Black Friday damage

I told myself that I wouldn't go overboard, and would just get the necessities... like sizing up the diapers I really like, and most importantly, a diaper sprayer. I will not start Matthew on solids without one, because I refuse to "dunk and swish"... where you literally dunk the dirty diaper in the toilet to get the poop off.

Anyway, DH and I recently received some extra money, and we took a small portion of it for ourselves. We call it "fun money". I decided to use some of mine on cloth diapers. DH doesn't understand how in the world that could be fun, but trust me, I had a ball! He just shrugged his shoulders because I had fun buying things our baby will poop and pee in.

Unfortunately, the diaper sprayer I'd been eyeing sold out super fast, so I'm still sprayerless. I've tried to buy this darn sprayer a few different times, and every single time I go to buy it, it sells out! It's like I'm not meant to have one, and I'm doomed to a life of dunking and swishing. But if I have to pay full price for one, I will. My mistake is that I wait until they go on sale, and it seems as though others are, too. No more. I figure I have 2 months to get one, as that's when Matthew will be 6 months old, and when I want to start him on solids.

On to diapers....

Most of my existing stash is solid colors, and everything I sized up followed in that path. But there were a few new diapers I wanted to try out, and there I picked some fun prints. I'm very excited to try them out!

Rumparooz G2 One-Size Pocket

Swaddlebees One-Size Simplex AIO

Peachy Green Solo Luxe AIO

Fun, huh? DH is especially going to love that last one. He has a thing for dragons. The side snaps might throw him off though. Oh well. That's the price you pay for having an awesome diaper!

And as always, I'll review once I've gotten a good feel for how they work!

Cloth diaper update

Well, seeing as though Black Friday is coming very quickly, I thought I'd give a quick update on how it's going with the cloth.

Truth be told, I'm a little frustrated, as they continually get the stinkies. This is when detergent doesn't get completely washed out, and next time baby wets the diaper, the urine mixes with the trapped detergent and creates a strong ammonia smell. Then next time they'll not only have trapped detergent, they'll have trapped urine, too. Compounding the problem is that we have very hard water.

I've altered my wash routine many times, and I still haven't landed on the one that works. Right now, it's a warm rinse with no detergent, a hot wash with 2.5 Tbsp of powdered Tide and same amount of washing soda (to help with the hard water problem), and a few short, cold washes, as I usually still see suds after the hot wash. I've tried more detergent, less detergent, no soda, Dawn dish soap, different temps in my wash, different settings, different amounts of cycles.

Next thing I'll try is adding water manually. Since I have a front loader, it uses significantly less water, and as I pointed out in one of my previous posts, you want more water with cloth diapers. I should have just started using more water from the beginning, but I'd read many wash routines from women with my same washing machine, and most didn't need to add water. So I trusted it'd be the same for me. Nope, not looking like it.

I've already stripped all my diapers 3 times, and today I noticed "the smell" again, so another strip will be happening soon. My prefolds are the worst culprit, but fortunately, they're the easiest to fix, even if only temporarily. All I have to do is boil them for 15-30 minutes and then run them though a rinse. The first time I did this, I couldn't believe the grossness of the water after I was done. It was cloudy and yellowish. My other diapers are trickier, because you can't (or shouldn't, rather) boil them since they have elastic and/or plastic snaps. I don't want to completely destroy the diapers, so I use RLR. I still haven't figured out what's in it, but needless to say, it didn't really help much. But I did ALL my diapers, so next time, I'll boil the prefolds and do RLR with my covers and pockets... that way the load will be smaller.

And all I could think of is that I might be super lucky that Matthew hasn't developed ammonia burn or diaper rash from this yet. I might have to strip diapers every month, but if it means he's rash-free, then I'll gladly do it.

Anyway, I've been making a list of new diapers to buy for Black Friday. Won't be a lot, and DH is fighting me over buying more, but some of the diapers we have are sized, and Bubba will soon outgrow them. I have also added a few single diapers of brands I haven't tried yet, but get good reviews. This one I'll have to rein myself in on.

To buy:
6 Thirsties Duo Wrap diaper covers, size 2
4-5 FuzziBunz perfect size diapers, medium
1 swim diaper
2-3 trainers
1 diaper sprayer
RLR
CJ's BUTTer

Looking at:
Rumparooz OS diaper
BumGenius Elemental
BumGenius FreeTime
Kawaii Baby Goodnights
Thirsties fitteds
SoftBums Omni

Yes, you read correctly... I put trainers on the list, even though Matthew isn't even 5 months old yet. And knock on wood, but judging from the fact that he H.A.T.E.S. to be wet, I want to be prepared in the off-chance that he'll potty train early (as in, before Black Friday 2013). I just have to find the right trainers, because if he does PT early, he'll be smaller, and if he doesn't go early, the small sizes won't fit him. So I won't get many, and I'll just sell them off if he doesn't fit them.

Overall, it's going pretty well with the cloth diapering... stinkies aside. Sometimes I just wish I could slap a disposable on him and call it good, but that's not too often. DH even likes cloth, which is surprising. Now if I could only get him excited about buying more of it... :)

Hospital recovery for me

I'm writing this out, because when I was pregnant, I had only a vague idea of how recovery would go, and that recovery would be from a normal vaginal birth. Obviously, I had no plans in getting a c-section, so I didn't even think about what would come after getting major surgery. So here are my memories of it... should have written this down a long time ago, while it was still fresh in my memory. But alas....

First thing we learned, was that when you're in the hospital after having a c-section, it was preferable to let the baby sleep in the nursery instead of in your room. The first night, DH slept at the hospital and the baby was in the room, too. We got pretty much no sleep at all. Matthew cried a lot, and as new parents, we had no idea what was going on. I was not allowed to get out of bed (not that I wanted to), so DH did the vast majority of the care at this point. So we decided it was in everyone's best interest to let the nurses take care of Matthew at night. That way we could get some rest, and if he needed to feed, they'd bring him in to me. The next few nights were a lot more restful with him in the nursery. And the hospital states that they encourage rooming-in, but the nurses kinda think that's a bunch of non-sense. They know that moms want/need their rest while they can get it, and having a newborn in the room will guarantee that they won't get it. They even told us, "that's what we're here for!" Okay, have at it!

I also learned pretty quickly that the instant I started feeling pain, I needed to call the nurse for more meds. If I waited too long and let the pain get too strong, it was harder to get it back under control. The percocet I got also made me tired, so I got lots of sleep with its help.

The compression socks they made me wear for almost the entire 3 day stay were a pain in the butt. I get the point of them, but after 2 days, your legs just want to be left alone. Due to the swelling I got towards the end of pregnancy, my lower legs looked pretty freaky whenever they'd take the socks off. My feet were still hugely puffy, while my ankles were making their reappearance. Then I'd have another area of puffiness and then another of normalcy. Picture is below.

Results of 3 days of compression socks

The surgeon wanted my to keep my catheter in almost the whole time, too, which was nice, but also a huge pain in the butt. It was nice because if I needed to go to the bathroom after drinking tons of water, I didn't even have to think about getting up. But it was a pain in the butt because once I started walking around, the tubing served as a convenient path for the blood that was pouring out of me (sorry). There were a few times I had to turn around and go back to my room to clean up because I was leaving paths in the halls.

Speaking of walking, they had me up on the second day. I just walked around my room a bit, and I was exhausted. But the worst part was the act of getting out of bed. That alone took a good 5 minutes the first few times since it was very painful as well as awkward with all the tubing to negotiate. I got the hang of it towards the end, but it wasn't any less painful. Walking sucked, but was necessary. They gave me a small pillow to hold against my incision and that helped, though it was awkward.

My nurses, for the most part, were awesome. Out of the half a dozen or so that I had, only 1 was questionable... she tried to give me "more" medicine for my Group B Strep. Only I wasn't Group B Strep positive. I managed to catch that in time, as she was just about ready to insert the meds into the IV. Her overall bedside manner was a little brusque, but not horrible. For the other nurses, my only complaint was when one of them came in in the middle of the night to inform me that my baby was "starving" and could they give him some formula. I wasn't intending for him to have formula, but since she worded it like that, it set off my new mom panic alarm. YES! GIVE MY POOR STARVING BABY FORMULA!!!! I was a little annoyed afterward, because one should never use the word "starve" on a brand new mom. They also gave him a paci, which I also didn't intend for him to have, but honestly, I saw that it was either using ME as a paci or an actual paci. I had no intentions of the former, so paci it was. That was a good decision.

The food was alright. Breakfasts were awesome, but lunch and dinner were subpar. I would have asked DH to bring me Taco Bell, but never really had the thought until my food had actually arrived. Oh well.

Nursing was interesting. They put him on a boob as soon as I was out of recovery, and since I couldn't sit up, the lactation consultant just laid him face down on my boob. Not my favorite position, but it's all I could do at that point. Later on, I was able to nurse in the normal position, as well as a modified football hold. He latched really well on one side, but had difficulties on the other. My milk came in on the 3rd day, and one boob produced more than the other. Yes, the one with more milk is the one he latches well on. To this day, I have the same "good" boob and "bad" boob.

I had plenty of distractions for when the baby was sleeping or in the nursery, but I didn't partake in many of them. DH & I watched a movie or two, watched a few episodes on HGTV, or played on the internet. But on the whole, I just wanted to sleep. And sleep I did. It was lovely.

The day of discharge was a bit rushed though... apparently 3 women had called in and were on their way in to have their babies, so the nurses were all busy getting ready for the rush (in my hospital, it's rare to have more than 2 in labor at the same time, so they staff accordingly). So we got signed out quickly and the LC came down with us to make sure our carseat was installed correctly. It was. Then we got in the van and drove home. Oh, and it was also hot as blazes out.

The swag we got from the hospital was: a basket of food stuffs from the cafeteria; the pillow I used to walk around with; the paci they gave him while in the nursery; a flannel burp cloth; a package of Pampers diapers; a package of wipes; a gift set of formula; rectal thermometer; nose sucker; baby wash; baby lotion; small wash bowl; gauze; anti-bacterial ointment; a silver spoon and a Halo swaddle sleep sack. Oh, and they let me take home a few gauze undies, ultra huge pads and some of those waterproof sheet things they put on the beds.

Sorry for the way I wrote this. I mainly wrote this late at night over many days, so it doesn't flow at all. Also not helped that I had a hard time remembering what actually happened. But whatever. I got it done, and that's all that matters. :)

Christmas gift ideas

The closer it gets to Christmas, the more I think about what to get Matthew. And it's hard, because there's so much I want to give him, but then I realize we're still doing Dave Ramsey and that there are limits. Limits are okay, as DH & I aren't super big into holidays, and we want to teach our children that Christmas isn't *just* about getting gifts. But I still want to have fun. So with that in mind, I started formulating gift ideas. And then one day....

On Pinterest, I came across something that I thought was a great idea... the "Four Gift Rule". It can be so easy to overbuy, so I think this will help keep us in check.

1. Something they want
2. Something they need
3. Something they wear
4. Something they read

See? Awesome in its simplicity.

My problem though, is going to be that most of the things I want to buy for Christmas, he'll actually need/want to use before then. So I have some thinking to do about it. Nonetheless, here's my list:

WANT
I think Bubba really wants a jumperoo. His head control is getting better everyday, and he loves to kick his legs, so this would be perfect. But I don't know about waiting until Christmas for something he'll be ready to use sooner than that. I dunno... I just want to get my money's worth if we get this. I don't know what he'll want otherwise. We have a TON of toys given to us, and I'm pretty sure my mom will shower him in toys as well.

NEED
Although I have to get DH on board with it, Bubba will need an amber teething necklace. I've heard awesome things about them, and am eager to try one. Again, we could get this sooner, because he's already showing signs of teething. But I suppose waiting until Christmas will work, too. After all, all his teeth aren't going to pop out all in one day.

WEAR
With Bubba's fluffy butt, putting jeans on him is difficult, as the ones that will fit over his ghetto booty are too big everywhere else. I came across these jeans one day a few months ago, and I decided that these might be the right jeans for him. They're Project Pomona's... jeans made specifically for babies in cloth diapers, although even babies who wear disposables can wear them, too. They have an adjustable waist band and cute cuffs on the legs, which gives them more life than regular sized jeans, as there are 3 pants sizes in each pair. So I think they'll be worth the money.

READ
I also came across this idea on Pinterest... buy a Christmas book, wrap it up, have the kids open it up on the 24th, and then read it to them before they go to bed. We can get away with this this first Christmas, but after that, the kid(s) will get a Christmas book AND another book to go in this category.

So there you have it: my initial Christmas gift list for Bubba!

I'm here!

Yes, I am alive! I just haven't gotten much time to blog. See, I like to write everything all at once. To do otherwise, my writing turns into a choppy, hard-to-follow mess. And I'm sure you all appreciate me not doing that often. :)

Anyway, Matthew is now 10 weeks old, and the love of my life. He's a pretty easy baby, not too fussy, and is a smiley baby. Nonetheless, he's pretty high-maintenance, like all babies tend to be. I'm lucky if I can clean just one little thing a day. Yeah, it'd be easier if his sleeps during the day weren't only 10 minutes long, but by the same token he usually only gets up once during the night, so I'm okay with that.

Having fun during Nakey Time!

He's meeting some good milestones, and DH & I are both in love with him the more he becomes interactive. His favorite thing right now is to get a diaper change. We usually let him have 5-10 minutes "nakey" time before we put the new diaper on, just to let him air out. That's the bad thing about cloth diapers... they're pretty non-stay-dry. The ones that are, Matthew HATES. So he sits in wet diapers (which he generally doesn't mind unless he's super super wet). Anyway, Matthew loves nakey time. He talks, smiles and laughs with whomever is changing him, and this is the only consistent time in which he's happy. Not to say he isn't like this other times. It just is more consistent on the changing table.

He's kind of found his hands, which is good and bad. Good, because it means that if he drops his paci, he'll usually nom on his hands instead of fuss until one of us puts his paci back in. But bad because he's realized that his hands are connected to him, so he's taken to flailing his arms about. He's starting to learn about his feet, too, so his legs also flail a lot. And based off the jumping motions his legs do during nakey time, I think he'll love a jumperoo. Hopefully anyway.

He had his 2 month check up and first rounds of immunizations last week. He now weighs 11lbs, and is 24 inches long. The shots went as well as could be expected... he screamed for a couple of minutes and then calmed down although he was still less-than-happy. When we got home, I put him in a disposable, because the covers we usually put on him land right on the shot sites on his legs. And we used disposables for the next few days, which Matthew really liked, because he could kick his legs more. But we now know that we do not like disposables for another reason... they reek when he pees. Like, we want to gag when it happens, and it resulted in near instantaneous diaper changes. Our Diaper Genie (which we got as a gift and we decided to keep for some reason) was completely full within a day. I don't know if that's normal or not, but I'll assume "no". So we were more than okay to put him back in cloth, although Matthew doesn't think it's as awesome since he can't kick as easily.

He's now almost outgrown all his newborn sized clothes, which is sad. Again, the cloth diapers are the culprit, since they make him longer than he really is. But we'll live. Speaking of clothes, I've found that pants on a baby are super annoying. I like him just wearing a onesie. But I suppose we do live in North Dakota, so more clothing is necessary now.

And related to Matthew, but not about him per se, I've been starting to think about Christmas gifts. He'll be 6 months old by then, and I'm pretty sure he won't even know what's going on, let alone what he got for presents. But nonetheless, I've been formulating ideas, and I think I landed on what I want to get. I'll write another post with all that on there, so you'll have to wait! :) Hope it won't be that long before I post it, but you never know...

First month in cloth diapers (picture heavy)

The first week & a half of Matthew's life, he wore disposables, and I was okay with that. After all, I was laid up after having a c-section (so I wouldn't be doing laundry for the time being), DH had *just* learned how to change diapers and we were both learning how to be parents. Yeah, I guess we still are learning that last one, but you know what I mean. I kinda also wanted to wait until his cord stump fell off, and thought that a week & a half was sufficient. Me <---- rookie.

Anyway, after the pack of diapers the hospital sent us home with ran out, it was decided to keep on with the disposables for a few more days, as I was still having a lot of difficulties getting around and disposables are easy. So DH went to Walmart and bought a pack. Which lasted a grand total of 3 days because Matthew poops a lot. But I'd said when he bought that pack that when it was done, we'd be doing cloth... after all, we had newborn diapers to use, so why not use them? So what if his cord stump hadn't fallen off yet? So with great trepidation, I strapped him into an infant-sized prefold and cover. I immediately doubted the decision to do cloth. And I do mean IMMEDIATELY. They were so so so big and bulky on him. It surprised me because going in, I knew that cloth diapers were bulkier than disposables and the thought didn't bother me at all. But when I saw it in action, combined with the fact that Matthew was screaming his head off, I had the first of many post-partum freak-outs that involved tears. And it wasn't just the prefolds that were big and bulky. His XS Bum Genius AIO's were that way, too. Sadly, I didn't take any pictures because it depressed me that much.

I felt so incredibly guilty that I had to talk and push DH into doing cloth only for me to end up hating it. I felt buyers remorse when I thought of the hundreds of dollars I'd spent on them. I felt bad that others had gifted us cloth diapers, and they might not be used. I felt like a horrible mother because Matthew usually doesn't fuss during diaper changes, yet here he was, freaking out. And later, when he didn't sleep at all because of the change, it made me seriously consider making DH go to Walmart and get more disposables. I admitted all this to DH, and he was supportive about doing whatever I wanted to do. He didn't make me feel bad about thinking of quitting so soon. So I made the decision to keep on cloth for a few more days and re-evaluate.

Over the next few days, I became okay with cloth, even though I still hated how bulky they were on him. I mean, cleaning them is easy. Actually putting the diapers on him is easy, too... just not as easy as a disposable. But one thing still bothered me a lot... enough to go back into disposables for a bit. As his cord stump still hadn't fallen off after 2 weeks, it was common to see blood on his diaper covers from where it had rubbed up against his cord. I didn't want it to become infected because it wasn't properly drying out, so DH went and got another pack. We also received more from my in-laws, so we had about a week & a half's worth of disposables, with the hopes that Matthew's cord would fall off in that time. It did.

But that brief break made me think that disposables weren't that great either. Matthew developed diaper rash pretty much as soon as we put him back in them. It didn't get bad, but that may have been because we started putting on the cloth diaper-safe ointment before every change. But I found it telling that he didn't get the rash until he went back into disposables. He also now hated to be changed, as where after that first day in cloth, he became okay with cloth. Could have been because of the rash. Who knows? Anyway, point being, after those disposables ran out, we went back into cloth, and haven't looked back. He also grew a lot so they don't seem *as* bulky as before, so that helps. It also helps that DH now really likes cloth and is excited to see how much money we'll save at the end.

So given all that, here's what I've found I like and what I don't like.

What I like:

Unbleached Indian Prefolds, infant sized
from CottonBabies
6 weeks, 11 pounds

I actually really love prefolds & covers now. Yeah, they'll always be big & bulky, but when it comes down to it, they're the only diaper I haven't had a leak from. Not a one.

Thirsties diaper cover, size XS
4 weeks, 9 pounds.

Thirsties Duo Wrap cover, size 1
4 weeks, 9 pounds.

Thirsties covers. I have covers from Thirsties and Bummis, and I vastly prefer Thirsties. Reasons why are listed under Bummis in the "selling" section. But other than those reasons, I do like how Thirsties has the Duo Wrap covers, which will last longer on Matthew than just a single sized cover since there are 3 different sizes you can snap to. I do have one Thirsties cover in size XS and one in small, and they both work great, too. But in their case, it's either they fit, or they don't.

Cloth wipes. I made about 20 of my own, flannel on one side, stretch terry on the other. They're the bomb, although I do need to make more since we tend to run short, what with Matthew still needing about 12 diaper changes a day.

Eh.... I can do without, but they're not horrible:

FuzziBunz OS Elite, smallest setting
4 weeks, 9 pounds

Pocket diapers. At this point in time, they're still a little big on him, so we get the occasional leak from around his skinny thighs. We'll give it some more time for him to grow into them. We have FuzziBunz OS Elite, BumGenius 4.0, Kawaii Baby, Lotus Bumz and FuzziBunz Perfect Size small. But so far, he's only tried out the FuzziBunz OS Elite. BTW, in the pic above, the snaps that adjust to the thighs are not set to their tightest setting. I re-snapped them after the picture was taken.

BumGenuis NB AIO.
3 weeks, 8.5 pounds

Bum Genius NB AIO's. The fit is fabulous. However, he gets leaks out the top, which is weird, because the waist is tight enough, the inner fabric isn't wicking out, the rise is just fine and we point his penis down. Could be we have a super soaker on our hands?

Kissas fitteds, size 0
4 weeks, 9 pounds

Kissas fitteds. They work well, but going along with the super soaker suspicion, these get completely soaked very quickly.

RagaBabe Easy AIO, size small
5 weeks, 10 pounds.

Sad to admit, my RagaBabe AIO. He must be super excited to wear it, because every single time I put it on him, he poops in it within 5 minutes. And I'm not even exaggerating... 5 minutes, tops. Every time. So it might work awesomely, but if he keeps this pace up, he'll out-grow it before I get to find out if it was worth the money or not.

What I'll definitely be selling:

Bummis Super Brite cover, size small
6 weeks, 11 pounds

Bummis Super Brites covers. The top part of the cover folds down easily, and so the velcro becomes exposed. The velcro on them is sturdy, which means that it's stiff. And it usually ends up rubbing up against Matthew's bare tummy and leaving red marks, which I do not like even if Matthew doesn't seem bothered by it (see pic above for said red marks). The PUL material is also noisier than I'd like... to me, it almost sounds like a plastic bag. The covers themselves work fine in that they've prevented leaks. But that's not reason enough to keep them when we have other options.

Grovia NB AIO

Grovia NB AIO's. Again, the fit is fabulous. But the way they're constructed (serged edges), it wicks any urine/runny NB poop right onto anything his diaper area is touching. So with this diaper, you pretty much have to change the diaper after an hour, tops, or else you're changing his clothes, your clothes, bedding, blankets and/or cleaning furniture. Too much work for only an hour's worth of "protection" IMHO. There are no pictures of him in this diaper, because he's only worn two of them once, and that was long before I considered taking pictures of him in his diapers.

So that's the run-down of how things stand at this point. Although we're starting to experience the dreaded "stinkies", much to my dismay. I think it's a build up of detergent. Can't comment much on that yet, because I'm still trying to find the best way to strip the diapers. Blue Dawn dish soap didn't work. I'm now trying baking soda. If that doesn't work, I'll order some RLR. As always, I'll update when I think I got it figured out.

Matthew @ 1 month

Time has gone by so quickly! It's hard to believe he's already a month old, as it seems as though it was just yesterday that I was pregnant. And at the same time, he's already changed so much. One of my pre-birth purchases was a newborn-sized romper (not 0-3 months, but truly NB size) and his first week, I put him in it when he and DH went to church. He was so teeny that he was swimming in it. A mere 3 weeks later, I put him in it again when we went to a friends' wedding. It is now on the verge of being too small. What can I say? He likes to eat. And on a related note, he is a champion pooper because of his love of the boob. :)

We've also gone through a few stages already, too. Like the lovely 3-week "I'm a cranky baby who gets painful gas every time he eats" stage, as well as the awesome 2-week "I'm going to stay up all day and all night because I'm cluster feeding" stage. I know we'll go through all these again numerous times, so I'm not looking forward to that. But it all does mean that he's growing, and that's good, so I'll just have to take one day at a time.

But for the most part, he's a really good baby. Very aware of things when he's awake, and he sleeps at night with only a few feeds. He mostly falls back asleep after them, too. Mostly. We do spend a few hours sleeping on the couch in the living room once in a while though, just so DH can sleep when Matthew doesn't want to sleep in his Rock n Play sleeper.

And the part I think is the best? Since newborns don't smile consciously, I have to wait until he falls asleep to see one. That's how I know he's truly sleeping... his eyes aren't always closed when he falls asleep (it's kinda creepy), but he almost always smiles a few times when he first goes out. It's so cute!