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8/31/2015

About Rolling Over

Last Wednesday, I laid Jacob on the couch next to me so he could stretch out for a minute or two. I was shocked that he decided to try rolling to the side. I don't know where the heck that came from, but he ended up rolling from his back onto his side, almost all the way over. His one hand would get stuck underneath him and keep him from rolling all the way over.

Since then, any time I put him on his back on the floor, he would try rolling over.

On Friday, he got it. He rolled from back to tummy and back again.

Friday night, he tried to do that in his sleep. His arm got stuck underneath him and he got smooshed against the side of the crib. He wasn't happy about that, and he let us know it.

I wasn't happy, either, because I didn't sleep and spent most of the night peeking at the video monitor. I think my husband and I each got up 2 or 3 times to roll the kid back over.

On Saturday, he rolled from tummy to back. Just like being able to hold his head up, I'm not sure where these skills came from!

I was worried about what was going to happen when we put him in the crib Saturday night. I didn't want him rolling over and getting stuck. I figure once he's strong enough to roll back and forth and get himself UN-stuck, he'll be just fine, but in the meantime, he's been sleeping really well, and I don't want him rolling around and waking himself up.

I was Googling baby sleep positioners, searching for things on Amazon, and looking for ideas on Pinterest to see if there was anything we could put in the crib that would be deemed safe for him. A lot of the stuff seemed to be for little newborn babies, and at 24 inches and around 14 or 15 pounds, he's not exactly little. Then there are tons of products to help keep your toddler from rolling out of their bed, but those were all way too big and not appropriate for the crib.

I decided to get creative. I took a blanket and rolled it long-ways and stuck it under the crib sheet at the front edge of the crib mattress, in the direction that he always rolls. It created a little bump, which would probably cushion him if he rolled into the side of the crib again, but it wasn't going to keep him from rolling over. I was looking at his sheets and blankets trying to see what else I could do, and I came across a fleece blanket that someone had given him. It was all folded and rolled up and secured tightly in plastic. I stuck THAT under the sheet near the edge of the mattress and it created a perfect bumper to keep him from rolling over. For the past couple nights, it's worked great!!! WHEW!

I guess the next thing we need to worry about is crawling. Seems like all of a sudden, he's not wasting any time with these milestones!

8/27/2015

About Tummy Time

When Jacob started teething, I laid off the tummy time for a few days because I was afraid he'd smoosh his face into the ground and it would hurt. After teething symptoms subsided a little, I figured we'd better get back at it because he still seemed like was struggling to hold his head up for more than a few seconds at a time.

I don't know what happened on those few days off, but when he went down on his tummy recently, his head shot straight up, and he held it up for at least a minute. Every time he's been on his tummy since, his head has been up longer and longer. He turns his head and looks to both sides and smiles and laughs while he's on his tummy.

It's like he turned three months old and BOOM! He gained head control overnight!

8/26/2015

About Gas

Jacob is impossible to burp.

When we first brought him home, I was breastfeeding. I would try to burp him whenever I switched sides, but I never got anything. I was reassured to read that breastfed babies sometimes don't burp because they're less likely to suck in air. I figured maybe that was why he never burped.

We switched to formula after about a month. He STILL doesn't really burp. We try different positions. We put him on our shoulder and we sit him on our lap and pat his back that way. Most of the time, if we get a good burp, it's completely accidental. It'll be when I lift him up to put him on my shoulder - before I even pat his back. Or maybe I lean him forward (or backward) just enough and a burp squeezes out that way. Sometimes he'll burp two hours after a feeding!

He doesn't burp, but he farts a lot. I guess maybe as long as the gas gets out SOMEHOW, we're okay, right?

8/24/2015

About Amazon

I'm addicted to online shopping. UPS and FedEx are at our house every other day dropping off boxes. We've been Amazon Prime members for I don't know how long, but let me tell you what a lifesaver Amazon has been since having a kid.

When we got home from the hospital, we realized we didn't have a Diaper Genie or a special diaper garbage can. Ordered not one, but TWO, on Amazon. One for upstairs and one for downstairs. We ordered a white noise machine. We order giant boxes of diapers. Every once in awhile we'll order gas drops or gripe water. We've done "Subscribe and Save" for Jacob's formula. When Jacob started eating 6 oz. formula at each feeding, I ordered an extra set of bigger bottles. When Jacob started teething, I got on there and ordered a bunch of teething toys that would arrive the next day.

We used Amazon for our baby registry, too. (My family is big on Amazon wish lists and stuff, so the baby registry is now like the baby Christmas list!) I didn't realize there was an option (maybe it's new) to get people's advice/suggestions for stuff on your registry. My brother actually invited me to give him advice on THEIR baby registry. The way it works is, if I see an item that I think they should have on their registry, I can "add" it to their registry with an explanation why. I guess he then gets a notification that I've suggested something, and he can decide whether or not to add it. It's pretty cool. Now if there's something that I add to the registry or something that I buy/like, I can suggest that they add it to their registry, too!

We've also given Amazon Prime Pantry a whirl. When my in-laws moved from Florida to Virginia, I filled a Pantry box with cleaning supplies and snacks and sent it to them so that they'd have that stuff handy when they moved in to their new place. Shipping the box was free because I did it on Amazon Prime Day, but they were so bogged down with orders that they ended up giving me a credit for free shipping on my next Pantry box. I decided to do one for us.

I filled it with dry stuff like rice, pasta, and snacks, and also some cleaning stuff like Clorox wipes and Febreze. I figured it was an easy way to stock up on things that we always have around the house.When the box arrived, we realized that the Febreze bottle had cracked and leaked onto a few of the boxes of food. Those got tossed immediately and I contacted Amazon to tell them what happened. I listed all of the items that had been damaged (the Febreze, a couple boxes of rice and pasta) and was told that I'd get a refund for the first item that I reported as damaged - the Febreze. When I tried to report the other stuff, customer services asked me to send an e-mail explaining what happened. I did just that, and ended up getting the entire box ($160!) refunded. I'm guessing they probably saw how much stuff I order and realized I wasn't trying to scam them or something.

I might try it again sometime, but I think I'll just stick to food. No cleaning supplies in the order.

About Being A Mom

Am I ever going to relax again? I feel like I've become a jumbled ball of nerves since Jacob was born. I worry about everything.

Is he eating enough?
Is he sleeping enough?
Is he teething or is he sick?
Is he getting enough tummy time?
Why does this kid hardly ever burp?!

Those are just a few of the little things. Then there are the big things.

What kind of a student will he be, and will he like learning?
What will this world be like when he gets older?
What will I do when he's too big to hold my hand?
What will I do the first time I see him holding a girl's hand?!
Will he be the kind of kid who can come to his mom and tell her anything? God, I hope so.

But the thing is, I'm not a stressed-out, sleep-deprived new mom. We've pretty much gotten ourselves into an everyday routine. I'm not scrambling to get things done. The house looks halfway decent, although the floors need to be swept and the dishwasher hasn't been emptied yet today. We're pretty current on laundry. My husband, and sometimes all three of us, go to the grocery store every week. We eat decently. We all make it out of the house and go to the mall or out to lunch or dinner. I've gone out to get a pedicure and to get my hair cut. We even spent an afternoon with Jacob at a winery to celebrate a friend's birthday.

The thing is, for every book I've read or every topic I've Googled, I feel like I still don't know a damn thing, and that scares the crap out of me. I have so many questions and so many worries. I've always been indecisive by nature, and now I feel like I am incapable of making the simplest of decisions. "Should I make 5 ounces of formula or 6?"

But what I've come to realize and accept is that I didn't just turn into a jumbled ball of nerves when Jacob was born. I turned into a mom. I could never have guessed what being a mom must feel like until I became one myself. I don't know if I will ever be able to adequately explain it.

One night, I was holding Jacob in our bed, and he fell asleep in my arms. My husband asked me if I wanted him to take him and put him down for the night. I wasn't ready. I was happy to just hold him, even though my arms were getting tired and I had slouched down awkwardly on the pillows and could no longer feel my tailbone. And then the tears started to fall, for no reason other than the sweet pleasure that is holding our beautiful baby in my arms. He's still only just a little baby, but he's already grown and changed so much. I feel like time is flying by already, and I'm desperately worried that if I blink, I'll miss something.

Being Jacob's mom is my #1 job, and I want to do my job well, so of course I'm going to worry. I guess it just comes with the territory.

About The Arsenic Hour

Sometime back in June, when Jacob was only a couple weeks old, I had a friend come over to visit and meet him. She left around 4 p.m. and it seemed like Jacob went bonkers after she left. He was awake from 4-8 and cried off and on, no matter how we tried to soothe him. It was the strangest thing, and it was flat out exhausting. I thought maybe he'd gotten overexcited from having someone new holding him and talking to him.

And then it happened the next day. And the next day after that. It was as if, at 4 o'clock on the dot, Jacob would go nuts. Nothing would calm him down. No amount of rocking, bouncing, shushing, white noise, singing, vibrations, holding, swaddling... Nothing!

Some friends stopped by to drop off gifts and we explained it to them. "Ahh... The witching hour. Yeah, our girls were like that." I was shocked that someone else had the same weird experience. "They cry like crazy and there's nothing you can do."

Holy crap, yes! That's exactly what was happening!

We were out walking Jacob early one evening and ran into some other friends. We explained that it was "crazy baby hour" so we were taking Jacob out on a walk in the hopes of getting him to chill out. They made reference to the witching hour, too. I couldn't believe this was really a thing!

A coworker also knew exactly what I was talking about when I said that Jacob was crazy in the afternoon/early evening. She called it the witching hour, too. It was such a relief to know that other parents knew what the heck we were dealing with... but, man, was it still stressful! I would dread when the clock would strike 4, knowing that we were in for a few solid hours of fussy, cranky baby. 

I went to my OB for a postpartum checkup and took Jacob with me. It was midmorning, so he was asleep in his car seat for the whole appointment. The doctor looked at him and said, "I bet he sleeps like an angel all the time, doesn't he?" 

"Not from 4 - 8 p.m.," I replied.

"Ahhhh. The arsenic hour," the doctor said.

Hold up. REALLY?! THIS IS REALLY FOR REAL A THING? (It is totally for real. Google it. You know I Googled it like crazy after hearing about it so often.)

The doctor went on to explain that they called it the 'arsenic hour' back in the day because kids would be so cranky the parents would consider giving them arsenic to poison them or something. Then, like other parents and friends had done, she reassured me that there's really nothing you can do. It turns out that it's just a phase that some newborns go through. This knowledge made it slightly easier to deal with, but it's still rough knowing that no matter what you try, your kid's probably not going to calm down, at least not for awhile. 

The good news is, it does eventually get better. I think it only lasted a couple weeks. I guess Jacob eventually outgrew it. But man, it was a rough couple weeks!

8/23/2015

About Our Baby Monitor

We registered for and received the iBaby video monitor. My husband and I liked the idea of something that was compatible with our phones and iPads. A cool feature of the device is that with the app, you can invite other users to log on and view the baby as well. We thought this would be great for both sets of grandparents! We loaded the app on their devices and although both sets of grandparents have tuned in to watch Jacob, my dad is a devoted follower, sometimes letting me know how many times Jacob almost rolled over or how many times he turned himself around in circles in the crib. I think my dad might even watch Jacob more than he watches Fox News. ;) 

Jacob's room is right across the hall, so it's not like we can't hear him snoring and kicking his feet when he sleeps. The video monitor is nice, though, because it lets me peek and see if he's just making noise or if he's actually awake. Sometimes he'll cry out, and then by the time I pull the monitor app up on my phone, he's passed out. 

The camera is easy to navigate for a full 360 degrees around the room, although we just keep it fixed on the crib from its spot on the shelf nearby.

There's a night vision option as well, so we don't have any problem seeing him on the monitor day or night. The only thing that worries me about it is that when I've walked into his pitch-black room in the middle of the night, there are tiny reddish-colored lights that flicker and blink on the bottom of the camera like crazy. I'm assuming they have something to do with the night vision. I'm not crazy about that because I wonder what that looks like to Jacob when he wakes up in the middle of the night, and also, I wonder if those little tiny flashy lights in his dark, dark room will affect his vision, as studies on night lights have shown.

The monitor comes with options to listen, which is good for when Jacob is rolling around and we can't quite see his face to tell if he's awake. Then there are options to play music and to speak into the room. We haven't used those, and most likely probably never will. 

Although there are controls for the music, the one time it came on (before Jacob was born, when my dad was messing around with the app after we installed it on his iPad) I happened to be in the nursery and it came BLASTING on, full volume. No thanks. Same with the speaking into the room. Not sure why you'd want to talk to your baby when he's sleeping or almost asleep? My dad accidentally turned it on when he was trying to listen to Jacob grunt and babble in his sleep. I knew it was him because I could hear the TV blaring in the background. From my parents' house. In Florida. He's been warned that if it happens again, his viewing privileges will be revoked. ;)

About Sleeping Through The Night

Jacob has been doing a pretty good job sleeping through the night, anywhere from 6-8 hours of sleep at a time... But a few days before this whole teething mess started (or whatever we have going on?! Now I can't see teeth?!) he started waking up at 3 a.m. again. Not really a big deal, at least we only have to get up once.

And then, out of the blue, he slept all night again. We've been concerned the past few days because he hasn't been eating as much. Our doctor's office told me that it's probably uncomfortable, so he might refuse food until he gets hungry enough. But if he doesn't eat well during the day... He probably won't sleep well at night.

The past two nights, he's had way less formula than normal, but he's still slept almost 9 hours! We don't know if he's so exhausted from not feeling well or if it had something to do with us sleeping with the windows open, or what. Can't figure it out. Who knows? Who knows if it'll happen again tonight? We're just taking it one night at a time!

8/19/2015

About Teething - an update

It's official. Our little man is teething. He's spent the past couple days being cranky and pushing his bottle away. Not eating as much = not sleeping as much at night, so we were getting a little concerned.

I put in a call to the nurse's line at our pediatrician's office and was told that it most definitely sounds like he's teething. The nurse said to keep rubbing his gums with gauze or a cold cloth and to try giving him chilled teething rings. The poor kid has like zero hand-eye coordination, so he doesn't quite know what to do with many of his toys, let alone a teething ring. She also suggested Hyland's Teething Tablets, which my husband ran out to buy. We've used them twice. I can't tell if they're working or not yet. It's hard to say.

Earlier, I was rubbing Jacob's gums with a washcloth dipped in ice water. He was actually letting me do it for a good while and then all of a sudden, enough was enough. He started crying and couldn't be consoled. My husband held him, we put him in his chair, we put him in his swing, we changed speeds, we changed the amount of vibration, I held him...

And in the middle of all of his screaming, I looked in his mouth and saw not one, but two, white spots on his bottom gum. There's the one I had seen originally, and to the left of it, there's now a second white spot. I don't know if my rubbing his gums loosened up the second spot or what, but he wasn't happy about it.

So, it looks like he has not one, but TWO teeth on the way.

8/17/2015

About Teething

This CAN'T be happening already. He's only 2 1/2 months old.

For the past couple weeks, Jacob has been drooling like crazy. He's also discovered his hands, so it's fun to watch him stare so intensely at his fingers linking together. And then those hands inevitably end up in his mouth. Not just a finger or his thumb - his whole fist. It's crazy.

I know that excessive drooling can be a sign of teething and figured he was just curious about his hands... But last night, while I was changing his diaper, I thought I caught a glimpse of something white  on his bottom gum, near the center. It had been a couple hours since his last bottle so I didn't think it was milk or anything. I just thought I was imagining things.

Then my husband saw it. 

Then things started adding up. The drool. Eating his hands. Plus other things that I hadn't considered at first: waking up at 3 am when he'd previously been sleeping 6-8 hours at a time. Not finishing a bottle, which was a recent (just yesterday!) development. The kid who had been previously sucking down 6 oz at every bottle was now stopping after 3 or 4 to fuss and eat his hands.

This morning, I checked Jacob's mouth: white spot still there. I don't feel anything poking up, and the gums just feel like... Gums. ??? I don't really know what I'm feeling for there.

Needless to say, this mama just got on Amazon and ordered every teething ring and toy possible that can get here tonight!!!!


8/12/2015

About Growth Spurts

When Jacob was a week old, we had a night that really threw us for a loop. He would not calm down or be consoled, no matter what we tried. He started fussing and crying around nine o'clock and kept going off and on until about two or three in the morning. It was exhausting for us because he just would not stop. And it was exhausting for him because he barely slept at all during that time.

We tried everything we could to calm him down and stay calm ourselves. We tried holding him. Nursing him. Burping him. Checking his diaper. Swaddling him. Putting him in his little chair with the vibrations. Nursing him again. Putting him in his swing. Holding him again. Walking him around. Singing.

At one point, I thought I had him finally settled. My husband came up to me, sitting in our big chair in the living room, and asked me what I'd done. I'd tearfully sung the only song I could think of and remember the words to at two o'clock in the morning. The ABCs. And I probably sung the song twenty times before Jacob finally settled down in my arms.

Of course, a few minutes later, he started wailing all over again.

My husband wanted to give me a break so he decided to try taking Jacob outside. He seemed to like all of the outside noise - the breeze in the tree limbs overhead, the hum of the bugs. I walked around the patio singing to him. My husband held him in his arms. That didn't work, either, and we definitely didn't want to wake the neighbors with a crying baby outside in the middle of the night.

To get back inside, my husband had to carry Jacob through the laundry room. Before he made it all the way into the house, Jacob's crying stopped. My husband and I both froze in our tracks. We realized immediately what it was.

The sound of our HVAC. It was like a giant white noise machine. So my husband did two things. One, he got Jacob's little chair, propped it on top of the washing machine, and hung out with him in the laundry room while he slept. Then, first thing in the morning, he ordered a white noise machine on Amazon and paid extra for same-day delivery.

The following day, Jacob slept a lot (we figured he was probably exhausted) and things returned to normal. In the meantime, I got on my iPad and started Googling. Come to find out... it was probably his one week growth spurt. It was the only thing that would explain why our previously super-calm baby had gone all Jekyll and Hyde on us.

All of my Google research said that babies commonly have growth spurts around 1 week, 3 weeks, and 6 weeks... And I'll be damned if we haven't had the same kind of experience with Jacob right on the dot for each one. They haven't been as bad as the first one, because at least we have kind of known when to look out for them. I guess our next one is probably going to be around 12 weeks, which means it's just around the corner!

Has your little one had a rough time with growth spurts? What have your experiences been like?


About Hand-Me-Downs

If I have learned anything during these past few months, it is that friends and fellow new parents are extremely generous. I am super grateful for the friends that have given us gifts, whether they are brand new items or things that they are handing down. From his clothes to his bassinet, a lot of Jacob's stuff has been previously used by friends, and I'm cool with that!

I already posted about baby clothes and how Jacob is already in 6 month stuff. He's grown so fast that there are some onesies that he's worn once... (Is that why they're called onesies?! Kidding. Kind of.) He's had some clothes that he sadly didn't get to wear at all.

But, in the great good karma circle that is new parenthood, I've handed the small stuff down to a coworker who's due in August and my brother and sister in law who are expecting their baby in January. I've also set aside a pile of stuff to give to a cousin who just had her baby a couple weeks ago.

It amazes me how kind everybody has been, and how much stuff we've received. I have to pay it forward and keep the good karma going!

Have you accepted hand-me-downs from friends or family members? What's the best item that you've received?

8/11/2015

About Googling Everything

Things I have Googled since having a baby:

baby growth spurts
how to get baby to sleep through the night
baby milestones
tummy time strategies
how to stop breastfeeding
how much formula
baby vaccine side effects
transition baby from bassinet to crib
baby moves around crib
penile adhesion
baby growth spurts (again)


JUST STOP. Stop Googling. Don't Google another thing. You will find a million answers to whatever question you have. Some answers will support other answers, some answers are just straight-up copied and pasted from one site to another, and some answers will more than likely just plain scare the crap out of you. It's also highly possible that you'll come across the websites and mom forums that will make you wonder if you're doing things right, or will make you feel bad that there's something you're not doing.

Yes, I still have my copy of What To Expect The First Year, (and it has post-it notes, dogeared pages, and highlighted passages!) but at least I've stashed it in the nightstand where I can reference it when I need to, as opposed to leaving it on the coffee table like some kind of baby bible.

My point is, there's plenty of information out there... Just Google in moderation! What's the weirdest thing you've found yourself asking the Internet?

8/10/2015

About That Sweet Baby Smell

I love the smell of a new box of diapers. I love the Purex baby laundry detergent we use. I love the way Jacob smells after his bath. I have watched other people hold my baby, cuddle him, breathe deeply, and comment on his sweet new baby smell.

Welllllllll, you people haven't changed his diaper. I know this is obvious - poo stinks!

My husband and I were amused the other day when we discovered that Jacob's feet... Well... They smell like feet! They get kind of stinky.

Have you ever had a baby burp in your face? Yup, it stinks. Kind of an old warm milk smell. Bleggghkkk!

And Jacob gets sweaty! And sweat stinks! If he's been cuddled a lot or is playing on his back for a long time, the back of his head will get sweaty and leave little sweat prints on your shirt or his chair.

We'll have to make sure we have the deodorant talk early, I guess.

8/09/2015

About Poo Face

Pampers recently released a commercial about baby poo faces. In it, babies make adorable faces while apparently also making dirty diapers.


There is nothing adorable about Jacob's poo face, and I think he's a pretty cute kid.

He tenses up. He grunts. His face turns red. A vein darkens his forehead. It's almost like he's letting us know that Lord Voldemort is near.

It is freaking scary.

A lot of times, poo will happen during his first morning bottle. We've gotten pretty used to it. Jacob will start by getting distracted. The bottle will fall out of his mouth. Then his fists clench, his body tightens up, and he lets out a grunt and a series of the biggest old man-sounding farts possible. Plus, I think now that he only poops once or twice a day, his poos end up being ginormous. We've had a couple blowouts that no amount of wipes could handle and have ended up just giving Jacob a bath to get him cleaned up.

It is truly amazing how someone so cute can produce something so awful. More on diaper blowouts later. :/  Does your baby have any weird poo habits?


8/08/2015

About Baby Sleep Noises

Sometimes Jacob makes weird baby dinosaur cries in his sleep. I'll hear him make his sad pterodactyl roar and go to check on him, and he'll be out cold.

He snores sometimes, too. I didn't realize babies snore. I'm glad we didn't have him sleep in the same room with us for very long, because I either wouldn't be able to sleep due to his snoring... Or I'd be panicked if I didn't hear it and wonder if he was okay. Sometimes, rather than snoring, he'll make a strange panting noise in his sleep. Each little exhale comes with a weird sound.

Even across the hall in his bedroom, I can hear him grunt in his sleep. He also has a habit of spinning around in his crib in his sleep, so I guess maybe it's just him trying to get comfortable.

He also farts in his sleep. Not just little baby farts. Giant ones, that sometimes wake him up.

Is your baby noisy at night, or do you have a sound sleeper?

8/07/2015

About Baby Apps

We have three baby apps that we use frequently.

The first one is a white noise app. My husband and I have different versions of the same thing, but they both work pretty effectively. Most of the time, Jacob will nap without issue, but if he is super fussy and doesn't want to nap, one of us can whip out our phone and play our white noise app to get him to drift off to sleep. We both got ours free on the iPhone app store.

The second one is LifeCake. This is an awesome photo library app that sets up a timeline of your baby photos. As long as the photo was taken on your device, it will arrange the photos in chronological order and display the baby's age on each photo. It even works backwards if you add your pregnancy belly photos! I have pictures of my positive pregnancy test on up to current pictures of Jacob!

A neat feature of the LifeCake app is that you can invite other people, so my husband and I have one account and we can both add photos and videos. You can also invite people to view the photos, so all of the grandparents have access on their devices as well. This is great because the grandparents can check and see if new photos have been added whenever they want, and my husband and I don't have to blitz people's Facebook timelines with a bazillion photos of Jacob all at once.

The third app is called BabyConnect. We had to pay for this one, but it has been awesome. In the hospital, the nurses gave us a chart to keep track of time spent breastfeeding and wet and dirty diapers. Being the data freaks that my husband and I are, we got home and started using BabyConnect instead. Any time you change a diaper, you can log it on the app. You can even note the size, color, and consistency of the poo. You can time naps and overnight sleeps. You can track how much time is spent breastfeeding or how many ounces of formula your baby gets. All of this data shows up on a daily timeline so you can see just how your baby spends his day.

Don't know if we still need to keep track of diapers, but BabyConnect helps us to know how many ounces Jacob has had, because if he's had a full belly all day, he usually sleeps really well at night!

Do you have any baby apps that you've found to be really helpful?

8/06/2015

About Baby Clothes

When I announced that I was pregnant, everyone warned us not to buy a whole lot of newborn stuff. We really didn't. I think we bought one set of 5 newborn onesies because I was in love with the color combination (gray, teal, and orange) and one of the onesies said "Mommy's Little Guy."

We got lots of newborn and 0-3 month hand-me-downs and if we purchased anything, it was 3 months up or bigger. Our family and friends did the same.

Throughout my pregnancy, baby pretty much measured right where he was supposed to, until the end, when it seemed like he was packing on weight like crazy. Hubby was a big baby (almost ten pounds!) so I was afraid I was going to give birth to a dinosaur.

When it came time to pack our hospital bags, I wasn't sure what to take for Jacob. We had a set of onesies, but I knew that the little onesies wouldn't be good for his umbilical cord stump. We had an endless supply of side-snap t-shirts, but I kind of felt like he needed an "outfit" to come home in.

I settled on a couple sleep gowns in newborn and 0-3 month size, a newborn shirt and pair of pants, and a 0-3 month outfit with a side-snap shirt, a pair of pants, and a hat.

In the hospital, I noticed that one of the side-snap shirts that they had put Jacob in was a size 0-3 months. He ended up coming home in the 0-3 month shirt and hat. He lived in the 0-3 month side-snap shirts, and hubby and I couldn't wait for the stupid umbilical cord stump to fall off. We eventually started to stick him in some 3 month onesies because they were loose (but they still kind of rubbed on the umbilical cord stump) and we'd put him back in a side-snap shirt for nighttime because it made middle-of-the-night diaper changes a little easier. We just wanted him to start wearing some of the stuff that people had gotten him!

When the umbilical cord stump finally fell off (two weeks and one day!) we realized that the three month onesies were actually fitting Jacob pretty well. The 0-3 month onesies, in comparison, looked awfully small. Jacob ended up never even wearing any newborn or 0-3 month onesies. They all got passed on to someone else, or else I saved them so that my mom can make a onesie quilt.

I thought it was crazy that our two week old baby was wearing 3 month clothes, but a few weeks ago, we tried to put him in a 3 month onesie that he hadn't worn yet. We got it on, but couldn't snap the bottom! We ended up putting a pair of shorts on over it so that we could take him out, but that was the end of the three month onesies! So now, our two and a half month old is wearing 6 month size clothes!

What's really crazy is that, at around 13 and a half pounds, Jacob is only in the 67th percentile for weight, so it's not like he's a crazy huge baby. And, according to the Carter's size chart, he's in exactly the right size.


We prefer Carter's to Gerber stuff. Any Gerber stuff that we've had shrinks like crazy! Jacob wears a lot of Carter's 6 month stuff and Gap/Old Navy 3-6 month stuff and according to their size charts, that's what he should be in, even though the little (big?) guy is only two months old!

Do you have this problem with baby clothes?