Post by farfalla2011 on Jul 12, 2019 20:04:42 GMT -5
First, yay it's finally Friday! It's been a crazy week over here, but I'm glad I finally have some down time. I have a handful of questions, so I thought I'd start a discussion. Feel free to post any questions you have too!
Are you planning to do freezer meals before baby arrives? If so, how far in advance did you do this? Also, bonus points for any recipe, blog, etc recommendations for inspiration! We are notorious for not having food in the house and then running out at 8:30 or later to grab dinner which will not work once baby is here. Plus, we need to get out of that habit for budget reasons anyway.
For your baby shower, did you invite out of town family if you just visited them 1-2 months prior? Also considering we only see each other once a year, sometimes every other year. I just saw my mom, SIL and MIL at the end of June and my shower will be beginning of August for reference. I don't love the idea of my MIL coming, but for future relationship reasons, I think I should at least extend the invite especially if I include my mom? Not sure if MIL would come or not since she's 1000 miles away.
What laundry detergent do you use for the baby clothes? I'm thinking just something die/fragrance free, not necessarily specific for infants, but not sure if that's a bad idea.
Last pregnancy, my MIL showed up in town early (as a surprise), I went into labor like 6 hours later, and then she stayed for like 3 weeks and did a lot of cooking for us. So I didnt do any freezer meals last time. LOL but I had zero plans to do them anyways before she showed up. This time I dont have a plan to either, but we'll see.
For my shower, I think I only sent invites to OOT guests like my MIL or siblings. Knowing they wouldnt be able to come, but letting feel included.
I've always just used Tide for baby clothes, which is what we typically use here in general. Unless baby #2 seems to have sensitive skin, I plan to stick with it.
Post by aprilsails on Jul 12, 2019 21:38:27 GMT -5
I tend to not do freezer meals as much as general prep. I plan to brown several pounds of ground beef with onion and salt and pepper. That can quickly be thawed and turned into taco or burritos, spaghetti sauce or chilli. Things like that which save me a step. I made a lot of crock pot meals after DD was born and didn’t have too much trouble pulling them together at some point in the morning.
I will bake and freeze lots of blueberry bran muffins. Those were great to have on hand last time for before during and after labour to keep my fibre intake way up.
I didn’t have out of town guests but a courtesy invite is always a nice thing to do, especially for the grandmas.
And finally for detergent I started off using the Nellie’s baby detergent. I also cloth diapered and found I was having to strip the diapers nonstop. Cloth Diaper University said original Tide was best, which is what I use for my own laundry since it is one of the soaps I am not allergic too. DD didn’t have any kind of reaction to it and we used it for her diapers for a year and a half afterwards. I switched over to using that for her clothes as well, since I could then mix in with my laundry.
First, yay it's finally Friday! It's been a crazy week over here, but I'm glad I finally have some down time. I have a handful of questions, so I thought I'd start a discussion. Feel free to post any questions you have too!
Are you planning to do freezer meals before baby arrives? If so, how far in advance did you do this? Also, bonus points for any recipe, blog, etc recommendations for inspiration! We are notorious for not having food in the house and then running out at 8:30 or later to grab dinner which will not work once baby is here. Plus, we need to get out of that habit for budget reasons anyway.
For your baby shower, did you invite out of town family if you just visited them 1-2 months prior? Also considering we only see each other once a year, sometimes every other year. I just saw my mom, SIL and MIL at the end of June and my shower will be beginning of August for reference. I don't love the idea of my MIL coming, but for future relationship reasons, I think I should at least extend the invite especially if I include my mom? Not sure if MIL would come or not since she's 1000 miles away.
What laundry detergent do you use for the baby clothes? I'm thinking just something die/fragrance free, not necessarily specific for infants, but not sure if that's a bad idea.
For freezer meals, the last two times I made a bunch of stuff- frozen shells, enchiladas, taco meat, meatballs, etc. It is nice to have, but both times I started wanting to cook before I had used them up lol (I like cooking). This time I think I’ll still do some prep of taco meat and maybe pulled pork, but some more like dump and go crockpot meals, plus figure out some easy stuff for breakfasts and lunches for the kids.
Baby shower- id invite immediate family, so they know they are included. For MIL I’d send the invite, but text or email that you know it’s far & you just saw each other, so you don’t want her to feel obligated to travel, but you wanted her to feel included.
I’ve always just used our normal detergent with baby stuff 🤷🏼♀️ Tide or oxyclean.
Post by humpforfree on Jul 12, 2019 22:03:59 GMT -5
My random- passed my early one hour GD test. I swear no one believes me that I actually passed the GD test before bc both babies were so large for their gestational age at birth.. idk just have big babies I guess 🤷🏼♀️
Post by dreamcrisp1 on Jul 13, 2019 1:18:18 GMT -5
I didn’t/haven’t done freezer meals. We don’t have space for it and I don’t need it. My mom will be here for a month and then 3 days later, my MIL will be here and we go to Italy. We don’t have to worry about food from August 24 to October 17. Haha.
I flew to Canada for my shower.
We are using regular detergent for the baby but it’s a pretty gentle one. We don’t have particularly sensitive skin so I didn’t see the news since he come into contact with all our stuff washed in our detergent.
Post by sunflower17 on Jul 13, 2019 10:01:51 GMT -5
We use all free and clear for ourselves so I use it for baby too. Someone gifted me some dreft so I used it 🤷🏼♀️ But I won’t spend extra money on it. I didn’t do freezer meals last time, but I’m interested in recipes and links for successful freezer meals.
Post by chocolatepie on Jul 13, 2019 18:50:06 GMT -5
I am planning to do freezer meals, though I know we'll also get some Meal Train meals from friends. We eat almost 100% Skinnytaste and she has an entire collection of freezer friendly meals/snacks that I bookmarked. Thankfully, we have extra freezer space so I planned to pick up disposable pans from Dollar Tree and use that. It seems like most can be frozen for a few months so I may start them a couple months prior to due date. If I start feeling blah by then, it'll be the first to-do item to go We are both home for a few months after baby arrives so we won't starve but if I feel like I can accomplish something productive in this waiting period, it would be worth it.
For baby shower... I already decided I didn't want my mom to come (esp after her recent antics) so I don't think I'll invite any OOT family and they'll just hear about it later. If I wasn't so set on my mom not making an appearance, I would send close family a courtesy invite.
We already use Free and Clear so I'm just planning to use that.
Post by murphybrown on Jul 14, 2019 12:41:23 GMT -5
We did not do freezer meals because we knew we would have a lot of help in the weeks following LOs arrival.
We invited out of town family to the shower, but most did not join. It was nice to make them feel included, though.
For detergent we use tide free and clear. For a while we all used it, but my husband really likes his clothes to have a scent, so we are back to regular tide for us.
On freezer meals - We made a lasagna, which at 6 weeks is still in the freezer. In theory it was a good idea, but it takes so long to defrost that it's not really practical as a "oh shit we need to eat tonight" meal.
We made homemade beef bolognese, which works better. Frozen in appropriate portion sizes, and has a ton of veggies in it so it's basically a complete dinner if we just boil some water for pasta and thaw a container of the sauce.
I also made muffins for myself which were good but lasted all of 2 seconds.
For laundry detergent, I did Dreft with baby #1 because I was "supposed" to, but for baby #2 I just washed his stuff in our regular detergent (store brand from BJ's) and figured I'd course correct if he had a skin issue. He has been fine, so I'm KOKO.
for #1 i did a ton of freezer meals and it was super handy. it's where i went overboard in nesting, i froze meatballs and meatloaves and burger patties and trays of pasta to bake up, etc, etc. it definitely was useful and made it easy on the days we just hung around the house with no visitors.
for #2, i will probably do more breakfast-y stuff, i had some awesome breakfast burritos last time that i loved. and more buying of kid-friendly freezer staples (chicken nuggets, meatballs, TJs type stuff that's easier to just throw together). since before it was just the two adults and one baby, home together all day for 6 weeks it was easier. now we will still have the daily grind of school pick-up and such to deal with, so i think pre-made but easy and quick cooking things will be better this time around.
i would invite out of town family to the shower, but send email/text that no pressure, just wanted them to feel included.
for laundry we just used the free and clear version of our store brand detergent and it was fine.
For detergent we use tide free and clear. For a while we all used it, but my husband really likes his clothes to have a scent, so we are back to regular tide for us.
We did this exact thing a while back because I went down a crazy rabbit hole about fragrance and whether or not it's good for you, but my husband likes his clothes to smell clean, so we're back with normal Tide that is scented.