Donuts Donuts Donuts

Somewhere between Waylen’s birth and now I’ve become known as the “Donut Girl.” Instead of shying away from such a sugary nickname I’ve decided to embrace it. Glazed, sprinkled, filled, holed, donuts for breakfast, dessert, I’m pretty much an expert on donuts so I’ve decided to put together a list of my favorite fun non-edible donut items to sweeten up your life.

Since Waylen is still a little babe I get to force my donut obsession on him as well so here are of few of my favorite baby related donuts items:

Now all I need to do is create a list of my favorite EDIBLE donuts for you guys. Mhmm maybe a Charlotte donut taste test is in my future!

Waylen’s Wardrobe

So pretty much Waylen is now the most fashionable person in my household. Do I still enjoy buying clothing for myself? Uhhh yeah, but 1) tiny clothes are SO MUCH CUTER and 2) to be honest my ‘mom uniform’ is pretty much just a t-shirt and jeans these days. Lately everyone has been asking where I get Waylen’s clothes so I figured I’d do a blog post to outline my favorite shops.

Let’s start with big chain stores. H&M and Cotton On are my go-to shops for inexpensive basics. I LOVE Cotton On’s zip pjs. They are slim fitting (but not too slim that my chunky monkey won’t fit,) have the cutest patterns, and zip all the way up. I almost never use snap PJ’s or Rompers anymore. In my opinion they take too long, especially now that Waylen is older and much wigglier.

H&M has everything; cute jeggings, t-shirts, rompers, etc. all for relatively cheap. I would recommend just shopping online rather than going into the store. Online has a WAYY better selection and hello, is a lot less messy.

Now let’s talk Etsy shops. Chappy seriously makes fun of me SO much over my favorite shop. He always like “What’s that box, another shipment from Australiaaaa??????” UM YES! Hello Sunny Afternoon’s Clothes are seriously the best. I LOVE all her patterns and the fabrics are SO soft.

Some other Etsy shops I love are The Stitched Co

and Monsters Under My Bed.

Lastly let’s talk about some other small shops that I frequent way too often.

Little Bipsy carries a bunch of different brands (and seriously just be ready to buy one of everything) BUT if you’re just going to get one thing, GET THEIR BUTTON ROMPER. It is seriously butter. I made the mistake of ordering a size for fall so now I’m stuck waiting until Waylen can fit it. Here’s a Kippkids zip romper that I got from them as well. So stretchy and amazing!
Rags to Raches is all about the pull-on romper. No zips, snaps or buttons!
Babalus by Lucy has the cutest doggie leggings for your baby… and YOU if you want to match. I actually don’t even have a dog pair yet but I did snag these adorable tape pants.

We can’t forget about accessories! Waylen is almost always wearing a hat so here’s a list of my favorites shops to get hats from:

Now get shopping! But seriously, go buy everything so I can’t because I’ve already spent WAYYY to much on Waylen’s Wardrobe. Ha.

Baby Led Weaning: 1 Month

We are knee deep in Baby Led Weaning and are seriously having so much fun! It was a little nerve racking at first but Waylen has proven to me again and again that he is totally ready for all these finger foods we’re giving him. He chomps and chomps away and rarely ever gags on anything. Some of the early days I wondered if he was getting anything but let me tell you, the poop don’t lie. Ha.

So far we’ve introduced broccoli, sweet potato, avocado, zucchini, Greek yogurt, eggs, squash, carrots, watermelon, and mango.

Waylen’s favorites by far are Greek yogurt, mango and broccoli. He will do some serious chowing down on all of those and onlyyy ends up covered from head to toe in Greek yogurt. No big deal ha. I love giving him Greek yogurt too though because 1) he gets to practice with his spoon (which he’s surprising good at!) and 2) I can mix a bunch of different stuff into it. One of our favorites? Avocado! Seriously those little buggers are slippery so mixing it in with his Greek yogurt makes it a lot easier for him to eat! Also since introducing him to his spoon he seems to chew other veggies more. Maybe because he loves gnawing on the spoon? I’m not sure, but whatever it was he now has started to chew his veggie sticks better! (Which is really helpful since he still is toothless!)

We still are introducing foods fairly slow so he’s not quiet at taco night and spaghetti Wednesdays yet but we are slowly working our way towards that.

Here’s a few examples of what meal time looks like at our house:

Breakfast:

Over Medium Egg and avocado Toast for me| scrambled eggs and avocado for Waylen
Greek Yogurt and fruit for me | same for Waylen!

Lunch:

Roasted veggies, Chicken, and Rice for me | Roasted veggies for Waylen

Snacks for Waylen:

Sweet potato pops (roasted sweet potatoes and breast milk blended then frozen)
Greek Yogurt pops: seriously I put pretty much everything in these. Greek yogurt, breast milk, zuchinni, sweet potato | Greek yogurt and fruit | Greek yogurt and avocado or seriously anythinggg you have

Now I must admit, I don’t always eat what Waylen is eating. Sometimes I eat fast food and pizza and junk while I watch my cute little ham chowing down on some serious veggies. Trust me though, it really isn’t hard to roast or steam up some veggies even if I’m not eating them. It is SO worth it and a lot easier than making mushy baby food!

Baby Led Weaning does get messy so I highly recommend getting this high chair from Ikea because you can literally just hose it down afterwards. Plus you’ll need to invest in some quality bibs. This one from Ikea is my jam and I also love these ones from Babpron.

We’re still just beginners at this but if anyone has questions feel free to comment below!

Waylen: 7 Months

Gosh 7 months seems SO old! Where did my squishy little baby go???? We are officially closer to his first birthday than we are to his birth! How weird is that?! Waylen is now around 19 lbs and seriously gives momma an upper body workout. Carrying him in his car seat? Yeah right! It’s so hard ha.

Waylen has made some major changes in the last month. He’s a new man! Well, a new baby. He literally sleeps through the night from around 7pm to 6am which really means I’m a new woman! I’m getting so much sleep I don’t know what to do with myself! Also he is the napping king so I literally can clean the entire house just during his first nap. It’s great! (He is also exclusively a tummy sleeper now 🙄)

We are still chugging along with breastfeeding but now Waylen has also started solids. We’ve gone with Baby Led Weaning and so far he’s tried broccoli, sweet potato, avocado, zucchini, Greek yogurt, eggs, carrots, squash, and watermelon. It’s crazy how well he’s done. Babies are so smart! He knows exactly what to do, even when we gave him a spoon with yogurt, it went right to his mouth!

Some of his favorite things are animal noises, playing fetch with Pickles, his alphabet blocks, the book Roar, Greek yogurt, swinging at the park, and being held by any Panther player. That last one is kind of a joke but we’ve already got three Panther players to hold Waylen for a picture so might as well try for the entire team. Panthers PLEASE hold my baby. Ha

He is a champ at sitting on his own now, rolls from back to front and back like crazy, loves standing up, and blowing spit bubbles. He still is my little toothless baby though and hasn’t master how to crawl yet. Maybe one of those will happen this next month?! Who knows!

Just Stop

Guys there’s something going on that needs to stop immediately. Well two things actually. First, we need stop shaming couples who want kids close together. This is constantly happening to Chappy and I and it is so annoying. And when I say close together I’m talking around two years apart so that’s not even thatttt close! Why is it the norm for people to sarcastically ask if we’re “ready for another” and just assume no one would even dream about wanting another kid so soon and then make us feel bad for wanting another. People seriously look at us like we’re insane and actually call us crazy (and say worse) when we admit we’re already dreaming about our next squishy baby. Sorry my kid is soooo awesome that he makes us want more! Ha it’s not our fault!

Second we need to stop this notion that the second child doesn’t get as much care or attention. Yes, I understand that they won’t get all of your attention because HELLO they’re not the only child but I am sick and tired of people telling me “oh you do that now but you won’t do that with your second child.” Want to know the biggest example I have of this? Breastfeeding! People are constantly telling me that I won’t want to put the effort into breastfeeding when the second child comes around. Like who says that? Also for me breastfeeding has been easy which doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be easy the second time but I’d much rather just whip out my boob than have to pump or mix up a bottle (and clean everything that involves.) Other examples, “oh with your second child you’ll just let them cry and cry. You’ll be used to the crying by then,” “Home made food, ha! Yeah, that won’t happen with the second child,” “Constantly checking on them when they sleep? Yeah with your second you’ll put them down and never look back.” Ummmmm I AM A SECOND CHILD soo maybe that’s why these comments annoy me so much? I don’t know Ha but nonetheless these comments need to stop. Who would want to be raised under the notion that your parents tried harder with your sibling? Every child is different and has different needs. Breastfeeding may not work for every child, one baby might sleep like a champ while the next might only sleep being held. All those things are perfectly normal and okay but saying I won’t want to put the effort into my next child is not okay with me so stop telling me that’s how I’m going to be!

Mommy shaming in general is way too abundant and needs to be stopped so ummmm just stop all this nonsense already! K thanks.

End rant. Ha

Now here are some cute squishy baby pictures of Waylen when he was a newbie to cheer you back up!

Sleep Training

After two months of bad sleep and then two days of horrible, awful, TERRIBLE 30 minute increments of sleep we finally caved and started sleep training and I am SO glad we did. Now a little bit about Waylen before training… he loved being swaddled but we just transitioned him into a sleep sac, he still had night feedings, and he would sometimes take a paci from Chappy in the middle of the night if he was cranky. Plus he was pretty much always nursed to sleep. So for this training our goal was to get rid of the paci, eliminate night feedings, and get him to actually sleep more than a few minutes at a time!

Now personally I am not a fan of cry it out so we decided to go with Sleep Sense. In this method you can stay in the room, pick up put down, comfort them by rubbing their tummies, talking to them, etc. and can do as many check ins as you want. Now before trying sleep training Waylen had probably only cried an hour TOTAL in his entire life so when my none cry it out method ended up involving a lot of crying I panicked. (Obviously!)

Pretty much everything we were allowed to do to comfort Waylen actually made him cry more. Pick up pick down?? Yeah, NO. Staying in the room? Didn’t work for us. Cried loader, got redder, and was much much angrier. (And would just give me an evil death stare the entire time.) So we ended up doing the check in method and it actually started to work! The first night took a whole hour for him to finally fall asleep but the next day it only took 20 and then 15 and now he’s out in under 5. (And just FYI that hour was not constant crying.. it was crying, then whining, then silence on repeat.) We ended up checking in about every 3-5 minutes of crying. The first night he woke up 4 times but was able to put him back to sleep every time with only one time taking more than 5 minutes. The second night was about the same and the third night he only woke up twice and was back asleep in under 2 minutes!

And naps? On just the second day he took under 5 minutes to fall asleep every time and under 2 minutes the next day.

Now 1 week in and I’ve never slept better!! We temporarily moved out of our master when we initially started sleep training (since we still room share with Waylen) and now we’re heading back in so wish us luck! But seriously … we decided to drop the night feeds so I now get a solid 11 hours freedom from my little babe. I haven’t slept this well in many many MANY months!

If you’re on the fence about sleep training, do it! Like run and do it now. My baby is happy, well rested, and on a pretty predictable schedule which makes planning my day super easy. Also now I can put him down in his crib and just watch as he rolls around, plays, and soothes himself to sleep. Much easier than all that rocking and nursing but don’t get me wrong, I still sneak in some baby cuddles during his last little cat nap of the day. I mean come on, he’s not going to be this little forever!!

Now just one last little fun fact Waylen taught us this week is that he apparently is now a tummy sleeper. Almost as soon as that swaddle came off he learned how to roll himself over in his crib and has been sleeping on his stomach ever since. Of course the “back is best” mommy in me panicked at first and was constantly rolling him back over but it literally did no good since he’d be back on his stomach almost immediately. Ha Plus our pediatrician said once he can get their on its own it’s safe. Still. My anxiety is a little higher with my new tummy sleeper but I guess at least he’s found a way to get through the night comfortably!

And sometimes he even does crazy stuff like this …

Apparently I did the same this as a kid soo he must take after me!

Baby Led Weaning: Week 1

We are officially one week into Baby Led Weaning and let me tell you it has been so much fun (and messy!) We still started out slow with our introduction of different foods so this is what our first week looked like:

Days 1-3: broccoli
Days 3-6: broccoli and sweet potato
Day 7: sweet potato, broccoli, avocado

To prepare the food for Waylen’s little hands and toothless mouth we steamed the broccoli, roasted slices of sweet potato in olive oil, and sliced the avocado with a little skin left so it would be easier to grasp. Overall the experience has been great! Right now he definitely gets more food on his hands, face, highchair, floor, hair, mom… (etc. ha) then he actually swallows but he’s learning and seems to love chewing on all the different textures! His facial expressions are UNREAL and are seriously hilarious to watch.

Now I’m not going to lie, BLW is not for everyone! Your baby is going to gag/cough at some point. The first time is a little scary but both you and your baby will get through it and quickly learn what is manageable. Waylen gagged a little the first day and has barely gagged since but he is still learning how big of bites to take. He usually is fine but every once and a while he’ll chomp off a mouth full and will give me this look of confusion and disgust ha. Something along the lines of “what the hell is this mom?!?.” Then he’ll just spit out what he doesn’t want and keep going.

His favorite thing so far is gnawing on a broccoli stem. I swear no matter what why I lay the broccoli he loves to pick it up by the head and chew away on the stem. Not exactly what I had in mind but oh well!

Next up on the menu is zucchini, carrots, mushrooms, eggs… and like 100 more things ha so I’ll keep you posted on how it goes!