Random MomBlog

We’re on the last stage of potty training, having crossed the (lack of Toddler) motivation hurdle, and we were headed into this turn, I was wondering why I couldn’t just snap in a liner in his underpants to catch the poop that wasn’t going in the potty (as has happened all week, hurrah! finally!). I thought about making some, but I don’t spend a lot of time sewing anymore … I seem to be chasing children instead! Wow, snap-in liners are not as common as I would hope!

Almost all snap-in liners only snap in the back, closer to the mess I don’t want to touch. Front and back snaps would probably be better based on this experience (with pattern too!). Cloth diapers with snap-in liners are usually called all in two. I understand that fleece can be too drying on Baby’s skin, but this is Potty Training and why would I want to wash an entire diaper when I just need to catch and toss the poop? I don’t understand pocket diapers, where you stuff a liner inside a pocket so that all pieces need to be washed, compared to the all-in-two, where the outer covers only need washing if something escaped the inner layer.

But here’s what I found.

• Mother-ease Snap-in Liners only snap in the back, but otherwise these are what I want at a great price.
• Rainforest Babies Snap ‘n Wrap Diaper (All-in-Two)
• Gro Diaper has the option for snap-in soakers (but the doublers don’t have snaps, only these soakers).
• gDiapers include snap-in liners.
• Tiny Tush Trim One-Size Fitted Cloth Diapers
• SoftBums PerfectFit All-in-2’s
• BerryPlush All-in-Ones or Covers … mmm, minky softness!
• Pampered Cheeks One-Size All-in-2
• Baby Softwraps All-In-Two Diaper Covers with Snap-In Soakers
• Sugar Peas Snap-In Diapers (I would link to the company website instead, but I’m opposed to Flash-only websites on principle)
• Always Fit Diaper looks similar
• Sammy’s One Size Cloth Diapers & Snap-In Liner

None of those are what I wanted to buy: just the liner, with snaps back and front. I would put matching snaps on his Fruit of the Loom tidy whitey underpants.

So I guess it’s a good thing that we’ve made progress this week after being stalled for so long. He could hold it overnight, go standing up or sitting down, go anywhere not just familiar places. He could even hold it for a long time while we were on a plane! We’ve been there for quite a while. But poop? Messy cleanup. Until this week! Thank goodness for ring pops and big stickers!

I noticed that Cale’s hempmilk says Not for use as an infant formula. I know the true (cynical) reason for that label is that infant formula makers have expensive lawyers and lobbyists to crowd out the competition. But the more I think about it, the more that annoys me. (Rachel Ray is right: who’s going to lobby for broccoli? because they should.) I have a baby who is allergic to milk and soy. Infant formula is either made from milk or from soy. Oh sure, there’s the hypoallergenic hydrolyzed formula for babies with allergies. Guess what? Cale doesn’t like the flavor, and it gives him a lot of painful gas (a mild allergic reaction). So when Cale wants a bottle or ta-ta and I don’t have anything for him, what am I supposed to do? It was the best of serendipity that I learned about hemp milk from another parent at work, a dad who’s proud his twin girls, who outweigh Cale despite being twins to his single status, have never had formula, just breast milk or this hemp milk. If those twins thrived on hemp milk, as they clearly did with their outstanding weight gain to go from premature twins to normal size within the first year, I’m convinced it’s safe for Cale to drink even if it’s <sarcasm>not for use as an infant formula</sarcasm>. No you twerpy lawyers, it’s better, much better, than infant formula (Cale likes the flavor and doesn’t get painful allergic gas from it)! How am I supposed to know these things, to be a good mom to my sweet child who has multiple allergies, when the formula companies have lawyers making sure this vital information is suppressed? *sigh* I’m glad I’ve got something for Cale, but I’m sad that this isn’t widely known. I’m so sorry that other moms in my situation (baby with multiple allergies, including milk and soy) don’t know that there’s an easy answer that’s cheaper and healthier than hydrolyzed infant formula. Shucks, you don’t even have to be avoiding allergies to want to know this! Save money? Healthy alternative? You bet!

I know every use, even one!, of infant formula in the first year* increases the chance of SIDS as compared to a diet of strictly breast milk. Like the campaign says, breast is best. It really is! *Yes, somewhere between 4 and 6 months, babies need pureed food added to their diet too. As long as it’s healthy (not pureed fast food greasy salty swill), baby food isn’t a risk. What I mean is, if it goes in a bottle, formula is not my first choice (breast milk) or my second choice (help milk). Formula’s not even on my list. And I’m generally not the crunchy type if you know what I mean …

Every time Karston and Daddy go away on a trip, I learn something about Cale while it’s quiet enough to give him my full attention. What I learned this time is that Cale on his own quite clearly prefers to go to bed at 7:30 pm. Karston never wanted to go to bed, so I didn’t know kids would tell you when their bedtime should be, but Cale does. Now that Karston’s back (and the hour-long flight was delayed 3 hours, ugh!), Cale’s too excited watching Karston to want to go to bed. At all. I can try, but Cale jumps out my arms reaching for his brother! In fact, Cale wants to see that Karston is also ready for bed when we do the bedtime kiss exchange, so I can slide Cale’s bedtime to the start of Karston’s routine, but no sooner.

Wow. 7:30 pm. We’d have our evenings back! Too bad Karston’s tummy pain makes him avoid bedtime.

One of those nagging questions is what to feed your baby. If Cale is not getting as much breastmilk as he wants, he bites! Infant formula would be the standard answer, but as you replace breastmilk with formula, the rate of SIDS goes up proportionally. Plus Cale doesn’t like the taste of formula, and even the hydroplyzed formula for multiple allergies causes him a lot of uncomfortable gas (exactly what the hydrolyzed stuff is supposed to avoid). Well, thanks to a recommendation from a co-worker whose kids just a few months older than Cale grew up on this as a supplement, I tried Living Harvest Hempmilk. Cale thinks the taste is fine, he slurps it down, and he doesn’t seem to have any problems with it. Given his suite of allergies and how often something causes him gas, that’s pretty impressive.

One thing that helps is that the Original is lightly sweetened. Most milk replacements, like soy and rice milk, are either sickeningly sweetened too much, or chalky and not sweetened at all. Lightly sweetened is a nice compromise: enough to moderate and improve the flavor (I tried Hemp Dreams and didn’t like it at all), but not so much that I think I’m going into sugar shock.

Standard infant formula has 20 calories per ounce, approximately the same as breast milk. Formula for premature babies contains 22 calories per ounce. For comparison, this hemp milk has just over 16 calories per ounce, so for the newest ones, give as much breast milk as possible. However, especially now that he’s over a year old, I think this stuff and water are the greatest drinks for Cale! He likes both of those too.

I learned the 10-minute tip with my first child. Once Karston fell asleep on my lap, I needed to wait 10 minutes (with a margin of two minutes) before getting up from the rocker to transfer him to his crib. If I (fell asleep and) waited more than 12 minutes, he would wake up when I set him down. If I didn’t wait at least 8 minutes, but usually 10, he would wake up as I stood up. The magic wait was 10 minutes. Just 10 minutes asleep on my lap, then put him to bed. The 10-minute trick also works on Cale.

The 25-minute tip is more subtle, but just as magical. I didn’t notice this one with Karston because I was so busy learning the more obvious ones, but in retrospect, I think it also applied. For the nights when Cale wants to nurse to sleep, we can’t spend more than 25 minutes in the chair before Cale goes in his crib. When he nurses to sleep, it’s often difficult to tell when he falls asleep, so this rule covers that case. At the 15-minute mark, I try to stop the nursing so that he gets 10 minutes of pure sleep, but last night worked fine with 20 minutes of nursing and 5 minutes snoozing on boppy on my lap. Cale will stay asleep as I put him in his crib and pull up the covers if we move at the 25-minute mark; otherwise he wakes up. He also sleeps better if I stick with the 25-minute plan.

Don’t think that this means bedtime is a 25-minute routine! There’s a whole series of actions leading up to it, from cleaning up to kisses to bedtime stories. Last night Cale cried when I finished the third book (he and his brother get 3 books at bedtime), so I let him pick his favorite (Little Gorilla) and how many times (twice) to re-read it. I’m glad he loves books!

I had a bottle of breast milk reaching the end of its shelf life, and I wanted to make something for Cale. Since I also had two baby bananas (the baby variety, not the standard Cavendish) getting black, I decided to make banana pancakes. I started with a recipe from Food For Little Fingers by Victoria Jenest (it’s a nice cookbook for ideas, but I recommend not feeding liver to children due to accumulated toxins) but I had to modify the recipe for Cale’s egg allergy.

I mixed the wet ingredients with the drink attachment for my immersion blender, which made everything very smooth and aerated fluffy. Once you add baking powder (or baking soda), put away the mechanical mixers and do it by hand so you don’t lose the leavening action. I don’t know if I needed extra milk because I like thinner pancake batter, or because the air is so impossibly dry right now, or because the protein content of the whole wheat flour I used was higher than that in the test recipe. Or maybe the egg substitution needed more water? The recipe called for 1/3 cup, and I used more.

I made one batch of 8 2-inch pancakes. Based on Karston’s interest, I made another batch as Mickey pancakes. Cale ate one pancake and started on a second, while Karston ate one pancake and one Mickey. For no-sugar pancakes with no eggs and with whole wheat flour, these were surprisingly light, fluffy, and tasty.

I’ve spent years reducing the fat in my diet, yet I’ve knowingly turned a blind eye to cheese. I love cheese, and the only reduced-fat cheese I liked was the Cabot line (not that I tried many, since I left cheese in a favored blind spot). To my surprise, giving up cheese for Cale was EASY! I did it right away.

However, I admit I was pretty happy, especially after a hideous soy cheese attempt (had to throw the whole expensive chunk away even before we knew Cale was allergic to soy because it reeked too badly to eat), to find a cheese substitute that doesn’t taste like it should be used as punishment. The answer is vegan-rella tastes somewhat like cheese, and does just fine for melting and flavor on a homemade pizza. And it’s rice-based, so it’s allergy-friendly.

When I discovered that Cale was very allergic to me eating dairy, milk products were out of my diet in a snap. He was uncomfortable after I had several veggie burgers (lunch and dinner, not all at once) in one day, so soy went out. Uncomfortable after I had a big tasty omelet for dinner, so eggs went out. The organic baby food with barley flour didn’t sit well with him, so barley went out. I’ve been pretty ruthless so far for removing suspect foods. Even beans. If I have a small serving of beans, we’re OK, but making a meal of beans doesn’t work for Cale so I don’t do it anymore.

Which leads me around to oats. Cale was uncomfortable after he had baby food with oat flour last week, and I caught myself rationalizing, saying that it must be the cold that he caught. It could be, but that doesn’t mean I’m not also being softer on oats than I was on other food stuffs. With all of the items I’ve removed from my diet, I have become aware that I really enjoy oats, especially in cookies. A handful of oats in bread gives it an enjoyable chewiness. I like oats. I thought my blind spot was cheese, but it might actually be cheese. Once Cale is well, he’s going to have to take another oats challenge. I don’t want to drop oats from my diet after having dropped so much else!

While I’m sitting here with a sick baby on my lap, I’m reflecting on the little things. Cale is so sad right now, he’s whimpering, but his face lights up with a smile when I can get him to make eye contact with me. Such a lovey child! My over-shirt is pretty damp, between his snot and his sucking on my buttons. I remember when his big brother went through a button-sucking phase around this age. But there are also the little things that I forgot so quickly. I forgot that while the baby is in “the bucket” (the infant car seat that can be removed from its base), I have callouses at the base of my fingers from hauling around all that weight. When I need to balance the bucket, maybe to scoop up big brother, I rest it on the back on my legs where I now have big bruises. The callouses, bruises, and memories thereof fade quickly once the bucket stage is over around 9 months of age. I remember 9 months was a big transition. The bucket retired, but it was also (thankfully!) the end of needing a whole new wardrobe every 3 months. Oh, and toys are now de rigueur instead of what’s this? With all the personality, it’s a pretty fun phase!

Cale was sleeping so well (most of the time, and in comparison to the past two months and especially the past week) from birth until six months of age that the decline to worse and worse sleeping patterns has been distressing. So, back to the research! First, how much sleep does he need? Of course there’s a wide range for individual variation, but at 9 months, the healthy average is 11 hours at night, and 3 hours in two daytime naps. Wow. Nowhere close. We slid from 2 hours on his own down to 10 minutes, and sleeping together wasn’t restful for either of us. A 1991 reference and a newer 2007 reference both say falling asleep with a parent is linked to night waking. Falling asleep with a parent is the main behavior (to change) mentioned in a review of the first article. Since Cale’s been falling sound asleep while nursing, I figured that was the problem. He used to get so drowsy while nursing, and I would put him in his crib awake-but-not-for-long. Argh! [Here I’m thinking it’s my fault for allowing him to slip into poor sleep hygiene.]

Then I looked back at my own post on sleeping at 9 months, and discovered that night sleeping peaks at six months, and drops at nine months (and doesn’t get much better by one year). So I was discouraged, not sure there was any cure other than time! [Now I’m thinking it can’t even be fixed.]

Two nights ago, Cale woke up when I put him in his crib, and he wouldn’t let me set him down. I’d spent so much time trying to get him down that I told him he was just going to have to hang out with me doing Mommy things until I was ready to go to bed with him. He fell asleep on my shoulder within half an hour while I was on my computer. I put him in his crib, and he slept there for almost 5 hours!!! I slept on my own for most of that time, and it was fabulous! I was perfectly happy to let him nurse and cuddle until morning after that treat. Last night I wanted to send out one email before his bedtime routine, and once again Cale fell asleep on my shoulder. He slept 7 hours in his crib last night! On top of that, when I was ready to go to bed last night, I heard Cale shaking the rails of his crib, but not calling out for me. He does know how to put himself back to sleep! It was music to my ears to hear him awake but not needing me.

My first theory was that the improvement was putting him to sleep with boredom, instead of nursing him to sleep. You know what they say about nursing babies to sleep: Baby falls asleep in his favorite place (Mommy’s lap) doing his favorite activity (nursing); when Baby wakes up, he’s alone in the dark so no wonder he cries! With a normal healthy baby, I’d try bedtime variations that require less parental intervention, like going from nursing to sleep to falling asleep from boredom. I think it’s a reasonable step toward independent falling asleep. But I don’t think (anymore) that that applies to Cale yet.

But then something clicked for me! Now that I’ve had some sleep, I can sometimes think again! (It’s so nice; you should try it! Sleep is good stuff.) When is breast feeding ever wrong? Clearly though, Cale sleeps better when he doesn’t breast feed before bed. We all know breast milk is the best food in the world for babies, by a huge margin. Since breast milk speeds through his system faster, maybe he gets hungry sooner? No, I’ve actually tested not letting him nurse when I pick him up to start a tiresome full-contact baby-cuddling night, and he’s fine either way. He’ll nurse if I offer, but if I don’t offer then he’s fine waiting until 5 or 6 in the morning when he actually is hungry. So it’s not hunger. In retrospect, I can’t believe I didn’t see this sooner, but there’s only one reason why my breast milk causes any problem for Cale. His allergies. His allergy to milk is major, as evidenced by his pooping response. (His barley allergy showed up as a primary reaction, meaning he ate baby food with barley and was out-of-sorts afterwards; it hasn’t been tested through me.) His allergy to soy and eggs is minor, and was only detected by Cale sleeping poorly when I had two Boca burgers for dinner and when I had an omelette for dinner. Thunderclap! Minor food allergies to what I eat show up as a sleeping problem! Cale’s absolutely terrible sleeping patterns lately have nothing to do with sleep declines at nine months, nothing to do with falling asleep with a parent, and everything to do with his allergies. Good sleep hygiene is good, but Cale’s problem is allergies.

I need to try a complete elimination diet. Or, conversely, only eat food stuffs that are in his baby food. There’s something here, and if I can get some sleep, I might be able to figure it out!

I read an interesting article in the January 2009 issue of Fitness magazine called Outsmart Your Fat Hormones.

So when I’m in a baby-sleepless haze, be careful on what foods I go munchy, especially the ones with refined sugar. Well, duh! Useful to know that the best snacks have protein and complex carbs, though.