Mothercare equivalent in Costa del Sol?

I've seen a few small 'baby' shops in the Costa del Sol but does anyone know of any bigger stores similar to Mothercare in the UK?   I am particularly looking for safety stair gates at the moment and we are in the Benalmadena area.  Any help would be appreciated.

Sorry i can't help Crackers, as we are in Costa Blanca.

Luckily, we are in an apartment, so no stair gate needed for my drunken wayward hubby!

We have one in the UK though, he is only 54 bless (but after a few jars, stair gate comes into it's own!!)

I am sure someone sensible will answer your question soon........................

Kind regards,

Crakers - you could try Toys R Us in Malaga - they stock things like stair gates etc.. and have a furniture section - not a bad selection.

All the best

Hello its Dee here from the EOS Team (new member) there is a really good website www.bayon.es you need to understand

some spanish but there are pictures and they do lots of baby stuff. Also Alcampo in La Cañada I have found to be the

cheapest place to buy baby equiment and I look around a lot for baby equipment.

Good luck if you need help with the bayon.es site just drop me a line.

Dee

Hello its Dee again going off the subject totally as I know these threads do alot has anyone heard of children

having nightmares after eating chocolate?  My 20 month old little girl has me up screaming severar times of the

night and I have managed to pin point it to when she has chocolate.  I was wondering if anyone else had heard of

it or if it was one of those old wives tales.

Thanks

Dee

EOS Team

Hi Dee

Cocoa is a stimulant and the sugar possibly went straight to her head, too, making her mind overactive at the wrong time of day. I'm no expert but I used to work with small children in the UK. Strawberries can also have an upsetting effect if you have them at tea time!

Rose

Rose

Thank you for that very interesting do you know if strawberry flavouring would do the same as in yogurts and yogurt drinks

as they are one of her favourites

Dee

Hello Dee

I'm sure the yoghurt is ok, as the amount of fruit will be negligable. If it's called a "strawberry flavoured" yoghurt then it doesn't even contain strawberries, just an artificial aroma! IMy daughter used to get a rash on her face when she ate them and I know they are very acidic and so can upset the stomach, causing night-time disturbance. Mind you, baked beans for tea were never a good idea either!

Rose

Dee,

I have just come across this thread and would like to respond to your question about the chocolate and nightmares connection.  Our eldest son used to have terrible nightmares and I too discovered that they occurred when he had eaten chocolate or chocolated flavoured food during the day.  This first started when he was only six months old but at that time I didn´t realise what it was.  As he grew older it became evident that he was having nightmares.  During these episodes he would often be difficult to hold as he had jerking of his body, arching of his back and what appeared to me to be like a fit but in slow motion, all in his sleep.  Whilst in the nightmare he was inconsolable and when he woke up, he seemed to be awake but wasn´t quite with it, if you know what I mean.  Doctors weren´t very helpful.  We were advised to keep him off chocolate, which we did and he had no more episodes like this.  It was suggested that he might be allergic to chocolate and that he might grow out of it as he grew up.  He was OK with white chocolate and so he didn´t really miss out .  We bought carob from the health food shops as a substitute but he didn´t really like it.  It was a bit difficult for him at school and at children´s birthday parties when all the children were eating chocolate, especially when he was too young to understand why.  I would often have more trouble from well-intentioned  mums and teachers who would feel so sorry for him and say "Oh go on, give him a bit of chocolate, it will be all right!" in front of him and I would have to say "No, he can´t, he´s allergic to it". Thank goodness for Milky Bar and white chocolate Buttons!  We tried him on a little bit of chocolate every couple of years to see if he had a reaction and at the age of about 7 he no longer suffered any problems.

I´ve never found out exactly which ingredient(s) in the chocolate caused his reaction or heard of anyone else who suffered it.  I assumed that as chocolate was a trigger for migraines in some adults, it could be that he was having a type of migraine in his sleep which caused nightmares.  The movements he used to have were similar to those described in mild epileptic fits but  he has never had any other symptoms or signs of epilepsy and there is no family history of it either.  That was all a long time ago now.

Our young son,aged 8, gets hyperactive with some food and drinks and we cannot give him chocolate in the evening because he gets too hyper (if you know what I mean).

I would suggest that you keep your little girl off chocolate for a while and see how she goes.  Hopefully, she will just grow out of it.  I´ll have a look on the internet to see if there´s any information on it and if I find anything, I´ll let you know.  In the meantime, I wish you and your little girl well.

Dee, Thank you for your e-mail.  I wasn´t able to click on the link to reply directly to you, so I thought I´d post my reply to you here.

I searched for information on the internet and have found out something very interesting..........

There is a substance in chocolate, from the cocoa, called Theobromine and it is believed to be the toxic component in chocolate.  I always knew that you shouldn´t give chocolate to dogs but didn´t really know why - I presumed it just wasn´t good for their teeth or they´d get fat.   Well, it seems that dogs (and cats) suffer greatly from the effect of theobromine when they ingest excessive amounts of chocolate, although it has been know for a dog to die after only having a relatively small amount.  Here is a quote from a website....

Clinical findings:  Acutely, dogs may show signs which include restlessness, hyperactivity, vomiting, diarrhea, cardiac arrhythmias, tachycardia, polypnea, ataxia, muscle tremors, hyperthermia, seizures and, if severe enough, coma.  If seizures develop, they are typically tonic to tetanic and occur late in the clinical course.

This set me thinking.  If chocolate can cause this reaction in dogs, then why not also in babies or small children.  It seems that the effects typically occur some hours after ingestion (which fits in with my son having had nightmares - and possible seizures - in the night).  I then went on to investigate seizures and nightmares, which also proved interesting.  I also discovered that there is a higher concentration of theobromine in baking chocolate than there is in milk chocolate.  Therefore, chocolate cakes, biscuits and puddings are likely to cause more of a reaction.

Our younger son is experiencing nightmares almost every night and until now I thought it was due to him being a mouth-breather and having sleep apnoea.  However, through investigating more about nightmares it seems that he is having night terrors and I´m not sure if these are related to chocolate or not, but from today I am stopping him from having any chocolate at all and if you, or anyone else, are interested, I´ll let you know how he gets on. 

Best wishes,

Plunket