Disposable Diaper-Changing Sheets

Before Baby R was born, a fellow dog-owning friend confessed that she used puppy toilet-training sheets when changing her son's diaper. Having no desire to wash the diaper-changing pad cover every time there was leakage (or squirtage, as the case sometimes is with a baby), I thought it was a pretty good idea. One concern I had, though, was that it could add up to a lot of money. My dog's pee pads are not cheap, but because I live in an apartment and mostly because I'm a lazy bum and don't want to trudge all the way downstairs and outside late at night for that last potty break before bedtime (oh, stop sneering, all you home-with-a-yard owners), I'm willing to fork over the dough and withstand censorious looks from the petshop cashier person, who informs me they have a great toilet-training class for dogs.

A second concern was that I didn't really want my baby's skin coming in contact with questionable chemicals, which those pet sheets are often treated with to encourage a puppy to pee.

After touring a few incontinence Web sites, further Googling led me to Mednet Direct. At $34.95 for 300 sheets, this was definitely the cheapest deal I could find. And everything about the site was totally suspicious--just check it out and you'll see what I mean. In addition, at the time, all I could find online were endless press releases about Mednet and its great deal on puppy sheets, but nary a legitimate human review.

Being the wild risk-taker that I am, I decided "what the heck" and ordered a box. For the record, they have a pretty expensive flat-rate shipping charge of $12.95, but the total price was still lower than anything else I could find. A week later, much to my surprise, the pads arrived, and in a fairly compact box, to boot (a bonus, as I'd been worrying about where to keep 300 bloody pee-pee sheets, but the whole lot fit quite neatly in the little cabinet under the bathroom sink).

First things first, the quality of these sheets is not great, especially for dogs. My pup is a little guy, but when he uses one of these sheets, the pee rapidly seeps past the border--and just keeps on going. On the other hand, it's more than adequate if you're using it for changing diapers. Unless there's an accident, your baby isn't going to pee on this thing. It's just to catch a smear here and there, and save you from doing extra laundry. In our house, one sheet lasts us a long time, unless Baby Girl has a particularly explosive blowout.

So that's the verdict: The Mednet sheets are cheap, both in price and quality, but for changing diapers, you don't need to waste your money on something better. They're also great for diaper changing outside of the house, whether you're protecting your baby from having to come in contact with those changing tables in public restrooms or doing an emergency change on the floor...somewhere.

SimplyNoise.com

So we're officially "sleep training"--spurred on by three evenings in a row of very cranky, inconsolable wailing by a baby who's tired but won't sleep. I'm reading books, Web sites, mommy/baby/parent forums, you name it. And one recurrent recommendation was a white-noise machine. So yesterday, Baby Girl, the dog, and I strollered through darkness and rain to Target, in search of this supposedly magical apparatus. They didn't have one.

Sleepwise, it hadn't actually been a terrible day. Our little evening outing seemed to have put the little pookies in a good mood and she continued to nap happily in her Bugaboo Cocoon even after we got home. She's been waking up in the middle of the night, not hungry but fussing, though, and I was eager to test out the power of white noise. A quick "white noise" search brought me to SimplyNoise.com. What I like about this site is there's no downloading required. You just go there and the white noise starts. There are actually three options--white, pink, and brown/red noise--with white being the highest pitch and brown/red a deeper rushing sound, almost like ocean waves. I set up the laptop near baby's bassinet and just let it play all night.

I don't know if the sleep training is starting to work or if it was all about the white noise, but yesterday, at exactly 1:40am (that girl is like a clock, I tell you), I heard the heavy breathing and then the dreaded "eh eh eh," and then--silence. Until 8:30am the next morning. Hallelujah, praise the Internet, Elizabeth Pantley, the Baby Whisperer's idea of "wake to sleep," and the almighty white noise--and I really have to go and feed her now.

Carlson Baby Ddrops

I was at Wholefoods the other day and made a happy discovery: Carlson Baby Ddrops, the vitamin D supplement I'd mentioned in my previous post. A friend got the okay from her daughter's pediatrician--I didn't even think to ask ours (sigh)--so it should be safe to use.

I'm glad to report that these drops are completely tasteless. There is a slightly sour odor, which might bother breastfeeding moms, since you're supposed to put the drop on your nipple (and let the baby suck away), but it really doesn't linger. The best part is that Baby Girl doesn't even realize she's taking a vitamin.

One thing: The solution is fairly liquid, and you need to have baby ready at the breast, right before you put a drop on your nipple, so you can quickly get that boob in his or her mouth. Also, be careful of sudden flailing arms--the first time I tried the drops, Baby R's hand suddenly flew out and went right through the stuff, and I didn't add another drop for fear of overdosage (which maybe isn't a real concern, but hey, I'm a first-time mom--leave me to my paranoia).

The only bad news is that the aforementioned friend's pediatrician also said breastfed babies need an iron supplement. Groan.

Vitamin D Supplement for Baby

There are a lot of differing opinions regarding giving your baby a vitamin D supplement. Only if you live in Alaska--or Canada (love the sweeping geographical verdict)--some say. Just take a vitamin D supplement yourself and it'll pass through your milk to the baby, my friend told me. All a baby needs is a few minutes a day in direct sunlight, claim the old-schoolers. The Baby 411 Blog has a nice post that sums up the vitamin D situation.

Baby R's own pediatrician recommended a vitamin supplement for babies--which I did most dutifully go out and buy. And which, I acknowledge, has been sitting a few squirts short of full at the back of the medicine cabinet for months. Why? Because, at the time, the only supplement seemingly available was a foul-smelling liquid (apparently, it's the vitamin B that's the stinker) multivitamin called Poly-Vi-Sol. You had to give a whole dropper's worth every day, and it was so hard to administer to my little baby because she absolutely hated it: her whole face would scrunch up and turn bright red and she'd repeatedly stick her tongue out, as if to get rid of a bad taste in her mouth--not to mention the fact that she pretty much spit out the majority of what I painstakingly was trying to squirt in.

[Editor's note: Can I interrupt this post to say that my baby is crying her guts out right now and it's extremely hard to think, let alone blog? I've tried everything: fed her, changed her diaper, read her a story, held and cuddled her. Nothing. Hated it all (except the feeding). For any new moms out there, this kind of thing happens and the intense stress it invokes will churn your stomach and shave five years off your lifespan.]

But then I found out that last year, the AAP had upped their recommended vitamin D dose for children from 200 IU to 400 IU. Worried, I did a little online research and thanks to the La Leche League forum, learned about something called Carlson Baby Ddrops. You just need to give baby one drop--applied on the nipple, for example, for breastfeeding moms. Sounds easy and painless, and I'm going to try to find it tomorrow, if the stress of my still-wailing baby doesn't first cause my brain to explode.

Update: I found the drops at a local supermarket and wrote a short review on it.

Baring All

So I'm sitting on the couch in the living room--the place where I spend the majority of my resting hours, now that there's a baby in my life. There's a little watery sunlight coming in through the window and there's a chill in the air, but I'm topless. Blogging topless (about to breatfeed--I just wanted to add. It's not like I blithely sit around half-naked for the tingly pleasure of it).

Here's the thing about being a new mom. It's going to seem as if you're constantly in some state of undress or other. If you're breastfeeding, then get used to the girls hanging out, fully exposed, for many hours of the day. Even if you're not, though, amongst the many activities that baby will seem to purposefully interrupt, such as eating, sleeping, emailing, etc., changing clothes will be another. And you'll find yourself rushing to your screaming baby's side, wearing maybe a scarf, one sock--and your panties, if you're lucky. If the people in the building opposite ours were of the pervy, binocular-wielding variety, they'd get an eyeful.

My next-door neighbors surely get an earful, since the soundproofing in this apartment--yeah, there isn't any. As if piercing infant cries and badly sung (by me) songs aren't enough to endure, the people on our floor might also be unfortunate enough to overhear such choice tidbits that I call out to my fussing baby as: "Okay, okay, look! I'm taking off my shirt. Look, your favorite breasts!" and "Okay, okay, just a sec. I'm just going to the bathroom. No good? Okay, here, I'll let you watch me."

On Being Baby-unwise

I was recently talking with yet another of those parents whose babies sleep through the night (grrr) and she recommended the book On Becoming Babywise by Gary Ezzo. Let me tell you, I'm the furthest thing from a competitive parent. I don't care if my girl is the last in the bunch to start rolling over, crawling, talking, etc. But every time I hear, "My baby's been sleeping 12 hours since the day she was born!" (okay, an exaggeration--babies that young aren't supposed to sleep that long), I feel this crushing sense of panic, like I've seriously screwed up somewhere along the way. And a sleepless parent is a desperate one. So of course any advice from a parent with a STTN (sleeping through the night) baby must be followed posthaste.

Went straight to the nearest library that had this book and power-read through the thing standing up while balancing my RTEN (refuses to even nap) baby on one shoulder. I hadn't gotten more than a few pages in before I was ready to shoot myself in the head for being--again--the worst parent in the world. (I admittedly wanted to take out the annoying Chelsea--the fictitious and, naturally, perfect baby whose parents adhered to the dictates of the book--while I was at it.)

The author of Babywise tells the reader, repeatedly, that a seven to nine-week-old baby is more than capable of sleeping seven to eight hours a night. And if they can't, then it's All your fault, you miserable excuse for a parent.

My baby is 13 weeks old and she only started sleeping four hours (a grand triumph, I had thought at the time) at a stretch since, um, a few days ago.

The truth is, though, I think my baby is doing okay. Yeah, that's right: I'm going to take the defensive here and say this book might not be applicable to everyone--namely, our family. In addition, although the book warns against on-demand feeding and its detrimental effects on a baby's sleep habits, and instructs parents to take the lead and decide when it is time for a baby to sleep, eat, or be awake, it just doesn't seem realistic. I mean, I can tell my baby, "See here, young thing, you are going to take a nap" until I am blue in the face, but she'll just lie in her bassinet screaming "Up yours" in her very concise baby manner, for however long it takes for me to get the message.

The book also warns that initially, there will be crying and protests. So for one nap, yesterday, I tried to let the little pookie cry it out--for 15 minutes. She cried through the allotted time and then I went to her. If you could have seen her swollen eyes and tear-drenched face, or felt her little body shuddering with her sobs--you would have shot yourself in the head, too.

Although we certainly aren't progressing apace of the wonder babies whose parents are "babywise," I think my little girl is gradually getting the hang of this whole Night is for Sleeping concept. Now, the only problem is getting her to nap in the day time. Whole 'nother can of worms. Sigh.

Cute vs. Loveable

I used to wonder all the time whether people with ugly babies realized their babies were ugly and loved them anyway, or were they completely blinded by love...or some biological mechanism that ensures people don't abandon their offspring. So, while I was pregnant, I was very curious to see what I'd think of my own baby.

Well. I can confidently say that my baby is very cute. I'm kidding--sort of. The truth is, sometimes my baby is adorable--like when she's bright-eyed and beaming first thing in the morning. But when she's crying and her face is all pinched, I can admit she's...less cute.

The fascinating thing though is that while I love my daughter every minute, it's when she's at her most awkward or less than photo-perfect--like when she's naked and you can really see how disproportionately huge her head is in comparison to her body (like a Pez dispenser) or the squinty, duck-lipped expression she has, accompanied by emissions of snorts, whinnies, and farts, when she's just woken from a deep sleep--that I feel equal parts overwhelming tenderness and ferocious protectiveness. I think it surely must be a biological safeguard.