Last week I got invited to meet and craft with some blogging mums over at Tea and Crafting courtesy of DryNites. The idea was to craft and get talking about night time toilet training. Something that is normally unspoken about in the parenting world but once you give us crafts and some treats we can't say no!

Tea and Crafting is a gorgeous space in Camden where people are able to take part in classes, workshops and learn new things and master some skills. Filled with bunting and Cath Kidston most of us mums were in crafting heaven!

The Craft sessions themselves were hosted by the wonderful Tamara Melvin, one of the finalists in the Great British Sewing Bee (which I for one was obsessed with). The gorgeous graffiti style dress you see on her is one of her makes! Tamara has been working with DryNites to come up with some crafts and projects to help with the process of being dry at night. The idea is to help them feel more grown up and confident in their bedwetting transition.  

Alongside Tamara was child psychologist Emma Kenny who was on hand to give any advice. She completely reassured me with the fact that Max, despite being dry in the day for over a year is still not at night. It's completely normal for children to take longer as it's a completely different psychological mindset. She also pointed out that it was better to use something more age appropriate like the DryNites products rather than nappies as it takes away the grown up aspect of bedtime. 

I have been talking with Max's best friends mum about the fact both boys aren't dry at night and we mentioned that it's something that isn't really talked about compared to all the other things parents seem to brag about. 

We have been using DryNites for the past few months and love them. They are more age appropriate and feel more like pants compared to nappies and pull ups. They are also great as they hold a lot more fluid than a nappy would as they are focused at children with bigger bladders. The bed mats however are things we have seen but only picked up occasionally as we didn't know the best time to use them. As was explained to me, it was great to use them at sleepovers and when they are pretty much there with being dry as it holds up to a pint of liquid and can sit comfortably on top of the mattress as its soft and has sticky pads on the back! Since then we have had one under his bed most nights incase there is an accident. 

Now on to the task in hand, the crafting. Unfortunately I could only stay for one of the craft sessions as I had to look after Max but we made some amazing lamps. To do this we took any simple lamp, we had a cheap touch base one and found some small toys. Our preference was some adorable dinosaurs I found at the bottom of the toy chest. Using some chalk paint (dries quicker - perfect for crafting with kids!) we painted the figures, base and stem of the lamp. 

Whilst it was all drying after a second coat we started decorating the shades. Luckily Tamara was on hand and had already cut the right sizes for us! Using pieces of coloured paper, craft knives and glue guns we managed to create some gorgeous star themed shades. It was a bit tricky to try and glue the paper onto the shade but it looked amazing in the end after some gorgeous fabric trims (Check out two that Tamara made before the event!).

Once it was all put together it looked great, like something I could actually be proud of featuring in Max's bedroom. It's definitely helped with the transition at night time as he can now turn on his lamp when he thinks he needs to go to the loo and make his own way there. He can also sit in his room before bed reading stories with us to ease him into a relaxing bed time.

It was so much fun to sit and chat with other mums who had kids of a similar ages to hear I wasn't alone in the night time training sagas. I'm not concerned now that Max isn't trained at night and think it's great that there is a product out there to help with that transitioning stage! Thanks DryNites for a wonderful day.