New moms, first time moms and soon to be moms

[krisiee]

I was wondering how many of you would be interested in a thread related to this subject?? As I am a first time mom just learning and struggling my way through this thing called motherhood I realized maybe a thread would be helpful to all of us especially since there are so many of us here. Not only are we struggling through having a baby but also taking off baby weight at a very stressful time. So I wanted to see how many would participate if I started a thread every month.

[luckylychee]

i would!!!!

[kaisergirl]

yes, me too!! 63 more days!

[krisiee]

Oh good because sometimes I feel completely lost and you always wonder if you are doing the right thing or if there is a better way of doing something. Trust me you might also need to vent sometimes. It can get very frustrating.

[jdprecious]

[krisiee]

Ok well first order of business is do not buy a swaddler. Though my baby loves hers, she loves too much.. They swaddled in the hospital and because she was sick and was in there for 2 weeks I allowed her to get used to this so much so that I was stuck to it. Now at 3 months I am fighting it. They even make one that makes it easy with velcro and all, she loves it, and with colic it is the best, but it will make for a hard 5 days for me. You know what who I am to say to hell with the swaddle. If it gave her 3 months of happiness but it will be 4 days of hell now. Poor baby.

[Hazelsmrf]

Hey how's it going with baby Krisiee

Sarah started almost sleeping through the night this week! She's doing 8pm to 5am, then taking a feed and sleeping until anywhere between 7 and 9. Not too shabby! She's starting to laugh, she giggles a bit when people cry on tv. I dunno if it's just coincidence but it happened 3 times today! What a sadist, it's hilarious.

I never used the swaddler, Sarah hated anything covering her and would kick off any covers we put on her, and scream when swaddled. So now I just cover her lower body with a blanket when she's asleep and that's it. I also don't use the little plastic bathtub, ick. I just use the full sized tub and put a towel in the bottom and fill it with an inch of water. She kicks and splashes around in there and is happy, vs hating the little tub.

Also I hardly use the "real" clothing. She spends most of her day and nights in sleepers because they are so convenient. I have some cute little baby jeans and shirts and they are just NOT fun at all. I would not buy any shirts at all if I had to do it all over again because they ride up all the time, I would only buy the ones that snap under the crotch. And I have way too much clothing. You probably don't need as much as you think you do. I have about 12 sleepers in her size but I really only reuse the same 5 or 6 because they're comfy, I just do more laundry.

She loves the Fisher Price Ocean Wonders swing.

She loves the Tiny Love Symphony in Motion mobile.

She also LOOOOOVES Whoozit.



I dunno why, something about it... she just stares at him with huge eyes. She'll keep herself busy for 30 minutes just staring at him. She babbles and smiles at Whoozit too now. It's the only toy I really need.


Well I'd better get to bed. Morning will be here soon and I haven't found the baby's Snooze button yet

[krisfrogten]

Hi Ladies! Love to join you too. I'm a mom to three kids, my youngest being 2 months.

We had a swaddler but rarely used it, so I'd have to agree with the other two ladies.

My suggestion to you pregnant women is to watch, "The Happiest Baby on the Block". Highly recommend for babies with colic.

[Hazelsmrf]

How cool Kristen, you me and Krisiee all have daughters born within 4 days of each other

How's reinduction going for you? I was supposed to start this week and keep eating carby junk


I made a "video" of Sarah's pics, you can view it on her main page:
http://www.sarahbulldog.com/

It's really easy to do, it took me 10-15 minutes and my mother bawled her eyes off for 30 minutes :P She still shows the video to everyone that comes over to her place. The pics go up to early december so of course she's grown since then some more

[krisfrogten]

What a beautiful video Julie! I love your nursery too! Gorgeous family.

Isn't that site awesome? I made a video of my family a few weeks ago. It's on my "myspace" page. I'd love to make a web page like yours, but I'm just not that internet savvy. Anyways, here's mine if you want to see it.

http://www.myspace.com/krisfrogten

That's amazing that there are three little girls so close in age on this board. Can't wait to get to know you ladies & see more pics!

[kaisergirl]

OMG girls!!!! I am bawling my eyes out here!!!! I mean blubbering! Those videos are amazing!! Are they really that easy? And is it really free? What a beautiful beautiful way to put it all together! OMG! I am so amazed! And another thing, I noticed in both were the way your DH's were captivated as they were holding those babies for the first time. It was the sweetest thing I've ever seen. I can't wait for my DH to look at our son's face. That thought alone sends me into tears AGAIN!!! Gosh I'm just a ball bag this week...

[Hazelsmrf]

You have a beautiful family Kristen! I noticed in your video that you have a bumbo seat, do you think it's worth the price? I was debating buying it for my daughter but they're 60 dollars here and they don't sell them in our province, I'd have to go 2 hours away to buy one.

[Hazelsmrf]

Originally Posted by kaisergirl

OMG girls!!!! I am bawling my eyes out here!!!! I mean blubbering! Those videos are amazing!! Are they really that easy? And is it really free? What a beautiful beautiful way to put it all together! OMG! I am so amazed! And another thing, I noticed in both were the way your DH's were captivated as they were holding those babies for the first time. It was the sweetest thing I've ever seen. I can't wait for my DH to look at our son's face. That thought alone sends me into tears AGAIN!!! Gosh I'm just a ball bag this week...

It really is that easy... you just upload your pictures, choose a song from their repertoire (or upload your own mp3 like I did) and they take care of the rest (the zoom in, zoom out etc). You can then edit it when it's done and make it stay longer on a certain picture, or give it a different effect, or crop a picture so it zooms in to the correct spot etc. It really is free but the free version I think you can only upload 100 megs a month (ONLY! hah, I didn't use that much at all). The paid version you get more perks, different video players and stuff. You can also pay them to put it on a dvd.

[jdprecious]

wonderful slide shows ladies... they are great!

kristen, i love the pic of your middle son's feet in the sand. that is just too precious!

[krisfrogten]

Aww, Thanks Guys!

Julie, I highly recommend the bumbo seat. I originally bought it for my second son Brendan, & he loved it. In fact, he still sits in it when he watches TV. I tried to put Carolyn in it the other day to see if she was ready for it yet, and he got mad and sat on her. lol I guess I'll have to buy another for her. Thankfully, they're not near that expensive here. Have you tried on the web? That's how I bought mine.

Kaisergirl, your dh will be blubbering like a baby when he first see's his little one. It's absolutely amazing how completely and totally in love you are the first time you see him/her. It's kinda funny. The first time my dh saw our first, he quickly left my side and followed him everywhere. I guess he wanted to make sure the nurses were doing there job. lol I don't know, but it was precious!

Thanks Jessica! That picture was at Myrtle beach last year. It was the first time he touched sand. (He hated it!) He was crying the whole time. Ha!

Thanks again ladies for the warm welcome.

[krisiee]

The videos were great, I loved looking at them. So the first night without the swaddler went bad but then last night no problems at all. So we are over that hump. She does have a blankie that she has to hold when she takes naps so I gave that to her and she fell right asleep. Now I have to work on no napping in the swing but 1 step at a time. I would really love for her to sleep through the night and not wake up for the 3 am feeding but then again I still feel she needs it. Since she goes to bed at 8 I dont think that is too bad her waking up at 3 am for a feeding. I have to agree with Hazel make sure you have lots of sleepers, Alyssa lives in them. She has outfits for when we go places but for being at home sleepers are the way to go. They are so easy and I think comfy for her.

[Hazelsmrf]

Sarah has surprised us the last 2 days by waking up at 8am! (Of course my husband thinks even THAT is too early, hah). He puts her back to bed after her feed and gets surprised that she doesn't feel like sleeping anymore.

It's only been happening for the past week and a half or so though, before then she was waking up at 3am for a feed as well. Her bedtime is usually 8pm but the past 2 nights she has refused to go to bed before 9pm. Hey, if she's going to sleep until 8 then she can go to bed at 9, that's FINE with me We were following the Baby Whisperer's "Eat, Activity, Sleep" schedule, but I just follow her now, she stays pretty consistent to the schedules without me enforcing anything.

How often do your daughters eat now? Sarah goes anywhere between 2 and 4 hours. Sometimes she'll start eating her fists and whining after 2 hours, and if she's napping she'll sometimes sleep past her feed time and only wake up later. She probably naps about 5 hours a day. She's fitting into 3-6 month clothing

[krisfrogten]

Are you guys nursing or bottle? I'm nursing every 2-3 hours during the day, but getting a good 5-6 hour stretch of sleep at night.

[Hazelsmrf]

We're formula feeding now, breastfeeding did not work out for us.

[Mystic]

I'm not sure how breastfeeding will work for us. I plan on pumping at work once I'm off maternity leave, so DH will be have a supply to feed DD while I'm at work. That should be fun...lol

[krisiee]

Breastfeeding didnt work for us either because of her being in the hospital for 2 weeks and then moving cross country. I wasnt producing enough due to stress so after 4 weeks we went straight to formula. So during the day she eats every 3 hours. I follow the baby whisperer as well. I can tell all the soon to be moms a schedule is really important but it has to be a little flexible. Alyssa kind of put herself on one as I think most babies do with a little direction. How many ounces are your babies eating? To get her to eat 4 oz every 3 hrs is a battle but the dr doesnt seem to worried. That bumbo seat looks great, she loves to sit up, I am going to have to buy one.

[Hazelsmrf]

Sarah is 4 ounces every 3 hours too, but sometimes her first feed of the morning she'll take 6 (she slept till 8:30am this morning!) and sometimes she demands more in the evening before bed, she drank 8 ounces once, I was wondering where it all was going

We've made a pretty sudden decision to move. We currently live in Montreal in a 2 bedroom townhouse, and we're wanting to upgrade. We've had our house for 3 years and the area is in such high demand that it has gone up almost 100k in value. I want to sell now while it's hot and buy right outside the city where house prices are still reasonable. I found a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house with a new upgraded kitchen with granite counters and real wood cupboards, ceramic floors and oak hardwood floors, and for only 210 000. Our house now is tiny and worth 275000. Seems like a no-brainer to me. Downside is we do not have a car, so this will make the commute to work more of a hassle (we live right near a subway station here, as opposed to having to take a bus across the bridge into downtown from the new potential house). Upside is that this change might allow me to be a stay at home mother. We'll see how it goes, I need to renovate some things in my house before putting it up for market, I want to install french doors between the kitchen and living room and I need to put a fresh coat of paint everywhere. We've lived here for 3 years and it's still the plain white paint on the walls from the contractor... we didn't want to commit to a decor and then we got lazy So I'm thinking a nice warm beige everywhere will go nicely with our furniture and make the house look more put together.

[kaisergirl]

sounds like a no brainer to me too! Maybe w/ the extra cash you could buy a inexpensive car?

[krisfrogten]

I think a nice warm beige color would be nice. Last year we painted our family room that color and it is gorgeous!

[krisiee]

I would sell the house too. I wish I could paint right now. We just bought a house and moved in, in nov but dont want to paint until we can open up the windows because of the baby and the smell. I am also getting frustrated at not having much time to decorate with taking care of a newborn but my husband tells me it all takes time and it will get done. I have to do things in small spurts in between her naps which also includes housework and showering.
What kind of bottles do you all use? We switched to Avent because they have more of a nipple selection for growing babies. We didnt even think about that when buying bottles in the first place. We had playtex but it was taking her forever to eat so I noticed that avent had nipples that had a lil bit of a faster flow than playtex. She seems to like it better, it just took her a few minutes to get use to it.
Last night she slept from 8-6 but when she woke at 6 I only fed her 2 oz I really love her schedule and dont want her to be off it. Usually she goes to bed at 8pm wakes at 3 or 4 am eats, then back to bed till 8 am, eats, takes a nap at 9 am, thats when I take a shower and stuff, at 11 she eats and so on every 3 hours until bedtime at 8pm. Maybe we are working up to sleeping through the night, lets keep our fingers crossed.

[Hazelsmrf]

Her waking up at 6 is a good thing, no? Yeah it's a bit of a pain in the butt when they don't want to go back to bed after, but it's a step towards sleeping until 8 or 9am Sarah doesn't sleep as much during the day since she's started sleeping more during the night though.

We use the Avent bottles too. We're using the number 2 nipples now.

[krisiee]

We are using number 2 nipples also. I went out and bought a bumbo today, what a great invention she loves it. We have a flat screen 42 in tv that I hate to admit Alyssa loves. She loves watching baby einstein on it. So right now that is what she is doing, sitting in her bumbo watching baby einstein. She is having a blast, she laughs outloud to it. Thank you for turning me on to this cute lil seat.

[Chrystee]

Yep. 40 more days!