Wishing Life Would Slow Down A Little

Lately, I've been plagued by the realisation that life is passing too quickly. Weekends pass by in the blink of an eye, then another week is gone, then a term and now a whole school year. It doesn't feel possible that the summer holidays are almost upon us again. 

My baby isn't a baby at all anymore. She is almost two years old, a fully fledged toddler with the attitude to prove it. She is desperate to race ahead through life, she isn't willing to slow down for even a millisecond. She watches the things her big sister can do and then demands that she be allowed to do them too. She refuses to sit on a toddler toilet seat now, instead, balancing precariously over the bowl as though she may disappear down the toilet any moment. She doesn't want to hold my hand to walk down the street, she wants to walk beside me independently as her sister does. In the mornings, when I try to do Ebony's for school, Ember barges in front of her and demands that I do hers first, as though the fact she has none is irrelevant. 

And if I worry about how quickly Ember is growing up, she has nothing on her big sister. The past couple of years have flown by. When I think back to life before Ember, I remember nursery runs and lunchtimes at the breakfast bar and days out in Manchester. I remember Ebony's chubby cheeks and her hand gripped tightly in mine. That little girl feels like a distant memory now. This year, she has grown, taller and leaner, her limbs have thinned out and her face has lost the telltale chub of a little girl. She knows more now, she remembers things, and she chats away about all the things she has learned and played at school. 

Sometimes, there are moments that feel perfect and I wish I could bottle them and keep them forever. Little snatches of time that I never want to forget. My two girls, little but growing as there are now, creating perfect memories that I know will one day escape me. I want to remember how it feels to be cuddled tightly by a toddler, or needed by a heartbroken six-year-old. I want to remember their huge excited smiles, their laughter, and the games they have played together in the garden this summer. 

I wish I had a huge shelf of bottled memories that I could replay over and over again in my old age. When my little girls have grown and gone, I want to look back and inhale these moments over and over again. I want time to slow down that I can commit these days to memory. I want the summer to pass slowly, with plenty of time for exploring and adventure and just enjoying each other, and I want to remember this feeling of what life is like right now. It is easy to get caught up in the stress and the chaos and feel like this bit of life is hard, but I know that one day I will look back and long for the love and the warmth of this time of my life. 

7 Things That Make Modern Motherhood More Difficult Than It Needs To Be

Parenting isn’t easy, at all. I don’t know whether this is something people have always felt, or whether the idea of parenting as a struggle is a new phenomenon. I don’t know whether mothers in all cultures plonk themselves down at the end of the day and let out a sigh of relief at having gotten through another day, but I kind of doubt it. It seems like this struggle is cemented in the way we live our lives in the west. It complicates the way we hold ourselves as mothers, the way we interact with other mothers and even the way we bond with our babies.

That’s not to say motherhood should be perfect and glossy and easy. Of course, it shouldn’t. Life with kids is messy and chaotic and sometimes it makes you want to sit alone in a dark room for a while. But every single day shouldn’t be hard. Life shouldn’t feel like an uphill struggle. When life feels hard, we don’t manage to enjoy the days as they pass. If we’re busy begrudging motherhood, we’re less likely to appreciate the little things that make it all worthwhile - the grubby hands around our neck, the whispered I love yous and the misspelt handwritten notes left on our pillows.

Every minute doesn’t need to be perfect, but we should be able to sit down in the evening and feel positive about the day we just had. We should be able to remember the smiles and the cuddles and the pride, not just the stress and the self-doubt. Maternal mental health problems are on the rise and many women are finding the adjustment to motherhood a difficult one to make. Perhaps it has always been this way, but I doubt it. If you're struggling with motherhood, having somebody to talk to might help. You can find a list of therapists on the BetterHelp site here. I think society is making motherhood more difficult than it needs to be, and I think once we recognise that, we will have the power to change it. Here are a few of the reasons I think parenting feels so damn hard in 2018:

1. The loss of a village

This pretty much sums it all up, doesn’t it? Generations ago, children grew into adults who stayed close to home. Families lived in the same communities and you stayed living near the friends you’d grown up with. By the time you had kids, you had a whole army of people to help you out. People relied on their friends and family for informal childcare in a way many people are unable to nowadays. In Bali, babies generally don’t touch the ground until they are six months old. Before then, they are carried at all times. The parents rely on friends and family members to help them keep their baby in arms for the first six months. I imagine there aren’t many people in the UK who could manage such a feat these days. I only live an hour from where I grew up, but that hour means I don’t have much of a village around me at short notice. For those who live even further from home, it must be even more difficult to get help when they need it.

2. Loneliness

It’s a sad fact that motherhood can be a lonely time. Babies are great, but they aren’t skilled conversationalists and the days can pass slowly when you’re not surrounded by friends to talk to. We live in our own houses with our own gardens and driveways. You can easily pass a day without leaving the confines of your own home. You can live in a house for years without ever really knowing your neighbours. The days of neighbourhoods communally raising their kids are gone. Now we have a country of lonely new parents trapped indoors, desperate to find their tribe but not knowing how to go about it. The early days can be so overwhelming that the thought of heading out to a baby group alone is just too much for some new parents. It’s a sad but very true fact that some women find motherhood to be incredibly lonely.

3. The obsession with back to ‘normal’

When you become a mother, there is a new normal, at least temporarily. Your body won’t look or feel like your own, you’ll be exhausted and you will probably lose track of your identity a little bit. Don’t worry, you’ll get it back, but it’s hard to retain your sense of self when you are in survival mode and just trying to make it through to bedtime so you can get some sleep (ha … maybe). But the media, and society, and even your friends are obsessed with you getting ‘back to normal’. They want you wearing your pre-pregnancy jeans, they want you on nights out, and they want your baby to slot into your pre-motherhood life and not change anything. But that isn’t how it works. There will be changes, some permanent, some temporary, and you won’t be ‘back to normal’ anytime soon. And that’s ok. This obsession with being ‘back to normal’ puts women under pressure to chase an unattainable dream.  

4. Technology

Technology is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it has completely changed the modern world and, in many ways, made parenting easier. The invention of the washing machine saved women countless hours and the disposable nappy even more so. Travel is easier and more affordable than ever before. And, thanks to technology, we are better connected, better informed, and better at taking all the photos than previous generations were, and that’s all thanks to advances in technology. But, there are downsides to the technological revolution.

Smartphones and the internet are great for new parents. They allow you to search for answers to the burning questions you have during the 3 am feed. And that’s great if you’re reading trusted information from relevant sites, but it’s not great when you end up down a rabbit hole on a forum of deranged pessimists whose answer to every question is ‘that happened to my cousin and then she died’. Information is power, except when it isn’t. The sheer quantity of information available online can leave new parents not knowing where to turn. It is hard to trust your instincts when the internet is scaremongering and contradictory.

5. Society’s dislike of ‘mum culture’

Simply put, mum doesn’t equal cool in our society. Being somebody’s mum is not a feather to your cap. It doesn't buy you any extra cool points. Mums are seen as being the opposite, really. Uncool, frumpy, past it, too busy to take care of themselves. Even though there are bucketloads of mothers out there proving how untrue that is, the stereotype remains. And, as soon as you have a kid, you worry that that stereotype might be true. After all, you really do spend a lot of time worrying about teething and nappy rashes and you really don’t have as much time to spend on looking after yourself. And so you worry that your friends don’t want to hear about your life,  that they’ll think it’s boring, and so you struggle to think of things to add to conversations. It is very lonely to be surrounded by friends detailing their latest adventures while feeling you have nothing interesting to say.

6. The habit of putting on a brave face

This is just what you do, isn’t it? You don’t tell people all your inner battles in the hope they will like you, even though they’ll never really know you. You don’t tell people when you’re struggling after a traumatic birth or holed up with infected stitches, or barely surviving on such little sleep. When people ask how you are, you tell them you are fine and give them a big (albeit dead-eyed) smile to prove it. But that inability to open up and be vulnerable means many new mums are missing out on the help they need. If you don’t tell people you’re exhausted, they won’t offer to hold the baby so you can nap. If you don’t tell people you’re struggling to get on top of work, they won’t offer to take your toddler to the park for a few hours so you can get things done. It’s not always easy to be honest, but it is always worth it.

7. Judgement, or at least the idea of it

There is nothing worse than feeling like you are being judged, especially for your parenting choices. You want to be the best parent you can be, so to think others believe you are doing a bad job is just heartbreaking. We are all just doing the best we can, so can’t we just get along and be kind to each other? Why is there this obsession with tearing each other down? Sometimes, the judgement is real. Some people are incredibly judgemental and, if that affects how you feel about yourself, are better off avoided. But, I would argue, sometimes it is in your head. We worry so much about being judged that sometimes we get into the habit of feeling judged even when nobody is judging us. And media stereotypes make that worse.

The tabloids and daytime TV shows are filled with parenting stereotypes pitted against each other in ‘debates’. You know the ones, they find a mum who thinks breastfeeding is perverted child abuse and put her up against the mum who is still breastfeeding her 45-year-old son. It’s a way of getting people riled up and selling newspapers, but it also has a negative impact on new mums who are sat at home already feeling like the world is judging them. This obsession with us vs them makes parenting even more difficult to navigate.

Each of these things plays a part in making modern motherhood more difficult than it needs to be. Some people may be affected by some more than others, but I think all mothers are feeling the impact of these changes to society. The good news is you can do something to help. Ok, you can’t un-invent smartphones or force people to live closer to their mums, but you can take a positive step towards helping new mothers feel good. You can smile and be kind, and think about the words you say before they tumble out of your mouth. Be mindful of the words you say and the impact they may have. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything.

If you’re a new mum navigating motherhood, you can do your bit by being honest. Let yourself be vulnerable and speak truthfully with the other mothers you meet, that way you can take steps towards building a supportive community of women surviving and excelling at motherhood together.

This is a collaborative post.

Taylor Shaw & The Vanishing Vegan Options

When Ebony first started at school almost two years ago (how?!), it was really simple to organise vegan school dinners for her. It was so easy, in fact, that I wrote this smug little piece for the Metro so other vegan parents could replicate my success.

It was easy, I got in touch with the school’s catering company and explained that my daughter was vegan, and they said no problem and then filled the school’s freezer with vegan substitutes so my daughter could enjoy school dinners with her peers.

Then, a few weeks ago, this all stopped. The catering company, Taylor Shaw, who provide food for over 300 schools across the country, have decided to stop doing vegan options. They haven’t really explained why. At first, they blamed allergens, and then the School Food Standards (which don’t mention not providing vegan options so I got the impression they were just trying to sideline me with industry jargon by this point).

Taylor Shaw is one of many catering companies and, luckily, the others seem to be going above and beyond to ensure no pupils are left out at lunchtime. It’s a shame that, at a time when veganism is becoming more popular, a large catering company is taking such a big step backwards. And it’s frustrating when it would be so easy to veganise a number of the meals. The Taylor Shaw menus seem to rely heavily on Quorn for their vegan options so it would be easy peasy to switch the vegetarian Quorn for the vegan version and create a dish more children could enjoy.

I realise vegans are in the minority, but our numbers are growing year after year. Vegan children should have access to free school dinners just like the rest of the children. My daughter might be the only vegan at her primary school, but the primary school just up the road has four vegan pupils. If Taylor Shaw caters for 300 schools, there must be other vegan children who are affected by this move.

I have sent a complaint to the catering company detailing why I feel this policy change is a step backwards, though I have not yet heard back. I would urge the parents of other children affected by the move to complain as well. The company may not even realise how many vegan children they should be catering for unless we make ourselves heard. Please do email Taylor Shaw’s head office to complain. You can contact them on info@taylorshaw.com

Also, email me on hello@watchingyougrow.co.uk because there is strength in numbers and I think it’s important we work together to encourage the company to provide inclusive lunch options for all.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Are Your Car Tyres Safe & Legal?

If you’re driving your family around, safety is probably one of your top priorities. Safety and car snacks, anyway, because long car journeys with hungry toddlers are not fun at all. Nobody wants to get stuck in traffic with a hangry toddler in the backseat.

It’s important to check that your car tyres are safe and meet the legal requirements. To stay safe and legal with your tyres, UK law states that your vehicle must be fitted with the correct type and size of tyre for your vehicle. That means not only do you need to have the right tyres fitted, but you also need to ensure they are inflated as per the manufacturer’s instructions. Inadequately inflated tyres will cost you more in fuel costs as they are less efficient, and they could also be compromising your safety on the road.

The tread of your tyres is really important, too. In fact, the tread of the tyres is what helps the car grip to the road, and it also helps to shift water on the road. Over time, the tread on your car tyres can wear away, so it’s important to keep an eye on that. The tread helps the car to brake effectively so a worn down tyre can prove dangerous in an emergency. The legal minimum depth for the tread is 1.6 millimetres. This applies to the middle three-quarters of the tyre and must be true for the entire circumference of the tyre.

If you are found to have a tyre with a tread below the legal minimum depth, you could be fined up to £2,500 and end up with points on your license. Oh, and that’s per tyre, so if all four tyres failed to meet the legal standard then you could be fined £10,000 and potentially lose your license.

There’s no need to wait until the tread gets to 1.6 millimetres. In fact, lots of car manufacturers actually recommended that tyres are replaced when the tread reaches 3 millimetres. Once the tread drops below 3 millimetres, stopping distances increase which could be dangerous in an emergency. New tyres could improve the safety of your car, and give you some much-needed peace of mind, so it’s worth enquiring to see whether your car might benefit from a new set of tyres. Book Your Vehicle Tyres Online at Calmac Tyres Northampton.

This is a collaborative post. Photo by Evgeny Tchebotarev on Unsplash

In Support Of National Testing For Four-Year-Olds

Not happy with testing our teenagers, our tweens and our younger kids, the government is now hoping to introduce compulsory testing for sperms and eggs to determine whether they are ‘school ready’. Just kidding, the kids will actually be four years old, so that’s hugely different to being a sperm and an egg. For a start, the government won’t need to purchase as many specimen cups so that will arguably make things easier.

And, obviously, four-year-olds are definitely intellectually and emotionally ready for testing, so this proposed testing actually makes perfect sense. I don’t know if you’ve seen a four-year-old lately, but most of them look in need of a good test.

You see, four-year-olds are just a little bit too wild, in my opinion. Now, I’m no expert here, but I do think four-year-olds are currently getting away with acting like children which isn’t really on, is it? When you’ve got teenage mental health crumbling under the weight of exam revision and stress at secondary school, and you’ve got year 6 pupils in tears over their SATS, it’s not really fair that Harvey from reception gets to just piss about at a water table all afternoon, is it?

Come on, Harvey, time to grow up a little. Put down the sieve and walk away from the brightly coloured playground, son. It’s time for you to be tested. Now, as you might have predicted, people are getting quite upset about these proposed tests. Experts are warning that they might ruin childhoods and parents are up in arms (aren’t they always though?) about it all.

My daughter is now six so I feel like I am well placed to give a highly thought out and very intelligent opinion on all of this. I have used all of my brain power to think back to her first few weeks of reception to see how she would have handled the test. They’re going to do the test during the first few weeks of school so that four-year-olds immediately get the message that school is no place for fun and games, so I think that’s wise. When my daughter started in reception she really did spend too much time fannying around outside and painting. Yawn. There’s only so many craft projects I can stick on my fridge, what I really want is a good old-fashioned exam paper up there for all to see.

If I’m being honest, I pretty much forced daily exams on my daughter when she was that age anyway. Every day at pick up time, as she put her sticky little hand in mine, I would bark the first question at her. “What did you do today?” There would be a long pause as my daughter looked up at the sky in a desperate attempt to find the right answer. Unsurprisingly, the answer wasn’t written in the sky and even if it was she wouldn’t have been able to read it (the teachers were so lazy at her nursery, none of the kids had read any Shakespeare by the time they left). And so she failed. Day after day.

I asked her every single day and I don’t remember her being able to answer me once. “I don’t know.” She would say, gormlessly while I wished for my rigid national testing to solve this daily dilemma. I would then try to help her out by giving her hints, “What did you have for lunch?” I might say, but again, she would stare open-mouthed at me and shrug her shoulders. From the state of her t-shirt, I guessed that she usually ate baked beans, but even she failed to carry out this minimal detective work to answer the simple question.

I’m not sure whether it is specifically lunch menu testing that the government is proposing, but if it is I’m all in favour of it. Some people are worried that nursery children may be ‘coached’ to help them with the tests and that this may ruin their nursery experience. But my daughter spent most of her time at nursery giggling, screaming, painting, running, drawing, building and singing so she was probably pretty bored anyway. There was no structure to any of it, those poor children were just left to play at will all day long. She probably would have benefitted from a few solid hours of exam revision each day, I don’t think three-year-olds should be excused from such things just because they still pee their pants. In all honesty, I think the sperm and egg testing I suggested above would actually be hugely beneficial to the country. You’re never too young for standardised testing, isn’t that how the saying goes?

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

20 Things That Happen When You Take Your Kids To Disneyland Paris

Did I mention that we went to Disneyland recently? Probably not, I’ve barely spoken about it. If you follow me on Instagram, you probably haven’t seen a single photo of our trip. Right? Now that I’ve spent four nights in the magical world that is Disneyland Paris, I’m pretty much an expert on All Things Disney. This was the first time the kids had been to Disneyland and they loved it, even the toddler who I assumed would be too young to appreciate it but who hasn’t shut up about ‘Dinnyland’ since we got back.

Here are 20 things that will happen when you take your kids to Disneyland:

1. You’ll experience all the nostalgia

If you grew up watching Disney films, surrounded by Disney toys and dreaming of going to Disney World, it’s like taking a trip back into your own childhood. As soon as you walk through the gates, seven-year-old you is going to be the voice inside your head.

2. You will experience heightened levels of excitement

Not you, to be clear, the kids’. They are going to be beside-themselves-out-of-their-minds excited. We had to endure ten minutes of both kids jumping on the beds yelling ‘Disneyland’ when we first arrived at our hotel. It was all a bit much.

3. You’ll get straight back on a ride

Kids are so annoying, aren’t they? They’re not happy with experiencing wonderful things just once, they want to do them over and over again until all the joy has been sucked out of it. I think the only rides we went on that my six-year-old didn’t immediately want to experience again were the rollercoasters that made her cry.

4. You’ll implement a strict once-only rule where rides are concerned

After losing an hour of your life repeatedly riding the Dumbo ride, you’ll decide enough is enough. There are plenty of other rides to experience, you will say while guiding your pleading child away from the overly long queue to the ride they have literally just been on.

5. You will spend a fortune on something you forgot to pack

The shops at Disneyland stock absolutely everything you could possibly need. But Mickey Mouse branded and crazy expensive. It rained while we were there so I spent €30 on an umbrella. Never in my life would I spend that much on an umbrella, apart from at Disneyland where it was the cheapest option (some of them were €40!).

6. You will see people not washing their hands

This could actually be listed as one of the main attractions at Disneyland. In fact, I reckon you’re more likely to see this than you are to see Mickey or Minnie. The toilets get busy, but we never had to queue for longer than a couple of minutes. During those minutes though, what we saw was a long procession of mothers telling their kids ‘not to bother’ washing their hands and leading them straight back out to the park where they could touch all the handrails, queue barriers and safety rails they wanted. Hooray.

7. Your feet will hurt

Not just a bit, but a lot. One day we stayed in the park from 8:30 am until 11:30 pm and when we got home that night I was scared to take my shoes off. I imagined they might simply fall away and reveal blackened stubs where my feet used to be. My feet were still aching an hour after I lay down, that is some seriously sore feet.

8. Your kids will be amazed by everything

There is something so magical about Disneyland, every single detail has been thoughtfully considered to make sure it is as magical as possible. The lids on the shampoo bottles in the hotels have Mickey Mouse ears, Pluto is hanging out at the hotel, Elsa blew them a kiss. It's just all so sodding magical.

9. You’ll talk a lot about ‘the magic’

It’s not physically possible to go to Disneyland without talking about ‘the magic’. It is everywhere. They sprinkle it on your cereal in the morning, maybe. Disneyland is just so magical. As a kid, it’s uh-mazing. As an adult, it’s pretty mind-boggling. They put so much effort into the details that the whole place feels like another world.

10. You’ll lose the will to live waiting in line for the Peter Pan ride

I waited for 40 minutes to go on the Peter Pan ride. That may not sound like a long time, but I had already been on the ride twice and had no real desire to do it again. The six-year-old disagreed. And so we waited. In the heat, in a slow-moving queue, surrounded by screaming children and dead-eyed parents. I wanted to leave the queue but that was not an option, so I just stayed and waited for 40 minutes of the only life I will ever have to pass slowly by.

11. You’ll take a photo in front of the castle

How could you not, right? You’ll stand smiling in a line of strangers all doing the same thing while their long-suffering Instagram husbands attempt to get a decent shot of the castle with no hint of the rest of the line of strangers in the picture. Um, yeah.

12. You’ll cry at something weird

There is something about spending time with a constantly-amazed child that heightens your emotions. It’s impossible not to feel the feels when your child is having the time of their life. For me, it was a chat and a cuddle with her absolute favourite princess (Belle, obvs) that had me quickly wiping away tears.

13. You’ll start holding planning meetings at night

I really hope this isn’t just me, but we started planning our route at the park the night before. Not for the whole day, but just to make sure we used the Extra Magic Time as efficiently as possible. I know, it’s so lame, I hate myself, but also I do not regret those nightly meetings.

14. You’ll take a lot of photos

I always take too many photos, but I outdid myself at Disneyland. We spent three days there. I took 800 photographs. That is too many. I haven’t even looked at them all because it is just too many. Trips to Disneyland were probably a lot easier back when you could only take 36 photographs before your camera stopped working.

15. You’ll see a lot of questionable parenting

Disneyland is full of overheated, overtired, overstimulated, hungry kids who don’t want to stand in long lines. And it’s also full of overheated, overtired, overstimulated, hungry adults who don’t want to stand in long lines either. This is not a good combination where parenting is concerned.

16. You will spoil the magic for yourself

After waiting in line for an embarrassing amount of time to meet Mickey Mouse, you will be escorted into a little room to meet him. The next family to follow you in will not be the family who were stood behind you in the queue. You will then realise, with a heavy heart, that there is more than one Mickey Mouse and you will feel almost as disappointed as you did the day you found out Santa wasn’t real.

17. You will overspend in the gift shop

Set a budget if you want, but just know that you won’t stick to it. You will want to buy all of the things. All of the shops seem to have different things, and there is enough variety to suit pretty much anybody. You will spend a stupid amount of money on Disney memorabilia that, let’s face it, you could probably buy cheaper back home.

18. You will get obsessed with the autograph book

If you made the mistake of purchasing an autograph book for your child, then you will make it your mission to fill the damn thing before you leave. Your child will be equally as enthused about this endeavour but will not love all the queueing it entails.

19. You’ll wish you were a Disney princess

You will, trust me. Even when they’re sweating in their huge ballgowns and it’s 30 degrees outside. Even when they’re having to cuddle up to sticky-fingered children and fight off the advances of creepy dads (grim), you’ll still secretly want to be a princess. Just for a bit.

20. You won’t want to leave

You will experience the post-Disneyland comedown, and it’s not fun. Leaving the magical realm that is Disneyland to return back to your everyday life isn’t easy. You will find yourself planning your next trip before you’ve even arrived home.

7 Tips For A Family-Friendly Garden

For the days when you can’t be bothered to lug a balance bike all the way to the park and back, the garden is the perfect way to give your kids that much-needed dose of Vitamin D. The best thing about your garden is that it’s right next to your house. You don’t have to wrestle anyone into their car seats, grow older waiting for a toddler to walk to the park, or carry a preschooler home from the park because her ‘legs hurt’.

It’s easy, it’s convenient, and it’s safe. Or it should be. If not, you might want to work on that. I have so many fond memories of happy hours spent in the garden when I was growing up. I can remember elaborate imagination games played on the climbing frame with friends after school. I remember pasta salad picnics on the grass when the weather was nice. I remember ruining all of my mum’s flowers in a desperate quest to manufacture the perfect perfume (step one: pick the heads off all your mum’s favourite flowers, step two: present them to her in a bottle of tap water as though you have done her a favour).

Here are 7 tips for a family-friendly garden:

1. Make it low maintenance

There isn’t much spare time for gardening when you’re busy looking after small children. The last thing you want to add to your already mind-boggling to-do list is a list of green-fingered jobs you’ll never get round to. Astro turf is a great option for families who simply don’t have time to mow their lawns regularly. Artificial grass is great for kids to play on and you don’t have to worry about it getting muddy. Wildflowers patches are a low-maintenance garden's best friend, you don’t need to spend hours caring for the plants but they still look beautiful.

2. Use it whatever the weather

Many people make the mistake of planning their garden around the illusive summers we get in the UK. The sun only shines for part of the year, so you’d be much better designing a garden that can be used in all weathers. The lawn will get muddy when it rains, but a paved area near the backdoor will allow your kids to play outside (without ruining your lawn) even after heavy rainfall. Add in a sheltered area where you kids can hide from the rain or enjoy playing in the shade, depending on the weather.

3. Create a play area

If you don’t want to hand your whole garden over to the kids, you need to make sure they have a corner of the garden to play in. Somewhere away from the delicate flowers and the scratchy shrubs where they can kick a ball and do handstands. Make sure the space is versatile and can be used for all kinds of games. You could include things like a blackboard wall, a climbing frame, a treehouse and a sandpit. Think of things that could be used in more than one way so that your kids won’t get bored when they’re playing in the garden.

4. Build a highway

Ok, it doesn’t have to be an actual highway, but make sure there’s a place for toy traffic. Every family garden is filled with bikes, scooters and plastic cars. Dragging these toys to the park is absolutely no fun, so, if you have space, you should create a paved area for wheeled toys in the garden. A little path is the perfect place for scooting at speed, honing their cycling skills and reversing in a red and yellow car (No? Just my toddler who only goes backwards?).

5. Have a designated dining spot

There is nothing better than eating outside, is there? It works best on holiday when the sun is gloriously hot and you have a cold beer in your hand, but it’s pretty ok in England, too. When the weather is nice, soak up every second by eating outside as a family. Make sure you have somewhere to eat. It doesn’t have to be a fancy dining table and chairs, it could be as simple as a picnic blanket laid out on the astroturf, but make sure you have a place to share meals as a family. Ok, there will be ants and your kids will forget to eat because they’re so busy playing, but that’s what summer is all about.

6. Make it somewhere you want to spend time

If you want to make the most of your garden, you need to make sure it’s somewhere you enjoy spending time. Your kids probably won’t spend much time out there without you, so make sure it’s set up for your needs as well. Do you have a comfy seating area where you can read a book? Is there a barbecue so you can cook outside on warm days? Are you making the most of the patch of garden that gets evening sun? Think of the garden as an extra room of your home and decorate it as such, make sure it is functional as well as beautiful.

7. Get them involved

Even a low maintenance astroturf garden needs a bit of looking after, so get your kids involved in the garden chores that need doing. Make sure you have some kid-sized garden gloves and a spade so you can plant some flowers together. You could even grow a little vegetable garden together, this is a great way to teach young children more about where food comes from. If there is weeding to be done, get them involved (but keep a close eye on which plants they're uprooting).

This is a collaborative post. Photo by Martin Kníže on Unsplash