2. onesies - i love, love, love onesies. whenever isabella is at home, that's all she wears. don't have to worry about a loose shirt constantly needing to be pulled down. only downside to onesies is that when little babies poop out of their diaper, which can be quite frequent in breastfed babies, the only way to get the onesie is over their precious little heads. this might involve pulling a soiled onesie (you can use your imagination) over their heads.
3. nursing bras - these make life much easier. i got a few bravado bras, and they suit me quite well. my only complaint about nursing bras, in general, is that they don't really support your breasts. oh well, at least they make nursing convenient.
4. nursing cover - my sister gave me a baby au lait nursing cover for Christmas.
it's different from what you find at target or other discount stores. a little plastic piece inserted at the top of the fabric allows you to see the baby without using either hand. isabella was already 3 months old when i got this cover. i sure wish i had it sooner. being confined to the house most of the day, everyday, due to nursing, was . . . depressing and difficult.
5. an electric breastpump - i had a medela advanced pump in style. got it on ebay. i'm sure something less fancy would have worked fine. but, having an electric pump sure beat hand pumps; hand pumps made my hand sore and they were difficult to coordinate.
6. Baby Bjorn - isabella loves being in the baby bjorn. in her colicky days, that was only way to semi-calm her down.7. Infant Car Seat - The infant car seat is safer (than a convertible car seat) for infants. The downfall is that sometimes babies outgrow the infant car seat by ten months and another seat has to be purchased. Having a base, into which the car seat snaps, makes running errands and going places much easier than figuring out how to securely fasten the car seat in with a seatbelt each time. Graco makes one of the best and one of the most reasonably priced infant car seats.
Troy's mom and dad gave us a sweet traveling system as a gift. See my June 14, 2006 posting for more details.
8. Pack 'n Play - we love our Pack 'n Play. Isabella isn't the content-playing-in-the-Pack'n Play sort of gal. But, in her early months, that was her bed. Her crib was in her room, and we weren't about to disassemble it, to bring it into our room. To this day, we still use the changing table portion of the Pack 'n Play to change her diapers.
We have the Graco Pack 'n Play, Oxford Blues.
9. crib - I'm not making any backhanded comments on people who have chosen different paths for their little ones. Troy and I didn't want Isabella to sleep in our bed indefinitely. We knew we ultimately wanted her to sleep in her own space. Since May, she has been sleeping in her own bed, in her own room. The transition was tougher on me, probably, than anyone else. I really liked having Isabella so close by. But, this way, Troy and I have our own space. . .
10. bouncer or take-along swing - I am not entirely sure what to put down as my tenth item. Dear friends gave us a brand new one of each of these, a Fisher Price Oceans Wonder Take-Along Swing and a Fisher Price Oceans Wonder Bouncer. Lots of my friends swore by these as great for entertaining the baby. Isabella didn't really enjoy either one of these until she was older.
You're not supposed to use the bouncer once the baby can pull herself up. Although Isabella hasn't figured that out, yet; she seems to be a bit heavy for the bouncer.
We still put her in the swing. It's great for a short period of time, if you need to take care of some stuff and need to keep her safe. Isabella is not a sit-in-the-Pack-'n-Play kind of gal, so the swing is a better alternative for us. Ofcourse, one doesn't want to leave a baby unattended. Isabella can stop the swing from moving. And, I've spotted her playing with the buckles. No telling when she'll figure out how to unlatch herself.
ADDENDUM:
I'm not in favor of gathering lots of baby gear, because it's a waste of money and space. Certainly I don't want to rob babies of learning, engaging with the world, or having fun. I'm definitely not ignoring stuff I'm glad we have: a tummy-time mat, books (can't have enough of those), and toys. But, this is my version of stuff we can't do without.
Oh, and by the way, speaking of gear, I love our high chair. We didn't get a space-saver - a booster seat, because we don't have any good chairs that can secure such a thing. The high chair makes feeding Isabella a lot easier and she can be entertained in the chair too! We got the Oceans Wonder Aquarium High Chair, pictured below:
1 comments:
Almost done! :)
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