Fun DIY Baby Boy Gift!

I have done so many baby girl DIY projects and am so happy that I finally have friends having a little boy that I can try out some of my cool baby boy projects on. This project was pretty easy but does require a little bit of sewing.

I used 1 yard of the brown fabric, 1 yard of the packer fleece and 1/4 yard of the white fleece. To cut the football shape, I folded the rectangular piece of fabric in half the long way and then in half the short way and rounded the corners to make it look like a pie slice. Then I placed the brown folded pie piece over the packer folded fabric and cut an identical pie slice. My outer white stripes were two inches wide and sewn about 10 inches from the ends. The inner stripes for the laces were one inch wide and about 4 inches long. I eyeballed the lengths for all the of the laces and moved them around the blanket until they looked like they were in the right location and were the right length. I sewed the white fleece on to the brown first and then put the two right sides together and sewed the football almost all the way around. Then flipped it right side out and finished it off.It was a pretty simple project that made a great gift for a sporty little guy. I got the directions for this project from here. My next project will be to make Brewer baseball and Badger basketball blankets! More to come on that!

The Trouble with Swaddling

Swaddling has gone back and forth over the years as a technique commonly practiced. Right now, swaddling seems to be the "in" thing to do with babies. Swaddling a baby helps by restricting their arms and giving them a feeling of being in the womb. It provides deep pressure and stimulates the production of serotonin which is a calming chemical.  This works the same way that us adults have a serotonin release from the deep touch of a hug or a massage. 

Despite what I knew about swaddling, I had not expected my baby to be a swaddle baby because I just didn't think that sleeping all tied up seemed appealing for me, (I personally would be quite claustrophobic) therefore I thought my child would not like it either. But when we were still in the hospital and the baby wouldn't stop crying, the nurses put her in a swaddle sleepsack made by Halo which we then proceeded to borrow until ours showed up in the mail. Swaddling seemed to be the ONLY way we could get our little one to get even a wink of sleep and as desperately tired new parents we took what we could get however we could get it. 

6 months down the road it became obvious that we needed to retire the swaddle. She was starting to move and roll around more in her crib and was getting herself into positions that she was unable to get out of, bringing up a concern with safety. The problem was, after 6 months of being swaddled every time she slept, she had no idea how to fall asleep or stay asleep without it. We attempted to slowly ease her way out of it by loosening it little by little over a few week span but that wasn't working.

Then I came across a product called the Zip-a-dee-doo when I was searching google for suggestions on weaning from the swaddle. This was a blanket that gave her use of her arms but the arms were created to be short so it limited her movement giving a slight feeling of being restricted. I decided to give it a try. I am not sure I can necessarily brag about the effectiveness of this product because she still has not learned how to fall asleep efficiently with it. However, it does help in the sense that she tends to scratch herself when trying to fall asleep and the covered hands prevents her from doing so. So she still wears it every night.

We are now at 8 months old and we are still trying to figure out how to sleep without the swaddle. We have been letting her "cry it out" for naps and overnight for the last 6 weeks because I truly think that's the only way she will learn how to fall asleep on her own. It usually takes her anywhere from 10- 45 minutes of crying to fall asleep and on a typical night, she wakes up and does it every 3 or 4 hours. 

So looking back on our weaning experience from the swaddle, would I do it again? Well if I were to have a similar child that we just couldn't get to sleep without it and we were desperate, I probably would swaddle them as well. I think I would try not to swaddle EVERY time the baby slept. If I had a child that slept ok without the swaddle though, I would definitely try to use it as little as possible to avoid this issue again.

DIY Babyfood

I have always wanted to make my own baby food but never realized how EASY it actually was to make! In reality, it takes me less time to make several meals for my baby than it does to make one meal for myself and my husband. I love being able to choose fresh, organic, in season, fruits and vegetables straight off the farm for my baby's food and it is great knowing exactly what is going into her meals. Other benefits include low cost, a wide variety of options, its healthy and it is environmentally friendly.  All you need is a good blender, some nice produce, and a stove/microwave/steamer and you're ready to go!

Here is my list of go-to baby food recipes that I always have stocked up in my freezer (I often make double or triple batches to really stock up!):

Spinach, Peas and Pear

• Blend together 2 cups steamed spinach, 2 cups cooked peas, 2 cups steamed pears

Pumpkin Applesauce 

• Equal parts pumpkin (I often use canned pumpkin) and unsweetened organic store bought (or homemade) applesauce. Blend and season with cinnamon and ginger (as tolerated by your child)

Plums

• Steamed and blended (great for when baby needs a little extra help pooping!)

Potato Squash Stew

• Steam and blend together 3 small yellow potatoes, 1 sweet potato, 1 butternut squash

Green Baby

• Blend 1 cup steamed green beans, 1 cup steamed broccoli, 1 cup sauteed kale (I usually sautee in olive oil) and 3 ripe bananas

Bananas

• Blended and frozen (they will turn brown in the freezer but they still taste fine!). Great to mix with oatmeal.

Eat your Greens Puree

• Steam and blend together 1/2 cup of the following: sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, broccoli, peas

Carrots and Cauliflower

• Steam and blend together 1 cup of carrots and 1 1/2 cups of cauliflower 

Pears

• Steamed and blended (keep the peels on for more nutritional value if you have a good blender!). This is another great fruit to mix with oatmeal!

Sweet Potatoes

• Steam sweet potatoes. Blend with 1 tsp cinnamon per sweet potato.

Banana Berry Quinoa

• Blend together 1 whole banana, 1 cup of berries and 1 cup of cooked quinoa

Homemade applesauce

• Blend together 8-10 apples. My favorite types of apples to use are Macintosh for a less sweet sauce or Jona Gold or Ginger Gold for a sweeter sauce. Add cinnamon to taste.

Other tips for DIY baby food

I always leave peelings on all fruits and vegetables (except sweet potatoes and butternut squash) for added nutritional value. Also a huge time saver!

Need more time savers? Buy pre-cut, frozen or canned fruits and veggies (check the labels for additives that you may want to avoid though). Some frozen veggies can even be microwaved in the bag they come in for fewer dirty dishes!

During the cooking process, some of the vitamins and nutritional value transfers from the fruits and veggies into the water they are being cooked in. In order to add that nutritional value back in, I pour some or all of the water that that they were cooked in into the blender with the fruits and veggies (to desired consistency).

I taste all of my recipes and make sure I would be willing to eat them. Some of them are not my first choice for food but I want to be sure I am not forcing her to eat foods that I find disgusting. This isn't a big deal to some people but in doing this, I have found that I have never given my daughter a food that she doesn't like!

I freeze the food in silicone ice cube trays from Walmart that are "double cubes." When we first started solids, I filled up the trays half way for smaller portion sizes but now at 7 months, she eats a full "double cube" for each meal. After the cubes are frozen, I store them in ziploc freezer bags. I prefer the kind with the pull zipper on it as opposed to the traditional snap zip. 

When heating up the cubes to eat, I put them in the microwave in little pyrex containers (I have a thing about avoiding plastic in the microwave). I heat them for 20 seconds the first time, then stir/mash it up and then continue to heat and stir in 10-15 second increments until it is heated evenly to the desired temperature.

Happy Freezing!