How to Make a Moby Wrap - Preemie Life at Home - Week 1

 This is not my first time at the Rodeo, so you think I would have been prepared for the first week but I wasn't.  It literally picked me up, chewed me up, and spit me out EXHAUSTED!!!!!    This little baby has to eat every three hours, but instead of just hooking her on and falling asleep I have to defrost milk, mix it with formula, warm it up, put it in the tube, wait for it to fill her belly by gravity (a task that takes somewhere between twenty minutes and forty minutes), burp her, change her, get her back in bed, and then pump milk so I keep up the supply hoping that some day she'll be nursing on her own. There were times when I felt like I'd just barely closed my eyes and the alarm was sounding again. Throw on the fact that Dr. J was working nights and I was all on my own and it was just a week of PAIN :)  At one point Dr. J and I turned to each other and said, "I think we're told old for this :)"  That being said, we are so grateful to have Cheetah home with us.  Looking over and seeing my baby being held by my husband, hearing her breathing near my bed at night, smelling her sweet little baby smell anytime I want, it has been great!  The kids have been so excited to get to see her and hold her  and we invented a game where each night after stories, scriptures, and being tucked in the Cheetah fairy flies around the house and lands right above there bed.  Then they get to give her a little kiss right on the bald spot she's getting on the back of her head.  They love it, and she tolerates it...so a win/win :)

We got this fancy swing for Cheetah at the garage sale next door when the kids killed our little travel one.  It was so close to the ground they just couldn't resist swinging in it, stripping the motor.  This little beauty is much more fancy.  It goes multiple directions, plays music, heart sounds, my ipod, and is the perfect place to catch a meal up safely away from prying older sisters.  

 Little miss Cheetah turned two months old.  She weighed in at 7lbs 2 ounces on the day, more than double her birth weight!  Funny to think her two month birthday was a week and half before her due date!  I got these cute little tummy tickers to count up the months here on etsy.  I think they'll be fun, I'm just a little bummed I didn't get to do the zero days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month....

No more pictures mom!

 So I'm a baby carrying fool.  I like having my babies close and I feel like they are more content with mama warmth.  Over the last seven years I've had several different wraps and slings.  With Captain E I started with a snuglie and ended up with a maya wrap.  With the girls I moved to a peanut sling for when they were smaller and then a  mei tai for when they got older.  I loved both of them and still have them, but with my last pregnancy my friend Liz had a moby like wrap that was so adorable and comfortable looking I wanted one just like it.  Unfortunately I could never find one similar and so I decided to make my own using instructions from here. I went to all the fabric stores in town but ended up buying my 100% cotton jersey at Hobby Lobby using a 40% off coupon.  I got six yard that ended up costing $25.  I then picked up a yard of the flower pattern, once again 100% cotton jersey for about $4 at Hobby Lobby.  I brought my white fabric home and because it was 60 inches across decided to make three wraps instead of two.  I cut the fabric into three long strips.  I then cut out three rectangles of the flower pattern.  The first wrap I did for a girl at mops.  I actually hemmed down the edges of the flower jersey before sewing it onto the middle of my long rectangle.  It was a huge pain...huge!  I was cursing not having a surger.  Then I decided why bother.  The edges aren't going to fray and hemming it under doesn't make it looking any better.  So when I made mine I actually just pinned it down and then went around the edges using black thread and my flower petal stitch.  It ended up looking pretty darn cool.  So much so that Dr J thought I'd bought it.  Just a tiny bit of work and I ended up with three wraps, $10 a piece.