Sew your own baby carrier

Sewing different baby carrier's are fun and are really great baby shower presents. The benefits of these kind of carriers versus carriers you can buy in the store is that most are made so that the baby is facing the parent which in general is more cozy and less stimulating for the infant so they will like being carried for longer periods of time. Also most commercial carriers are designed so that all the baby's weight is being supported by their hips, and this isn't the best position for a baby to be in for long periods of time. Most of the carriers on this page have been used for centuries in various cultures.

I've made some slings, mei tai's, wraps, and soft structured carriers. My favorite carrier for nursing is a sling. For carrying an infant I liked a wrap. For a larger infant a mei tai (Asian Style baby carrier) in a front carry, and for a toddler a soft structured carrier in a back carry. Here are a few carriers I have made. I've made more but unfortunately I didn't always get picturees before I gave them away.

The best sites I have found to get help and free patterns for sewing is Jan Andrea's website. And thebabywearer.com's Do It Yourself Forum.

Specific free patterns that I have tried and liked:
Wrap - I used knit t-shirt fabric and just cut it and didn't sew anything.
Mei Tai (ABC) - I made one with this pattern and one with my own pattern and this was easier.
Sling - I've used a lightweight denim and knit t-shirt fabric and liked the knit one better but it doesn't work as well for older babies.
Soft Structured Carrier - The one I made in the pictures was my own pattern. I am in the process of making this one, but so far it looks better than my own pattern.

Wrap or SPOC (Simple Piece of Cloth)

Soft Structured Carrier

Mei Tai or ABC (Asian Baby Carrier)

Sew your own soft sole baby shoes

So these are so cute, really quick to make, are a great way to use scrap fabric, and are really useful. They help keep a baby's socks on their slippery feet and are good for feet as they are learning how to walk.

My favorite free pattern is from StardustShoes but it doesn't enlarge very well, so for bigger feet Tacky Living's pattern is good.

I used jiffy grip slipper fabric on the bottom of some, and scraps of PUL (waterproof diaper cover material) with the plastic side out on others.

Sewing Baby Items

So this is way overdue. I really wanted to post pictures of all the different crafts I've done over the past 20 months, but I just haven't gotten around to it. So I'm going to start trying to play catch up now. :)

Here is a link to all my crafts. :) Enjoy

http://bangerlm.blogspot.com/search/label/crafts

15 Weeks Pregnant

Yay I'm done with the first trimester and am feeling quite a bit better (except for this stupid cold I got--3rd one in three months--I'm almost wondering if I have pregnancy induced sinus infections). I had an appointment last Friday and everything looked great. My uterus was exactly where it was supposed to be. Which I was actually a little bit worried about. I have been feeling distinct baby tapping and thumps and huge kicks the last three weeks. The tapping and thumps I know are normal, a little early to be feeling those things but not unheard of, but the large kicks, especially the one I felt at 12 weeks was making me wonder about my due date (which by the way is May 14th). But my midwife said that maybe it was my uterus popping out from under my pubic bone when I bent over. So that made me feel a lot better.

The baby's heartbeat was 160 bpm. My blood pressure was nice and low. So everything looked great.

The last time I threw up was just past 13 weeks, so my assumption of 14 weeks being the magical number when I would start feeling better seems to be right on. After weeks of not wanting to eat cold lunches I was able to eat a turkey sandwich the other day. I also was able to cut up some chicken for dinner and not vomit. Unfortunately that means that I should probably take over more of the dinner making responsibilities.

So I am taking belly pictures this time. And though I don't feel quite as cute as I did last time I think it is good to still be proud of my pregnant body. :) And if you want to reminisce, compare, or see what I have to look forward to here are pictures of when I was pregnant with Selena.

Selena the silly girl

Selena has been very busy this month with toddler gym, swimming lessons and Halloween which has led to her telling lots of stories about dada and bubble, bubble, bubble, and frequent requests for candy.

Halloween was a lot of fun. Selena enjoyed trick-or-treating and though she couldn't say trick-or-treat she said hi, thank you, and bye. She did not want to help remove any of the seeds out of the pumpkin, but she did enjoy drawing on it, and eating the seeds once they had been cooked.

Selena is becoming quite an artist. She loves drawing on paper and on her magnetic doodle board and has started drawing people by drawing a circle with eyes and hair. It is amazing how fast she learns things. She also likes for me and dad to draw as well. Both me and dad have become very proficient at drawing all members of the family, including the dog, and putting hats, shoes, pants and socks on everyone, putting cups of apple juice, and apples in our hands, and having us all go swimming. We have to go through the same story lines with play-doh as well.

She is still a fan of reading books and she even recognizes and can name almost half the alphabet. Her favorite books right now are: If you Give a Moose a Muffin, If you Give a Pig a Pancake, and Room on the Broom. Her favorite number is nine and if you ask her any questions that you should respond with a number she'll answer nine. So you can make her sound very smart by asking her what 3 times 3 is, or the square root of 81, or the atomic number of Fluorine. We have a really cute video that I should post some time.

I've also been convinced that Selena is sillier than the average toddler. For instance when she sees the moon she makes the "bah-bah-bah-bah" sound when you tap your hand on your mouth. As far as I know no one ever taught her that. She's been making monster sounds (growling) or talking in a monster voice ever since she was 6 months old. When she sees her binky on the floor she bends over, without bending her knees, and picks it up with her mouth. When she is not drawing or reading a book she is pretty much always making funny noises and running or jumping. I am sure there are lots of other things as well. In general she just seems to be a very silly kid which is very entertaining.

Basically she is amazing us every day with the new things she learns and we are so proud.

10 Weeks Pregnant

So we had an appointment with the midwife yesterday. I am 10 1/2 weeks pregnant. She tried to find the heartbeat with the Doppler but couldn't so she pulled out the ultrasound machine and we got to see the baby. The baby was moving all over the place swinging its arms and legs and spinning in circles. It was really cute. Selena was adorable. She was up on the bed with me and was very interested in the goop that the midwife was putting on my tummy.

Overall I'm not feeling too great. Starting around 8 weeks I've been nauseous all day and this last week I've thrown up almost every day right before dinner. Thankfully I feel better after dinner. With Selena I was a little nauseous, but not too bad, but it ended abruptly at 14 weeks so hopefully the same thing will happen this time, or maybe a little sooner. :)

I am showing a little bit. I think I look like I did at about 18 weeks with Selena at 10 weeks now. I am taking belly pictures again, but my face is all red and my hair is a mess so I'm kinda reluctant to post them. :)

A few days ago I had a very odd feeling. A persistent thumping or tapping coming from inside of my belly just above my belly button and off to the side. It really, really, really felt like a baby kicking. Of course my uterus is about 3 inches lower than my belly button and the baby is only an inch to an inch and a half big so it seems impossible. But Floyd and my mother could feel the tapping from the outside. After seeing the baby move on the ultrasound I think the baby was bouncing off the walls. :) Interestingly enough I found plenty of women on various message boards who have felt a similar thing around 10 weeks. Everyone explains it away as gas, but I have never had gas feel like a baby kicking. The only time I have ever had that feeling was when I was pregnant with Selena and she was kicking. So who knows, but it was very odd.

So I've already mentioned how much I love my midwife. Well a couple more reasons she is great. I don't have to wait at all for my appointments, and she recommended getting Floyd's blood tested to see if he was Rh-, whereas last time they said it didn't matter and they would just give me the shot no matter what. For an explanation of what I am talking about, if your blood is Rh-, like mine is, and the baby's blood is positive your body will produce antibodies that will attack future fetuses, which is not a good thing. So to prevent this they give you a shot of Rhogam in the butt part way through your pregnancy and then again after the baby is born. When I was pregnant with Selena I had to get the shot midway through pregnancy but she ended up having Rh- blood so I didn't have to get the second shot. Since she did have Rh- blood it was likely Floyd did as well, so we tested Floyd's blood and he is indeed Rh- so no shot for me!!! Selena was once again really cute, because I had had my blood taken, and Floyd got his taken, so Selena was pulling up her shirt sleeve all ready to get hers taken. So we gave her a cotton ball with some tape so she could feel like part of the club.

The other thing my midwife recommended was for me to start taking a fish oil supplement. She gave me an article about all the benefits of fish oil which included: higher energy, clearer mind, less incidence of post-partum depression, faster labors, less perineum damage, smarter babies, among many other positive outcomes. So I started taking it and immediately felt a difference in my energy level and in my ability to think straight. With Selena I had pregnancy brain really bad. I honestly felt like I was walking around in a fog, and work was very difficult for me because I couldn't figure out things that normally I would be able to. Anyways I had just started feeling myself descend into the abyss of stupidity and I swear the fish oil rescued me. I'm not sure if it is placebo or what but I am totally sold on it, and recommend it to all pregnant ladies. The specific brand my midwife recommended doesn't have any fishy taste and is actually flavored like strawberries, which is great because I think burping up a fishy taste would be the most awful thing for a pregnant lady.

So even though I feel really crappy, being pregnant is fun. It is really exciting to see my body change. I love preparing for birth. I am once again finding all the birth stories I can online and reading them. This time I am also finding lots of birth videos. I used hypnobabies with Selena and I really loved it, and highly recommend it, and am looking forward to using it again. I think the whole thing will be much easier this time because I have a better idea what to expect.

Abadaba! What does it mean?

Abadaba mama, abadaba dada, abadaba woof. But what does abadaba mean? Well we haven't figured it out yet, but Selena loves to say it.

We are all doing well here. Selena is as busy as ever. She has learned to love playdoh. She likes making Floyd or I make lots of small pieces so she can clump them all back together. And she also insists that we keep her table in the kitchen (which is kind of in the way). We got her a membership for the YMCA and she has taken a toddler gym class, which is a lot of fun. She likes the trampoline and the toys. This week she'll start a swim class with her dad in the evenings.

I made her a monster costume for Halloween. It is blue and purple since those are the only two colors she knows. We decided on monster because ever since she was 6 months old she has been making monster noises. You ask her to say "mama like a monster" and she'll growl "mama". She'll say "dada", "woof", and "apple" like a monster as well.

She was 20lbs 8oz at her last doctor appointment and 31 inches tall. We are continuing to keep her rear facing in the carseat even though legally she could be turned around. After watching the following videos forward facing crash trest and rear facing crash test I figured we might as well keep her rear facing since she doesn't seem to have a problem with it and it looks much safer.

Big News!

So for those of you who are good stalkers you may have seen the following picture already when I post pics of Selena:
If you haven't seen it before, then now you do. I'm due May 14th. So I'm 8 weeks along.

The great thing about this pregnancy is I'm not scared at all. When I got pregnant with Selena I was so nervous about labor. I was nervous about taking care of a baby, but this time I'm like I've been there done that and I'm not worried at all. Well maybe I'm a little nervous about having two little ones running around, and the fatigue and nausea are a little hard to deal with right now. :)

I have had one appointment with my midwife and she is absolutely wonderful. I decided to go with a private practicing midwife this time, and the personal attention I receive is so vastly different than I received with the family doctor or the midwives I saw before. All the appointments are an hour long. I can bring Selena to them and she has toys for her to play with. She gave me tons of reading material and I even learned some new stuff despite the amount of reading I have already done. She does two home visits after the baby is born in addition to two post partum office visits. She does deliveries either at your home or at the birth center in Tacoma (The Birthing Inn). I plan on going to the Birthing Inn again. She accepts our insurance. So basically she is really great and I am super excited.

I think Selena is excited too. She has started saying baby.

Toddlers are strange creatures

Selena is now 18 months, which seems like a big milestone and I'm not sure why but I always get a little nervous at the milestone ages. But she is a really funny kid. She pretty much walks around making funny noises, and funny faces.

Things she likes:

• Playing "set go". "Set go" is great for anything, running, tickles, being tossed in the air, going down the slide, eating


• Going down the slide - We got her a new slide for the back yard and she loves to go down it and make Floyd and I go down it. She calls it "wheee"


• She loves to draw. She is really good too. She holds a pencil correctly and can make precise scribbles and draw circles.


• She likes reading the same books over and over


• Shoes, hats, bracelets, necklaces, trucks, airplanes, cars, balls,

Funny things she does:

• She has become particular about some things. For instance she will start crying if I let Floyd borrow my watch


• When she is watching football she will say "set go" when they are hiking the ball and then "go go go" while they are running and then pout/cry when they get tackled

Her vocabulary is increasing quickly and its funny when she "talks" about stuff. For instance today Floyd took her to the playground at the school and when she got home she kept saying "dada whee, dada whee" which means dada took me on the slide. :)

We have been experimenting with the potty. I think she understands that she is supposed to go poo poo, but doesn't quite get the pee pee.




I have night weaned her, basically because my milk supply has been lower and so she was waking up and instead of immediately falling back to sleep after nursing, she would stay up and suck on nothing, cry when I put her down, until an hour later when more milk came in, and then she would go back to sleep. We had some tears for one night, but that was it. She now sleeps for a longer stretch (7 or 8 hours), but after that long stretch she seems to wake up every hour or two until the morning. Whatever.

Summer Fun

Selena, Floyd and I are all doing great. The summer is getting near to the end so Floyd will be going back to work, which is a bummer. We've been keeping busy. We babysat my cousins for a couple days and went to the zoo with them. Then our friends Breea and Kent stayed with us for a bit with their newborn baby Della. It was a lot of fun to have an itty bitty baby around. Selena was very gentle and interested in Della.

Selena is doing great. She is learning lots of new words (today she said horse for the first time) even though lots of her words sound the same. uuck is the how she says truck, milk, book, sock, and probably some more, basically anything that ends in "k". She likes to organize everyone. She brings both Floyd and I are shoes, directs us outside, tells us to get the soccer ball, and to play with Dyna. Or she gets Dyna's leash and halter and directs me to go running. Which is really a good thing because I've been slacking in that department. If there is a saying, funny face, or action she likes she makes everyone in the room do it.

I pretend that she can read. I always draw apples and write the word apple on the magna doodle so I will write the word apple and ask her what it says and she says "apple". It is so cute and so brilliant. But she'll also say other words say apple so... oh well.

She loves going outside and will stand at the door saying "out, out" if you don't obey quickly she will go and get your shoes and put them in your lap. She can put on and take off her own shoes. She loves accessories--shoes especially, but hats, bracelets, watches, socks, necklaces are all lots of fun as well. The sprinkler is also a lot of fun. She usually helps her Dad water the lawn so she is frequently getting soaking wet. We have a cherry tree and a plum tree in her back yard and she loves to pick the fruit and instruct her dad to pick fruit for her, but she's not the best at getting the seed/pit out of the fruit. She's pretty much amazing and we love her to pieces.