Our Favorites // Feeding

I have shared some of these items on our previous must have lists, but I wanted to do a full roundup of our favorite feeding items. We have retired most of these items since we have moved out of the baby stage, but they will still go down as some of our favorites.

Thankfully we didn’t have to do a lot of shopping around for bottles since both of the kids took to Tommee Tippie bottles immediately. They were very easy to clean and there were no issues with the kids going from breast to bottle and vice versa. The Tommee Tippie sippy cups were good, however, not as easy to clean. They did the job for Kenley, but for Crosby, I was introduced to the Nuby No-Spill Sprout sippy cups and they were by far the best. They were easy to clean, didn’t leak, and Crosby really liked them. Once the kids transitioned to straw cups, we found the Thermos Foogo insulated straw cups and then the slightly larger Thermos Funtainer straw bottles. I cannot stand when cups sweat, so these have been my favorite so far. Since they are both insulated, they keep the water and ice cold for much longer. Another bonus is that they don’t leak! I foresee us using the Thermos brand for a while.

When Kenley was born, there was only the Boon Grass drying rack which was perfect. Later, the larger Boon Lawn came out and once we added another child, we added another drying rack. I love the modern, nontraditional look to these drying racks. They are cute, as well as functional. There are also cute accessories such as the Boon Twig that are great for hanging pacifiers and bottle nipples to dry. We now only use the lawn and it is great for both the kids’ cups, as well as wine glasses. The only bottle brush we’ve used is the OXO Tot Bottle Brush and it is great. Again, still useful for cups and wine glasses even though we haven’t used baby bottles in quite a while.

Feeding Favorites

We registered for the Fisher-Price Spacesaver High Chair due to the lack of space in our kitchen area of our first house. The high chair sat directly on one of our chairs at the kitchen table and it did just that, saved space. We had the option to slide the chair around the kitchen as needed, but most of the time we all sat at the kitchen table for meals. It worked out perfectly. You can also buy different covers, so it it was nice to have a back up when one was in the wash. Once the kids grew out of the high chair, they moved into the OXO Tot Perch booster seat. Both of the kids have their own now and I love them because they aren’t bulky and they are easy to move.

When we first started solid food, the Munckin soft-tip spoons were by far the best. They are cheap, soft, and easy to clean. For plates, we loved using the OXO Tot Plate and Divided Plate. These are really good quality and the rubber bottoms were great for the younger years. We have since transitioned into the Re-play Recycled set, including the flat plates, divided plates, bowls, sippy cups, tumblers, utensils, and snack stacks. I could go on and on about how much we love this brand. They are very durable and there are so many fun colors. This is the only brand we use for meal time.

At school and on the go, there are a few items that we couldn’t live without. The OXO Tot large and small bowls have been in the rotation for years. They are great for sending snacks to school, such as fruit. They are also very durable as we’ve had our current set for well over three years now. Another item that we didn’t learn about until Crosby was born was the Dr. Brown’s Snack-A-Pillar cups. These were so useful when we were sending smaller snacks to school in the infant room because we could just stack them all together. We still use them, but they are pretty small now that the kids are bigger. Finally, we use the Bentgo lunch boxes for the kids. They are perfect for packing bento style lunches with a lot of variety. We use it every single day and they do not leak! They are well worth the money if you pack lunches regularly.

There you have it! Our feeding time favorites!

*this post contains affiliate links.

Friday I’m in Love

Happy last Friday of March!

o n e

The article Move Over, Barbie: New Run Doll Line Expanding popped up on Facebook this week from another running mama, which led me to Go! Go! Sports Girls. How did I not know about these dolls? AMAZING.

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t w o

I love that Rachel Hollis’ bikini photo is going viral, stretch marks and all. Naturally, I started following her on Instagram this week.

t h r e e

I think I’ve mentioned before how much we love the Re-Play plates, bowls, cups, etc. for the kids. How cute is this spring sorbet set?

Sorbet Set Plus - Free Snack Pod

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f o u r

Easter is right around the corner! I’ve seen this Bunny Hop Sweatshirt floating around various blog posts this week, but I had to share. Does it get any cuter than this?

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You’re up! What are you loving this week? Please share and don’t forget to check out what these ladies are loving!

Misha // Mary Beth // Amanda // Laura

Seven Months

Crosby is seven months old!

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Eating

This boy loves his food. We’re introducing a new food every 3-4 days and he’s started eating puffs. Kenley is also back to eating puffs and she’s obsessed with them. She asks to share with Crosby, which really means she’s going to take them off his tray. He still needs to work on actually getting the puffs in his mouth.
His new foods include [organic]:
avocado
plums
peaches
zucchini
yellow squash
[jarred] carrots
He will really only eat the peas if they are mixed with apples. We also mix the zucchini and yellow squash together so it makes a larger batch.

Unfortunately, Crosby has been spitting up a lot since his six month mark, which is a bummer for all! We’re hoping to see if we can figure out why this week. If not, we’ll just have to deal with it and hope it will subside soon.

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Sleeping

I really should just stop talking about his sleep habits because they change every single month day. This has been a rough month, but we have had a little bit of an upswing here lately. We’ll see if it continues. We decided to cut down on the pacifier a little bit during the night and Crosby has decided to cut down on his naps during the day. He will nap for about 30-45 minutes during the day (sometimes an hour, which is awesome!), so by the time 7pm rolls around, he is wiped out. He usually will sleep in the car on the way to school and on the way home, then he’ll have two short naps during the day. The ten minute nap is still THE WORST. It’s like a fake nap where he thinks he now has all the energy when he really should be sleeping like another hour. The good news is that he does sleep well at night for the most part which is a good thing because he needs to make up his sleep sometime!

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Moving

Little man is officially on the move. He’s got the army crawl down and can get where he wants to go. He goes up on his hands and knees a lot, but just doesn’t realize that it may be more efficient for him to get around that way. He also is dying to pull himself up on things, so I’m sure it won’t be too long before he figures that out. If you prop him up against something, he will stand there hanging on for as long as he can. He is also becoming quite the expert in downward dog. He can get from a sitting position to down to the floor, but he hasn’t gotten back up to sitting yet.

Playtime

He loves to play with anything he’s not supposed to. He is obsessed with our iPhones. Why? I have no idea. Now that he’s on the move, he will go for whatever Kenley is playig with, and I’m sure you can imagine how she feels about that. We have already had the talk about putting things away that she doesn’t want him to get… but she doesn’t really get that yet either. I have completely forgotten how it is to have a baby on the move. We have really been utilizing the play table that sits on the floor (also seen in Kenley’s seven month update) and chew toys.

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Seven month notes:

Weight – About 17.5 pounds by the bathroom scale
Hair – Getting thicker!
Teeth – Zero and no signs of any coming in either
Eyes – Brown eyed baby boy
Clothes – A mix of 3-6, 6-9, and 6-12 months depending on the brand and size 2 shoes, almost into size 3.
Diapers – Cloth diapers day and night.
He started leaking out of the disposables at night, so we went back to cloth.
Likes – Being tickled, bath time or just being naked, the Ergo, chewing on anything, moving around, being held
Dislikes – Taking naps, being overtired (which does not go well with not taking naps), being hungry

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Happy seven months little man!

Six Months

Little man is six months old today!

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He continues to be very laid back and chill. Majority of the time he is really happy, smiling away. He knows no stranger and will go to and smile at anyone. He has zero teeth and really no signs of any yet. The drooling has picked up over the last couple of days, so I wouldn’t be surprised if one popped up soon.

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[Organic] foods he’s tried:
Green beans
Butternut squash
Sweet potato
Pears
Apples
Bananas

We are finally starting to get into the swing of things with eating solids. I was dreading making all of his food like we did with Kenley, but Greg and I quickly remembered that we both really enjoy it. We haven’t been able to do a huge batch like we would do with Kenley because we don’t have the time (1) to go to Whole Foods and get a ton of food and (2) spend an entire evening making all of it. Hopefully we’ll be able to do that soon. But, quickly making smaller batches here and there has been working out well. Crosby eats two small solid meals a day, one at lunch time at school with his bottle and the other for dinner at home about an hour before his last feeding/bedtime. Overall, he is doing very well. He was not a fan of the green beans at first and still hasn’t warmed up to bananas yet.

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We were so fortunate in the beginning that Crosby was such a rock star sleeper (he dropped all night time feedings around three months). We made it through the four month sleep regression and had a good month or so. Now he’s really hit or miss in the sleep department. One night he’ll sleep great and we’ll only have to put the paci back in a couple times; other nights he is wide awake at all hours and has to get rocked back to sleep. I think a lot of it depends on how well he naps during the day. In the last couple of weeks, three new babies were added to his room almost doubling the initial room size, so his naps have been all over the place too. He by no means is a horrible sleeper, I would say just very unpredictable right now. The boy does love to be cuddled and rocked, which makes it hard to stay strong and try to let him fall asleep on his own. Sometimes I give in.

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I have a feeling little man will be on the move somewhat soon. He loves rolling over to his belly and he’s able to roll back even though he doesn’t do it much. He is sitting up unassisted, but I still feel better with the Boppy around him. While he’s down on his belly, he does find a way to get around, mostly turning in circles. He’s started to pull in his knees when he’s on his belly and even rock back and forth a few times. Since I know what we’re in for, I’m not looking forward to this stage as much as I was with Kenley. It’s been a long time since we’ve had to worry about a crawling baby. We still have to do some baby proofing in the next few weeks.

twenty-six weeks

Six month notes:
Weight – 16 pounds 14 ounces (45th percentile)
Height – 27 inches (70th percentile)
Head – 17.17 inches (70th percentile)

Hair – Light! He’s got a sweet dark patch in the back.
Eyes – I think he’s going to have brown eyes like his daddy
Diapers – Cloth diapers by day and disposables by night, size 2.
Clothes – 3-6 months clothes, 6-9/6-12 month pajamas.
Starting to wash his 6-9 month and 6-12 month clothes.

Likes – paci, putting his hands in his mouth, playing with his feet, sitting up
Dislikes – Being overtired, getting scared by the volume of his sister’s voice sometimes, interrupting his eating to burp.

After looking back at Kenley’s six month update, I was shocked how close their stats were at this age.

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Happy half birthday Crosby!

Twenty-One Weeks

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This was another big week for little man.
He tried his first vegetable – organic green beans!
At first, he was not a fan and it didn’t last long, but he’s had it a few times and each time is better than the last.
I’ve mixed it with a little bit of oatmeal or brown rice cereal and some breast milk and he doesn’t seem to mind it as much. Doesn’t that sound yummy? Ha.
We are moving slowly with the solids, but I’m not worried about it since we started so early.
He has one “solids” meal a day, during the week it’s at lunch time at school and on the weekends it is whenever we have time, either lunch or dinner.
I anticipate we will try sweet potatoes next, hopefully sometime this week.

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He is so happy after his naps. Look at that sweet face!

Nineteen Weeks

nineteen weeks

// stripe t // jersey knit pants // owl shoes – gymboree (similar) //

Crosby had a big week and this mama was not prepared for it.
We had been working on getting rid of the swaddle, and I can safely say that we are swaddle free!
For this past week, we had transitioned from two arms in, to just one arm, to both arms out.
We still use the SwaddleMe blankets with his arms out mostly just for a blanket.
He sleeps on his back, as well as his left side (it’s adorable).

Afterlight

I cannot believe I’m saying this, but this week we also started rice cereal.
We had waited as long as possible with Kenley and didn’t start until six months,
which is what I was fully intending on doing with Crosby.
However, both our pediatrician and Crosby’s teacher made mention of it, so we thought we’d give it a try.
I was in serious denial about it for a couple of days, but there is no going back now.
He likes it and eats it pretty well off the spoon, but he’s still waking up several times between 4am and 6am,
so we’re hoping that gets better as we introduce more foods.
He’ll usually go right back to sleep when we put the paci back in.
He hasn’t had a ‘middle of the night’ feeding since about three months old,
so we figured we’d try solids before we went back down that road again.
Overall though, we can’t really complain about his sleep habits. He’s a good little nugget.

Afterlight

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Little man is also smiling so much now!
He’s really starting to show some personality, which is so awesome.
He’s getting so big!

Twelve Months!

Happy 1st birthday Kenley Dee!

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I’m not even sure where to begin. One year old, how is that possible?

Let’s dive right in.

Overall, Kenley does a very good job eating, even though it can be difficult at times.
She loves peas, macaroni & cheese, string cheese, and pretty much any fruit.
We are still continuing to try new foods and combinations of finger foods,
along with more “meals” rather than just food on her tray.
We have a good size list of the foods we have tried, but some new ones are
cheese quesadillas, chicken nuggets, hot dog (with daddy, of course), ravioli,
pancakes, waffles, noodles, bagel thins, and turkey sandwiches.
Majority of meals are hit or miss, one day she’ll love it, the next it’s on the floor.
She loves the Buddy Fruits pouches and will gulp them down for a snack.
She is still drinking breast milk from a sippy cup,
even though I finished breastfeeding around 11 months (!!).
We’ll either stay on the breast milk until it’s gone, or start mixing it with whole milk.
We haven’t really talked about it much or decided one way or the other. Suggestions?

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This girl is on the move! She loves to walk (read: hates to be picked up).
She is all over the place and into everything.
There is no more “getting things done’ when you’re the only parent home with her.
Grandma wanted me to leave her a list of things to do last week when she was home on Friday.
I laughed.
By the end of the day, she was exhausted, and with good reason.
It’s hard work keeping pace with a little one who is constantly on the go.
Her teacher said she and another little boy, who just started walking,
were chasing each other up and down the halls at school this week.
She came home on Monday and Greg and I were both shocked about how fast she is now.

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She is quite vocal and has started saying more words.
Each night she says “night night” and we think she understands what that means.
She as also added cat (“ta”), dog, book (“boo”), along with hi, bye, mama, dada, and ball.
We’re working on up, please, and done. She can say done, but chooses to yell majority of the time.
Along with words, she has tons of new sounds and tones that she uses.

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We have our evening routine pretty set in stone.
Each night we try to go for a run, or at least a walk.
Kenley has recently started having an actual dinner (rather than just milk before bed).
After dinner, it’s bath time (still in her Whale of a Tub, which we may be graduating from soon),
then it’s to her room, sound machine on, and in the glider for some books.
We say night night and she goes down in her crib.
She rarely cries for more than about ten seconds, snuggles up with her lovies, and is down for the night.
Recently, she’s been waking up crying one to two times a night, it’s usually short and we think she’s still sleeping.
It’s more of a quick scream and a little bit of whining, rather than crying, but it’s still sad.
Hopefully it subsides soon.

Updated 12 months stats:
21 pounds 8 ounces 
29 1/4 inches

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This girl in insanely fun and insanely funny too.  She can really crack us up.
I think I speak for Greg as well when I say that I cannot believe how quickly one year can go.
This has, hands down, been the best year of our lives.
We are still amazed each day that we (one) have a child and (two) have such a great one.

Kenley Dee, we love you so much and thank God every single day for you.
Happy birthday!

Eleven Months!

Eleven months slash 48 weeks old today!

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Our photo ops are becoming more interesting. This girl is all over the place and hates headbands.
It’s quite hysterical, between Greg and I singing, yelling, dancing, and making weird noises,
to Kenley crawling all over the place and trying to find the headband on her head
(picture dog chasing his tail) before she finally yanks it off.
However, we got a few keepers.

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Kenley is becoming such a toddler. I can’t even consider her a baby anymore.
Long gone are the days of cuddling, bottles, and pacifiers.
With that comes a bit of ease. We usually know her wants and needs, so we’ll gladly say
good riddance to the days of a crying baby and clueless parents.
By no means do we have it all down. We are still battling nap time on the weekends,
but I think we’re not doing too bad at this point.

Kenley is also developing quite a little attitude personality.

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One of her teachers even described her as “bossy” at times.
We are definitely learning how to share and have nice hands.
I have a feeling she’s going to give us a run for our money.

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She is a great little eater, but we are struggling to keep up.
We really love making her food and feeding her fresh fruits and veggies,
but since we’re moving out of the puree stage, it’s getting hard to add variety.
I have been scouring Weelicious and other toddler recipe sites, but we are open to suggestions.
She is doing well with her sippy cup and has recently started to use her straw cup too.

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Her new class and new teachers are wonderful!
She is one of the oldest in the class, so I think this may have something to do with her bossy tendencies.
Maybe she’s just being a leader? …maybe?
They seem to have a great schedule for them during the day which translates to a good weekly schedule for us too,
even in the mornings! We are getting better, that’s for sure.
Since she has started in the new class, she has been signing. We had not done it much at home, but are getting better.
The most frequent signs are “more” and “all done”, with the occasional “please” in there.
She is also becoming more verbal. She does a good job of repeating words and sounds that we do.

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One month ago Kenley took her first few steps and she is getting better and better.
She is getting more brave and is starting to take it upon herself to walk from one thing to the next.
Of course, she does it on her own time (i.e. not for the camera), which is perfectly fine.

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We have hit a new level of teething this week. We are guessing it’s time for molars.
I cannot begin to explain the amount of drool that is coming out of this child’s mouth.
Not to mention a fever, which has kept her home from school the last two days,
and just an overall whiny, puny, not good feeling.
The doctor checked her out and she’s not sick, so that’s a plus,
but she has cuddled and fallen asleep on each of us, which is a definite sign that she’s not feeling well.
It’s heartbreaking. Sleepless nights are back in the Gilbertson household.
Let’s hope they don’t last long!

There you have it! Eleven months!
One month until the big O-N-E!

Ten Months!

We have reached double digits people. 10 months.

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The biggest change from our nine month update until now is her eating schedule.
I mentioned that her milk intake was dropping a little. Since then, it has dropped a lot.
Everything I have read (and I’ve been reading a lot) says that babies under age one do not typically wean themselves,
so I don’t want to say that she’s self-weaning, but she definitely is drinking less milk.
She also decided that she was done with the bottle…which first started the drop in the milk.
She flat out refused. She would chew on the nipple and then spit out her milk like it was a fun game.
Those of you who have pumped milk  know this is not a fun game.
The nurse and doctor were not concerned since her last weight check was good
and she’s continuing to eat solid food like a champ.
They suggested just trying the sippy cup and we are still working on it.
We’ve tried three different types and two different brands and we have a winner…for now.
I’m still feeding her in the morning and at night, but the other attempts at milk are all from the sippy cup.
She’s eating three to four small solid food meals a day and we are continuing to introduce more foods.
We had a semi-unexpected trip to the doctor on Friday and Kenley weighed in at exactly 20 pounds.

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Another fun change since last month is our daily wake up call. We mentioned to our doctor that Kenley was still getting up anywhere from 5am-6am to eat, then going back to sleep. She suggested that we push back this feeding, and we gladly obliged. It really only took two days of us not going in there when she first woke up. She eventually would fall back asleep, then we would feed her the next time she woke up, and was up for good.
At first it was 6am, then it slowly crept later and later. The last couple of days, we haven’t gone into get her until after 7am! Even if she is awake, she is happy as a clam just sitting in there and playing.
Excuse me while I go knock on wood.

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Other fun things this month: clapping, waving, talking, and dancing.
This girl loves music. As soon as any of her toys start to make noise, she moves it and shakes it. She’s also adding to her long list of words. We are up to: mama, dada, hi, bye, ball, and uh-oh. She says hi like it’s going out of style. The girl loves to talk and babble.

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Kenley starts in a new class tomorrow at school with a new teacher, so I’m sure her schedule will change slightly as we head into a new school year. Also on that note, I’m hoping that our routine at home changes slightly too. The mornings are exceptionally hard getting out of the house at a decent time to beat traffic and get everybody where they need to be on time. Our goal is to start doing more at night, even if all we want to do is sit on the couch. We think this will make our mornings less hectic. Here’s to hoping, right?

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It’s no surprise that this little girl is not our cuddly newborn anymore. She’s becoming more independent every day, but with that, it’s so fun to watch her try things out on her own and learn new things.

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On that note. Someone took three steps yesterday! Look out world.

Happy 1o month birthday Kenley!

Our Must Have List Part III

Here is Part I and Part II of our list.

Last I left off we had made it through the first seven months.

Fisher-Price Space Saver High Chair

We use our high chair religiously, especially now that Kenley is eating solids on a regular schedule.
Even before solids, the high chair was a great place to let her sit and play.
I honestly wish I would have gotten it out sooner, so we could have put her in it when she was younger.
We especially love this particular high chair because it sits directly on a chair at our kitchen table.
Our eating area isn’t huge, so I didn’t want a bulky high chair taking up a ton of space.
When we have friends over, we remove it so we get the chair back, but it really does save space!

Britax Boulevard Convertible Car Seat

Kenley has outgrown her infant car seat, which is both happy and sad.
Happy because she was getting too heavy to lug around in that thing anyway and
sad because that means she’s not a little tiny baby anymore!
A friend recommended Britax to us when we were registering and we received the Marathon
before Kenley was born, so we used the convertible car seat as our second car seat,
and opted against buying a second base for the Chicco.
When it was time to buy another car seat, I definitely wanted another Britax.
I found last year’s model of the Boulevard still available for at a cheaper price, so I jumped on it.

Baby Bullet

This could go for any food processing device, really. We have been making Kenley’s food at home,
and this little guy has helped out in that process immensely.
We have some additional storage containers for the freezer and fridge, like the OXO Tot and Munchkin brands,
but we also use ice cube trays for freezing foods and toss them into a freezer bag.
This works especially well when we make a ton of food at a time.

Fisher-Price Whale of a Tub

This tub could have definitely made the last two lists, but it just missed the cut.
Sorry whale.
But honestly, we love this thing and Kenley loves it too.
We have used it since she was able to take a regular bath and are still using it.
The infant “baby stopper” piece comes out so she can sit in the tub and splash away.
Bath time is definitely one of our favorite times.

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Items from previous lists that we still use regularly:

Boppy Pillow
Medela Pump in Style
aden + anais Muslin Swaddle Blankets
Sophie the Giraffe
Graco Sweet Slumber Sound Machine and the Cloud b Gentle Giraffe

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There you have it, probably the last installment of our must-have list.
What must-haves do you use that we left off?