What to pack in your hospital bag

Hi everyone,

Today I am going to write about what I think you should pack in your hospital bag for both you and your baby. If you don’t know me that well I should tell you that when I was packing my bag it was pack probably 5 month before Dahlia was due. I’m a bit anal when it comes to preparing for things; so here’s a little helpful list for all the other soon-to-be moms out there who want to be prepared.

Baby’s Hospital Must-Haves

1) Diapers – the hospital only provided us with 4 diapers. You will most likely be at the hospital for 1-3 days so make sure to pack a bunch. Side Note: when purchasing diapers for the first time don’t buy a giant box of the newborn size. Your baby will out grow them quickly and be onto size 1 before you know it. We only used a small box of 88 newborn diapers.

2) Wipes – I personally like unscented because babies have very sensitive skin

3) Sleepers – no more than 1 or 2

4) An outfit to go home – Makes sure to think about the weather when your baby will be born. Our due date was April 3rd and Dahlia needed up being born in March. We underestimated how cold it was.

5) Vaseline – We never use anything on Dahlias bottom except when she was born. Because her first couple bowel movements were pretty thick the Vaseline helps when wiping. Other than that nothing for the bottom.

6) Car Seat – most hospitals wont discharge you until they see you have a car seat to go home in.

7) Baby Mitts – Dahlia had a full manicure when she was born and was always trying to scratch. Little baby mitts helped her from scratching at her face too much.

8) Lanolin – your nipples can get sore pretty quickly from breast feeding. It never hurts to be prepared.

Momma’s Hospital Must-Haves

1) Tooth brush & tooth paste – pretty self explanatory

2) Shampoo & Soap – Trust me you will want to shower with your own soaps

3) Pyjamas & slippers – make sure you have pyjamas that you can easily breast feed in

4) Nursing bra & breast pads

5) Charging cords – you will need to charge your cell phone, camera, etc. Hospitals charge extra to have a phone in your room so it’s easier to just bring your own.

6) Camera – you’re going to want to take lots of pictures of your precious little bundle of joy

7) Pillow – not a necessity but why not be comfy

8) Pads – you get your period right after having the baby and the hospital supplies you with a couple but you will want to bring your own. And make sure they are the big ones.

9) Snacks & drinks – I took Gatorade and a few snacks for both Chris and I. Labour is long and I gave birth on Easter weekend so everything in the hospital was closed.

10) Your documentation – your health card, hospital card and medical insurance information.

11) Hair Elastics – you might want your hair up while you are in labour.

I think those are the main things I used well at the hospital. If anyone else has any suggestions or questions on items leave a comment!

I hope this helps all the soon-to-be parents out there.

Until next time,

One Prepared Momma

 

I want to hear from you!

Hi everyone,

I would love to know what my followers or any soon-to-be first time parents out there would like to read about on my blog.

If there is something you are curious about related to pregnancy, birth or parenthood let me know. I’m up for any suggestion.

I can’t wait to hear from you.

Until next time,

One Curious Momma

10 things no one tells you before you become a parent

Hi everyone,

Find out a few things you might not know about becoming a parent before the baby arrives or enjoy a good laugh because you can relate.

Here’s my list:

1) Showering is less enjoyable – I use to love taking my time in the shower. Now, I’m either rushing because Dahlia is napping and I want to finish before she gets up or she’s awake and gets bored very easily by whatever distraction I have given her while I shower.

2) You find it much harder to relate to your friends without kids – Your child consumes your life. It’s all you think about. I don’t even remember what I use to think about before having Dahlia.

3) You pretty much live at the doctors office – I didn’t think I would be at the doctors as much as I have been. There are a lot of check-ups, immunizations and other things that have you hanging out at the doctors a lot.

4) Babies grow WAY faster than you imagine – Everyone tells you that time flies. But you don’t actually realize it until you see your baby grow before your eyes.

5) You become a worrier – I can’t watch tv shows or movies where kids are killed. I also worry about her health, bump & bruises probably more than I should.

6) Leaving the house with a baby is hard – Every time you want to leave the house you feel like you are packing for a month long vacation. You need: diapers, wipes, bottles, food, stroller, warm clothes in the winter, soother, etc, etc, etc,

7) You learn to survive off of much less sleep – Pre-parenthood if I didn’t sleep for 8 hours I was a total grouch. Now I’m up threw the night sometimes multiple times & I haven’t slept past 8am since Dahlia was born.

8) Babies come with A LOT of stuff – I underestimated the amount of stuff a baby needs. I’m pretty sure the majority of things we now own belong to her.

9) You get embarrassed a lot less easy – I don’t care where I am; I will make a funny face, sing a silly song or pretty much do anything to make Dahlia smile or laugh.

10) You do so much more laundry – Babies puke, poop, pee, drool and spit up on everything the own often, which makes for a lot of laundry.

Last but not least, becoming a parent is the best thing in the world and even though your life changes a lot it is so worth it.

Until next time,

One Insightful Momma

Baby Wearing

Hi everyone,

Today I am going to talk about the hottest new trend for moms, baby wearing. Babywearing is the practice of wearing or carrying a baby in a sling or in another form of carrier.

I currently have two carriers. I have a sling, which I ordered off of Etsy, and a Baby Bjorn. My personal favourite is the Baby Bjorn. It’s a great carrier that I use all of the time. It is very versatile and I have used it since Dahlia was born right up until today. The Baby Bjorn is quite expensive but totally worth the investment. The size is adjustable and the carrier is very comfortable in my opinion.

I originally purchased my sling to wear for traveling to Saskatoon but found it way more convenient to wear around the house. The sling I bought is called “Sling Pea”. The sling came with a great instructional book on all of the different ways you can wear it.

Personally I found myself interested in baby wearing because I was scared of Dahlia getting a “flat head”. Babies can get a flat head when they are placed lying down to often. Baby wearing was one way to minimize the amount of time Dahlia spent on her back as well as I feel closer to her when I am carrying her. It is also a great way to burn those extra calories you may have packed on during pregnancy 😉

Dahlia loves being carried. She loves looking around and seeing everyone. It seems to be something both her and I enjoy doing. I think the next type of sling I would like to try is a ring sling.

If baby wearing is something that interests you, make sure to join a baby wearing group in your area or on Facebook. I hope I have swayed you to give baby wearing a try.

Until next time,

One Trendy Momma

Here are a few photos from some times I have been baby wearing.

Your body is a wonderland…

Hi everyone,

First off I want to thank everyone for all of the love on my last post about breast feeding! I hit an all time high on views.

Today I am going to write a quick post about how I felt after Dahlia was born. I’m going to be honest, some of its pretty graphic so if you are faint hearted I would stop reading now 😉

During labour I think I dealt with the pain pretty well. My pain tolerance was much higher than I thought it would be. I lasted without an epidural until my water was broken. After the epidural I expected to be able to feel nothing but ended up being able to still feel the contractions mildly. I had a spot on my belly that didn’t freeze but instead froze my eye (only 0.05% of women have this side effect when getting an epidural).

Right after Dahlia was born I was so distracted by the fact that she was so adorable I had no idea that I was bleeding a lot. The doctors had trouble getting my amniotic sack to come out. Thank goodness for the epidural because it ended up being pretty painful and I got to still use it to relieve some of the pain. After that incident was over I felt pretty good. We took pictures and couldn’t stop staring at our new little girl.

It was than time to head up to the ward by wheel chair. I was convinced I could stand on my own. The epidural wasn’t so strong that I couldn’t feel my legs. Upon trying to stand I obviously couldn’t and the nurse had to catch me. As the freezing from the epidural started to ware off I started to realize the pain I had just endured. I was so unbelievably sore. The pain was worse than the contractions by far.

I had stitches which made sitting a nightmare. Also, using the washroom was very uncomfortable. You have a squirt bottle that you fill with water to help relieve pain. Walking was also über painful. To be perfectly honest I thought my “nether regions” were never going to go back to normal after what my body had just endured.

My ob/gyn said it would take 6 weeks to heal completely. It took me a good 7-8 weeks to start to feel back to normal. It felt like I was living in someone else’s body. I imagined that after giving birth my body wouldn’t take very long to go back to the way it use to feel. Right off that bat my stomach shrunk pretty quickly and I could fit back into my pre-pregnancy clothes within a few days. But I just wanted to lounge in sweat pants for a while 🙂

(Dahlia only 4 days only)

I think the hardest part about after giving birth is that you are way more focused on taking care of your new born than yourself. You don’t look after yourself as well as you should which ultimately postpones the healing process. Of course the pain is only temporary and totally worth it!

Until next time,

One Sore Momma

(Dahlia at 7 1/2 months only)

 

Breast feeding 101

Hi everyone,

So today I am going to talk about my personal experience with breast feeding (sorry guys!). I personally found breast feeding 1000 times harder than I ever thought it was going to be. I lasted about 3 months breast feeding our little girl. They were the hardest 3 months of the last 7 months by far. Breast feeding has a lot of great benefits for your child. I don’t want my experience with breast feeding to discourage anyone from trying. I just want to inform you of some of the challenges I faced when it came to breast feeding.

I am extremely glad that I decided to try to breast feed right off the bat. I read up on it a lot and the health benefits of breast feeding are so worth it! Looking back, the one thing I regret is not taking a breast feeding class. For all the expectant moms out there who are thinking about breast feeding I would highly recommend taking a class on breast feeding instead of a prenatal class. I feel it would be much more beneficial in the long run.

I found breast feeding extremely painful. This was most likely due to the fact that Dahlia has a tongue tie. We found nipple covers (yes they exist & are so worth purchasing) which helped quite a bit with the pain. Along with the nipple covers I was using lanolin cream non-stop to help my nipples from becoming raw and sore.

I also had no idea how long a baby could feed for at one sitting. Dahlia would sometimes feed for 2 hours at a time (yes 2 hours!!!). I became very good a multi-tasking while she was eating. I would eat, watch tv, read, etc. After she was finished eating I would feel completely drained and have almost no energy. I felt like I couldn’t accomplish anything in a day or go any where.

The reason I stopped breast feeding wasn’t because of the things I mentioned above; it was because I ultimately couldn’t produce enough milk to feed Dahlia and I had to supplement with formula which lead to no more milk being produced. The process of switching to formula was really hard. We found out Dahlia has an allergy to animal protein which made her really sick and made finding a formula extremely hard.

Despite some of the negatives I encountered I would in a heartbeat try to breast feed if or when we have another baby.

To end the post I will provide you with my list of things you should be prepared with if you are going to be breast feeding.

Breast feeding 101 (must-haves):
– lanolin cream
– breast pads
– nipple covers
– an automatic pump
– a breast feeding pillow
– nursing bras
– a good book 😉
– a loose top or button down shirt
– a comfy chair

Until next time,

One Milky Momma

I’m Back! A Quick Catch Up.

Hi Everyone,

I can’t believe I am back; my last post was 9 months ago! Where have the last 9 months gone? Oh right, looking after the most adorable new born baby. So, when I left you I was about 2 months away from giving birth. Before having a baby I thought I was going to have all of the time in the world to blog, boy was I wrong. I guess I should fill you in on what has been happening in my life since than.

On March 29th, 2013 we welcomed a 7 pound 11 ounce adorable baby girl, Dahlia Ann Viger, into our lives.

Labour and delivery went phenomenal in my option. I opted for the epidural; which I was debating in a previous blog post. The pain of labour was nothing like I expected. It was painful but not the screaming, dramatic stuff you see in the movies. I was calm, laughed a lot, talked on the phone and watched TV for the majority of 8 hours. The nurses were amazing in delivery. Despite all of the good things that happened in my delivery there were a few unexpected things that came along with it. I got a lazy eye from the epidural; something that only happens to 0.05% of women who opt for an epidural. I also had a lot of bleeding post delivery. They had a hard to stopping the bleeding but I honestly don’t remember a lot about it because I was so mesmerized by our daughter.

After delivery we were taken up to a room where we would call home for the next 2 1/2 days. To be honest, it felt more like prison than anything. The nurses were not very nice and with the lack of sleep I felt borderline insane. Before leaving the hospital the nurses had me so scared I was convinced that Dahlia was going to end up with a flat head, be under fed and end up in sick kids hospital. Needless to say, leaving the hospital was the best feeling in the world and being back at home in our environment was AMAZING.

My mom came and stayed with us for the first week of Dahlia’s life (I can not thank her enough!). Her help was amazing and we even got some sleep while she watched the baby.

…

Fast forward to where we are now. Dahlia is just over 7 months old!

Everyone tells you time flies but you don’t realize it until you have a baby of your own. Being a parent is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I am over the moon, in love with my little girl. She surprises me everyday. She is rolling, crawling, standing, etc and I couldn’t be more excited to see all of the new things that are coming our way.

With all of the good things that come with having a baby there has been some tough ones as well. The lack of sleep when she was first born made me feel like a crazy person. Breastfeeding turned out to be WAY harder than I ever expected. And teething was something I don’t think you can ever be ready for. BUT when she smiles and you see her face light up or when she tries something new for the first time, it makes it all worth it!

I think I will end my post here. Hopefully 9 months don’t go by before I write my next entry. I am going to try to keep up with it and keep blogging through the first years of Dahlias life. Maybe I can even convince my husband to write a post on what it’s like being a first time dad 😉

Until next time,

One New Momma