Wiped!
I just realized that I don’t think I ever really blogged about how we’re liking our cloth wipes. And, really, what is more fascinating than a post about POO-WIPING RAGS? Not much, right?
I’ve talked before about how we *heart, heart, HEART* our cloth diapers. Once I — er, we — decided to use cloth diapers, the decision to use cloth wipes was just automatic. It just makes sense, if you are cloth-diapering, because of a very simple formula …
Cloth diaper + cloth wipe = laundry
Disposable diaper + disposable wipe = garbage
Cloth diaper + disposable wipe = some stuff in the laundry + other stuff to the garbage + lots of gross separating of two very pooey items.
We keep things simple. We take off the cloth diaper, take care of business with a cloth wipe (or wipes, if we’ve got a poo situation). We wrap the cloth diaper around the cloth wipe(s), and throw everything into the diaper pail (lined with a cloth bag). Every second day, I dump the entire bag into the washing machine. Easy.
But! During the three weeks when we used disposable diapers (the first two weeks of Baby Boy’s life because we got them as gifts, and the week after his circumcision because of major Vaseline requirements), we went with disposable wipes. We used plastic bags in our diaper pail, and threw everything into the dumpster every few days. Also easy.
I’m really surprised when I see other bloggers using cloth dipes and disposable wipes, or vice versa. It just looks like way more work! Anyway.
Before we had Baby Boy, I did a ton of research on different cloth wipe options. You can buy fancy cloth wipes, just buy actual baby facecloths, or make the wipes yourself.
I made a bunch out of a meter or two of printed flannel, and they’re holding up wonderfully — although I get envious of the cute boughten cloth wipes sometimes. I just cut a rectangle shape (about the size of half a sheet of 8.5 x 11 paper), hemmed the edges, and was done. Well, done after I’d cut and sewed a zillion of them, that is.
When it comes to wetting the wipes, there are SO many different ways you can do it: sprays, soaks, squirt bottles — it makes choosing the type of diaper seem like a straightforward decision! Some people buy electric wipe-warmers, which let the fabric soak in warm water — I considered one, but then read comments that said they are a fire hazard, can scorch your wipes, and are just really unnecessary.
I went for a simple approach — a clear plastic plant-sprayer, bought for about $3 at Wal-Mart. You just fill it with “wipes solution,” keep it on your changing table, and spritz the flannel wipes right before using them on your baby’s cute little butt. No wipes-warmer necessary, because the solution is always room temperature — and hey, Baby Boy’s never complained.
I have to laugh when I remember my first time making the “wipes solution.” I took it so seriously, and read a bunch of different “recipes” on the internet before deciding on the perfect one. I think it was 1/4 baby oil, 1/4 baby body wash, and 1/2 water. I felt it should be SO EXACT that I USED A MEASURING CUP! Seriously, what was wrong with me? It’s butt-wiping liquid!
I have, uh, relaxed about it since then. The second time I made the solution, I just guessed at the amounts. The third time, I omitted the baby oil because we didn’t have any left. There are times I’ve just added water to the tiny bit of remaining solution. And you know what? It’s all worked out just fine. Lesson learned.
I’m pretty tired, and I’m not sure what the point of this post was … Use cloth wipes, if you cloth diaper? If you want to? They’re great?
How to cook without your baby underfoot
In my never-ending quest to keep Baby Boy safe, happy, and entertained without the use of the Exersaucer or bouncy chair (may they rest in peace), I discovered a new trick!
I took a large Tupperware container and filled it with plastic kitchen gadgets I never really use (extra measuring spoons, egg cups, etc.). When I need to cook or wash dishes in the kitchen, I sit Baby Boy in the doorway with the container, and he has a blast digging through it and playing with (read: chewing on) everything, without sneaking away from me and getting into mischief.
Success!
Two years later …
I can’t believe it was exactly two years ago — January 1, 2009 — that I wrote my very first post on this blog. I was obsessed — OBSESSED! — with getting pregnant and starting a family. I started this blog, in fact, because I desperately wanted an outlet where I could talk about those feelings.
So much has happening in the last two years. I dedicated 2009 to preparing to get pregnant, and then in September, it happened. I was pregnant for the first part of 2010, and then in June, Darling Husband and I were so amazingly blessed to have the most perfect, sweet baby boy.
2010 was, without a doubt, the best year of my life.
So what do we expect for 2011?
Maybe I should say, who will we expect? …
No, I am not pregnant. Promise.
But I’d be lying if I said we weren’t discussing it.
I honestly thought I wouldn’t even be thinking of getting pregnant again until Baby Boy was at least a year old, but … I don’t know. I am. I can’t help how I feel, and I want to keep being honest on this blog.
It’s hard to describe my feelings on this subject, because I feel like I’m going to get a bunch of “You’re talking about trying again??? WTF??? Your baby is still a bayyyybeeee!” backlash. There is talk of finances. There is talk of logistics. There is talk of the merits of having babies close in age, and the merits having children spaced further apart.
There are people who won’t understand — who don’t understand — how I can feel this way, with my firstborn not quite seven months old. I don’t know when it’s “expected” that you should have/want to have another, but I know that everyone feels differently, and everyone does things differently.
I think I can sum up my feelings with a wonderful quote from one of my favourite bloggers, Amalah. When people asked her how she knew she wanted a second baby, she replied: “Our family was not complete without him.”
Our family is not complete. I don’t know when (or how many more) we’ll add to it, but we will. I can feel it. I have the same feeling I used to have when I was wishing and dreaming for Baby Boy. A little spark inside of me. A feeling that I miss someone who isn’t here yet.
We’ll have to see what 2011 has in store for us …
The new and improved schedule
Happy New Year to my lovely readers!
As I mentioned yesterday, 2011 is hopefully going to be a year of improved sleep for our little family. I am proposing that by creating and following an eating/nursing schedule for Baby Boy, he will not wake up starving so often in the night.
Here’s a look at his current schedule …
- Between 8 and 8:30 a.m.: Awake for the day
- 10 a.m. sharp: Nap
- 2 p.m. (or 3 p.m.): Nap
- 7:30 p.m.: Bedtime routine begins
- 8 p.m.: Bedtime
Not much of a schedule, huh? You’ll notice that there are no meals — or nursings — scheduled, and that’s because it’s a “whenever” kind of thing. I feed him purees randomly (usually only once a day), give him bedtime cereal sporadically (twice a week, maybe), and nurse on demand (couldn’t even count how often in a day).
SO! Here is my proposed new schedule …
- 8 a.m.: Wake up for the day, nurse
- Shower for me, get us both dressed
- 9 a.m.: Breakfast (a serving of pureed fruit, a serving of cereal)
- Playtime together
- 10 a.m. Nap (nursing right before he goes to sleep)
- 11:30 a.m. Wake up from nap
- Independent play with his kitchen toys while I make lunch
- 12 noon: Lunch (a serving of pureed fruit, a serving of pureed veggies)
- Playtime together, bathtime, errands (if applicable)
- 2:30 p.m.: Nap (nursing right before he goes to sleep)
- 4 p.m.: Wake up from nap
- Playtime together, independent play with his kitchen toys while I make dinner
- 5 p.m.: Dinner (two servings of pureed veggies — one veggie, one meat once he starts eating proteins)
- Playtime together
- 7:30 p.m.: Bedtime cereal
- 7:45 p.m.: Jammies, bedtime story, nursing, lullabye
- 8 p.m. Bedtime
- 12 midnight: Nursing
- 4 a.m.: Nursing
My New Year’s resolution? Helping us all sleep a little better!
You have all heard me rant and rave about The Sleep Situation.
Not in the beginning. No, in those early months, I knew I was supposed to be getting up all night to nurse the baby. I expected it. It was tiring, yeah, but it was normal.
No, it was in the fourth and fifth months that things really turned sour. Other babies began sleeping through the night. Most babies. Every baby but mine??? Books claimed that most were sleeping through the night, except “some” breastfed babies who “may” get up for “just one nighttime feeding.”
To that I said, “Ha!”
Needless to say, my baby was not sleeping through the night. Not even close. He still isn’t. He has been waking up every two (sometimes three, if I’m lucky) hours to nurse, every night, for three or four months now (I’m too tired to count exactly how many).
We tried cereal, and it didn’t work. Starting solids didn’t help. I tried shortening the feedings, but then he’d just wake up more often. I just kept reassuring myself that at least he was getting nice, nourishing breast milk all night, and “feeding on demand” is good, etc. I mostly just got used to the sleeplessness, I think. It became my new normal.
Now that Baby Boy is almost *gulp* seven months old, I think it’s time I worked harder to change this situation. He’s old enough now that I KNOW he doesn’t physically need to be nursing five times through the night. He SHOULD be sleeping longer than 2-3 hours at a time. I need to DO something to make it happen.
So here is my plan …
I admit I’ve been very sparing with the solid foods. When we started cereal, I got all freaked out that he was going to fill up on the empty calories and not drink enough breast milk, and my supply would suffer, and OH MY GOD the world would crumble, etc.
I never really got over that paranoia, so when he moved on to pureed veggies and fruits, I kept his portions really small. “He only needs a little taste, to expand his palette,” I’d tell myself. Oh, and “Eating’s just for practice right now.” I said that, too. I really got sucked in by the breastfeeding-until-age-two zealots. Sigh.
So while he’s eaten lots of solids in the last month (green beans, sweet potatoes, apples, bananas, pears, broccoli, and carrots — plus, uh, cookies), he only ever eats a tablespoon or so at a time. There is no rhythm or reason to his meals — he eats whenever, nurses whenever. And some days, he doesn’t eat anything except breast milk, because … well, a mixture of laziness (on my part) and busyness.
Baby Boy is already on a very solid nap/bedtime schedule, so my hope is that if I can set up a good schedule for eating and nursing, he won’t be as hungry through the night, and will sleep longer.
Stay tuned for the proposed schedule in tomorrow’s post — and let’s hope 2011 is going to be the year of better sleep!
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Heather's Handmade Life 