NMY Graduates Love Thread, Part 4 - Page 11

[Holiztic]

Note on Kate Quinn: Everything we have bought of hers had holes or snaps falling off within a few wears. I refuse to buy another thing! Maybe just our experience, but buyer beware! We have ended up going all Hanna Andersson, much of what is not organic is Oko-Tex 100 certified (free of 100 harmful substances). For the under 2 crowd, you can find everything you need (except outerwear) in organic and/or oko-tex. Check, though, as not all is (some poly, acrylic, etc)

So we now have our third pair of shoes from Soft Star Shoes, and we LOVE them and wanted to share: http://www.softstarshoes.com

That's all I have time for!

[witchygrrl]

Makes me wish mine had been preserved...alas, it has not. As for DH, he had a bris, not a christening. Do they even have outfits for those? Maybe I'll ask my MIL about hers...

I think a brown and pink outfit with a cat on it sounds lovely--your ILs are special anyway, zoe. Of course, everyone asks if Rhea is a boy, even if she happens to be wearing pink. Whatever.

Love those shoes, Holitic! And too bad about Kate Quinn..I have one outfit by her--I'll see how it holds up.

[snozzberry]

Good suggestion on asking family for clothes, but neither side of our families has kept stuff like that unfortunately. I might also check out some local consignment shops but as you'll see below I'm very tempted to buy something handmade...

Elizabeth, thanks for the heads up about Kate Quinn! I'm off to check out Hanna Andersson after this post...

witchygrrl, people mistake Abby for a boy sometimes too, when she's wearing pink AND her teething necklace.

Vote on your favorite dress!
I spent a lot of time on etsy.com yesterday and found some ones I like. Which one is your favorite?

The wedding will be mid-October and the weather should still be fairly warm, but it's Texas so you never really know! For the short-sleeved ones we can just do a little sweater over them.
Option 1: Pink/white with brown sash
Option 2: Pink/white/brown flowers with pink/white sash
Option 3: Red/blue with peasant shirt

[arelyn]

:A Belated Welcome To Hawk:

Congrats Zoe, I can't wait to read the birth story (unfortunately it'll have to wait until the little man is asleep)!

Maela: We're in the same boat. Kai has a late bedtime (11 yesterday) and most nights I fall asleep nursing him down and get no grown-up evening time. At least he sleeps in!

And the ILs are here...wish me luck!

[Maela]

Kelly, I like option 3 the best, although all of them are very cute!



Dd woke up at 6:45 yesterday! I didn't even have to wake her up. That's a good thing, because then she took her nap from 11:30 to 1:00 and went to bed at 8:30PM!! Yay! : She woke up at 7:20AM today. And just went down for her nap at 11:30. Woo hoo! Hopefully this means we're getting back on track.

[witchygrrl]

Yeah, I like the 3rd option too. I'll have to go search on there since the wedding we're attending is a ren faire theme in NH.

[Maela]

I just realized that you changed the options kelly. Now I like option 2 the best.


Arelyn, sorry about your lack of adult alone time in the evening. It's really stressful for us when we don't get it for many nights in a row. dh leaves early for work, so having alone time in the morning doesn't work well for us. I'll have to remember to try that on weekends though!

[cking]

Originally Posted by snozzberry

Good suggestion on asking family for clothes, but neither side of our families has kept stuff like that unfortunately. I might also check out some local consignment shops but as you'll see below I'm very tempted to buy something handmade...

Elizabeth, thanks for the heads up about Kate Quinn! I'm off to check out Hanna Andersson after this post...

witchygrrl, people mistake Abby for a boy sometimes too, when she's wearing pink AND her teething necklace.

Vote on your favorite dress!
I spent a lot of time on etsy.com yesterday and found some ones I like. Which one is your favorite?

The wedding will be mid-October and the weather should still be fairly warm, but it's Texas so you never really know! For the short-sleeved ones we can just do a little sweater over them.
Option 1: Pink/white with brown sash
Option 2: Pink/white/brown flowers with pink/white sash
Option 3: Red/blue with peasant shirt

those are so cute. I think I like #1 and #3 the best.

[accountclosed3]

good luck with ILs!

I really like the second and third dresses, and particularly the third dress. those are really lovely.

i'm having a friend make as suit for the baby for my sister's wedding in Feb. in the end, both ryan and i are in the wedding, and my sister picked a nice brown fabric and what not. quite nice really.

anyway, i figured i could just order extra fabric and then have my friend make an outfit for him that matches what ryan and i are wearing, since we're both in the wedding.

and, my dress has to be nursing friendly, too. and, my sister fore-warned the priest that i would, in fact, feed the baby in the church if needed. he seemed ok with that, she said.

so, that should be fun.

Cosleeping is the nicest thign ever, but i'm turning into a sandwich. that baby cuddles close, and then ryan cuddles close, and there i am in the middle trying not to be smooshed or smoosh anyone. LOL

so, i've moved over a bit to give ryan more space, which leads him to cuddling closer, and then the baby snuggles in really close. and sometimes, we just do "tummy-tummy" (skin to skin) with me on my back. it's nice, actually.

nursing right now is interesting. he nurses every 4th hr, for an hr or more. it kinda freaks me out, as he's supposed to go every 3rd hr, right?

so, anyway, we wake him every 3rd at night, and he'll feed for about 30-45 minutes, but then today, there was a 4 hr break between feedings (beginning to beginning) and the feeding lasted 2 hrs and 15 mintues (he did fall asleep occassionally and i had to wake him--but god forbid i take him from the breast.

in fact, now he's eaching every third--he's making hungry face again. he's so cute. so, i'll feed him again, and hopefully we'll get back on that 45 minute nursing every 3rd hr routine again!

[accountclosed2]

Zoebird, there's no "supposed to" with breastfeeding, unless there's a medical (or similar) reason! Some babies have long feedings, but maybe not that often, some have tiny snacks once a hour or so. Some take a long time and just feed slowly, while others are guzzlers and finish quite quickly. And unless your baby is not gaining weight properly you don't need to wake them up to feed - they'll wake when they need to! With DD's weight issues I did end up feeding every three hours for about an hour - but I had low milk supply, and this worked best for us between 4 weeks and 4 months. We also did wake her up (every 4 or 5 hours) until she was about 10 weeks old, which I felt terrible about, but what with the LC, the nurses and the specialist paediatrician, oh well.

I realise you have had difficulties too, and I guess we just do what we need to do for our babies.

There will be days when Hawk will feed more often and seem more hungry (growth spurts). If you just let him, he'll soon settle into his "schedule" again.

Just try to relax about it. Not that I was very good about that. I found I worried a lot about everything in the first few months.

Oh, and in the first month DD was very reluctant to get of the breast at all!

[witchygrrl]

Oh yeah, I realized that my dress for the wedding I'm in is very much NOT nursing friendly. Awesome. Rhea does know how to drink from a bottle, a skill learned when we were having weight issues Only my milk, though, thankfully. Never any nipple confusion, and she definitely prefers the breast. But the day of will be interesting...we plan on getting a brown New Native sling to match DH's outfit.

And I seriously want to know how/if you all keep house at all? Sharing chores? Waiting until you have bursts of energy? I had inspiration today, and Rhea napped quite a bit which helped, but yikes. Usually my apt is a sty.

[TwilightJoy]

I like the 2nd dress.

[PiePie]

zoebird, i LOVE that h. may wear your christening gown. consider a backup outfit -- i was at an mdc mama's ds's christening, and there was a diaper explosion between the church and the after party. dd wore my christening gown that had worn by everyone (one branch of) my family since at least 1848! handmade lace, brought over from ireland. : note that the gown was originally made by a mama who had 5 boys and no girls. frills back then were very in for boys. and yes they are supposed to nurse every 3 hours, and here's the kicker -- you are supposed to count from beginning of feed to beginning!! we were religious about waking dd to offer the breast for the first month. at that point she had gained from 7 lbs. even at birth to a little over 8 lbs. and we were comfortable that she knew how to get what she needed. it sounds like your breastaurant is fully stocked now, but if you want to increase supply consider sleeping skin-to-skin.

kelly, i love the first dress. i tend to favor bright colors in general and especially on children.

arelyn, i totally feel you on falling asleep while nursing the baby down. for the first 7 mos. dd could stay up late but now she has a religious 9:30 bedtime which gives us a little couple time, when i am not working.

[PiePie]

heather, it is WAY too early for you to be worrying about housekeeping... at that point, the only housekeeping that got done in my house was by the post-partum doula. i am not one to talk on housekeeping because our apt. is a sty now too, but in general it happens in spurts during napping. it got WAY easier once she was interested in "helping" (totally counter-productive but whatever), which started at 7 mos. for dishes and 11 mos. for laundry.

[Maela]

ZB, I think it's cool that Hawk nurses for so long. Maev was (and still is) a short, but frequent nurser. Sometimes I wished that she was long, but less frequent. I always worried when she was very young if she was getting enough in five minutes.


Heather, our house is just now looking great again. After 9 months or so of pg and a year of having a baby. So, you have some time. I would clean every now and then with bursts of energy during the naps that I put Maev down on our bed for. Sometimes when she was really little she would sleep for three hours and I would run around the house trying to make things look semi nice again. Usually though I would just try to keep up with laundry and dishes and not worry about much else. Dh helped when he could.

[accountclosed3]

we're doing well with housework...i am compelled to do it...it is tough with this nursing schedule. on for two hrs, off for one hr.

but it works!

sleep is tough though. and ryan complains even though i'm the one up doing the feeding and the night diaper now. i turn on a dim light...thats why he fusses about not enough sleep! silly man!

[snozzberry]

Thanks for taking a look at the dresses! It doesn't look like there's a clear winner so maybe I'll have to order more than one and see which one I like best. Abby doesn't have any dresses at all right now and I feel this huge urge to dress her up lately, so two dresses wouldn't be bad.

Originally Posted by zoebird

sleep is tough though. and ryan complains even though i'm the one up doing the feeding and the night diaper now. i turn on a dim light...thats why he fusses about not enough sleep! silly man!

Haha, you're letting him off easy! Lacking the proper equipment to participate in the night feeding, DH always did night diaper changes.

Seriously though, we bought a couple LED night lights to keep in the room so at least for pee diapers, we didn't have toe turn on the lamp on the dresser. Just thought I'd mention that in case it might help in your situation!

[snozzberry]

Oh yeah, housekeeping: For about the first 9-10 weeks, DH did pretty much everything house-related. So if he didn't do it, it didn't get done. After that, I started participating more in housekeeping, but the house is pretty much cluttered always and more days than not has a nice layer of dog/cat fur on the hardwood floors. We need to get our Roomba battery replaced so we can start running it every day for when Abby starts crawling!

witchygrrl, that's so cool you're getting your DH a carrier like that! What did you think of the New Native? We tried it on once doing the hip carry, but it seemed like the fabric was cutting into Abby's legs.

[accountclosed3]

he was doing diaper changes before--and during the day he has diaper duty even though i'm trying to learn to EC.

next week, he starts working from home and gets back to his sort-of regular schedule. he is itching to get back to his writing schedule, and i'm learning to let him go a bit. i still expect him to help out on chores (dishes, laundry) and i'll take care of the rest of it. baby wearing while cleaning helps a lot!

also, i told him that i would take over this stuff. it doesn't mean he doesn't participate. he does hold the baby while i shower and when i need a bit of a break. it's not that frequent--hawk rarely cries (usually when he has gas or is having his diaper changed)--but sometimes i just need a bit of freedom to say, type with both hands? LOL!

otherwise, we're doing well with the continum concept (ok, he is in the car seat, but i sit next to him and touch him while he's there), and overall, it's not too bad to care for him.

what i do not care for, though, is ryan complaining about the difficulty when, in fact, he's not actually feeding, diapering, waking every 3rd hr, etc etc etc all day and night. he's mostly having to do more housework than he had to do i the past, and he also is the diaper washer. LOL

anyway, it's going very well. ILs are coming today. it's Opie's 92nd or 93rd birthday. she's officially diagnosed with dementia, now. i'm really upset.

[katt]

Option 2... my vote.