What I Love Wednesday: Baby Products Edition
Y'all, Wednesdays are not fun days. You're just as far from the upcoming weekend as you were from the previous weekend. I feel around this time of the week, you just start to drag yourself through the day or zone out, especially if you work outside the home. Therefore, I've decided to brighten your Wednesdays up a bit from here on out sharing some things that I love! Be it books, TV shows, beauty products, recipes, whatever! You name a category, I'll tell you things I love. Since this blog is mostly about my parenting experiences and we are in the midst of baby world right now, I'm starting today with baby products because everything is super fresh in my head!
I'll save baby gear (think stollers, high chairs, car seats, etc.) for another post, otherwise we'd be here all day. Today's What I Love Wednesday will focus on some smaller products or things that I was glad to have for the girls the moment we brought them home. If you're creating a baby registry, or looking to put together a baby gift for someone, hopefully some of this information will help! Almost everything on this list can be found on Amazon, so I've taken all the searching work out and linked everything in case you find yourself wanting it or wanting to gift it to someone.
I hereby present to you, What I Love this Wednesday:
Lots of babies love being swaddled, especially at the beginning. Alas, I've never been great at swaddling my kids. Every time I tried, it seems one thing or another always found a way to come undone. I wanted the girls to feel secure, but more importantly, SAFE. Both of my girls liked being swaddled as newborns, but I was too afraid to try and swaddle them at night in a blanket for fear it would come undone and block their airway. Enter the HALO SleepSack. I truly believe it helped them to be good sleepers in the beginning (Eloise is currently in the 4 month sleep regression so I cannot say that she's STILL a good sleeper at the moment...) and it gives me peace of mind knowing that they were safe. I love that the HALO allows you to swaddle arms out OR in, because babies are all so different. Annabelle and Eloise both preferred arms out, but this sleep sack is built so that I could do arms in if that was better for them. I also like that it zips down from the top, so when doing a diaper change in the middle of the night, I didn't have to completely unswaddle. The zipper closes at the bottom so I really only had to unzip it halfway. Anyone who's tried to quickly and quietly change a baby at night knows how great of a feature this is! The one shown here is cotton, but they come in a variety of materials, sizes, and prints. They also have wearable blankets (basically the same sans the swaddle feature) for the older kiddos, and this is what both girls used at daycare for naps until they were about a year old.
This is a bit bigger item than the rest in today's blog, but it's been a staple in our house with both girls. Ten days after Annabelle was born, we moved out of our house and in with my parents while we searched for a home in our dream neighborhood. Since they recently downsized, this meant Annabelle didn't have her own room and was in ours. Our room was too small to set up a crib, and so we decided to set up the pack and play instead. It however, also took up a lot of space in our small room, and to be honest, was really hard so didn't make for very comfortable sleep for her. After about a week of her fussing in the pack and play, we decided to try her sleeping in the Rock 'n Play and I wish we had done that from the beginning. She slept SO soundly. When Eloise was born, we put her in the crib from the get go, but after a few days we realized she has some pretty significant reflux and would do much better sleeping with a bit of an incline so we moved her to sleep in the Rock 'n Play as well and noticed an immediate difference. I know it doesn't work for all babies who struggle to sleep, but it's worked wonders for our girls. The incline helps with reflux, and it has a cocoon-like structure which I think makes babies feel more secure. There is a deluxe version (my parents have it) that has an automatic rocker, vibration, and a few different sounds, but we have the basic model (which is actually on sale right now if you're looking for one!) and it's worked great. We went on a few overnight and day trips this past summer, and love that the Rock 'n Play folds up for easy travel so we never had to worry about where Eloise would sleep. It's also very lightweight, so when I was on maternity leave, I would just carry it downstairs during the day so she had a cozy place to sleep if she decided to nap. This isn't something that babies will stay in forever, but it definitely makes the first few months easier!
Neither of our girls have been super pacifier-dependent, and only recently have we been able to get Eloise to even take one. They really only have them at night for self-soothing purposes, but man are they an amazing invention for that purpose! If you are a parent or caretaker of a small baby, you know that those pacifiers pop right out of their mouth a lot if you don't hold it in. This is why I love the Wubbanub. It has the animal attached to it to help weigh it down and stay in the babe's mouth, but lightweight enough that I personally don't feel it causes a choking hazard (and yes, in the above photo, Annabelle is surrounded by all sorts of sleeping hazards. We allowed her these to fall asleep and then removed them from the crib once she was sleeping, so don't get all judgy on me yet!). This is a great pacifier for a road trip as well. I'm not saying it won't pop out of your kid's mouth, I'm just saying for a teeny baby who can't put it back in themselves, it's less likely to pop out than some other pacifiers on the market. My girls, as well as my nieces, all have had a Wubbanub and they've all loved it. It's kind of like the binky and blankey/lovey all in one!
I swear by this stuff! Maybe it's all in my head, but I've used the lotion on both girls for our nighttime routine and I really truly think it helps. We also use the comfort bath as a body wash and/or a bubble bath. A mini baby massage while singing "You Are My Sunshine" at bedtime with this lotion has been part of our bedtime routine for both girls as babies from the get go. It's not an overly oily lotion either, so goes on lightly on their skin. Coming into the winter months soon, this will be especially good to use as everyone's skin tends to dry out during winter. Lavender is said to have a calming effect, and I truly believe that it does. Whether it calms them or calms me, I'm not sure, but it doesn't really matter, because I feel like it works so I'll take it!
When I was pregnant with Annabelle, everyone told me I should get these swaddle blankets. I didn't know what all the fuss was about but put them on the registry anyways, and I am Oh-So-Glad I did! Many people use these for swaddle blankets, but as I mentioned earlier, I am very swaddle challenged. Instead, we use these for a variety of other things. Sometimes, if we aren't at the house, they turn into a makeshift changing pad or playmat. We've used them as a stoller/carseat or baby carrier shade when it's particularly hot. I could never get the hang of nursing, but I know a lot of people who drape them over their shoulder as a nursing cover. Annabelle LOVES her aden + anais blankeys like this and takes one to daycare for naps and if we're going on a long road trip we always make sure to have one in the car for her to snuggle with. For Eloise, we use them for snuggling since they are so soft or as a burp rag if she is particularly spitty. These blankets are super soft, and EXTREMELY breathable, which is why they are good for all the above uses. I think we have 8 of them between our house any my parents' house, and having more is definitely not out of the question! They come in all sorts of cute patterns, so you are definitely able to find something that suits you.
This has been an AWESOME staple in our stash of baby things. With Annabelle, I would wear this a lot when grocery shopping while on maternity leave, because with a carseat in your shopping cart, you can basically only get what you can fit in the front part. That's not much, people. Now that we have 2 kids and haven't pulled the trigger on a double stroller yet, this has come in particularly handy for walks or going places with both kids. When we take walks, we try and take the dogs with us as often as we can, so you can imagine the circus we appear to be with a stroller, 2 dogs, and two kids. The Ergo helps because then I'm hands free to either push the stroller or hold the dog leashes. When Dan is travelling for work, having this means I can still take both girls on a walk, or even outside to play without worrying about if I have to put Eloise down to help Annabelle with something. Eloise is now big enough that she can face forward and peek out over the top, which is a lot more stimulating for her now and she seems to enjoy is as you can see in the photo! The Ergo 360 is constructed so that she could face inward as well when she was smaller, and you can also purchase an infant insert for when baby is teeny tiny. We haven't used it as a back carrier yet, but it has the capability to be worn that way, too. This is an extremely durable baby carrier and is ergonomically designed so it's not killing my back. It has great reviews for the shorter crowd like myself. My sister who is also short, has the same carrier and loves it! The mesh in it also is great for summer for both you and baby!
I consider myself to be a pretty laid back parent and don't worry a ton, so wasn't really planning on getting anything like this, but let me tell you, it's totally worth the money you pay for it. For those of you that don't know, when Annabelle was born, she was not breathing. She had a nuchal cord, meaning her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. Not only that, but it had a knot in it. My amazing OB knew something was us, as she was in fetal distress during delivery - her heart rate would go up and down and she was tachycardic. Had I not been able to get her out after just 20 minutes of pushing like I did, they had the vacuum ready, and I'm sure if that didn't work, we'd have had an emergency C-section. As you can see now, she's a perfectly healthy toddler, thank goodness, but she was whisked off to the NICU after her birth so we of course were nervous bringing her home. My sister-in-law had purchased a Snuza for her daughter for other reasons, but we decided after Annabelle's rocky entry, that it would be good to have one for her. The Snuza is a movement monitor that you clip on baby's diaper and it does exactly that - detects movement aka breathing. If no movement is detected for 20 seconds, then the Snuza will vibrate gently, which is typically enough to stimulate baby and they start breathing again. If after three vibrations there is still no movement, the Snuza will beep quite loudly - loud enough to wake you to check on baby. We've had this a few false alarms when both of our girls started moving around more because the Snuza might just fall off the diaper or scoot down so it's not against their skin, and every time it's terrifying. But we know it works. And let me tell you, it's allowed both Dan and I to sleep better, knowing that there is something that will tell us if our precious girls are in any kind of breathing danger. Some people complain about the false alarms or the price, but I think they are both 100% worth it because it keeps our kids safe and us sane.
Homemade Burp Cloths
Since these are homemade by my fabulous mom, there's obviously no Amazon shopping link for you to buy these, but if you know someone who can sew, I'd ask them to make several of these! We have stacks on stacks on stacks of them both at our house and at my parents' house. As you can see from the fabulous model hanging out with her Grandma today, they are small enough so that you can throw a TON in your diaper bag, and also serve as a nice blanket for you while feeding your baby doll hehe. In all seriousness though, we love these and cannot thank my mom enough for making them. They are SO soft, and the sewing pattern is such that it perfectly fits over your shoulder without bunching up. Eloise spits up all the time, so these are handy to have in piles, and they are also really great for wiping runny noses, since they are so very soft. Because they are homemade, the fabric options are endless too, so you can pick whatever you want that fits your style preference!
That's all for my What I Love Wednesday: Baby Edition, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on these items. Do you own any? What do or don't you like about any of these? What else would you add to the list?