ALL day long. The learning part is not the concern of the child but the concern of the parent. Let me elaborate. If I want my child to learn to draw, I will provide lots of drawing opportunities - different paper, pencils, canvases etc but they will draw or use these materials when they choose to, not a set time or by force, and to them this is a fun play activity, yet to me it is a goal we are reaching.

So, my boys are learning to read, learning maths, beginning with concepts then addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and algebra (then mummy is a bit limited so I will have to re-learn some things). They are leaning a third language and how to play the piano and swim. We are learning lots of science concepts and they already have a good basis in geography which we are gradually expanding and basics in history are coming together.

This list may look crazy to you but to the boys they just play. The rest is for me and my husband. So how do we do it? 

Reading: This is explained in depth in another post Learning to Read but basically fun games with letters and words and plenty of reading together - most of you probably already do this and if you think about it your goal will be for your child to read!

Cuisenaire rods

Maths: This is done through play with our number rods. They make lines and see how many smaller rods make a bigger rod. The parent aspect is reading the manual and knowing how to direct play so they get the information needed. But these rods are very self instructive and any play with them helps to physically put maths concepts into perspective. The way we describe things also helps here and with the right language choices, maths terms become part of their vocabulary. The boys also enjoy activity books so we choose math related books. 

Languages: The boys are being brought up bilingually (English and Portuguese) but this sometimes triggers interest in other languages. We have friends in Spain and the boys speak to them often via Skype. This contact has sparked an interest in our eldest son to learn Spanish. This is simply done by watching cartoons in Spanish instead of English or Portuguese. If his interest continues and he wants lessons when he's older then he will at least have a basis to go on.

Piano: This also came from the boys. My husband plays the piano and I would like to and we have a keyboard at home. We leave it set up in the living room and the boys have access to it all the time. For Christmas we got some basic first learning piano books both for myself to learn and for them too if they choose this. Most days they play on the keyboard and lately the big boy has asked to play from the book. He has seen me using the book to practice and often wants to join in. The youngest is learning the notes and enjoys playing the demos!

Swimming: This is also a subject which has it's own post Learning to swim. This is an activity which, living on an island and close to the sea, has great importance to us. We have never paid for swimming lessons for the boys but they are very confident in the water and can both swim unaided (youngest for a few kicks, eldest 10 meters or so), enough to save themselves should an accident occur. This has been one of our favorite learning activities this summer and we have been to the pool a few times each week practicing our water skills!

Science: Like math, science is all around us. We love science! Especially messy, explosive and hands on science. Here is our post on several of our experiments and there are several videos of these experiments on our Youtube channel. The more hands on the science the more the boys enjoy it. We try to do some kind of experiment each day and watch documentaries on how things are made as well as any cartoons we find about science.

Geography: As we are quite an international family the boys have relations and friends scattered all around the world. We have a map up in their room and they often pause to look at it and discuss who lives where. If we hears of people travelling we usually check the map to see where the place is. The big guy is doing a project on Egypt at nursery so we have located it on our map and stared to discuss the languages spoken there, cultures and climate.

History: This comes up most days in the conversations we have from when they were young (their own history), to what happened when dinosaurs were alive and hundreds of things in between. We use a children's encyclopedia to explain many things and YouTube often has child friendly videos about other subjects.


Our days are packed with fun, play and learning as i'm sure the majority of your days are too. My aim with this post was to share the secret that play versus learning is only a concern for adults. In my experience, children love learning. They are naturally curious, ask an endless stream of questions just waiting to soak up information. I do not intend to suggest sitting a child down to 'work' on something that doesn't interest them but to encourage their curiosity and offer them many opportunities. Never miss a minute, these years are too precious. We would love to hear all you play and learning experiences - we are always on the lookout for new things to try!

(This post contains affiliate links to help us to continue our educational journey-thank you for all your support).

Science fun and games

Creating his own little experiment here

(This post contains affiliate links)

We have had so much fun with science over the past two weeks that I wanted to compile a collection so you can find everything in one place. We have carried out several experiments, baked and played and will be repeating many of these activities again soon.


First off, bouncing eggs! These are simple to do but take a while to prepare. Our eldest son is able to prepare and wait overnight to finish an experiment while the youngest is still too eager to manage the waiting part. So, when I have to prepare things a day ahead I try to do so when the youngest takes a nap otherwise he becomes distressed that he cannot do the activity immediately. He will grow and learn just as his brother has but for now, we do the prep without him! See our eggs bouncing on YouTube (includes full instructions).

Tornado in a bottle

Next up is 'Tornado in a bottle'. This was so easy and quick to set up and we have done it several times. See ours in action here (includes full instructions).

Floating egg

Another quick and easy experiment was making an egg float. We began with a small basin of water (enough to cover an egg) and placed the egg in. It sank. We then added sea salt to see how much was needed to make the egg float. The boys measured out and counted and after 30 teaspoons the egg finally floated!

Black light drawing

We have had lots of fun with glow in the dark drawing all you need is a black light and some UV pens (affiliate link below - this is the first set we got).

Homemade chalk

We also had a go at making our own chalk. This was lots of messy fun but pretty simple and the boys were able to do a great deal on their own. We used plaster of paris and paint, mixed it up and put it in homemade molds to set. It only took an hour or so in the sun and then it was chalk drawings everywhere! 

Fruit engineering

A simple engineering activity we created involved tooth picks and fruit. The boys had melon to make interesting shapes. They had a feast at the same time! This has been repeated nearly every day and they have tried mango, apple, peas, corn and banana! 

The last item I will show you is something I made for the boys which has been used a lot and a great way to start learning about the body. It is a felt torso with 10 detachable parts and I have made a work sheet with facts about each body part which is available on request - just message us with your email address and we'll get a free copy to you asap request sheet here

How do I do housework with two small boys? Our life in photos

I often get asked how I manage to clean the house with the boys underfoot! I thought i'd share some of the methods I've used lately. 

Colouring in the book corner while mummy mops the floor

Digging in the garden while daddy hangs out the washing

Getting the hang of vacuuming while daddy washes the dishes 

Spraying the mirror while mummy cleans the windows

Wiping the mirror while mummy dries the dishes

Playing in the bath while daddy cleans the loo

These are just a few of the ways I get everything done in a peaceful manner and getting them involved with daily chores. We are always on the look out for new ideas, so if you have a great way to get the kids busy so you can get busy, please comment below :)

Here are a few ideas to get the little ones busy (affiliate links for readers convenience).