Sterimar Baby and Tots100 are giving away a Family Merlin Pass worth £576!

He’s called Red-eyed water swimmer! – JD, 4

Would you like to win a Premium Family Merlin Entertainment Pass, giving you access to a host of nationwide attractions including The Sea Life Centre, Legoland, Alton Towers, and Chessington World of Adventures for a whole year?

Yes? Then read on…

If you’re familiar with Stérimar Baby, the 100% natural seawater nasal spray, you’ll know that there’s an illustration of a baby dolphin on the pack, and Stérimar Baby wants you to help name him.

Just go to the Tots 100 website, download a picture of the Stérimar Baby dolphin, print him, colour him in with your children, give him a name, scan or photograph him, and then upload your image to the Sterimar Facebook page.

The judges will choose a winner after the competition closes, so get colouring!

You can see our efforts above, complete with JD’s rather long idea for a name. Alas, we’re not actually eligible to enter because I’m a Stérimar Baby ambassador.

Good luck and when you’ve finished being artistic, don’t forget also to check out the Hallmark ultimate storytime giveaway here on A Mummy Too.

I’m a Sterimar Baby Mummy Ambassador

And then it goes tshhhhhhh and all the snot comes out! – JD, 4

Several months go, I was sent a Stérimar Baby natural seawater base nasal spray for review, which I duly stored in the cupboard ready for when Little Miss J faced her first cold.

With JD regularly attending that little germ factory we call preschool, it wasn’t long before he brought home a nice fresh cold and Little Miss J became all red eyes and snotty nose. It’s heart breaking seeing a baby not able to feed properly and Stérimar Baby did the job of clearing her nose brilliantly – you can read my full review here.

Fast forward a few months and we’ve used Stérimar regularly – it not only clears her nasal passages, it keeps them clean and stops the infection getting as nasty as it otherwise might. And a big bonus is that it’s totally natural, so you can use it as much as you like without fear of overdose.

I’m a Sterimar Baby Mummy Ambassador

I use the adult version for myself and have raved about it at nursery and baby group, so when Stérimar asked me to work with them as an ambassador, sharing the benefits of the nasal spray with other mums, I was happy to go ahead.

One of the main things I’ll be doing as an ambassador is spending time on the new Stérimar Baby Facebook Page with experts and other mums, talking through our experiences and sharing thoughts on all things parenting related.

A chance to win £500

To kick off the launch of the new Facebook page, Stérimar Baby is running a ‘Cutest Little Nose’ photo competition.

To enter, visit the Stérimar Baby Facebook Page, click on the Cutest Little Nose app and submit a photo of your little one being super cute – I know, I know, how are you going to choose one photo?

You’ve got until 20th June 2012, after which, the cutest photo (as judged by Stérimar) will be chosen as the winner and the ‘most creative’ photo will win a runner up prize of Stérimar Baby products. Good luck!

Disclosure: I have received a fee for working with Sterimar as an Mummy Ambassador. As always, all content is 100% honest and in my own words.

Baby with a blocked nose – the spray and aspirate solution

Is Little Miss J poorly, mummy? Shall I give her a magic cuddle? – JD, 4

Last week, my poor little lady caught a cold. One of those horrible colds that leaves them gasping, snuffling and generally miserable.

JD had a cold too, but he was quite happy curled up in a duvet, dosed up on Calpol, watching Octonauts and getting through hundreds of tissues while demanding the healing power of ‘mummy’s magic cuddles’. Little Miss J being so tiny (7 weeks), the options were more limited.

The aspirator solution

As I sat there at 4am, dosed up on emergency caffeine, watching her stare back at me red faced and uncomfortable, I remembered the bits of kit I’d stored away at the back of the cupboard: a nasal aspirator and a nasal spray, both designed for babies.

If you’ve never heard of a nasal aspirator, it’s a simple, bulb-shaped contraption you can use to suck the snot out of your baby’s nose, and it really works. Press in the rubber base, position it under your baby’s tiny nostril and let go. Slllllurp, it sucks out the snot – genius! I got mine from Toys R Us for £5.99.

When things get tough (and snot gets stuck)

After a few days of lurgy, the snot in Little Miss J’s tiny nose had become thick and dry and wouldn’t budge even with the aspirator. That’s where the nasal spray came in. Sterimar sent me this rather clever solution a few weeks back – I was hoping I wouldn’t have to use it so soon.

To use Sterimar Baby (£4.07 from Boots), you lie your baby on her side or sit her up with her head tilted to one side, then you put the spray nozzle up to (but not up) her nostril and push the nozzle. It shoots a jet of clean sea water up the nostril and loosens the snot, which dribbles out. Use the aspirator a minute or too later to clear the remains of the softened blockage if necessary and you’ll have a much happier baby.

We did this once or twice a day with Little Miss J and it kept her comfortable and able to feed. We’ll definitely keep the bulb and spray on hand.

Have you got any other tips to help a bub with the sniffles? Let me know.

Disclosure: Sterimar Baby was provided to us free-of-charge for review. No payment was received and this post is 100% honest. Please see my review/disclosure policy for more information.