Fidget's Favorite Things: #3 My Brest Friend nuring pillow

Everyone registers for and gets the Boppy.  Don't get the Boppy. Well, get the Boppy because it can be useful for propping up the baby for tummy time or as a back up for when you're washing the cover of the better product - the My Brest Friend. Yes, yes, the name kinda makes you cringe, except, it IS your breasts' friend and your beast friend accordingly.

The problem with the Boppy is that it is floppy. Okay, that made me cringe too. But seriously - the Boppy is rounded and squishy and creates a nice pit into which baby will become wedged - I don't think it's comfy for mommy or baby.  And if you've had a c-section - forget it, the Boppy rests on your lap, pushing against your belly and your incision site.  It won't be comfortable.

On the other hand, the Brest Friend straps to your body so you can wear it higher on your trunk and avoid any painful incision pressure.  Even non-section delivery moms will appreciate the less hunched over feeling this option gives you. The Brest Friend is a solid platform on which your baby can rest and comfortably feed.

About the only qualm I have is with the "deluxe" model I have, the one pictured above, is the noisy velcro method of adjusting the sizing. Granted, you seldom readjust it, but other versions use a quieter pull-strap adjustment system that, in theory, seems like a better idea.

The cover is machine washable and there are some cute designs available.  There's a little pocket for holding stuff - TV remote? Cell phone? Vicodin for those section moms out there? (Holla!)  It's larger than the Boppy and can be a bit cumbersome (though there is a travel version I haven't tried) but if you're going to breastfeed, it's a must-have.

Ready to follow Fidget's advice? Buy a My Brest Friend from her Amazon store now!

Fidget's Favorite Things: #4 A Swaddleme blanket

Ignore the really creepy model baby and focus on the blanket.  Do you need a special blanket with velcro to swaddle your baby? No, of course not. Any scrap of fabric will do.  You'll probably learn during your childbrith or baby classes how to swaddle. The doll will lie nice and still and give you any trouble and stay nice and stiff for you to wrap around the fabric.

Your actual baby may not be so compliant.  More to the point: at 3am, simple tasks like wrapping a blanket around your child become more complicated than stereo instructions. Enter the Swaddleme - a nice, easy peasy shaped blanket with some velcro tabs that make it a snap, or, uh, a velcro, to get your child into a nice swaddled state of calm.

Swaddling works, my friends.  Wrap your baby up well tight and beat that startle reflex that will keep your baby (and you) up a lot longer than necessary.  It's a biology-busting-blanket at its best.

We started with the ivory fleece blanket from just about birth.  She wore a side-snap shirt under and we tucked a blanket over the top of her (tucking that blanket around the mattress of course) and she snoozed like a champ.  When we had a few witching hour evenings, swaddling, shushing, and then swinging soothed our little crier.

When she grew too long for her ivory blanket, we found a cotton knit in size large.  I thought the cotton knit would be better for summer. I will disclose, however, that whether its because of the stretchier cotton knit or because of her bigger baby brut strength, she can now houdini her arms right out of the top of the blanket - a problem we never had with the fleece or during the first 4 months of her life.  And regarding the summer-weight blanket, we now put her in a footie-jammie under layer, or at least something with sleeves, because, duh, A/C kind of undoes that hot weather thing in the house at night.

There are some other presto-swaddled! blankets out there - like the Miracle Blanket - but that had a few more fabric flaps and just seemed to have an extra step or two of complication. So the Swaddleme wins!

Ready to follow Fidget's advice? Buy a Swaddleme now from Fidget's Amazon shop!

Fidget's Favorite Things: #5 Side Snap Shirts

You will undoubtedly receive a metric ton of baby clothing - especially if you find out and disclose the baby's sex.  A lot of these clothes will be adorable little onesies - you know - the body-suit things that snap between baby's legs and required you to pull them over baby's head and squish her arms up through arm-holes?

If you are confident enough to do that all with a newborn, you're a braver mother than I was.

Enter the side-snap shirt.  Cozy, super easy to get on and off, and sometimes  you can find them in cute patterns and colors (though a basic white t-shrit will always be fashionable, right?).

Fidget wore little else for the first two months of her life. They were especially useful as baby jammies and good as a layer under her swaddleme at night.

Trust me, get yourself a few packs of these in the 0-3 month size (maybe one in the newborn size, if you think you're going to have a tiny baby, otherwise, skip those and go big). The only bad thing about them is that they don't seem to come larger than 0-3 in these basic packs.

Ready to follow Fidget's advice?  Buy some from her Amazon shop now!

Fidget's Favorite Things: Essential Items for New Parents

While planning our wedding, I remember lots of loud complaining about the wedding industry, how they soak you, and how much STUFF is insisted to be essential.

Once I got pregnant, I realized the wedding industry ain't got nuthin' on the preggo/baby/child industry. For weddings, if you don't have item x, people might talk! For pregnancy or babies, if you don't have item x, that's fine IF YOU WANT YOUR CHILD TO DIE/DEVELOP IMPROPERLY/BE LESS SMART THAN SUZIE DOWNTHESTREET/ETC. Phew. What's a parent to do? Simple - maintain perspective and remember that, like cats, most children are happier with cardboard boxes than whatever came in them and that you'll never know what works for you and your baby until your baby arrives.

But that won't stop me from telling you the top 5 things I think make parenting easier in the first 6 months - which is all I got so far.  Click on each item for the whys:

1. A baby carrier
2. A swing
3. "My Brest Friend" nursing pillow
4. A Swaddleme blanket
5. Side-snap baby shirts