For the first four and a half months of her life, Noa was a pretty good sleeper. But by the time she was 6 months old, she was waking up several times a night and I was at my breaking point. Sleep deprivation is no joke! It was one thing when I just had one child but now with two kids, it was impossible to rest and catch up on lost sleep because someone was always up! I knew I needed to make a change! I decided to reach out to my friend Emily from Sleep Wise Consulting to help us make a plan for our family and get Noa back on track. Emily is also a mom of two (who happen to be similar ages to my girls) so besides her professional expertise, I knew she could relate to what I was going through from personal experience. With her help, we went from unintentionally co-sleeping to having our baby sleep for 12 hours straight in her own room in the course of 3 weeks!

Books are a huge part of Adina’s life! Before she was born, we asked guests at my baby shower to bring a book in place of a card and to write a special note inside. By the time she was born, we already had a full bookshelf full of books in her nursery! Fast forward 2 years and her collection has only grown bigger and bigger! We look forward to reading 3 stories before bed each night and Adina loves picking out her favorite books. In anticipation of special days on the calendar and holidays, we’ll read specific books to get excited. For example, before her birthday, we read lots of books about birthdays and leading up to Chanukah and Passover, we read books with those themes. In honor of Women’s History Month, I wanted to share some of our favorite feminist books that I’ve been reading with Adina.

Adina’s second birthday was on October 26, 2018, just 2 days before my due date with baby #2. I didn’t know if I would have had the baby by then, so we didn’t want to plan anything too extravagant. Birthdays are a big deal to me so I knew I still wanted to do something special for Adina. But since I was going to be 40 weeks pregnant, I didn’t want to risk planning anything too involved. (Although my friends joked that if I went into labor, at least the hospital was only a few blocks away!) Subsequently, I didn’t give birth for another 2 weeks, but since Adina was born at 39 weeks, I was prepared for it to happen at any moment. With this in mind, we wanted something fun and easy and planned a birthday celebration at the park near our house.

One of the most frequently asked questions I have gotten since Noa’s birth, is how Adina has adjusted to being a big sister. Truthfully, I had a lot of concerns about how the transition would be for her. Not only is she our firstborn, but Adina is also the first grandchild on both sides of the family and was used to having all of the attention on her for the first two years of her life. So naturally, I was worried that once the new baby arrived, there could be some feelings of jealousy or even animosity directed towards her. Now that Noa is over two months old, I can say confidently that the transition for Adina (and really for our whole family) has been so smooth and better than I ever imagined!

It’s been 2 months since little Noa has been in our arms and I honestly don’t know how it’s been that long! The last couple of weeks before she was born felt like an eternity but these past couple of months have totally flown by! I started writing her birth story weeks ago, but my two girls have been keeping me busier than ever so I’m just getting around to publishing this post. This is probably the longest and most personal blog post I’ve ever shared, but it was such a huge moment in my life and I didn’t want to forget anything. Read on to hear about Noa Ella’s arrival to this world!

Earlier this summer, my friend Dina sent me a package from Playboxes and I’m so excited to partner with them on this blog post. A Playbox is a curated box of toys based on your child’s age and developmental stage. Each of the toys is handpicked by child development experts and it comes with an explanation of each of the toys and ways your child can learn with them. Dina asked me about Adina’s age and interests ahead of time and a few days later, we got a box full of new toys that she couldn’t wait to play with!