Favorite Baby Care Products

The market for baby shampoo is insane. Before having a kid, I thought that there was one type of baby shampoo. You know the traditional Johnson & Johnson yellow bottle? If you’re anything like me, you figure out what works best through trial and error. I have to be somewhat careful with the types of products I use. Because Ellie was lucky enough to inherit .5% of my genes (look at her, she is 99.5% her dad), she has a touch of eczema. Certain products can aggravate her eczema which is a pain in the butt to stay on top of.

Through my trial and error as well as recommendations from family/friends, here is a list of baby care products I am loving right now. Love to hear if you have anything else you are slathering on your little minion(s)!

~Karen

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Screen time? Yep.

We all start off motherhood with the same idea – my perfect baby will never see a screen until at least 2 (or something like that). They will be content all the time to play with only wooden toys which inspire independent, imaginative play.

Ha.

Oh wait, I used to have hobbies.

Hi, internet. It’s Kristin. It’s been a long holiday season, but I finally have my shit together enough to write again. I’ve been thinking a lot about new year’s resolutions since everyone is sharing theirs all over online. Now, I stopped doing “official” resolutions a long time ago because frankly, who can honestly say they’ve kept theirs? But this year I realized that I do need to set a few goals for myself for nothing but to keep myself sane. As a new(ish) parent it’s so easy to have your whole self sucked into your kid’s world 24/7 and let everything else fade away. For me, that means that things I used to really enjoy doing during my downtime have been seriously neglected. Yep, I used to have hobbies. Now my “hobby” is screen time after Finn goes to bed to try to help me unwind after my day. So…here are my 2019 goals for myself:

Lessons on Loss

This week, our post is a heavy topic we feel necessary to bring to light, albeit heartbreaking. A friend of the Where’s My Epidural moms has been gracious enough to share her miscarriage story. This, as we all can understand, is an extremely sensitive topic and for that reason our friend will remain anonymous. If you have ever or do ever face this and need assistance, the Pregnancy and Postpartum Support website might be helpful. This resource is specifically for Minnesota, if you reside elsewhere, check online to see if there is another support group.

Let’s Talk About Size Baby

Hi! It’s me, Karen. It’s been awhile. My apologies for ghosting you. I am sure you have been missing my parenting insights (and flops). Well, I am back. If you celebrate, my hope is that you had a wonderful holiday season. After talking to my sister-in-law for a while the other day on clothing sizes for our toddlers (her little gal is just a couple months older than Ellie), I thought a little rant about baby and toddler clothing would be prudent as you sort through the clothes your kid(s) received as gifts.

Happy Birthday, Finn!

This is a few weeks late, but here goes…

Well, it’s finally happened. Finn is 1. It’s been the longest and shortest year of my life, full of some of the best moments and tons of challenges. We fought together through struggling with breastfeeding for the first few months, and came out the other side to make it to a full year! Finn is the funniest and most curious baby (toddler??) and loves to read books just like his mom. He’s also gained a ton of confidence and is walking all the time now!

It’s also been incredible to experience this journey with Kris as my partner. He is the best dad to Finn and it brings me so much joy to see them play and laugh together.

photo credit: fotofilm studios

I’m excited to see what the next year brings; if the last 12 months have been any indication it will be full of fun, laughter, learning, frustration, and love.

Love you, Finn!

Why is my hair falling out??

Real talk – did you know that gorgeous hair you had while pregnant comes with a price? After you have your baby, your body is like, “hahahaha, you thought you had nice hair?? JUST KIDDING!” And then your hair starts falling out.

I had heard about postpartum hair loss (which is caused by your hormones going back to normal levels), but I was 3 months in and I still didn’t have anything happening out of the ordinary, so I thought I was safe. I have been blessed with pretty nice, thick hair, so I wasn’t anticipating any weird hair stuff after having Finn. And then it happened. Around 4 months postpartum, my hair started falling out like crazy. As in, handfuls in the shower crazy. It’s disgusting and scary. I became convinced that I would look like I had a receding hairline or bald patches at the end of this whole thing. (This can happen, I guess, but most women won’t have hair loss to that extreme.)

This insane hair loss kept happening for weeks, but it did finally stop. However, how all that hair is regrowing at the same time, leading to a fun halo of fuzz around my hairline. Since I am lazy and wear my hair up a lot of the time, I’m pretty self-conscious about it, but as my stylist said, “at least that means it’s growing in!”

So load up on bobby pins and hairspray and brace yourself, the hair loss is coming…but you’ll survive it.

~Kristin

The Bedtime Conundrum

This week, we have a very special guest post! Zach, Karen’s husband, has written an excellent tidbit on his experimentation in getting Ellie down for bed at night. He has become quite the bedtime expert in their household. We hope that you find some applicable insight. Enjoy! 

Family leave is important!

This past week, General Mills was all over the news in the Twin Cities. Not for a cool new cereal, but because they overhauled their family leave policies to better support their employees. Instead of 3 months maternity and 2 week parental leave, now General Mills employees are eligible for 18-20 weeks of paid maternity leave for a birth mother and 12 weeks paid leave for partners and adoptive parents…how amazing is that?? This news, along with the fact that it’s Labor Day weekend, got us thinking about parental leave policies in general and why they are so important.

Moms Like Tech Too!

Isn’t it crazy how quickly technology can change? Kristin found a couple really interesting articles about new tech for breastfeeding and pumping and we thought it would be fun to write about new tech out there and what’s on the horizon. Not going to lie, we’re pretty envious of what is new and coming soon! We do not endorse any of these products and cannot speak to their effectiveness. We just found them interesting and want to share. 🙂

Pregnancy

Reliefband

Nausea/morning sickness got you down? Hate the taste of ginger? We’ve been seeing an uptick of these nausea relief bands. I am super curious if they work, because it could make a huge difference for so many pregnant mom’s early (and for some poor souls majority) pregnancies. (Photo from Reliefband’s website)

BabyBuds

Ok, this one is lost on me. I’d heard of playing music for baby in-utero… but this just feels too far for me. If anyone has tried this and believes it had a positive impact, I really want to know. All I can think of is the game my siblings and I played as kids, attempting to have a conversation under water while at the pool. Did any of you do this growing up? How well did it work for you? (Photo from BabyBuds’ website)

Breastfeeding/Postpartum

Nanit Baby Sleep System

This is no regular video baby monitor. Nanit mounts above the crib to show you a bird’s eye view of your lil’ babe. It tracks baby’s movements and gives you insights into theisleep habits, giving your average sleep and wake times and rating how well they are sleeping. This information is then used to give you tips on how to improve their (and your!) sleep for future nights. (Photo from Nanit’s website)

Willow Wearable Breast Pump

Confession: we both are jealous of anyone who owns this. A breast pump that is truly wireless and cordless? Game-changer!! Instead of using bottles, the Willow pumps directly into self-sealing storage bags, so you can just take them out and pop them in the fridge or freezer without having to worry about spilling a drop of that milk you work so hard for. The pump comes with one unit per breast, and you can pump one at a time (how cool if you need/want to pump while baby is nursing on the other side) or simultaneously. PLUS it hooks up to your phone via Bluetooth and will tell you how much you’ve pumped! Seriously amazing. (photo from Willow’s website)

Yoomi Self-warming Bottles

Unless you get a magic baby who will take cold bottles, you’ll probably need to try to figure out how to warm them up when your baby is hungry. Enter Yoomi, who made a self-warming bottle!! The warming part is “charged” in your microwave, then is ready to go whenever you need it, which is perfect for those on-the-go feedings. (Photo from Yoomi’s website)

What amazing tech did we miss? Let us know!

~ Kristin & Karen