Baby STUFF - Slings

(Continuing to share the THINGS that have made parenting easier in our household)

We began slinging Abby very early on.... probably two weeks old. I was very hesitant at first

Advantages of slings:

• Bonding - Abby is on one of us anytime we were out of the house. (we do use the shopping carts now, too. She had to get a lot better at balancing to get to that point!)
• Poeple think it's cute. Okay, maybe just when a daddy is doing it, but it made me feel like a hero.
• People don't touch your baby. We have had stangers get WAY too close to our baby when she's in her stroller. People seem to respect another adult's personal space than that of a baby. Yeah, she's the one that does not have a fully developed immune system yet!
• I'm sure there are others, and am confident that either Sarahlynn, Natalie or Steph will comment below!

There are many types of slings, but we really love the two we use.

We got a Ring Sling from Sarahlynn. When Abby was too little to hold her head up, we could hold her. When she could hold her head up, we could hold her. Now that she's gotten taller and heavier, we can still hold her! They say that you can use it for as long as you can hold them. I don't know that I'll have her on my hip at 40 pounds, though!

We also have a BabyBjörn . This has done us great service over the last few months. It has more limitations, but seems to be more prevalent. Abby could not be in it until she could hold her head up, and is now on the upper limit of the height and weight limits. Okay - I'm not sure that they have a height limit, but my brother put it best when he said "I will not carry a baby like that when they are learning to walk." I'll be a little more blunt, it's more of an issue for men than women.

I can not imagine that we would have done without our sling(s). One great thing about slingers is that they tend to be easy to talk to. If you have a question, you can always ask! (We know, because we stopped a woman in Babie R Us a couple of weeks back for a few pointers!)

Another UMD study

Last week, in the snow, Abby and I tromped out to the psychology department at UMD for another infant study. This is the third study we have participated in, the other two being in the speech and language department.

Studies have already shown that if a person chooses an object, the baby will prefer the same one given a choice. For this study, they showed her a lot of different toys one at a time. Then they showed her two toys and allowed her to choose one. A little yellow box that made a squeeky noise then came out from behind a screen and squeeked at the same toy Abby had chosen. The final part of the study showed Abby two toys and this time, the squeeky yellow box pointed at one of two toys and then Abby was allowed to choose one.

The researchers paid much closer attention to which one she was choosing (they had a list where they recorded her choices), but the interesting thing I noticed was that Abby seemed to choose the toy that was an animal: choosing between a horse and a ball, she chose the horse; between a crab and a truck, she chose the crab.

Someone asked why we had enrolled Abby in the Infant Studies. I guess I'll always be a scientist, wondering why and how. The more we understand about the development of our ability the learn, the better teachers and parents we can be to our children. It is fascinating to watch our daughter learn and grow; every developmental milestone is a small exciting miracle. For that matter, Abby is a small exciting miracle.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

On Saturday we went to a surprise birthday party for a friend. Good times, except that Abby was very startled when we finally got to the crecendo of noisemakers and yelling when Sarah arrived.

Also at the party was Chase, who has just turned a year old. A-freakin-dorable baby girl. She's just learing to walk and do stairs, and mastered crawling a while ago. She eats real food (loved thr crackers!) and communicates very well.

She has also mastered the waving at yourself thing. Babies begin waving by waving at themselves. They are copying what they see - your hand pointed at their face opening and closing. That's waving when you're learning. Chase does it, and is cute when she does. Abby does not do this...or did not until Sunday morning!

Anny took off for a meeting a church while Abby and I hung out and played on the floor. I noticed she was looking at her hand, which is not strange. Then she began to wave at herself! She learned more from Chase in one evening than I have been able to convince her of for weeks!

At school she is the oldest infant. There are kids that are a lot older, but she is the oldest infant. She is the trend setter, but does not have a role model for some things. The older kids have been waving so long that they wave facing out. They have crawled so long that they walk.

Smart little girl. She needs to spend more time with Luke so that she can copy crawling! Unfortunately their family has been under the weather, so we are not brave enough to head over there for the day on this bitter-cold holiday.

Snow Much Fun

From January 2008

Abby is a HUGE fan of the white stuff! As you can see, there was not enough on the ground to cover all of the grass, but more than an inch and we call that a snowfall!

I made a little snowman for her (click on the picture above to look at others) and she was amused by him. I broke his "head" off for her to play with inside. Mommies and daddies sometimes disagree on how much time little girls should be outside, so we compromise. Abby could go inside, but only if the snow came with.

Abby is still working on that second tooth, so she really liked chewing on the cold snow in the house. Her hands were turning orange because of how cold they were, but whenever I tried to take it from her she cried. Eventually she lost interest, thank goodness.

Yesterday she also went to the University of Maryland for another Infant Study. Anny took her, so I'll let Anny post about that over the weekend.

Raw Behind

Had to schedule an extra pediatrician appointment for Abby on Friday because of a bad rash on her behind. When we talked to the day care folks they were unsure if it was just a rash or a yeast infection. (by the way, want to mess up a guy, use the term "yeast infection.") Thankfully it was not that bad.

Turns out that she just has a very bad diaper rash. Probably has something to do with the new food that we had been feeding her, but there is no way to be sure. We got a perscription for a better diaper cream, and it has helped tremendously already.

We have also been told to not wipe her backside until things have cleared up. When she needs to be clean, we need to run her under water - it keeps the rash from being irritated more. (I could give more details about how we're doing that, but will not!)

Oh yeah, and we've moved to a different food - applesauce. Nothing in the world less harsh than applesauce!

She did get weighed and is at 19 pounds.

As an update, she is not yet crawling, but gets a little closer everyday. Her favorite game is to empty her toy basket one toy at a time, so I think motivation of the toy basket being out of reach will start being used this week. Yes, I realize that I must be crazy to want her to be mobile! Remember, though, that I'm the one that wants her to start talking!

We think she is beginning to understand some sign language (milk) because she sure get's excited. Honestly, though, I can't tell if it's our saying "milk?" or the sign. I'm interested about the whole process of learning signing though!

Why I Love Cloth Diapers

We did it! We made the switch about five weeks ago from all disposable to all cloth diapers! We lucked out completely in our timing to purchase and saved a bunch of money, too.

We asked around to get as much information as we could to make an informed decision and settled on the BumGenius diapers. There are other brands with names just as cutsie, we just chose these based on recommendations. The BumGenius grow with your child from birth to 35 pounds, which means that we buy them now and potty train before we buy bigger diapers. They just released the 3.0 version, and we stocked up on the 2.0 diapers while they were being clearanced out.

I will admit that I was the reason that we did not start out in cloth. Anny told me that they are not like what I was thinking, but she never made me look at them. Part of the reason behind my not looking is that stores do not carry them prevalently. (There are specialty shops, but not close to our house) I wanted to be as far away from pins and pee as possible.

As it turns out, cloth diapers are almost easier than disposables! Yes, we have to put more effort in by washing a load of diapers every other day, but that's nothing. We take turns and are sure to notice when it's time so that we have enough clean at the right time.

Reasons we switched (not in any order):
Money - We've spent only about $400 for our diapers, trash can and can liner. We have already spent about $300 on disposables.
Environmental - Yes, we used to be tree huggers and are getting closer again. We've done lots of other things to do our part and this seemed like a logical step.
Ease - Honestly, they're simple now!
Daycare - Our incredible daycare got better when we talked to them about going cloth. Their regulations really are where our issues came in, but those were easily figured out. We had to buy them a trashcan that locks and a bag. We do all of the cleaning, but they have had no problems at all.

If you're considering it we would certainly encourage it! It can sound intimidating, but the advantages sure seem to outweigh the downsides!

(This is the first of what I envision will be many posts under the Label of "Baby STUFF." There are a lot of things out there that we have tried, and a lot that we have looked at and not tried. Heck, there are things we have tried, like disposables, and decided later to go away from. Feel free to offer other suggestions or add any information that you would like to!)