It's a Miracle...and Other Baby Things I Love

Before Toph was born, I was given the video "The Happiest Baby on the Block." It's basically a how-to video showing parents how to calm their babies down and get them to go to sleep. One of the main components (or the 5 S's) is swaddling, something that we have doing to Toph before naptime and bedtime since he was born. We found these awesome flannel receiving blankets from Target, and up until three weeks ago, those have worked great. Hubs has a knack for swaddling him so snuggly, and he was sleeping for 4-5 hour blocks. Three weeks ago he became superman and would bust out every two hours, thus waking himself (and me) up. I expressed my discontent on Facebook and lo and behold, the lovely Stephanie told me about a little product called the Miracle Blanket.


Last night was our inaugural night with the blanket and I admit, hubs was a bit skeptical. I mean, Toph was basically reverting to his sleep patterns of when he was two and three weeks old. However, we put him in his Miracle Blanket last night at 8pm and he slept until 2:45am! In fact, he had to be woken up by me to eat...I have my own personal alarm clocks, if you know what I mean. He then went down for another three and a half hours before he was up for the day! I am so rested today; it's glorious.

It got me thinking about other baby products that we have that I love. Being a first time mama, buying products for your baby can be hit and miss. You never really know what a baby *really* needs as far as gear goes. Here are some things I love:

Our Jeep Liberty stroller

One thing that bothers me about baby strollers are those puny little wheels they have. I mean, they're supporting your baby and yet are made of flimsy plastic. This stroller is awesome because those wheels are sturdy and will withstand any terrain. Plus, the three wheel design makes it turn on a dime. I was skeptical about buying this one because I felt Toph was too little to ride in the seat. Turns out, our car seat is compatible with the stroller and fits right in! In about a month we may start putting him in the seat but in the meantime, he's content in his carseat. I really enjoy our daily morning run-walks; it has a thing where I can plug my Ipod into it and listen to music as we go.

I also love the Baby Bumbo:

I started putting Toph into this seat for supervised sit up time a couple of days ago. He loves being able to sit up unassisted and look around. I only let him stay in there about three minutes at a time because his little neck gets a little droopy. We have the tray that goes with this as well, so we're going to use this as our initial high chair.

I love our tummy time mat:

Toph loves the bright colors and his favorite animal is the monkey! He grabbed the elephant for the very first time a couple of days ago and my heart leapt with joy. The funny part was that he couldn't figure out how to let go of the elephant and got pretty annoyed with it after that.

I love our Fuzzibunz reusable diapers.

We have about 12 of these diapers and this is what Toph wears when he's at home. We have saved so much money on disposables and it has saved hubs so much time as far as taking out the garbage. Toph sleeps in disposables and when we go out he wears disposables, but any other time, he's in these and I LOVE them. They are very absorbent and there is something so satisfying about not having to throw away a diaper.

Our Safety First True View monitor.

Nothing better than putting the baby down for a nap and being able to see him no matter where I am in the house. Or, like last night, we put baby down for bed and hubs and I had ourselves a little date night, but with peace of mind because baby boy was never far from our sight.

Other things I love:

• Dr. Brown's bottles
  
• Mam pacifiers
  
• onesies (duh)
• Trumpette socks and shoes
  
• the Medela micro steam bags (saves soo much time when sanitizing pacifiers and pump parts)
  
• Braun digital thermometer (just like the doctor's office!) .

Things that I've bought that have not worked out well:

• a wipe warmer (should be called a wipe drier-outer),
• scented baby lotion (the pedi said NOT to use that stuff on babies and instead use a good non-scented moisturizer like Curel)
• countless baby blankets in an attempt to swaddle him
• Soothie pacifiers (they would not stay in his mouth)
• Regular thermometers (we can't get him to stay still long enough to take his temp under his armpit)

Seeing as how babies are super expensive, I'm sure I'll be doing more of these posts on a regular basis. I never thought I would meet anyone who I liked shopping for better than myself until I met my baby boy! :)