Your Questions Answered!

...and some cute pictures of Harper of course! Thank you all for the wonderful feedback on the last few posts, I wanted to take some time to answer a few common questions.

Black Onesie from BuyBuyBaby, Leggings from Baby Gap & Headband from Jameson Monroe

Our Boppy Cover is cream, minky and is from the Etsy shop Little Owl's Nest. Again, I vote the Boppy as one of my all time favorite, must have items for having a baby. We use it for everything.. I just said the other day that I wish I had two! I have another super cute cover that my friend Joanna bought me that I haven't had the time to put on just yet, but it is ADORABLE, will share soon! If you all are interested, I'd love to post some of my Etsy favorites on here, I feel like that is the only place I shop! :)

In terms of Harper's schedule & sleeping, again, I didn't push this and set it for her, she really set it herself. I noticed patterns in how she would operate each day and eventually it just worked out to follow it. This also helps us determine what times of day she is happiest, fussiest, sleepiest, etc. and we are able to plan activities around it. Until she was a month old, she would wake up every 2-3 hours on the dot to eat in the middle of the night. Then one night we did bath time, got a white noise machine & put her in the Nap Nanny and she slept until 4:30 am. We've never looked back. She consistently wakes up at that time, but I feed her and she falls right back to sleep. We put her to bed fully awake, she will lay there with her eyes open, squirm around a little bit and then falls asleep on her own. I think that may help for when she wakes up in the night? I wish I had all the answers for you, but this is just my experience & best guesses :)

Bath time is actually something I think that we all look forward to each night. She is so happy in her little tub. I definitely believe that it helps her sleep, it wears her out! Our doctor told us from the beginning that once her belly button falls off, we could give her a bath as often as we'd like but possibly only use soap every other time so that her skin doesn't dry out. We use California Baby Lavender Wash & Baby Magic Lotion after. Both smell AMAZING and never any dry skin issues. I am so looking forward to introducing bath toys!

I plan on posting about my c-section & recovery (the nitty gritty!) but haven't had the time to complete the post. But in terms of losing baby weight, I started taking walks within the first week of being home from the hospital. On Harper's one week birthday, I pushed her in her stroller for over a mile. I started running again at 5 weeks & since then have been doing cardio and small Crossfit workouts. Also, with the hectic schedule of life with a baby, keeping healthy food around the house that is easy/quick to eat will be a sure fire way to eat healthy.. who has time to eat chips & dip with a newborn? Guess I'll have a banana. But I will of course pay much of the credit to breastfeeding. I was back to my pre-baby weight by my 5 week post-op appointment, but have some much needed toning to do.

All of her Baby Toys are from either Buy Buy Baby or Diapers.com, and I think both places carry all of the toys!

While most pictures on my blog are straight from my iPhone, many have asked what kind of camera I use. I have a Panasonic Lumix 16 Megapixel point & shoot. Annnnd I love it :)

A few other random observations during this journey through motherhood:

• Just when you start to laugh at the realization that you've eaten a peanut butter sandwich for lunch five days in a row... you will find yourself eating a spoonful of peanut butter and then shoving a piece of bread in your mouth after because you literally don't have the additional eleven seconds to make it into an actual sandwich.
• I have always been frustrated with people leaving their carts around the parking lot rather than taking them to the cart return or back into the store. But it takes a special kind of asshole to jam a cart up a curb to where it sticks out behind a vehicle that is parked in the pregnant/mothers with newborns parking spot. Not fun to deal with when it is raining when you come out of the store with a baby, a stroller & a carseat. Be kind, rewind return your carts!
• I would like to see a baby product company focus their efforts on making things easy to open quickly with one hand. When you have a poopy, screaming baby that you are holding with one hand on the changing table and trying to open a new box of wipes with the other, is it really necessary that it be cemented shut, with four layers of tape and cardboard casing thicker than a 2 x 4? Good grief!

 Jammies from Carters & Blanket from Aden + Anais for Target

Stay tuned for a super exciting announcement! (No, not baby #2, although that will be super duper exciting one day..) For those of you who love decorating, I have some big news! :)