Is it already time to flashback to Sawyer as a baby? Well, he is just over nineteen weeks now so we can at least review the first quarter of his babydom.

According to my own bossyness, we should have completed all thirteen of the rookie moms weekly challenges within his fourth trimester, right? So, let’s see how we did!

1. Pretend you’re in Europe — I totally did this. Before I could sit (let alone sit and enjoy coffee), Sawyer and I walked to our neighborhood cafe. Extra whipped cream on everything please. Supporting evidence in foursquare. It counts.
2. Grab a buddy to go on a recon mission. Check. Well, I’m counting some of my previous experience as a mom-friendly nutjob always on the hunt for new and secret places to nurse and change a diaper.
3. Join or start a new mom’s group. Kinda sorta. This warrants a whole ‘nother post on whether or not I even want new friends these days. I *do* want some people in a similar boat to kvetch about sleep and swaddles, boobs and bottles. Stay tuned.
4. Visit a fabric store with your sidekick. YES! And I have been there a few times. Lucky me, the fabric outlet that I had never even been to before is a short walk in a baby carrier away. I loaded up the carrier with Sawyer and hand sanitizer; shoved my wallet and phone in my pockets; and came back with a small bag of material for various projects (that I assigned to other people to do for me).
5. Go to the grocery store for just one thing. Sadly, yes. And I still felt insecure and like I needed the practice.
6. Paint your baby’s feet for posterity. OMG, so cute! Alec and I did this right before his paternity leave ended. {sorry this photo looks like crap, I think I just broke iPhoto so bear with me!}
7. Take a postnatal yoga class, with your baby. No. I will accept this as my first failing. But in my defense, Sawyer and I did take an ass-kicking bootcamp class for seven weeks starting when he was 12 weeks old. Booyah!
8. Get a pedicure. Of course.
9. Go to a mom and baby movie. So much. Sawyer has seen several (high- and low-) quality films in his young life: Harold and Kumar Christmas, Moneyball, Our Idiot Brother, 50/50, Footloose, Alvin and the Chipmunks Chipwrecked, and A Dolphin Tale (with me, Sawyer, and Milo sharing a seat when we were the only ones in the theater).
10. Plan a mom’s night out. Yes, because of my awesome husband who is unafraid of putting three kids to bed.
11. Visit a friend or spouse at work. Yes. Sawyer and I nervously visited Alec at work. All was well except for the screaming in the mega-van on the return home.
12. Enjoy modern art. Okay, we didn’t exactly go to an art museum, but I did bring the little guy to the Air and Space Museum in DC. And it kind of sucked. I’m counting it.
13. Make a Modern Family photo. I did take a funny picture-in-picture picture (see above) but I did not have the skills to make it fancy. Nor did I actually leave the house! Fail, with flourish.

I’m going to grade myself pretty highly for tackling the first quarter of rookie mom challenges with my little sidekick. We were certainly living up to the spirit of the list — even if I regularly complain that my baby isn’t very portable and want Whitney to come to my house so I’m always near that beloved baby swing.

Is anyone else doing our weekly challenges? How’s it going for you?

When my second son was born, I flirted with sewing to create this Moby-style baby wrap (AKA the “fauxby”) to keep little Milo super close. It is the snugliest baby carrier that I’ve ever had.

My mom helped me to hem the edges. Once I saw how legitimately simple it was, I made another two on my own.

Ingredients:

• Muslin fabric, 5 yards (one long piece will usually yield two wraps. Protip: get the lady in the store to cut it for you!)
• A patch made from another material.
• Thread in your sewing machine.

Steps:

1. Cut the fabric in half lengthwise so it is 20 inches wide and 5 yards long
2. Iron, pin, then hem the edges.
3. Adhere your patch to the middle of the wrap so you can easily find it by feel.

Too lazy to sew the edges? Buy a knit fabric that has some stretch. The ends will look raw, but they will not unravel. This is sort of a flashdance-style wrap. Look for 5% spandex or lycra and 95% cotton. You’ll need 5 yards, and the width will be 42 inches. Fold it in half and cut along the fold.

Whitney laid it out for me in her kitchen this morning and took this picture.

Wondering how to wear it? I experimented a bit before I asked the woman at our local baby gear shop to fit me properly. It was a relief to have a pro install Milo for me. Maybe this video will help you.

Wanna just buy one? Voila, le moby wrap on amazon.

Related links:
Rookie Mom Challenge: Go to the fabric store
Wrap your baby and stay warm

Please help our anonymous guest poster with your compassion and suggestions!

Nursing mom picture via flickr christyscherrer

I can only talk about this if I’m wearing two breast pads on each side. My three-week old baby has nursed for more than a cumulative seventy-five hours so far and still has NOT regained his way back to his birth weight. WTF?! He is still about nine ounces down. C’mon kid.

My pediatrician recommended that we introduce two bottles of formula per day to help him beef up a bit. She suggested that I take a break while this bottle is going down (you know, sleeping, jet-skiing, shopping, whatever we worried moms like to do). I greatly appreciate her advice, but I want to know how to maintain and increase my breastmilk supply if I’m already dropping feedings. Help!

I have quite a bit of breastfeeding experience under my belt nursing bra already: I have nursed other floppy newborns; eleven-month olds who can also eat and drink other stuff; six-month olds with no attention span. I have done dream feeds with formula and breast milk combinations as well as pumped in dingy supply closets and on airplanes.

Even with all this experience, I’m feeling lost. Perhaps it’s the post-partum hormones or the sleep-deprivation, but I cannot figure out the rhythm of inserting these bottle feeds without experiencing massive engorgement. And if I spend the bottle feeding session, currently conducted by my superdad husband, with the pump, how do I achieve that “break” I’m supposed to be taking?

This is our fourth weekly challenge for rookie moms.

Take a walk through a fabric store with your baby in a front carrier.

If you’re game, pick up something for a fun craft project.

If your baby’s gender was not known and you have stack of pale green and yellow clothes you don’t love, buy some bright buttons and sew them on to give the clothes a little more character.

Can you handle a project beyond sewing on a button? Be brave, girl!

Purchase a long swath of muslin fabric and create a “faux-by wrap” (yes, that’s faux-Moby wrap, we’re into puns) using the easy-peasy tutorial from Kendra.

Or select a large square of flannel for an easy swaddling blanket.

Both of these sewing projects are so simple that I’ve done them each three or four times. And I’m not the crafty one.

Baby older than this? Let her touch all the different fabrics, faux furs, zippers, and doodads under your close supervision.

Did you complete this challenge? Love it or hate it, tell us how it went:

• Comment below.
• Share a picture with us on Facebook.
• Name your destination on Twitter and use hashtag #rookiemoms.
• Or, link in the comments to your own blog post about this challenge.

[fabric store picture from kevin1024 via flickr]

We cannot emphasize enough the importance of hanging out with other women who are doing what you’re doing. Swaddling, nursing, trying out bottles, using front carriers, swings – these are some of the things you’ll discuss. But there are also the sensitive issues of body image, careers, and relationships. It’s quite likely that you and your partner are experiencing parenting a little differently. Finding other women with whom you can share your experiences is important.

Furthermore, it is an excellent motivator to get you out of the house. Mom’s group outings can give some structure to your week. You will make a commitment to meet up on Tuesday morning at 10 am and by gosh, you better be there, no matter how many times you have to change your shirt before you leave the house.

Your challenge this week is to find a group to attend.

We each were in a new mother’s support group that met with a facilitator that helped guide us through group discussions. If you don’t have a facilitator, here is our simple suggestion for a format:

1. Meet twice a week. One day is more focused on talking, and might take place at someone’s house or a picnic area. The other day is an outing. Take turns organizing the outing.
2. At the beginning of your discussion gathering, go around the circle and let each person tell one “high” and one “low” for the week.
3. Connect online to facilitate discussion throughout the week.
4. Vary your outings. Use this website to inspire you to try new things together.

Some people to ask about mom’s groups: your childbirth educator, a lactation consultant, a church or synagogue, a prenatal yoga class instructor. Or, visit an online resources for finding moms in your area, like MothersClick.com or MeetUp.com.

We know that at this point, any other women you see walking around with a stroller looks like a “real mother,” but believe us– everyone is learning and struggling on the job. Being a new mom is like being a freshman in college. The people who live on your hall are likely to become your best friends, even if you had little in common to begin with. Find some strangers whose babies were born the same month as yours and turn them into friends, or at least companions. Tell your birth stories in all the gory details, and you’ll have nothing left to hide from these people.

This is our third weekly challenge. If you complete this challenge, give yourself a gold star and please let us know how it goes. Coming soon: more tips for connecting with other new moms.

Our second in this 52-week series of weekly rookie mom challenges gets you out of the house once again.

When your baby is in a good mood (or better, sleeping!), scope out the “safe places” at your local shopping destinations where you can feed and change your baby. This will allow you to get out of the house every day and know that you don’t have to race against the clock to get back home.

Things to stake out:

• Changing tables in restrooms
• Comfy chairs for nursing
• Other moms with babies in strollers or carriers

I like the children’s area of any bookstore. Find a quiet corner and a tiny chair, and pull out your boob or bottle.

Did you complete this challenge? Love it or hate it, tell us about it:

• Comment below.
• Share a picture with us on Facebook.
• Name your destination on Twitter and use hashtag #rookiemoms.
• Or, post a link in the comments to your own blog post about this challenge.

Baby too old for this? Try Activity #164: Help a rookie mom (with all your hard-earned wisdom) Baby not yet born? Even easier! Walk through the shopping areas you know and love scoping out new mom zones you never noticed.

[illustration by Amy Saidens]

In response to a pregnant friend asking for baby product tips and must-haves, my friend Anna sent along this advice about the considerable merits of her wipe warmer:

When my daughter Emma was born, she cried constantly for days…she would not eat. We were so stressed…and we noticed that she was particularly upset when we were changing her. We tried everything, and finally got the wipe warmer. It was a miracle. She stopped crying completely, started sleeping through the night immediately, and was reciting the alphabet at 2 weeks. She smiled at all times and would touch the warm wipes in delight. She ate full meals, and her gross motor skills were amazing (sitting at 1 month). All due to the wipe warmer. I would not even dream of having a child without one.

For Mira we got 4 more to ensure that one was in each room. And she has been speaking two languages for 4 months now and she’s not even a year. We experimented once and stopped using the wipe warmer – immediately we experienced devastating results – crying, complete lack of appetite, gross and fine motor skill delay, lack of speaking – you name it. Then Mira just held the warm wipe and our genius baby was back.

p.s. You can actually warm wipes using your own balled-up fists (FREE!) and if they’re cold, rub them together (FREE!).

Tip for brand-new breastfeeders: It may sound weird, but I did it and so did my friend Maureen.

Take an old tank top or soft cup bra and cut holes where your nipples go. Seriously.

Wear this whenever your nipples need to be untouched. Preferably not when your father in law is around.

Yesterday my husband woke up at the crack of dawn and headed out for a run. Scratch that. Dawn was not cracking; it was simply dark out. Having committed myself to 30 consecutive days of the 30-Day Shred, I decided that I too would get out of bed before the kids awoke.

I went downstairs to initiate the torture Jillian Michaels had in store for me and was surprised to see my husband standing in the kitchen with a fancy crocodile skin handbag that doesn’t belong to me. “This purse and this iPhone were on the front steps,” he said, as he plugged the phone into our charger. “There are a bunch of missed calls and texts, but the passcode is required to get to them.”

My mind started racing. As the recent victim of handbag theft, I knew how crazy the woman who owned these things must have been feeling.

Ryan headed out for his run, leaving me in charge of the investigation. I dug into the purse and found that the wallet had cash and credit cards in place. The drivers license revealed the owner to be a woman about my age, married (unless her parents thought that a long Polish last name would be a lovely middle name), and a resident of San Francisco.

I was worried for the purse owner. If it was a bad guy that had come between her and her purse, why didn’t he take her money? Why didn’t he take her phone?

The next thing I found in the purse turned my mind in a different direction. It was a ziploc bag containing breast pads. I looked at the phone. The wallpaper image was a man in his 30s holding a newborn baby. I dug back into the wallet. I found a notification from an OBGYN that I used to visit in San Francisco before my baby-making days.

The victim was a new mom! My breasts practically leaked with panic. I felt even more driven to solve this mystery and let this woman know that her valuables were safe.

A logical next step when one becomes pregnant in San Francisco is to move to Berkeley, where I live, so I became hopeful that we might know some people in common.

Armed with the name off the driver’s license, I hopped on Facebook and was disappointed to find that she was not a user. I found another person who was obviously a relative, and sent him a message promising that I was not creepy and offering my phone number.

My next step was LinkedIn. And there she was with 500+ contacts, one of whom I know. I sent our mutual friend an email. This friend doesn’t have children and it was 7.30 am on a Sunday, so I wasn’t sure when I would hear back from her. I was unable to send the purse owner herself a message because LinkedIn would like me to have a premium account to do that.

I tried to keep the worst case scenario out of my head, but decided to call the police to report the purse. My husband, having returned home, confirmed that he was also worried about an unmentionable scenario where this woman has been separated not only from her purse but also from the people depicted on her iPhone’s wallpaper.

The police (non-emergency number) said they would swing by and pick up the purse. I did not ask them if they were also obsessed with finding this rookie mom or if this was the first they had heard of her.

Suddenly, the iPhone recieved a text message. My husband jotted down the number from which it was sent, grabbed the phone and called her, announcing gleefully “We have your purse!”

We encouraged her to come get it before the police arrived and learned that she had indeed recently moved to Berkeley, and lived right down the street. She came over to retrieve her belongings within five minutes.

It turns out she had a baby two weeks ago and in a moment of postpartum brain freeze, set her purse down on our front steps and walked off without it.

Mystery solved.

What crazy mistake did you make in the early days of motherhood? (I left the front door of my house wide open when I left the house. Repeatedly. )

Hopefully, this is only a metaphor for survival, but also a friendly reminder… you’re not doing your baby any favors by overlooking your own needs. Seize the opportunities to drink water, eat food, lubricate contact lenses, and pee when you need to.

In the middle of the night, when Holden cries for food or comfort, I always make sure to chug some water, pee, wash up, and then go in because you never know when it’s going to turn into a marathon nursing/soothing session and everything seems worse when I’m a starving, thirsty lunatic. Just ask Alec.

It would indeed be wonderful to have a completed baby book at the end of one’s first year of parenting, but remembering to fill it in as the months go by doesn’t come easily to many of us. This life is fast-paced. If a reminder to do something is not on my precious smart phone, well, it’s possible I will not remember it at all.

Enter My Own Little Story. When you register on this website, you’ll begin getting email reminders with writing prompts that are relevant to your baby’s age.  Respond to them and your virtual baby book will be filling in.  Eventually you can purchase a hard copy of the book. Add photos if you like.

Procrastinators, rejoice. There is a snooze button on these emails.  If you click “Remind me later,” your next email from the system will include a consolidated view of all the writing prompts in your queue. If you don’t care for a question or topic, simply skip it and that page will not appear in your book.

Access to your journal process is free, and you can share it with friends and family. The credit card only comes out once you decide to print a book.

If this is all too much for you, consider simply emailing your baby whenever the mood strikes you.

If you’re getting sick of your “to do” list getting longer and not shorter and wondering where the heck is all your time going, try writing a “did do” list. Share it with your baby-daddy at the end of the day and encourage him to be very impressed. The truth is that your time is filled with lots and lots of recurring tasks that you never had to deal with before.

So set aside this list:

• Fix chip in front windshield
• Call Amanda back
• Change name with United Airlines
• Order wedding albums
• Buy Whitney’s birthday present

and, for at least one day, make this list:

You get the idea. Own it. Live it. Love it.