New mom­mies and soon-to-be mom­mies!  When I was car­ry­ing lit­tle Sailor in my uter­ine home I often perused web­sites and blogs to find the MUST HAVES for car­ing for a new­born.  Sure, I saw the GIGUNDO lists that places like thebump.com and Babies R Us give you, but I kept won­der­ing how many of those things I really NEEDED.  And, how many of them I would need.  And, was there any­thing NOT on that list that I’d need?

Well, I’m going to share with you lovelies what has got­ten me through.  And what hasn’t.

Instead of just doing a big ol’ list akin to a 7-year old mak­ing a list for Santa, I’m going to list by activ­i­ties and rou­tines.  So, not only will you get reviews, you’ll also get an insight to the kinds of things that are work­ing for me.  And by “work­ing for me” I mean “mak­ing it so I don’t jump off a bridge.”  You’re welcome.

First up: Bedtime!!

We started this rou­tine when Sailor was about 5 or 6 weeks old.  We prob­a­bly could have started it at about 4 weeks, but just didn’t really know how or that we could.  Before that, though, since baby is eat­ing so flip­pin’ often, it’s hard to estab­lish a routine.

We start her bed­time rou­tine around 6:45 every night.  It goes like this:

1. Bath
2. Out­side on the porch to dry off and enjoy a mas­sage (obvi­ously, skip the out­side when it’s cold)
3. Feed while play­ing a lul­laby CD
4. Sleep

And, fairly con­sis­tently, she’s out at about 7:30 / 7:45 until about 3:30am.  For you not-yet-mothers, you might be say­ing, “3:30! In the MORNING?! Ee gads!”  Believe me, 7:30 to 3:30 is 8 hours and it’s HEAVEN.  I had thought about putting her down later so that she’d sleep later, but I REALLY like the two-ish hours I get alone with Tom.  We get to enjoy din­ner and trashy TV.  Like from BEFORE.

OK, and I will now get to the good stuff.  What we use!

First thing we do is get her all in her birth­day suit and then I lay our Win­nie the Pooh Hooded Towel …

…over this Safety Baby Bath Cra­dle by Munchkin.  (Before her umbil­i­cal cord stump fell off, we just used this cra­dle on the counter top for sponge baths.  A friend of mine solely uses this in the bathtub.)

Then, I lay her on the towel, wrap her up and tote her off to the kitchen for bath time!  This is great to have next to the baby tub for when she’s done.  So easy to put her clean self on it and wrap the towel around her.  Keeps YOU dry and keeps HER from hav­ing to lay on a hard counter!

Tub time! We use The First Years Sure Com­fort Deluxe New­born to Tod­dler Tub Pink — I love this.  The ham­mock part is for when they’re a new­born and then it comes off and turns into a tub for tod­dlers.  It fits per­fectly over our sink.  (She loves to end her bath with a light spray from the sprayer!)  Oh, and it’s fun to make up songs about which body part you’re wash­ing!  And DON’T FORGET that nasty neck!  You’ll be sur­prised at all the crud that can get stuck in the folds in there!

Dur­ing her bath we use the match­ing Win­nie the Pooh Wash­cloths, all soaped up with Cal­i­for­nia Baby Super Sen­si­tive Sham­poo!  (I pre­fer bath prod­ucts that are more nat­ural.  Cal­i­for­nia Baby is a great line!)

After her bath, I take her wrapped up in her towel on her Bath Cra­dle to our cov­ered porch and lay the whole pile on a blan­ket.  I dry her off and then take her off the towel since it’s wet.  Then it’s mas­sage time with Cal­i­for­nia Baby Super Sen­si­tive Every­day Lotion! (lucky baby) Legs first, feet, arms, hands and then tummy.  If she’s in a good mood, we’ll hang out there just look­ing at the trees and chatting.

Finally, we head inside and put on pj’s (I pre­fer but­ton­down gowns) and a dia­per.  I’m a big fan of Pam­pers Swad­dlers — and Pam­pers Swad­dlers Sen­si­tive have a yel­low line that turns blue when the dia­per is full!  (I tried Hug­gies, too.  Not so much.) If you’re going to go with cloth dia­pers, Lynda at Dig­i­tal­Woe has a great run­down of choices. (And they look pretty cute!)

We turn on our favorite lul­laby CD, Rock­abye Baby, The Bea­t­les one, and set­tle in on our Storkcraft Hoop Glider with a First Years Breast­flow Bot­tle (slow flow nip­ple) of Enfamil For­mula for Gas & Fussi­ness (which is what we use for night feed­ings after I stopped breast­feed­ing.)

Once she’s nice and sleepy, we put in down in what I feel is a NEWBORN MUST-HAVE!  I first saw it when Mommy Words was doing a review/giveaway.  I imme­di­ately put it on my reg­istry, and, after debat­ing whether I really needed it, almost took it off!  Thank prophets I didn’t!  It’s the Fisher Price New­born Rock n’ Play Sleeper.  It lets your lit­tle one, who has spent 9 months all squished up, STAY A LITTLE SQUISHED when sleep­ing!  Around week 6 I tried hav­ing her sleep in her co-sleeper for the week and she didn’t sleep nearly as long as she did in the Sleeper.  We’ll prob­a­bly use it through month three and then start the tran­si­tion to the crib.

It’s also GREAT for din­ner time (before your lit­tle one starts going to bed early) or if you need to get some things done around the house.  It allows your baby to sit up just a lit­tle so she can watch what you’re up to!

And that…is the way we do bedtime.

Related Posts :

My Favorite Part About Last Night

The Oblig­a­tory One Month Letter

Voila, The Nursery

My First Impres­sion: A Crazy