Nursing/pumping friendly clothes

After having Emma I began to pump for her. I quickly found that most of my t-shirts didn't work for pumping, or for holding her during kangaroo care. The best options were button downs but sometimes you want to wear something different. I started looking at nursing tops and dresses... oh my. There is very little available and what is available is not very cute or it's very expensive. I think of my self as being a problem solver, so I set out to make some dresses and tops that would be pumping/nursing friendly.
My solution was to put a placket in everything so a lot of the shirts and dresses that I have been making recently have been a tunic or henley style with buttons going only part of the way down the front.

I learned how to put in plackets a long time ago in school. I watched this video here as a refresher. I am also putting together my own tutorial of how do do a placket because the video is long, and sometimes it's easier to just scroll through a page and be able to follow the instructions at your own pace.

Oh and here are some pictures of sweet E because in the first one she looks like she waving, and how can I possibly put up a post devoid of her cuteness!

Little E

This tiny cutie is 6 weeks old, and getting cuter by the minute. This weekend she hit 3 lbs. It seems huge to us, but she still isn't anywhere near as big as a "normal" baby. She is active and tries her very best to pull out all of her tubes and wires, lately she makes the funniest noises, grunting, squeaking, and sometimes hiccuping. 

Worlds biggest yawn

I love this face so serious.

Bath time is everyones favorite, we love being able to be more involved in her care. Layton holds her while i wash her face, neck, tummy, and legs. We do her hair last and I think it's her favorite, it's the only time we've seen her smile. we use a very soft brush and scrub her head she gets so relaxed.

Her second favorite thing to do is sprawl, legs out, arms out, and flailing madly. Her physical therapist told us to hold her arms to her chest and put our hands under her feet so she has something to push against, but some how she always ends up with arms and legs stretched as far as they will go.

I love her tiny hands and have about a million pictures just of those darling fingers. Whenever Layton or I hold her she still works one of her arms out from being swaddled and lays in on our chests.

Lately we've been giving her a pacifier to start practicing sucking, her pacifier is so tiny but it still takes up half of her face, she likes to be in charge and hold the pacifier herself whenever we practice.

1 Month Old

Emma is 1 month old this week! This sweet baby girl brings us so much happiness, even though she is in her isolette most of the time. Our daily visits to her are always the highlight of our day. Her tiny hands and feet moving and reaching out while we take her temperature and change her diaper make us fall more and more in love with her.

Sometimes it's hard to be a parent when your baby can't be with you. Because she came to us so early it's sometimes confusing to explain how old she is. This is how to calculate gestational/ corrected age here.

Weight: 2lb 7oz

Little miss Emma is doing so well, everyday she is doing a little bit better. This week they also took her chin strap off and she's breathing fine without it! She is still small, has a feeding tube, and is receiving oxygen, but for how early she was everything is going better than we could have hoped. As her nurse yesterday said "she's a little rockstar!"

On Tuesday we got to give her a bath! It was so fun and she handled it all really well, she stayed stable the whole time.