7 months old!

Kiernan is seven months old today! How crazy is that?? It's crazy!!

Now that I'm an old hat at being a mom (seven months came with oodles of experience, I swear) I have been inspired by a post at Am I Really Someone Mommmy? and am going to post my own list of must haves, didn't need, and other gems like that.

- One of the things I've learned is just how different babies are from each other. I was lucky enough to have a lot of friends having babies at the same time, and the experiences are so drastically different for everyone, it astounds me. That being said, I think that a) some of this stuff could be good for everyone and b) if you have a fussy, never sleeps, cries a lot, has acid reflux baby, this stuff should come in handy!
- I love my stroller. It's a Pliko by Peg Perego, so I realize it's a bit on the pricey side, but I love it. It's sturdy, it's trendy, and my favourite part is that it folds up nice and small. I don't need to be a body builder to lift it into my car! And two of them fit into my sedan's trunk which has been really handy for going places with my friends and their babies.
- This brings my to my second point. We did not opt for the matching bucket seat. We got the Graco safeseat. It can hold a baby up to 30lbs. For awhile I thought we'd made a mistake because it was so heavy, I thought surely we should have gotten a smaller one that wasn't so heavy. But they're all crazy heavy. And the fact that K is still in his at 7 months and I think he can stay for at least another 1-2 months is great, since his little buddies all seemed to need to move up to their big car seats by 6 months or so. That takes a way a whole lot of convenience factors, such as being able to move them when they're asleep in the car, or being able to take them into other people's cars. Which is another point. The Graco car seats (and others have this too, but not all) have these hook things on them that allow you to take the car seat into any other car WITHOUT THE BASE. So you just need an H clip (it comes with one and extras are about $3 and come in handy) and you can toss them into any car in seconds. K has gone with Grammie, with friends and we've had other babies in our car. It would have been a major pain and left us much more housebound if we hadn't had it. And we didn't even do it on purpose, we just got lucky. I think more moms-to-be need to know to look for this option.
- We have a diaper champ. I love that it's a one-handed thing. Diaper genies confuse me. Now, I realize I could probably learn to use a diaper genie if I had one, but the champ is great. Now that K is on solids it smells if we don't change it every few days, but really, we should do that anyways I think :)
- We never used the wipes warmer.
- We couldn't get Kiernan to have naps lying down until he was 3 months old, likely due to the reflux. As a result, he was carried a lot. We have had a lot of carriers and love most of them. When he was really little I had him in the stretchy wrap by Maman Kangaroo all the time. He would tuck right into it and sleep for hours. Once he got older and no longer wanted to be facing in, I sometimes faced him outward in it, but it stopped being used quite as often. Then we got the baby bjorn with lumbar support. I really liked it at first but I think I just don't feel comfortable carrying K facing outwards. Eric however uses this one all the time and seems to really like it. Most recently I wanted something that I could use to carry K on my hip. I went to Milk Face and tried on a bunch of carriers with K as a generally willing participant, and ended up not going with a sling (which is what I expected to get) but with a Kozy Carrier. I still can't get him up on my back on my own, but he loves being up there. He's even fallen asleep in it, something he hasn't done in a carrier in months. I can get him on my hip easily and have done that a few times. But he seems to think looking at the ceiling is the most fun when I have him on my hip so I spend half the time trying to make sure he's upright because its hard to walk with him leaning all the way back :)
- I couldn't have lived without our baby swing in the early months. That was one of the places he would sleep. We had the Fisher Price Ocean Wonders and it was particularly good because it had so many options. It can go fast or slow (we always had it on top speed for Kiernan, something other parents thought was crazy compared to the swings they used for their children) and it could also go side to side or front to back. We could often extend the stay in the swing by pivoting when he started to get bored. The things are crazy battery eaters though, they really should make ones you can plug in.
- We have 2 exersaucers. One in the kitchen and one in the living room. The trick here is to buy them at garage sales. Kiernan actually has 4 exersaucers!! One at each set of grandparents' and two here. My mother got them all at garage sales and paid no more than $7 for any of them, and that was for the super fancy one. She really would prefer not to pay more than $5 for one. :) We also have a freestanding jolly jumper which has been a big hit. They are $70 new in the store and we got that one at a garage sale for $10 last summer. So, point is, garage sales!!!
- Baby TV. I don't know if they have it in many places, but where we live we have it on Demand for free for the time being and it worked before the Baby Einsteins did. By about 2 months old Kiernan could be happy watching it for 15 minutes. This was a life/sanity saver. I don't know how you could find it if you don't just have it with Rogers on Demand... but if you can, try it!
- I think they might have discontinued this mobile at IKEA, so run to yours and see if they still have one!
- Kiernan needed to be swaddled until he was 6 months old. He didn't like it, but we couldn't get him to sleep otherwise. By 3 months it was impossible to keep him swaddled so we ordered the Miracle Blanket. It was a life saver for us and our Houdini of swaddles.

I think I could go on forever so perhaps I'll stop for now and clean my house for a bit :) Maybe I'll make another list when Kiernan is 8 months old (I still can't believe he's 7 months old!!)