Showing posts with label systems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label systems. Show all posts

Sunday, April 10, 2016

baby losing weight during teething | Cloth diapering a newborn logistics

baby losing weight during teething




Baby #4 is now 2 and a half months old. Weve been cloth diapering him since he was 1 or 2 weeks old and it has been going great! I posted when we had been cloth diapering him for 2 weeks and weve made a few changes to our regime. We are still using covers and prefolds, but we had to change our overnight solution and adjust our prefold fold. We also dealt with our first "diaper rash."

Overnights
 
The biggest change has been dealing with overnights. Baby #4 has been an excellent sleeper. I feed him around 9-10 pm and he routinely sleeps until 3-4 am. He has even done a few all nighters, eating at 9-10 pm and going all the way to 5:30-6:30 am. This has been great for me, but not the best for just a cover and prefold! We switched him to a Thirsties Fitted Diaper Size 1 and our same Thirsties Size 1 covers. Again, this worked well for a couple nights until every single morning he was leaking out of the same spot on the front of his diaper, no matter how carefully we adjusted the cover over the fitted diaper. I talked to the gal at our local baby store and she recommended that we switch to a larger size cover, like the one size Flip cover. The Flip cover is larger than our Thirsties Size 1. It has snaps on the front to adjust the size, just like all our other snap covers, and so it easily fit him. It did the trick! Now we have no leaking issues at night.
 
This is what a Thristies Fitted Size 1 diaper looks like. The entire diaper is absorbent, which is ideal for night. You must put a cover over a fitted diaper.?
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We use a Flip cover over our Thristies Fitted diaper. Just like with a prefold and cover, you need to make sure that the entire fitted diaper is covered by the cover or it will leak. We have really liked this solution for night. Baby #4 tends to wet more after his first feed in the morning, not during the night or at his night feed, so I usually change his diaper at the 9-10 pm feeding and after his first morning feed at 5:30-6:30 am, even if I feed him in the night at 3-4 am. When Ive changed him at the middle of the night feed, his diaper was dry. In the mornings, I put him in a cover and prefold after his first feed and then change him about an hour later because that is when he wets the most.
 
 


The one size Flip cover is much larger than the Thirsties size 1 cover. We only have one Flip cover right now. The Thirsties size 1 covers have still worked great for us during the day with the prefolds.
 


 
 Daytime {Covers and Prefolds}
 
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?We havent had issues with leakage at all during the day... until the poop blowouts. It started becoming a problem around 8 weeks that he would leak slightly in the leg holes after he pooped. So we adjusted the fold of our diaper and it has worked perfectly for us. I know that people use the Snappies for a traditional cloth diaper fold, but I didnt buy the Snappies and so we modified our fold. Now, with this fold he does not leak out of his cover when he poops. However, he does tend to get his cover dirty when he poops, meaning we change the cover. Everything is contained inside the Thirsties diaper cover, we just need to change the cover.
 
With prefolds and covers, you usually just change the prefold when you go to change the diaper. With this fold, we only change the prefold when the diaper is just wet; when he poops, we sometimes have to change the prefold and the cover. This fold has been working for us just great and this hasnt been a problem. We use 2-3 covers during the day and we have no leak issues.
 
We dont do anything crazy or fancy with this fold. All we do is fan the back and bring the prefold to a point in the front, like so.?
 
 
We then fold the front over so it is more absorbent where he needs it to be.
 
 
Bring the prefold up.
 
 
We cover the prefold with the Thirsties size 1 cover, which is still working great for us during the day.

 
Now that baby #4 is 2 and a half months old and 12 lbs 14 oz, we like to make sure we snap the wings down on the side of our cover. It helps keep everything in place.
 
 
And then we snap the cover on the front! Finished! :) It really isnt that different than how we started. The fanning in the back has helped with the blowouts though.

 
 
Diaper Rash
 
So baby #4 has not had diaper rash like how you think: open sores, welt looking areas, etc. Because we use organic cotton prefolds, the moisture is not wicked away from his skin. During the day, we change his diaper every 1-3 hours. The night diaper is microfiber and wicks the moisture away (plus he doesnt wet much at night), so we havent had issues then. It has just been during the day that weve noticed him having some issues. I talked to the gal at our local baby store and she recommended fleece inserts. I wondered how well this would work, but, Im telling you, it is fleece magic. Whenever we notice his diaper area getting red or rosey, we throw a fleece insert into his diaper to help wick that moisture away from his skin and the next diaper change he is back to normal!
 
This is what the fleece insert looks like. I fold it in half before putting it on him.
 
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We just lay the fleece insert over his diaper area.
 
 
Diaper as usual.
 
 
Good to go! For good measure, we usually stick a fleece insert in his overnight diaper just to make sure that the moisture is extra wicked away from his skin at night, though the microfiber really pulls it away.
 
 
 
Laundry
 
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The first response I hear when people ask me about cloth diapering is: "What about all the laundry?" I said it in my last blog post too, but I havent had issues with the laundry. Since that post, I have made some adjustments to our laundry routine.
 
I like to do our diaper laundry first thing in the morning. The fitted diapers are usually dry by the time we need to diaper baby #4 for overnights (if they arent dry by 7 pm, I do toss them in the dryer on low while we bathe his brothers just to be sure they will be completely dry by 9 pm). I was rinsing the diapers with our diaper sprayer before throwing them in the wet pail. Then I had a conversation with the gal at our local baby store. She said breastmilk poop is water soluble, so she does a rinse cycle in her washer before the wash cycle. Now I throw the soiled diaper in our wet pail after changing baby #4. I empty the wet pail in our washer every morning after the morning feed and put the washer on rinse/soak. After the diapers rinse, I wash them on hot with our cloth diaper detergent.
 
I cant seem to find a straight answer on cloth diaper detergents. It seems some people think that having to use a special cloth diaper detergent is baloney. Other people think the regular laundry detergent is best, like original Tide or original Gain. I dont know. I make our laundry detergent, but I have found mixed reviews on using Borax on cloth diapers. Im nervous about ruining all our cloth diapers, so I havent braved washing them in it yet. For now, I use Babyganics laundry detergent on our cloth diapers. After washing the diapers, I then hang everything to dry. Since it is usually a smaller load (especially for our house), Ill hang everything-- the wipes, diapers, covers, fitted diaper... hang it all. I put this outside in the sun to dry most days. On rainy days or when we are out of the house, I leave it in the laundry room (dont want my covers and wipes to blow away!). The sun has also been great for sun bleaching out the breastmilk poop stains on the covers, prefolds, and wipes.
 
 
 
Do you have any great cloth diapering tips?
 
Check out my other cloth diapering posts under Popular Posts. ?
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Friday, March 25, 2016

zumba for post pregnancy weight loss | Flexible homeschooling

zumba for post pregnancy weight loss





I follow a Facebook page called Simple Homeschool. One of the things that I love about their page is their reoccurring Facebook statuses answering the question, "How has #homeschooling changed your familys life for the better?" Their followers submit their answers and Simple Homeschool features one of the answers. I love reading all the reasons why people love homeschooling. I love reading about how peoples lives have changed for the better because they homeschool and feeling encouraged by their answers, especially the answers I relate too.

We recently took a long trip-- a little over 3 weeks away from the house. We spent a week at the beach with my parents then drove from the beach to my parents house. While at my parents house, I drove from there to a friends house and then back to my parents house. Then I finally made the trek from my parents house back to our house. We did a lot of outings while visiting all these different places, saw a lot of cool things, and saw a lot of familiar (and dearly missed) friends and family. It was so refreshing to mix things up, have a change of scenery, and spend quality time with people we love.

While away, I frequently was grateful we are homeschooling. There were many moments where I said, "I am so glad we homeschool!" to my friends and family. I loved that trip. I loved that we could spend almost a month traveling in the middle of the school year and that school traveled with us. When I left my parents house to go visit my friends, I did school over the weekend so we could take the first couple days of the week off. Homeschooling is so flexible. Being a military family (a submariners wife, nonetheless), flexibility is key. My confidence in our decision to homeschool was most definitely boosted on this trip. I felt that we would have the freedom to travel when my husband gets back on a submarine in the next couple months and that we would also be able to adapt our school schedule to my husbands schedule, guaranteeing we get that family time we need.

After the long trip away, I drove home with the boys on a Sunday. Monday morning I woke up feeling horrible. I completely lost my voice due to a wretched cold. I realized pretty quick that I wouldnt be able to do school without a voice. I decided to take the days off that I was sick. It wasnt until today that my voice came back along with (most of) my energy. Because I was taking it pretty easy this week and putting a lot of things off, we were totally off schedule all day. By early afternoon, it was apparent that school was not going to happen today-- so I didnt make it. I decided that we would finish out the week in our "unschooling" style and resume structured homeschool on Monday when weve had time to get back on schedule after the trip and my cold. How awesome is that? No tears, no fuss, just doing what works best for us. If you have ever forced more than one child out the door in the morning to get somewhere on time when you dont feel well, you will know how amazing it is to avoid all that.

With each passing day of homeschooling, I enjoy it more and more. I enjoy the time we spend learning together. I look forward to doing kindergarten with my oldest and that time of day we have together. I enjoy how excited our preschoolers are to do "school" (they do not have any structured school yet, but they love pulling out notebooks and pretending to do what our oldest is doing). It has been a blessing for our family. I became even more aware of what a blessing it is after this trip.


Why do you love homeschooling?

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Tuesday, March 15, 2016

baby losing weight during pregnancy | Boosting our immune systems through diet

baby losing weight during pregnancy





I may be a mom, but I still like to party. And by party, I mean spending my Friday night Googling natural ways to boost your immune system through your diet.

Ive posted before about our sons reactive airways. Because he is so young, his reactive airways are constantly changing. There is the hope that he will grow out of having such a hard time. However, due to family history, his pediatricians proceed as if he has an asthma diagnosis.

Each year, we try to wean him off of his daily regulator, Pulmicort. Last year, he was doing great through the first half of the cold and flu season so we started weaning him off of Pulmicort, from twice a day to once a day. Then--bam!-- he caught a cold and he ended up on Orapred twice in a row. He stayed on Pulmicort until May/June, when we had weaned him down again to one dose before stopping all together. He spent most of June, all of July, and all of August off Pulmicort. Then this past week he caught his first cold of the season and we ended up at the pediatrician where she decided against oral steroids, but put him back on Pulmicort twice a day and he spent 3 days on Albuterol every 3-4 hours. He is doing better, but is still needing Albuterol in the morning.

As an asthmatic myself, I know what my triggers are. For our son O, his main trigger is getting sick. And then once he gets sick, his lungs have a hard time recovering, making him susceptible to other colds and dragging colds on for long periods of time. I also notice, like myself, that he tends to start having more issues during the time when the seasons start changing. I havent noticed him to have any allergies, though he tends to get rashes and dry skin.

One of the big ways to help manage your asthma is avoid your triggers. When I think about Os major trigger-- getting sick-- Im not quite sure how to avoid it. He is one 3-year old in a family of six. His dad is in the Navy, meaning the sailors dont get sick days and he is often working with people who are under the weather, putting him in contact with lots of germs. On top of that, our boys are all very active and enjoy playing outside, going to the park, and meeting up with friends. How do I keep a 3-year old from getting sick?

When he was a baby and a beginning walker, it was much easier to control what he came into contact with and where. I loved Touchy Tags and hung them everywhere. I had hand sanitizer sitting all over our house and insisted everyone used it all the time. We washed hands like it was our job. Now that hes older, my husband and I wash our hands all the time and we are always washing our boys hands and instructing them to go wash their hands, but it is harder, different, then when they were babies. I also cannot hang a Touchy Tag around Os neck and stick him in a bubble, as much as I would like to at times.

This is when I started thinking of other ways to help him out. Ive posted several times regarding our family diet as well. I cook most of our foods. We really try to avoid processed foods and artificial ingredients. We make the best choices that we can (and can afford; read "Organics vs family budget"). We follow the 80/20 approach when it comes to eating healthy. So I started Googling: how can I boost his immune system through our diet? I came across several blogs that helped me put together our list on how to do this.

The first blog post that really helped direct my focus was MindBodyGreens post, "6 Ways to Boost Your Childs Immune System." From there I did a little reading on elderberry and decided against that. While on WebMD, I read about "Immunity Boosting Snacks for Kids." And then somehow I ended up on Dr. Sears website. I read his articles on "8 Foods that Boost Immunity," "Boost Your Childs Immune System," and "4 Habits that Weaken the Immune System." I also looked up "26 Foods High in Zinc for Overall Good Heath" and "Top 7 Vitamin C containing fruits."

I read a whole bunch of other articles on boosting the immune system through your diet, but those are the articles that I printed off and used to compile my list of foods to boost our childrens immune systems.

There are a few obvious things that I have not presented our children-- like oysters, watermelon seeds, and beef liver. However, when looking over the list, the biggest change in our diet is going to be adding a fish dinner once a week (read, "Should your kids eat fish? How they can avoid mercury and still get their omega-3" posted by BabyCenter). Since I do most of our shopping at Costco, I like to stock up in bulk, thus buying fresh fish tends to slip off our menu. Im also going to focus a lot on serving foods high in Vitamin C for their afternoon snack and really try to make the shift from store-bought wheat sandwich bread to homemade whole-wheat bread. The complete plan is to boost all of our immune systems through our diet, hopefully cut down on the amount of colds O catches this year, helping keep his asthma under control. Id like to cut back on his Albuterol usage and keep him on his current dose of Pulmicort or lower it.

Here is the list that Ive put together:

Boosting our childrens immune systems
 
Immunity boosting snacks
1.       Yogurt
2.      Kefir
3.      Walnuts
4.      Fruits and veggies
5.      Lean meats
Zinc
1.       Spinach
2.      Beef
3.      Shrimp
4.      Kidney beans
5.      Flax seeds
6.      Pumpkin seeds
7.      Oysters
8.      Watermelon seeds
9.      Garlic
10.   Lima beans
11.    Peanuts
12.   Egg yolks
13.   Turkey
14.   Salmon
15.   Lobster
16.   Pork
17.   Dark chocolate
18.   Chickpeas
19.   Beef liver
20.  Brown rice
21.   Peas
22.  Sesame seeds
23.  Lamb
24.  Cashews
25.  Crab
26.  Mushrooms
Omega-3 fatty acids
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