Product Review-HALO SleepSack Swaddle

Probably around 3 months, give or take a couple of weeks, we moved Baby T from the swaddles in this post, to the Halo SleepSack Swaddle. Oh Em Gee, love it!! It's may favorite by far. See it here. While I truly loved the aden + anais easy swaddles, there were a few times that Baby T somehow wiggled her arms up towards her face and some of the material bunched up too close to her face for my comfort. Again, this post shows you what I'm talking about.

Anyway, when we went to one of our "preparing for baby" classes, there were two women there that showed us the product that they recommended for babies to sleep in. I made a note of it, but didn't run out to buy one. Thankfully, one of our friends sent us one as a gift. Once we started using it, almost all my worries went away regarding baby being in danger of something covering her face. The way its made just doesn't allow for it. It comes in various colors and materials. Although we are beginning to transition Baby T from the swaddle, they also have non-swaddle options that we may try as well.

Photo is from the Halo website

See an informational video here.

***These are solely my opinions due to my own experiences with this product. This is not a sponsored post.***

HALO® SleepSack® Swaddle: The Safe and Easy way to Swaddle

Product Review-Sleep Blankets, Swaddles, etc.

There are all kinds of information (overwhelming) regarding sleep. It honestly created the most anxiety for me. I was so concerned that Baby T would be cold...or hot...or not comfortable. But mostly the concern is about safety. There are so many horror stories floating around about devastating things happening to babies in their sleep. The first few nights with Baby T, I made my husband sleep so I could stay awake and stare at her, then I slept when he woke up in the morning. I mean, I just couldn't fathom feeling comfortable enough to sleep while she slept. Of course that initial panic and fear subsided a bit, but for me, still hasn't gone away fully even now and she is six months old.

Sleep sacks/swaddles, etc. seem to be how a lot of babies sleep. I heard all about them and saw them in the stores while I was pregnant. We got a few as gifts and Baby T loved being swaddled so they were awesome.

receiving blankets

At first, for naps during the day, we used receiving blankets as Baby T was a tiny 5 pounds 6 ounces coming home from the hospital. (We tried these for overnight sleep as this is how she slept in the hospital, but I was too nervous to do it for long--a few nights at the most.) These worked well until she got a little stronger (a week maybe?) and she was able to wiggle which made me worry that she would get the blanket too loose and it would cover her face. We did continue using them for naps as long as she was monitored while she slept. You can find these everywhere and they have a million different uses. Some examples here and here.

easy swaddle- aden + anais

For night time sleep, we used the aden + anais easy swaddles seen here. I really liked these. Not only do they come in different sizes, they also have adjustable snaps to loosen/tighten the swaddle as baby grows or feels more comfortable. The material is lightweight so depending on how you keep your house, then you can dress baby in pjs underneath or either a onesie. We used a onesie and socks for a while. They also have an option for organic material if you so choose. They are more secure for wiggly babies and eased my mind when it came to Baby T getting anything over her face. Thee were a few times that she wiggled her arms up towards her face so far that some of the material bunched up near her face. Its a little loose in the first picture below and fits much better in the second picture. I didn't like this, but figured out that if you pull the material down and then tightly around her shoulders, it helped this issue a lot. Here she is in these aden + anais easy swaddle.

aden + anais swaddle blankets

As Baby T outgrew the receiving blankets, we used the swaddle blankets by a + a seen here. These are awesome as well. They're large enough to swaddle bigger/longer babies easily, lightweight material and comes in organic as well. We used these for naps, but not night sleeping for baby for the same reason--if she wiggled too much, then the blankets came undone and risked covering her face. She is 14 pounds, 26 inches at 6 months and can still be swaddled in these if we choose to do so for naps. I've used these for many different things including, a carseat cover if its bright out on a walk or in the car and she's napping (also works great to keep strangers away from your new baby if you have to go out in public with them), she snuggles with the soft material sometimes, I cover her legs from the sun in the stroller with these, and I stuffed them in the bottom of my ergo until she was big/tall enough to not need extra support. Endless ways to use these.

Here is an example of her wiggling out of the swaddle and is why she didn't sleep unmonitored with them.

See more on swaddles.


***These are solely my opinions due to my own experiences with this product. This is not a sponsored post.***

Emotions and Moving Baby to her Crib

How I feel when my husband subtly suggests we move Baby T from the bassinet in our room to her crib in her nursery:

And then I try to quickly dismiss the topic:

And then he says something else about it:

And then I realize he is actually serious:

And so I answer him as honestly as possible:

After a 30 minute discussion complete with panic and tears...(MY panic and tears, that is):

When he tells me we don't have to move her to her crib just yet after my horrifying reaction:

You're welcome for the overload of gifs.

Product Review-Blooming bath

Blooming Bath for Babies

Source

Price Range: $40

When we were searching for must-haves for Baby T, we knew we needed some type of bathtub for her. But we have limited space with only two bathrooms. Our master has just a shower so we'd be bathing the baby in our spare which is the one guests use. I didn't want to get one of the more common tubs that are bigger and take up a lot of space because I knew I would want to hide it when we were having people over.  I found the Blooming Bath for Babies and decided it was the one for us.

This product has worked very well for Baby T. She was very tiny at birth, so she got baths in the kitchen sink for a while. I did have to put a bowl underneath the Blooming Bath for extra support or else the petals would fold up too much and not allow baby to lay properly, but other than that, it made me feel like she was comfortable and protected for the hardness of the sink. Some water will puddle in the bottom, but not enough to emulate an actual bathtub. If you are trying to keep baby warm with the water, then maybe not so good, but otherwise its fine.

Now that Baby T is older, we lay the Blooming Bath down in the bottom of the tub and she loves it. She likes to kick freely in the bath and this allows her to do that where I don't think other baby bathtubs would. You can see a picture of her in this blog post. Like I said, its super soft and provides cushion for her to just lay in the bath and kick around.

Overall, the product's pros outweigh the cons for me and I do recommend this especially if you have limited space for storage and a baby that likes to kick in the water. (Baby T's head is far enough out of the water when she lays on this to to be worrisome as long as you don't fill the tub too much.)

PROS:

*Very soft and flexible for easy storage; can be stored underneath our bathroom sink of in the linen closet
*Can be used in the sink or the tub
*Soft and cushiony for baby's comfort
*Can be packed in luggage if needed on a trip
*Its cute!
*I've seen people use it outside for baby to lay in the grass on as well. It doesn't have to be a bathtub I suppose

CONS:

*I mentioned earlier that it needed some support underneath it in order for it to work in my sink. This could depend on the size, depth, width, etc. of your kitchen sink.
*It gets really heavy with water--One of my biggest complaints (which is probably silly) is having to pick the Blooming Bath up after Baby T's bath and squeeze the water out of the foam. It seems trivial but it just annoys me.
*You will need somewhere to hang it after bath time to ensure proper drying. I'm not sure, but it seems to me that mold could grow because of the moisture in it if its not dried properly. We haven't had any trouble with this yet and we've been using it for 6 months now.


You can find the products here:

www.bloomingbath.com

Target

***These are solely my opinions due to my own experiences with this product. This is not a sponsored post.***

A Festival and a Fail

Happy Monday? No. I didn't think so.

We went to the Temecula Valley Wine and Balloon Festival yesterday. And while we missed the 6 am launch of the balloons (throw my sucker in the dirt and kick it), we did not miss the wine part.

Umm, should we be worried? Does this show us a glimpse into her future?

Yesterday was also the San Diego Half Marathon. We missed that, however, about 8 months into my pregnancy, I hear my cell phone beep one day while Husband was at work. As I reached for my phone, I realized I'd have to get out of my current position to be able to reach it. So I lurched myself to the left, then I used some other muscles to lurch myself to the right--this continued until I had enough momentum to roll my whale-sized belly onto my actual side, after which I roll down off of the couch and onto my knees on the floor. Then I used the ottoman to push myself up to standing--hearing my poor knees cracking the whole time. My dogs sat nearby, watching--the only thing missing was a box of popcorn and a soda because they were clearly entertained by the scene I was creating. Anyway, I finally made it over to my phone even though I was out of breath and saw that my dear husband had sent me a schedule of all the 5Ks, 10Ks, and half marathons we would be participating in the upcoming year. The rest is history really, I walked calmly to the laundry room where my husband keeps some tools, located the hammer and smashed my phone to death. After which I sat waiting on my husband to get home from work, hammer in hand. 

NO, y'all! I'm kidding! But you probably believed me didn't you!? I'm sure I've convinced you all how insanely scarily crazy I really am. 

Anyway...he got home and asked if I received the schedule that he sent me to which I replied, "Yes." I waited for laughter or at least a "oh giant pregnant wife who hasn't slept or pooped in 78 months, I'm just kidding."---this didn't happen. Quickly, I realized he was serious. This mother effer was serious. Pride took over and I went along with the plan...knowing that even before pregnancy, I wasn't much of a runner--like, at all. To say that I loathe running would be a small understatement. I like the results of running, but unfortunately the results never outweighed the horrendous hate of the actual act. 

Fast forward to 6 weeks postpartum. Husband says, "Can't you workout again now?" Daggers shot towards him out of my eyes. "Because I googled and it says that women can workout as soon as they feel like it after birth." 

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Well in that case, I guess I'll put on my running shoes, buddy. So I ran. After all, we were training for the dang Iron Man so I needed to be ready! To his defense ladies, (because I know you are appalled at his suggestion and your jaws are probably dragging the ground while you google how-to-build-a-bomb-and-send-it-in-an-envelope-to-this-bitch's-husband) he didn't mean I *needed* to work out, body-wise. He was actually very complimentary about my giant pregnant belly and body afterwards. And if you know him, this is probably surprising. He just wanted us to both to do these damn marathons. What can I say? He's a planner. And an idea guy. And a go-getter. Which happens to be my polar opposite. It makes life interesting to say the least.

.......SO I'm running. He's in front of me with the dogs AND the stroller and I'm quickly falling behind. 

It was a bummer and I was questioning my sanity, but it was good to pretend to have the freedom of my body back after 10 long months. And, umm, just in case you are going to start running again soon after having a baby----heads up, you may be absolutely certain that your uterus is falling out of your vagina. I mean, you may not. You may be one of those women that don't feel like they've left their reproductive organ in the middle of the street--and for that we, other women, hate you. So shut up. And go away. And if your uterus didn't feel similar to what I would assume over-full cow udders feel as the cow is running for its life from a crocodile then lucky you, Miss Uterus of the Freaking Year. 

Fast forward to a few weekends ago--about 5 months after having Baby T. And how is my training going? Umm, its not going. I hate running! I admit it. I can't make myself WANT to do it! But, a tiny little 5K is coming up and I totally forgot that I signed us up. WTH was I thinking? Its the Coronado Bay Bridge Run. What's that you ask? Its this:

source

So, there we were. Waking up balls early to go run over this bridge. I was less than excited. I'd never done any kind of organized run before so I didn't know what to expect. I thought about feigning illness--not because I didn't want to do the run (because who were we kidding? I knew I'd probably walk a lot of it) but because I was scared we would get bombed. I don't like big crowds anyway and I was convinced there would be a shooter or something crazy happen. Gawd, y'all...what is wrong with meeee? I'm one of those people that looks normal but I'm not! At. all. 

Because I wouldn't take Baby T without her carseat in the shuttles that were taking people from Coronado over the bridge into downtown San Diego (where the race started), we were forced to drive...and find parking in the chaos. Husband is a real stickler for punctuality and told me the night before we had to leave by 7:14 am. "Not 7:15," he said, "We need to be in the car at 7:14." 

"Okay," I nodded, wide-eyed, implying I understood the necessity of being at the "race" on time. Welllllll..............we departed at 7:24ish. Wah wahhh. Fail. Husband was annoyed and I didn't have the slightest clue what the big deal was. It wasn't like we were actually running the race portion. 

Turns out, he knew best. We spent the entire time behind the elderly walkers. I mean I was cheering them on, but it doesn't do much for your self-esteem to be behind them let me tell you. Shamefully enough, I was still hideously tired at the end of it.