Happy Thursday friends!! I hope you all are having a great start to the day! A few weeks ago I did a poll on Instastories to see if you all would be interested in seeing what is in my diaper bag now that Brayden has transitioned from a newborn to almost 9 months (next week!) . He is no longer the tiny little sleeping newborn that he was for so long and that makes me so sad in so many ways that that particular time of life is so fleeting and basically over! However, I am so excited about this fun exploratory phase he has entered (although I know my hands are REALLY going to be full when he finally learns to walk!) . Brayden is still working on crawling, he is a ‘scooter!’ He sort of does a military style roll and scoot to where he wants to go! We practice crawling every day and I will put his little legs up underneath him and try to help him and he’s almost there! Brayden has really enjoyed toddling the house in his little walker Under $50 that my mother in law got for him! He wants to touch EVERYTHING so baby-proofing here we come! Brayden is very much aware of what he is doing these days, which makes me even more aware of how I interact with him! He is taking about 2 naps per day for about an hour or an hour and a half each! He is sleeping through the night for the most part, but still has some nights he wakes up at like 4am wanting a bottle (which has not happened in months).
As far as eating, Brayden has 4-5 bottles per day and two food snacks! His snacks are generally like an after lunch snack and a pre-dinner snack to help push bottles further out! I get asked often if he is on solid food and for the most part I am still doing purees like THESE and we are trying to learn how to coordinate picking up food with THESE puffs! In the past week I have started ordering Brayden food in restaurants like green beans, carrots, avocados or mashed potatoes and he will have a few spoons of each! Some days he is more interested in those foods than others. Brayden has been and does drink water from a sippy cup since 6 months daily (he loves water)! We LOVE these MUNCHKIN sippy cups and he handles them so good! I also wanted to link these no spill cups to carry puffs or cereal in that the babies can learn to reach into and pull out without all of them spilling everywhere!
I mentioned this on stories and had so many of you DM me, but when Brayden started having pureed baby food I was not aware that bananas and apples constipated babies. My doctor used the B.R.A.T analogy and told me these were the foods they use to help stop diarrhea in adults and they are: Bananas, rice, apples and toast. To be honest, I knew apples helped adults go to the restroom so I was giving him mixtures of apples and other fruits and it was only making him more constipated 🙁 I also loved mushing a banana for him not realizing this was all the perfect storm for CONSTIPATION! Brayden went for an entire 7 days with no bowel movement and I used THESE GLYCERIN SUPPOSITORIES to help him go potty and they worked in seconds and were so easy! After our doctor visit we learned that he needed to be drinking plenty of water with baby food and that prunes, pears and plums were GREAT for his digestion! I don’t know if you all were like me, but almost every single fruit baby mixture that I was purchasing had apples in it. I now give him apples or bananas a few times a week, but I am very careful about not doing it back to back days!
I also wanted to mention while we are talking about food that I have officially stopped pumping! As many of you may know, Brayden never latched on to breastfeed so I solely pumped 5 times per day (religiously every 3-4 hours THANK GOODNESS FOR MY TRAVEL WILLOW PUMP) and was able to give Brayden breast milk that I had stored and pumped until about 2 weeks ago! He is now on the Similac Alimentum formula that my doctor suggested for him and he honestly loves it! I am very grateful that I was able to breastfeed him close to a year and it was such an emotional rollercoaster making the decision to stop, but it was best for us and he is doing so great on formula now! I think we as women have so many forces around us and know the benefits to breastfeeding so we REALLY put a TON of pressure on ourselves (or at least I did) and guilt crept in when I decided to make the decision to stop pumping so if you are in this place you are not alone!
Brayden is CHEWING on anything and EVERYTHING! He does not have any teeth yet! I feel like he has been teething since he was 3 months, but we are still toothless ;). I have to make sure I have something for him to CHEW on at all times or play with because he is also intrigued with various textures and sounds! This banana teether and this como tomo teether are his absolute FAVORITES and are in the diaper bag AT ALL TIMES! As many of you know, infants throw everything right on the floor so having 3 backups is not overkill especially when you are just on your appetizer at a restaurant! I always like to carry this little Jellycat Animal Tails books around with us because he loves to feel the animals tails and hear the crunch sound of the book!
So as far as my diaper bag goes, I have been using my Fawn Design book bag majority of time, but recently got the BEST divider that I am sooo excited to share with you all for my Louis Vuitton Neverfull! These dividers are made for any bag and come in 3 sizes a mini, standard and deluxe and so many fun colors! The Louis Vuitton Neverfull I have is the GM size so I needed the deluxe divider to fit and it is BOMB!! The TOTESAVVY inserts have a pocket for everything and they do not have to be for only a diaper bag, you can use them in any purse that is just open for your own personal use as well ( I wish so bad I had one sooner!) .
The inserts are easy to lift in and out to add/remove items and they have a cooler pouch for bottles, food pouches, water bottles etc. (PRAISE HANDS for this one because I was carrying a separate tiny cooler around in addition to my other backpack! The dividers also have a changing pad with them that is so nice for when you go to the public restrooms and they NEVER have the sanitary liners 🙂 One of my favorite features about the inserts are they can be wiped out and off! I don’t think a day goes by where we don’t have a spill of some sort! Totesavvy also has a little carry around bottle cooler that is so cute if you don’t need an insert for your purse! They also have an awesome changing pad that is easy to carry and wipe down HERE if you are looking for a travel one! Pretty much, you all just need to check out their site because they have thought about so many things to organize your life 🙂
I have linked all of Brayden’s (and my) favorites items in our diaper bag below in a shoppable boutique for you all to make it easy to shop and see the items! I have everything from the type of bottle we carry to toys and extra change of clothing options! If you have trouble seeing this boutique it is sometimes easier to pull up my blog on a desktop to see all the items! If you do decide to purchase an item and click through the item in the boutique below or within my blog post links and purchase directly from there it will let the company know I sent the sale and I would greatly appreciate that! As always I will be happy to personally send you a link for an item if you need it via DM on Instagram or email, so never hesitate to ask 😉 I hope you all will enjoy today’s post as much as I did sharing our little bundle of joy’s life update!
Shop Brayden’s Diaper Bag:
