The 2 Best Breastfeeding Products: Boob #1 and Boob #2

...and believe me, you'll need both, because one will inevitably make more milk than the other or your baby will choose a favorite.

When I had Baby T, I was armed with breastfeeding products: A boppy, nursing bras, nursing pads, nursing tops, a double electric pump and a hand pump, several different types of bottles, a bottle drying rack, a Milkmate storage system for expressed breast milk, quick clean wipes for the pump, a steam-cleaning bag for the pump, breastmilk storage bags, and Lansinoh.

When I had Baby M, I had boob #1 and boob #2.

It's not that I didn't need everything the second time around, it's just that I was too busy to bother.

ISN'T IT TOO HOT TO WEAR WOOL?

Dispelling the Myths About Wool

As I was finishing up a wool soaker a few days ago, Big T was sitting across the table from me and we were chatting. "Isn't it too hot to wear wool?" he asked. I explained no, that actually wool helps you regulate your body temperature and keeps you cooler in summer. Big T grabbed the soaker and put it on his head like a hat. "I have to say, it feels pretty hot. I would not go out with this on my head in this weather."

I thought about that for a second. He was right; people normally don't wear wool hats in summer. "But imagine wearing a plastic hat on your head. Wouldn't that be hotter?" He agreed. Wearing a cotton hat covered by a thick shower cap would definitely retain heat. And then putting clothing over that would get really hot in the summer.

Then he asked "What about disposables? Wouldn't those be more breatheable?" I'm not actually sure, but I don't think so. The chemicals and synthetics that make up a disposable diaper don't seem to be very breatheable to me. If they were, they would leak.

To which he replied, "Yup, I guess if you have all that stuff on your a$$ you're going to be kind of hot no matter what, so I guess wool would be the coolest."

And when I look at Baby T in his wool soakers with a prefold and doubler underneath, they just look more comfortable. They aren't bulky. His butt isn't the size of J Lo's. And have I mentioned he looks adorable in them?

Read more about wool soakers here.

WOOL SOAKERS FEATURED AT Weelittlechanges.com!

You Can Buy My Wool Soakers Here, or Sign Up For the Giveaway on Friday!

Weelittlechanges.com, an earth friendly baby boutique, is featuring Baby T's bum! Ok, not so much his little bum as the wool soakers I've been busy creating. You can find my soakers for sale in her shop, and she will also be having a giveaway for the month of March. The winner will get a custom sized wool shorty in a gender-neutral color (and if you're really lucky, I'll hand knit the cuffs in a color of your choice!)

For details on the giveaway, check out the blog at Weelittlechanges.com.

It's pretty cool. April, the boutique's owner, is featuring 4 WAHM's (mom and mom-mom: that means Work At Home Moms) for the month of May. It's amazing how many women out there are trying to provide for their families doing what they are passionate about. It's amazing what a woman can do when she puts her mind to it: give birth, nurse a baby, care for a family, work full time, and pursue her dreams (and laundry).

And April is an amazing WAHM herself. With 3 young boys, she knows what it takes to raise a wonderful family. Three young boys also pretty much make her an expert in baby products. She carries organic and  natural baby products, cloth diapers, accessories, and even things for mamas, like nursing pads and Moby wraps in her online boutique. This keeps her pretty busy, but she lives simply and enjoys the little things in life. last time I saw her, she was out enjoying the fresh air with her 3 beautiful boys.

STRIPED WOOL SOAKERS

Oh, How Cute They Are!

I really am obsessed with how cute Baby T looks in his wool soakers. I'm a sucker for stripes, too. These are some soakers I made from one of the thinnest sweaters in the batch from the yard sale last weekend. They are super thin and stretchy, and super soft. Yet he can wear them all day and they don't leak through. And they look so cute with just a t-shirt!

WOOL SOAKERS ARE TAKING OVER

Upcycled Sweaters Become Cute Wool Soakers

I've been on a mission to make wool soakers for the past few weeks. I recycle old wool sweaters to make the best diaper covers! Wool is fabulous: natural, breathable, highly absorbent. Oh, and did I mention these soakers are super cute? I usually buy the sweaters at goodwill, or at Resweater.com. But remember my post about the free church yard sale that goes on every month or so? Well, last Saturday, I was driving by and saw it out of the corner of my eye. Baby T was asleep in the back seat so I had some time to kill. I swerved into the church parking lot and started rifling through the piles of clothes on the ground while a group of pre-teens took a liking to Baby T.

I guess spring is the time for purging your wool sweaters. I found thirteen wool sweaters. THIRTEEN! For free. One of the church volunteers kept coming up to me to give me additional grocery bags for my findings. At one point, I told her, "Thanks! I didn't expect to find so much." She said, "Thank the Lord."

In any case, I was incredibly grateful. I felt like I struck gold. I drove home with a multicolored sheepfest in my backseat.

Making a Quiet Book

Before our trip to Punta Cana, I knew I wanted to make Baby T a quiet book to keep him busy on the plane. A quiet book is a soft activity book made of fabric. The possibilities are endless. You can make lift-the-flap pages, pages with buttons, snaps, zippers, buckles and shoelaces, pages where you match shapes, etc. I had been meaning to make one for quite some time.

But of course, I started the Saturday before our trip. It took me a week to make these 8 pages. I worked every night until midnight or so. Nothing like a little procrastination to get me going!

The book is held together with ribbons, and more pages can be added as I make them. It definitely kept Baby T occupied on the plane ride, and I love looking at it myself! Knowing I can make something this special for my baby and keep adding to it with developmentally appropriate pages as he gets older is amazing. This is something he will hopefully be able to pass down to his children.

Baby Burritos

How to swaddle your baby - a demonstration

No, this is not about the new Anne Geddes calendar. This is about how to swaddle your baby so that you don't walk into the room 25 minutes into his nap to find him smiling and waving at you, or kicking around in the crib with his swaddle blanket up around his neck.

Baby T has quite a history with the swaddle. When he was first born, he was content to lay in his little cocoon, wrapped up all nice and tight. He was so tiny, the hospital blanket went around and around, tucked in front... perfect. About a week after we brought him home, we thought it might be a little too hot to swaddle him, so he was free. For about a week. He was a gassy kid. He was constantly drawing up his legs while he slept, and it would wake him up. I decided that maybe he didn't need his arms swaddled, but I would certainly wrap that blanket tight around his legs. During this time, our main form of amusement was watching his moro reflex as he fell asleep and threw his arms out wide over and over again.  Then we decided it was about time we actually got some sleep. Goodbye late night laugh fest, hello Taco Bell. We wrapped up our baby like a little burrito and we were all able to get some sleep.

Until about a month later, when Baby T began to get bigger and stronger. The hospital blanket didn't wrap all the way around him anymore, and I certainly couldn't tuck it in the front. He was so squirmy that his weight didn't hold the end down in the back, and he was constantly wriggling free. Off to the Amazon to get myself some bigger swaddle blankets. (Amazon.com, that is.) I ordered a pack of Aden and Anais muslin blankets, which are 3? 4? feet square. That was the ticket. For about another month.

Then, we would walk into the room when Baby T was supposed to be sleeping, and he'd be smiling and waving. Or hitting himself incessantly in the face. Or flailing all 4 limbs while his face was covered by the entire 16 square feet of the blanket. It was time for more drastic measures.

We tried the swaddle method in The Happiest Baby on the Block, but that totally didn't work for us. Plus, Baby T was getting longer, so we couldn't really wrap up the end of the swaddle blanket anymore. A friend told me about her Super Straitjacket Swaddle method, and it totally clicked with me. One of the older nurses in the hospital had used 2 hospital blankets to do something similar. This method is obviously tried and true. The best thing about it is you can finally put your receiving blankets to good use, since they were too small for anything but a burp cloth once your baby hit 10 pounds. There were VERY few times that Baby T managed to get himself out of this one. In fact, once he started rolling over, he would do it in the swaddle, and then get stuck facedown, unable to move his arms, and unable to roll back over. (This was when we stopped swaddling at night). But little Mr. NoNap still needs to be swaddled at naptime. He is quite the active little fellow, so these swaddling methods are invaluable to us now.

Here's a demonstration of the Super Straitjacket Swaddle:

Big T was not a fan of the Super Straitjacket Swaddle, though. He thought it was mean. But he was an expert swaddler, so he had his own method. I could not figure out how he did it. I would watch him carefully each time and try to replicate his method, failing miserably. Then I finally figured out what was different. On the first pass under the body, Big T was picking up Baby T's legs and passing the blanket underneath. I was picking up his upper body, because I thought picking up his legs looked like it would put strain on his neck. Apparently this made all the difference. Don't ask me why. I am now an expert swaddler as well.

Here is a demonstration of Big T's Super Swaddle:

Suck It

Making suck pads for a baby carrier

The product "suck pads" sounds weird. I'm trying to find a way around it, but that's what they are called. Ergo makes them for their baby carrier, and when I bought my Ergo Organic baby carrier a few weeks ago, I debated buying them at the same time, but I passed. But that's what they are called. That's what Ergo calls them.

When I got my Ergo, I immediately put it on, stuck Baby T in it, and he proceeded to--well, whine a little bit--and then suck on the straps. This is the baby who refuses any and all pacifiers. Believe me, I have tried. We have a canister next to our coffee and sugar full of pacifiers. All different brands. He won't have it. But he will suck on anything--and everything--else. His thumb (usually when covered by his shirt sleeve or another piece of fabric), clothing, blankets, toys, our dog's tail (yes, that actually happened. The other day, his Mom-Mom found him holding our yellow lab's tail between both hands and sucking away happily). So I don't know why I didn't buy the suck pads to begin with. Especially because on the instruction booklet that came with the Ergo, 2 of the 3 pictures show the babies sucking on the straps. Apparently it's all the rage in baby paraphanalia.

I had been frantically sewing diapers recently, and figured that suck pads are essentially just a diaper for the Ergo, so I decided to make them. And they are cute. Appropriately enough, Baby T started to get fussy when I was at Joann's Fabrics looking for supplies. And he totally calmed down when he started sucking away. You can find them in my Etsy store. They are made with 2 layers of absorbent cotton sandwiched between a cute and fashionable cotton flannel pattern on the outside, and a moisture-wicking fleece on the inside. One of each pair is hand embroidered with the Tmuffin insignia.

But back to the name. Because I tried to think of something different to call them. But couldn't come up with anything.