We have been really lucky to have been blessed with 2 babies that are amazing sleepers. I always get questions about what we do, and although I’m not sure whether it’s what we do or just that we have great sleepers, I’m happy to share our approach! I certainly don’t claim to be a baby sleep expert – just a mom with 2 kids sharing what has worked for us. These are major things we do starting around 4 weeks.
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Once I got to around 20 weeks pregnant and excitedly felt more comfortable acknowledging that it was real this time, I started thinking about my dream girly nursery. I was kind of all over the map considering several different options. Several years ago I fell in love with the floral wallpaper trend, but that was starting to seem a bit overdone now. I wanted something a little more unique. Then I saw this wallpaper from @arrowsandbow and fell in love. It looked like sort of an abstract sunset to me and I love the muted blush, peach and yellow tones. My mom loved sunsets and they’ve always reminded me of her and made me feel close to her, so that felt right too. I also wanted to sprinkle in some rainbows since Bailey is our triple rainbow baby, and I thought that would go well with this vibe.
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I’ve had a few conversations with friends recently about all the stuff you DON’T need when having a baby and thought it might be helpful to share! There are soooo many products and so much you can read about what you do need, but the reality is – there is a lot you truly don’t need!
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Immediately upon finding out that my due date was Christmas Day, I knew there was a chance that I could have this baby on my birthday (December 17th), but I knew that chance was really small. I mean, what are the odds? Buuuuut how cool would that be??
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I thought it might be helpful to share what I’m buying for baby #2 – it’s a much more streamlined list after going through this once and learning what we really needed, and already having a lot of the essentials from our first.
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It feels so good to finally share the news that our triple rainbow baby girl will be joining our family in December! (See my IG post from a few weeks ago if you missed it!!) And I can’t believe we’re now over half-way to meeting her!
It also feels good to be actually writing a blog post again. It’s been quite a while. The journey to having baby #2 ended up being much longer and tougher, with way more roadblocks, than we expected and it got pretty dark for me there for a bit. So I just had to step away for a minute. I’ve always wanted this space to be real, and I just couldn’t come on here and be happy and bubbly like nothing was wrong. Part of me wanted to share the real, raw, often times dark journey we were on, because the “real” tends to be what I’m drawn to on social media. Also, when I was going through this, people sharing their experiences really helped me. So I wanted to, in turn, help others. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it right then in the moment. I truly admire those that can, but it just didn’t feel right to me. But now, I’m in a place where I’m ready to share and hopeful that it will help others the way that so many others have helped me.
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After doing a Christmas tree last year with an 18 mo old and now doing one this year with a 2.5 year old, I’m definitely not declaring any type of expertise, but I have collected a few tips that I wanted to share!
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I would have been entering the 3rd trimester today.
I’ve been a little quiet recently as we worked through a bit of a tough time for our family. But I think I’m ready to share my experience now, because hearing about others’ experiences has really helped me.
I’ve struggled a bit with how to share this journey, because in some ways I felt that I wasn’t having a “normal” or “expected” reaction to experiencing miscarriage. But I think everyone processes something like this differently, and that’s just all the more reason to share what might be a slightly different perspective.
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We’re SO excited to head to the beach this weekend! Since we’re kicking off summer and I’m sure many of you have upcoming beach trips, I figured I’d share a bit of our planning for hitting the beach with 2 crazy toddlers and a baby. My experience is that the needs are pretty different for babies vs. toddlers, so I’m going to speak to each!
My main concern when we took Hudson to the beach as a baby was having shade (#palepeopleproblems) and a place I thought there was a decent chance of him napping. In the baby stage you really don’t need a bunch of toys. So I made sure to have access to a tent or umbrella (if I wasn’t somewhere that I knew would have them available, I would bring), and a few towels/muslin blankets to create a comfortable place for him to nap. Another option for napping for us was his stroller, since he was quite the stroller napper when he was a baby. You’ll also want a good hat to protect baby’s face and neck from the sun (especially under 6 months before ou can use sunscreen on them). We like these because of the tie under the chin (to help prevent him from ripping it off) and the back flap to cover his neck. Another key item for us was this clip-on fan. It’s battery operated (charged through a USB) and is such a lifesaver for beach or pool days, or even just walks on those hot summer days!
I was pretty intimidated by the whole swim diaper situation at first, but we decided to go with disposable swim diapers when we’re in the ocean and a disposable with this reusable swim diaper over it when we’re in a friend’s or hotel pool (and we want to be extra cautious that there are no leaks). My preference with the disposable ones is that if they do have a dirty one, that’s really not a mess I want to be cleaning up. I much prefer to just toss it. One thing I did learn is to definitely go with the Huggies brand disposable swim diapers if you go that route because they have tabs you can peel open on the sides (just like a normal diaper) to take off. Other brands I’ve used didn’t which means you have to shimmy a dirty diaper (and all of it’s disgusting contents) all the way down their legs (learned this the hard way).
Once Hudson was sitting up but not super mobile yet, a plastic tub/bin was awesome to have! You can put water in it next to where you’re sitting and basically make a little baby pool for him to sit/play/splash around it while you relax. Ahhhh those were the days!
If your toddler is anything like mine, there will be no relaxing once they’re walking (read: running) around. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a TON of fun (and he really seems to enjoy it even more now), but relaxing (or even sitting) at the beach is a distant memory. It would be a complete waste now to bring a tent or umbrella to the beach – there’s just absolutely no chance he would be still enough to actually be under it. Of course, I still worry about protecting his skin so we use a combination of sunscreen, rash guard and sunhat. I like this sunscreen for him – clean ingredients, good coverage and goes on/rubs in easily. As for rash guards, I quickly learned that you definitely want one with a full or half zipper. Without that, they are really difficult to get on and off, especially when they’re sticky with sunscreen and sand. And of course, I always get long sleeves for maximum skin coverage. We still use the same sunhat from when he was a baby (will probably have to get a bigger size soon, but will get the same style because of the tie and the flap in the back to cover his neck).
Some beach toys are always great to have, but honestly, at almost 2 years old they really don’t hold his attention for that long…so I wouldn’t go crazy. He mostly just loves having a big open area to run around and explore. A ball and a truck are good to have on hand (as they always are for this guy). Also, now that he’s bigger, we bring these swimmers. They have the vest part over their shoulders, so much more difficult for them to slip off. This is his first summer using these, so we’ll see how they go!
Overall, I think the key is to go into this with different expectations than you maybe used to when you thought of a day at the beach. When they’re this little, it’s highly unlikely you’re going to be able to just be out at the beach all day long – they get tired, they get hot and they just need breaks. So for us making sure we are either on the beach or within a 5 minute walk from it is key. That way it’s easy to hit the beach for smaller chunks of time and head in for naps, etc. This is even more critical when you’re dealing with multiple kids on different schedules to make it easier for everyone to just come and go as they need to. If you do have a short walk to the beach, a wagon is really helpful to toss all the gear in.
As much as I do miss relaxing, long days at the beach, I truly love getting to experience one of my favorite places through Hudson’s eyes!
What tips do you have for going to the beach with babies or toddlers?
Xo,
Shannon
I recently made a brave decision – to fly SOLO with my toddler down to FL. I know people do this all the time (and with multiple kids, no less), but the thought of doing this on my own with a mobile, yet not quite old enough to reliably follow instructions, child and all of the necessary baby crap was just downright intimidating. We’ve flown with Hudson before, but I always had my husband (and, therefore, another set of hands) with me. And we also haven’t flown with him since he could walk. So I knew this would be a pretty different experience. But I figured it is only about an hour flight, so even if it was completely awful, at least it wouldn’t last long.
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