From Denver to L.A. with Baby- Pt. 1

This year my husband and I decided to spend Christmas with his family in California.  We wanted to bring the new baby to meet them.  Having heard that air travel wasn’t healthy for so young a baby, we will drive the approximately 22 hours from Denver to Los Angeles.  Terrifying for a new momma, I can tell you that!  I looked all over the internet for blogs and vlogs about how to travel with a newborn (Alice is 10 weeks old), but while there is plenty of advice for flying with a baby, there was very little about long car rides.  So I thought I’d do a quick 2-part entry, the first of which being how I prepared for our 10-day trip, the second being how it went and what I’d do differently.

Packing for baby

I packed Alice in 3 categories: clothes, nursing supplies, and accessories.  Her clothes at home are simple.  When we go to work I almost always dress her in Sleep and Play style onsies.  They have sleeves and pants, footies are built in, and they’re easy to get her in and out of when she needs a new nappy.  I just don’t have time when we’re at work to keep track of a onsie, pants, shirt/sweater, socks, nappies… it’s too much.  So when we aren’t at work I get really excited to dress her in cute outfits.  I packed 1 outfit per day of the trip.  Each outfit got a onsie, pants, socks, and a shirt if needed, then got packed into its own Ziplock bag so I don’t have to go to all the trouble of putting it back together later.  She’ll sleep in sleep sacks with arms so I don’t have to pack jim jams and sleep sacks (or get her in and out of them for nighttime changing).  I did also bring one pair of special Christmas jim jams that make her look like a candy cane for Christmas morning, and she gets to wear a special dress to church on Christmas Eve.  Finally, of course, I added a bag of extra socks and hats, and I always have 2 extra outfits in the nappy bag, just in case.  All of this will go into her own backpack so I’m not digging through my stuff to get to hers.  I’ll be packing my Vera Bradley duffle for myself (I have an unhealthy obsession with Vera Bradley).

My nursing supplies are considerably more extensive than when I’m at home.  I exclusively breastfeed, only pumping when I need to be away from the baby for more than an hour.  Dan and I decided for the trip, however, that it would save us time if I pump on the road, then feed her with a bottle instead of stopping to nurse.  I’m bringing a car charger for my Ameda Purely Yours pump, a stack of microwave sterilization bags from Target, my bottle brush, and 2 bottles.  A friend recommended  Dr. Brown’s Natural Flow bottles with premie nipples for the car because she had success preventing gas with them for her boys.  No one wants a fussy, gassy baby for 22 hours!  The other nursing accessory that I’m unfortunately bringing is a Swaddle Designs muslin swaddle for covering up.  I much prefer to fight for the normalization of breastfeeding in public, but my husband is uncomfortable with it.  Sigh.  I’ll put away my crusade out of respect for him.  

The last miscellaneous things I think I’ll need are as follows:

• A Boppy pillow

This will serve multiple purposes.  I’ll use it for nursing, of course, but she’ll also spend tummy time on it during the day.  We don’t want to cart the bulky Pack and Play out there, so the baby will be sleeping with us.  We both fear rolling over on her, though, so we put her in the Boppy pillow between us for safekeeping!

• Toy

Alice is still too little to be really interested in toys, but she is starting to try to grab things.  We have a cool little webbed ball with rattles that she can get ahold of and enjoys that’s going into the diaper bag. 

 

• Nuks- self-explanatory

One more note.  We usually do cloth nappies for Alice, but my father-in-law only has coin laundry at his complex.  Dan decided, and I reluctantly agreed, that it would be too much of a pain to try to coordinate the cloth nappy laundry situation there, so we’re bringing some disposables that we received from the shower and buying more as needed on the road.

That’s it!  Maybe I’m over-packing, but I’m still afraid I’m forgetting something.  Oh well.  It’s not like they don’t have Target in California!  Do you have tips and tricks for car travel with Baby?  Am I totally off my rocker with this plan?  Leave me your comments!

Karate While Pregnant or "Knocked Up, Not Knocked Out!"

I am going to my first sparring class since last January.  At the time I had just earned my green belt, but I usually kept up pretty well. That night, however, my sparring partner expressed some concern.  As a brown belt, he always fought much better than me, but that night he was kicking my behind!  I was in the process of explaining that I felt fine, just tired, when my friend, Big Frank, called from across the floor, “I bet she’s pregnant!”

Mr. Karate and I had been “trying” for less than a month, so Frank’s teasing comment triggered my first suspicion that we had succeeded.  After all, who gets knocked up on the first try?!  Me.  The next morning I sat on the bathroom floor staring in shock at the stick; two pink lines stared back at me.  

My goal from the start was to continue training through the pregnancy.  I wanted to make sure both the baby and I stayed safe, so I made an appointment with my doctor.  She assured me that, as long as I listened to my body, it was safe for me to do anything I was doing before got pregnant.  Her advice:

• Drink plenty of water to support Baby’s growth and environment.
• Be very careful while stretching, as muscles, ligaments, and tendons become looser during pregnancy.
• Try to keep a heart rate of 140 or less to lower the risk of passing out.

Once I had her blessing, I jumped right back in!  Sort of.  I did experience a couple of challenges.  Morning sickness was, blessedly, not problematic for me on the whole, but I did find out quickly why “burpies” are so named.   My tailbone hurt almost right away, and I felt like I’d already run a marathon by the end of the day, so I struggled motivate myself to get to class.

Second trimester solved that problem.  My ability to effectively participate in all drills, forms, and combos returned with my energy.  Then third trimester hit.  I had separation of the rectus abdominus, so I couldn’t do any core or ab work.  Plantar fasciitis crippled my left foot.  My energy dropped back down to nothing, and I was just plain huge!  However, I had learned that consistent exercise could shorten labor to ten hours or less (it totally didn’t work for me, but more on that in a different post), so I dragged my gigantic butt to the dojo as often as I could.

My due date came and went, and I read and attempted the advice from every old wives’ tale I could find to start labor.  Nothing worked until I broke my water doing a kicking drill in karate.  I should have known!  I was proud of myself, though.  I can now brag that I did karate until the day I went into labor!

Did you train while you were pregnant?  How did you do?  Leave me a comment below, and don’t forget to subscribe!

Streamlining, Simplification, and Shaving

If I told you that I held two jobs, volunteered at church, practiced karate, and kept house, you’d say I was busy, right?  WRONG!  This is what my life looked like before 10:58pm on October 11th, 2015.  It was on that fateful night that my little White Belt arrived and my perfect, organized little world blew up!  

You know what I’m talking about, mommas.  Cluster feeding keeps your brain nice and mushy from frequent middle-of-the-night nosh sessions.  You add changing, nursing, pumping, nursing, extra laundry, nursing, playing with the baby, nursing, nursing...NURSING to your already full schedule.  Any task you take on is constantly interrupted by your, ahem, precious angel, and when you finally get back to it you’ve forgotten where you’ve left off, so your floors are half vacuumed, one side of the sink is empty of dirty dishes, one leg is shaved (or is that just me?!); you get the idea.

Babies are a time suck and a mess!  Oh yes, we love them with a love we can’t even describe, but once they're here we spend the rest of our lives running around like chickens with our heads cut off.  If we ever make it through our day on time, put together, and with all our necessities… I don’t know what would happen because it’s never happened in the history of motherhood!  We need a way to simplify and streamline our lives so that we can get as close as possible to this well-nigh unattainable goal.  These are my suggestions.

Get a few multitasking items so you have less to keep track of throughout your day.

Baby items:

When you have a baby, you’re told that you need all kinds of stuff!  Your registry probably includes swaddles, burp cloths, pacifiers, swings, bottles… all manner of paraphernalia (not that kind of paraphernalia!).  I’m not telling you not to buy these things, because all mommas have different needs.  However, you can buy a few multitaskers that will save you packing complications and reduce your risk of showing up somewhere without something essential... like your bra (or is that just me, too?).  For example, I use my Swaddle Designs muslin swaddle blanket as a burp cloth, nursing cover, and napping cover at work.  I also use the many light, small receiving blankets I got at my shower as burp cloths or nappies (diapers).  This way I don’t have to overstuff my bag or do superfluous laundry.

Vacuum:

My baby loves to fall asleep to white noise.  If I put her in the Mei Tai carrier while I vacuum, she knocks out.  Then I can transfer her oh-so-gently to her bassinet and sneak out like a ninja, praying she doesn’t wake up.  Bonus!  If she does stay asleep, I can get more housework done or, more realistically, take a nap myself!

Clothes:

I work at a Montessori farm school and may have to trek up to the goat pen to find a student at any time.  As such, happily for me, dress is casual.  I wear my yoga pants, cross trainers, nursing tank top, and sports bra every day.  I top it all off with a cardigan so that I’m not showing too much skin.  This way I can drop the baby off at Grandma’s after work and go straight to the gym, because I know I won’t go back out if I go home to change.  This may not work for every momma.  After all, not everyone is lucky enough to be required to slog through goat poo on a regular basis, but maybe you can try your own variation.

When to have multiples

Sometimes you need just the opposite of multitaskers.  Sometimes you need multiples!

Swings/bouncy chairs:

Mommas get crazy-ripped from toting chubby babies, but there are times we just want to put them down.  I like to keep a place to put White Belt down on each floor of our home.  We have a bassinet in the bedroom and a swing in the nursery and in the basement. I also have a bouncy chair at the office.  That way I can set her down near to where I am working and still interact with her!

Blankets:

This might not be important if your baby is born in the summer, but with an October baby blankets are very necessary.  I don’t want to be forever running up and down the stairs and hallway to get the blanket, despite the calorie burn, so I keep one on every swing/chair.

Nuks (pacifier/binky/paci/plug, whatever you call yours):

Same goes for nuks!  We don’t use one regularly because I’m of the opinion that if she’s crying, she has a problem that won't be solved with a plug.  However, she will get herself so worked up that she can’t calm down, even after the problem is solved.  That’s when having a nuk anywhere she may be hanging out is handy.

Changing and nursing stations:

I keep a changing and a nursing station fully stocked on every floor.  When I need to change a nappy or nurse, I can stay at least semi-focused on the interrupted task until I’m done.  Then I can put her back in the Mei Tai or swing and chop back to it!

And there you have it!  If you take all this advice, your life will be packaged up into a neatly wrapped little box, topped with a bow.  Nothing will ever go wrong, no one will ever get upset.  Easy squeezy.

Yeah right.  But maybe, just maybe, both legs will get shaved!