Mommycon Austin

Have you heard of MommyCon? If not, check out that link—it’s an awesome conference that travels around the U.S. and focuses on natural parenting (we’re semi-crunchy over here, if you couldn’t tell). MommyCon came to Austin this weekend and M and I were able to attend and we had a blast!

We purchased the VIP Ticket, which included a playdate the day before the conference and a free ErgoBaby or Beco Carrier. We already have an ErgoBaby, so I was really hoping to score a Beco Gemini. My ideal print was the Enzo Gemini, but the carriers are handed out randomly so I didn’t get my heart set on that print. When the staff handed a carrier to me I was happy to see that it was a Gemini and once I sat down I looked at the print, it was the Enzo! I was happily surprised :)

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Madeleine in her new Beco Gemini (she would NOT keep her hands in).

On Sunday morning, I made sure M got a decent nap in the morning and we headed down to the conference around 11am (and we took our new Gemini!). Overall, she did pretty well but since there were a lot of screaming kids, she couldn’t nap in the carrier. She got pretty fussy later in the day due to messed up naps so Will and I met up and he took her home so she could nap. I went back to the conference for about 2.5 hours and it was weird not having her with me, but I enjoyed having time to enjoy the conference sans baby.

There were seminars on various topics—cloth diapering, car seats, intimacy after baby, building a community, preschools, birth choices, natural medicines, and more. I managed to make it to most of the intimacy after baby talk, part of the natural medicine talk, part of the car seat talk, and the building a community talk. There was also a small nursing lounge where you could go to nurse or if your baby needed some quiet time. I have no problem nursing M in public (this is a post for another day, BTW), but right now she wants TO SEE THE WORLD AND EVERYTHING THAT’S GOING ON, so I need to take her to a quiet area to feed her and it was nice to have this area at the conference.

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My favorite talk? Building a community, which was done by Jessica at The Leaky Boob (her and her husband also did the intimacy after baby talk which was entertaining and informative).
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I’m a big fan of connecting with other moms, and since I’ve had M I’ve found it super easy to make friends (hey, you have a baby? ME TOO!). I’m very active in a local moms group and have been able to find some moms very similar to me and they are such a great support system. I’ve also connected with several bloggers over the past few years and I love having a little online community all over the country.

Jessica encouraged moms to get out and build a community if they haven’t already done so. I took away something a little bit different—since I already HAVE a community, reach out to the new people who might become involved with our group. It’s hard to put yourself out there as a new mom, so make sure new people feel welcome when they come to an event.

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M and I at MommyCon, taking a break. She is fascinated by my phone!

There were a TON of giveaways at Mommycon–I couldn’t believe the amount of items they had to give away. I rarely win things, so didn’t expect to walk away with anything. However, I was wrong and won 2 awesome prizes! What swag did I end up taking home?

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4 Rumparooz Diapers, including the new Dexter and Quinn prints that recently were released. Rumparooz are my favorite cloth diapers and I was planning on purchasing a few more next month to complete my collection, but now I don’t have to—yay! I also won a wetbag. This was the PERFECT prize for me, I was so excited! Now I have a total of 8 Rumparooz, woohoo!

A lot of prizes weren’t claimed, so they raffled those prizes off at the end of the conference. I entered again, and won another prize!
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A Liora Mann Tote(these things aren’t cheap and I love the color of this bag), a childproofing kit, a Boppy Heirloom changing pad set, and 2 pairs of Pedipeds (one pair is a little “boy” like, but I think we can make them work.

I scored a TON of loot!

Mommycon is coming to Dallas, TX next year and I may try to go up there for it. We have family in Dallas, so hopefully we can make it work.

Definitely check out Mommycon if they come to a city near you!

Miss M and Derby Day!

Hello? Anyone out there? Yeah, blogging has been put on the back burner right now. I’ve been swamped with taking care of M, family stuff, and work. I’ve got like 8 posts in draft right now. Arg!

Anyway, a few weeks ago, we had a little party for the Kentucky Derby. Miss M had a cute little romper and hat to wear, but when I put the outfit on her I realized it was way too tight on her thunder thighs. So we improvised and grabbed one of her Polo outfits.

She was totally adorable, so I wanted to share some photos of M’s first Derby Day!

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The day was spent eating way too much food, watching horse racing, and making mint juleps (well, I had wine).

It was a great spring day!

The Feeding Chronicles: Defeat

About a month ago, I wrote a post detailing how we got M to reluctantly take a bottle. Last month, she took a bottle several times and while she never drank more than 3 oz, she would take it.

How are things now? Well, we’ve officially lost the battle and given up.

After I wrote that post, all hell broke lose.

On April 3rd, I had to go into the office for nearly 9 hours. My husband took the day off to watch M and she would not take the bottle. After an hour, he was tired of battling with her and brought her up to my office to eat. After she ate, they were going to run a few errands, so he told me he would probably bring her back again in a few hours. I’m not usually gone for 9 hours (usually about 6), so we hadn’t given up the battle yet. My husband tried giving her a bottle on April 6th and April 8th while I left the house and had no success. We still held out hope that she would take the bottle from someone else.

April 9th was the day we gave up the battle for good.

My step-mom came up from San Antonio to watch M and I had to go into the office for about 6 hours. My step-mom texted me about 2.5 hours after I left and said she drank half an ounce after an hour of battling and M was now sleeping. A few hours later, she wouldn’t drink anything. Since she wasn’t eating, I only pumped once while I was at work so she could eat as much as she wanted when I got home. I came home to a starving baby who was clearly annoyed with me.

My step-mom said that M was more pissed off about being offered the bottle than having to go hungry. Since she often goes 7-10 hours overnight and she got 1 really good feeding in before I leave in the mornings, she seems okay with waiting that long to eat. Sure, she wasn’t a peach, but she wasn’t completely inconsolable the entire time. I briefly mentioned this to our pediatrician and she confirmed that M was just being stubborn and for me not to worry too much about her eating while I was at work. Whomever was watching her would offer her the bottle when she was hungry, but if she didn’t want it, they wouldn’t push her to eat. It is completely up to her.

Around this time, when we would drink something out of a cup M started pulling our cups towards her face. The next time I went into the office my step-mom decided she would try cup feeding M. She ended up taking 1.5 oz of milk from the cup. Everyone was thrilled! It wasn’t a full feeding, but it was enough to tide her over until I came home about 3 hours later.

So where does this leave us?

We’ve purchased a sippy cup and we put a little bit of milk in it a few times a week and let M play with it. She hasn’t figured out how to suck on the spout yet, but she will chew on it and will get about .25 oz after about 15 minutes. It’s not much, but it’s something. We’re hoping she figures it out soon. We’re also going to continue to try cup feeding, since this was what we had the best results with so far. I let her sip on my water now and she’s definitely starting to understand how to drink from a regular cup.

We are waiting until 6 months to introduce solids and while I don’t want to push food on her, I’ll be glad when she will eat a little bit of real food since those calories can also help fill her up while I’m out. Plus, we can mix milk in with those foods. We’re also going to attempt to make a milk slushie and spoon feed it to her since she’s teething and sometimes likes cold things.

Additionally, she will be 6 months old in less than a month. I have to go into the office 4 times before that point (3 half days and 1 full day), and my husband is watching her for all of those dates except for 1 half day. He is planning to bring her up to my office at least once per day so that I can feed her. This may sound like a pain, but based on our situation this solution is what is easiest on all of us.

I know this solution probably sounds absurd to some people, but it works for us. Flexibility is the key, and we’re able to work around the problem. Continuing to push a bottle on her is just not worth it anymore. I mentioned this situation to someone recently and they responded that it must be a huge burden on me that she won’t take a bottle. It really isn’t—again, I have to be flexible. I can leave her for an hour or two and leave the house. If what I need to do takes longer than that, I swing back by the house, feed her, and then finish my errands. If I didn’t feed her, I’d have to pump, and for me that’s WAY more time consuming and a hassle. The biggest issue is when I can’t just swing back home and feed her (like when I’m at work). That’s where my awesome husband comes in—he’s amazing for fully understanding how important breastfeeding is to us, and he’s willing to drive M all over the place so that they don’t have to battle with the bottle. Sure, it’s a lot of work. But if it’s not a problem for you and your family—it’s not a problem.

Bottle refusal is actually quite common, but people don’t seem to talk about it much. Many of the moms that I hang out with exclusively breastfeed and stay home/work from home, and I’d say nearly 90% of them report that their kiddo won’t take a bottle. It’s been a huge help to have people to vent to who understand where I’m coming from.

M won this battle. We likely won’t offer her a bottle ever again.

Five Months Old!

How do I have a 5 month old? Next month she will be half a year old! Arg, I wish she would stop growing up so fast.

Nicknames: Cheeksies, Sugar Bug, Madeleenie Tortilleni, Miss Bitty, Bug. Same nicknames as last month, and shockingly nothing new.

Likes: Dancing on the changing table, the Ergo, Winkle, Taggie Toys, your playmat, watching Mommy and Daddy eat, other babies.

Dislikes: Bottles, the Nose Frieda, the car seat….not a lot of dislikes this month!

Milestones: Sitting up for up to 2-3 minutes at a time, banging toys on the table, talking ALL THE TIME (seriously, you’re rarely quiet!), and you can stand if I lean you up against something.  Oh, and you sat in a highchair restaurants by yourself a few times this month—you’re so tiny, but you can do it!

Weight/Height: 14.4 lbs…over double your birth weight! (Up from 6lbs 15oz and 19.5 inches at birth) Not sure about height.

Clothing Size: Shockingly, you haven’t really grown out of anything since last month. You’re getting chunkier, but not growing like crazy length-wise. The onesie in your 5 month photos is the same one from your 4 month photos, and it’s size 3 months. Still a lot of 3 month clothes, 3-6 months, and some 6 month items.

Sleep: Just like last month, this was a weird month for sleep. I think we’ve definitely been dealing with the 4 month sleep regression, some nights you just couldn’t seem to “settle” yourself—you had too much going on. Most nights you still did at least a 5-6 hour chunk of sleep, but we had a few nights were it was all 3 hour chunks. And then some days you were up at 6am. Gah! Daddy definitely had to help with the wake-ups this month :) In the past 10 days you’ve often been sleeping 8-9 hours straight again, I really hope that continues.

Your crib is in our room next to our bed, and we always tell you before bed that if you sleep until at least 4am, you get to come sleep in the big bed for the rest of the night. I look forward to my few hours of M snuggles, but several nights that you’ve slept until 4-5am and I’ve kept you in our bed, you’ve been kicked out because you’re punching me in the throat, kicking me in the bladder, and bopping your head into my chest (and you’re not hungry, you just ate). One night, daddy was restless and you were kicking me and you BOTH got kicked out of the big bed.

Random Tidbits: You are a HOOT and already had a firey little personality. You’re the happiest baby in the world until something makes you mad, and then man, we pay!  You love when people play with you and get really annoyed when we stop. Your laugh is adorable and totally contagious. You’re SO alert and I get comments all the time about how aware you are. Your hair is turning blonder and your eyes are still extremely blue. You’re still fascinated by your feetsies. Best free toy ever! You love being outside, we take a blanket out to the backyard a lot and play.

How are Mommy and Daddy Doing?: Pretty well! You’ve been going to bed a LOT earlier (usually around 8am) so we’ve been able to have some time to ourselves at night. We love spending time with you, but it’s nice to have a little time alone too. We’re finally starting to get into a good routine with how things go, and we’re feeling pretty good right now.

5 Month Photos:

The Great Cloth Diaper Change!

Yesterday morning, the Great Cloth Diaper Change happened around the world. We were trying to break the record for most reusable diapers changed at the same time. We live about 20 minutes from the Baby Earth HQ (pretty much the greatest site/store ever…go buy things from there) and they were having an event, so M and I decided to go up there and participate.

We all hung out in a large room until 11am, and an employee explained that when she blew the whistle, we would all change the diapers and then hold the babies up in the air. M stared at other babies while we waited.

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M hanging out right before 11am.

Then the whistle blew! We picked one of our newest prints to take with us—Bum Genius Lovelace. I’ve been eyeing this diaper for months and I bought it last week when I ordered another stash of diapers.

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Diaper is changed!

It was a fun little event, and Rockin Green even gave out free bags of detergent. Since this is what we use and it’s $16 a bag, I was happy to score a bag for free.

I wish I would have gotten better photos, but it all happened so quickly–we got there a little late (imagine that) and were rushing to get settled before the event. They were having a sale on cloth diapers too, so I picked up a purple Fuzzibuns diaper.

Did anyone else go to a Great Cloth Diaper Change event?

Brain Dump: Parent of the Year Edition

Lots of randomness here…plus some cute pictures of M! I’ve had a lot of “parent of the year” moments recently, and I figured I’d share them.

-We went out of town last weekend to visit my husband’s family. It was a 5 hour drive and the ride was a disaster. M has never been a fan of the car (if you tell me “but all babies love the car!”, come with me for an afternoon. I’ll prove you wrong), but this was brutal on all of us. I gave her a bath right before we hit the road, and we left at the time where she normally goes down for a 2-2.5 hour nap. I thought we could get through a large chunk of the drive while she slept. Didn’t happen–she slept for 48 minutes. She was okay for about an hour, I played with her in the backseat. Then the screaming started. We stopped FOUR times, she refused to nurse (she went nearly 5 hours without nursing), and screamed bloody murder in her car seat. It wasn’t too hot, I changed her diaper multiple times, NOTHING calmed her. What worked best? Turning on Baby Einstein on the DVD player and letting her watch it. Without Baby Einstein, we probably would have ended up stopping another 2-3 times. I’m sure my pediatrician would love the fact that I strapped a tv in front of her face.

- M threw her teether down on the ground outside the other day. My husband picked it up and wiped it off on his shirt. He started to hand it back to her, and then stopped himself and asked me if that was okay. I thought about it for a second and said sure and stuck it back in her mouth. Then I realized that it probably wasn’t that clean, and that most people aren’t like that until their second or third kid. But I still let her chew on it.

-Everyone knows M is a bottle refuser. Well, we bought her a sippy cup and she’s kind of interested in it, but not really. I think she’s still a little young for it. However, we did find something she will drink milk from—a disposable GoVino wine glass. Yes, my kid will drink milk out of a wine glass. In our defense, we decided to try it because it’s the only plastic cup we had in the house. I’ll have a glass of Tempranillo, M will have a glass of the House White.

-It has been super hot here this week (90 earlier this week!) and I’ve already taken my kid out to run errands in only a diaper. She gets super hot in the car seat, and we were only going to Walgreens, so I figured what the hell. I kept her in the car seat while in the store, but I definitely got some strange looks as we were walking around. I probably should have thrown a onesie on her but I was in a hurry.

-M is almost 5 months old and has officially had her first solid food. We were planning on waiting until 6 months, but she had a different idea. How did this happen? Well, she LOVES when I sit in the recliner, and prop her sitting up on the back of my legs. I was eating greek yogurt and holding the container and the spoon and talking to her. All of a sudden, little miss LAUNCHED herself at my spoon and got some of it in her mouth. She hardly got anything, but definitely got a taste of raspberry greek yogurt. She worked so hard for that one bite, all I could do was laugh. If she develops a dairy allergy later, of course I’ll blame myself for not being more careful with yogurt that one time when she was 4 months, 3 weeks old. Hope she enjoyed it, because she’s not getting anything else until she’s at least 6 months old.

Happy weekend!

Baby Talk: Things New Moms REALLY Need

Before M came along, we had numerous friends and family members who told us that they would like to “help” us out with whatever we needed. As new parents, we didn’t know what on earth we would really “need” from other people, aside from food.

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Why yes, that’s my 4.5 month old sitting up unassisted. She’s actually been doing that for nearly a month. SOB.

I have a LOT of pregnant friends right now, and recently some of them have been asking me what we really NEEDED after she was born. They have the swaddle blakets, the lanolin, the humidifier (btw, our SECOND Crane Humidifer broke and I want to throw it out the window…), and all of the other gear but they want to know what else would be helpful.

I decided to put together a little list of the things that we found were especially helpful in the first 6-8 weeks after becoming a parent.

1. Food – We froze over 25 meals before M was born and then some of our friends set up a care calendar for us, so friends could sign up to bring us food. We also had a lot of out of town friends order delivery for us. We cooked TWICE in the first month after M was born and it was awesome. A lot of people brought over food, and then we would usually have left overs for at least 1-2 meals. We would run to the store and buy things like fruit, cereal, and ready made meals (we love Amy’s Meals!) to finish out our meals for the week. Next time one of my friends has a baby, I plan on taking things like fruit, cheese, yogurt, pretzels and other snacks because we were constantly running out of those things. I’m a total snacker while I nurse, so having easy snacks around is a big plus!

2. Company – If I had it to do over against I would have only had family visit in the first 2 weeks. We were tired, breastfeeding hurt, and then I got the flu (and yes, I got a flu shot). We has no idea what we were doing with an infant on top of all of that. When friends visited, I felt like we didn’t get to spend much time with them and felt like we were constantly pushing them out the door. After 2 weeks? We really enjoyed the company and started to get into the swing of things. Since I am at home all day now, I enjoy having friends over to the house just to hang out and maybe have a glass of wine (half a glass for me usually…).

3. An amazon.com Prime Membership – I placed 31 orders through amazon in the first month after Madeleine was born, and at 4.5 months I’ve placed 65 orders. Yes, SIXTY FIVE ORDERS. Need laundry detergent? Order it! Need toothpaste? Order it! Need more lanolin? Order it! This saved us many trips to Target, Walgreens, and Babies R Us and as a bonus, we now know our FedEx guy pretty well. He thinks our baby is cute.

4. A middle of the night text buddy – Those early days can be lonely in the middle of the night. After my husband went back to work, I tried to let him sleep at night as much as possible (he usually was on-call until midnight, only waking me if M needed to eat, and then I took over until morning) since I could take a nap during the day. It was nice to have a few people to text in the middle of the night when you were awake with the baby (I had THREE people to text!)–Jess @ Being Mrs Beer was one of my text buddies!

5. A cleaning service – I hate to clean, but I hate a dirty house even more. A cleaning service is a lifesaver. Having someone come deep clean your house every 2-3 weeks for a few months can be an awesome splurge if you can afford it. Put maid services gift certificates on your Christmas list, birthday list, and baby shower list. Buy groupons. Stop eating out as much. Seriously, if you can find a way to get a maid, do it!

I’m linking up with Busy Bee for her new “Baby Talk” series!


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What else do you think new moms really need?

The Feeding Chronicles: Pumpin in Wedding Style

About a month ago, a good friend of mine got married and I was a bridesmaid in the wedding. I was expected to be at the rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, the wedding, and the wedding reception. Will and I decided not to take M with us, and my mother-in-law came in for the weekend to watch her. Since M wasn’t going to be with me, I was going to need to pump while I was away from her—something I don’t do often.

Let’s just say that pumping while in a wedding was interesting. I’d like to give you the run-down of what this entailed.

Let’s start with the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Luckily, RIGHT before I left, M decided that she was hungry. I was thrilled, and I stuffed her little belly with all that she would eat. I got through the rehearsal, and had about an hour to kill before the rehearsal dinner. I decided to pump in the car, because I didn’t have any other option aside from a bathroom.

Did I mention that the church was on a very busy college campus and kids kept walking by my car? Yeah…it was awkward.

Luckily, the day of the rehearsal I could get away with only pumping once.

Since M hardly takes a bottle, the bride graciously let me meet everyone at the church, rather than get ready with the rest of the girls. I would have loved to have been there early, but it just wasn’t in the cards that morning—M was fussy, it took me FOREVER to get ready, and Will had to go into the office for a few hours that morning.

I met the group at the church and needed to pump once before the ceremony. I won’t pump in a bathroom so I ended up pumping in the church kitchen, with my foot jammed up against the door so that people couldn’t just walk in. I had to take my dress halfway off, and it was awkward, but fairly uneventful.

After the ceremony, I needed to pump again. Will and I had talked about it before the wedding and decided that he would drive me to the location where photos were being taken so that I could pump in the car. We left the church and that’s when the fun started. Again, I had to take my dress halfway off to pump. I thought I had thrown a nursing scarf in my bag in order to make sure I didn’t flash any pedestrians but couldn’t find it anywhere. One of M’s blankets was in the backseat, so I figured I could use that. Oh but wait, it gets better. The first time I pumped, I pumped directly into bottles. For the rest of the day, I was going to use bags. But um, I forgot the little adapters that hook the bags onto the pump, meaning that I not only had to hold the bags on the pump, but I had to figure out how to hold the blanket over myself while Will was driving. Maybe I could have poured the milk that was in the bottles into bags and reused them, but I didn’t think of this.

Was this easy? Not really. I think some college kids got quite a show, and I definitely flashed another driver at a traffic light. I also almost dropped a bag of milk all over my dress.

A few hours later, during the early part of the reception, I needed to pump one last time. I had planned on pumping in the car, but Will had to park 3-4 blocks away from the reception hall. I would have been gone for 30-40 minutes if I had walked all the way there to pump. Luckily, I was able to use the room where everyone had gotten ready earlier that day. I locked the patio door and the front door and started pumping.

A few minutes into pumping, someone was banging on the door. I yelled that I was pumping and would be out soon, and I thought whomever it was heard me. All of a sudden, a bunch of people started banging on the patio door and trying to look through the sheer curtain to see what was going on in there. I realized it was several of the groomsmen. I threw my dress back on and opened the door—the guys tried to storm in but I told them I was pumping breastmilk and asked if they could wait a few minutes. The looks on their faces were priceless. They were trying to get into the room to take Yaeger Bombs. They were very respectful and said they’d come back in a little while. It was hilarious, and I’m sure they didn’t expect to find a pumping momma in the room.

I got back to business and got interrupted AGAIN by knocking on the patio door. The husband of another bridesmaid had a headache and wanted to lay down for a few minutes. I yelled through the door that I was pumping (she’s a momma too) and luckily she understood what I was saying and they came back a few minutes later once I was finished.

It was quite an experience. Looking back, it would have been easier to just take M to the wedding (though I don’t know how I would have fed her in that dress). I’m going to be a bridesmaid in another wedding in June and we’ve decided that M is going to go with us and I can feed her when she’s hungry. Will can usually entertain her for 20-30 minutes before a total meltdown starts in case she wants to eat during the ceremony. When you don’t have a dedicated place to pump, it can be challenging to figure out when and where to do it.

Here were my must-haves for pumping during the wedding weekend:
1. Nursing Scarf
2. Car adapter plug (I don’t use the adapter made for the pump, this one is much more useful!)
3. Medela Quick Clean Wipes
4. Water bottle (I always need to drink water when I feed or pump! I was so busy that I kept forgetting to drink H2O during this time)
5. An awesome husband/partner to hold all of your stuff/drive you around/help you find a place to pump

We had a good time at the wedding…it was nice to get some mommy and daddy alone time :)

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Baby Talk – Diapering Edition

M is 4 months old, but we’ve learned so much in just a few short months. I wanted to talk a little bit about diapering today. We use cloth diapers during the day, and use disposables overnight. Before M, I had little experience with diapers. I knew how to put one on, but now I feel like I’m a diapering guru and I’m OBSESSED with cloth diapers! It’s gotten so bad that I can usually “name that brand!” when I see another baby in a cloth diaper. I need a new hobby.

Today I’m linking up with Busy Bee for her new “Baby Talk” series!


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1. Do NOT take the diaper out from under the baby without having another one ready immediately. If you leave baby on the changing table, with nothing under her, bad things will happen EVERY SINGLE TIME. This is especially important when you’re changing baby in the car.

2. If you cloth diaper, they will usually need larger onesies/pants sooner than if you used disposables. Yeah, this makes total sense since cloth diapers are bulkier but I didn’t think of it before I had M. If I take her out of the house and she’s wearing a dispoable, I can usually put her in a smaller size outfit. Dresses are GREAT for little girls because this isn’t as much of an issue.

3. Always take an extra outfit (or 2) when you leave the house. And a giant plastic baggie or a wetbag. Maybe grab an extra top for yourself too. You never know when these things might come in handy. Just keep these things in your car.
3a. Wetbags are pretty much the most awesome thing in the world. I rarely use throwaway sacks, even when M is in disposables because these things are so awesome. Keep a few in your diaper bag. I like Planet Wise Wetbags.

4. Try to avoid buying tons of one kind of diaper (this goes for cloth and disposables), because you don’t know what you will end up liking best. We used disposables until M was about 6 weeks old, and I pretty much always used Pampers Swaddlers. Now I use Huggies Overnights (for nighttime) and The Honest Company (for baby sitters/when I run out of clean diapers). With cloth diapering, I liked the Bum Genius the best at first, but now I prefer Swaddlebees and Rumparooz. As M’s body changes, I find I like different diapers better.


One of my favorite Swaddlebees diapers! If you notice the sparkly bandaids, M had gotten shots that morning :(

5. If someone else changes M’s diaper besides me or my husband (cloth or disposable), I ALWAYS double check to make sure it’s on tight enough once they hand her back to me. We’ve had MANY instances where a family member offered to change her diaper and it turns out it wasn’t on tight enough and we had a leak or a poopsplosion. I do this descreetly to avoid hurt feelings since they are trying to help, but unless they’ve taken care of children recently, I always double check.

6. People think stuffing cloth diapers takes a lot of time. It usually only takes me about 5-7 minutes, every 2 days. If M is fussing and I don’t have time to stuff them, I dump them on the glider and find a diaper and a matching liner and throw it on her. I’ll stuff them later.


My mess of diapers.

7. I mentioned in #4 that we use Huggies Overnights for night time. We typically change M’s diaper around 8pm, and then she goes to bed by 8:30pm. Most nights she only wakes up once, and if she hasn’t pooed, I don’t change her since unswaddling her makes her all riled up and she thinks it’s play-time. We were finding that regular diapers weren’t cutting it for 12 hours, so we moved up a size and started using overnight diapers. We haven’t had ANY leaks since we started using overnights. These diapers are still HUGE on M (the smallest overnight is a size 3, and she’s barely into size 2 diapers), but as long as I make it tight enough, we’re good to go.

Do you have any other diapering wisdom? Any funny diapering stories?

“What do you DO all day?”

One of the most frequent question I get from people now that I (mostly) stay home with M is “what do you DO all day?” In case you’re interested, I actually wrote a guest post for one of my favorite blogs, The Domestic Wannabe, last week. Check it out!

In that post, I mentioned that I try to get out of the house and do something with M 2-3 times a week. What do we do? Here are some photos!

We go to baby and mommy yoga and M gets her zen on:
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We go to the movies and M gives the ticket lady the stink eye.
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Occasionally mommy does some work while M plays:
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We go to story time at the library:
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We hit up some music classes:
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We hit up BabyEarth and make crafts!
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We go to lunch with friends or daddy:
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We also go for walks, have occasional playdates (we hosted a playdate once with THIRTEEN moms and THIRTEEN babies in our house—yikes!), and go window shopping at the malls.

Staying at home with an infant can feel isolating if you never get out and do anything. I’m a fairly social person so I make it a priority to get out with M a few times a week. Now, it’s not always EASY to get out of the house with an infant, but 90% of the time once we’re out, I’m glad I put forward the effort and did it. We definitely have those days where I wish we had stayed home, but luckily they don’t occur that often.

It’s easy to feel isolated when you stay at home AND work from home, so I also made an effort to find a group of mommy friends. If you put yourself out there a little, it’s SO EASY to make make new friends. M LOVES to stare at other kids, and since she doesn’t go to daycare, it’s a great way to get her used to being around other kids. I used meetup.com to find moms groups in my area, and that’s where I’ve found the most “mommy friends”.

We put a “mommy & baby fun” line in our budget each month, and that money is used for M and I to do fun things during the week. I use it for things like festivals, yoga, music classes, lunch dates, etc.

Mommy readers, do you do any other fun activities with your young kids? I’m always looking for more things to do! If you stay at home, what fun things do you like to do with the kiddos?