2011 Buyer's Guide: Baby Products (according to Meg)

So, there are only like 476,823 different baby products out there (okay, that's probably being conservative).  Some of them are phenomenally ingenious and/or useful, while others are a total waste of money.  (There is always the third category of things that depend on the baby/family, but we won't address those here.)  Here's my top list of world's best baby products.

Soothie pacifiers.  Aubrey came home with one of these from the hospital.  We switched for a brief time to another style/brand, but when she started teething, this was her preference because of the all-rubber design.  One of her favorite things to do is turn it around in odd positions and chew on all sides of it. 

Newborn gowns.  So nice not to have to fuss with any snaps for those middle-of-the-night diaper changes during those first few sleep-depraved weeks.  And they're just comfy.  However, when the legs start to become more active, the gown must be abandoned; otherwise, the feet wind up near the neck hole.

Zip-up sleep-n-play.  After the time of the gown has come to an end, these are perfect.  There are no snaps for little toes to get caught between, and ultimately bust out of.  (I can't tell you how many times my girl has had one leg hanging out of her jammies.)

To wrap up the sleepwear section: the Sleep Sack.  Goofy sounding, but a great product.  After the skill of rolling has been acquired, gone is the hope of keeping the little one under any sort of cover or blanket.  This is the solution, especially if you keep a cold house at night, as we do.

The Boppy.  Genius.  For a breastfeeding mom, it's an arm-saver.  For baby, it's a support system from newborn to sitter. 

Jogging stroller.  Specifically, with a switchable front wheel (changes from swivel to fixed).  The three-wheel (swivel) design is SO easy to maneuver.  The bicycle-style tires make for a very smooth ride.  The fixed wheel is awesome for actual jogging.

Mum-Mum rice crackers.  There are other baby finger food products that we have enjoyed, but none as much as these.  Aubrey can eat them totally independently, which she loves, and the texture is perfect and dissolves quickly.






That concludes today's installment of the 2011 buyer's guide according to Meg.  More favorites will be brought to your attention in the future :)

A New Spin on Vacations

So Rob and I are big fans of getting out of town when possible and visiting fun locations, even if we've been there several times before.  Other than Christmas with family, last week was our first vacation as a family of three.  We traveled to one of our favorite destinations: Savannah.  Savannah is where we stayed for our honeymoon, and we have been back once or twice a year ever since.  We have some favorite spots to visit, and we really enjoy exploring to find new spots.  But vacations are different with a baby.  Still fun, but different.  Most of our "exploring" had to be planned out (i.e. explore on the internet and then visit a decided upon location), and EVERYTHING we did revolved around nap times.  In fact, most meals were spent bouncing a fussy baby because we had stretched our time a bit too far.  And then there's the issue of sharing a room with our daughter which we have not done for the past four months.  Luckily, two big things worked in our favor: we were able to have a suite at the hotel, which meant we could put Aubrey down in one room for bed or naps, and we still had another room where we could hang out without having to be super quiet; and the other big plus was that Grandma came along.  This afforded Aubrey adequate "Grandma time" and us several much needed date nights.

Right around vacation time, Aubrey had started a really cute "inchworm" style crawl.

(The Inchworm being mischievous at the hotel.)

Since coming home, she has really perfect the actual on-all-fours style.  I knew she really had it when she zoned in on the floor-length curtains.  I could see it in her eyes: the curtains were her goal.  The next thing I knew, she took off across the room to get them.  Today it was the phone charger that had been left out.  I was in the kitchen putting groceries away.  I knew something was up when everything got really quiet (no battery operated toy noises).  I looked up and again, she had successfully reached her off-limits goal. Our living room is now adorned with the oh so attractive free-standing baby gate to put a division between small exploring hands and the tempting cable box / dvd buttons.  This is such a fun stage of development, but man oh man have the dynamics of our house changed!  I will say, I think crawling is at least giving her a good workout.  She has been exhausted this week!  Most days we're doing three naps and bedtime as early as 7:00 sometimes!

Our other major development has been the leap into finger foods.  Bananas, baby puffs, turkey meatloaf, and pears have been our items of exploration thus far.  My daughter certainly loves food, although she comes by it quite naturally.  I'm excited for Aubrey to be reaching a place where she can start eating some of the same foods that we eat.  I'm a fan of family dinners.  

I can't believe how much has changed in the last two months.  I can't even fathom how much more everything is about to change, as well.

More on Baby Food

There's something about making baby food that just delights me. I still don't know why. There's little to no skill involved (at least in the simple purees that I have done so far), yet I just absolutely love it. I am really looking forward to experimenting with the next phase of foods for my baby girl (finger foods, etc.)

I am in love with www.wholesomebabyfood.com  They are a phenomenal resource for everything to do with making your own baby food.  They have tons of recipes and cooking tips, as well as quite a lot of other helpful information to help you know what your baby is ready for.  They also have a Facebook fan page where other moms post questions and comments that can be very helpful.



One of my favorite pieces of information that they have posted is the food chart.  It is categorized by food group, and for each item, it lists at what age it is most appropriate to introduce that food.  As soon as I get around to replacing my printer ink, this chart is going on my fridge!

I have also purchased a book that I really love called Super Foods for Babies and Children by Annabel Karmel.  This is a neat book because for each main ingredient of a recipe, it has a note in the margin of the page telling you about the key nutrients that this particular ingredient provides.  It's really eye opening, and there are some really fun recipes in there.  I also really appreciate that the recipes for older kids are more like family-friendly recipes, rather than encouraging the idea of cooking something completely separate for your kid than what you are eating.

That's all for now.  Happy cooking.  and eating.

Time Flies

Since Aubrey was born, time has begun to move faster and faster. At first, there was a long period of time where, while our baby was definitely changing bit by bit, it seemed that she was not able to do much by her own choosing. Then, we turned a corner. Since the new year began, I feel like so much has changed in such a short time. At the first of the year, she was barely able to roll over, and even so, only from back to tummy (where she would get stuck, and consequently angry). Sitting up had not yet happened, either. And now, all of a sudden (or so it seems), she is able to do so much more. She is beginning to stay sitting up pretty well when she is put in that position. She is a rolling expert. And most recently, she has decided she will get in a position where crawling is just around the corner. The first six months, while new and exciting, were relatively uneventful compared to the past month-and-a-half. I am becoming more and more aware that this is only the beginning of how fast time will fly by from now on. It's so exciting, but it is also a bit sad to see my baby speeding out of the baby stage. C'est la vie.

crawling position

Our Other Baby

Before our little girl came along, we acquired a 7-year-old little boy named Boss--our now-nine-year-old Rat Terrier. Boss came to us well trained. He slept without complaint in his crate, he knew by the tone of your voice if he needed to stay off the carpet, and he was generally just a well-behaved dog. Over time, we slacked off on a few of his restrictions. The first to go was him sleeping in a crate, mostly due to his aging hips. But from there, it was a downward slope. We managed to get him quite spoiled. All things considered, however, he was still pretty well behaved. Until another little being entered our house. From the time Aubrey arrived, Boss' behavior has lacked significantly. It is so obvious that he is jealous of the attention she gets from us. He is fine while we are all together in the same room: the downstairs part of our house is pretty much all open so as long as we are downstairs, he is good. A bit needy, but still good. When we go upstairs, either to take care of Aubrey or at night, that's when it all falls apart. "Accidents" have become routine. It's as though he thinks we won't bother to come take care of him even if he lets us know he needs something, so he just doesn't even let us know. I'm unbelievably fed up with it. But we are good people, and so because we are his second family already, he will continue to reside at the Stone house. But if any of you happen to be a dog whisperer on the side, please contact us. That is all.

Cooking Up the Good Stuff

Hi, my name is Meg, and I'm a foodie. Really, my husband and I both are. We just love food, and particularly, really good food. My latest cooking endeavors, however, have not been for ourselves, but for our little one. She reached the age where I was ready to let her have a go at baby food, but I decided not to go the prepackaged route. Instead, I decided to try my hand at preparing baby food myself. The cost comparison is pretty impressive. The average price per serving of prepackaged baby food is about $0.25-$0.50, for the size serving that we currently need. This does not sound astronomical, and it really isn't, all things considered. But when I prepare it myself, it usually works out to around $0.08-$0.16 per serving. That was my first incentive. The other factor was that I just want to know that I am feeding my baby the freshest things possible. I like knowing exactly what went into her food and exactly what was done in the preparation process. Also, I feel like the texture of prepackaged baby food isn't really doing much to prepare babies for the texture of actual food. (The few that we've tried are around the Elmer's School Glue consistency.)

Over the course of the last month or two, I have made a variety of vegetables and fruits for my little Pebble and now have quite the stock pile! (After cooking and pureeing, the food gets frozen in ice cube trays, and then popped out into freezer bags to be thawed one or two cubes at a time.)

This is our freezer!

Sweet Potato Cubes

Today's endeavor will be rice cereal with banana.


...I have a crying baby looking at me with the most pitiful face. Got to go.

The Pebble: Part 2 (What? We take her home??)

After delivering a baby and being discharged from the hospital, a funny thing happens: they send you home with a baby! If you're not a parent, you're saying, "Well duh." If you are a parent, you're saying, "I know... it's crazy, right?!" When you walk into the place where you have, up until this point, lived as a non-parent, with a new little person in your arms, it's a bit of a bizarre feeling. There's the wonderful feeling of knowing that there is now not just a "couple" but a "whole family" that lives under your roof, but then there are the funny things that no one told you about. Like thinking, "Where do I put her when I'm alone and I have to go pee?" (Of course, by now you own at least a half-dozen little contraptions where baby can sit or lay... More on how much stuff babies come with later.) But after a while, you start to get the hang of it--mostly--and life eases back into feeling normal again, but with a beautiful twist. And somehow you learn to function on minimal amounts of sleep.

---

I'm a breastfeeding mom. (Some segue, right?) I had planned all along to give breastfeeding my very best effort. While I was pregnant, the only dreams I had of my baby were ones where I was nursing her. It's not that I'm a super emotionally-driven person who needs that physical connection to feel like I've appropriately bonded with my child, although there is a definite bonding that takes place. And it's also not that I'm a fanatic who believes that all other forms of feeding a baby are wrong. I just felt that for me, it made the most sense to give it my best shot before turning to other options. The health benefits, both now and later, for mom and baby, have been proven a million times over, and the other reality is that IT IS FREE. Prior to heading into the hospital, I had my ideal situation all laid out in my mind of how things would go after delivery: when Aubrey came out, she would be placed on my chest where she would stay for the next 30-45 minutes, cuddling and nursing, before having to be taken to the nursery to get checked out (I've read all the books... this is what you're "supposed" to do). But because she was early and was having trouble breathing, this situation went very differently. In our childbirth classes, our nurse had us do an activity called "Flipping Your Cards." Each couple was handed a stack of about 8-10 cards that each had two sides with opposing aspects of childbirth printed on them, such as vaginal birth/c-section, or natural pain relief/epidural, and so forth. She had us arrange our cards so that we were viewing the side of the card that we most desired. Then she asked us if we couldn't have exactly our ideal situation, which one would we be most willing to flip. So we flipped one. And then another. And then another. We kept flipping cards until none of them were on the side where we had originally placed them. The only card that was the same on both sides was one that said "healthy baby." The point of the activity was to remind all of us that our delivery day would probably not go exactly how we had planned, but that in the end, no matter how many "cards we had to flip," our goal was still to end up with a healthy baby. Even understanding the point, every couple in the room still struggled with and protested against flipping certain cards. I don't think there was a card pertaining to breastfeeding, but I remember being in the hospital on my delivery day, thinking, "This is the card I really didn't want to flip." I had read everything I could get my hands on about how to have a successful breastfeeding experience from the get-go, and one of the key components (in the opinion of most experts) is getting to nurse as soon as possible after delivery. Instead of having this option, Aubrey was taken to the nursery to have her oxygen levels monitored. It would be another day or so before I could even attempt to nurse her, and a full four days before we were able to do it with any real success. In the mean time, she had breast milk from a bottle and a pacifier --both of which mortified me at the time, but there was no other option.

The first five weeks of nursing were horrendous. There was a lot of crying --mostly from me, but sometimes from Aubrey, too. In my opinion, our hindrances were two-fold: She was early, and she had a bottle first. Early babies often have trouble getting the hang of breastfeeding in the first place, not to mention that they sleep so much it is nearly impossible to keep them awake and alert long enough to get the job done. And most medical experts believe that babies who have bottles/pacifiers before nursing will generally have a harder time getting used to nursing than those that nurse right away. Our saving grace was a magical little invention called a nipple shield. It's exactly what it sounds like, and it is shaped in such a way that the baby can easily get it in her mouth instead of having to work at it so much. There are holes where the milk passes through, and it is really soft silicon, so the texture is as much like the real thing as possible. This is what got us through those first several weeks. The nurses and lactation consultants at the hospital (as well as several things that I read) strongly urged that I wean Aubrey off the shield as soon as possible. The consultant went so far as to say that I needed to have her off it in a week. So naturally, when a week came and went and we were still unsuccessful without the shield, I felt like a terrible mother, like I was ruining my child for life. Another week came and went, and I cried even more. I read and read and read everything I could find about breastfeeding and weaning from a shield. After finally compiling all the information in my mind, and sorting through it as logically as possible, I finally came to the realization that the most important thing was that my baby was eating. At the end of the day, she was getting the food she needed, and that's what mattered. I tried to give myself a break and not feel so stressed out. Eventually, the weaning happened, and life was grand. Truth be told, from what I read, she weaned at about the time that should have been expected anyway: most moms of early babies that have to use a shield, wind up using it until around the baby's due date anyway. As Aubrey was a month early, five weeks on the shield was not a crazy-long amount of time.

As I close this post for the evening and move on to the work that I should actually be doing right now, I just want to say that if you are a mom-to-be who is planning on breastfeeding, please know that it can start off tough, but it CAN work if you are willing to stick with it for long enough. Don't be disheartened when you read about how great it is (and how it shouldn't hurt) but you don't feel that your initial experiences are lining up with that dream scenario. I promise, it will get better. Much better.