gDiapers Are Going Strong!

Just a quick note to say that after a few months of using gDiapers we are still loving them!  I had lots of great conversation after my last post about gDiapers and I love talking with others who are thinking about cloth diapering.  Obviously there are lots of choices out there besides gDiapers but if you ever have questions about the g’s then ask away!  And gDiaper’s website also answers a ton of questions as well.

Here’s to happy cloth diapered bums!

-Shannon

Homemade Baby Food – Sweet Potatoes

A few weeks ago we started baby food with Owen.  He had mastered the love of rice cereal and oatmeal so now it was time to move on to some real food.  Our first venture into homemade baby food was sweet potatoes.  I always figured I would make my own baby food but when the time came I was actually apprehensive.  I didn’t really know where to start.  I quickly found a great website called Wholesome Baby and it has been a tremendous help.

I went to the store to see about making my own sweet potato baby food but I took a quick peek at the jarred baby food.  I knew how much cereal Owen eats so I could easily see how much money could be spent on jarred baby food.  Instead of grabbing the jars, I picked up these three beauties…

First step…baking…

Then a quick slice to get to the good stuff…

After trying to just mash them I ended up using my blender.  I hadn’t planned to use it (because I didn’t think of it) but it turned out to be oh so helpful.

At the store I picked up some small 4 oz containers and with my three sweet potatoes I made 8 jars of baby food!

I was so happy with the results!  So instead of spending over $6 for jarred baby food, I made this lovely batch for $1.20!  I froze most of them and have been using them as needed.  Owen is on his way to experiencing new foods and I now have the confidence needed to make him all the food he needs.

-Shannon

The Saga of Sleep

I don’t really know where to begin and my memories of the saga of sleep are already fading.  But let’s start at the very beginning…a very good place to start (sorry, quick reference to The Sound of Music)…when Owen was born we began swaddling him.  He instantly loved it and it helped to calm him.  When we came home with him it took us the first night to figure out this child loved to swing.  Three days later we got a swing.  It was heavenly…or at least as heavenly as a newborn who barely sleeps can be.  :)  We also quickly realized that Owen has a strong need to suck and I refused to be a human pacifier so in goes the pacifier.  We now enter the trifecta of sleep…swaddled, swinging, with a pacifier.

We would try to put him in his bassinet and sometimes it worked.  But more often then not we resorted to the swing to get some good sleep out of the little guy.  I don’t know why but this drove me crazy.  I felt like the worst mother in the world.  I wanted my child to sleep and I wanted to sleep but I also wanted to do what was best for him and I didn’t think sleeping in a swing for hours on end was the best.  At one point I talked to our pediatrician in Princeton and she said to just get that baby the sleep he needs.  It didn’t really matter how but just get him there.  This somewhat silenced my feelings of inadequacy but not really.

Throughout all of this Lucas was the voice of reason trying to convince me that if Owen was sleeping then who cares where or how.  I was only somewhat convinced.  The only hope I had was that we had said that once we got settled in Boonville then we would start intentionally putting him in his crib and not give in to the swing.  After a horrible 10 nights sleep at my parents while Lucas was already working on the house, we finally moved to Boonville!  Of course we were so frazzled from moving that the idea of “sleep training” wasn’t really on the top of our lists.  So back in the swing he went.  I was defeated again.

By the time we moved to Boonville Owen would/could only fall asleep swaddled, in the swing, with a pacifier.  Even with all these “tools” it still sometimes took over an hour of sitting there making sure the pacifier didn’t fall out before he really went to sleep.  He was clearly addicted to all these sleep habits and he hardly slept any other way.

(Let me take the time to say that I don’t really know why I was so weird about him sleeping in the swing.  Well I kind of know why, all the sleep books act like if you don’t start off perfectly from day one then you are screwed and there is no hope for you without nights and nights of crying.  I was scared to death of stopping the cycle of sleeping in the swing.)

So back to the story…  After somewhat getting settled in the house I decided that if we were going to do sleep training (i.e “cry it out”) then I wanted to do it the proper way and not out of anger, frustration, etc.  I bought the book Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems by Richard Ferber and read it through like a madwoman.  Let me also say that prior to this I had read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth and a million online articles explaining different methods, etc.  Let me also say that I know there are non-”cry it out” methods out there but they didn’t seem to fit us and honestly from a selfish point of view they seemed like they would take a lot longer than the “cry it out” method.

After reading Ferber’s book I knew we could do it.  We were both so tired of the nightly sleep craziness that we jumped right in and tried it.  So on the first night of sleep training we followed the book by doing a bedtime routine and then put Owen in the crib, unswaddled, with no pacifier.  He cried for over 2 hours!  It was heartbreaking.  I thought I was ready but there were times when I just couldn’t go look at him and Lucas had to do a lot of the comforting.  But he did go to sleep.  He woke up several other times but cried for progressively shorter periods.  By the morning we made it through.  That day we did the same routine with naps with some success.  The second night was not quite as bad but still lots of crying.  By this point Owen found his fingers so he was learning to self-soothe!  Hallelujah!  This was huge!  By the third night he went straight down and only woke up once during the night and I fed him!

It now seems silly that I was so upset by using the swing but I’ll chalk it up to being a somewhat perfectionist, must do everything “right”, first time mother.

Since doing the sleep training Owen is even happier than he was before and Lucas and I both feel like human beings again.  :)  I’m not saying it’s perfect now and I know there will be times in his life where his sleep will shift and change, but we are all enjoying sleep now.  Most nights Owen is down between 7:30-8:00pm, he feeds once in the night normally anywhere from 4:30-6:30am and then he goes back to sleep until 8:00-9:00am.  Now that he sleeps so well I actually look forward to the mornings and getting him out of his crib.  I love seeing him after being away from him for a chunk of time and it doesn’t hurt that I am getting sleep again as well.

I’ll leave you with a picture of the sleeping prince as of today…

Here’s to sleep…for all of us!

-Shannon

Let the gDiapering begin!

Almost immediately after we found out I was pregnant I knew I wanted to use cloth diapers.  Namely I wanted to try gDiapers.  I had a few friends who had used these with their biodegradable/flushable inserts and now they had cloth inserts as well.  I looked into it and decided to forge ahead!

I gathered my stash and decided to start cloth diapering when Owen reached 3 months old (when we moved to Missouri and away from expensive laundry with machines that barely washed).  After being here for a bit I’ve now begun using gDiapers on Owen!  I decided to take it easy on myself at first and I use them during the day but still use disposable at night.  But eventually I will go to using cloth 99% of the time.  I say 99% because I’m not crazy and I plan to still use disposable when we travel, on some outings, etc.  But overall we will stick with cloth.  :)

We wanted to make this choice to cloth for a number of reason but mainly because I didn’t want to throw away all those disposable diapers.  Now I know the argument can be made that we use lots of water to launder them but thankfully I have a nice, new, efficient washer that I’ve now programmed to wash the diapers just so (laundry room tour to come in a later post).  Still it comes out to be cheaper using cloth and our landfill imprint is much less.

So to highlight these wonderful diapers we’ll start with my stash…

gDiapers consist of the outer “pant”…

…and the inside liner…

All you do is take a pant (that comes with a breathable nylon liner)…

…and put in the cloth insert.  The insert is actually made of fleece (to wick away the wetness) and hemp (to absorb all the wetness).

Voila!  A gDiaper…

So far they are working great and I haven’t had one blowout!  With a wet one it all stays easily contained and with the poopy ones it gets on the liner a bit but nothing much out of the diaper.  And as far as Owen goes, he seems to love them!

Added bonus:  They are about the cutest thing ever especially with a baby in them.  :)

-Shannon

Motherhood

I can’t believe I’m a mom.  I like to think that I’ve been a mom for over 10 months now but I have to say that the pregnancy part was probably the easiest part of motherhood that I’ll ever experience.  We are now 5 weeks in since Owen was born and I can’t believe the highs and lows I’ve felt.  The first few weeks were a complete blur although I remember thinking there was no way we could survive.  We had family here for the first few weeks which was helpful but it also made me terrified when they left.  I had barely been hanging on when they were here so there was no way we could do this once they left!  At one of my lowest points I honestly thought we were going to have to give Owen up for adoption because obviously we weren’t cut out to be parents!  Thankfully I got some sleep after that and have since changed my mind.  :)

I also struggled for the first month with nursing.  I constantly doubted myself and at some points had to take it one hour or one feeding at a time.  Thankfully the physical pain has gone away and I am beginning to enjoy the time Owen and I have together.  Plus I never had to doubt that he was getting enough since he has continually gained weight.

During all of these struggles Lucas has been the best support I could ever ask for.  He encourages me and even takes the graveyard shift of 1-6am where he feeds Owen with milk I’ve pumped during the day.  Getting a solid stretch of sleep each night has been the only way I’ve survived and I can’t fathom doing any of this without Lucas.

Already we see big changes in Owen as he is beginning to interact with us more and more.  He is already becoming his own little person and I am continually in awe of him.  He is already outgrowing clothes and that helps to remind me to take every moment in…good and bad.

So now I’m a mom.  My life will never be the same but I think I’m ok with that.  And hopefully Owen is ok with me being his mom because he’s kind of stuck with me.  This whole motherhood thing has definitely been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but as the days go by we become more sure in our parenting and more confident that we are doing the best for our little family.

Owen – 1 week

Owen – 5 weeks

-Shannon