Advice Smackdowntag:www.alphamom.com,2010:/smackdown//82010-03-19T14:34:14ZMovable Type 3.33How to Help Your Wife With Postpartum Depressiontag:www.alphamom.com,2010:/smackdown//8.29072010-03-19T13:14:27Z2010-03-19T14:34:14ZA concerned husband wants to know when it stops being "just hormones" and starts being something more serious.Amyhttp://alphamom.com/smackdown
This was left in the comments section of the Birth Control and Postpartum Depression column from a few weeks ago. I trust you'll agree that it's important enough to merit a full response.
I am a concerned husband. My wife and I are very much in love but have had a rocky marriage to say the least, and we had our second son now going on 6 months ago. About 2 months ago my wife started the mini pill and in the last month has become very unhappy. She has very emotional breakdowns and just starts crying and is self proclaimed depressed at times. She is breast feeding and was very aware that her hormones are out of whack just from that. Some days are good but many are very bad. On her worst days she has gone as far to say she thinks she wants a divorce, She now also claims she is no longer in love but is trying. Our sex life was very limited prior because of the breastfeeding and the affect on her hormones and it was similar after our first son but now it is non-existent. All of this feels like it is out of nowhere and in the last month or so. We both agreed it could be the pill and she is finishing this cycle and then her doctor prescribed her the patch. Am I crazy or is this from the current pill and possibly ppd. Is the patch a bad alternative? Should I convince her to be evaluated? (she is very stubborn when it comes to these things) Thoughts?
Adam
No, you are not crazy: this very much sounds like a bad reaction to the mini-pill or postpartum depression, or both. (I'd put my money on both, actually.) Yes, the patch is a bad alternative, as is any other hormonal birth control. Yes, you should VERY MUCH convince -- nay, INSIST -- that she get evaluated for PPD (postpartum depression).
You should also volunteer for couples' therapy to address the stated pre-baby rockiness of your marriage. I mean, that's just flat-out a good idea, especially with the added strain of a second baby and all, but it's important that you don't seem like you're blaming all the stuff she says (divorce, not in love anymore) on the fact that she's "depressed" or "crazy" or "not herself." Whether or not it's simply the pill or PPD, don't devalue what she says she's feeling. It's likely very hard for her to see beyond the clouds that have settled over her right now, but that doesn't mean there aren't some very real feelings under there that need to be addressed.
For the record, symptoms of PPD include: Insomnia or extreme fatigue, anxiety, lack of interest in the baby OR irrational concern over the baby, feeling hopeless or overwhelmed, withdrawing from physical and/or social contact, thoughts of harming self or the baby.
Low (or non-existent!) libido is really common for women after giving birth, even without PPD, but the "emotional breakdowns" and overwhelming sadness and threats of divorce you're describing are NOT. PPD symptoms can start out mild (similar to the "baby blues," just a general sense of sadness, irritability, crying spells, mood swings) but get worse over time. Much worse, and often progress quite rapidly. I'm not a doctor and don't know your wife, but it's possible that she was suffering from an extended case of baby blues and the mini-pill accelerated things into full-blown PPD. Simply changing birth control is not going to cure that. She needs help, and she needs it now. If she won't call her OB or a psychiatrist herself, call for her. Tell them everything you typed here.
Other things to do:
1) Tell her you love her. Tell her you love your family, the children, the baby and that they love her too. Tell her this ISN'T HER FAULT.
2) Attend doctor's appointments with her. I'm guessing, given that her doctor went and prescribed the patch as an alternative, that she's not telling him/her the real story. (A good OB would know to take any and all hormonal birth control options off the table for a woman complaining of possible PPD.) She could be ashamed or in denial -- this is normal, but you might need to speak up on her behalf for awhile.
3) Give her breaks. Take over chores around the house or hire a cleaning service, if possible. Take the kids out with you so she can rest or do whatever she wants without feeling guilty. Send her to the movies, make dinner, basically anything you'd step up and do if your wife was critically ill. Which (if it is PPD), SHE IS.
4) Make sure she's getting enough sleep. Sleep deprivation, though almost inevitable when caring for and breastfeeding a new baby, exacerbates the symptoms. (Maybe this could be the changing factor between her "good days" and "bad"?) If she still needs to nurse at night, let her stay in bed while you retrieve the baby and handle all the night-time diaper changes. Offer to give the baby a bottle (pumped milk or formula) at night, no guilt involved: I am all for breastfeeding but big-picture-wise, the baby needs a healthy, rested, functional mother.
5) Attend a PPD support group in your area -- your wife's OB or hospital or birthing center can help you find one. Go with or without her (though try to find a friend or family member stay with her while you're out). This will help you know how to help her waaaay more than one little online advice columnist. (Check out Postpartum Support International or call 1.800.944.4PPD)
Good luck, dude. Thank you for paying attention and seeking information and advice: Now it's time to bring in the Big Medical Guns and get your wife some professional help. Again, it's not her fault, it's not your fault, it's not the baby's fault. It's extremely common, but even more important than that, it's completely treatable and curable.
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What to Expect in Speech Therapytag:www.alphamom.com,2010:/smackdown//8.29012010-03-17T14:01:06Z2010-03-18T14:08:39ZHow to get the most out of early intervention services.Amyhttp://alphamom.com/smackdownPhoto by barronAmy!
What is UP, girl, I haven’t written to you in AGES. You’re like my personal therapist that instead of prescribing pills prescribed wine and I love you and oh hell I’m rambling aren’t I?
I wrote to you about how to tell if your kid is speech delayed. You graciously answered me.
Then, I wrote to you about my Godd*** relatives not buying it when they SAID she was. You laid the smacketh downeth, and LO! They shut the eff up!
We reached a compromise: we’d give it a few months for her to catch up, and have her reevaluated.
I had her retested and OH SURPRISE! She’s speech delayed. And it’s getting worse! YAY! CELEBRATE! I TOLD U SO.
We’ve decided to start on the therapy route, and it’ll start next month. We haven’t a damn clue what to expect. They said they can go to her daycare or we can go to them. Aaaand, that’s about it. Do they drill words into her and tell her to repeat it? Play with her using words? I mean, I’m just lost here and I Googled and it…WOW. Tons of stuff out there that I don’t have time to look at, and I’m at the office right now and my boss considers looking at the internet like looking at smut.
Soooooooooo……Advice?
Thank you!
Heidi
Well, first of all, and I'm sure you've already gleaned this from the FOUR BAJILLIONITY ELEVEN results on Google, there are many, many different approaches and takes on speech therapy. However, most speech therapy aimed at very young children is similar and rooted in play.
And because of this, I really, REALLY recommend that you do the therapy at a time and place where either you or your partner can attend, whenever possible. 45 minutes of therapy a week is NOT going to be what gets your daughter caught up -- that's going to come from you incorporating what YOU learn during the therapy for as much as possible, for the rest of the week.
And yes, that includes daycare providers, so it's not a bad idea for them to sit in on the therapy, but realistically they might not be able to. They might need to simply hand your daughter off to the therapist for that time while they care for other children. You can ask your therapist for short, easy things she recommends that the daycare incorporate though, or make copies of any hand-outs or information sheets she gives you and pass these along. But I have always felt that early intervention therapies are just as much for us, the parents, as they are for our kids.
Because really, you're probably going to be surprised at how subtle speech therapy is. No, it's not flash cards or Henry Higgins-style pronunciation drills. Because think about it: If your daughter responded to stuff like, "Say ball, honey. How do you say ball? C'mon, SAY BALL!"...you probably wouldn't be pursuing speech therapy in the first place, right?
When Noah first started speech therapy, it involved a really nice lady coming to our house with a big bag of toys. She pulled out one toy and a time, speaking slooooowly, with very few words, and incorporating sign language whenever possible. There was usually one goal for the entire session -- on a good session we might have one goal per toy or activity. These goals were anything from getting Noah to use a sign to make a request (like "open" or "more"), or getting him to repeat a simple sound (like "pop" for bubbles), or just generally demonstrate his expressive and receptive language skills (could he point to correct pictures in a book when asked, did he make a wide range consonant sounds, etc?).
The first few sessions are all about establishing trust, figuring out where your daughter's development stands and what toys and activities engage her and will keep her involved. Everything you see your therapist do, file away for future mimicry: the way she talks and uses toys, how much silence she allows before supplying words, how much repetition of a single word or sound she'll do and how she keeps your daughter's interest...while gently pushing her towards participating in a rudimentary conversation, be it with signs or sounds or words, depending on your daughter's skill level.
Noah LOVED speech therapy. It was his favorite day of the week. He didn't know it was speech therapy, of course, but that's the whole idea. His therapist taught him that signing and speaking to make his wants and needs known made a fun time EVEN FUNNER. And then she and I discussed anything that happened during the week that seemed important, or any additional concerns I had (his toe-walking, swallowing skills, texture sensitivity) and whether they warranted more looking into.
Now: We did at one point look into some private therapy at a particular speech-and-language center, and they preferred to have the parents sit out in the waiting room while the kids played with therapists in the back, although you were encouraged to watch the sessions through a one-way mirror. This was mostly for older children -- age three and up, when sometimes having mom or dad around can negatively impact behavior. Now Noah receives the bulk of his therapy at school, though we are in near constant-contact with his teachers and therapists about what's working and what's not and what we can implement at home.
But for a young child just starting out, really: BE THERE WITH HER. You (and she) will get much more out of it if you do. The therapist is your resource and teacher too. If you ever feel like the therapist is not a good fit for whatever reason, call and request someone new. (It can be nothing against the therapist, even. Some kids just don't click with certain adults.) Speech therapy is not a task you outsource, it's bringing on additional members of Team Let's Kick This Problem To The Curb, of which you are a charter member.
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Spreading the Newstag:www.alphamom.com,2010:/smackdown//8.28982010-03-15T13:49:51Z2010-03-16T15:32:32ZShe's pregnant and wants to tell the world; he wants to wait. Who wins?Amyhttp://alphamom.com/smackdown
Dear Amalah,
I know you are busy solving some of the world's most Giant and Tremendous Problems for your readers, like evil in-laws, inconsiderate husbands, explosive poops, and really ugly purses. But I have a Tiny and Tremendous Problem I would dearly love some advice about.
After one year of fertility treatments, the pregnancy test was positive. Eeek! (Plus means positive, right?) I *think* I am about 6 weeks along, but I need to have it confirmed. My husband and I are so excited, but he wants to wait until MOTHER'S DAY to spring the news on our moms in a really special way. Well, there's no way our moms will forgive us if anyone else finds out before they do, so that means I can't tell anyone (ANYONE!) about it for another two months?
I don't see it happening. Even though I realize that miscarriage is always a possibility early on, I think I would want their support if that happened anyway.
Please give me some really excellent reason that we shouldn't wait that long, OR ways to keep myself occupied so that I don't spontaneously combust. What should I do with myself?
Thanks for your help,
Sarah
So the current non-pregnant version of myself read your husband's idea about Mother's Day and went "ahhh, that's nice, and really not that far away, waiting would probably be worth it in the end, for the memories and stuff, since you only get one shot and we always just did a 'hey, guess what?' phone call and I think my husband even FORGOT to tell his mom the first time they talked, so it's sweet that her husband actually wants to make it all special."
Then the ghost of my former pregnant self rose up next to me and delivered a merciless bitchslap, because I never, ever lasted more than a few days before the unprovoked "I'M PREGNANT!!" eruptions began.
Some women and couples seem to have no problem keeping the news quiet. Some actually like having a not-so-little secret that no one else knows about. Some just don't want to jinx things or lose control of the info at work or during prime miscarriage risk time. (Yes, you can tell people who you would "want support from" in the event something goes wrong, but you cannot 100% keep them from spilling the news to other people -- people you might not really want to talk about a loss to, or who might continue to pass on the good news but not the bad, leading to a "congratulations!" from a totally clueless person at a dinner party in a few months. AWKWARD.)
There are a lot of good reasons to wait, aside from having the announcement coincide with Mother's Day. But you sound a lot like me. And I was completely unable to think of a single one after that second line showed up.
So it sounds like it's time to come up with a compromise. Find a way to make the announcement super-special and meaningful...on a perfectly normal random non-Hallmark-Holiday day. I really don't think your moms will mind -- I'm predicting your husband will get whacked with a dinner napkin from his mom once she hears how long he wanted to make her wait -- but let him make it special. Get them some "just because" cards made out to Grandma and stick a copy of your first ultrasound in them. Take both sets of parents out for dinner and do a toast or a casual slip that everybody goes bonkers over. Or whatever he originally wanted to do, a little earlier. As sweet as his plan sounds, this is a decision that you BOTH need to agree on. If he feels passionately about keeping things quiet until 12 weeks, that's different, and requires a separate conversation. If making the announcement "special" is really his only sticking point...well, it WILL be special, provided it happens before you burst from excitement and start telling the mailman and cashiers at Target.
A final bit of caution, though: I (obviously) never had to go back to people I'd told with bad news, but there were points in both of my early pregnancies when I regretted telling people so early and kind of wished I could pull the news back. Suddenly the number of people I'd gleefully shrieked "I'M PREGNANT!" at seemed so very high, and the reality of just how many crappy conversations I'd be having and how many people I'd be "disappointing" if I miscarried...ugh. It actually made the wait until 12 weeks harder at times, if that makes any sense. (I do think moms are different and should be the first bit of wiggle room in the "no telling until the second trimester" rule, though. So I still say you and your husband move up that announcement date to something you can live with.)
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The Second-Baby Baby Shower Questiontag:www.alphamom.com,2010:/smackdown//8.28892010-03-12T13:45:34Z2010-03-15T15:40:39ZIs it rude to have a shower for second (or third or fourth or 19th) baby? Amyhttp://alphamom.com/smackdownHi Amy!
You’re great and I love your advice. I’ve scoured the internet and polled my friends and no one can give me a definitive answer. I’m pregnant with my second child and due at the beginning of July. I have a two year old son and I just found out that I’m having a baby girl! Could not be more excited! My question is simple...should I have a shower for Baby Girl or is that tacky?
I’ll explain my thoughts and then you can tell me what to do, ok? I promise I will do whatever you advise.
My thoughts, in no particular order...
-am I shortchanging Baby Girl by not having a party for her? She’s already going to be using her big Brother’s hand-me-down items for big ticket stuff and the second child rarely gets the fanfare that the first did.
-if I do have a shower should I put on the invitation “no gifts”? But people want to buy gifts and frankly, there are a few things that I do want and I would rather have stuff that I actually need/want rather than a bunch of crap people bought because I gave them no ideas. For example, I want to cloth diaper this time around and I would love if people would by a diaper cover or such rather than 14 of the same teeny tiny tshirts.
-if I do have a shower, should I invite only a handful of people? But what if others find out about it and think that I didn’t want them there? Really, I just don’t want people to feel obligated to buy me a gift. But again, no ideas/baby registry could lead to craptastic gifts.
-I actually don't have any little girl stuff nor do I have piles of money to buy little girl stuff. I’m totally fine with using boy-themed swings and bouncers and the like but I can’t very well dress Baby Girl in the same things her brother wore. I mean really, there’s frugality and then there’s just meanness.
Bottom line, I feel like Baby Girl’s birth should be celebrated just the same as we celebrated for my son. I just don’t want people to think I’m a gift whore.
Please help me. My pregnancy brain really can’t take any more of this.
-Erin
So somewhere along the way in my life, I picked up on the idea that a woman got ONE baby shower, for her first baby, and that was it. Subsequent pregnancies did not get a shower, and to do otherwise was tacky. I honestly have NO IDEA who told me this or why I clung to it like gospel, because OH WAS I EVER CORRECTED during my second pregnancy.
Many people suggested it's a regional thing, since in the South, every baby gets a shower, no matter what. And multiple showers, if geography prevents anyone from traveling to one central location. I wonder if it's different for people who view the shower for what it really is -- a PARTY, a celebration of mother and baby -- versus people who do see baby showers primarily as gift grab extravaganzas, where it's all about the baby registry and not much else.
Anyway, I have come around on second baby showers. Like you said, second- and third- and etc.-born babies don't quite get the fanfare of first-born, and there is nothing EVER routine or humdrum about the birth of a new baby. And on the practical side, stuff gets broken, lost, or given away. Plus, you're having a girl. I think your friends and family understand that you might want a few non-blue items around. (My family's been waiting for someone to have another baby girl for 21 years now. Instead, we've had a total of six boy grandchildren. If a girl ever does arrive, hoo boy, it's gonna look like a Pepto Bismol hurricane flew through the house.)
But. BUT BUT BUT. Here is what is still considered rude and tacky: Throwing yourself a shower. Sending out the invites yourself, having it at your house, or anything that suggests you organized it. Some formal etiquette sticklers also extend this to immediate family, like mothers and sisters, but this has mostly fallen out of fashion and isn't a big deal anymore. Throwing your own shower, however, is still a big old NO.
(My second shower was SUPPOSED to be a surprise, with Tracey plotting with my husband about how best to get me to put together an Amazon wish list or something without me knowing why...but that got ruined when my husband asked me to find an email for him on his phone and I accidentally saw a subject line like AMY'S SHOWER SHHHH!! And then the invite was online and I linked to it because it was kind of an unusual Mostly Internet People Thing involving Another Event That I Was Already Supposed To Invite People To. And some people thought that was terribly tacky and gift-grubby and told me so to my face. Er, to my blog comment section. However, as any mildly good etiquette-conscious person knows, telling someone that they've broken an etiquette "rule" is generally considered to be even worse. So there. Or something. In other words, I get that real-life tends to be a lot more complicated than the etiquette books allow for.)
Your email isn't clear on this point, though. Has someone offered to throw you a shower? If so, tell them you're up for it and let them take the lead about shower location, how many people to invite, what to include on the invitations. Then you go ahead and register at a baby store and a cloth diaper website and share the info with your shower organizer. It's her responsibility to pass it along to guests...IF THEY ASK. (I'm really still not a fan of invitations arriving with registry info printed on them, but realize I'm slowly becoming a minority in that. It's convenient for both guest and hostess, yes, but also TOTALLY WHY wedding and baby showers are getting this bad, grabby reputation.)
I'm predicting most people will bypass your baby registry and buy you baby clothes though. Probably lots of tiny pink girly ones. Just a hunch.
If someone hasn't offered to throw you a shower, you have two choices.
1) You put all of this on the back burner and proceed as if you will not be having one. No registry, though it's completely fine to give specific ideas (cloth diapers, clothing, other essentials) to people who ask. Perhaps someone will offer closer to your due date; perhaps not, if you do live in an area where second baby showers just "aren't done."
2) You ask someone -- or a couple, to minimize the responsibility load -- to organize a shower on your behalf. Plenty of women do this. Emphasize your desire to celebrate Baby Girl, not your need for New Stuff. If they agree, you hand over the reigns and proceed as I described above. Collaborate on the guest list and size, give them your registry info, let them handle the invites and everything else.
One last option: it's becoming really common for the second (or third or whatever) baby shower to be a "couples shower." Instead of the traditional flock of women oohing and aahing over twee little clothes, you have a party that includes spouses and already-born children. Sometimes these don't happen until after the baby is born. I like these, since they just seem so much less about the gifts and more about the entire family. If you feel strange about asking someone to organize a shower, you can TOTALLY THROW A PARTY like this and just leave the word "shower" out of it.
Go ahead and create some pink invites that say something else: We're celebrating Big Brother and the upcoming arrival of Baby Sister! Send it to friends and include spouses and children's names on the envelopes and NO REGISTRY INFO. "No gifts" is certainly an appropriate, polite option (and one that will be ignored by exactly half the guests, making the other half feel stupid and WHY DO PEOPLE DO THAT? AT LEAST GIVE THE GIFT OUT OF SIGHT OF PEOPLE WHO FOLLOWED DIRECTIONS GAH.). Then have everybody over for a big ol' barbecue or something, and promise me you won't make anyone play the melted-chocolate-bar-in-a-diaper game.
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Changing Time Zones with a Babytag:www.alphamom.com,2010:/smackdown//8.28852010-03-10T13:33:53Z2010-03-11T16:05:14ZBecause it's not really a vacation if they're up and demanding breakfast at 3 am.Amyhttp://alphamom.com/smackdownDear Amalah,
First, I am a big fan of your blog, as my fiance can attest to the number of times I have interrupted him doing whatever he was doing to tell him the funny story about your kids, I found it when I was pregnant and I am addicted. My baby is 10 months old this week and I am so spoiled to have the one of the easiest babies in the world. He started sleeping through the night on his own at 3.5 months and he's just an angel, I am the first to admit I am never allowed to complain. He goes to bed between 6 or 7pm, gets up between 5 and 6am, and takes 2 naps of about an hour and a half each (thank you for the post about the 2-3-4 schedule). This is not a bad system, but we are going to Hawaii for a friends wedding in a few months and with the time change (we are in CA) I fear he is just going to go to bed at 3 in the afternoon and get up at 3am. We went to the east coast when he was 5 months old and his schedule worked great because it was shifted later with the time change, going to bed at 9 or 10pm getting up at 7 or 8am, so I didn't have to try to shift it. I have tried to shift it here at home before, sometimes trying to get him to cat nap in the late afternoon so he is up later and can have dinner with us and spend some time with Daddy after work, but even if he does get up later the next morning, his naps will invariably be shorter and we go back to where we started. Is there any sort of secret to getting him to shift his schedule while in a different time zone, or is it as simple as just adding another nap in the late afternoon while we are there?
Thanks
Not complaining I swear.
Babies do get jet lagged...and easily disoriented by new schedules and environments...so no matter what you do ahead of time, it's best to just ready yourself for a bit of an adjustment period right after you arrive. If the time change doesn't bother him, a new crib might, or sharing a hotel room with you guys might (you're RIGHT THERE. Why should he sleep AT ALL?).
Every time I've traveled with a baby, time change or not, the first night has generally pretty much sucked, even though I've also been blessed with two pretty amazing sleepers. (Sorry, everybody. 'Tis true.) But after that first 12-24 hours, they start adjusting pretty well on their own.
Of course, if you've got something fairly important to do within the first 12 or 24 hours (like a wedding), this isn't super helpful. So what else can you do to ease a baby into a new time zone?
1) Hold your horses, for now. You say the trip isn't for a few more months. Stop messing with his schedule. It's too soon, and he'll still feel just as out-of-whack once you get there because he'll sense the changes in sunrise/sunset/mealtimes just like we do. For now, let him continue to sleep and nap on the schedule that works for him.
2) Shift bedtime gradually a few days before you leave. About 10 to 20 minutes a night, regardless of when he naps (or wakes up from his naps) during the day.
3) Don't mess with naps unless he lets you. If he's tired, let him nap, without fretting over time zone conversion charts in your head. Nighttime is the big significant chunk of sleep that counts. Once he gets used to going to bed earlier, his naps will start lining up more or less on their own (especially since they aren't affected by the sun's schedule). I wouldn't expect them to be nearly as predictable in timing or length as at home, but other than POSSIBLY waking him up 20 minutes earlier from his afternoon nap, messing with the day sleep will cause more misery than good.
4) Once you're there, get strict about the New Bedtime/Mealtime World Order. If you arrive in the morning and he falls asleep in the middle of the afternoon, treat it like another nap. Wake him up after his usual nap length. Feed him dinner even if it's technically his fourth meal of the day. (Make it something he really likes, so he'll be tempted to eat a little even if he's not particularly hungry.) And keep him up until the time zone's appointed bedtime.
5) Spend as much time outside as possible. It's tougher (even on adults) to get over jet lag and adjust your internal clock when you spend all your time inside a hotel. Get out and let him pick up on nature's cues with lots and lots of sunshine and outdoor activities.
6) Routine, routine, routine. Honestly, I've taken a ton of trips WITHOUT a time change and found them to still be perfectly miserable. Ezra in particular is a total routine junkie, down to his preference for familiar crib sheets. Bring loveys, familiar books and crib blankets, the same bath soap you use at home. Chances are family members and friends will want to give him all sorts of new toys and gifts. That's great! Just don't overwhelm him with lots of "new" things right away in an already new environment.
When you return, you won't have the benefit of any gradual shift at bedtime, so many parents find that their babies' sleep schedules are even more difficult to regulate once the trip is over. (Though like you said, moving east across time zones tends to be a little easier.) Once again, spend as much time as possible outside in the sun. Focus on gradually getting bedtime back to an acceptable hour and be flexible during the day to prevent him from getting overtired and skipping naps outright. I've (personally) found that being a stickler for the new mealtimes helps a little bit...but this probably depends on the baby. (Ezra would eat 17 times a day and does not care about any distinction between breakfast, lunch, dinner, second dinner, snack, fourth snack, brunch, pre-brunch, etc. So while he has no problem getting put in the high chair for a meal at an "off" time, I'm not sure it really sets any kind of routine for him. HE JUST EATS ALL THE TIME.)
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Pregnant Princess Seeks Knight In Shining Armortag:www.alphamom.com,2010:/smackdown//8.28832010-03-08T14:47:27Z2010-03-11T16:07:17ZMust have his own car. Amyhttp://alphamom.com/smackdownKnight Rider photo by .Robert.Dearest Amalah,
I'm a huge fan of your writing, and do not even want to contemplate how many hours of company time I've spent reading your blogs. If anyone will know the answer to this question, it's you!
I'm 26 and pregnant with my first baby (a boy due the first week of June, 2010). I'm still working full-time, my husband works two jobs, and we only have one car. Since he has two jobs -- one of which is temporarily located an hour away, neither of which are on a bus route -- he always gets the car, and I am stuck hauling my preggers butt on the bus. Needless to say, it sucks!
While I appreciate that my husband works very hard, I am annoyed that he gets to drive to/from work in comfort while I'm dying of back pain as I waddle to bus stops in all of my preggiosity. I get short of breath easily, and sometimes climbing the hills makes me feel faint.
I have begged him to talk to his supervisor about being a little flexible with his arrival/departure time until the baby comes, so he can drive me sometimes, but he refuses to even ask. He says I either need to take the bus or beg friends/family for rides. This the cause of many fights lately.
Oh wise and wonderful Amalah -- is my husband lacking understand of how physically difficult pregnancy can be, or am I just being a preggo princess?
Thank you in advance!
Lacey
So the first knee-jerk thing I typed after reading your question was something like this: HE WON'T EVEN ASK? WHAAAAAT?
That was about an hour and two cups of coffee ago, as I decided to take a little more time to let the situation noodle around my brain for a bit. And honestly, my first question is still the same, though maybe without the caps lock: He won't even ask? Why the hell not?
I feel like maybe we need his side of the story here: Is this job not exactly on super-solid ground, either company-wise or personal-performance-wise? Is he perhaps not sharing details like poor reviews or an extremely difficult-to-please boss because he doesn't want to worry you? Are flex hours simply NOT DONE or generally frowned upon? Or is he just being a selfish jerk or doesn't want the added hassle of chauffeuring you around in the morning?
I can't really make that call since I don't know him, don't know your commutes or any of the reasons WHY he is refusing to ASK if there's a possibility for him to help you out, even occasionally.
Look, plenty of pregnant women rely on the bus or subway for all nine months. I'm sure you know that. Provided your doctor has no problems with you keeping up this level of activity (and I'm hoping you talked to him/her about your feelings of faintness and being out of breath?), sometimes we all just have to do what we have to do, pregnant or not.
BUT! BUT BUT BUT.
What worries me, though, is an apparent lack of sensitivity on your husband's part, the refusal to take even one little step in the direction of making your life a little easier. This is something that a good spouse SHOULD JUST DO, even when you're not pregnant. Don't you think? If you say, "hey, such-and-such is getting to be too much for me, and I think if you could just do this-and-this, it would really help me out," your significant other should have a little more to say than just, "no, I won't." What would it take, I wonder, for your husband to give in and ask? Early labor? Blood pressure concerns? Doctor's orders? Why isn't the fact that you've simply asked for help enough? "Ride the bus or beg for rides?" Really?
(Now go back to third paragraph re: his side of the story, rinse, repeat as needed.)
And beyond back pain and swollen ankles and bladder issues and squished-up lungs and organs and the other VERY VERY REAL AND NON-PRINCESSY COMPLAINTS OF PREGNANCY, what's going to happen when the baby is born and becomes even less portable? Will you be returning to work and expected to lug a carseat and supplies across town to the daycare center? If your child gets sick at school will he be willing to ask his boss for an early dismissal or will that all be "your job"? Who calls in sick for an ear infection, or spends their entire lunch break at the pediatrician or pharmacy? If his job is REALLY that inflexible and he's that unwilling to approach anyone about that inflexibility, I'm worried the bus fight might simply be the first of many.
Or not! Maybe he's just being a typical guy who doesn't get how physically hard pregnancy can be on a woman. Maybe his mother was of the "give birth in a field and then get back to plowing" stock and he expects everyone to be like that. (My husband never, EVER fully understood the Food Thing for me, the aversions and cravings and how they WEREN'T AN OPTIONAL SUGGESTION.) If so, copy and paste this column into an email and erase all those worries about him not helping out with the baby, but leave this part: Pregnancy sucks. Your back hurts, your feet hurt. You have to pee every time you're someplace (bus) that doesn't have a bathroom (bus) and are unable to get to a bathroom at 20 seconds' notice (bus). Pregnant women are easily overexerted and can pass out just from standing up from a chair. Your lungs are crowded and your ab muscles overextended. It is one of the most physically demanding experiences a human being can go through. So sack up and give your wife a ride to work once in awhile already. God.
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Baby & The Beachtag:www.alphamom.com,2010:/smackdown//8.28772010-03-05T13:11:26Z2010-03-11T16:08:04ZDiapers and sunscreen and gimmicks and gear. What works and what doesn't, down by the shore.Amyhttp://alphamom.com/smackdownPhoto by Barefoot In FloridaHi Amy,
You helped me out about a year ago when I was planning for my baby, and obsessing over crib mattresses, and what they were made of, and all of the terrible things that they might do to my baby. Thank you - it was very helpful, and we decided to go with the regular mattress (and so far, so good - he seems to sleep well on it, so I guess we can call that a success? I don't have time anymore to worry about the rest of it). Well, now that the baby is here I have a new question!
My husband and I are taking our almost one year old to Florida in a few weeks for our first family beach vacation. As I started thinking about packing, I came up with all sorts of questions about what we might need to keep him happy and un-sunburned, and thus us all having a good time. I was muddling about in the internets getting utterly lost and confused. Then I saw your pictures about your recent trip and realized that you probably have some fantastic thoughts and advice about all of this.
Here are my specific questions:
1. Swim diapers - I've heard these actually don't work out of the water, just hold the poop in while in the water? Is this correct? So.... if we take our son to the beach, do we have to think about changing him there to go into the water? I think there are disposables and non-disposables. Which are better? We're a cloth diaper family (although not when traveling), so we're up for non-disposables. What did Ezra wear in Jamaica?
2. Shoes - our son is not walking yet, but loves to be "walked." It occurred to me that the sand might be hot on his feet, or there might be lots of pointy shells (we're headed to Sanibel). Should I get him shoes? What kind? Aqua socks? Baby Crocs? Is this all just silly? Obviously we want him to experience the sand on the feet thing.
3. Sunscreen - last summer our son was too young for it, so I have yet to buy it. What kind should we get? Is there something to avoid (like parabens or something)?
4. Equipment - should we try to rent one of those beach tents? Is that much better than an umbrella? I can't imagine my son being happy all cooped up when there are things to crawl to and people to watch, but I am still new to all of this.
5. Any other advice on ensuring a fun-for-all trip to the beach?
Thank you, thank you.
- G
Great question! In that I don't have to think too hard about the answers. We've been taking multiple trips to multiple beaches since the first of our multiple children was about nine or 10 months old. We've got this all pretty down, I'm happy to say.
The first thing to do, before packing, is to revise your expectations for YOURSELF. Trips the beach with babies and toddlers (sans family members or sitters to help out) are so drastically different from any pre-baby vacations you've taken that you might feel like you've run a marathon by the end, rather than relaxed for a week in paradise. It can be exhausting. Your baby might hate the sand or water and there's nothing you can do about it. He might insist on staying in the water hour after hour. He might shove sand in his mouth at every occasion, or demand constant walking up and down the shoreline all. Day. Long.
In other words, going to the beach with a baby or toddler is just like LIFE with a baby or toddler, only it's not baby-proofed and you might feel a little resentful because you were hoping for at least one peaceful hour in a chair with a trashy book.
This is NOT to say it's a bad idea, it's just...different. I remember that, though not as much as I remember Noah's face when his feet first touched the ocean, or wrapping Ezra up in a towel and snuggling under the umbrella. And that's really what you're going for, in the end.
Now! Your questions.
1. Swim diapers. The disposables work outside of the water. Sort of. They're just okay. They absorb pee just fine, but lose their shape and sag a lot. One good poop and the diaper is practically hanging around their knees. You need to change them quite often, at least every time you leave the water. I also find them to be terrible hard on a baby's bottom, particularly combined with sand. And I hate how expensive they are and I hate hate HATE that they pull on like underwear, because trying to get those up and over a sunscreen-y, sandy, slightly damp wriggling toddler is a huuuuuge pain in the ass.
That said, they're convenient (who wants to carry balled-up dirty diapers back to a hotel room?) and serve their intended purpose just fine. That's all we ever used for Noah, though we often just let him run around naked.
In Jamaica we brought half disposables and half reusables -- four Bummis Swimmis, to be exact. The resort's nanny, unfortunately, wanted NOTHING to do with the Bummis and preferred the disposables. (Ezra wore disposables off the beach as well, because I am not that hardcore crazy.) He developed a wicked diaper rash (later turned out to be yeast) from the disposables and I switched him to the Bummis. They were GREAT for the water. Way more comfortable, super easy to change (TABS!), very cute and the real elastic is about a million times better than the disposables. I rinsed them off in hot water at the end of the day and hung them up to dry with our suits. Big thing though: We never ended up testing the Poop Issue in them, so I have no idea how they perform in that department.
If you don't plan on going back to the beach or pool before your son would outgrow his current size (Ezra seemed on the high end of medium size chart, but they run pretty big, so he'll use them again this summer), and won't have any laundry access during your trip, disposables are the more economical, convenient choice. For a summer pool membership in your hometown, go with a small stash of Bummis, for sure.
2) Yes, get your son a pair of water shoes. Doesn't really matter what kind, just something that's easy to get on and off and sturdy enough to protect his soles from rocks. We've always just grabbed a generic pair of Speedo-type knock-offs at the local Big Box Baby Store (since they're all but guaranteed to be too small by the next time you need them). Crocs work too -- they don't always stay on as well as the fabric shoes but are easier to rinse off, and fit better if your baby has wide or extra chubby feet.
3) Sunscreen. Whatever you buy, TEST FIRST. Not for sunburn protection, but for skin irritation. We once bought a near lifetime supply of some California Baby sunscreen for a vacation, only to find that Noah erupted in a rash every time we used it. (He's also HIGHLY allergic to the Burt's Baby Bees buttermilk lotion, just to prove that "natural" doesn't always means it's better for everybody.) And I admit I dislike a lot of the natural sunscreens because they use physical blocker ingredients (like titanium dioxide). There is nothing WRONG with titanium dioxide, except that it's crazy messy and doesn't absorb and leaves white film on your skin. If your child won't stand still very long for sunscreen application or fights you on it, this can be extremely frustrating.
For Jamaica, buying sunscreen was on my husband's to-do list, and instead of reading ingredients like he usually does, he just grabbed a bunch of bottles and tossed them in his cart. So we ended up with synthetic sunscreens with parabens and fragrance and all sorts of unpronounceable ingredients: Neutrogena Waterguard Kids, in both cream and spray. And I loved them. I used them on myself. Goes on quick, absorbs easily, and nobody got even a HINT of pink after days in the tropical sun. So, there you go. I'm not thrilled with everything on the label, but skin cancer trumps potential yet-not-definitively-proven danger of parabens, for now.
Sun hats and UV-protection shirts are super good to have as well.
4. Equipment. We bought a small pop-up sun shade for Noah's first beach trip, and it rocked. Noah took NAPS right on the beach in it! I loved it! I thought it was beyond essential! And then I had Ezra! Who is completely different! I couldn't find the same cabana in the stores and bought a slightly bigger, more expensive one last summer...and he wanted nothing to do with it. He'd fall asleep in my arms but would scream bloody murder every time I tried to put him in the tent. Same went for my brilliant idea of bringing a small pop-up wading pool and filling it with water. Neither of the boys liked that, not even Noah, who liked pools but hated the ocean. Other people's kids? Had the time of their lives in our pool.
So...give yourself a day or two to decide whether you need additional "stuff." Streamlining at the beach is soooo essential with kids -- you're so exhausted by the end of the day that lugging him and 20 pounds of gear and accessories will be hell on earth. If your son seems pretty chill at the beach or is bothered by the wind blowing sand, a tent might be nice. If he just wants to GO GO GO and play in the water and sand and everything, don't bother. Bring a beach ball and some plastic toys. (Some baby-sized stacking buckets that he can manipulate are better than oversized big kid pails and shovels.) A stack of swim diapers and some wipes. Lots of water and a snack. And every piece of camera equipment you own.
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Can These Friendships Be Saved?tag:www.alphamom.com,2010:/smackdown//8.28732010-03-03T14:17:25Z2010-03-04T12:11:02ZThree couples + gossip + a blog = KABOOOOOMAmyhttp://alphamom.com/smackdownHi Amalah,
I have seriously screwed up several friendships (well, not 100% by myself, but mostly).
It's a long story but I'll try to sum up: My husband's best friend, T.'s fiance L. has always been a bit nutty and that's been all well and good (we've had to deal with some sort of issue with her every 6 months or so, my husband would make an innocent joke and she would get offended and not speak to us for weeks for example). Lately things have been strained because since we've become parents she's said some hurtful things which we never brought up because we knew it would offend her and she would get mad and there would be weeks of them not talking to us followed by us apologizing and it increasing the awkwardness...again.
The other night after a group gathering my best friend and her husband were talking with them and my friend's husband D. told them flat out that we don't like L. OMG, right? It's very high school. This led to T. calling my husband and demanding to know why we didn't like her and reiterating that if we can't be friends with L. we can't be friends with him. So...very stupidly I wrote in my online journal which is viewable only to friends (T and L are not on that site) about the incident and vented about L. and the whole situation. Of course, T. saw it (not sure, but I think D. showed him). I said some horrible things on there that I totally regret. Now, we've lost T. as a friend (and as our child's godparent) and we've lost D. and my best friend because he apparently thought he did the right thing by getting himself in the middle of things.
I don't even know where to begin to figure out what to do. I hope you have some sort of guidance.
S
Whoa. Hang on. I need to draw a flow chart here, or something.
Let me see if I've got the principle characters straight:
You and your husband, who is friends with T, who is engaged to L.
Neither of you like L, but put up with her on behalf of T.
Enter your best friend and D, her husband, who decides let L know that you guys don't like her. T takes his fiance's side and defends her hurt feelings, issues ultimatum to your husband.
Enter you and your blog and an ill-advised rant and ta-da! We have our utterly predictable ending of Everybody Being Mad At Everybody Else.
Do I have all of that about right?
Okay, so from where my flowchart and I sit, this doesn't sound promising. I have NO IDEA what D was thinking when he inserted himself into this and decided to spread gossip to L -- who does that, besides junior high girls? -- but he did and (unfortunately) it does sound like he was telling her the truth. You DON'T like her. You put up with her for the sake of your friendship with T, but clearly you've let your real feelings known to D and your friend.
For whatever reason, they decided to betray that trust. Maybe they thought your criticisms of L were unfounded, and were sick of hearing you complain about her. Maybe they thought it would help to get things out in the open. Maybe they were drunk and just said too much, or were attempting to execute a classic divide-and-conquer routine to become T and L's new best friends. I just don't know.
You say D thought he did the right thing, and he's your likely suspect for passing along a private journal entry. (Though I never, EVER believe that anything on the Internet is truly private, but we can chalk that up to a naive mistake that you will never do again.) Perhaps this stuff could be forgiven and moved on from, if you believe you could ever trust this couple again...but I'm guessing D didn't come off too well in your online telling of the story? Perhaps he didn't like seeing himself cast as the junior-high instigator who told L she was disliked to her face?
That's a little harder, because I have no idea if D (and by extension, his wife, your best friend) will forgive you for that. (If that even IS an issue, OH MY GOD THIS IS A COMPLICATED QUESTION.) I don't know if personally I'd be able to move past someone betraying my trust and telling tales at dinner parties about who I don't like, even if his intentions were pure. (Which I have a hard time believing, because he had to know L's feelings would be deeply hurt to hear she's disliked.)
As for T and L...I'm sorry, I don't see a solution here, other than you begging for forgiveness and them granting it. I feel sorry for L, even if she is a bit "nutty" and difficult, because the whole handling of this mess has to be so hurtful. She found out that you guys don't like her, and discuss what you don't like with other mutual friends, and just when she's maybe recovering from that, she gets slapped in the face with an Internet tantrum that AGAIN, I'm guessing wasn't particularly balanced and kind.
And unfortunately, I COMPLETELY side with T when it comes to defending his fiance. This is exactly what he's supposed to. I've written before about hoping a friend will take your side over their spouse: Don't. Put yourself in L's shoes and imagine what you would expect your husband to do in this situation. If you had serious concerns about her suitability for T -- like, a secret drug or criminal habit, or cheating, for example -- that would be different and deserve a tough heart-to-heart with him. But the fact that she just bugs you guys and causes drama and takes offense at "innocent" jokes? Nope. You want be friends with T, you needed to find a way to make it work with L. And a way that DIDN'T involve gossiping about her to your best friend and her husband or venting in a friends-only Internet journal.
So. You and D are the primary mess-makers here. It sounds like you've accepted your responsibility but he hasn't. So now you decide who you're willing to apologize to and how much apologizing you're willing to do, even in the face of D and your best friend defending his involvement. And...that's all you can do. It's up to everyone else to accept your apology and forgive you. That might happen! That might...not, and this kerfluffle might completely alter the state and tone of your friendship forever regardless, particularly if you end up resenting everybody for making you accept ALL of the blame. You don't trust them, they likely won't trust you...it just doesn't sound like the recipe for a lot of great dinner parties.
So you apologize and you do what you can, you step away and hope that time will heal wounded feelings and pride, and meanwhile you and your husband sign up for some social classes and events and clubs and try to meet some new friends.
Who you promise to never, ever write about on the Internet.
Photo Source: Leeni!]]>
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Anniversary Gifts for Homebound Parentstag:www.alphamom.com,2010:/smackdown//8.28672010-03-01T13:44:43Z2010-03-01T15:50:07ZWhen illness puts a damper on the party. Amyhttp://alphamom.com/smackdownPhoto by 96dpiDear Great and Powerful Amalah,
This question doesn't have anything to do with beauty routines or sweet-smelling babies or even crabby in-laws, but I do hope you and your readers can help me. From your blog I see that your father has struggled with health issues this past year (I so hope he is doing well now!). This year has also been a trial for my family, particularly my mother, who has seen my father through a very serious illness that has left him with limited mobility, requiring the use of a walker. Their 25th wedding anniversary is coming up in a few months, and I really want to do something special for them, but I have not a single good idea! I thought of sending them away on a long weekend, but I don't think my father would feel comfortable traveling in his new state of disability. They also say they don't want a party, though they will be renewing their vows after a church service (probably to my father's embarrassment, as he is a great introvert). I want to do something truly meaningful, to show how much I love and appreciate them. Plus, after this awful year, they truly deserve something wonderful. My budget could be up to $750. Please help me in my gift-giving desperation!
Signed,
A Grateful Daughter
Okay! A few ideas, and now that I've thought of them, I really need to get going on for my own parents, who are really in the exact same place as yours. (Why haven't I? I don't know! I have shamed myself! An Advice Smackdown first!) My dad is...well, some days are better than others. (Days without another freaking bout of pneumonia are the best!) Here are some thoughts on how to make an anniversary one of those better days...or give them a series of better days.
1) A photo book with photo restoration service. Your parents probably have a lot of old photos, no? Albums full of yellowing baby photos and faded family vacation pics? Sneak in, steal them. Get them restored and color-corrected and preserved digitally. This can be by an actual photo restoration service, though many professional photographers also offer it, or just someone you know who is a whiz at Photoshop. THEN, create a new photo book for them. Sort through the photos and find your favorite childhood memories, or ones of them while they were dating, or some other story. I made photo books for family this Christmas at Shutterfly (disclosure: I was given one free one as part of an ad campaign, then paid for the additional books) and they were a HUGE hit. My parents are adamant that they do not want or need any additional "stuff," so photo books are a nice small thing that feels big. (Another photo-centric idea: a web-enabled digital photo frame. If your parents have wifi the frame can connect to an online photo album and fetch new photos you [and other family members] have uploaded, so your parents can always see the latest pictures of grandkids and such.)
2) Maid service. Your mom is likely exhausted from taking care of your dad. Your dad is likely frustrated that he can no longer do things like run the vacuum and very aware that your mom is the only one who can clean the toilets. Depending on where they live, that $750 could get them several months' worth of biweekly visits. (This is also a good one to go into with siblings or other family members looking to make day-to-day life easier for them.)
3) Every delivery service you can think of. So this might not pack the kind of meaningful emotional whallop you were aiming for, but it's another one with almost daily impact. Whenever I talk to my mom I'm always struck by how a simple trip to the pharmacy takes insane amounts of planning for her, since it's too hard for my dad to come along but leaving him alone in the house isn't ideal either (what if he fell? what if his heart acts up? what if what if what if?) Sign them up (and teach them how to use) a DVD service like Netflix and a book swap site like Paperback Swap. Set up recurring deliveries for stuff like pet food, basic groceries, etc. Coffee, wine, cheese of the month clubs...whatever they like. Get it delivered right to their door so the stress of running errands is minimized as much as possible.
4) An in-home dinner with a private chef. Going out to eat is REALLY hard for someone with limited mobility. (My dad still has to cart an oxygen tank everywhere too, in addition to a cane or walker.) But if that was ever one of their favorite things to do -- or at least their go-to plan for celebrating special occasions -- they probably miss it. Find a private chef that specializes in their favorite cuisine (or one they had on vacation, if they ever traveled abroad), or call their favorite restaurant and see if they'd be willing to help you out. Places that offer cooking classes are another good place to start, since many of them are taught by private chefs who do this sort of thing all the time. This way they can have an amazing anniversary dinner without the hassle of cooking OR having to really be reminded of your dad's limitations. In addition to the dinner, have flowers delivered and a mix CD of their favorite songs to play during the meal. ]]>
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Registering for a Second Babytag:www.alphamom.com,2010:/smackdown//8.28622010-02-26T13:23:16Z2010-02-27T07:36:59ZWhat you need when you don't actually need anything.Amyhttp://alphamom.com/smackdownPhoto by SashaWDear All-Knowing-Amy,
First I must say that I absolutely love your blog and that your children are absolutely adorable! Alright then, I am expecting my second baby the very end of July (one week before my daughter's 2nd birthday!!!!). My husband and I like to keep the gender a secret until the birth and besides coming up with names I'm stressing over the baby registry. I don't expect to even have a shower but know that my family and friends will want to throw one. I have kept everything that I got for my daughter; car seat, stroller, bassinet, mini crib, crib, bumbo, boppy, slings/carriers, tons of unused bottles, ALL of her clothes, etc.
I just worry that since I feel I don't really need anything, besides boy stuff if this little one decides to pop out with a package, that I will freak out once the baby is here and realize OMG I need *this* or *that* like now! So Amy can you please help calm the nerves of a hormonal pregnant woman and possible give advice on what you feel I might need to add to my baby registry for this one? Right now I'm figuring just asking for diapers and gift cards (store and restaurant) when people ask and maybe a new crib mattress since my daughter will be keeping hers for her new toddler bed. I swear I didn't stress this much with her baby registry, it was just so much easier it seemed.
Thanks,
Frazzled Second Timer
Relax! I think you're doing just fine. I think your plan (diapers, gift cards, crib mattress) sounds solid.
By the time a friend of mine ever-so-casually suggested that I should reallllllly toss a few things on a baby registry or wish list, COUGH COUGH SURPRISE SHOWER, I was thoroughly convinced that there flat-out nothing we needed. We'd already replaced a few items from Noah's babyhood that hadn't held up as well as we'd hoped. We'd already found out that we could go ahead and reuse all those blue clothes.
But you know? I found stuff to register for. Some of it was just...well, stuff to put on the baby registry for the sake of having stuff on the registry, but for the most part I was able to focus on REALLY USEFUL STUFF. And in areas where we were pretty well covered on the useful stuff, I indulged in some plain-old fun stuff. A few suggestions of stuff to add to a second-baby registry:
*Cloth diaper burp cloths
Remember how many of these you went through at first? Trust me, IT'S EVEN MORE THAN YOU REMEMBER.
*Bath supply sets (shampoo, body wash, lotions, rash creams, etc.)
Even if, like us, you still use baby products on your older child, it's handy to have extras, or to try a different brand in case of skin allergies or sensitivities.
*Extra waterproof mattress pads
Since you're registering for a new mattress, don't forget the waterproof pads. We reused all our sheets but the pads stayed with the toddler bed. I asked for an extra three-pack for laundry purposes. GOOD CALL.
*A good unisex or daddy diaper bag, if you don't have one
I've sung the praises of the Diaper Dude messenger bags before, I know. With TWO babies, there's a lot more jostling and swapping and negotiating out in public. You're going to want to pass off the diaper bag to your husband a lot more this time around. He deserves his own cool bag. Baby Skooch and Stork Tools also make nice "dad" bags.
*Double stroller
We were so sure we wouldn't need a double stroller for at least six months to a year, if ever. And sure, Ezra probably spent more time at first in a sling or Ergo than the Phil & Ted's (that we caved and purchased less than two months in), there were just times when a double stroller was really handy. Could we have done without it? Probably. Would it have been really awesome to have had Other People buy it for us? HELL TO THE YES.
Cute socks
This was my big goofy indulgence for Ezra: We had clothes and onesies and bibs and hats...but baby socks don't exactly hold up too well. They get lost and pilly and stretched out. Or at least...that was my justification for adding a dozen different gift sets of Trumpette baby socks and BabyLegs legwarmers to my registry. People LOVE buying cutesy stuff like this, and I loved getting it. Ezra wore those Trumpette socks every dang day until they no longer fit over his fat little feet, and still rocks the legwarmers on a regular basis. (They're my favorite for extending the life of one-piece romper outfits that are too short in the legs. SNEAKY!)
*Things that makes you go hmm
Even though your daughter isn't yet two, I guarantee that a stroll through a baby superstore or specialty boutique will reveal all kinds of NEW and IMPROVED and INGENIOUS gear and gadgets. Some of it might be the stuff you'd never buy for yourself ($9 European pacifiers! reusable bamboo wipes with warmer! fancy crib mobiles! extra diaper changing station pod things! your favorite sling in a new awesome fabric!), but I admit: it's FUN to get gifts like this, particularly for a second baby who seems doomed to a life of never-ending hand-me-downs.
And really, a lot of stuff that I put in this category turned out to be incredibly useful: Miracle Blankets, the aforementioned wipes/warmer combo (which we use for the convenience of a tub full o' ready-to-use wipes, not really for the temperature), baby food cookbooks, a variety of different fancy bottles for a baby who rejected the ones Noah loved. Some of it? Not so much. (Cough NEW EXTRA FANCY SWINGS cough.) But live and learn.
BUT ALSO: We bought a lot of that stuff AFTER Ezra arrived. He arrived and didn't fit into any of Noah's clothes. He arrived and would only sleep when swaddled. He arrived and just did a whole MESS of different stuff and liked different things and some hand-me-downs worked and some didn't. So...we used those Amazon gift certificates and Target gift cards and bought the stuff we needed. And somehow WE ALL SURVIVED.
So don't stress out. You're likely extremely well-prepared for this baby. Do a test run on reassembling all your existing gear to make sure parts aren't missing, and (this is important) spend some time on Google to make sure nothing you've saved has been recalled by the manufacturer. (Incidentally, a favorite cloth book of BOTH of my boys has lead in it. I AM THRILLED.) Add a few useful things to your registry, a few fun things, hoard the gift cards for later. You'll be fine.]]>
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Birth Control & Postpartum Depressiontag:www.alphamom.com,2010:/smackdown//8.28492010-02-24T13:53:42Z2010-02-25T14:53:31ZAnother dilemma from the "my birth control is driving me crazy" files. Plus: a round up of the non-hormonal options.Amyhttp://alphamom.com/smackdownHi Amy!
I have been a long time reader and seem to recall you had issues with birth control and anxiety, depression? I have a 4 month old, and recently went back on the mini-pill to prevent another pregnancy so soon after my little boy was born. However, I feel awful. I was dealing with being a mommy pretty well I thought before I went on these, except for the obvious exhaustion with nighttime feedings and all of that. But I felt like a human, like I wanted to wake up each morning. Now though, even though my little boy is smiling and laughing and rolling over (yay!) I find no joy in waking up in the mornings, in fact my husband gets up with the baby every morning so I can get my extra rest, but really I just lay there mustering up the courage to get up and do it all over again. My little boy hardly ever cries but when he does, I feel like losing it. I have to sometimes put in him in the crib and just scream into pillows in the garage so he won't hear me. I resent my husband every time he isn't home to save me. I HATE feeling this way, especially since I am getting more sleep now, and my baby is way more fun than when he was a newborn. I think this is related to going back on the pill because the effects were almost immediate. I felt anxious 2 days after starting up again, and now it has just spiraled. I am stopping taking them tonight, but I wanted to know, is this common? I am breastfeeding, does this hormonal therapy add to the hormones of a bf mommy and make you crazy? I feel crazy. I have always been an optimist, someone who loves life, I wanted this baby more than anything, and I am lucky enough to be home with him! It's everything I wanted, so it's awful to not want to get out of bed in the morning.
So.....clearly I am stopping the pill, once I realized that might be it (yesterday while staring out the window). But, other than condoms are there other forms of "birth control" that work? We never did any sort of family planning, we basically had sex after I stopped taking the regular pill, which I did for 10 years with no issues, and I got pregnant, 20 days later. It was great! But now I am thinking I never want to take hormonal birth control, ever, again. I just want to be human again, and I don't want to get pregnant right away either but would love to keep my marriage intact, intimacy-wise ;-). Please help!!
Thanks a bunch!
C
Yes, hormonal birth control -- even low-dosage varieties -- are known to aggravate symptoms of depression and anxiety, and perhaps even more so for postpartum depression (PPD). Pretty much every handout and info sheet out there cautions against hormonal birth control for women currently being treated for PPD.
Your case, however, sounds a tad bit different, since you didn't have any symptoms of PPD until you started the mini-pill. So...sure. It definitely could be from the pill alone, and good for you for connecting those dots and stopping it. Pregnancy and birth and breastfeeding have your hormones already out of whack, so I can definitely buy that you could suddenly start having bad reactions to something you've taken in the past.
OR. It could seriously just be a coincidental case of Crap Timing. Regular ol' garden variety PPD can actually start any time in the first year: three to four months is actually a pretty common starting point. So please, keep on top of your symptoms. Don't automatically assume that you're cured and it was all the pill's fault and you just need to give yourself a few weeks to get it out of your system. And then a few weeks turns into a couple months and you still don't feel like yourself. I certainly hope that the pill is what did it and you'll be back to your old self in no time, but please please don't rule out the chance that this is actual genuine PPD and will need to be addressed by your doctor.
As for non-hormonal birth control (NHBC) options, our commenters pretty much addressed every option out there on a recent question about IUDs and depression. Let's round them up:
Over-the-Counter NHBC
* Condoms (latex, non-latex, lambskin)
* Contraceptive sponges
* Spermicide
Prescription NHBC
* Diaphragms
* Cervical caps
* Lea's Shield
* Some IUDs
Other NHBC
* The Fertility Awareness Method (FAM)
* The Withdrawal (pull-out) Method
My! What a motley line-up we have here. The efficacy rate on some of these options may sound a bit depressing at first, but most couples end up doubling or tripling up (i.e. she gets a diaphragm or cap, he wears a condom, they both use spermicidal lube). And they may combine these with one of the methods from the "other" category, using the barriers only during her likely fertile times of the month.
Personally, I don't have any experience with any of the prescription options. Or the sponge. We use a hodgepodge of the natural family planning methods (one thing infertility will give you is an almost painfully detailed awareness of what your body is and isn't doing) and condoms. But we're not the get-pregnant-within-the-first-20-days-of-trying couple. Or first 20 MONTHS, even.
A lot of couples mention latex sensitivities as the top reason condoms are a no-go, but non-latex versions are available (Durex Avanti and Trojan Supra) and are quite thin-looking, but are actually stronger than latex. And if your partner complains that condoms just "don't fit" or "are uncomfortable," take note! It's probably not his penis. It's his ego. A recent study found that 45% of men surveyed buy the WRONG SIZE condom, mostly because they dislike buying anything labeled "medium" or "small," even if that's what will fit them properly. Proper fit means better protection AND better sex, so maybe add condoms to your shopping list and actually consult the size guidelines. Then bring them home and toss the box, then ask him to go out and buy you some super-absorbancy tampons.
Photo source.]]>
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Dealing with an Inappropriate Bosstag:www.alphamom.com,2010:/smackdown//8.28442010-02-22T13:35:24Z2010-02-23T15:52:05ZDear Employers Of The World: Please refrain from making "fat jokes" about your pregnant employees. Amyhttp://alphamom.com/smackdown
Dear Amalah,
I'm a big fan of your column, and I'm having a work-related dilemma right now, so I thought I'd reach out for some advice. Here's the deal: after graduating college and spending about six months substitute teaching during the worst time to be job searching EVER, I took my current position at a large non-profit organization. I had previous non-profit experience with grant-writing, fundraising, and communications, which are all areas I'm, looking to grow professionally in. Well, I believed that I would have the opportunity to grow a little more in these areas in this new position, while doing some typical entry-level admin stuff - which I have no problem with, and hey, I needed a job!
After a couple of months I realized this wasn't the job for me -- no opportunities for professional growth, a boss who is constantly disorganized and behind on her work, and basically looking for someone (ME) to do all of the things she can't be bothered with. Like listen to her voicemails because she doesn't feel like it. Or explain to frustrated colleagues why she doesn't return their emails or meet deadlines. Or print documents for her, even though there is a printer sitting on her desk, because she doesn't feel like getting up. At this rate, I have barely anything positive to add to my resume because of this job. She also feels free to comment on my personal life (my fiance is too old for me, I need to loosen up and be more fun, etc.) and told me one day while I was wearing a v-neck shirt (pretty standard, not too low) that people wouldn't take me seriously if I dress like that.
Here's the thing -- at the same time I realized I wanted to leave this job, I found out I was pregnant. I wanted to leave but hated to go somewhere new and abandon a new job within six months, so I thought that I could stick it out for six months and then just not come back after the baby is born. However, my boss has gotten more and more inappropriate as my pregnancy progresses. Yesterday she actually told me I "looked really fat" in a meeting and then tried to pass it off as a joke. WTF?! I didn't have time to respond because a coworker jumped in and told me how great I look to cover the awkwardness, but what can I do in situations like that? This is the same male coworker that she has repeatedly asked "are you sure you're not gay?" when he turns down cookies because he's trying to watch his weight. I mean, this is not okay!! I've mentioned my frustrations to said coworker, but he says he's used to it and just turns it into joke. However, she makes me uncomfortable.
My fiance has suggested that I put together a list of areas where I feel like she's lacking as a manager and send it to her and try to talk to her about it, or if she doesn't respond, pass those on to her supervisor or HR. He's made the excellent point that after I leave, someone else will have to suffer under her supervision, and the organization deserves to know how she treats employees. I get this, but I have three months left, and I hate the idea of having to confront her - she makes me so uncomfortable as it is. I hate to say I'm afraid to confront her, but I'm so hormonal as it is, I really don't want burst into tears in front of this lady!
Sorry for this super long email - it's all to say - what should I do? What is the best way to handle this boss until I leave, and how can I do something about her inappropriate actions without making my life more miserable here than it is?
Thanks,
D
So it sounds like you actually have two problems here:
1) Your boss asks you to do menial grudgework and stifles your professional growth, and...
2) She's socially a bit weird and inappropriate.
Two separate problems that require separate tactics.
The first problem does in fact require a face-to-face meeting with her, though it sounds like you've pretty much checked out of this job and given up hope that things could change enough to keep you there. But I wouldn't say it requires a "confrontation." Or you showing up with a list of her failings and your suggestions for improvement -- that is not your job. Or your place.
Instead, you ask for a meeting to discuss your future post-baby plans. You keep it positive, but specific. "I would really like to return to this company after the baby is born, however I have a few concerns that are keeping me from committing to that plan 100%." Then you talk about the lack of resume growth and long-term career options. Be specific and have ideas ready. You'd really like to work on projects like A, B and C. You'd like to take on more responsibility in areas like X, Y and Z. Don't whine about the tasks that are "beneath" you, but instead say things like you're "looking to be challenged" and "grow within the organization" and you'd appreciate her help and guidance in making that happen.
And even if she says no, this position is what it is and things are what they are...well, you're basically no worse off than you are now: Biding your time at a dead-end job for a couple more months. (Remember, if you plan on not returning, you must disclose that fact ahead of time ANYWAY. It's highly unethical to wait until after you've taken maternity leave benefits to quit. And the last thing you need after all this job has put you through already is to end up with a bad reference from them going forward. We have written a couple of times about this: When Should I Tell My Boss I'm Pregnant? & When Should I Tell My Boss I'm Pregnant? (The New Employee Edition))
Now, if you really don't think this job is worth that, but continue to be unnerved by problem #2, the inappropriate comments/jokes/whatevers, you have a couple options. And while I disagree with your husband's suggestion of confronting her yourself, I do agree with his point that SOMEONE is going to have to deal with her going forward, and she may be creating potential liability for the company (i.e. comments about people's bodies and sexuality are, like you said, NOT OKAY).
Step one: Keep a journal or log of every inappropriate comment she makes to you. Be specific. And keep the stuff from problem #1 out of it. Make sure you aren't reading into things too much because of your Other Feelings about her as a boss, but if something makes you genuinely uncomfortable, write it down.
Step two: Meet with Human Resources. This is what they are there for. You can ask to keep the meeting confidential. (You can also invite your male coworker. He may genuinely not be bothered by her comments anymore...or he might just need a little nudge in the direction of "enough is enough.") Give HR all your specific examples of her inappropriate office banter and exactly how she makes you feel uncomfortable. You don't have to sound like you're trying to get her in major trouble here: You're just tired of it and unsure of what to say to her, or need some advice on how to keep things at a more professional level.
I had to do this exact. Same. Thing. By the way. I don't really want to go into a lot of detail, but I too showed up in my company's Human Resources department, pregnant and hormonal and FED UP with a male coworker's inability to keep things even vaguely in the realm of appropriate. (Seriously, people: Do. Not. Make. Fat. Jokes. About. Pregnant. Coworkers. It's not funny, and we don't like it.) We were friends, which made it really, really hard to do...and yet...no. NO. I couldn't take it anymore. It turned out I wasn't the first one to log a complaint. You may find that to be true in your case as well, or at least find that HR sort of..."knows" about this woman and her big mouth but have nothing "on the record" to actually go and talk to her about. A reason to give her a little refresher course on what you say (and don't say) to people who work with you and for you.
Now, you may have one other option: An exit interview. Some companies require one, whenever someone quits, and most companies are happy to grant you one, if you request it. Ideally it should be with HR, or someone above whoever you directly report to. This is -- again -- only if you really choose to give up and abandon ship at the end of your pregnancy. You can really let it all hang out at an exit interview -- the crazy pointless tasks, the inappropriate comments, the fact that you are not really leaving because of the baby, you are leaving because of her. The company DOES need to know...though I'm guessing they will probably wonder -- and may even ask -- why the hell you didn't try to do anything about any of it beforehand. ]]>
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Young at Heart. And Hair Follicles.tag:www.alphamom.com,2010:/smackdown//8.28402010-02-19T14:11:42Z2010-02-22T16:40:26ZA young mom is afraid she's too old for purple hair. Amyhttp://alphamom.com/smackdownPhoto by seanomatopoeiaDear Amy,
I'm looking at spring fashion / style / hair / makeup / whatever trends, and I'm seeing lots of lovely pink hair. Pink streaks or pink-tipped lower layers, usually on blondes. There's also some pale green, though that's a harder color for most people to pull off. Hair colors not found in nature are not for everyone, obviously, but I love it. I want it!
My hair is dark brown, cut into a funky messy pixie, with one side longer than the other. I am considering getting a couple of lavender streaks in the long side, put into the underlayers so that they peek through the dark brown on top. I have a stylist who can handle lavender hair dye. My question is not whether or not it will look good. My question is whether or not I am too old for it.
I will be 33 next month. I have a child who will be 2 in a few weeks. I am a long, long, long way from the pert teenage models who are sporting pink streaks in the style pages. Am I too old for lavender streaks in my hair? I'm not afraid of looking quirky, but I am afraid of looking like mutton dressed as lamb.
Please advise.
Yours truly,
K
GO FOR IT! GO FOR IT! (clap clap clap clap) GO FOR IT!
Seriously, what else can I say? You like it, you want it, you think-slash-already-know it will look good. It sure sounds to me like it will look good, and if 32 is too old to be doing fun, crazy stuff with your hair, then SHOOT ME NOW, because the next few decades sound too boring to bear. You know, to this 32-year-old.
I did the pink hair a couple years ago, and my recent switch to red hair actually started with a discussion of adding in a few streaks of a punk red and then spiraled from there, with my stylist getting giddy at the chance to try a super-dramatic makeover.
I am a fan of dressing "age-appropriately," though I absolutely could not tell you what that even means, definitively. It's soooo different for everyone, and has just as much to do with ATTITUDE as it does the age on your driver's license. A 40-something who is happy and confident and takes care of herself looks very different in a short skirt than one who is unhappy and desperate for attention/lost youth/love/whatever.
I'm 32. I wear skinny jeans and minidresses and trends and more than occasionally realize I am the oldest lady in the store, including everybody working there. And definitely the only with TWO CHILDREN in tow. And I do not take this as a cue to head out the door. I know my style and what looks cute on me and what doesn't (I don't do much tight-around-the-middle stuff or anything midriff-baring, oh my God) and...well, my husband likes it when I wear short skirts and high heels. And I don't really give a crap about anyone else's opinion -- I left all that angst and worry behind in high school. And frankly, I'm just not ready for highwaisted pants and elastic waistbands and sensible sweater sets and a Mom Bob. And I don't see why I should be.
You're a mom. You're also still a YOUNG WOMAN who knows what she likes and what she doesn't. GO FOR IT.
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Glider Smackdowntag:www.alphamom.com,2010:/smackdown//8.28382010-02-17T13:45:16Z2010-02-18T06:43:15ZThe "YOU MUST BUY THIS" people have claimed another terrified pregnant victim.Amyhttp://alphamom.com/smackdownPhoto by ⅯeaganAmalah!
I am struggling with an earth-shatteringly important question as I start to plan a nursery for my first baby. (Ha.) All of my Mom-Friends insist that I have to get a Dutailier glider. They swear it is the most comfortable chair in the world, worth every penny, and will save me during long nursing sessions and late-night snoozes in the baby's room. One of them even bought a second one when she had a second baby, so there would be one in the living room and one in the nursery (she lives in a house, which I don't).
I care a lot about interiors and my living environment, and I'm a little terrified by the idea of handing over my style to the child so early in the game; I'd hoped to fight the good fight for at least a year or two before the toy explosion takes over. There are some decent modern styles available, but they still aren't normally something I'd spend so much money on.
On the other hand, my best friend insists that all the moms *she* knows have nothing of the sort, and use armchairs or daybeds or couches for nursing. I'd obviously rather just buy a comfy chair, but I can see the logic in both the gliding motion and the higher back to provide a head rest late at night.
What do you/the readers think? Are gliders worth it?
Thank you so much!
K
Let me start off with my own story. We'll call it Rocking Around the Crazy Clock with Amalah.
When I was pregnant with Noah, my mom offered me a glider/rocker from her house -- a very old one, the very same old one she'd rocked me in as a baby and comforted me in as a child. Awww! And she was really excited about giving to me! She'd made new neutral-colored cushions and reupholstered it and my in-laws could fit it in their car and everything! The thought of me having this rocker made her so happy, she said!
So...point the first, there was no way I could justify buying a more modern-style glider when a free one was there and available. Point the second, what, did I seriously not care about breaking my poor mother's heart?
I accepted the rocker. On one hand, it actually looked better than most of the standard glider options out there, and at one time was a very good, solid piece of furniture. On the other hand, it did not recline or have an ottoman or footstool, there was no where to rest your head and it creaked like. crazy. every. time. you. rocked. The un-upholstered arms made nursing kind of awkward, what with needing to cover them with blankets and pillows to shield Noah's little head. Plus, it was kind of crazy uncomfortable, as the new cushions were not very sturdy.
You can probably guess how often I used it. Somehow, we all survived.
But if there was one thing I was determined to get a do-over on, it was the glider. Ezra's nursery was far too small to accommodate any extra furniture, but I'd cleared a corner in our bedroom for it, since we were planning to co-sleep or room-share at first anyway. This meant that 1) we needed something that would not look hideous in our room, and 2) we were not making a long-term lifetime commitment to furniture here, having other plans for that corner once the baby days were over. Thus, I was not going to spend multiple hundreds of dollars on anything, ugly or otherwise.
We shopped. We compared. We spent ages searching the internet for that perfect combination of Not Totally Ugly and Not Obscenely Expensive. We hovered over Craigslist like hawks.
In the end, we bought a used one from a local reader of my blog. I think she originally got it at Target. It didn't have all the bells and whistles I'd originally wanted, but it was the right wood and fabric color and was small enough to NOT be a giant frumpy monstrosity taking over the left half of our bedroom. Plus, we'd paid so little for it we could honestly just donate it to charity without a second thought of wanting to get some of our money back.
And you know? I used that rocker a lot...during the day. I never once found the need to nurse sitting upright at night. I never wanted to! When Ezra was super-brand-new I was recovering from my c-section, and getting out of bed was painful. So when Ezra needed to eat at night, Jason helped me prop myself up with pillows and I would stick one behind my bed and sort of...doze that way. Once I mastered nursing on my side, while lying down, I never ever did anything else at night. Or first thing in the morning. Even after Ezra moved to his crib, Jason and I kept our division of night labor deal going: I did all the nursing, he did all the retrieving and diaper changing. So why bother getting out of bed if I didn't have to?
Side-nursing in bed was so darned convenient and comfortable, and I could actually SLEEP. I don't know about you, but personally I cannot sleep upright. I've probably never gotten more than 10 minutes of sleep on a red-eye flight, I've rarely (if ever) actually slept in the passenger seat of a car, and I can't even fall asleep on our couch without first moving into a more horizontal position. So I don't know why I stressed out so much about having a glider I could sleep in. I am not sure such a thing really exists, for me, not even the almightly Dutailier.
The glider became our nighttime nursing routine spot, but...not really because it was anything other than a convenient, comfy chair. I could have climbed in our bed or sat in the old non-rocking decorative Ikea chair that the glider displaced. I used it to settle Ezra down before naps and whenever we had company and I was tired of popping my boob out in front of everybody. I nursed him for the last and final time there last August, and soon after that our bedroom's clutter started gravitating there, and it currently sits under a spare quilt, some toys and a pile of towels I need to put away.
Everybody's experience is different, but seriously, any time ANYBODY (including me and my big mouth) tells you that you absolutely MUST HAVE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT , don't get too worked up right away. Neither of my boys would fall asleep in my arms while rocking. Noah liked rocking in his swing...but if I tried holding him in the rocker he assumed it was time to eat or play, not sleep. Same deal with Ezra, minus the swing part. He was all about the swaddling. As long as I swaddled him up tight, I could have swung upside down from a flying trapeze and still gotten that boy to sleep.
For other babies -- your friends' babies, I'm guessing -- a glider is a ticket to dreamland, and convenient to THEIR personal house/nursery setup and THEIR nighttime routine. The problem is that you just don't know what kind of baby you'll get, or what kind of nighttime routine will work for that baby. Yet during pregnancy we are all consumed with the need to BUY EVERYTHING to cover EVERY POSSIBLE BABY SCENARIO.
(I got particularly itchy about the glider because you had to ORDER THEM from the store and that could take WEEKS and what if the baby is born and we suddenly realize we need a glider more than anything in the WORLD and we go all those weeks without even ONE MINUTE of sleep all because of the GLIDER OMG OMG OMG PANT PANT PANT.)
So...look. If you find a chair that you think is super-comfortable and would look nice in your nursery, go for that. If you don't find one or just plain don't want one, skip it. If you change your mind later, that's okay too. You must have...diapers. Breastmilk or formula. Some clothes, blankets. A carseat. Everything else is just excess frippery. Convenient excess frippery, for sure, but you absolutely can survive babyhood without it.
If you MUST know what to buy now and what you can hold off on, look through our Baby Registry Checklist (there's a printable version in there).
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A Year in Cloth Diaperstag:www.alphamom.com,2010:/smackdown//8.28352010-02-15T13:59:05Z2010-02-16T16:29:17ZYes. We're still talking about this.Amyhttp://alphamom.com/smackdown
Hey amy,
I'm pregnant with my first baby *squeee!*
Originally we planned on putting money aside each paycheck to stock up on diapers, and later in the pregnancy actually stocking the house with them. (My friend wrote me a list of how many of what sizes to have. yay!) but recently I have spent late nights- until my eyes feel like they're peeling out of my head- researching what cloth diapers we might choose. (I read about the cloth for a long time before we got pregnant. mentioned it to my husband and that went out the window. But since I have shown him a video and the benefits, and the PRICE. He is all about letting me make that decision.)
I know that people all have their preferences. I read through your threeor fourarticles about yourcloth nappyexperience and bumGenius over Fuzzi Bunz. BUT Fuzzi Bunz now has a new diaper - and it seems to cover all the things that you preferred about bumGenius. *proceeds to scratch eyes out- aaah what if I pick wrong?! what if I hate them to begin with?!*
I don't know if it makes any difference on the choice of WHY you go for cloth diapers, I'm all about the fact that it's ohmygod those disposables are expensive! and because I like the idea of little to no rashes on their sweet little buns.
Also, do you use disposable wipes? Do you have an amazing washing machine? I'm limited to a European washer/dryer combo. Oy vey. which are small and.. not like the best things in the world. On average, how many diapers will a newborn go through a day? One cloth diaper website is telling me to expect only five diaper changes, but that seems like too little?
Thank you!
I seriously am having dreams about diapers now...
Okay, breathe! BREATHE! Welcome to the absolute worst part of cloth diapering. I know, because I was there. The awful, overwhelming, eye-twitching comparison shopping and conflicting advice and four hundred slightly different diaper styles and colors and package deals and then there's the DETERGENT! WHAT IF I BUY THE WRONG DETERGENT? AAAaaeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiii!
So I've now been cloth diapering for a full year now. I've lived and learned and loved and grown as a person and all that. My opinions currently look something like this:
1) My Fuzzi Bunz were prone to leaks because they were too big. I'd purchased Mediums, per their size chart. Ezra was 15 pounds, and the diapers seemed to fit fine on the tightest snap setting. After a few months, the leaking problem mysteriously stopped. The only thing that had changed was Ezra's weight. While I would describe him as pretty average-sized, his thighs are not particularly thunderous, so it seems like he wasn't really ready for the Medium size until he was closer to 20 pounds.
2) The Fuzzi Bunz snaps are holding up better than the bumGenius velcro. I will likely send the BGs off to someone crafty on Etsy and get them converted to snaps later this year. This costs a couple bucks per diaper, plus shipping and your time and all of that. (This is the ONLY wear and tear complaint I have about any of the diapers -- after a full year of constant use and a bajillion washings, everything else looks practically new, save for a little staining on some inserts.) Part of our problem is that my husband never freaking remembers to use the laundry tabs before washing the diapers, no matter how many times I remind him, oh my GOD. This means they often emerge from the wash entangled and connected, which certainly doesn't help the lifespan of the velcro.
3) I was thoroughly disappointed with Gro Baby diapers. I wanted to love them, oh, I really did. They are adorable diapers. The idea is that although a single diaper has a higher price point (around $25 for one cover, insert and booster pad), you can reuse the covers and only change the insert during the day. Well. Except that after you unsnap a urine-soaked insert...the cover SMELLS LIKE PEE. I don't know if I have a Major Pee-er or something, but there was just no way I ever felt good about reusing that cover more than two changes in a row. And forget about poop. Poop will ALWAYS spread beyond the insert and get on the cover, even with a liner. So basically...you really need just as many of these diapers as with any diapering system, which means the higher cost per diaper is a dealbreaker. Plus, the inserts take longer to dry.
4) Washing cloth diapers in my mother-in-law's uber-fancy stylish-looking high-efficiency washer is a pain in the butt, and I prefer my ancient top-loader. Cold soak, hot wash, two rinses. Half scoop of Charlie's Soap. Occasionally I wash the inserts separately with a smidgen of bleach to combat any staining or stink build-up.
5) We use cloth wipes, as well. If you do cloth wipes, I recommend splurging on a warmer. (We have this one.) It keeps the wipes warm and wet, making them not very different from disposable wipes at all. We also use the bumGenius Bottom Cleaner spray.
6) Cloth diapers rule. Still. Again.
So! What does all this mean for you, dear panicked questioner? First, fear not about your washer and dryer -- they'll be just fine. Likewise, YOU'LL be fine with whatever diapers you go with. There will be pros and cons and stuff you like and stuff you don't. The new one-size Fuzzi Bunz are probably great! The sized ones are too! So are bumGenius! I don't really recommend the Gro Baby but whatever! I'm sure other people have had great success with them!
Are you having a shower? Find a cloth diaper site that offers a registry and toss a few of each brand on there! When people ask what you need, politely request a gift certificate for your nappy fund. Then fill out your collection from there. I think five changes a day for a newborn is indeed too low -- more like eight to 10, honestly. (They poop EVERY TIME they eat, and they eat every couple hours, so...yes. Plan on 10 a day, at first.) Five changes is what you can expect from an older baby -- that's about where we are now. For maximum cost savings, you can buy secondhand diapers, or skip the fancy pocket diapers and do prefolds with covers. We always keep a small package of cheap store-brand disposables (I like Target Up & Up) on hand in case of emergency, like a broken washer or travel or NO POWER FOR FOUR DAYS. I'm a die-hard cloth user, but I'm not a moron.
Let's face facts: diapers are expensive, no matter what option you go with. Cloth diapers have the higher upfront investment (and endless choices and accessories) that can make them seem more daunting than they actually are. Just buy some. If you're doing too much wash and need more, buy a few more, of the same brand or a different one. You'll probably have a favorite, but that doesn't render your less-favorite diapers to be useless and unusable and DIAPER DISASTER. (We still use that Gro Baby diaper, though not overnight.) If I were preparing to cloth diaper a newborn, I'd probably go for the same half-FB and half BG set-up, both in the one-size styles. I just like them both, for different reasons and purposes. It's kind of like debating between Huggies and Pampers. Everybody has their preference and loyalty, but in the end, they're all just freaking DIAPERS.]]>
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