Hand In Hand

Thursday, May 23, 2013

A Friday Funny

A friend of mine sent this to me and I just had to share.. :) Happy Friday!!

This post was originally a guest post but since I have so many friends who are expecting their first babies (yay!), I thought I would share it on my own blog in hopes it helps someone!

Having a newborn....
I remember that time well. Aside from all of the wonderful baby snuggles and Cloud 9 hormones that make the sleep deprivation worth it, the newborn stage was all about basic survival mode for me and I felt it would be fun to do a post about what kinds of things we used most often when Emily was a newborn- things that I loved and that made things even just a little bit easier!

Since breastfeeding was the majority of what Emily and I did in the beginning, I separated my top picks into two categories: Nursing Essentials and Non-nursing Baby Essentials.

Non-Nursing Baby Essentials:

1. The First Years Sure Comfort Deluxe Newborn to Toddler Tub With Sling

We used this bathtub from her first bath at home all the way until she was able to stand up and climb out of it on her own! It's great!

2. Burp Cloths

Oh, boy did we use a ton of these! You can never have too many burp cloths!

3. SwaddleMe Adjustable Fleece Wrap

For the longest time I thought Emily hated being swaddles because she would fight it whenever I tried. Eventually I got to my breaking point in our sleep deprived state and I started swaddling her in this. It held her in and she slept well in it!

4. Dreft

Okay, so it's probably not that "essential" but babies do need a more sensitive laundry detergent and this one smells amazing!

5. A Baby Carrier

We got a cheap front carrier for like $13.00 at Target and it was a life saver. She hated being put down so hubs and I would carry her in this to do things around the house or even to walk around in public places like the park or grocery store.

Nursing Essentials:

1. Nursing Cover

I wore a nursing cover almost every time I nursed if I wasn't in a private place. It kept me covered up and helped Emily focus on eating. Eventually she grew to hate it and would swat at it, exposing us in the process. But for months it worked well for us!

2. Breast Pads

In the beginning stages of nursing, your boobies don't know what's going on. It takes some time for them to adjust to how much milk to supply so sometimes there may be some leakage. Breast pads are key!

3. Nursing Bras

I had a love/hate relationship with nursing bras. They weren't always flattering or fit right but once you find the right kind (I liked some from Motherhood Maternity), it's great!

4. A Boppy Pillow

This pillow did wonders for supporting Emily during nursing sessions. I could also use it to prop her up when we weren't nursing!

5. Medela Lanolin Cream

I used this cream so much in the first couple of months of nursing. It helped a lot!

There you have it! My list of essentials for having a newborn baby!

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Day 22: A Random Rant

Day 22: A rant about something

I've never had someone tell me to rant about something before. There are just so many things I could rant about it was hard to choose, haha!!

How about a random rant about the position of our TV.

When we bought our house almost three years ago, we bought a bigger TV for our living room (the other one is in the guest room- aka Michaels 'man cave'). We decided to mount it to the wall above the fireplace so we wouldn't have to get another TV stand and also it gives us more space.

Well, we couldn't very well do this ourselves because we were afraid we (ahem, Michael) would do it wrong and it would fall off and break or something. So we hired a professional to mount the TV for us and told him to center it above the fireplace.

The guy mounts the MOUNT centered but when the TV isn't pulled out or rotated, it sits off center. Why didn't he just put the mount off to the side so our TV wouldn't look ridiculously off center?! We almost never pull it out to rotate it!!

So now it looks like this....