Playtime

Connor is just growing so fast, it's getting harder and harder to keep him entertained. He acts like he's frustrated at his lack of ability to really do anything. So today I did an experiment. I put blankets all around him in his excersaucer and sat down to see if he liked it. He LOVED it! Of course he still isn't even close to sitting up, so I had to be right there in case a blanket slipped, but it was a really fun time!

Tomorrow is his 1 month check up. I can't wait to see how big he is! I think I might just have to go against everything I believe in and buy a scale for the house.

The 411 on our diapering system

So I get a lot of funny looks when people find out we're using cloth diapers. I thought I would go ahead and take this opportunity to educate the masses on just how easy it is. Presenting: my cloth diaper tutorial. Featuring Snuggle Bear, Aunt Carolyn's afghan, a prefold cloth diaper, a Thirsties brand cover, and a Snappi.

First, I'll show you the tools:

This is a prefold diaper. It's the kind that your grandma (and my mom) used, and many mom's still use today as burp cloths.

This is a cover. This particular cover is Thirsties brand. Note the Velcro. Velcro is your friend:

This is a Thirsties cover open. Notice that the inside is shiny? It's Polyurethane Laminate, which is a highly breathable, yet water proof material. This means that after a wet diaper, I can simply wipe out the inside of the cover and lay it out to dry for the next diaper change. I have three different covers, but I didn't want this to last forever so I just used the one.

This is a Snappi. Snappi's have taken the place of pins.

This is the back of a Snappi. See the teeth? You'll understand how it works better in a bit.

Now to the fun part. Grab your prefold diaper and fold it in thirds. (Note, this fold is for boys. If you were diapering a girl, you would turn it sideways and then fold it in to thirds so that there is more fabric in the middle. With a boy I want more fabric up front.)

Fold the front up so it fits and pull the tops out a bit:

Lay down your baby. (I thought about using Connor for this, but first, he wiggles a lot. And second I'd have to go back and edit the pictures to retain his privacy, and that's a lot of work.)

Pull the front up and attach the Snappi. To attach a Snappi, you just hook it on to one side of the diaper, hold it tight, attach it to the other side, and then stretch it down toward the bottom. Now you have a diapered baby. You could really stop here, but since there is no waterproof layer, things get a bit messy as soon as the baby wets.

So, you add in the cover. This part is just like a disposable.

The only trick is you have to make sure all of the cloth is inside the cover. If any cloth is peeking through, the moisture will "wick" up through the cloth and get on your baby's clothes.

Ta-da! See how easy cloth is! If you are breastfeeding, all you have to do is throw the diaper in the diaper pail and wash every 2-3 days, depending on how many diapers you have. If you are using formula or if the baby is eating solids, then you need to get the poop off of the diaper before you wash it. (Breast milk poop is water soluble, so it washes away just like anything else. Formula poop will just smear and make a huge mess in the washer. Not cool)

To get the poop off of the diaper, you have two basic options. You can swish it in the toilet until the solids come off, or you can buy a diaper sprayer. A diaper sprayer is just like a sprayer that you have on your kitchen sink, but it's designed to attach to your toilet. I don't have one yet, but it's totally on my Christmas list.

Once your diapers are poop free, you just throw it in the wash with no more than half of the normal amount of detergent you usually use. You'll want to be picky about your detergent though. Some detergents are bad for diapers because they clog the fibers of the material and make them less absorbent. Click here for a list of safe detergents. You want to do a cold rinse (for stain removal), a hot wash, and an extra rinse to make sure all of the detergent is rinsed away. Fabric softeners are also bad for the absorbency of the cloth, so you'll want to skip those. Since I don't have hot water hooked up to my washing machine, I add a few drops of Tea Tree Oil as an antiseptic to make sure no ickies are lingering around, waiting to give my baby a rash.

Another stain fighting technique is the sun. If you hang your diapers to dry in the sun you are almost guaranteed to stay stain free. The only down side is that the sun can make the diapers less than silky smooth, so I always toss them in the dryer for 10 minutes to soften them up. Dryer sheets are also bad for diapers, so you'll want to skip those as well.

For more reasons to cloth diaper, click here or here or even here.

And just because I can't make a post without a Connor picture in it, here he is, very angry, after a bath in a Prowrap brand cover. He really does love the bath, he just hates to get out and get dressed.

Ooops!

Sorry to anyone who tried to comment and couldn't. The blog automatically sets itself so that only people with blogger accounts can comment! It should be fixed now. Please let me know if you have any problems by emailing me at burleysgirl@gmail.com

Big boy, eating habits, smiles, and cloth diapers

In just about 12 hours Connor will be a month old. I can't wait until his appointment on the 17th to have him weighed. His has grown SO much. A friend of mine has a baby who is 6 weeks older than Connor, and they are almost the same size. It's crazy.

He is really moving along developmentally too. He is holding his head up really good. He doesn't have a lot of control over it yet, but he is really trying. He's starting to play with his toys too. If we put a toy in his hand he will shake it around to make it make noise. If we put one near him when he's laying down, or hold it above his head, he bats at it. He's been doing this for about a week and a half now. He focuses on us and even follows us around with his whole head if we walk by. He's even really watching things across the room even though everyone says he can only see 18 inches in front of his face.

He's really starting to smile too. At first I kept telling everyone it was gas or sleepiness because I didn't want to get my hopes up too high. But I've seen a couple of them that were clearly smiles. His whole face lights up. It's really amazing to watch. He hasn't found his feet yet, but his hands are a constant source of entertainment.

We did end up moving to a bottle. Part of me is sad, but it was just too much for me mentally. I know that I could have struggled through it, but I felt like I was missing those first weeks of him that I would never get back and it was making me very sad. But now we're both much happier and he is obviously VERY healthy! We're using Enfamil Lipil with iron, and he almost never spits up with it so we got lucky with the first brand we tried. He eats like a champ too. He's up to about 4 ounces per feeding now, and he's eating at least every 3 hours.

We hit a bump in the road with the cloth diapers, but I'm pretty sure we're past it. We've been making our own laundry soap for over a year now, and I read somewhere that it was good for diapers. (Some soaps clog up the fibers in cloth diapers and make them lose their absorbency) Well, it looks like something in the soap was reacting with his urine and gave him a nasty burn-like rash on his thighs. Poor little guy. I stripped the soap out of them and we have a new laundry detergent now that I've heard good things about from dozens of cloth diapering moms. So, since he looks all healed up now, we'll be going back to cloth tomorrow.

Our birth story

I suppose this blog should start with Connor's birth story!

First, the stats: Connor Phoenix Allen Randles was born on Father's Day, June 15th, 2008 at 8:32am in Bakersfield, California. He was 9lbs even and 21.3 inches long. He had a full head of blonde hair, fair skin, and long monkey toes just like his Daddy.

I got to the hospital for induction on Saturday, the 15th of June (7 days past my due date) and they started the pitocin drip at about 10:30am. At about 11:30 the doctor came in and broke my water. The contractions slowly started coming as the hours wore on. At first they were really small, but they slowly got stronger and stronger.

By 9:00pm or so the contractions were one on top of the other with no break and I was stuck at 2 cm. The way the Dr. explained it was because of the surgery I had years ago, there was scar tissue on my cervix acting as a rubber band of sorts, keeping me closed up. He said that eventually his head would break it and then I would progress quickly. The constant contractions without a break and the picture in my head of a rubber band snapping was enough to convince me that an epidural was a good idea.

The anesthesiologist came in at about 9:30 and gave me the epidural. It was not fun, and took about 15 minutes to do. Once he was done I started feeling better instantly, but inserting the needle was really painful.

Once I got the epidural things slowed down a bit, but by about 4am I had gone to 5cm and I was ready to push by 6am. But, the epidural made it really hard for me to push because I couldn't feel anything. When I first got the epidural the nurse put a pillow under my right hip to stop the medicine from pooling in my back, which would make it stop working. Well, instead it pooled on my left side so I was feeling everything on my right, but I couldn't even lift my left leg. We got almost to the point of crowning when the nurse decided that we should let me labor a bit longer and just wait for the doctor. (He was the only one on call and he was pulled in to an emergency, so it was me and two nurses) The anesthisiologist came in and bumped up my epidural at about 6:30am and I went to sleep.

The doctor came in at about 8:00 and started me pushing again. Even though the epidural was stronger this time, (and actually working on both sides) he was able to get me in a better position and Connor was out in 3 pushes. He had a big bulb on his head from sitting so low for those hours, but it was gone within an hour or so. I ended up with 3 stitches but he isn't even bruised.

We got off to a great start with breastfeeding, but ran into some latch problems early the morning and the nurse encouraged me to give him a bottle because I was getting frustrated. By the next feeding the lactation consultant had come in and she got us back on track.

My dreams of a natural birth were out the window from the get-go, but I don't care at all. I don't think I could care less about anything now that he's here and healthy.

Can I keep up?

I'm going to attempt to use this as a way to keep family and friends updated on how things are going in our little family now that Connor has arrived. For now I'm going to be working on making things look nice, and hopefully I'll be able to update at least once or twice a week.