10 Baby Registry Tips

So you are getting ready for your little ones arrival and are so excited to create your baby registry for all the fun things (and some necessities) that go with having a baby. That is, until you get to the store and are completely overwhelmed by the registry process! Here are some tips to help you through the mess!

1. Check other people's online registries - Go ahead, type in a generic last name into the registry search and see what other people have registered for. You may find things that you are completely missing! Look for baby registries where the baby has not been born yet as many people change their registries after the baby is born and eliminate items they already have.

2. Ask other moms what they found to be "must haves"- Other moms already went through it and can tell you what worked for them and what didn’t. This doesn't mean you need to register for everything they loved, but it will get your mind thinking!

3. Do not register for blankets- Unless there is a blanket you absolutely MUST have, do not register for cute blankets. People love to give baby blankets (without receipts) and you will end up with so many you won't know what to do with them. Of course, this does not apply to things like basic receiving blankets.

4. Do not register for large packs of bottles- Every baby is different and yours may not like the bottles in that family pack you registered for…now that they have been opened and used, you cannot return them! Register for small packages of 1 or 3 bottles.

5. Limit the amount of small toys and rattles you register for - These are another item that people love to just throw in with the gift, and you will end up with a lot of them!

6. Keep the gift receipts for EVERYTHING- Tape the gift receipts to everything, and resist the temptation to take everything out of the package. Wait until after your baby is born to open packages of non-essentials since you may want to return them. We did this and were so happy that we did. We ended up returning a lot after the baby was born!

7. Use the registry guide you get at the store as "suggestions" - Stores want to make money off of you so often you do not need as many of the items they suggest you need. When in doubt ask another mom!

8. Register for items that fit into a variety of price ranges - Many people cannot afford or will not want to pay for only larger priced items. That set of 4 burp rags with the adorable designs may look really cute, but for $30 it may be the only gift you get from someone. Perhaps a better option is to get the cloth diapers and use them as burp rags. Half the price for twice the rags, and a single person could afford to buy you more essentials.

9. Register for items you will need down the road - If you only register for newborn items, you may find yourself without the items you need within a few months of the birth. Clothing for past 0-3 months is a good option. Everyone likes to buy the small baby clothes so chances are you will get quite a bit of newborn or 0-3 month clothing as gifts when the baby arrives.

10. Stay gender neutral with bigger items - That is, unless you only want one child. Most people only have 1 baby shower. If you register for everything in pink, and you have a boy next, you may need to repurchase all of those big items so your little boy does not have to sleep in a pink crib or travel in a pink car seat.

Registering for a baby can be overwhelming, so don’t feel obligated to do it all at once. Take advantage of the online registries so you can alter your registry as you change your mind or decide on bigger items. Feel free to post comments with your own registry tips! The more the merrier!

Pregnancy - The Dreaded Weight Gain

If you are like me, you are having or had a hard time watching the weight pile on during your pregnancy. Pregnancy weight gain is dreaded and welcomed all at the same time. Gaining weight during your pregnancy is necessary in most cases, even though it is hard to watch that scale move up! The average woman is supposed to gain 25-35 pounds, while underweight women are supposed to gain 28-40 and overweight women should gain less than 25 pounds. This is all information I was given during doctor visits. I found it comforting to keep a few things in mind:

1. Your body needs to gain the weight for a healthy baby. If you starve yourself, you are also starving the baby

2. You also need to gain the weight to keep you healthy during the pregnancy. Your body is giving your baby all the good stuff, leaving you the scraps. Eating a little extra is helping you get the nutrients you need as well

3. Don't feel like you need to rush to loose the weight after the baby is born. It took nine months to put it on, give yourself nine months to take it off!

Now I had a really hard time keeping the weight down, but I did find some things that helped

• Drink a lot of water. More often than not I was thirsty and not hungry


• Give in to your cravings. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but it makes sense. If you try and avoid them, you will eat other things in hopes that it will go away, and end up eating twice as much until you finally get what you really wanted.


• Portion control! Take the amount you think you want to eat and then eliminate half. If you are still hungry, wait 20 minutes and drink a glass of water.


• Snack all day. eating small meals and healthy snacks throughout the day helps keep your blood sugar regulated and may help control cravings. Plus, for me it helped with the morning sickness


• Exercise! Prenatal exercise is not only good for you and your weight, but it is good for the baby too. I loved prenatal yoga and walking. Swimming and water aerobics are also good pregnancy activities. Just make sure to consult your doctor first

Remember that though it is hard to watch the scale go up, it is probably the best thing for your baby. Your body will gain what it needs to for you to carry that baby. Just make sure you don't over do it!

Pumping at Work - Getting a Let Down When You Pump

While I was pumping at work, it dawned on me that I should write a post about it since I have been getting quite a few questions about it lately. Mainly about having a let down while pumping at work. Let me first say that I do not like to pump at work, nor do I like to pump when I am not at work. It is nowhere near as enjoyable as nursing my child directly. It just feels so impersonal and honestly I feel a little like a cow. However, I want to give my daughter as much breast milk as I can, therefore I pump. Here is an answer to one of the most frequently asked questions that I get..."How do you have a let down every time you pump?". Mind you I am NOT a doctor or a lactation consultant, these are just things that I have found that work.

How do you get a let down?

I often hear that women have problems letting down when they pump,and why wouldn't you? You are alone and the pump is not comforting or enjoyable. Here are some things I do:

• Pump both breasts at the same time - for some reason this works great for me, and I let down a lot easier than if I pump only one breast at a time.


• Use the "let down function" - a wise woman mentioned this to me and I had no clue what she was talking about. I was desperately looking for a button that said "let down" on it somewhere, but it doesn't exist. It simply means turn the pump off for a couple seconds and turn it back on while you are pumping. This does help sometimes but it doesn't always work for me.


• Twirl your nipple between your thumb and pointer finger - sometimes this takes a little bit, but it usually works for me. I keep the pump going on one side, remove the other side and twirl my nipple and this usually helps. when I feel a let down, I put the shield and bottle back on to keep pumping.


• Look at a picture or think about your baby - Sometimes it is mind over matter! I have also heard that something that smells like your baby works well too. Try a baby lotion or a blanket of theirs. It sounds weird, but it helps!

Planet Wise Wet Bag

As my first product review, I am really excited to talk about the Planet Wise Wet Bag.

The first thing that attracted me to these Planet Wise Wet Bags were their designs. I fell in love with the aqua swirl immediately and couldn't wait to own something with that pattern on it. After the initial "love at first site" from the pattern, I did some research and read the reviews. The reviews on these Planet Wise Wet Bags are great. I knew I needed to get one. Another bonus was that these bags are so cute that even when I don't need one for my kids, I can use it as a stylish way to handle all of my wet items, cosmetics, dirty laundry, garbage or basically anything wet/stinky/ or possibly messy. I even used mine to hold my shampoo and other hair products when I went on vacation. Thank goodness I did! My shampoo got squished in my luggage and leaked all over, but the leak stayed in the bag.


The bag is great for holding and transporting anything dirty or wet. Not only is it great for diapers (the bag hides the smell very well), but the bag was great for those lovely blow outs. My daughter can blow out of anything and we often need a place to store her soiled clothes until we could get them into the laundy. These bags are perfect for that. I got the small bag which holds 4-6 diapers. I also now know that it can hold about 4 onsies. They do offer a medium and large size which I will upgrade to when I re-purchase one.

According to Plant Wise, you can fill these bags with water, zip them up and squeeze them and no water will come out. Of course I had to try it and I was pleasantly surprised that they didn't leak a bit! I should have figured after my shampoo fiasco that they wouldn't. Even if you have wet yucky mess inside these bags, they are so easy to clean. I just throw mine in with the laundy and let them air dry.

The bags are very reasonably priced at about $10 - $20 depending on the size. However, consider the earth friendliness of not wasting plastic bags and the cost associated with using zip lock bags. These bags seem like a steal. Not to mention they seem durable enough to last years.

I can't wait to buy another one! I have noticed, however, that they have a wet/dry combo bag that has two compartments. One for dry items and one for wet items...I may have to give this newer version a try and see how it stacks up!

Postpartum Grieving..The Delivery That Didn't Go As Planned

You just had a baby! You should be totally 100% in love and happy right? Think again. Sometimes your birth does not go as expected and you go through a grieving process. Sounds a little crazy at first, but it is the case for many women. I went through a grieving process after my daughter was born.

I was 22 weeks pregnant and my baby was breech. They told me not to worry about it yet, but of course I knew at that point, the baby wasn't going to flip. At 32 weeks pregnant they still told me I had time for her to flip. I still knew at that point she wouldn't, but some small part of me believed that if I tried hard enough and prayed hard enough she would. I tried everything to flip her, from holding a flashlight on my belly, to doing handstands in the pool to putting headphones on my stomach. Nothing worked. I went into labor shortly after 37 weeks and delivered a beautiful, healthy baby girl via c-section.

It sounds like things weren't bad right? I should have been happy that my baby was delivered safely and that she was healthy. The problem is, that the entire time I was pregnant and before I was pregnant, I was hoping for a medication-free natural delivery. I felt like it was something as a woman that my body should have been able to do. I went through a grieving process getting used to the idea that my birth was not how I had always imagined it. I was saddened at the idea that my husband did not get to participate the way he wanted and that he didn't get to cut the cord. There were a lot of things that I had set in my mind that would happen that didn't, and there was a part of me that was crushed because of it. Shortly after she was born, I was fine, but the coming weeks I felt ashamed and disappointed. I had to go through a grieving process to let go of what I thought should have happened.

I thought I was crazy being so upset about how things happened. I didn't even talk to my husband because he just kept saying "all that matters is that you and the baby came out of it healthy". Finally I talked to some girls in an online forum I belong to and learned that I was not alone. Many women went through the same feelings and post birth grieving process for different reasons. Some just imagined that the delivery would go a different way, some were traumatized by what had happened, and some just had a bad experience. There were even some women who were just like me, and some women who thought that their baby would come out and they would automatically fall in love. Sometimes that is not the case, and there is nothing wrong with that. Many of us just had to go through a post birth grieving process to get over what had disappointed us or what had gone a different way that we had imagined. Sometimes when you have a vivid idea of what is going to happen, and it doesn't happen that way, it is a huge let down.

Through the grieving process I learned that having a c-section does not make me less of a woman than a woman who delivered vaginally. THAT was my issue. I felt like less of a woman. My grief went deeper than just being sad about a c-section. It also helped me greatly to talk about it. Some people don't understand so don't be surprised if you get some weird looks or strange comments. Find a support group online or in person and talk about it.

Regardless it is completely normal to go through, though it isn't talked about often. It could however, be a sign of postpartum depression if it doesn't get better after 2 weeks of having your baby.

My best advice is to throw out the birth plan and take it as it comes. Of course make sure that anything you have strong feelings about is understood and known by your partner. Try to enjoy your birth for what it is and talk about it if it makes you sad.

My Mother-In-Law is Driving Me Nuts!

We all have those days when we want to scream this from the top of a mountain. I am sure we have all said this a few times...or more. Maybe it isn't your mother-in-law, maybe you want to scream that your mom, aunt, sister, or friend is driving you crazy. Today we are going to focus on in-laws...mother-in-laws specifically. Our in-laws as well as others sometimes get too involved too in our parenting or have too much input and it can drive you nuts! Often it is the mother-in-law that really drives you crazy. I think this stems from the relationship with a mother-in-law. You just aren't as comfortable or as close as you are to your own mother. You can't just tell them to stop intruding without hurting their feelings. This seems to be much easier with your own mother. But really, letting them get to you can make you feel like less of a parent or a bad parent. You should not feel like either. You are the best person to parent your own child.

There is nothing that makes you feel less like a good parent than having your mother or mother in law critique your parenting. Not to mention it drives you nuts and can put a major strain on your relationship.

We have all been there…"Are you going to put her in THAT?", "It is too cold for her", "are you sure you want to do it that way?". We have all heard it at one time or another, and this is one of my biggest pet peeves. Moms are always going to be moms, and they feel like they can step in at any time with their input. It may not even be your mom or mother-in-law. It turns out that when you are trying to get pregnant, are pregnant, or have a baby, everyone has input and opinions.

Here are some ways to handle the dreaded opinions and inputs.

1. Listen to what they say, but do what you want. Hear the person out, but it doesn't mean you need to do it. Sometimes getting defensive causes more problems or refuting what they have to say causes conflict and sometimes additional stress that you don't need.

2. Tell them that you appreciate their advice, but that you have your own ideas about how you would like to do things. Mothers and Mother-in-Laws need to respect that you need to experience your life the way you want to.

Sometimes these things don't work, or you are so offended that you snap. Try to breathe and think before you speak. There are many times that if I said what I was actually thinking, I would have hurt my relationship with my Mother-in-law or the person giving me advice. I am one to listen to what they say but do what I want. I allow them to chatter all they want and then do as I please. After all, a mother knows what is best for her own child. Remember to trust your instincts and your feelings, and try to ignore those nagging comments that cause stress in your life.

Getting Pregnant...Relax!

I am not a doctor but I know that your body will not allow you to become pregnant if it cannot physically handle it. I know many women who have had a very hard time getting pregnant and when they stopped thinking about it and gave up, they concieved. Stressing out about becoming pregnant can cause your body to prevent itself from being pregnant. So my advice...relax, don't think about it and just have sex because you love your significant other, not just to make a baby.

Another basic thing that can prevent pregnancy is being overweight. Think about this. When you get pregnant your body focuses all of its efforts on taking care of your growing baby. This takes away from your health. Often, if your body is working extra hard because you have a few extra pounds, it can't focus on growing a baby. Sometimes you just need to loose a little extra weight and poof you become pregnant!

Of course this isn't the case for all women. These are just a couple things that can help. Doing these things doesn't guarantee a baby (nothing does, which yes, sucks). These are just a couple things that I have learned over the years that seem to work for friends and friends of friends. So relax, be healthy and happy baby making!