Baby Shower: Medela Giveaway

With regards to my last post and my love of breastfeeding, Medela has kindly donated a Breast Care Gift Set to giveaway to one of my lucky readers!

The Medela Breast Care Gift Set includes the following:

Twill bag
Tender Care™ Lanolin Advanced Nipple Therapy™ 2 oz tube
Tender Care Hydrogel pads (2)
Disposable bra pads (12)
Mother’s Minder® Bracelet
Information, Resources & Breastfeeding Log

Want to win it?

All you have to do is leave me a comment about your breastfeeding experience. If you didn't breastfeed tell me about formula feeding your baby.

Extra entries can be earned by following my blog or following me on Twitter. Just make sure you leave a separate comment for each entry.

The giveaway for the Medela Breast Care Gift Set will end on February 13th 12pm EST.

Thank you to Medela for providing the Breast Care Gift Set. For my full disclosure policy, please visit this link.

Baby Shower: Breastfeeding Facts

Breastfeeding was a huge part of raising Roo. Huge, like 22 months huge! And I respect everyone’s opinion and fully believe that they should do what’s best for their baby. If formula works for your baby, then more power to you.

The only problem I have with formula and babies is that I never used it. So I know nothing about formula (except that it’s expensive) and can’t share that experience with my readers.

All I know about is breastfeeding from experience and I adored it. I never felt more connected to a human being in my life! To know I was providing for my baby, just me, no one else was a powerful experience.

I plan on nursing Miss Turtle for as long as she’ll let me. I never had a timeline for Roo when we started out. It was just please let us make it to six months… then it was set for a year. Then it just went on and on and on until at 22 months we called it quits.

I chose to breastfeed because I’d done my research and read it was wonderful for the baby. Besides to be honest, it also helped that it was free!

According to Medela , some of the benefits to breastfeeding are:

-Research shows that breastfed infants have fewer and shorter episodes of illness.
-Breastfeeding is the most natural and nutritious way to encourage your baby’s optimal development.
-Colostrum (the first milk) is a gentle, natural laxative that helps clear baby’s intestine, decreasing the chance for jaundice to occur.
-The superior nutrition provided by breastmilk benefits your baby’s IQ.
-Breastfeeding is a gentle way for newborns to transition to the world outside the womb.
-The skin-to-skin contact encouraged by breastfeeding offers babies greater emotional security and enhances bonding.
-The activity of sucking at the breast enhances development of baby’s oral muscles, facial bones, and aids in optimal dental development.
-Breastfeeding appears to reduce the risk of obesity and hypertension.
-Breastfeeding delays the onset of hereditary allergic disease, and lowers the risk of developing allergic disease.
-Breastfeeding helps the baby’s immune system mature, protecting the baby in the meantime from viral, bacteria, and parasitic infections.
-Breastfeeding increases the effectiveness of immunizations, increasing the protection against polio, tetanus, and diptheria vaccines.
-Breastfeeding protects against developing chronic diseases such as: celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma, and childhood cancers.

Not only is it good for baby, it’s good for Mama… why you ask? Medela says:
-Research shows that breastfeeding benefits the health of mothers.
-Breastmilk is always fresh, perfectly clean, just the right temperature, and is the healthy choice at the least cost!
-Increased levels of oxytocin stimulate postpartum uterine contractions, minimizing blood loss and encouraging rapid uterine toning.
-From 3 months to 12 months postpartum, breastfeeding increases the rate of weight loss in most nursing mothers.
-Breastfeeding offers some protection against the early return of fertility.
-Because breastfed babies are healthier, their mothers miss less work and spend less time and money on pediatric care.
-Breastfeeding women report psychological benefits such as increased self-confidence and a stronger sense of connection with their babies.

Don’t be frightened by anything to do with breastfeeding. It’s not as scary as it seems. You can prepare for breastfeeding by attending a breastfeeding class given by your local hospital or you can contact the La Leche League International for classes and support.

Baby Shower: Planning A Baby Shower

As the expectant mama, it’s not really your job to plan your own baby shower. Typically, friends or family members come together and get it all done leaving you to do nothing but enjoy the moment and love.

But this has never stopped me from drooling over baby shower invitations, registries and party favors.

Luckily for me, I’ve got a best friend having a baby soon so I get to take part in all the fun so all the drooling I’ve been doing is going to come in handy.

If you decide to take on the task of planning a baby shower, a great place to start is picking the date and location. Once that is done, start making a list of everyone you and the expectant mama would like to attend. From there on, the list is simple: pick a theme, plan a menu and pick out invitations.

A few great places to find invitations online are Tiny Prints , Storkie and Paper Style .

A great idea for out-of-towners is when you mail the invitations; include a map of directions to the event location.

Once invitations have been mailed, start shopping for decorations and placing orders for balloons, food and cakes. Local party stores normally have great items and are usually on sale (think Party City!) and Walmart has party supplies that start at just a dollar.

Next you can plan the games that will be played at the shower. Baby Shower 101 has a great list of games that will guarantee fun. You can choose games that win guests prizes like picture frames or candles. The prizes don’t have to be extravagant guests will most likely be having so much fun, who wins what doesn’t matter.

It’s not required, but party favors are a new trend to send home with guests. At my recent baby shower all the guests were treated to pink M&Ms in champagne glasses. There’s websites everywhere that will sell you customized chocolate bars, fortune cookies with the baby’s name in them, or baby carriage cookies.

Once everything comes together and the date of the baby shower approaches the most important thing to remember is to have fun. You’re celebrating the birth of a baby and celebrating a friend (or family member) that is bringing that baby into the world.

Great sites to reference to are:
Amazing Pregnancy

Baby Center

The Bump

Online Baby Shower Starts Today!

I love parties, especially baby showers.

A party where family and friends come together and specifically celebrate a baby coming into this world is such a special event.

In honor of Turtle, I put together a week-long baby shower event to celebrate the best thing in life: Babies! Having a baby truly is a crazy, monumental time in a person’s life and I’m all about celebrating it, especially if cake is involved.

The schedules of activities include articles on breastfeeding, great books to read, ways to save with a baby and most importantly giveaways.

There will be multiple posts a day and all will be tagged with the baby shower label, so make sure you don't miss any of them!

The great people at Baby Magic, Medela, Braelyn Bounty Bug Prego Planner’s have kindly donated prizes so be on the lookout to enter to win.

I hope you enjoy celebrating Turtle’s pregnancy with me, learn some great info and maybe win a prize!

Review: Minnie's Bow-Tique

I remember as a child loving anything to do with Disney, especially Minnie Mouse. I mean, check her out, she’s a stylish lady and have been since her debut in 1928. The pink dress, the heels, the bow, those eye lashes, everything Minnie has is appealing to a little girl.

And she is appealing especially to my little girl.

Roo loves Minnie Mouse.

She has the doll, a few toys and now she’s the proud owner of Minnie’s newest adventure Mickey Mouse Clubhouse’s Minnie’s Bow-Tique.


From the press release: This new release features four Minnie-themed stories including a never-before-seen episode and a fun Minnie magnet bow frame. Two episodes, ‘Minnie’s Pajama Party,’ and ‘Minnie’s Bee Story,’ include Disney’s Adventure Mode – an interactive game using the remote control with multiple play levels.

It's the grand opening of Minnie's Bow-tique, a store jam-packed with every kind of bow and bowtie imaginable. The selections include: the "Glow-Bow", a bow that changes color with every mood; the "Grow-Bow", a bow that grows to tremendous size by just adding water; flying "Butterfly-Bows"; and a "Photo-Bow" that snaps instant pictures. Problems arise when Pete, embarrassed about buying a lady's bow for his favorite aunt, causes a few accidental mishaps in the new store. However, super salesperson Minnie finds the perfect bow for Pete. The Bow-tique's grand opening is a success - and it all ends in a Big Bow Show with the Clubhouse gang modeling the latest fashions under the biggest bow of all, a colorful, sky-high Rain-Bow.

In a never-before-seen episode, Minnie’s Pajama Party Minnie and the girls set up a fun Pajama Party sleepover for the day – but it’s not as easy as it sounds, especially with the addition of Pete and Willie the Giant!”

The newest release from Disney is a hit in this household and Minnie will dazzle us on replay for the entire next week. It’s a good thing she’s a cutie pie, huh?
Minnie’s Bow-Tique will hit the store shelves on February 9th.

Cute, but Annoying.

My child, do I ever love her... but sometimes, just sometimes, I think she does things just to irritate me.

Like she knows which buttons to push and when to push them.

It's like the second she popped out of my body, some mean doctor with an evil laugh handed her a manual on how to get under your Mommy's skin.

Okay, maybe all of that sounds harsh and possibly makes my kid sound like the devil.

Which she is not.

She's a part of me and her Daddy, so I know she possesses traits that myself and my husband thrive on. Like making fun of things, doing things just because someone says you can't and, my favorite, being a smart ass.

Take yesterday for example, the nesting thing kicked in for me and I decided it was past time to dive into the toy mess that clutters our room and get a little more organized. So I set about completing this task. I went through the utter disaster and separated toys into categories. This would go into the playroom. This goes in the bin under her bed. That goes into the toy box, etc.

When I was finally done with the toys, plus re-straightening the rug, cleaning the floors and making the beds. I collapsed on the couch with a sigh of happiness.

I was done.

And then I proceeded to watch Roo slowly, but surely, bring certain toys back into the room.

A play cell phone and dinosaur.

Her tiny pink potty from Ikea was next.

Then came the stuffed animals.

Suddenly my floor was covered in toys again.

And I just sat on the couch and let it happen!

In my defense I'm stupendously pregnant (a.k.a. lazy) and had no energy to get up and scold her.

Besides, like I said, she's like me if someone tells me no, I do it anyways.

Sneak Peek at the Baby Shower

Next week the fun and excitement will begin.

Next week is my online baby shower!

I wanted to take some time and tease you with the great prizes that can be won.