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You know the feeling. You’re off on holiday. You’re at the airport trying to check in, there’s a long queue and you’re edging your trolley forward trying not to run over toes, whilst at the same time anxiously keeping an eye on the kids and trying to make they don’t run off. You’re feeling pretty stressed out. You’re wondering why your other half is taking so long to change currency.  You’re wondering if you locked the back door. You’re wondering if this holiday is worth all this hassle.

Or maybe you’re out shopping in a department store, the toddler won’t stay in the pushchair so you let him/her potter by you but they won’t hold your hand and you’re worried they’ll get lost somewhere. And you’re wondering why you even put yourself through the hell of shopping with a toddler in the first place.

Or you’re on the beach, the kids are running about and you’re scanning the horizon on a regular basis just to make sure you’ve still got an eye on them. No chance of settling back with a paperback then.

Yep, it’s stressful being a parent and trying to keep track. And the last thing you want is for your three year old to get lost and then there’s panic all round.

Which is why we developed our children’s ID wristbands. So you can relax a little when you’re on holiday, shopping or the kids are on a school trip.

You write your name and phone number on the inside – as well as any other relevant information. Put them on your child’s wrist (the strong sticky fold over tab means they’ll stay on) and if they get lost an adult will know how to contact you. The wristbands are robust – waterproof and made from a tear-proof hypoallergenic paper.

They’re also a great idea for school trips if you’re trying to keep up with a class of 30 or so children on a museum trip, field trip or some other sort of educational outing.  

If your child has a potentially severe allergy, we also have medical allergy wristbands which alert carers – just write an emergency number inside and an allergy warning (we also have some useful allergy stickers which you can put on lunchboxes, school bags and car seats … or anywhere you think you need them).

Stress levels as a parent are never going to be that low … but if you’re organised it can help and our selection of name labels mean you can keep track of belongings – whether they’re school shoes, uniform, playclothes, sleeping bags for sleepovers, water bottles, dogs, husbands …

Mind you, we can’t do anything about the weather on a British beach holiday or industrial action at Gatwick airport in the summer … but at least you’ll know the kids are labelled correctly.

Photo credit: Top image via http://www.coombemill.com/blog

What’s the question we never want to hear our kids ask?

It’s “Can I have a sleepover?” 

For a start, you know that there’s likely to be very little sleep going on. You’re going to have an evening with excited youngsters racing up and downstairs, round and round the house and then trying to herd them into bed at a fairly reasonable time (and probably failing).

Then you’ll be ssh-ing in an increasingly irritable manner as they fail to settle down and the clock ticks on towards midnight. At 2am you’re likely to be woken up by one of your offspring with a tearful young guest saying “Jake/Josh/Molly/ is homesick and wants to go home. Now.”

The next morning your house is likely to be trashed, you’ll be overtired and the only good thing is that it’s going to be at least a year until you have to host another birthday sleepover again.

Or are we being too negative about the whole thing?

With a few ground rules in place, a sleepover can be fun, relatively painless and just think of the benefits. You have eight kids sleeping over at your house so that’s at least eight child-free nights owing to you.   So how should you play it? We’ve asked some sleepover veterans for their advice – what to do and what to avoid. If you’ve any comments to add, please do so.

·      Don’t host a sleepover until your child is ready – that’s at about seven or eight years old

·      Make it clear that kids can be picked up at bedtime or call home at any time if they decide not to stay (so the child’s parents have to do the driving, not you).

·      Don’t have too many kids. Six to ten with two adults is plenty.

·      Make sure all the kids know one another. This is not the time to introduce a new face to the crowd.

·      Be clear on the invitations about what is involved. Give drop-off times, meal-times, pick-up times, ask guests to bring their own pillows/sleeping bags, a contact number for their parents and information on any allergies. (This is where our allergy stick on labels could come in really handy.)

·      Limit sugary foods and crisps before bedtime. Otherwise you’re going to have a load of hyper kids on your hands on a sugar rush, racing up and downstairs and generally stressing you out.

·      Plan some activities in advance. These might be boardgames, craft games (decorating cupcakes if you’re feeling brave enough), a Lego competition, karoke, followed up before bed by a non scary DVD.

·      Have a level sleeping field. That is to say, let everybody sleep on the floor in their sleeping bags (even if it looks uncomfortable to you it’s what they want).

·      Hoping for a regular bedtime is way too optimistic. Instead let the kids know when they have to go up to bed and when it’s lights out. Maybe hand out flashlights (good party bag presents) then. If the giggling and whispering is still going on at 2am then it’s time to step in with a deep, authoritative adult voice.

·      Don’t make pick up time the following morning any later than 10am. It’s unlikely the little dears will sleep much beyond 7am in any case. Give them a good breakfast, have a sweep round to check that no toothbrushes, pyjamas, cuddly toys, clothes are being left behind and make them all pack up their bags to place by the front door after breakfast so they’re ready to go when collected.

·      Finally – your own child will be going on a good few sleepovers so it’s worth naming their play clothes with personalised name labels – our new ONCE™iron on labels will firmly attach in seconds and stay put for hundreds of washes. Toothbrushes, hairbrushes and the like can be named with our wrap on sticky waterproof name labels.

Summer might be on its way but as the sun comes out, so do the wasps and bees. 

We've all been stung by a wasp or a bee at some point but it's a real danger for children allergic to stings who can suffer life-threatening reactions and go into anaphylactic shock. That's scary for both teachers and parents. 

Which is why we've developed specialist stick-on name allergy labels for wasp and bee stings which alert carers to take particular care of allergic children around these insects and act quickly if stung, possibly with an EpiPen. 

Printed in eye-catching red with black lettering, the bee and wasp sting allergy stickers are useful for attaching to lunchboxes, water bottles and car seats or wherever an alert needs to be placed. The stickers are £12.99 for a pack of 20 (includes free p&p in UK).

Of course, the best solution is not to get stung at all - so here's some advice from Allergy UK 

• Bees usually only sting in self-defence. Wear light coloured clothing to protect yourself covering most of the body (in particular the feet) and avoid perfume
• Bees are attracted to bright colours and smells. Don't confuse them by pretending to be a flower. Try to avoid dressing allergic children in bright colours and flowery prints
• Don't drink directly from drinks cans when outdoors in case their is a wasp lurking. Wasps are more aggressive than bees and are attracted to food and drink
• Bare feet are particularly vulnerable to stings so those with wasp and bee sting allergies should always wear shoes when outdoors
• Have wasp nests removed by professionals
• Drive with the air-conditioning on and the windows up to prevent insects flying in through the windows

Bringing up kids is rewarding, exhausting, frustrating and wonderful all at the same time.

And when you’re going through the full, hands-on parenting thing it’s reassuring to know that other mums and dads are going through exactly the same process, having many of the same doubts and moments of sheer hilarious joy.

We read plenty of parenting blogs and the great thing about them is that even if you’re rather housebound with a new baby, you can go online and chat with other parents who are in the same boat, swap hints and tips on parenting, read articles on must-knows like weaning, potty-training, starting school …

If you’re new to all this, here’s a round-up of the blogs and parenting websites that we think are musts.

1.     MumsNet  It’s all here. You could spend hours alone on the online forum being enlightened on the mysteries of teen-speak (what does sick mean anyway), reading reviews on pushchairs, talking live online with the likes of Vince Cable.

2.     NetMums  Not such a mammoth enterprise as MumsNet but there are some great articles here like advice on working for yourself. We also like the section on ‘local to you’ which lets you find out gems like child friendly pubs and restaurants in your area and ways to entertain kids over half term and in the holidays.

3.     Recipe Rifle Quite simply, this blog is an hilarious read. Esther Walker has a toddler and another baby on the way and she writes about life as a mum and includes some fabulous recipes (and they’re not that tricky either) along the way. Even if you never cook any of the food involved the blog will make you laugh.

4.     Mummy Travels  This one does what it says on the tin. The thought of getting young children ready for a trip to the park can sometimes be overwhelming, let alone packing for a trip abroad. This blog helps with some hard-won hints and tips, plus reviews on baby gear that’s useful when you’re touring about.

5.     We also like the Tots 100  blog which gives you listings on competitions you might like to enter, good reads and lists of the top 100 toddler brands (which we find fascinating and yes, Duplo does figure here.)

Have we missed out any blogs or sites you’d recommend?

Main image via Stealth Genie

You know, at The Name Label Company we never assume anything.

One of the things we don’t assume is that it’s always the women who are labelling kids’ clothes. (And cooking, ironing, vacuuming, gardening, solving the Middle Eastern crisis etc etc.)

After all, look at the male role models there have been in the areas that many would consider exclusively a woman’s.

Well – to start with, Jeeves the Butler from the PG Wodehouse books was a dab hand with the iron. With a needle and thread too. So he’d have been unable to decide whether to use our ONCE™ iron-on labels or our sew-in name labels for Bertie Wooster’s belongings. (Mind you, being old-school, he probably would never consider anything other than sewing labels in by hand whilst listening to the wireless maybe.)

Men tend to love gadgets so dads faced with the prospect of name labelling might enjoy clicking on our tagg-on name labels which are good for robust labelling of stuff like sports bags, overalls, shoe bags. 

They also like nothing more than taking over a job from a woman, doing it perfectly and then saying ‘I don’t know what all the fuss is about’ which is quite likely to happen if they’re ironing on ONCE™ labels (2 secs a time) and so labelling two kids’ school kit in under half an hour or so.

Jobs For The Boys

In fact, we’d like to throw down a challenge. Next time you’re dividing jobs up between you, why not get the dad (or grandpa or uncle) to handle the school uniform labelling side of things. The ONCE™ labels will name kit in seconds (and last of hundreds of washes), lunch boxes and water bottles are sorted with our vinyl stick-on labels (shoes too).

Our labels are quite happy to be applied whilst an important match is being watched on tv (interspersed with shouts of ‘yeeees’ hopefully.

Sounds like a challenge, don’t you think?

Also, if you’re a single dad tackling name labelling on your own, we’d like to hear how you handle it all.