Category Archives: works for me wednesday

Making a Baby Wearing Wrap–WFMW

Posted on December 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

Here we are, another Wednesday. Last week there was not a works for me wednesday in honor of Thanksgiving, but it has now returned!

I am by no means a super-duper seamstress, but I have made several baby wearing wraps (think Sleepy Wrap or Moby Wrap). I thought today I would share how I make mine. Maybe you have a new mama in your life who would love one for a Christmas Present. My original was a gift to myself. Best gift ever!

What you need:

5 1/2 yards of 60 inch wide fabric, cotton knit. (enough fabric for 3 wraps)
Tear away or wash away stabilizer

The edges of your wrap fabric should curl under when stretched. There should be some give, but NOT as much as a t-shirt fabric. I prefer a stiffer fabric. This is enough material for three wraps. Cut the fabric length wise in 17-20 inch wide strips. Cut the ends rounded to make it easier to tie the wrap on.Technically you do not have to sew the fabric I use, but I choose to stitch around it to give a nice finished look. The key feature of the wrap is something to mark the center. So fold your wrap in half, so the ends are lined up, and sew either a pocket on the center with the opening on the side you want to be “up”, toward your head, or I prefer to pick a fun baby fabric and cute a cute shape out of and sew it on. You need to be able to find the center easily to tie the wrap for baby wearing.

If you choose to sew around it, get some water soluble or tear away stabilizer. Cut it in strips to place under the edge where you are stitching. Trust me, you will thank me later! I do not pin the fabric at all, just lay it under the fabric as you are sewing. Sometimes I do it all the way around, other times, I just do it at the beginning of sewing.

I hope my instructions are clear, but if you could use more help, or pictures, check out this site.

I love wearing my babies (or stuffed animals!). With this wrap you can start wearing them from birth on, there is no weight minimum.

The basic wrap instructions are the same for almost any hold. Center the decoration you chose to add at the wrap middle, across your belly.bring the fabric ends over each shoulder, creating an X. Tuck the ends of fabric under the fabric in the front, again creating an X on the front. Pull the ends around the waist to the back and tie. If you have lots of fabric, bring it back to front before tying and make the knot in the front. You Tube has lots of videos on how to tie the wrap.

I hope this gives you some idea of how to make a wrap and what works for me this wednesday! Now head on over to We Are That Family for more holiday or gift ideas.

What to Do with Holidays

Posted on November 17, 2010 | 2 comments

I am still loving blog hops and this week I am hopping back to We Are That Family for Works for Me Wednesday.

What Works for Me this Wednesday?

My 5? Friday post led into a bit of a discussion on holidays and how we as Christian parents “handle” them. I thought I knew, before I had kids, what I was going to do if I ever had children. I was NOT going to celebrate Halloween. No Santa Claus and no Easter Bunny.

Here, I am 3 kids later, so how has that worked out for me?

My kids go trick or treating. They want to know what Santa is bringing them. So far so good on the Easter bunny though we do hunt for eggs. We just don’t refer to how they got there.

Why may you ask have I gone back on everything? Partly because I can not control every influence over my kids. They have friends who celebrate all of those things. They watch TV where all of those things come up and even books they see cover these topics as well.

So instead of banning things, we choose items within them that need addressed. For example, we do not watch shows with witches at Halloween nor do the girls dress up as witches. And this year we figured out a very basic, understandable explanation for them. We don’t watch or celebrate witches because witches don’t love Jesus.

As for Santa Claus, we consider him something fun at Christmas time, but not the focus. As I commented in my post on Friday, we have found a cute board book to help us explain Saint Nicholas was a real person, but Jesus is who we celebrate at Christmas. I included a link to the book on Christianbooks.com for those who might find this resource useful.

I found a similar book for my girls called What is Easter by Michelle Medlock Adams. It talks in simple kid language about all of the things we see at Easter, the bunny, the pretty clothes, and gives them their place, but focusses on Jesus as the real reason. This one is not currently available on Christianbook.com, but many amazing resources are. In case I have you thinking about Spring, here is a place to search for items you might find useful.

Easter Search

In looking for the Easter Books, I found a couple I might have to get my hands on for Thanksgiving.

But that is what Works for Me this Wednesday. Hop, pun intended, on over to We Are That Family to see what works for others this Wednesday. Really, you have got to see her WFMW post. You will thank me.

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Posted in blog hops, books, holidays, works for me wednesday

WFMW–Calling Nursing Moms

Posted on November 10, 2010 | 3 comments

I am finding blog hops to be very fun. Today I am joining one over at We Are That Family–Works for Me Wednesday

I know I don’t hold any records here, but I am proud I have been pregnant and/or nursing a baby since November 2005. I nursed my first baby for 11 months, until she weaned while I was pregnant with my second, who nursed until 28 months when she weaned herself during my pregnancy with my newest.

Nursing and pumping for my first went okay, but I found a lot of great resources while nursing my second. Here are a few of the things that Work For Me.

One great website is Kellymom. It has great resources, including how to figure out the amount of milk baby will need when being bottle fed away from mama, info for caregivers of breastfed babies on how to not overfeed with the bottle and ideas on how to pump hands free without having to buy special bras.

I have done tons of hands free pumping. It allows me to type this blog :), play video games, read, hold my other kids, lots of things, all while pumping. Here’s the instructions I put together on the hands free pumping:

“Hands-free pumping

You can buy bras and apparatus specially for hands-free pumping, and for some that may be the way to go, but after pumping 9 months with my oldest and 15 months for my youngest, I had to find something cheap and easy! Searching on-line I found two methods—a pumping bra and hand-free pumping with any nursing bra.

Pumping bra—buy a cheap sports bra, preferably one that latches in the front. Based on the size of your pump bottle flange, cut a hole in the bra where it needs to line up with the nipple. Make sure to make the hole smaller than the flange so the material hugs it and keeps it in place. This works well if you are home and are not needing to go out. You can tuck a nursing pad in the hole when you are not pumping so you don’t leak. You can also unhook the bra to nurse the baby.

Note: with a lot of movement the nursing pad will move around making odd shapes under your shirt and may even fall out, so I found it undesirable to wear to work, etc.

Hands-free with any nursing bra—this is even cheaper than the first. You need 4 regular size pony tail holders (not scrunchies). Take two, loop them together to form a figure 8. Put the bottle and breastshield through one loop so the loop is just at the bottom of the widest part of the breastshield. Hook the other end of the loop where the nursing bra unhooks from. Position at the nipples. You may have to lightly hold them in place at the beginning of pumping, mainly the let down mode on the pump-in-style advanced. Once the pump settles in rhythm or there is sufficient milk to weigh it down, it should stay in place well.

Hands-free pumping cuts down on neck and back pain and allows you to type, read, write, even pick up a small child while pumping. It also tends to lead to longer pumping sessions which will get you more milk in both the short and long-term due to the supply and demand principles that govern your supply.”

*As an item of disclosure, I need to let you know I am a Medela Mom Maven. I do not receive any compensation from them, but do get info and newsletters from them in exchange for sharing my experience using their products when pumping for my kidlets.

Another wonderful resource I found was a recipe for more milk cookies. These are yummy and somewhat good for you and a great way to get the calories you need to keep up your supply. I originally found this recipe on Babyfit and have modified it some for my tastes:

Housepoet’s Famous Lactation Boosting Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip & Flaxseed cookies ™

Ingredients :

* 1 cup butter or marg
* 1 cup sugar
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 4 tablespoons water
* 2 tablespoons flaxseed meal*
* 2 large eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 2 cups flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 3 cups oats, thick cut if you can get them
* 1 cup or more chocolate chips
* 2 tablespoons of brewers yeast* (be generous)

Directions:

Preheat oven at 375 degrees F. Mix together 2 tablespoons of flaxseed meal and water, set aside for 3-5 minutes. Cream (beat well) margarine and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, mix well. Stir flaxseed mixture and add with vanilla to the margarine mix. Beat until blended. Sift together dry ingredients, except oats and chips. Add to margarine mixture. Stir in oats then chips. Scoop or drop onto baking sheet, preferably lined with parchment or silpat. The dough is a little crumbly, so it helps to use a scoop.

Bake 8-12 minutes, depending on size of cookies.

Serves: 6 dozen cookies

Preparation time: 15 minutes

*can be found at any local health food store.

*NOTE* IT MUST BE BREWERS YEAST, NOH SUBSTITUTIONS.

You can substitute for carob chips, raisins, butterscotch chips, whatever.

Don’t cook too long or they are dry and too “healthy” tasting. Leave them a little moist and they are GREAT!

I hope what works for me will work for you too!