What to Watch on Netflix - Documentaries

Who didn't spend most of lockdown with Netflix? I know I did! Netflix is full of some great series and movies, and some not so great ones honestly, but I thought I would list my Netflix recommendations, for if you were looking for something new to watch! 

This post I am going to be focusing on documentaries.

The first thing I will always recommend someone watching is BlackFish. As a 90's baby, I was just as obsessed as everybody else with Free Willy and was desperate to go to SeaWorld to see the Orcas perform, then back in 2016, while on maternity leave, I consumed the entirety of Netflix (or so it seemed) and came across BlackFish. I won't spoil it for you but I highly recommend you check it out. 

My second Netflix go-to has to be Making a Murderer. If you haven't seen it, where have you been?! If you love crime documentaries check this out, and please someone, tell me, did they do it?!

A more recent Netflix documentary that I could not stop watching until the end was Surviving R.Kelly. R.Kelly was a huge part of my childhood growing up in the '90s and I must have been completely oblivious because I never had any idea that all of this stuff was going on - like him marrying a 15-year-old Aaliyah. This documentary was wonderfully done and had me in tears. However, I can never listen to R.Kelly's music again.

I am a huge history buff and as a child was obsessed with the story of Anastasia so when Netflix put on the Docu-drama The Last Czars I knew I had to watch it. I finished the series in a day and loved every bit of it. I felt that this was different too as it has the dramatisation in with the documentary making it much more enjoyable to watch - If you loved Anastasia definitely check it out!

Who didn't love Don't F**K with Cats? I honestly felt like I was watching a crime drama series and couldn't stop watching - Apart from when the cats where being hurt! - But it was definitely addictive. Give it a watch if you haven't already. 

Best bath time products for toddlers

Bath time. Why is it some children love to have a bath and some hate it?

Harry has never been the biggest fan. He's never laid down in the bath and hates to have his hair washed - I'm honestly not sure he will ever grow out of it. 

But today I wanted to talk about the products we use in the bath with Harry. It's not the longest list but we do have some firm favourites. These are things we've used pretty much since the beginning. Harry has incredibly sensitive skin and changing the products we use usually irritate his skin so we tend to leave it alone. 

Harry pretty much only has a bath before bed. He doesn't have one every night because when he was younger it would dry out his skin. Because his bath time is before bed we use the 'bedtime bath' I can't tell you if it works or not, it's just something we have always done. We have tried the Johnsons brand and honestly haven't found it any different to the generic brand so use the Tesco own right now. 

To wash Harry's hair we use the dove baby shampoo. Harry is probably old enough now to use normal shampoo now but I love this stuff and his hair is so soft after using it I can never resist!

After bath time Harry has some Child's Farm moisturiser or if his skin is particularly bad we pull out the diprobase! If you have dry skin - definitely try diprobase its the best!

Activities to do at home with toddlers

I don't know about everyone else's children but Harry is not loving life during lockdown. He is really struggling with what to do, he's used to running around with 30 other children and so being at home 90% of the day with just me most of the time is hard for him. 

We have been trying to keep him occupied but his attention span is honestly about 3.3 seconds so we have been looking into things we can do with him to keep him busy until bedtime! 

We have been playing lots of Orchard Toys games with Harry. He didn't have any Orchard Toys games before lockdown and now we have them I wonder why I didn't buy any before! We don't play them properly, Harry just isn't there yet, but we do play the games. We currently have Shopping list, Lunchbox, Fruit Frenzy and Tell the time and he loves them. I got these in a bundle from eBay in pristine condition. 

Harry loves to play ‘game’.

Baking is another great one. Baking is a huge passion of mine and Harry loves to get involved - even if he just licks the spoon and bowl! 

Tablet time is great for Harry. He will use his Amazon kindle fire to play games -what he doesn’t realise is he is learning at the same time! 

Harry will also sit for hours playing with his dinosaurs. We try and spend as much time as we can in his room playing with his small toys and currently the dinos are his favourite.

What activities do you like to do at home with your toddler? 

Toddler toy reccomendations

I'm always on the hunt for the best toys for Harry, his attention span is about 5.5 seconds long (it has definitely improved over lockdown from the 3 seconds but still not great) so he needs lots of entertaining, toys are definitely one of the best ways to do it!

While we have been at home we have been lucky enough to test lots of toys so I thought I would put together a list of the ones we have loved the best.

1. Kinetic Sand - This has been the biggest win for us! I ordered it randomly on Amazon about halfway through lockdown and Harry has played with it every single day. 

2. Mega Blocks - Mega blocks are great for younger children when you feel that Lego may be too small. Harry got the Mega Blocks table for Christmas and honestly loves to build a tower and knock it over!

3. Toot Toot Cars - These things are SUPER annoying but great for little hands. Harry loves the noises and will push them around the floor all day if we let him. 

4. Orchard Toys Games - We have a few of these now. I wasn't sure how Harry would react but he loves the Shopping list game and can easily match the pieces. Great games for younger children and really educational too. 

5. Puzzles - I have ordered so many puzzles lately and Harry is getting really good at doing them on his own. They are great for hand-eye co-ordination and come in all of your children's favourite characters! Highly recommend.

Book recommendations for Toddlers

Books. Who doesn't love a good book? Harry has always loved to flick through books, even though he can't read himself. He will always be asking for us to read to him and we have built books into most of our daily routines. 

Harry has so many books, but I thought I would go through some of my recommendations for books for toddlers. 

1. The Gruffalo

While this book is a classic, I have to admit I had never read this as a child. I'm not really sure why we got this one for Harry but I'm so glad we did. This was the first book he sat and listened to us reading the whole way through and since then has asked for it most days. I highly recommend this book, I love that it rhymes and talks about different body parts too!

2. We're Going On a Bear Hunt

How many times have we read this book to Harry? Two hundred? Three? He never gets bored of it. This one is currently in our bedtime story pile but Harry will ask for it read at any time of the day. It's gotten so Sam and can tell the story without reading the book, and Harry knows most of it too! But all in all, it is a great book to read to your toddlers and the repetition will also come in useful when teaching them to read too!

3. Green Eggs and Ham

This book was one of my favourites when I was Harry's age, and now is one of his too! We like to use different tones of voice when reading with Harry and he finds it hilarious with this one when we make it sound slightly angry with dear Sam-I-Am. Dr Suess also has some other great books but this one is a great starter in my opinion.

4. The Large Family

Okay so this isn't one book, but 5. I remember reading these in school and loving them - Harry really enjoys them but that could be because they are elephants. However, the stories are short enough to keep a toddlers attention and the set makes a lovely gift!

5. Hands off my Honey

This book was a random find for us over Christmas when the works had their 10 books for £10 deal on in-store. We had gone in because they also had the two missing Large family books that Harry needed to complete his set and thought we may as well take advantage of the deal for stocking fillers for him. We found some great books but Harry really enjoys this one, possibly because of the gruff voice we put on for the bear but he will giggle at the end when he learns it is all a game. Great book!