Look of the day stalled and MORE wardrobe additions

Look of the day for me has stalled, due to us changing our spare room to a study/guest room now there is no room to take my photo in the mirror! I'm working out an alternative as well as trying to stick to a commitment to update look of the daily. At the moment I'm struggling a bit with my style. I usually dress up for work Mon to Fri then do casual wear on the weekends. I'm really starting to miss getting 'dressed up', having to wear breastfeeding friendly clothes also impacts a bit. I'm going to post on my Everyday Girl blog about getting my style groove back!

Baby Girl is wearing a cute blue flower playsuit from Best and Less and a white sequin headband also from Best and Less.

This month I'm trying to do Frugal February which I'm actually being quite successful with in terms of groceries, social activities etc. Not so much on the shopping side of things. I bought the attached cute dress, miss kitty headband, leopard uggs and pink leopard ballet shoes - including shipping $35! http://www.kidzwearonline.com.au/default.aspx?skinid=7. However, I did find more cute cheap outfits in Best and Less and I walked away :-).

Big w sale and sleep suits

Big W had a massive baby sale, the only things I was interested in though were the Bonds baby wear and Bonds maternity bras.

Baby G was given two hand me down wonder suits which are just the bomb. We have a sleep routine where we put her in her wonder suit, feed her in a dark room then pop her on the cot 'slightly' awake. This has been working amazingly well. However she has grown out of all her 0000 so there goes one wonder suit, and we can't just live with one as explosive night poos have been known to happen! So we bought a pack of two for $12. Because at 5 weeks she is nearly five and half kilos I bought them in 00 size (8kgs). I think now I have a better handle of how the sizing is fitting her, I realize she has way to many 00 and 0 clothes and in future I will just buy her actual size instead of thinking she is going to put on weight really fast and outgrow things.

Turns out bonds are about to bring out a new wonder suit that zips up which should be interesting as studs can be such a pain. I would love to enter G into the bond baby search they are doing for the launch of the new suits but I think she is still a bit little.

Look of the day and Dress Ups!

Sooo, when Baby G was born I was given tons and tons of clothes from family and friends, which I really appreciated. But the last few days I've been a bit bummed about wardrobe selections - i have tons of clothes but none of its really my taste. This ended yesterday when I received a parcel that had a heap of second hand clothes that actually looked second hand and I strongly disliked :-(. I thought you know what, I'm not rich but I'm not poor either and this is my first baby girl and baby clothes are actually not that expensive and she doesn't have to wear the gifts. So today I headed to the Best and Less sale and picked up all the cute dresses that I wanted to dress baby G in (I've been stalking $$ cute outfits on online websites but thought since it is Frugal February I would try and be somewhat budget conscious). I'll also got onto EBay and bought all the cute bloomers and tutus I had wanted as well :-). I also bought an expensive personalized bib( photo is an example) - well I think $15 is an expensive bib!

Look of the day - me: cotton on button up dress, ally belt and I got the shoes from a random surf shop. I've got to get more button down dresses this one is awesome for breastfeeding.
Look of the day - baby g: cotton on baby top and hand me down bloomers and best and less headband. Awkward photo of bubby, got to work on those posing skills ;-).

Look of the day and things I've been grateful for

I had a really hard time when i was pregnant deciding what I needed for baby. So here is a list of what I have found useful and what I haven't:
Love:

• change table with bath - this has been awesome. It was given to us and there would of been no way I would of bought a change table as I thought they were overrated and a change mat would suffice. I use it ALL the time, and we just wheel it into the bathroom to give Baby G her bath! I bought a nice cover for it from Toy World that makes it look a little more nicer.
• Baby bath support - this is a terri towelling support vs the hard ones you can get.  It makes bath times so much easier :-).
• Fisher Price Cradle N Swing - previously blogged about - bubba g didnt really like this until now (4 weeks), now falls asleep in it, looks at herself in the mirror and loves the mobiles YAY
• vibrating bouncer, the batteries just went flat in this and now bubba G does not love it so much, need new batteries STAT.
• wraps, wipes, bibs - G is a milk spitter upperer, I highly suspect all babies are ;-).  We have a billion of these and I am just about to buy some more they are so handy!
• a Swaddle, I bought this from Babies R Us.  I dont like swaddles but there is no denying when baby is inconsolable you need to swaddle them and rock them alot (and shhhh shhhh shhh).  So I bought a ready made one that I just pop her into and velcro up.
• Pram - city mini jogger.  If you read previous blogs you will read all about my massive indecision about choosing a pram even though this one was the first one we picked out.  Its awesome, so light and easy - its perfect!
• Pram Liners, the style up the pram (previously blogged about)
• Bonds Wondersuits that have enclosed hands and feet.  These are the BOMB. Our room gets quite cool in the airconditioning and we just rug her up in these and she loves them.
• mittens - at first we didnt use these as her finger nails didnt scratch her, but then i discovered that it seemed to calm her down in the airconditioning to pop them and socks on her so she didnt have to be properly rugged up.
• Breastfeeding Pillow - saved my life end of story.  Now that I am four weeks into Bfing, I dont actually use it that much as I have built up the muscles alot more.

Not so love:

• the zip up swaddle, I hated this at first zip. Bubba does not look good all zipped up and we got rid of this after the first try.
• lots of 0000 clothes.  I panicked towards the end of my pregnancy at the lack of clothes I had for baby and went out and bought about $50 worth of little onesies. Total waste of money, I had a big bubba and after Baby G arrived my friends and families gave her SO many clothes (which everyone said would happen but I didnt believe).  She now has enough clothes for about four babies, and the onesies I bought her in 0000 NEVER got worn :-(.
• lots of johnson and johnson products.  Turns out midwives and other mums strongly do not recommend these!
• car mirrors - see previous post.  I have not found a car mirror that actually works where I can see my baby in the back of my car - sigh.

Look of the day - me - Ally playsuit $15.  This one is a bit less sacky/baggy then the other Look of the Day one, I had a belt with it but hubby said no belt so no belt it was.  It zips down at the front for easy BF accessability.
Look of the day - Baby G - baby g is conked out in the awesome fisher and price cradle and swing wearing her ruffle flower pink onesie :-).

Target, the one stop baby shop

My haul from the Target baby sale:
•mobile for cot- on sale for half price! I went to babies r us and it was $99, but i thought I would check the Target sale and the same mobile was HALF PRICe! Awesome.
•tummy time mat $20
•mobile mat/tummy time mat - $39. I actually only bought this because i wanted a mobile mobile (lol), and it just happened to come with a playmat as well.
•pram toy for the pram bar-$10

•Lamaze books - $36 for two
•Sesame street wrist rattles- $8

That's probably it for toys for awhile as baby G is only three weeks old and a friend recently gave us about ten Lamaze toys so she is well stocked up!

My wish list for next baby shop:
•video monitor with room temperature display
•bumbo - photo attached , it's to help little ones sit up. Mothercare and babies r us sell them for around $50.
•a wrap/sling. As previously posted I bought a wrap (photo attached). But it's far to warm for the tropical climate we live in and baby g already has heat rash, so I might get some use out of it in a few more months when it cools down but now it's useless.

Mirror mirror and look of the day

Baby G sits in her car capsule facing the rear of the car (as per safety standards). Unfortunately this means I cannot see her when I am in the front :-(. I feel distressed when I can't see her, so I went to babies r us and bought a baby car mirror which hubby installed. But then we couldn't see her the mirror! It didn't do the job AT all, so off to Target to buy another one. This one looked like it should do the job but I was a bit resigned to all baby car mirrors being crap. Once installed I could barely make out Baby G and definitely not enough to see if she was ok or not! After doing more research I am outta ideas it seems like there is actually no good car mirror on the market. Very sad face.

I have been very slack with look of the day photos - I just keep forgetting to take photos! This look of the day was a cotton on dress that I specifically bought for breast feeding - which worked a treat when I had to breastfeed when we were it at breakie and there were no parent rooms anywhere. Baby G is wearing a 'daddy's little princess' shirt with summer tights from Target :-).

Look of the day mummy and baby g

Baby G is two weeks old and four and half kilos. I would of expected that she wouldn't fit into 0000 clothing, but luckily she does as she has a few things in that size. This CUTE polka dot dress is from Best and Less and cost a whopping $20! Definitely a purchase outside of my spending policy, but what can I say I just had a baby girl and I just had to have a cute dress for her :-). Because its 0000 I am hoping to get at least a couple of wears out of it, even if it's just an outing to the coffee shop lol. My look of the day is an Ally play suit I bought for $15, I didn't try it in because I was heavily pregnant but I had a couple of play suits that looked alright so took a chance. I also chose it because it's a button down top for breastfeeding. Ultimately I don't like this playsuit, the bottom is basically to baggy and sack like. I know it's the fashion at the moment but :-(. I belted it up and wearing my comfy sandal/thing. My next post will be about compression garments which I credit for getting my tummy to snap back pretty quickly.