Our tips for supporting your family day-to-day come from 2 champions of childhood development.
Charlotte Poussin
Author and Montessori educator
Mother of 5 and Montessori education specialist. Charlotte is the author of a number of books on the subject. She is also a board member of the French Montessori Association. What is more, for 15 years she has been working with children as a teacher and headteacher of a Montessori school.
“I'm thrilled to share my experience with Petit Bateau when it comes to tips and advice for parents regarding the development of their children and the requirement to offer a suitable environment that meets their basic needs.”
Father of 2 and a graduate in early childhood development, Gilles is the creator of the Future father workshop. During his workshops he shares essential daily tasks to support your baby and gives the key points of positive education.
My Instagram is colourful, full of vintage, toys, DIY and sweet recipes. Each photo is like a rainbow when it comes onto my feed, the idea is to create a caring space full of memories or discoveries for fans of pop-culture, the whole thing dotted with great addresses and Southern accents.
I create according to how I feel at the time, DIY stuff, recipes, I share my car boot finds and my collections. I also love working with paper and creating stop-motion animations, my content is a sort of logbook which changes as it goes along depending on what I find or recycle, test or collect, like Polaroids.
I tried to keep colour as a guiding light, each kit has a different tone and my main aim is to really bring joy to children with delightful, fun cakes (not forgetting taste - an essential for sweet lovers). I also asked my 8 year old daughter for advice because she's the best placed to give me an opintion.
Yes, I had an epic fail at my daughter's birthday which we still laugh about 3 years later... During a party I asked the kids to hit a piñata which I'd bought and set-up in the garden, they were hitting it like crazy for 10 minutes, it wouldn't break, nothing fell out, they were fed-up... That's when I realised that the piñata was actually completely empty, there were no sweets, nothing inside, an epic FAIL with 10 totally devastated kids staring at me... Luckily we were able to fill it quickly, hang it back up and then it broke, but everyone teased me and now I always check what's inside the piñata, or fill it myself!
On Instagram, I always feel privileged to be able to post photos of “daily aesthetics” I often share my decor, the DIY stuff I do, places I visit and real-life moments with my son Armand and all the plants surrounding us.
I've been blogging for over 10 years now and I think that a large part of my community engaged with me for my DIY shares (mainly decorating and styling a children's room). My life and what I choose to publish has obviously developed since my blog started, but I have always created posts around what I love and not what people necessarily expect. My passion for weaving, styling a new flat..sharing my passion for plants...a little fashion and lots of discoveries. I've always been someone who enjoys lots of different thing, in lots of areas, but I always try to add a touch of creativity or humour to what I'm suggesting.
As for creating the birthday kits, I followed the image I had of Petit Bateau. The choice of theme had to be cool, fresh and amusing. I'm lucky enough to be the mum to a 7 year old boy, Armand, who helped me to think about everything an amazing birthday should encompass. I imagined all of it as if it were for him and his friends.
In fact, for his 7th birthday we were on holiday in the Vendée at my aunt's place. There was no party craziness...he didn't want a cake, he wanted mussels in marinière sauce! He got his wish. As for the candle, we stuck it in a banana!
I would say that I have a LIFESTYLE world that's basically things I like. It's a mixture of images of walks/trips and decor with some more decorative scenes and a few DIY bits.
I create lifestyle content that blends images of travelling, decor, set design and DIY. I post moments on my feed that reflect the what I'm doing at the time or things I love.
My two daughters are quite old now (18 and 16), so I've already lived through birthdays for all ages (twice!)! For these kits I tried to remember what they liked, I made myself think about diversity, and especially how to save mums and dads time with a full set of printables and tips for making decorations which take just ten minutes.
For my daughter Jade's 8th birthday I made my first piñata, I really worked hard at it and it took so much longer than I could have imagined. I put it together so well that it was completely indestructible! Despite all the children taking turns and then my children's dad it wouldn't break it was totally shock resistant. We were transfixed in solidarity and totally frutsrated that we couldn't release the suprises inside. In the end we took it down and opened it on the floor. I've never made one since. And don't worry, there aren't any in the kits I've designed!
I offer my community fairly varied content: Lifestyle, decor, family, travelling and an ever-increasing amount of posts on behalf of causes that I care about (like animal welfare or the environment).
For the kits I took inspiration from my children, what they have loved over the years and my 13 years' experience as a mum. I worked the different themes as if they were for them, imagining what would make them happy. And for each theme, I started with a range of precise colours to frame everything around it. Colour plays a definite role in my work, it really inspires me. :)
What springs to mind isn't exactly something that happened on a birthday but it does fit with the theme. One day my son Ugo wanted to go to school wearing a “birthday cake” hat, a very colourful one with candles on. I told him that unfortunately it wasn't possible, so he hid it in his school bag. According to his teacher he wore it all day long and all the children in the school had wished him a happy birthday several times. I found out when I picked him up at the end of the school day, he walked over me with the hat on! :)
For those special moments, we've created a selection of exclusive items from our favourite brands. Just for you!
These days, you don't need to travel the world to find cool decorations that are great for each birthday. In one click My Little Day is the dream solution! My Little Day is above all a love of parties and the art of mixing emotions. Any occasion is a good one to get together and even better if you can add confetti, balloons and sequins.
By joining the Tribe you'll receive 20% off via email to use on the My Little Day website to plan your children's birthday.
From her workshop in Nantes, Rosemood offers lovely personalised announcements and beautiful photo albums for all the happy moments in your life. Taking care of you is part of their DNA: they check your texts, retouch your photos and ensure that the page set up is perfect on every creation. Your good news and memories are in good hands!
By joining the Tribe you'll receive exclusive offers by email. 10% off on birth announcements, 15% off on photo albums and what's more excluxive announcements in Petit Bateau colours!
