London - Once upon a time, first birthday pictures were of candles and cone-shaped cardboard hats. Now new mums are more into something called cake smashing.
For the uninitiated, this means taking photographs while toddlers are unleashed on their first cake – preferably with disastrously messy results.
The practice came top of a list of trends put together by parenting website Netmums. Its social media manager Nicola Lamond explained: “Whether the child eats the slice delicately or plunges its hands and face into the cake, the images are always adorable.
“Mums are increasingly sharing cake smash snaps on social media as a way of showing how their baby has grown in his or her first year.”
One of the other most popular trends was listening to a “birthing playlist” during labour. Up to 16 percent of mothers now do so, with popular selections including Push It by Salt-n-Pepa – with the lyric “push it real good” – and, just as aptly, REM’s song Everybody Hurts.
Tech savvy mothers are also sharing the playlists online, with top relaxing tracks including 19 by Adele and Beautiful Day by Elbow.
With eight out of 10 mothers now breastfeeding their child, there has been a boom in wacky mementos, with Brits taking an icky leaf out the American jewellery market and solidifying a drop of milk into a pendant or ring.
If sporting a breast milk ring isn’t to a mother’s taste, they could receive a push present from their partner after giving birth, with one in five getting one and 27 percent planning a gift for their next child.
Caring dads have given three quarters of new mums jewellery - shelling out £100 (about R1 800) on average - but other gifts include spa days, chocolate, clothing and expensive arm candy.
Parents have also ditched date night in favour of scheduled sex, with three in five having to pencil in their engagements.
However, a third only manage to have sex once a week, while a quarter of shattered parents do it once a month or less.
As storms have battered Britain recently, cautious parents have gone back to the 70s and prepared power cut kits (one in eight) filled with blankets, tea lights and torches, while a further one in ten have created a list of games if the telly cuts out.
And with energy costs more than doubling over the last decade, a thrifty one in ten families now use candles to cut back on their bills.
But while finances may be tight, a whopping 95 percent of mums are going without clothes, make up or even food to make sure their little ones are taken care of.
The pricey trend has led to an expansion in sales of children’s clothes, apps and days out dubbed the ‘KiddyConomy’, Netmums say.
As technology advances, parents are actually ditching Facebook this year, with 62 percent reducing the time they spend on the social networking site and seven percent logged off completely.
Another trend for the new year is extreme tutoring, with parents heaping more pressure on their kids to study as competition for the top state school places rises.
Half of parents have considered private tuition and 15 percent are already paying for it, while shockingly 16 percent get their kids tutoured before they even begin school.
Round up the top ten trends is sibling birthday gifts, where more than a quarter of mums splash out on presents for the whole family on a child’s special day to stop everyone feeling left out - and to teach kids not every event is about them. - Daily Mail