Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Works for Me!

It's interesting to me what we assume to be true about other mothers and their babies. I have several friends with kids right now (hi moms!) and it's always a nice reality check to hear how they deal with similar problems and issues. But no two babies are alike, and neither are their moms.

Lately Charlotte's two biggest challenges have been spitting up and sleeping. I know I should count myself lucky that these are the hardest things I have to deal with. Still, it doesn't make it any easier for me to hear "you think you had it bad, I had to deal with x, y and z..." Being a mom is hard work regardless of what you're dealing with. In spite of all the "encouragement" I seem to be figuring out a solution that works for me.

Charlotte had her 6-month well-baby visit last week.

Just as a side note, I want to point out that I've been so fogged in the head due to lack of sleep and stress that I went to her appointment and mine a day later than they were scheduled. I had to take her to a completely different pediatrician. I started crying when they told me I had to see a different doctor. I really like her doctor.

Anyway, I took her for her rescheduled appointment and the new doctor told me that she doesn't mind if a baby's small as long as they continue to grow regularly. Charlotte had only grown half an inch and a little more than half a pound. I'll admit I went in with the mindset that I was done dealing with the spit up. So when the doctor prescribed medication for it I didn't protest too much. I think the medicine is supposed to help digest dairy proteins or something like that. Whatever it's supposed to do, it's helped cut down the spit up quite a bit. She still spits up, but it's nothing like it was.

So far with the sleep I've tried a whole slew of different approaches and I think I've finally found a winner in attachment parenting. The last two nights I've just had her in the middle of my bed all night. She went to sleep right away. She stayed asleep longer than she's ever stayed asleep. I may be digging my grave in terms of my kid sleeping in our bed, but this is the most sleep I've gotten since she was born and I would rather share my bed and get some sleep than be miserable.

Even though it has nothing to do with Charlotte, it has made a big difference in my stress level. Yesterday we discovered The Hannah Society. For a couple months we've been told we either needed to come up with $1000 to amputate Bailey's broken leg or we needed to give him up to the humane society. The Hannah Society offers affordable pet insurance that includes delivered food, training classes, and all medical care. Because he has a preexisting condition we have to pay a little more per month the first year year and the payments come out to $75 a month.

The payments are a bit of a strain for us in lieu of our trying to pay down bills etc.. but it's far more doable than the options we were given at Banfield. The best part is that I took Bailey to the Hannah vet today and not only does she think his leg doesn't need to be amputated, it may not even need surgery. He's gotten pretty fat though so they want him to roam free in the house to get some exercise and to see how he does with his leg before they do any more tests.

I will do a post holiday summary next time, I'm just so relieved about these issues I felt the need to talk about them first!

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Fewer Voices in the Night

Well, it's been about a week of working on the sleep training. I just got "the no-cry sleep solution" in the mail and have been reading through it. Combined with the advice nurse I think I may be on my way to a better night's sleep.

After the first night with the bottle of water, Charlotte completely refused to even try to suck on the bottle. The second night was a battle of wills. It was my will for her to go back to sleep without nursing, it was her will to prove to me that she wanted things her way by screaming as loudly as she could. Fortunately sleep training has started to take. I had set her bedtime for 9:30 and had started a routine. Then I read in the no-cry book that babies need to be in bed much earlier - like 7pm - and that my almost 6-month-old needs around 11 hours of sleep each night and 3-4 hours between 2 naps during the day.

To this I gave a dropped jaw "wha?! that much?!" I had no idea. The funny thing was that in the same paragraph the author says that she was putting her baby to bed around 9:30 and her baby started sleeping longer when she set and earlier bed time. It's like she knows me.

Charlotte almost always takes a long nap around 7. I don't know how it didn't occur to me that I should just put her to bed! So tonight when she started to get red eyed and sleepy I put her to bed. That was around 8. I fed her again at 10:30 and she's still asleep even now as I type.

Now that I've started to get a handle on the night-time sleeping thing, the next challenge is going to be the naps. So far Charlottes naps have been pretty short and at the mercy of my schedule. She sleeps in the car if I've been driving long enough and she always wakes up when I take her seat out of the car. If I'm home, she usually sleeps around noon but never more than half an hour. Other than in her carseat, she never naps without being held and she certainly doesn't get 3-4 hours of sleep each day. So now I have my work cut out for me. I need to figure out how to keep her asleep during the day. Considering how inconsistent my daily routines are this is going to be a tough one to figure out.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Ode to gDiapers


Charlotte modeling the Goddess Pink gPant
When I was pregnant I spent countless hours researching diapers on the internet. I don't remember exactly when or where I ran across gDiapers, but I'm pretty sure it was love at first sight. So much so that I've been planning on writing this blog post since before my baby was born because I was so excited to use their products. There are so many reasons why I love these diapers, but in order to understand I'll need to explain how they work.


The gPant
That's the part you see. They come in all sorts of colors and designs - one of my favorite features. The waistband is elastic and velcro closures fasten toward the back of the diaper. The back closures are nice because I can stand Charlotte up if she's fussy to finish putting her diaper on. I imagine they'll also be nice when she's at an age where she can take her own diaper off since getting them open will be much more challenging than a typical diaper. I had about 10 of them in small and my medium collection is up to around 14. I don't need that many, but I'm kind of a nerd about collecting all the colors. I loved matching the colors with cute shirts in the summer and they look extra cute with baby legs.




The Pouch:
These snap into the pant and hold the pad. Rubbery piping around the edges fit around babies legs to prevent leaking. Because they aren't a permanent part of the diaper, you can easily switch them out of the pant if they're soiled. They wash pretty easily but break down faster if they go through the dryer - something I'm not great about preventing. The liner in the second picture is a bit yellow from staining. The amazing thing is they completely bleach to white if I put them in the sun for a few minutes.

gCloth
Next is what you stuff into the liner. This is a huge selling point for me! There are a few options. One is the gCloth. What's special about these cloth inserts is that one side is a soft cotton and the other is a very absorbent hemp. I used about 24 small ones and have 18 medium/large ones now. I throw them into my gdiaper laundry bag and throw the whole bag into the wash every couple days. In the medium/large size a prefold will fit rather nicely. They're much less expensive, but I really like the gCloth personally and I feel like they were worth the investment.

gRefills
The gRefills are one of the two things that sold me on these diapers over other cloth diaper systems (the other thing being the availability in stores - more on that later though!). I've worked out a system where I cloth diaper when I'm home and use the refills when I'm out of the house and at night. What's absolutely amazing about these is that they are amazing absorbent (I never change her during the night) and you can flush them! Yeah, that's right. YOU CAN FLUSH THEM! They are completely biodegradable if you don't flush them. You can also compost pads that are poo free.

The system is really great, but you may wonder, what about the cost? This was something I really thought about before I invested in this system. Diapers are expensive regardless of which route you take. These cost quite a bit up front. I could have chosen a less expensive cloth system, but I decided to go with these for a few reasons. First is that I can use them again. We plan on having more kids and besides the pink diapers, we can reuse the pants and cloth pads - we'll probably have to buy new liners which come in packages of 6 for $20. The other reason I chose these is resale value. I shopped for used ones for months online. They're like the Honda of diapers. They retain their value.
I loved this shirt during the summer
because it matched several different
colored gPants.

Because this is one of the only cloth systems available in major retail stores I've been able to coupon to cut some of the costs. Many packages came with a coupon for $2.50 and sometimes $5.00 off if you bought a two pack of the gpant and a package of gRefills. If you're not picky about color, the starter packages online aren't too bad. Diapers.com has a first time buyer discount and runs specials fairly often. I just bought 4 diapers for the price of 2 on babies'r'us website making each pant less than $10. New Seasons has sales on pants and refills every once in awhile as well. I've managed to piece my collection together fairly reasonably.

This was a limited edition
pattern last summer.
Beyond just diapers, gDiapers makes really great quality products. I've bought the laundry bag which I mentioned, I've also tried the cloth liners. These allow the wet to be absorbed into the cloth pad while catching the poo so for poopy diapers you don't have to rinse out the pad. The wet wipes are awesome as well. I tried quite a few different brands of baby wipes but these are the only ones that don't make me think of poo just because of the smell. They're almost odor free.

Okay, I'm almost done being a personal advertisement for this brand! I just want to mention a couple more reasons that I love these diapers. I've already mentioned how I bought them in stores. Recently babies'r'us expanded their selection and now they carry several more products which is great if you don't want to pay for shipping. Another reason is their customer service. Their site has videos and explanations for how to be successful with their products and when I've had to call their customer service they were very knowledgeable and friendly. The last reason I like them is that they're local. gDiapers were created in Australia but their US headquarters is based in Portland (I've been there for tea!) and I like to buy local when I can.

This video she's wearing her orange diaper with her rainbow baby legs. 

So there you have it. My ode to gDiapers. Perhaps my complete nerd devotion to a cloth diaper system is a bit ridiculous, but there you have it!

If this wasn't enough information for you, there's always their beautifully designed website: http://www.gdiapers.com/