Newborn Nursing Box

 

Hi I’m Liz, author of Carpé Season and one half of the duo behind the newly launched Carpé Season Photography, and I’m happy to be sharing here on Heather’s Dish while Heather snuggles the day away with little Austin. While I wish I could convince Heather that Minnesota winters aren’t really that bad and that she should move up here to be my neighbor; for now, we’re just internet friends in really similar life stages. I had my second baby a year ago, and I have a little boy just a little younger than Wes; so I’m all too familiar with those famous sleepless newborn nights that end with a 6 a.m. toddler wake-up call.

I’m here today to share a little sanity-saving tip that helped tremendously in my own transition from one to two.

Let’s start with the facts: Newborn babies eat all the time, whether they’re nursing or bottle feeding. And so often, with my first, I found myself trapped on the couch while he ate, staring longingly at a magazine across the room or just out of arm’s reach of my water bottle. Fact number two: Newborn babies take forever to eat…and then often doze off…which may or may not have been the entire morning’s goal. So not only would I be trapped, but I’d typically be trapped for a solid thirty minutes or more.

With my second, I created this little box of things that I was always wishing someone could hand me when I was feeding the baby. It had all the essentials:

1. The box itself: I used one like this because my type-A love of internal dividing compartments knows no end.

2. A leak-proof water bottle – I think this dual-cuddle thing happened one time; most of the time that I was nursing Elsa, Owen was pretending the couch next to us was his own personal trampoline.

 

3. Snacks – If you’re anything like me, you are constantly hungry after having a baby. Maybe it’s the sleepless nights, maybe it’s the nursing, but I cannot stop eating when there is a newborn in my life. I most often stocked my box with a couple granola bars, an apple (one-handed eating for the win!), and if there was any chocolate in our house, that would definitely be in the box too.

4. Burpcloths – because every mama out there knows that the second you don’t have one in hand is the very moment your baby will choose to empty the contents of his or her stomach all over your favorite throw pillow.

5. My phone – let’s be honest here. As much as I’d like to say I would spend all of my baby’s feedings gazing intently into her eyes, sometimes I just needed Instagram to get me through a 3 a.m. feeding.

6. A book or magazine – may I suggest something completely mindless for those first few weeks post-partum becuase those fourth trimester hormones want nothing to do with War and Peace.

Every morning, I would restock the box, and before sitting down to nurse Elsa, I’d make sure it was sitting on the couch next to me, close within reach. It was such a game-changer for me because once my husband had gone back to work, it was just me, an infant, and a toddler at home, and you know that if you’re trying to tell a toddler to just grab that burpcloth…that one right there…they will be completley unable to see it even if they are literally standing on top of it.

 

While a simple idea, this box was so helpful to me in those first few weeks of being a mama of two, and I only hope it saves one of you mamas out there from a hangry hormonal meltdown as you work through those first few weeks of adding another tiny human into your life.

Congratulations, Heather! And enjoy those newborn snuggles!