One Month of Grace

We are starting things back off BIG here. This post might not be for everyone, but for those who it does benefit I think there are some real pearls here. Plus it took me a whole lot of time, which is not something I have a lot of lately, so you all better appreciate it and welcome me back with arms wide open.

Or else.

I am going to try to do those monthly photo projects of Gracie in her chair…our 1 month attempt wasn’t hugely successful.

So what we have here people is the guide of most essential stuff that got us through our first month with GraceFace. When you have a baby your life changes. Everyone knows that. But what you might not anticipate is the sheer amount of stuff that you are also going to basically give birth to. It is given to you by friends and relatives, marketed towards you: “your baby will be brain dead and the only emotion she will process is rage because you can’t understand her if you don’t buy this and teach her sign language”, and I am pretty sure the baby actually brings a duffle bag of supplies with her too. Shit be everywhere.

We are living in tiny confines. And temporarily. Which not only means little room for the stuff, but also an expiration date upon which the stuff will have to be packed and moved. This made me real discerning about the stuff. I researched. Well really I just utilized my friend who did the real heavy research (she is a Type A Accountant who prepared for motherhood much like she would have approached tax season, so trust, she is who you want to take advice from) to help me narrow down the stuff I brought into our home. And from that, this is the list of the stuff I have deemed absolutely essential to survival during the first month of motherhood. I know none of y’all probably have come to rely on me for my thriftiness or sensibility, but this is legit. I swears it.

Now…the Stuff:

Baby Newborn Lounger: I mean look how happy that baby is? This might be my most important item that I never knew I couldn’t live without. Gracie loves it. We would put her in it and into our bed when she decided she was up for the day at 5 am, and we were not and snuggle with her without fear of crushing her to death. It moved to the couch during the day for hours of snugglefun. You have probably noticed it in all of her most precious pictures.

See? This thing even makes babies cuter! (Not really…she is just insanely cute. Here you can see her advertising her boppy pillow, soothies, and aden & anais blankies. What an affective spokesbaby. It’s almost like she is part Kardashian!)

Soothies: Some people have attitude about passies. These people must have the constitution of a buddha- or a baby who just doesn’t like passies- because if you have a screaming baby, and they will take a passie, I for one wouldn’t overthink it. Give them the freaking passie. This passie is fancy and calls itself a soothie. Apparently it was developed by the hospital where Gracie had her surgery because 1. They more closely resemble a real nip 2. They are easier to keep clean because they are all one piece of rubber and dont have crevaces for grime to get caught in 3. They rule and babies love them. Gracie spits out all other passies/soothies/binkies.

Pumps: So here is our personal story on breastfeeding- because I am sure you were all dying to know what my bosoms have been up to. Gracie was on IVs for the first week of her life without any actual feeding. So I used the hospital pump to make my milk supply come in. Our hospital (St. Lukes/Texas Childrens Hospital) has a great milk bank/lactation consulting program where they will rent you a pump for not a lot- give you all of the bottles and supplies for free, and freeze and store your milk while your baby is in the hospital. So the second week of Gracie’s life she was introduced to breast milk- but only from a bottle. By the time that I could actually breast feed, she was pretty used to the bottle and got really fussy and upset trying to feed from the breast. We brought in a lactation consultant- which helped- but she still didn’t really take to it and I hated seeing her get frustrated after all she had been through.

The remaining requirement for her to come home was that she show she could feed and gain weight, and breast feeding was slowing down her progress, so we decided to just keep giving her my pumped breast milk from a bottle. Since we have been home we have tried to get her on the breast, but we are still almost exclusively bottlefeeding her my pumped breast milk. Which has really well acquainted me with breast pumps. I opted to rent the hospital grade Medela breast pump provided to me by our hospital- and if yours offers this I would recommend it.

I also bought this portable medela which I use when I am in a more on-the-go situation.

I don’t think it pumps AS well as the hospital grade, and it is a lot noisier, but it is really light and comes with a super handy bottle/bag situation that is almost worth buying it on its own.

Breast feeding bra: Going along with the above I almost went to the hospital without knowing about this contraption, and I would have been very very sad. Pretty basic, this allows for hands free pumping. Which, trust me, is the only kind of pumping you want to do. Pete calls it my boobie ski-mask, and I think it is festive.

Little do you know this is how I am typing to you right.now. What a visual, right?

Milky Milk Saver- So obviously from the long tale of the bosom above, you know I am not really breast feeding, but this was gifted to me by a Grandma in the know, and the benefits of it have been verified by many of my breast feeding friends. Basically when you breastfeed, the boob your baby isn’t feeding off of leaks. Rawr, I know. This contraption goes on that boob and allows you to save whatever comes out of there, which you can store…WHICH BRINGS ME TO THE ONLY PREACHY MOM TIP I HAVE!

I know people are touchy about bottle/breast feeding. I have no agenda. I exclusively bottle feed my own breast milk. It is kind of a pain in the ass but it is what we want to do right now, and so we are doing it. Sometimes I fantasize about formula, and sometimes I get weepy and wish my girl wanted to nuzzle my bosom. Just as long as you feed your baby, basically I am not your side.

BUT.

If you do exclusively breast feed I REALLY encourage you to try to feed your baby by bottle at least once a day. Here is why. If you don’t introduce a bottle earlyish, your baby might not ever take a bottle. Which means no one else can ever feed her/him. Which means you basically can never attend a function without your baby for more than a few hours ever. If that works for you, again great, but it probably does not. Also it means that your husband/partner can give a feeding, which they really like because they can contribute.

MOST IMPORTANTLY IT MEANS THAT IF YOU EVER GET SICK SOMEONE ELSE CAN HELP CARE FOR YOUR BABY!!!!

The last thing I ever thought about was what could happen to ME after I had a baby. You just get in selfless mom mode and only think about their health and happiness. But when Pete and I got laid out flat by seriously violent food poisoning last week, there was no way I could have fed Gracie. Physically it would not have been possible. Also, I would not have fed her the breast milk I was producing. It says a lot of places that you can feed your baby when you are sick, but I didn’t want to risk it. If something could put me on the floor of the bathroom for 12 hours, the chance that even the slightest residue of that could get passed on to my teensy girl was not worth it. Thankfully I had a supply of my frozen breast milk built up that we could feed her from. Again I only tell you this because it was something I never would have thought of- but my advice for you to think about is that you should try to pump/save a bottle or so a day to freeze just in case something happens to you and you cannot feed your child for a bit.

Baby Bjorn Chair: We use this a lot. We would use it a lot more if we were living normal life where we cooked and ate at the table with our baby. Since we are living in the snuggest little apartment ever, that is not really our current lifestyle, but once we are in Mr. Banks- YAHTZE! Parent friends of ours put it on the counters when they are cooking and on the dinner table when they are eating, babies really like watching you do your normal junk and it is good for them to observe. Gracie really likes the chair itself, and it is easy to bounce with just the slightest of an effort. Random plus you might not think about? It folds down completely flat in case you want to travel with it. Which you probably do.

Aden and Anais Blankies: I know most of you probs know about these, but in case you don’t, these are the best for everything. They are cute, soft, lightweight and great for swaddling. The NICU nurses went nuts over these. I also really like their burp cloths because they fit really nicely over your shoulder.

Dr Browns: These bottles were recommended to us by our baby whisperer. They cut down on the gas ingested by babies, and babies are gas machines, so that is huge. Also the nipple on them mimics the real thing so less nipple confusion for those trying to mix bottle and breast.

Graco Car Seat: Nothing earth shattering here. But Gracie seems to really like it. My friend convinced me to get the 30 instead of the 35 because it is that much lighter, and there is no way Gracie is still going to be fitting in the carseat lengthwise when she is 30 pounds, much less 35. And there is nothing more awkward than carrying a carseat, so anything to make it lighter and sleeker- while still safe- is much appreciated. Also Graco is compatible with a lot of stroller bases which is convenient so that your seat can do double duty. I found this design to be the most simple and least offensive to my eyeballs. I didn’t bother with a cute cover or anything because I’m over it.

Boon Grass Countertop Drying Rack: We didn’t get anything fancy to put our bottles in the dishwasher. It is a bit more work but Pete and I switch off washing them by hand…It is just part of our routine now and I like being able to feel that everything is really clean. But this drying rack looks cute on our counter and I enjoy that.

Note, I linked almost all of these to Babies R Us. They are not paying me for my reviews, no one is (dumb), and all of these things should be available at amazon or wherever else you might choose to shop. I got all of my junk through babies r us and thought it was pretty easy.

I hope this was helpful to some of you. If you have any other ultimate baby suggestions, leave them in the comments! I am thinking about doing this every month so let me know if that is something that might interest you guys…

Yay!! I’m back!