My Favorite Sleeping Arrangement

As many of you know, there are more baby sleep theories and methods as there are colors in the rainbow. Everyone seems to have their idea of how to make it work -- what to do and not do to get your baby to sleep well, possibly even "through the night" (that blessed term every mom loves to dream about). What I have learned over the years and with my three children is A) that every baby is so different that there is definitely no one method that works for everyone, and B) we ought not idolize "sleeping through the night" the way many of us moms do. This second point is for a number of reasons. One is that as with most things in life, this season too will pass. Eventually you will be able to get your baby to sleep through the night if you are willing to do what it takes, but there is no reason to rush into this. I personally believe most babies, especially in the first six months, should NOT be sleeping through the night because they most likely need to get some nourishment at least one time in the middle of the night. Also, if we obsess over this ideal sleep pattern, we find ourselves quite miserable upon every waking and feeding time with our little one. If we realize this is all just part of the blessed journey of motherhood, we can relax a little and just embrace the opportunity to grow! I finally feel like I have figured this out this time around. With my two-year-old often waking up at least once in the middle of the night just needing to be reassured that things are okay and be directed to where her bear and paci are, and my two-month old still obviously needing to nurse once or twice in the middle of the night, I have been tempted to lose it and go into my "poor mommy me" syndrome. But fortunately I have managed to take a different stance and embrace the season of interrupted sleep.

All that being said, I actually wanted to write in this post about a sleeping arrangement/method that I have really enjoyed this time around and wish I had tried with the first two. As I said in the beginning, there are so many different ideas and theories and methods when it comes to baby sleep, that I know some of you will not be into this method at all. If you have found something that works for you, then bless you and keep at it! If you have a theory/method that sounds good and you want to try, then by all means, try it! But for what it is worth, here is what I am doing that has been working so well for me...

Of course, now I have built it up to be this big complicated thing, but really it is quite simple -- I use a co-sleeper beside the bed and put my baby (Jeremiah) down to bed anytime between 8-10pm in it. Fortunately he actually is pretty good at sleeping, unlike my first two (especially Samuel), and will sleep for awhile in his "bed". I go to bed when I am ready, and then eventually he wakes up and wants to eat. I just roll over, pull him into my bed, and nurse him. Of course the goal is to put him back in the co-sleeper to sleep more, but often we both fall asleep while he is nursing, and I don't beat myself up over not putting him back -- if we sleep until morning like that, it is fine. I learned with my first (the hard way) that in the first several months getting sleep is much more important than trying to follow what all the books say about what to do and not do. With Samuel I tried to follow all the rules, and it all backfired anyway, and left me completely exhausted and hopeless!

I am of the opinion that sometime between 2-4 months old, one should begin "sleep training" (again another very controversial subject). I won't get into all of that here. There is a post from the beginning of this blog where I tell my story and opinion on that. As I have had more children and learned more, I am even more convinced that eventually teaching your baby how to fall asleep on their own is quite important -- both for their sake and yours.

Morning (or All Day) Sickness Tips

Some of my newer tricks that have been helping me this time around:
1. drink sparkling water all day long
2. eat oranges & cheese
3. suck on calcium/magnesium chewable vitamins
4. take these complex sugar supplements 3x/day (you have to order them online -- go to:

Leg Cramps during Pregnancy

I guess now that I am pregnant again and have about 6 friends who are currently pregnant, I am on a kick of doing blogs related to the subject again! So, here are some tips on one of the most uncomfortable pregnancy related issues I've yet to encounter...

I had never actually had a muscle cramp (at least this severe) until my first pregnancy. I woke up early in the morning and my calf muscle started cramping up and spasming. I was so scared and had no idea what was happening. Fortunately, my husband was right there and knew what was going on. He began massaging my leg and it stopped. But it scared me so much and hurt so badly that I pretty much vowed to do whatever it took to NEVER let that happen again. I found out some tricks, and made sure to do them persistently. I am happy to report that though I have struggled with very sore calf muscles and the beginning feelings of a cramp coming on, I have never had another true muscle cramp/spasm since then, so the tricks have worked!

Here they are, in no particular order:

1. stretch your calves out often, especially before bed and during those middle of the night bathroom trips
2. flex your feet as much as possible when sleeping and when you wake up and feel any calf pain
3. take calcium supplements, especially before bed
4. get calf massages, come on husbands :)

Pregnancy Sleeping

All of you moms out there will already know all of this info., but for you more recent preggos, you will find this information helpful.

I was talking with one of my friends who is 24 weeks pregnant last week, and we were discussing how you are supposed to sleep when you are pregnant. She knew (as most people can figure out pretty easily) that you shouldn't be sleeping on your stomach. She also knew that she shouldn't be sleeping on her back anymore. This position causes your uterus to put pressure on your descending vena cava (the main blood vessel coming from your heart) and can diminish blood supply to your lower body, including the fetus. What she didn't know, however, was that sleeping on your left side is actually the best position to be sleeping in during the second and third trimester. Here is some info. I found on a website about this:

"Although there's no real harm in sleeping on your right side, lying on your left side is actually good for you and your baby: It improves the flow of blood and nutrients to the placenta and it helps your kidneys efficiently eliminate waste products and fluids from your body. That, in turn, reduces swelling in your ankles, feet, and hands. If you train yourself to sleep on your left side early on, you'll have an easier time falling asleep when your belly is bulging later.

During the second half of pregnancy, avoid sleeping on your back, a position that puts the full weight of your uterus on your spine, back muscles, intestines, and the inferior vena cava (the vein that transports blood from your lower body to the heart). Back-sleeping can also put you at risk for backaches and hemorrhoids, inefficient digestion, and impaired breathing and circulation. Lying on your back in the second and third trimester can also cause changes in blood pressure. For some women, it can cause a drop in blood pressure that can make them feel dizzy; for others, it can cause an unwanted increase in blood pressure."

Another issue when it comes to sleeping during pregnancy is that it can become very difficult and uncomfortable to sleep when you are pregnant. Here is a good article on some of the reasons why this is the case, more info. on good sleep positions, and other things you can do to help get a good nights sleep!

http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/pregnancy_newborn/pregnancy/sleep_during_pregnancy.html

Sweet dreams!

Cloth Diapering

A friend of mine asked me to do a blog about cloth diapers about 8 months ago, so here it finally is!

Yes, I am a mom that does cloth diapers and loves it! I am a big fan, even having two kids in diapers at once. I love not wasting - money & material. I love knowing that I am doing something that is good for my babies, good for the environment, and good for the wallet. I actually do use disposable diapers sometimes when we are out and about because it is just so much more practical, but I don't like using them much. I am also able to be so much more liberal with how often I can change my kids diapers since it doesn't matter how many we go through in a day - it won't cost me any more to change their diapers 8 times a day than it would to change it 3 times.

Well, anyway, so onto the practicalities -- there are sooooo many different products people use for cloth diapering. As many who use them would say, these are not your mother's cloth diapers! The art of cloth diapering has come a REALLY LONG WAY since we were kids! It has become much easier and much more practical. So, anyway, if you are wanting to look into cloth diapers more seriously, I would recommend checking out one of the many websites that sell cloth diapers so you can get a better idea of what all is out there. One of the best websites I've found is Jardine Diapers, jardinediapers.com to get information about all of the different covers, liners, etc. This was where I bought my initial supplies from. You can also find a lot of cloth diapering supplies, even new, on e-bay.

Okay, so here are my recommendations from some of the different products and methods I've tried. My favorite covers are the Bumkins covers. They are super easy to use, really easy to clean, and some of the most waterproof covers I've found. I also like the Prorap Classic covers and the Kushies diaper wrap because they are very affordable and also are very waterproof and easy to clean. So, basically what I do is I have Chinese pre-folds, which are just the actual cloth part, then I have some extra absorbancy liners (which are just another think fleece lined piece of cloth in the shape of a maxi-pad) that I put on top of the folded main cloth part (which I fold into fours and lay in the cover). Then I also put a flushable liner on top (my favorite of these are Imse Vimse liners, because they are BOTH flushable & reusable - in other words, if there is no poop on them, just wash them with everything else and reuse them again).

I usually do a load of diapers about once every 3 or 4 days, in my normal washing machine in hot water on the longest cycle possible. A huge life saver in cloth diapering came for me when I got a diaper sprayer that attaches to the toilet and allows you to spray off the poop into the toilet before you wash the diapers. One of my children has always had very wet and mushy poop and most of his poopy diapers needed spraying. Fortunately, my daughter usually has thicker poop that I can just grab the disposable liner and flush it down the toilet. In fact, because of the ability to flush the poop down the toilet, I feel like cloth diapers are almost LESS gross than a disposable diaper where you are usually just stuffing poop into a diaper genie or something.

"It Happened to Me"

There is a section in one of the parenting magazines I read that is called "It Happened to Me" and moms write in about accidents and things that have happened to their kids in an attempt to warn other moms so it doesn't happen to them. I've learned about some interesting and unsuspecting things to be careful about, such as letting your kids be outside when the lawn is being mowed (rocks flying at them), being careful when you're vacuuming (this one kid got his hand caught under the vacuum cleaner and it ripped his skin off), furniture falling on kids, babies getting their hands burned on the oven, and other such scary things. So, anyway, I had one of these types of things happen to me that now I want to warn other moms of!

This week I was at Costco and had my two kids (Samuel - 2 1/2 & Hope - 11 mo. now) in the shopping cart at the front seat part. (Costco's carts are great because they have places for two kids at the front!) So, they were both buckled in the whole time until we got to the check out counter and Hope started fussing, so I unbuckled her and picked her up for a few minutes. Then on the way out, I put her back in and for whatever reason, didn't bother to buckle her in again. Of course, I am sure you can tell where this is going... so, as I was unloading the stuff into my car in the parking lot, I hear this loud thump and look back to find Hope NOT in the shopping cart, and lying on the ground with her face down. I definitely about lost it, and panicked, running to pick her up and in shock that that had just happened. I really couldn't believe it and didn't know what to do. Fortunately, a lady who was close by and saw it happen came over and asked if we were okay. I was kind of panicking and asked her what she thought I should do, if I should take her to the ER. We both kind of seemed to agree that was the best idea, and she helped me finish loading the stuff into the car and get Samuel and Hope in their car seats so I could drive to the ER. Hope ended up being fine, but it certainly was very scary. I honestly didn't really ever think my kids would fall out of the shopping cart if they weren't buckled in, but now I know just how wrong this thinking was! So, learn from my mistake, and always always always buckle your kids into the shopping cart seat, even if you think it is only going to be a minute or two before you have them out again!

And while I am writing about this, when we were in the ER, I probed the doctor with a lot of questions about falls and head injuries and how to know when you really need to go to the ER, because I feel like this is something that most of us moms don't really know the right answers to. Of course, we think it would be obvious when we would need to go to the ER, but I have now taken my daughter to the ER twice in her first year of life, and both of those time I did not feel like it was a very easy and obvious decision. Yet both times it turned out that it was a good decision. Anyway, so kids fall all the time, how do you know when it is serious enough to warrant an ER visit? Here is what I learned. With children, the only way they can really know if there is serious damage to the head or brain is by doing a CAT scan. However, the radiation this uses has been found to have a negative effect on children and babies, and is a risk that is often not worth taking. Also, in order to do a CAT scan, the child has to hold completely still for 5 minutes. So, since this is pretty much impossible, they have to usually put them under for this procedure. Therefore, in order to decide to do this, there usually needs to be a pretty substantial reason to think there might be something wrong. However, if the child or baby is acting strange, lost consciousness, is vomiting or bleeding, or had a very far or hard fall, or has a pretty severe bump on the head, these things would certainly warrant an ER visit. The doctor said that the height of Hope's fall made it borderline for doing a CAT scan, but since he was able to see her and see that she seemed to be acting pretty normal, he decided against it. He just said that I needed to watch her very closely for the next 24 hours and make sure she seemed to be acting mostly normal and didn't have any of those signs I just listed. So, hopefully some of this information from my trip to the ER will be helpful to you all. (actually, hopefully you will never need to know any of this! :) Another thing I learned was that even if there is damage from the fall (other than stitches) the only thing they can actually do is if there is a blood clot, they would go in and do surgery to remove it. Kind of scary! Anyway, may none of us ever have to deal with this kind of stuff! Strap those babies in!

Child Development

One of my favorite aspects of motherhood is getting to watch my children grow and develop. It is one of the most amazing things to see the tiny, helpless newborn baby you gave birth to grow up and learn to roll over, then sit up, then start eating solid foods, then crawl, stand, walk, talk, and continue to learn more and more things everyday. It all happens in such a short period of time, and yet you barely notice it happening sometimes because it is slow and gradual.

I believe getting to really see this process is something that only parents can really get to see, because even people who get to see certain children once or twice a week don't get to see every little gradual change, as well as the changes that sometimes happen in a moment. But as moms, we get to see it all! It is so great!

Often in a matter of a week your baby goes from sitting up to crawling, or can all of sudden clap or click her tongue! Hope just started getting so good at mimicing, it is amazing! She even tries to snap her fingers when we do. She can now sign "more" and "all done" and probably could do so much more if I took the time to work with her on it! And she is only 10 months old! She just started crawling a few weeks ago, and will come to me when I tell her to. I think one of the amazing things about how infants develop is that they really understand so much more than we think they do. She certainly understands when I tell her no or when I tell her to lay down and go to sleep. Of course, she often fights me in these things and likes to pretend like she doesn't know what I am saying, but I have come to realize she really DOES know what I am saying, and if I don't let her get her way, she obliges to what I have told her. Kids are so darn amazing!