My Baby top 5,

This blog post is dedicated to those baby products that this Mama could not live without! I am always interested in knowing what products other Mommies favor, so I thought I would throw in what works in our home.

# 5


Baby Einstein Sleep/Wake up Songs and Praise Baby DVD.
When we brought Anslee home, I needed all the advice I could get about parenting. One thing I read, and also heard many other Mom's say was that babies find comfort when surrounded by soft noises. Every night we fall asleep to the songs that are on this CD that were burned on to my old ipod. It drowns out any noises, so it really helps us not have to be so careful about how loud we are while she sleeps! The Praise Baby DVD is not a product we use every single day, but when we put it on, Anslee lights up! Its a collection of praise songs playing to different colored shapes, numbers, kids playing, and it also displays the ABC's. She loves hearing the music and since she does not watch much TV, she enjoys being able to watch the shapes and such flash across the screen.

# 4


Hylands Teething Tablets
These homeopathic, all natural tablets provide nothing less than INSTANT pain relief for little ones enduring the pain of cutting teeth! Since they are all natural they are very safe. So safe, that the label on the bottle says you can give 3 every hour. I have never had the need to do that, because the relief is instant and lasts from morning to night time with us. However, I only give them to her when she is extra fussy, and drooling a lot. They allow for teething to not disrupt sleep, and that may be why I love them so very much!

# 3



Making baby food has been such a fun activity for me. I am so thankful to my mom for introducing me to the Kid Co. baby food maker/processor. It makes pureeing baby food easy, and gets the consistency of any vegetable, fruit, meat, and cereal to be just right! After I had been using the Kid Co. for a couple weeks, I found a post here on a blog that I frequent saying that she used it too. I trust this Mom (even though I don't know her) with any baby question I have, so I was comforted to know she was using the same product to make her babies food as well.

# 2


Aveeno has been my favorite baby wash and shampoo. I photographed here the sensitive skin body wash and lotion because my sweet little one has very sensitive and dry skin. We have tried an array of other brands, including the organic, and fragrance free, and other sensitive skin brands and have decided that none compare! These two products are two that we use every single day. Our pediatrician in Waco also recommended this brand above all others. We laughed about how Johnsons is very well marketed, but that clearly, it is just not as good quality as Aveeno.

# 1


I read lots of books. When I was pregnant, I read pregnancy books. I frequented all the baby websites and signed up for all of their weekly emails on development per week of pregnancy. When Anslee was born, I was reading baby development book (Week by Week your Baby's First Year) and I read parenting magazines. After she was born my weekly pregnancy emails turned into baby development emails. I read blogs. Lets be honest, I needed all the help I could get. I will say, though, that nothing helped me enjoy parenting as much as these 3 books. They are books that teach you how to handle/parent/nurture your new baby. They help you understand the importance of a regular (but not rigid) routine. Loving your baby comes natural, but sometimes parenting and even nurturing do not. These 3 books help you in those areas, and they help you set up a new lifestyle for your family with the new addition. The first book (top) is Secrets of the Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg. Its a wonderful book that teaches the E.A.S.Y style of parenting. (Eat,Activity,Sleep,YOU) What a wonderful gift. I loved this book. The other two are the first two books of the WISE series by Dr. Gary Ezzo. These two are titled Baby-Wise and Baby-Wise II. The first one will take you pretty well through your first year with baby, but really puts heavy emphasis on the first 6 months. The sequel pretty well picks up from 5 - 12 months. He teaches the importance of having a routine that looks something like this : feed. wake time. nap time. He gets into detail, about how much food they should be taking at each feeding at each stage (month) of life. He talks to moms of multiples. He talks about breastfeeding. He discusses reflux and growth spurts. He gives you cues to watch for. He talks about teething. He gives suggestions on how to over come any sleep problems. He talks about a bed time routine and how babies clearly understand routine and what that means. He notes in his books that they are comforted by knowing what to expect, and they do come to understand the set up of their day...if you teach it to them. Needless to say, both books set up your day basically the same. Hogg adds in time for YOU after the baby naps. I love that. I love that mom does not get left out of the day. I am so thankful to mommy friends who so lovingly shared the gift of these books. They have really shaped the way Tyler and I parent Anslee, and have been a major part of why we truly enjoy parenthood as much as we do.

Like I mentioned in the first part of this post, I could go on and on with different items I could highlight. I could talk about how Dr. Browns bottles have worked best for us or how we use bed time calm bath gel in the bath water and so on and so on...but I felt the need to share what I did!

I would love feedback on YOUR top baby items! This could be almost as good as sharing recpies, right?