Random MomBlog

Basketball applies to parenting! With one child and two parents, the adults can double-team the child, or at least eat and sleep in shifts. Speaking from experience, the transition to two children is a huge change! Now the adults have to switch to man-to-man defense instead. Eating and sleeping may suffer. I’m sure three children rocks the boat again, as you shift to a desperate, out-numbered (but you’ve still got the size advantage, at least for the early years) zone defense.

Cale hasn’t had a green poop since two days after I quit eating dairy. Interesting! That makes allergic colitis sound likely. I had to research green poop, of course. The green poop generally means that the intestines are emptying faster than usual yellow. That could be excessive drool from teething (we’ve seen that recently) or an intestinal virus (hope not!). Green frothy points to foremilk/hindmilk imbalance, for instance if the baby nurses too frequently. Cale would, given the chance! Green could mean too much iron, which wouldn’t be hard with my diet.

Between the mucous and the return to yellow once I was dairy-free, I can agree with allergic colitis. I haven’t decided if I’m brave enough to try the other test: does green come back with dairy? It would make the experiment much more valid, but at the expense of a very sad baby. That’s a very high cost!

Here we go, a baby feeding guide. Don’t know why I couldn’t find this this weekend when I looked, but here it is. We’ve already started with thicker rice cereal than that, and Cale likes it. He acts like he would happily take more breast milk if I could make more. He’s right on target gaining weight (shucks, 80th percentile; I’d be worried if weren’t breastfed), but he’s also the weight Karston was when he was 9 months old. Karston had other calorie sources then! Certainly Cale seems to appreciate more calories. He’s fascinated when we eat, and he really goes after the spoon.

On the other hand, he has only pooped once since we started rice cereal this weekend, so maybe that’s why you’re supposed to mix it thinner than we’ve done so far. Let his digestive tract adjust?

I would have thought it would be easier to look up how much a bottle-fed baby needs to eat! What I found was a rule of thumb, baby’s weight in pounds times 2.5 for number of ounces to drink, and this table, with average number of feedings and ounces per feeding.

(Babies start solid food at 4 to 6 months, so they eat less liquid after 7 months.)

As if I needed more reasons not to drink caffeine, it has a half-life in full-term newborns of around 95 hours, infants 80 hours! (The range is 65 to 130 hours.) Yowzah! The peak transfer to breastmilk is 1 to 2 hours later. Half-life indicates a decay pattern that starts with a large initial peak, then tapers off slowly. The half-life is the time to purge half of that caffeine, but there’s still a long tail on the curve: after two half-lives, 25% of the original caffeine still remains.

So this afternoon when it was so hot and I was walking back to my office past the old-fashioned convenience store, I got the caffeine-free Pepsi (less acid than Coke). I don’t know why this baby is awake at 11 PM, but at least I know it’s not because I should have skipped caffeine.

Since I’m back in the breastfeeding trenches again, it was time to switch the wardrobe back to compatible shirts. Although I tend to call this apparel a nursing top, the search-friendly phrase is breastfeeding top. This difference is particularly apparent from eBay searches. Either way, I need more.

For fit and not looking like a nursing top, I really like Nursing Mamas; all of their tops feature hidden zippers. If you prefer woven to knit, you’ll want to start here. I like the fitted silhouette (although it’s a bit large on me), that the zippers don’t show, and that the quality of the garment construction and fabric is excellent. I paid for it, too.

So on the less-expensive side, there’s the weekly special at Motherwear. These are mostly knit tops. The fit is also a bit large, but that ease might be needed for those openings.What I have from Motherwear seems like it would be easier if I were smaller-chested. The Motherwear camisole with princess seams that I thought I would like the best is difficult to use because I’m not small. My all-time favorite nursing top was a camisole with princess openings came from Motherhood, but they don’t carry it anymore. The other entry in this category is Stylin’ Mom.

For quality, there’s also Expressiva. And that’s how to leave the house dressed for breastfeeding.

Baby, Health, Tips

Cale is advancing through diaper sizes more quickly than Karston did, that’s for sure! Just this week I traded in a case of diapers for the next larger size because he’s not using nearly as many of the smaller sizes as Karston did. Cale’s gaining weight at a normal rate, but that’s a slightly faster rate than Karston followed, plus Cale started out weighing more.

We started with Huggies size N because we like the umbilical cut-out, and used 80. That’s when he kicked out his cord stump (and cried about it). Size N was just getting too small by then, both by fit and by the “up to 10 pounds” rating.

Next we went through 88 Pampers Swaddlers size 1 (8 to 14 pounds). Just as I remember, 12 pounds was a good time to go to the next size. We’ve had better luck on the low side of the weight ratings. As a side note, the Pampers size 1 seems a little larger than the Huggies size 1.

Cale’s not even 13 pounds now, but we started a case of Pampers Swaddlers size 1-2 rated for up to 15 pounds. When we got to the bottom of that case, that size was getting too small for a comfortable fit. We used many more size 1-2 on Karston!

So now we’re using a mini-case of 96 size 2 (12 to 18 pounds) diapers, and I expect we’ll want the elbow room of moving on to Pampers Swaddlers size 2-3 by the time it’s empty. They didn’t make size 2-3 when Karston would have worn them, and I remember the jump from size 2 to size 3 was larger than I would have liked. So I wouldn’t be surprised if we only buy size 2 once, like all of the preceding sizes except N. Remarkably enough, Karston was wearing size 3 not that long ago …

Baby

Rubber bands are great (as long as they’re nowhere near a child’s mouth!!!).

We used rubber bands for early child-proofing to keep Karston out of cabinets, and they worked well. Of course, now he puts the rubber bands back on if you leave them loose, but he also no longer tries to get into everything. The rubber bands worked until he learned what not to do. Now that he’s older, he knows his toys and they’re more fun anyway.

I’m using a rubber band on my wrist to keep track of which side is next for breastfeeding. I’m faster on the setup when I don’t have to think, test, or remember which side Cale gets. Very handy, especially at night! I sometimes wear a pretty stretchy bracelet during the day, but at night the lowly rubber band is much more comfortable for sleep.

Baby, Child, Tips, Toddler

Argh! I’ve got seasonal allergies, and there’s nothing I can do.

Nasal decongestants would dry out my nose, but also Cale’s breastmilk. Plus Cale would be exposed to it. So I really shouldn’t take anything unless I feel a lot worse.

Cale startles every time I blow my nose, so I can only wipe away the drips when, like now, I’m trying to get him back to sleep. Coughing from post-nasal drip is out too.

I guess the lesson here is not to get sick (or allergies) when you have a baby. Not that I had much choice.

The most useful clothing for a newborn is an infant teeshirt, the kind that snaps in front. Does a non-stretch swaddling blanket, if you need warmer, count as clothing? Teeshirts are handy for newborns while the cord stump is attached.

After the cord stump, I prefer sacks. My favorite sacks snap down the front and have pockets on the sleeves to fold over the hands. Since newborns can’t help you dress them, snap-front clothes that you can open, set child inside, and snap up are most convenient. The paw pockets on the sleeve ends keep everyone from scratches until you get a quiet calm moment to do something about those sharp, fast-growing nails.

Now that Cale likes to practice standing and wants to learn co-ordination, I prefer rompers, those one-piece outfits with long sleeves and built-in footies. Karston still loves those, but on toddlers, we call them jammies. Until Cale stands on his own, the best onesies unsnap completely so I can set him down to dress him. The pullover (pull on over his head) onesies require more hands to dress him.

For all of these stages so far, we have a hat on Cale, usually a thin knit one. Cale will sleep longer if he has a hat on to keep his head warm.