The gift you give yourself

I've noticed something wonderful. The gifts of baby clothes I've given friends over the last few years are coming back to me in the form of hand-me-downs.

Here's Puddle wearing a second-hand outfit from her cousin Mila. I bought the pink and brown striped tights, brown long-sleeved top and denim jumper from H&M in 2008.

Here's Puddle wearing a hand-me-down jumper from her friend Chloe. I bought the jumper and a long-sleeved onesie (not pictured, Puddle is too big for it) from Zara in 2009. Yes, I have thing for jumpers.

So here's an obvious tip, if you plan on getting pregnant, buy clothes you absolutely love as shower gifts for your pregnant friends and then hope and pray you have a baby of the same sex as your friend.


To all of my friends who are pregnant or are thinking of becoming pregnant and gave Puddle gifts of clothes, get excited to see your gifts again!

Lay-what?

In honour of great pregnancy news I've recently heard, I've put together a list of clothes a baby will need in the first six weeks of life. Fun fact, this stuff is called layette.

A few things to consider first

• Your baby won't be spitting up in the first few weeks. If you stay on top of changing her diapers every 2-4 hours, her clothes won't become that soiled. Because you won't need to change her clothes frequently, you won't need a large quantity of basics like sleepers or onesies. That being said, you'll want to have a great poo stain remover on hand just in case.
• Look for clothing that opens in the front and close easily with a zipper or snaps. You'll want dressing your baby to be as fuss-free as possible.
• Dress your baby in layers and consider that babies only require one more layer of clothing than an adult. It's important to not over dress your baby as babies can't regulate their own body temperature like adults.

Sleepers (4-6)
Easy to put on and take off, sleepers will be your best friend for the first six weeks after your baby is born.

Consider having at least a couple of newborn sized sleepers for your baby to wear in the first two to three weeks after giving birth. She'll quickly out grow them but it's nice to have at least one or two things that fit well. You'll also want to have a few sleepers in the next size up, 0-3 months. She'll be swimming in them at first, but will quickly fill them out.

Onesies (5-7)
Now that you're pregnant you should know what a onesie is. Collect an assortment of short and long-sleeved onesies. Look for onesies that open or expand at the neck to pull easily over baby's head. I was fond of kimono oneises because they are so easy to put on.

Leggings (1-3 pairs)
Pair leggings or stretchy pants with a onesie for comfortable day-time wear. Dressing your baby in separate pieces lets you mix and match your baby's wardrobe and allows you to wash what is only soiled.

Pants should have an elastic waist to accommodate growth and movement. If you're cloth diapering your baby, look for pants that have a lot of room in the seat.

Socks (2-3 pairs)
When your baby isn't wearing footed sleepers, you'll likely want to cover her feet with infant-sized socks. She'll be able to wear the same socks for a while without washing them, so you won't need many pairs. Buy snugly-fitting socks but be prepared to lose a few.

Outerwear (1-2 pieces)
Where you live and the time of year your baby is born will influence the type and quantity of outerwear your baby will need in the first six weeks. For fall and winter babies, have one snowsuit. If that seems like overkill, probably a fleece sleeper with room for layers underneath will do.

For spring and summer babies, one or two hoodies or knitted sweaters will be adequate. Winter and fall babies will need these too.

Hat (1-2)
If you're baby is born in the fall or winter, you'll want a couple of warm toques, which cover his ears, to wear outside. Otherwise, a jersey, knit beanie will suffice. Let your baby go bare-headed while inside and reserve the hats for when you venture out. 

Sleep sac (2)
Forget crib blankets, a safe and snug way to dress your baby for sleeping is with a sleep sac. Sleep sacs come in varying degrees of thickness. Consider having a thick, lined sleep sac for night and a lighter one for day-time naps. Pair a sleep sac with either a sleeper or a onesie depending on the temperature indoors. I recommend the Halo SleepSack. 

Where do you get layette?
Ask your mum-friends for second-hand clothes (they likely be pushing them on you), hit a thrift-store, wait for your baby shower. No need to shell out for newborn baby clothes, your kid will grow out them quickly. But if need a hit of retail therapy, check out Sweet Peanut. Their baby clothes are made of cotton and use modern, adult and baby-friendly prints.

A peaceful sleep for mummy

If you swaddle your baby in order to soothe her to sleep then you should consider getting your baby a Halo SleepSack, a combined sleep sac and swaddling blanket.

Why not just use a blanket to swaddle your baby? Blankets can become loose during the night and gather around your baby's face increasing the risk of suffocation. The swaddling wings of the Halo SleepSack velcro together reducing the amount of free flowing fabric.

Doesn't she look cozy and safe?

The SleepSack also allows you to more easily transition away from swaddling to just using a sleep sac. We slowly stopped using the swaddling wings of the SleepSack as Puddle required less and less soothing at night. Until she grew out of the sac, she slept in it every night wearing only a sleeper.

Magic eraser

There's nothing more annoying than discovering a bright yellow baby-poo stain on a beautiful piece of baby clothing. That stuff is stubborn, it refuses to wash out.

Except if you have the right tool.

A friend of mine gave me a stick of Buncha Farmers Stain Remover. It's an all-natural soap that you rub onto the stain before you wash the garment. Works every time.

PDF pattern vs. regular post

So as I mentioned last week, I'm making a Christmas dress for myself and a dress for Puddle. I've already finished my dress but Puddle's dress isn't even close to completion. Both dresses use a McCall's pattern and I bought both patterns online.

Why the difference? I bought my dress as a PDF pattern. The same day I bought it I downloaded the pattern and printed it from my home printer. Puddle's pattern? Well, I bought that online from the McCall's site as well, but I bought a regular paper pattern. I bought it weeks ago, but it still hasn't arrived in the mail.

So would I recommend only buying PDF patterns from now on? No, not exactly.

The McCall's PDF pattern I printed from my home printer was a whoping 55 pages! After I printed it I had to tape the entire thing together using grid instructions. This involved trimming the edges of each piece of 8x10 paper to make sure the marks lined up properly. Sheesh. For someone who loathes cutting out sewing patterns, this was an extremely tedious process.

This is what I recommend: Buy regular paper patterns for adult sized clothing and PDF patterns for baby or children's clothing. If you're in a hurry to get your paper pattern, don't buy it online. Take the time to drive to the closest local fabric store to buy the pattern (even if it's 40 min away as is the case for me).

A slice of le ciel

We received a gift for Puddle a few days ago. I was thrilled when I read the label on the box.

Inside was an adorable pink sleeper.

The front of the sleeper is unmarred by zippers or snaps. Check out the opening on the back.

Update: It's so easy to change Pud's diaper in the middle of the night when she's wearing this sleeper!

With baby on her back, you simply slip your hand beneath her and unsnap the bum panel with one tug. Then you pull the feet of the sleeper and the entire bottom slips off baby. Normally I hate changing a diaper in the middle of the night because it really wakes me up. Not when she's wearing this sleeper. I think I did it in my sleep.

If Jacadi wasn't so expensive I would recommend you go get yourself one.  Instead I'll recommend that other companies design their sleepers this way.

Simiplicity has a name

Leg warmers.

When a baby is wearing a onesie with leg warmers, changing diapers is the easiest thing to do in the world. Is there a simpler, easier way to dress your baby?

The answer is YES. I just realized that dressing a baby in leg warmers and a dress makes it even easier to change a baby's diaper.

If you don't want to buy a pair of leg warmers, dig out that old sweater you have in your clothing donation bag and turn the sleeves into mini leg warmers for your baby with a few simple zooms on your sewing machine.

Slip-on style

I pointed out in an earlier post, that I love kimono onesies because they're so darn easy to put on. A couple of days ago, I found out choosing easy-to-use clothing doesn't end when you're babies grow into kids.

My friend Miriam recently bought high tops for both her 2-year-old and 5-year-old kids (who are adorable by the way). Now, for a busy mum, that's a lot of laces. All of that tying and untying or helping to tie and untie laces as they went from activity to activity was proving a bit much. So Miriam did what any desperate mother would do, she devised a work-around. Miriam replaced the shoelaces with elastic!

Lily's pink slip-on Converse.

Jonah's slip-on Nikes.

Zip n' go

When I was pregnant with Pud, and didn't know she was a girl, a friend passed along a bag of gender-neutral baby clothing. The bag was full of the usual stuff, except for one thing, a tiny, pink sleeper.

"It doesn't matter if you have a boy, "she said when I saw the sleeper, "you'll need this."

Kushies It's My Planet 2 pink, preemie sleeper

She was right. We used that sleeper everyday for the first two weeks. If Pud had been a boy, we would have used that sleeper everyday for the first two weeks.

Why? First of all it was the only sleeper that properly fit her. Her feet went into the little feet parts, and her hands went into the little hand parts. The sleeper didn't bunch up around her face - a fear for a new parent who is constantly asking, "is she breathing?"

Nobody ever wants to give you the teeny-tiny clothes because they won't get used for long. But the truth is, if the item is practical, it will be worn everyday until it no longer fits. And infants wear sleepers all day long because most parents (even me!) don't have the energy to dress them in cute little outfits.

The second reason, and the most heavenly, is the tiny, pink sleeper had a zipper! (Don't freak out, the zippered area was properly constructed so no little baby parts would not get zipped up.) Changing Pud in the middle of the night when she was wearing her tiny, pink sleeper meant I never had to fully wake up to fiddle with the snaps. And you know how I feel about snaps...

If you're pregnant and don't have a tiny sleeper, go to a second-hand shop, go through your friend's boxes of baby clothing, just get yourself a really small sleeper. And never mind the colour.

Kimono snap

We all have those times when you're just about to change your kid's clothes and she gives a look that says, "if you pull one more onesie over my head I'm going to make you wish you weren't a parent". Well, on those days I make sure to dress Pud in a kimono onesie.

When Pud was born we received two of the Jacadi kimono onesies pictured below (I'll discuss how beautiful Jacadi clothing is in another post). I avoided using them at first because I couldn't make out how they snapped together. They reminded me of those annoying brain-teaser puzzles my older brother gets in his stocking every year. But then, after I started to emerge from my post-delivery haze, I remembered that one time, a few years ago, when I solved a Christmas brain-teaser all by myself. And so I tried the kimono onesie and I haven't looked back since.

Do yourself a favour, go buy some kimono onesies. And when your best friend has a baby, pass them along to her.

A drawer of serenity

After Pud was born we received many beautiful gifts of clothing, most of it for when she's a bit older.  I tried to organize the clothing according to the months it was intended for but quickly realized baby clothes sizes are not standardized. One sleeper intended for a 3-6 month old baby fit her at 4 weeks, while another looked like it wouldn't fit her for another 6 months.

Quickly overwhelmed by the amount of gifts of clothing we received I ended up stuffing most them into the bottom drawer of her dresser. I planned to pull out an item of clothing as it fit her and integrate it into her current rotation of clothing.

But that drawer started to haunt me. What if I forgot to pull out an outfit when it was ready to wear and Pud never wore it?

So this morning while Pud took a morning nap I decided to tackle the drawer. I figured there was no point in organizing the clothing according to the months it was sized for. Instead I organized the clothes into groups according to their length. Items that had the same length from shoulder to crotch were grouped together. I found that I could easily clump most of the clothes into three groups.

Now, as she gets bigger, I can just migrate the next group of clothing up a few drawers into her current rotation of clothes. And to avoid her any drawers becoming too packed, as soon as a piece of clothing is too small, I pull it out of her dresser and stuff into a storage bag, again, according to shoulder to crotch length.

Ah, serenity.