You have your baby calm & settled, perhaps even asleep...all your ducks are in a row as you glance around to make sure you have everything in order to head out the door. Diaper bag packed, wallet, cell phone, older brother dressed and ready! You look into your infant bucket car seat and note that those darn straps are in the way. You try to juggle the baby in one hand and move the two straps out of the way with your other hand...which is an impossible feat!
With all the shuffling around the baby is upset, has a buckle poking him in the back...and you haven't even made it out the door yet.
Enter... The Carseat Sidekick
This invention was was thought of for the exact same reason I mentioned above. File this under the category of "Why Didn't I Think of That?". Seriously! This is genius. The Carseat Sidekick is functional, cute, and compatible with all major car seat brands. It's REALLY easy to install. The video is short and sweet:
It literally took me 30 seconds to install, easy peasy...and? It works!
Now I can easily place Ethan in the car seat without having to fight with the darn straps! My car seat actually comes with "strap holders" but they do.not.work! So I was thrilled to be able to review this amazing new product. It will definitely be on my "to buy" list for new babies! They currently come in blue/green (as shown above), orange/white, and pink/white.
Short Stack Jack also gives 10 cents of every Carseat Sidekick to Living Water International, an organization that helps provide people with clean drinking water, and I like that!
And now it's your chance to try out this innovative product!
Buy! Visit Short Stack Jack today and buy your own Carseat Sidekick! Only $17.99...but you get 20% off with code NURSE20!
Win! Short Stack Jack is generously offering 2 of my readers a chance to win 1 of their own Carseat Sidekicks in either boy or girl colors.
How to Enter This is a Rafflecopter giveaway. The first task is mandatory - please like Carseat Sidekick on Facebook and then you will unlock the widget for the rest of the entries. There will be two winners and they win 1 Carseat Sidekick in the color of their choice. This giveaway is open to Canadian & US residents only. If you do not see the widget below, please click the "Read More" link below to open it.
Oh baby, oh baby, oh baby! Am I ever excited to be an ambassador for The Baby's Room at Sears, and to show you all the wonderful things about this brand new department! With the early arrival of our new baby boy, the timing could not have been more perfect for Sears to be introducing their new department The Baby's Room.
I actually went into the city with my husband on Monday and took a tour of the new department. The store and new department looked phenomenal and has absolutely everything a mom could want shopping for her baby in one place. I am so happy that Sears has this department now!
My favorite part was how open and airy the department is. It's designed very well and sectioned off into travel, nursery, feeding, etc. which makes it very easy to find items. Speaking of items, there were plenty to choose from and it was nice to have the variety and not just one or two brands.
What surprised me the most was the huge selection of children's clothing! Everything was so cute and the products are very well made. I will definitely be going back to buy Ethan some new clothes. Everything was really well labelled and organized according to size which was an awesome feature.
I loved the nursery displays with the room decor. There were framed "plaques" on the wall of the nursery clearly labeling the prices of all the furniture and the sale prices which was awesome, it's nice to see mini displays of how the nursery furniture would fit together at home.
It also happens to be the "Everything Baby" sales event happening right now from October 12 - October 25th! This means literally everything baby in the department is on sale! So go to your local Sears and check it out.
Can you tell I had baby girl on the brain when we went? :)
Disclosure: I am part of the Sears – The Baby’s Room Ambassador program with Mom Central Canada and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own
...and a necessity for toddler bed training! I never used a video monitor up until this point. Just for me and my family, I didn't see the point of one...really ever. When they're newborn all they do is lie there and cry, you go in. As they get older, I can see why it would be neat to have one, to see if they're actually awake or if they're just unsettled, to see if they're standing up in their cribs, etc. But I still didn't see the need to buy one. Well, God must have known that I would need one one day, and it just so happens that last year I won this awesome Tommee Tippee monitor from a blog giveaway, and I can't see getting through toddler bed training without one! And this is why:
EPIC. NAP. FAIL.
I was SO MAD when I found this. This was "nap" time on day #2. I knew he wasn't going to sleep but he wasn't being that noisy, so I didn't think much was going on. Plus, day #1 he took about 6 books off his shelf and quietly read them for the hour of quiet time. Well I wasn't prepared for the above, that a Toddler Tornado would take over my son during his supposed "nap time". I know I got tons of belly laughs from the people I shared this with. My I can just picture my brother Ben and my best friend's husband Steve with big belly laughs saying "wayta go, buddy!" And I do laugh now, I even laughed an hour later, but mommy lesson learned!
So I set up that video monitor pronto and used it for the first time for the designated nap time the next day. I gotta admit, looking into the screen I kept waiting for one of those scary ghosts to pop up and scare me.
The really cool thing about this monitor is that you can talk to your child through the baby unit. It worked really well! Laura was over that afternoon and she caught him climbing up on his change table. So I spoke to him through the monitor for the first time and said "Braden! You get down from there please!" He suddenly stopped, looked around and had this "how did she know!?" look on his face. Then he figured out that my voice was coming from the baby unit. Actually....he didn't think it was my voice at all....
He totally, 100% thinks that it's my mom when I talk through the video monitor! It's quite hilarious and we're all getting such a kick out of it! I'm really enjoying the monitor and I can calmly reassure him in the morning that "Mommy's coming soon!" so he knows it's okay. It was time to start sleep training again, this time for the toddler bed.
Daddy read him stories last night and I came in to sing a song with him. I told him that he had to go to bed by himself tonight and that I loved him. He cried not even the 30 seconds it took me to leave his room and go turn on the monitor. It took him quite awhile to even get out of his bed, he was so distracted/entertained by his new Thomas decals we put on his wall yesterday I could hear him talking to his trains. He ended up getting out of bed twice, running to the door, but all the while remaining calm and happy. I think it took between 1/2 hour and 45 minutes for him to settle and fall asleep. My boy has ALWAYS liked to be very comfortable, so I couldn't imagine him falling asleep in front of the door or or on the floor anywhere....this is how I found him:
How did I get so lucky? I was so nervous and anxious about this transition, but he has made it so easy on not only himself, but on me too. I'm so proud of him! I think with his history of sleep training, he just knew it was bed time and that he'd eventually have to fall asleep. There was no crying, kicking, screaming, he didn't fight it at all. And as my Mom says, I think the novelty of the freedom of the toddler bed will soon wear off and he'll just want to sleep there.
I know nap times will take awhile, as he was pretty inconsistent with them before the bed, as my friend Katie told me, it takes awhile for them to learn the toddler bed nap! But at night, I couldn't ask for better. He sleeps his usual 12ish hours a night, straight through, we did decide to keep his door locked, he knows he needs to stay in his room when the door is shut and there's no fussing, crying or fighting it. He just calls out for me when he's done and that is that! Thanks for all your support and kind words this week!
*Note: This was not an official review for Tommee Tippee, nor am I affiliated with them, I do love their products though!*
