Swaddle Blankets!

In a previous post I mentioned that I don't use swaddle blankets for actual swaddling, but I still LOVE swaddle blankets and would consider them a must have. They serve so many functions, we always keep one in the diaper bag at all times.

My newest use for swaddle blankets was a trick a friend taught me, but it is such a great idea! I tie the corner of a swaddle blanket to my nursing bra, and fan the blanket out for a makeshift nursing cover. It's great because oversized muslin swaddles cover up way more than most of the nursing covers on the market and are light weight and breathable. We have a Milk Snob cover which I do like and use, but it is not my go to nursing cover anymore. I have found that it just doesn't cover as much now that my daughter is growing, and now she loves to try and pull it off!

I also love to use the swaddle blankets for tummy time or if I am setting her down on the ground, I always put a blanket underneath her. This way she is on something soft and it is a cleaner surface for her to play on. When it is cooler out I always put one over her in the car seat or when she's in the stroller to keep her warm. I can't lie.. once when we were on an airplane I got chilly and ended up using the spare swaddle blanket for myself (another reason to get oversized swaddles)!

I am not proud to share my final use for swaddle blankets, but I think we've all done it at some time. I believe almost anything can become a burp cloth in the right situation, swaddle blankets included. This was especially true when my daughter was younger. If she spit up on my shirt my shirt was a burp cloth for the day. For me it is always about convenience. When I'm sitting there nursing and realize the burp cloth is out of reach, but hey, the swaddle blanket is right here things happen. Plus, she drools on it so much during tummy time anyways.

Basically, swaddle blankets are my best friend. I use them constantly throughout the day and I have built up quite the collection but my favorite brands are definite Bebe Au Lait, Little Unicorn, and Modern Burlap.

Bebe Au Lait swaddles are so pretty and SO soft! I just love the texture of them. They are oversized and large enough that she can continue to use them even into her toddler years.

Little Unicorn swaddles are also pretty and oversized, but I also love how they come rolled up with a band that snaps to keep the swaddle rolled up. I actually keep the band so keep it tightly rolled up in my diaper bag.

Modern Burlap swaddles are unique and fun. I love the ones with Bible verses on them, they make great props for newborn photos. They are also gender neutral so I know that I can reuse them with our next baby regardless of gender.  They are also based in Texas, and as a Texan I love supporting other Texans!

I think swaddle blankets serve so many functions and are a great item to have handy. I feel like they are one of the items that I "can't have too many of". 

Swaddling Made Easy: The Woombie!

Everyone goes on and on about swaddling. Nurses and pediatricians say it is a must, there are pictures of perfectly swaddled babies all around Instagram and Facebook. My husband and I failed at swaddling. Each night we would swaddle our daughter up only to find her busted out of her swaddle 5-10 minutes later. Clearly we were missing something. We watched Youtube videos and read Pinterest How-Tos but nothing we did seemed to work. We tried so many brands of swaddles too (I will make another post on what we do with all those swaddles now, since  we don't use them as swaddles), for some reason we kept thinking a new swaddle blanket was the problem. It wasn't.

One night when we were attempting to swaddle our daughter I remembered something my mom had purchased for us. We had been shopping together at a cute baby boutique in Little Rock, Arkansas (The Toggery) when my mom saw a box with a sleeping sack inside. She thought the name "Woombie" was so cute and decided to pick one up. I grabbed it out of the dresser and figured it was worth a try. My initial thoughts were that I didn't understand how my daughter was going to fit, it seemed to be small, but the box said 5-13 pounds. We put our daughter inside and zipped it up. IMMEDIATELY our daughter was asleep. It happened so fast I insisted on watching her sleep for the next 10 minutes to make sure she was okay. Ever since then our daughter has slept in a Woombie every night.  I also learned that the reason it appears small is because it is made of the same material yoga pants are made from. The Woombie is very stretchy so our daughter actually has room to move inside the Woombie (and she does), so there is no concern of hip dysplasia. We love it.

What I love about the Woombie:

• It's easy. You just have zip baby up inside of it and then snap the top button.
• It works. Our daughter loves it, she sleeps so well in it. As soon as we started using it she moved to one wake up per night or less! We usually get a minimum of 6 hours at a time.
• Good customer service. We had an incident where the zipper on one of our Woombies broke. I was hopeful that there was a way to fix it, and reached out to Woombie customer service. They sent us a new one (and it arrived quickly!) for free and asked for pictures of what had happened to the zipper so they could send it to their development team.
• It's lightweight. We now use the Woombie Air since we live in Southern California and don't have a/c. I feel like its breathable for her and it is easy to store and even pack for trips.
• Cute patterns! The patterns are so cute. The pink roses or the "I love you" are probably my favorites.

Cons:

•  The price. While it isn't much more expensive than other "easy swaddles", it is a little pricier than a basic swaddle blanket would be. While I say this is a con, I think this is worth every penny.

 You can purchase the Woombie here.

Disclaimer: Other then the Woombie we received as gift from my mom, we purchased all of the Woombies we own ourselves.

Favorite Baby Sleeping Items

My favorite baby item that we have is definitely my HALO Bassinest Swivel Sleeper Bassinet. It is worth every penny and I would repurchase is in an instant. My favorite thing about it is that I liked the idea of co-sleeping, but I couldn't imagine actually having my daughter in our bed. She is so tiny and I felt it wouldn't be safe. Instead, I just put her in the HALO Bassinet and swivel it over the bed to where she is essentially sleeping in the bed right next to me. It makes night time feeds SO easy. I sit up, lift her out, nurse her, and put her right back into the bassinet. I have the harmony circles premiere series bassinet and it comes with a few additional options. There is a small nightlight you can turn on, a music option that plays a few different tones like a heartbeat, a breastfeeding timer, and a vibration option (has two intensities). This is the one item I told my husband I had to splurge on and neither of us regret our purchase. Our daughter is now 2 and a half months and still sleeps here. I am not sure when we will transition her to her crib.

The crib we purchased was a Davinci crib, however, it is currently acting as a holding place for all her stuffed animals and blankets. So far it has done a good job of keeping all her stuffed animals safe. I can't speak to how well it actually works for our daughter for actual sleeping, but it does seem to be well made for the price. I had actually set up our daughter's nursery in North Carolina only to find out weeks later that we would be moving pretty much immediately to sunny Southern California! Her crib, along with everything else, was disassembled and put on a moving truck to California. Once we arrived in California and found a temporary place to live (yes, I was 34 weeks pregnant moving cross country without a place to live! I must really love my husband...) we had a small shipment of just our daughter's items delivered so we would have those items in case she came before we got into our permanent living situation. The crib then moved a second and final time to our house once we got into housing and has held up through all of it.

I will come back and review the crib when we get Mikaela transitioned over. Before I became a mom I thought I would have her in a bassinet across the room for a few weeks and then we would transition her into her nursery. Once she arrived I knew there was no way she would be sleeping in another room in the immediate future, and I knew having her as close to me as possible would really help me relax and get some sleep. Now aside from the worrier in me, I also love the convenience for nursing. I would definitely recommend the HALO Bassinet or something similar if you are like me and want something safe and convenient.