Let’s talk about what is working well for us! Yay, happy things.

Love to Dream™ Love To Swaddle UP

            We tried the traditional swaddle. We wrapped with blankets, we wrapped with the easy-to-use Velcro swaddles – nothing worked. This girl screamed BLOODY MURDER every time we got her in one of those things and then wiggled so much that the hands were out and the swaddle failed in 10 minutes. We knew we needed to swaddle for her sleep and ours. I went browsing around Buy Buy Baby and ran across the Swaddle UP. I think one of the big reasons swaddling wasn’t working for us is that she wanted her hands up. When I was delivering her we had to wait while the doctor moved her hand that was up near her face so I could push her out. Every sonogram we have, her hands are near her face, so of course, she wants her hands up. Even when we swaddled with her hands up, they weren’t high enough. I cannot rave enough about the Swaddle UP. It’s easy to change her in it and she still can have her hands near her face. I actually just ordered the next stage of this swaddle – the UP 50/50. So when she can start rolling over you zip the “wings” off, but she still has the bottom wearable blanket.

HoMedics SoundSpa Lullaby Sound Machine

            Why I didn’t have a white noise machine before I had her, I don’t know. I think I believed that because Daniel and I sleep with two fans, which are seriously loud, that we would be OK. No, not OK. I bought this sound machine at the same time I bought the swaddle and it helped with sleeping so much. I run it on the ocean sound because it sounds the most like white noise and it’s loud. When I turn it on, her eyes immediately get heavy and start rolling back in her head. She now knows that it means sleep. I really don’t know if Daniel and I are going to be able to sleep in our room without it. It has a built-in projector to put things on the ceiling, but we use this strictly as a sound machine for now. There are some bad reviews on it because of that projector but it’s a great little sound machine.           

Gerber Soothe Probiotic Drops

            When we switched to formula she had bad gas. She worked really hard to try and pass it but was uncomfortable a lot of the time. The doctor suggested we put her on a probiotic to see if that helped soothe her belly pain. After being on them a little more than a week they seem to have helped her. We still have one episode a day where she appears uncomfortable and takes a while to pass a poop or gas but these drops, expensive (really expensive for how small this bottle is) as they may be, have helped us take a turn in her fussiness.

Placenta Pills

            If you don’t like hearing about placentas skip to the next! After her birth I had my placenta encapsulated by Amanda, my doula. I think this really helped me keep a level hormone balance in the days and weeks that followed her birth. As mentioned before I had some issues with breastfeeding and I think my issues with that could have been a lot worse had I not had the pills to level things out. I highly recommend women to do it to help with your hormones. I have some left that I will take when I feel crazy or at my first period.

Ergobaby Original Collection Dewdrop Baby Carrier or baby wearing in general

            I really wanted to baby wear. LIKE REALLY BAD. I was given two slings, I bought a Solly wrap, was gifted an Ergo and a Mei Tai. When M was born I tried to use the Solly right away and it didn’t go well. She cried and hated it. I was so sad because I wanted to do it. Next time I tried the Ergo and she loved it. She fell asleep and was calm in it. We use it to walk to the mail box or calm her around the house if she’s fussy. I haven’t used it out yet because we haven’t really gone out, but I can’t wait to try it. Last week I tried the Solly again and she did well in it. I think I was wrapping wrong and now I have it down. I need to keep practicing with baby wearing because I know she likes to be close to me. I am taking this as a win, even if it hasn’t been tested to its full potential.

Schedule

            I know babies don’t really have a schedule. Like none at all. Well last week a friend reached out to me to tell me about how she got her son to sleep through the night. She uses Moms on Call. It’s a book and way to schedule your baby’s day. I implemented it, without reading the book, last week and our days have gotten way better. She’s still not sleeping through the night, but the days are good. She’s taking naps and not just catnaps and eating well. At night we are getting longer stretches of sleep so I am going to take that for now. I am going to give it another week or two and if it continues to work I am going to grab the book. I don’t want to be tied down too much to a schedule but it is making our lives much better.

Do you have your baby on a “schedule”? I’d love to know more about it.