Mama Designs Quilted Playmat

It's hard to know what to get a 5 month old for Christmas, especially if that 5 month old is the third child. We were just going to count his monkey music classes as his Christmas present. He'd never know, we don't need any more plastic and he loves monkey music. But then Mama Designs came out with this luxury quilted play mat a couple of weeks before Christmas and it looked so good I pre-ordered it.

Mama Designs is a company I've been aware of for sometime but only since having Jim (in the middle) so I've had to just resist its lovely temptations. But the playmat spoke to me. And for so many reasons.

It's a great size. It doesn't take up vast amounts of room, it's not so much fabric that someone of 5'2" struggles to lift it, you can pack it in a bag or the back of the car and it barely takes up any space. It comes with a storage bag with a drawstring so you can pack this away and store it somewhere - it will stay clean and ready for use and fits easily into the bottom of a suitcase.

We have 2 dogs, a metric ton of lego and quite a lot of jewellry making beads. Before Jack was mobile it was so nice to be able to put this down on the floor and know that he was sitting or lying somewhere clean and that was just his. Even the big brothers learned that this was a lego-free zone. When it arrived, before he could sit up it was so great to be able to put this down on the floor and lie him on it without having to worry about how clean the floor was.

Now Jack is at bum shuffle stage (none of mine have been quick to reach any milestones!) so he doesn't stay on the mat for long, but i place this and the soft base to the playpen round and it means on those times when he just keels over (quite often) he doesn't have quite such a heavy landing. It's also nice to have somewhere to put his toys so he's not just roaming around grabbing whatever we can. I quite often put out his musical toys, or something of all one colour.

I've got to the slightly sad and yet exciting phase where I'm selling baby stuff - the jumperoo has just been listed on Facebook - but this i'm going to wash, fold and keep. My friends are very tolerant of my dogs and chaos but even I wanted my tiny babies to lie somewhere soft and clean and this will be kept for any visiting babies. It is also going to come with us to France in the summer where we are renting a house - you can never tell how soft someone else's travel cot mattress will be and this will be perfect to add a bit of comfort under the sheet.

It is beautifully designed - we have the grey with the turquoise trim but you can also get it with a pink trim. It's 100% cotton, really soft and you can wash at 40.

Would make a lovely gift for a pregnant friend or new born baby. Baby showers seem to be more and more of an event in the UK nowadays and this would make a lovely gift to take that they won't get loads of duplicates for.

If I'd known about this brand when I was getting things for Ned (my eldest) I would definitely have bought the Babasac's which are just fantastic and mean you don't have to buy loads of different sleeping bags - the designs are really lovely and unusual too. The bamboo washable breast pads look great too - bamboo breast pads revolutionised my life when feeding Jack so much more comfortable and easy to use.