"These are a few of my favorite things..."

These are the things that we've come to love during the past five and a half weeks!

Baby K’tan Baby Carrier – The double-sling design is a cross between a soft sling and a structured front baby carrier or backpack.  It is made entirely of soft 100% cotton, and the two loop design holds the baby securely.  It’s very comfortable because it rests on both shoulders and has a built-in back support band, and it is easy to use – no wrapping or buckling involved.  Plus, it has 10+ positions, is machine washable and dryer safe, and can be used for a long time (up to 42 pounds)!  And most importantly, Emma loves it!!  If she’s fussy, she normally calms down right after I put her in it and start walking around.  She falls asleep in it fairly easily too!  It’s great when I need to take her somewhere and don’t want to carry her car seat/carrier or can’t use the stroller.  Example: I went to the Just Between Friends consignment sale the other day and couldn’t take the stroller in, so I just put her in this sling.  She did great the entire time I shopped!

The Happiest Baby on the Block by Dr. Harvey Karp – Most new parents have heard of the 5 S’s for how to calm a baby, but this book is wonderful in its detailed instructions on how to do each S (Swaddle, Side/Stomach, Shushing, Swinging, and Sucking).  This was indispensable advice for us for Emma’s first five weeks of life because she had to be calmed down and put to sleep in our arms before we could put her in her crib.

Gold's Gym 65 CM Exercise Stay Ball – This thing is great for when Emma is fussy and needs to be bounced or rocked. We can bounce like crazy when she’s screaming and then transition to smaller bounces, bouncing and rocking, and eventually just rocking until she’s out cold!

Luna Lullaby Soothing Swaddle Blankets – These blankets are great because they’re 44” x 44”, so they’re much larger than normal receiving/swaddling blankets.  They’re made of soft muslin that is breathable and stretchable.  They even come with a DVD with step-by-step instructions on how to swaddle a baby.

MAM pacifiers – these are the only pacifiers we’ve found that Emma will take!

Mommy’s Melodies Soothing Plush Bear – Emma loves the mother’s womb sounds, but it also plays 3 lullabies and 2 nature sounds.  It automatically shuts off after 5 minutes, so you don’t have to worry about remembering to turn it off or it draining the batteries all night long.

Now all we have to do to put Emma to sleep is to combine those last three items!  Swaddle her up good and tight, give her a pacifier, turn on the Mommy’s Melodies bear, give her a kiss, and put her in her crib.  We normally have to go back in her room once or twice to put the pacifier back in her mouth and turn the bear back on, but that totally beats having to walk and bounce and sway and rock and pat and… okay, you the get picture… for 45 minutes or more!

Medela Tender Care Lanolin – I’m not going to go into detail with this one, but let’s just say that this stuff was a necessity during those first few weeks of breastfeeding.

MommyGear.com – This is a great website for purchasing nursing bras, especially for those of us with larger cup sizes!  You can shop by size, and they offer free shipping on size or style exchanges on all nursing bras.

Boppy pillow – I didn’t think I would need one of these, so I just used regular pillows at first.  But after borrowing a friend’s Boppy, I don’t feed Emma without it (unless I’m out of the house).  Plus, we can put Emma in it to prop her up or for tummy time!

Baby Nail Scissors – I tried using the clippers on Emma’s little nails… let’s just say it didn’t go well!  The scissors are so much easier and safer to use, in my opinion.

bumGenius Cloth Diapers – If you’re going to use cloth, this is the way to go! We only have a few of these because they’re pretty expensive. The all-in-one's come in sizes XS - L, so you have to buy more as your baby grows, but they're so easy because you can just throw the whole thing in the wash. With the bumGenius 4.0 diapers, you have to deal with inserts, but they have snaps to adjust the diaper to three different sizes.

Snappi Diaper Fasteners – Since bumGenius diapers are a bit pricey, we just use prefolds with vinyl diaper covers most of the time. Snappi's make putting the prefolds on so much easier than it used to be!

Emma's First Month

It's hard to believe that Emma is already a month old!  She's growing and changing so fast.

One day old

One month old

Emma weighed 9 pounds, 8 ounces (75th percentile) at her 3-week checkup.  Dr. Huitink, our pediatrician, was very pleased with her growth.  We're getting the hang of breastfeeding, although it definitely wasn't easy for the first couple of weeks.

She is sleeping pretty well.  She takes good naps during the day and normally sleeps about 4.5 to 5.5 hours when we put her down for the night.  After the middle of the night feeding, she normally goes back down for another 3 hours or so. She slept through the night for the first time when she was exactly one month old!  She fell asleep at 10:30 p.m. and didn't wake up until almost 6:00 a.m. (7.5 hours)  Unfortunately, she hasn't done it again in the week since then.

She is a very good natured baby.  She only fusses when she's hungry, tired, and when we're trying to put her down for the night.  She's starting to hold her head up by herself pretty well.  She makes lots of faces, but the cutest is when she puckers her lips like she's drinking through a straw.   We've gotten a few grins out of her, but we're still waiting for a real smile.

Other tid-bits:

• We were locked out of house when we brought her home from the hospital.  Carolyn's sister accidentally went back to Ft. Worth with our house keys and our neighbor locked a door that we normally leave unlocked!   The neighbor had to come home from work to give us our spare keys back.
• She had a lump on her upper back right after she was born.  It was about the size of a marble!  We thought it was a cyst, but the doctor said it was just tissue and would go away.  Sure enough, by her 3 week appointment it was gone.
• We thought we would have to get her frenulum (the tissue under the tongue) clipped, but the ENT said it was not severe enough to put her through the procedure.
• Her umbilical cord stump fell off after just 11 days!
• We lost power at the house for several hours when she was one week old.  Her very first outing (besides the doctor's office) was to Dairy Queen for dinner.  Fortunately, the power was back on when we got home!
• We got lots of meals from our wonderful friends from our Sunday School class at Columbus Avenue Baptist Church!
• Daniel had to work the second shift when Emma was 3 weeks old.  Fortunately it was only a four day week because of Labor Day because she was very difficult to put down two of the nights he was gone.
• We started taking her to church when she was almost 3 weeks old.  We only took her to Sunday School the first week and she started to fuss in the middle of it.  Daniel took her outside and got her to fall asleep.  Carolyn missed half of Sunday School the next week for a feeding, but Emma did great during the worship service!
• Other outings:  Walmart, baby shower for a friend from church, Sunday School social/lunch, Just Between Friends consignment sale, Target, Vitek's BBQ, and the post office