First of all, I keep meaning to thank everyone for your sweet comments on my last couple posts/facebook page/instagram. I really appreciate it 🙂 I actually meant to include this in yesterday’s post, and also meant for the post to be longer but the baby woke up so I was just like… “good enough,” and hit publish. AUTHENTIC MOMMY BLOGGING, or something.
Anyway. Today Nicky is TWO WEEKS OLD if you can believe it. I actually never talked about his one week checkup with our family doctor last Friday. It went amazingly, Nicky is doing great and as of last week had not only regained the weight he lost in the hospital but had actually SURPASSED his birthweight. Actually he started regaining the weight even before we left the hospital; he weighed 3.465kg at birth, 24 hours after birth he was 4% below his birthweight but at 48 hours after birth he was only 2.4% below his birthweight. As of last week he weighed in at 3.56kg, so a whole 100g more than when he was born. He is a little eating machine and averages about 500ml of delicious, delicious baby formula a day.
Aside: I’ve decided I’m switching to just using metric measurements for weight, it’s easier to keep track of Nicky’s weight because that’s what the doctor’s scale is in and this way I don’t have to do any conversions, PLUS for myself I think it gives a more manageable-sounding goal for getting back into shape post-pregnancy. Like, if I say I want to lose 10-15 kg that sounds a lot more doable than saying I wanna lose 25-30 pounds, right? BUT IT’S BASICALLY THE SAME THING. Of course this is just an estimation at the moment since a) I don’t actually own a scale so who knows what I even weigh, and b) I can’t work out for four more weeks anyways.
OKAY. On to the faves. These are somethings I’ve/we’ve been loving for Nicky in the first two weeks of his life. These are all things we have purchased ourselves or received as gifts from family, some are things we used with Gwen and some are new to us, but all are total faves.
1. Baby Brezza Formula Dispenser HOW. DID WE EVER. LIVE WITHOUT THIS??? Honestly if you are formula feeding your baby or regularly supplementing your breastmilk with formula then RUN DON’T WALK to get yourself one of these bad boys. It has honestly made feeding the baby so much easier than it ever was with Sym or Gwen. No measuring, no spilling, no reheating. Just fill the hopper with the powdered baby formula of your choice, fill the reservoir with sterilized water and HEY PRESTO you can dispense the perfect amount of perfectly mixed formula at the perfect temperature at literally the touch of a button. It takes less than a minute and you can do it with one hand while holding your baby, and as a result I can probably count on that same one hand how many times Nicky has gotten worked up into a full howl while waiting to be fed.
2. Vital Baby Microwavable Steam Sterilizer We don’t use Vital Baby bottles (I SPENT ALL THAT MONEY ON THE LIFEFACTORY BOTTLES MY KIDS WILL USE THEM UNTIL THEY ARE GROWN) but this sterilizer works with other brands of bottles, as well as breast pump parts if that’s a thing you care about. Prior to buying this we were sterilizing bottles by either boiling them in a pot of water like it was the olden days, or running them through a whole dishwasher cycle (which took forever). This takes just a few minutes to sterilize and has really streamlined our whole bottle washing process, as well as made me wonder WHY DIDN’T I HAVE ONE OF THESE LAST TIME???
3. IKEA Himmelsk Burp Cloths These were a hand-me-down from Gwen, so ours have a different pattern on the printed one (although I really love the grey stars on the new ones). We used these cloths every day at every feeding with Gwen and we use them every day at every feeding with Nicky. Gwen had a cold at the beginning of this week and I sent one to bed with her to wipe her nose. She also uses them (sans boogers) to swaddle her babies (ie stuffies) as she’s become obsessed with swaddling since we brought Nicky home.
4. AngelCare Bath Support Another item we used with Gwen, I feel like I sang the praises of this bath support a lot back in 2012/13, and I still love it. It is comfy for little babies to lay in, the holes make rinsing super easy and it’s a breeze to clean. If I had any complaints about this it would be that it does take up quite a bit of space when not in use, but our bathroom is really small so this might not be a concern for you. We have a hook on the bathroom wall to hang it on and it generally hasn’t been a problem or gotten in the way at all.
5. Jolly Jumper Moses Basket Stand YES THE INFAMOUS MOSES BASKET STAND, the one I was so keen/desperate to get before the baby was born that I walked down to the baby store and back WHILE IN LABOUR to pick one up. In spite of the fairly mixed reviews online we haven’t had any problems with this stand. It was easy enough for Taylor to assemble, the overall look is unobtrusive and simple so it looks good in any room, and it’s small and light enough that even I can move it around the house if need be. The bassinet from our old stroller is shorter than the baskets you’re meant to use with it, but once I adjusted the length of the curved straps on either end (they are flexible plastic and screw into the sides; I was easily able to drill new screw holes to tighten them without having to actually cut them shorter) it’s worked just fine. I do wish this had regular straight legs instead of rockers as we don’t really rock it ever, but I just put a couple of door wedges under the rockers to keep it stable. And honestly, we aren’t going to use this for very long so for the amount of time we’ll need it the price cannot be beat.
If you have any baby faves you think I should hear about let me know in the comments, and have a great weekend, everyone!
