One of the most common questions about infant care I hear is, “Do I need to swaddle my baby?”
The short answer is no. The long answer is a little more complex, and even discusses the should version of the question.
To Swaddle or Not to Swaddle
Dressing your baby safely for sleep
This is a question I hear a lot! In all different forms:
“We keep our house on the chilly side. How do I know if my baby too cold at night?”
“We don’t have AC and the room gets really warm during the summer. How many layers of clothes should my baby wear?”
“We’re following safe sleep guidelines, but we aren’t sure about how to dress our baby.”
This is an incredibly valid concern. After all, overheating while asleep has been linked with SIDS, and being too cold can lead to sluggishness and unresponsiveness.
Well there’s a super useful tool to help you determine how much your baby should wear at night! It’s called TOG, and you can find it on most commercially available baby clothes.
Continue ReadingRead Your Body App Review
There are really only a few things you need in order to chart using fertility awareness: knowledge (this can be learn as you go!), something to chart on, and a thermometer if you’re using temperatures as one of your markers. If you want to go low-cost, you can get a thermometer for $15 or less, and chart on paper! But there are a few apps out there that have the possibility of making your charting life easier, and I personally think Read Your Body (iOS/Android) is one of the best ones around. So here’s my Read Your Body app review!
Tempdrop Review: My Honest Thoughts
I recently hit my fifth Tempdrop anniversary in February 2023, I thought it might be a good time to share my thoughts about Tempdrop in a review here! I wrote a Tempdrop review a few years ago on an old blog, but it’s been gone for a while now. So this is a revisit of the same topic, but with more data from my end!
Full Disclosure: The link I’m going to provide to Tempdrop is both a discount link (you get a discount) and an affiliate link (I get a benefit when I refer you to them). However, I purchased my Tempdrop with my own money, and my review is 100% honest.
5 Ways to Maintain Relationship Intimacy with a Baby
Congratulations on having a baby! For many, this is an exciting time. But it also may include sleep deprivation, irritability, perinatal mood disorders, and stress to name just a few complications. With everything going on, sometimes we forget to spend time on our most important preexisting relationship: the one we share with a significant other. So the question is – how do you maintain intimacy with a baby hanging around?
First of all, I’d like to point out that intimacy doesn’t just mean sex. Intimacy is the closeness that you feel to someone else. That can be maintained in so many different ways, and since Valentine’s Day is upon us, I thought I’d throw in some fast ways to feel close to your partner even if you can’t dedicate an hour or two to each other.
What is Fertility Awareness?
When I explain to people what I do, I often hear the question, “What is fertility awareness?” Well, the short answer is it’s a way to chart and interpret your body’s natural biomarkers indicating your fertility status. You can use it to become pregnant, avoid pregnancy, or even keep track of your health. But there’s also a longer, more comprehensive answer, and I’d love to go over that with you today!
Feel Good Bottle Feeding Your Baby
You may be wondering why I, as a professional doula, am writing an article about bottle feeding. It’s because – as a postpartum doula – my job is to help growing families come up with plans that work best for them. Breast feeding is best for some, but bottle feeding works best for others. And my job isn’t to add to the voices telling someone what they’re doing isn’t enough – because I don’t get to decide what is enough for them. But we do have a lack of resources and a lack of supportive voices for some, especially those who choose a bottle for any reason, and hopefully this article can help with that.
