Here we are, now into the 3rd trimester! Honestly, the last 6 months went by pretty fast, which is not usually how time goes for me
It has helped that I have been feeling great and honestly can’t believe how easy this pregnancy has been. (I am pretty sure any successive pregnancies are going to make up for this one!) I really have nothing to complain about–besides struggling with running for a few weeks, which seems to be improving.
There haven’t been many changes terms of how I am feeling these days compared to my last post a couple weeks ago. I honestly rarely feel pregnant–except when the baby is moving around or doing somersaults inside. I am a little weirded out by it yet incredible fascinated watching my belly move when the baby is moving around, which happens the most when I lay down to go to sleep.
Tomorrow Craig and I go in for our “20-week” anatomy ultrasound tomorrow, only a few weeks late as I am at 27 weeks pregnant today. Oh well, not a big deal since we are waiting to find out if it is a boy or girl when it is actually born. My biggest worry is that I will accidentally see what the sex of the baby is when I am looking at the pictures. I think I am going to tell to tell the technician to show me the super blurry pictures so that I can’t decipher anything.
Running has been making improvements over the past couple of weeks. While it, of course, is not pre-pregnancy running, I am enjoying being able to get out and do what I can each week. These days I am shooting for 5 days of running each week with mileage being between 20 and 25.
I also can’t complain about a 3rd place finish at the Her Tern Quarter Marathon a few days ago. I even surprised myself with my performance.
New Pregnancy Item
(Picture from Motherhood Maternity.)
I was on the fence for a while about purchasing this tummy sleeve/belly band thing. I read that some people loved their belly bands while others said to go straight to the maternity jeans. I ended up purchasing one because I am cheap and didn’t want to buy 3-4 new pairs of maternity jeans, plus a handful of new shorts. I figured I could save a lot more if I bought a $20 belly band and used it on all of my current pants and shorts.
I have to admit, I was surprised at how well it holds my pants up. I wasn’t sure it would work all that well, but it has done an awesome job of keeping my pants up when they are unbuttoned to accommodate my growing belly. It is like trying to keep your hip waders up. . . . or not really at all.
And now here’s your chance to bestow all of your pregnancy wisdom on me.
Obviously this whole baby thing is very new to me, and while I’ve been able to get many of my questions answered via blogs and personal advice, I still am curious to know what you guys think about a few things.
Do babies really like having a mobile above their bed or is it more for looks?
I’ve been looking for clothes for newborns and see a lot of onesies. Do you pretty much just dress the baby in these type of clothes rather than “real” clothes (shirts and pants) for the first few weeks?
What are your opinions on:
Using mittens to keep the baby from scratching him/herself?
Swaddling your baby?
Bouncing your baby to calm him/her?
I follow a couple of cloth diapering local Facebook pages, and I can’t help but laugh at the jargon and acronyms used on them. For example, can anyone please translate this for me:
“Anyone interested in 6 small osocozy PF? I used them along with my GMD PF, but my LO outgrew them already.”
If you have any other advice about babies, you’d better be sure to comment below before I become overwhelmed and second guess everything I am already thinking.
hello, So about the mobile, I would say its just for looks. My LO (little ones) 😉 did not even notice them, they acually seemed to get in the way when I would try to lay them down. I use onesies all the time, up until they start crawling and then i switched over to tee shirts just because they are hard to keep down when trying to get them dressed. It is definatly a match of who is the fastest, baby or momma! lol! mittens seemed to irritate my LO, i just bit their nails because they are so flexible at that age they tear off real easy. honestly I am scared to death about using clippers! My husband clips their nails now that they are toddlers. SWADDLE them like a yummy little burrito! They love it. its all nice and cozy for them. I also had them sleep on their bellys from the time they could lift their little heads. They slepted the best that way. But you do what you feel is best for your own comfort level. 🙂 My two little boys are opposites when it came to getting them to sleep. My oldest liked to be rocked and my little one likes to be swaddled in the crook of our arms and then we walk around real fast and he falls right asleep. 🙂 Hope this helps! you look amazing! I wish I could runn like you.
We have a mobile above my daughters crib. We never put it on unless I put her in her crib so I can shower, it entertains her (she is 1 yr old now) for the first 30 seconds and then she finds something else to play with. It could just be me, that I never put the mobile on when she was younger but we didnt have a problem because she was able to soothe herself to sleep. (That is NOT the case right now, ugh!)
Onesies are the easiest, especially when they are newborn. They should always be dressed one layer warmer than we are because they can’t really control their body temperature. Pants and shirts usually don’t come around until about 9-12 months (at least for me, and even still I put a onesie on underneath so that shirts dont ride up on her belly).
Mittens…I used those for about .5 seconds because she just took them off. She did scratch herself but when she was sleeping, I would clip her nails so that she wouldnt do too much damage. Their fingernails are like paper thin when they are that young, you could even just bite them off. I felt really weird doing that, so I opted to clip them. You can also use socks as well, they dont come off as easier than the mittens.
We swaddled for the first month or so but she didnt care too much for it. It depends on the baby. My daughter loved sleeping on mine or my husbands chest and slept better that way (normally during the day, she slept in her crib at night).
Definately bounced. After she has just eaten and been burped. If she starts to get really fussy, it probably means she has more gas and its hurting her. I would always stand up and walk around and bounce her while patting her back. It always worked and as soon as she got that gas up, she was fine. (I know I say ‘she’ but…its hard to get away from that!! HeHe). My daughter suffered really bad gas, luckily, most of the time, it didnt bother her, her belly would just look really bloated. I always put gas drops in her bottles (breastfeeding didnt work for me, so I pumped and would have to make bottles from what I pumped) and still do to prevent the build up.
Hope all this information helps! You will do great!
“Anyone interested in a 6 small osocozy (brand) prefold (diapers)? I used them along with my green mountain diaper (brand) prefold (diapers), but my little one outgrew them already.”
Erin is 5 months old and just over 15 lbs (she’s about 80th percentiles for height and weight) and I can now fit her in our bumgenius 2.0 diapers, and they’ll fit until she’s potty trained since they’re quite adjustable. I still have issues with ammonia smells when she pees, and I have to frequently “strip” the diapers (a special washing method) so the smell doesn’t get unbearable. So I go back and forth on whether I love cloth diapering (CD-ing!) or not 🙂
I agree with the onesies underneath, plus it’s an easy way to follow the “one more layer than you’re wearing” rule to keep infants warm enough. I have always loved how the Carter’s brands fit and they hold up very well, too. Some people keep their infants in sleepers/bodysuits during the days, but I was able to find small-sized pants to put on them so I didn’t have to do as many snaps during daytime diaper changes. We swaddled all three of our kids for the first month or two, but frequently only their legs, not their arms. It depends on the baby.
We never had mobiles, but I’m a semi-minimalist and don’t have a lot of “essentials”- we don’t have an activity center bouncer thing, either 🙂 But I’m of the opinion cribs are only for sleeping, not for playing, so we try to keep the room as simple, dark, and calm as possible to encourage that. When i’d shower, I’d just lay baby on the bath mat and then peek out to check on him/her. When they get mobile, it gets harder, but either making the bathroom a very clean and safe place, or catching a shower while they’re sleeping worked for me.
We used socks on hands for the first few weeks. And the first time I’ve clipped each of my kids’ nails, I made them bleed (they frequently are so soft they kinda grow into the fingertip before the first clipping) so if you do don’t feel bad! Socks can also be worn on feet, so it’s double-duty rather than buying another thing you won’t need for very long. I did like to keep hats on the babies almost all the time for the first few weeks, both for drafts from the heat/AC vents as well as just to keep them extra warm.
Erin’s my only bouncer, but only when I’m standing up and walking while bouncing. Brett just had to be held tightly (as in, we had to pin his arms with our arm and his legs with our other arm while holding him), and Scott wanted to be paddled- seriously- we held him on our shoulder and thumped his bottom pretty firmly and loudly. Kids are all so different! I used a glider rocker to rock all three a bit and to have somewhere to sit in the room. I also keep a bed in the nursery and sit on to nurse more comfortably since we have the room. We borrowed a swing from a friend for B, but I found it unnecessary with the other two and just another “thing” that took up space. Babies may sleep more easily while moving in a swing/carseat/etc at first, but when they are a bit older, they don’t sleep as deeply and restfully in my opinion.
Random things: it’s sometimes helpful to know when they pee, especially at the hospital when they usually want you to track it. Most brands of diapers have a stripe on the front that changes color when wet. If you have a boy, have him “point down” when you put the diaper on, that way the pee doesn’t shoot up through the waistband of the diaper and will saturate the bottom of the diaper instead. I found “What to Expect the First Year” really helpful for looking up sudden issues, like blocked tear ducts, mastitis, newborn rash, etc. They all seem scary but end up being pretty manageable.
Aww, I’m so excited for you! I’ll mail the moby up soon, I’m getting a last few uses out of it during our church’s VBS this week. I’m glad to give you an option to try! 🙂
My kiddo didn’t care for the mobile. He also really hated the crib so he didn’t spend a lot of time in there. We didn’t really know about mitts but it would have helped him from scratching his face. What we might do this time around is just put socks on the new ones hands. We swaddled until like 6 months or so, I can’t even remember when we stopped. Some babies (and you’ll know quick) absolutely hate the swaddle. My friend’s baby was like the exorcist in it and even at the hospital the nurses were like “SWADDLE SWADDLE” and she was like “I don’t think he likes it. And clothes? I would probably win the award for least best dresser, he wore onesies for like two months straight, we rarely would wear pants. It was a june/july during that time so it was okay, but in winter I know I will have to put some pants on the baby.
Like the above commenter, my baby was very colicky and gassy so we bounced and shushed and all those types of things to try and calm him. In the end, I used a drop called Ovol very regularly with him and cut things out like dairy and gas producing foods which helped but not 100% of the time.
My suggestion is plan for the worst baby ever and anything better than that is awesome. I initially planned the opposite thinking I’d have the most calmest cooing baby…. nope. (He did grow up to be awesome though 😉 )
We bought a mobile and never used it. When our son was little we used a bassinet so a mobile wasn’t really an option.
Onesies all the way. They seemed a lot easier to me. When he was very young, we mostly just had him in onesie pajamas all the time.
No mittens. He only scratched himself maybe twice when he was super frustrated/irritated.
Swaddling helped a lot for us. We bought some of those weird Velcro wrap blankets that are made for people who aren’t good at swaddling regular blankets.
Swaying and walking seemed to work better then bouncing.
My son never took to the swing or bouncer or anything for more than about a minute! He spent the most time in one of those vibrating, reclined chairs.
I think I would buy one of those mamaroo seats if I had another baby. They are expensive but I feel like they take the place of several items. You could get your money out of it if you had multiple kids!
On a side note, I would recommend starting out with a good quality monitor. We started with a motion detecting monitor and it false alarmed all the time! It was horrifying. We switched to a video monitor and I love it.
I hope this is helpful and not annoying!
Good luck! Love your blog!
The mobile helped us when we tried to sleep train our baby (distraction). I highly suggest a diaper genie. I also suggest starting out having your baby sleep in the crib rather than bassinet. You won’t have to work through a sleep transition. I got a jogging stroller/car seat set and I love it. It’s not high end and it gets the job done. I had my baby in June 2013 and we kept him in onesies all the time. We did swaddle at night but I don’t know if it really made a difference for him. Every baby is different. We didn’t find out the sex of our baby either. It’s such a surprise!
Hi! Just randomly stumbled upon your blog. I am a fellow blogger and runner who just moved to anchorage three weeks ago 🙂 so far we are loving Alaska. I just had my daughter in November so I feel like I can give you some feedback on your questions. We didn’t bother with a mobile but I wish we would have. I think she might enjoy her crib more if she had something to look at up there! Swaddling is great when they are very little. My girl was a ninja and would bust out of her swaddle 90% of the time. Or maybe we just sucked at putting her in it
I am so happy this pregnancy has been easy for you! I told Nate the other night that I didn’t know if I’d classify my pregnancy as “easy” :).
I’m also impressed that you fit into your pre-pregnancy jeans through the butt/hips – are they much tighter? There are a few I can squeeze into, but my hips are wider now so I feel like I’m stretching them out??
There are a few non-pregnancy jeans and shorts that still fit me. They either ride lower or were a little bigger to begin with, but my hips have definitely widened!
Hey girl! You look great. I would say the mobile is unnecessary. I used onesies ALL the time! Under everything, including pajamas. I liked to have some long sleeved ones in the winter and they were harder to find at the time. When it was hot they could act as an outfit, but that may not happen too often in Alaska. 😉 We used sleepers ALL the time in the beginning too…basically jammies. It was way easier to change them! Mittens are very short-term and hard to keep on. You could always put a pair of socks on their hands or many times some of the newborn gowns have parts that fold over their hands. Swaddling will depend a bit on your baby, but I’d typically say yes! We had a miracle blanket and I really liked that! Bouncing is almost a requirement…I bounce anytime I hold a baby, it’s just a reflex. Now, if you mean an actual bouncy seat, that will also depend on your baby. Some like them, some like swings, some don’t! Good luck!!
My answers to your questions: We had a mobile for Jackson, and he really seemed to like it. We used it every time he went to sleep until he was just over 7 months old (took it down because he was using it to stand up). I would say that it wasn’t necessary, but Jackson liked it.
Shirts vs Onsies. Shirts suck for babies because they are constantly riding up and then the baby’s little belly is open to the cold air. Honestly, when Jackson was first born, they only time he had clothes on was when we left the house, otherwise it was just too much work. He wear clothes all the time now, and will actually wear shirts, but he is holding himself up so the shirt doesn’t ride up as much.
In terms of the mittens, Jackson didn’t need them too much, but he did use them occasionally, and with him being a December baby they were great for when we went outside to keep the cold air off his hands. Some babies I know refuse to keep the mittens on!
Swaddling was great for Jackson. He needed it to sleep, but the downside of swaddling is breaking them of the habit as they get older. It made for a rough couple of nights, but I would trade 2 bad nights for 3 months of good ones.
Being a teacher, I was on my feel constantly while pregnant, which is why I believe that Jackson needed to be bounced to calm down many times. I would predict that since you have remained so active during your pregnancy, that your little one is going to need to be bounced.
P.S. When baby is crying, you will do anything you can to make them calm down. I feel like if it comes to it, you will start bouncing your baby without realizing what you are doing, it’s just natural. And, bouncing was a great way to get stubborn burps out! Good luck. Being a mom is the hardest job there is, but once the little one is here, you will figure it out. Don’t fret too much about it now.