A Room for Ellie

I had a Pinterest board started for girl room ideas (and a boy one too before we found out we were having a girl) long before Ellie was born. I knew I didn't want to take the traditional route when it came to decor and didn't really want a specific theme. We don't plan to stay in our current house much longer, so I also knew I didn't want to do anything too special to the walls or things that we can't take with us to a future home.

It all started with a rug. I found this one on Land of Nod's website and fell in love with the color scheme.

This image isn't a great representation of the actual colors - it's much more vibrant in real life. I also found some curtains at Target that worked well with the red in the rug.

They are linen with red stripes stitched vertically. I found a dresser on craigslist that we had painted white. The red flower knobs cost me a total of $12.00 at Hobby Lobby. The rocking chair is another craigslist find. It sits a little lower than we'd like, but it works fine for now. Nice upholstered gliders cost upwards of $500-$600 and this one was $90.00, not counting an extra patio seat cushion I purchased for $10.00 to make it a little softer. 

The round basket is from Target's Threshold collection (and coordinate great with the curtains). The bookcase is from Home Decorators. 

I made (or photographed) all of the art in the room. The Eleanor art is made with some alphabet stamps I own with paper flowers glued on. The wooden E is from Michael's, decorated with scrapbook paper and paint. The heart is made up of many different flower and leaf stamps I own. I would like to add a couple more things to this to make it look more collage-y in the future.

The crib is from Amazon. It's a Babyletto Modo crib. I really like that it's a little lower to the ground, so it's very easy to get Ellie in and out of. Someday when she's big enough to attempt climbing out of it, there won't be a very big drop to the ground. It also converts to a toddler bed when she's ready. Eleanor just started sleeping in her crib in the last couple weeks. She was outgrowing the bassinet we kept in our room, and I think we've all been getting better sleep with her in her crib. 

The art above the dresser was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest. It's basically just a bunch of acrylic paint and some tissue paper blobbed around. I'm not too much of a painter, but it was a fun project. The changing pad cover is a giraffe print from aden+anais that I love. We have two that we can swap out if one gets dirty. The top dresser drawer is where we keep her cloth diapers. The other drawers are for clothes. Her closet is mainly stuff that's too big for her yet. Girl has looootttts of clothes!

Ellie's room is super tiny. It used to be our office, which got moved down to the basement when we found out we were expecting. The stairs cut into the room (the wall behind the dresser) and there is a small half height closet there, so the room is an L shape. At most there would only be room for a twin size bed. But it works perfectly for a nursery and I love the cozy feeling of the space, especially at night when I rock her to sleep.

Right now all of her toys fit in one basket. I'm sure that will change soon 

I have been a huge reader my whole life - or as long as I've known how to read anyway. A love of books is really important for me to pass on to Ellie. It will be so fun to keep adding to her collection.

The art on this wall is made from embroidery hoops with pieces of fabric stretched inside. The flower pattern is a scrap from the crib sheet my aunts helped me make. We also made two other yellow polka dot patterned ones that I can switch out when one is in the wash. The dog art is a black and white photo of our dog Murray. I blew up the image and printed it on regular paper. It's just cut out and decoupaged onto a painted canvas.

The lamp was $15.00 at a thrift store. The original finish was kind of a mess, so I spray painted it a sunny yellow. My mom got us the frame with an opening for a picture of each month. I haven't printed any for it yet, but I'm excited to fill it up.

The walls were already a sort of neutral butter cream color, so I just left them alone, knowing they would work for either a boy or girl. Pretty simple, but I love her room :)

What a Wonderful World

The moment your baby gets placed on your chest seconds after being born is absolutely surreal. I can cry just thinking about it. All those months of praying, waiting, trying to eat the right things and reading everything about babies I could get my hands on could never prepare me for the feelings of this moment. Ellie was a big baby and I had a really long labor. I was exhausted and emotionally drained after the experience, but all I could think about was how much I loved this little human and how excited I was that she was here.

Welcome to the world Eleanor Lou!

As painful as labor and her birth were, I wasn't really prepared for the soreness and things I would have to deal with for the next few weeks. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I could hardly move for the first few days. Going to the bathroom by myself was a major achievement. 

A few tips I have for dealing with the first couple weeks:

1. Take all the supplies the hospital offers for yourself and the baby. ALL of the things.

2. The squirt bottle and stool softeners are a huge must. Cannot stress that enough

3. Get a doughnut pillow for the car ride home and for use at home too. I couldn't stand to sit on my bottom for over a week and it took over a full month to feel totally better

4. If you're bottle feeding, make sure you have everything pre sterilized and washed

5. Take a million pictures. You can't get those moments back

6. Have a changing station set up on each level of your house. I was not about to go upstairs more than I absolutely had to each day

7. Limit visitors for the first day home. I felt horrible physically that first night and you and your husband will be sort of shell shocked for a while. You mean we get to keep her?

8. Don't be afraid to be a crappy host when you have people over. Ignore the mess and go take a time out if you need to. 

9. You will cry at anything, everything and nothing. Seriously it's sort of annoying how easily you get emotional at the smallest things

10. Wear yoga or pajama pants everyday for the first week if you want to, but after that try really hard to wear real clothes and take at least a quick 5 minute shower. It won't always feel possible, but trust me you will feel so much better if you do. It's really amazing how much better the world feels when you have clean hair

11. Join a pregnancy/baby message board. It's comforting to read about other people who are going through the same thing as you are. I mostly read the bump.com and followed my baby's birth month board (both September when she was due, and August because I had a feeling she would be early, which she was).

12. Have someone stay home with you for the first week. Ted was able to be home with me for that time, but if your spouse doesn't have that much time off, you will need someone around to help you. I was still in a lot of pain during that time and felt really weak and helpless when it came to doing anything the least bit physical. Laundry was out of the question for a while. I hobbled like an old lady

Hopefully these tips will help. I know there are lots more out there, but these were things that stood out the most to me.

Cloth Diapering

We (meaning I) decided to cloth diaper Ellie about 6 months before she was born. I read up on the options and brands for weeks before making the decision. Ted was…skeptical. He didn't understand how it could be sanitary or practical to wash them ourselves, and I was a little nervous about it too. 

Ellie at 1 month

Here are a few resources that helped me make the decision.
bumGenius
Young House Love 1, 2, 3
Pinterest

The YHL posts were the main thing that turned me on to bumGenius. They use the Elementals, which are the all in one style. That was really important to me because I didn't want to be dealing with separate covers and inserts in the middle of the night. I also wanted to make sure they were as easy as possible to use in order to persuade Ted and my family that they were a good idea.

Besides the environmentally friendly factor, they are also wallet friendly. In the long term that is. They are definitely an investment initially, but after that, you never have to buy another disposable again if you don't want to. Different sources give a different opinion on how many cloth diapers you should purchase. Some say 18 is enough. Some suggest 24. We currently own 24 and I wouldn't mind owning another 6 or so. I wash them every other day right now and as long as I remember to throw them in by the afternoon, we are fine with what we have. If I have a busier day and don't remember until the evening, sometimes we cut it a little closer.

So just how much does it save you? Here is a good article that explains the cost savings in detail. For us here is the breakdown of what we spent.

Diapers: 24 bumGenius Elementals $525.71 (there are price breaks if you purchase in multiples of 6 and get better the more you buy at a time)
Wipes: BumGenius Flannel $30.50 (3 packs purchased at BuyBuyBaby with 20% off coupons - I know you can make your own too, but I was lazy)
Diaper Sprayer: We bought the bumGenius one, but there are others out there too $50.84
Detergent: bumGenius brand, but again there are others that work fine 14.95 for 70 loads (probably about 15 loads per month, so each bag lasts a really long time - maybe would need 5-6 bags for 2 years time)

Grand total: approx $682.00 (not counting utilities for washing). This number includes my local MI sales tax at 6%.

These diapers should save us about $2,000-$2,500 for this child and we can save them and use them on a future child(ren). The best part? I can sell them used when we're done with diapers! So it's definitely an investment up front, as I said, but HELLO? The alternative is spending a lot on stuff that gets pooped on and thrown in the trash. I'd rather take a couple vacations as a family with the savings.

That's what we have right now. I think I might buy a few of these extra inserts to use with Ellie's night time diaper, because as she's sleeping longer periods at night, she wakes up with a really wet one sometimes. She hasn't had any leaks yet, but she's only getting bigger and drinking more.

So how does our process work? Right now it's super easy. Ellie is exclusively formula fed (breastfed babies are cool too), so that means we don't have to do any sort of pre-spraying into the toilet yet. Once she starts solid foods at 6 months, we will need to spray the poopy ones into the toilet and then toss them into her trash/hamper as usual. Pee only diapers don't need any sort of special treatment.

We use these cloth trash can liners from Amazon and they work great. I bought two, so we would have one in the wash, and another clean one to put back on the can. When I'm ready to wash a load, I just pull the whole thing out of the can, carry it to our laundry room, dump out the contents into the washer, and then toss the bag in there with it. We have these smaller wet bags that zip that we keep in our diaper bag too for when we're out and about. They work the same way.

As far as washing goes, with our diapers, I first run the wash on a normal cycle with cold water, no soap. When that load is done, I open the lid, dump in one scoop of soap powder, and run another cycle on hot and press the extra rinse button. I have never had a load come out still dirty after this process. Sometimes there is a faint stain on a few, but leaving them to dry in the sun for a few hours bleaches them back to normal (really - it's magic!). For drying, the all in one style has a tendency to take a little longer to dry. My dryer has an extra dry setting that I use and it seems to work perfectly, but you can also let them air dry in the sun if you want. Sometimes that's not convenient for me because I live in Michigan where it's often humid, or too cold, so we just throw them in the dryer.

Ellie at 2 months

That's basically it. I will update again in the future once Ellie is on solid foods to see how that affects my process. But really, right now everyone who sees her in her cute cloth diaper butt is impressed with just how easy it really is. It doesn't have to be intimidating at all and most larger cities have a store that sells cloth diapers. Often you can go there for support if you have any questions. My local store, Hopscotch is where I actually bought all of our diapers. Their prices are the same as anywhere I found online, and they offer a punch card too, so I will earn free money once I use it up. Everyone knows a Dutch girl loves a good bargain :) And it's also great to support a local business!

Introducing Eleanor…and a few of our favorite baby items

Eleanor Lou was born August 28, two whole weeks early! Thankfully we were prepared by that point (as much as you really can be!) and had most of the essential items we needed. 

For a few months before we registered, I had been scouring the internet for a list of the items we would need for the baby. I logged many hours on Pinterest and searched for blogs of new moms who could shed some light on the millions of baby products out there. Seriously, the first time we went to look at strollers and carseats in a store, I nearly had a breakdown. It's MIND BOGGLING! I'm not kidding, it really hurts your brain if you're not prepared and hormonal. 

Anyway, here is a list of the items we own and can't imagine being without. 

1. Graco Pack n Play (comes with bassinet, which we used for 2 months)

2. Avent pacifiers (Ellie will take any kind though)

3. Mamaroo (E will nap quite well in this sometimes)

4. SwaddleMe blankets - the best for night time (baby straight jacket!)

5. VTech Monitors (we didn't opt for a fancy video one and this one has been just fine)

6. BabyBjorn - a must if I want to get anything done around the house

7. aden + anais swaddle blankets - super cozy and light weight

8. Baby Jogger City Mini Stroller - I can't say enough good things about this. SO easy to use

9. Fisher Price Snugabunny Bouncer (Ellie will sit in this while I get ready in the morning)

10. Chicco Keyfit 30 Carseat - again I can't say enough great things about this. It works awesome with a converter bar with the stroller and snaps in and out of the base super easy

We registered at both Amazon and Buy Buy Baby, which worked well for us. Both offer completion discounts once the due date is 30 days away.

So anyway, obviously we use bottles and diapers and boring stuff too, but these are the extras that make our days a lot easier. And with a newborn, trust me, you will do anything you can for just a little more sleep and peace of mind.