As a stylist amongst my friends it’s our in-joke that I love a good accessory and one friend and I even give ourselves scores for them as I used to do in my magazine column with celebrity outfits. Well our little Meadow is currently rocking one accessory in particular – the bib! A couple of weeks ago she got her four top back teeth all at once! It was awful – she couldn’t sleep well because of the pain and she didn’t really understand what was happening. Her teething rings (from when she was a baby) made their way back into the fridge and I even some froze some, for better effect (defrosting before use of course). I took her teething gel every where and her Organic Monkey cheek rub which smells lovely and she actually seemed to enjoy us putting it on her – the arnica in it must work and she also seemed to like the taste of it. Her arms were constantly in the air for hugs and she was just generally unwell, she’s normally such a happy child it was upsetting to see.

As mum who works from home, I love to see other mums doing the same and a friend of a friend, Aimee, is now making her own bibs – they are brilliant and Meadow rocks her star print Bello Bimbo bandana bib and it looks like part of her outfit as opposed to the white towelling ones we were using before. Meadow has a few bandana styles now but I still have to put a waterproof apron bib on her to eat. Whilst the teeth were coming through, Meadow went back to having milk through the day and she just didn’t want as much food. Thank goodness for mini pork sausages, grapes, raisins and oatcakes as these seemed to be her accepted foods of choice. We reverted back to weaning finger foods… anything that required a spoon you could forget – even her favourite, beans on toast was abandoned in favour of soft cheese spread sandwiches. I started using toddler milk at night and it was odd going back to sterilising again but she did seem to enjoy it and I thought it improved her teeth too.

The whole family looked like zombies and she missed her toddler group for two weeks as she was sleeping so late after long disrupted nights. But as this continued, I still couldn’t see the teeth! Like with cutlery, she’d fiercely shake her head if you tried to put a finger near her mouth. I then discovered if we sang “Down at the bottom of the deep blue sea, counting fishes… one two three” and gently tipped her head back we could then see the teeth! This was when I discovered four baby molars – I had to do a few verses just to be sure! After ten days we began to reach normality again and a trip to feed the ducks with her friend confirmed she was getting back to normal. However, I couldn’t help but think, we’re nearly there – as she now has 16 teeth but in a few years they will soon be falling out as the tooth fairy visits and we will have it all over again!!!