Shaking Up My Wake Up with Nestle Cereals for #Breakfastweek

**Collaborative post**

Just before Christmas, I was contacted by Nestle who wanted to help me and my family shake up our Wake Up to coincide with National Breakfast Week, which is 24th – 30th January.  Breakfast should be the most important meal of the day as it fuels your body and your brain for the day ahead.

Sadly, this isn’t the case in our household. Paul doesn’t eat breakfast, as it makes him feel sick to eat too early, so he has elevenses mainly, and I very rarely have time to sit and eat something, as getting everyone up, ready, and out of the house for 8.30 am is almost akin to Mission Impossible. It doesn’t matter how organised I am and how much I get ready the night before; it’s still rather difficult, and I find myself gulping down a cold cup of coffee just as I am locking the front door, often swinging the bags over my shoulder and coat on at the same time—we Mum’s are good at multitasking after all!

I do, however, make sure the children eat their breakfast – they are stuck in their ways though and tend to have the same things during the week and something different at the weekend when we have more time on our hands.

Knowing I was setting a very bad example to the children, I was happy to accept the challenge of embarking on Shaking Up My Wake Up during Breakfast Week. With the week almost over now, I have managed to eat a different breakfast each day before taking the children to school. I’m finding that I’m not hitting the biscuit tin when I make a cup of coffee on my return home, and I’m not wanting my lunch until around 1 pm, whereas by 11 am I am already planning (or even making) my lunch before this week.

I am one of 5 bloggers who have been shaking up my wake-up as part of the Nestle campaign; we have all had special surprises organised for us to help our shake-up. Tired Mummy of Two enjoyed a 2 and a half hour home spa day with her friend in the comfort of her home – now I admit I am jealous, not just of the pampering but of 2 and a half hours child-free, quiet relaxing me time -oh, I can vaguely remember this, but it is such a distant memory that I would actually be happy with a full night’s unbroken sleep.

I had a hamper arrive the day before our surprise day out (we knew a taxi was coming at a set time and to wrap up warmly, but that’s all), with instructions on it not to open until the next morning. I admit the suspense and temptation not to open was very hard but I managed and let the children open first thing in the morning.

Inside the hamper were a selection of cereals to help with eating a different cereal each day to shake things up, bowls, spoons, and umbrellas. There was also a golden envelope, which revealed our surprise.

We were off to London Zoo for the day, and the children had had animals adopted for them – Harry a tiger and Emmy a giraffe. The excitement levels were unreal!!

With the surprise revealed, we all had our breakfast to set us up for the day ahead, I packed my bag appropriately for a long day and we all dressed up warmly.  Our Taxi arrived and we set off with the children’s car seats (the driver had been asked to keep hold of these and would return later to pick us up) and the children’s scooters – the best way to get around the zoo and to save us from overtired and whinging children, and off we went. We all had a great day out, the rain held off for most of the day and the children really loved visiting their adopted animals.

After 5 hours in the Zoo they were very tired, as were we and we were grateful of starting the day with full tummies.

Did you know that 25% of people happily skip breakfast at least once or more a week while 13% never actually eat any at all!

By eating breakfast it is a great way of adding 1 of your 5 a day to help shake things up a little, so if like mine your children would happily eat the same thing every day why not change things by adding slices of bananas one day, nuts and yogurt another or berries to help make breakfast fun and enjoyable again.

By eating breakfast it is a great way to start your day, helps provides you with energy to get through until lunch time and helps to provide sources of calcium, iron and vitamin B.  Nestle cereals have a green banner on the top which shows you that they’ve no added salt, are low in saturated fat and also contain whole grain.

Check out what my fellow blogger Tales of Annie Bean got up to when shaking up her wake-up tomorrow.