For a child with zero teeth Max has quite a lot of teething toys…

is ever popular (she's often attached to the pram for out and about soothes), there's a cold duck ring that goes in the fridge – but often gets left in there behind the Flora, oops, I've got a snazzy teething necklace that he regularly hangs off in public places (I got mine from

), as well as various hard plastic things that all seem to make him shout like a banshee when he munches on them (meaning they regularly get confiscated to protect my eardrums and sanity…).

However despite this wealth of pre-teeth soothers there's a new teething toy in town. It's fair to say this purchase is due to my semi serious

and cactus obsession (what can I say I'm a millennial). As one night feed (probably) I stumbled upon

over on the 'Gram and their cute and practical range of teething toys. And there it was…the Cactus Teething Toy of dreams.

I justified buying this because a) they are a Bristol based company and produce the products themselves – so supporting a small British brand b) they are BPA free and contain nice stuff for the lad to chew on c) as I'm shortly going to have to move all the plants off the floor once crawling begins (please not quite yet!) so Max is going to need at least a semblance of plants in his life. All most reasonable right? (ok maybe not so much that last one…).

So a

was duly ordered. And I'm pleased to say has been a great hit (always a relief for anything I buy with mama's aesthetics in mind). It's the perfect small size for little nippers to get their mitts around. A bit smaller than our pal Sophie (although Max did once get three of Sophie's hooves in his mouth in one go – I was so proud – so perhaps he's not too fussed by her size) but he can cart it about easily. Plus it has a hole you can put a string through to tie it on to avoid it being hurled by tiny throwing hands. Very best of all it seems to be doing the job with Max's little gums. And without any shouting too – praise be.

All this pre tooth fun has got me reeeaally looking forward to when the gnashers come in…only two more years of this to go? Terrific. Better get a job lot of cacti in then.

An aside: Upon looking back at the title of this post – I am aware that 'chew toy' is perhaps more of a pet phrase than baby…? Can you tell I'm new to this parenting malarky??