The Cardinal Rule of Family Photography

So the holiday season and the gobs of photos of my son I have taken over the last week made me think of some of the problems posed by combining babies and photography.

Sadly in the process of trying to document my baby's first year of life I have discovered a very sad fact. I will call it the cardinal rule of family photography.

The Cardinal Rule of Family Photography:
The more members of the family the lower the likelihood that all family members will look sane or normal or attractive in a photo.

Before I had my baby I looked passable in about 1/10 photos taken in which I was the only subject. According to me theory in order to calculate the likelihood that everyone in your family will look decent in your photo you must multiply the denominator by # of people in the photo. So for photos of myself and my son there is a 1/20 chance that we will both look good. For photos of myself, my husband, and my son there is only a 1/30 chance that we will all look good. I don't know how people with big families ever even get everyone facing the same way, much less looking halfway attractive. My solution: stick to photos in which my baby is the only subject (this also helps alleviate guilt about not losing the post-pregnancy weight fast enough!)

I have been an avid photographer for years, and I love my Canon EOS 20D. For anyone looking to add an addiction to their lives, buying an SLR is a good place to start. For those looking to invest in a good digital camera dpreview.com has great reviews to help you select a good SLR. At some point I want to invest in a new SLR. Do any readers have suggestions of cameras they love?

Sick kids at day care=healthy kids at elementary school

I am hoping that recent research which found that kids in day care get sick more often early in life, but get sick less often once they reach elementary school is going to hold true in the case of my son.

This is one of those scientific findings which sounds like pure and simple common sense. The more viruses they get exposed to earlier in life I would think they would build up better immunity. I guess it is nice to see some evidence to support this common belief. See the abstract and description of the research here.

Baby safety: finally CPSC issues a ban on drop-side cribs

The one thing that all new parents are ultra paranoid about is that something somewhere somehow is going to hurt their baby. This week the Consumer Product Safety Commission banned the sale of "drop-side" cribs. The kind that allow you to move part of the crib rail down to make it easier to pick up or put down your baby. I think this ban is long overdue. Deaths from suffocation and entrapment due to the malfunction of these cribs have been reported for a long time.

CPSC image showing potential danger

Before we had our son we looked up recommendations about baby products online on Consumer Reports, and quickly found out that these drop-side cribs were considered dangerous. However, not everyone has the resources or time to thoroughly research what products they choose.

This ban on drop-side cribs leads me to the one nugget of baby safety advice that I would give new parents...
Nine times out of ten the more convenient something is for you the less safe it is for your baby.

Yes, it is a pain to have to lean over the crib railing to put your baby into his crib, and it is even more of a pain when they weigh 20 pounds. Yes, it is a pain to have to be fastidious about making sure the seat-belt in the car seat is tightened down every time you put your baby in the car. Yes, it is a hassle to put your baby in a pack n'play or crib before you run to the bathroom when odds are they will not hurt themselves in the 30 seconds you are out of sight. But do you really want to take the risk?

Another recall of Graco strollers this year was related to a strangulation hazard. I was really surprised until I read the recall notice and realized that the infants who were strangled were not buckled into the stroller so they slid down and got stuck. Back to the safety rule - more convenient for you not to have to buckle the child in the stroller, more dangerous for the child.

Crib bumpers: another safety hazard
Another safety notice regarding crib bumpers explain how these (and any other bedding, pillows, or stuffed animals in cribs can be a hazard). As far as I can tell these products are purely decorative, although they are supposedly helpful in preventing babies from getting their arms or legs stuck through the crib bars. With my son we used a breathable crib bumper, I am not sure it made a difference. Of course with him by the time he slept in his crib he could easily roll over and lift up his head. Even with the breathable bumper he still occasionally got an arm or leg stuck through the crib railing. However, I would much rather have this happen than have him somehow suffocate on fabric!

What do people think? I am sure some libertarian-minded people out there might say that parents should have the right to use whatever products they want with their child, even if they might pose a safety risk. Of course most babies who sleep in these drop-side cribs never get stuck, but I personally could not handle living with the fear that it might happen!

One Year down! Thanks to my mommy friends

Well my son turned one year old last week. Bye-bye baby, hello little toddler boy!

I could never have made it through this year without all the love, support, and advice I received from my friends who are also mommies (and some who are not yet mommies). So I thought I would write a blog post about how important it is as a new parent to have friends who are also parents and can understand what you are going through and provide support and advice.

Thank you to all the experienced moms (and dads) out there who take the time to help us newbies!
Thanks for your wisdom, sympathy, product reviews, long conversations, hand-me-downs, diaper changes, humor, home-cooked meals, and general camaraderie.

As one of my best friends (who is also my mommy-mentor) said to me and my husband right after my son was born "Welcome to the we don't know what the hell we are doing club". She was right, life has been wild since he was born, but it has been so much fun.

A big thank you to my mommy-mentor (she knows who she is) who has been there throughout my whole pregnancy, and the whole first year. She lets me vent to her about everything baby related and has been the source of most of the really useful advice I have received. She was the perfect person to vent to about colicky baby stress since she survived it herself! Thanks again for telling me to do the Ferber sleep training!!! Everybody with a new baby should be so lucky as to have a mommy-mentor-friend like you :)

Of course some people who are not yet or never will be parents are still the most helpful and supportive when you are in your sleep-deprived, clueless, new-parent stupor. One friend in particular brought us lots of yummy meals so that we did not have to cook much in the week after our son was born (and even when he was older and we were perfectly capable of cooking). She is going to be a mommy this spring and hopefully I can return the favor!

Thank you to everyone who helps new parents you make a huge difference!

Baby sleep and the problem of spurious correlation

So if you have a newborn or even an older baby who does not sleep well you should mentally prepare yourself for an avalanche of advice from well meaning people who are only going to frustrate you.

They will tell you: All you need to do to get that baby to sleep is X.

 "X" is going to vary depending on who the person is you are talking to. But X is almost always something you have tried 100 times with no success, and it tends to be things like:

1. swaddling
2. rocking/walking to sleep
3. white noise
4. night light
5. co-sleeping
6. feed baby more before bedtime (the older generation will tell you to put rice cereal in the bottle)
7. pacifier/no pacifier
8. letting baby fall asleep on your stomach

These people could be anyone: your mother-in-law, best friend, distant cousin, neighbor, check-out lady at the grocery store, etc. When I was looking for a day care provider for my son one woman I met listened to me talking about how he has trouble falling to sleep and then after a dramatic pause she told me that the secret to getting babies to sleep was putting the radio on to play static and that this worked like a charm for all four of her children. The best part was the way she revealed this secret to me as though it was the holy grail. Needless to say I was not super impressed by her and found a much better day care provider somewhere else.

In order to respond to these people in your sleep deprived state of constant frustration you might want to practice nodding your head and saying "Oh really? Thanks so much for the good advice. I will definitely try that." If you are a truly sarcastic person then you can even add, "Wow, I've never heard of that idea before! I'm so glad I talked to you!"

Warning: this post represents my personal opinion and I should re-state what I believe is the cardinal rule of babies: Every baby is different. That said maybe some babies do transform from bad sleepers to good sleepers after doing something simple like swaddling them. I think it is always worth trying new things and taking advice from more experienced parents, but if following their advice is not working, then keep reading this post.

Here is the problem, all these people are assuming that the reason their babies slept like little angels is because of X (their intervention of choice). In my not so professional opinion babies sleep well for one of three reasons:

1. disposition - in other words you got lucky and gave birth to a baby who is a better sleeper and is better at "self soothing" from the get go
2. age - all babies gradually get better at sleeping as they age and learn the difference between night and day and eventually learn how to soothe themselves to sleep 
3. training/learning - some babies can become better sleepers earlier and faster if you do some consistent sleep training (although this should never be done during the newborn period)

If you have a newborn (0-3 months) the reason they are sleeping well is probably neither age nor training because they are too young for these to be causes. The reason they are sleeping well is that you baby was destined to be a better sleeper. Not sure what other mamas experienced, but I should have known from the first night with my son in the hospital that we were in for a very bumpy road as far as sleeping was concerned.

So why do all these well-intentioned people honestly believe that X is the secret to success? 

In statistics this phenomenon is called spurious correlation. The idea is that everything has a cause and effect, but sometimes we erroneously think the cause is B, when in fact it is actually A.

Example:
We notice that when people eat a lot of ice-cream (B) there seems to be a lot of riots/street violence (C) and we assume an increase in the eating of ice cream causes an increase in riots.  (example courtesy of Professor David Phillips)

What is really happening? There is a third variable that we are failing to consider: summer time. When it is hot people eat more ice cream. When it is hot and students are out of school and the days are longer people are more likely to riot.

So we think B causes C (ice cream causes riots), but in reality A causes B and A causes C (summer time causes an increase in both ice cream consumption and riots).

Okay seems like a sort of silly example and the cynical reader will be thinking that anyone with a brain knows that ice cream does not cause riots. Correct, cynical reader. So lets give one more quick example.

It is commonly assumed that exercise (B) causes people to be healthier (C). Is this true? Maybe not. There is a third variable (A) health. Confused yet? Health can be both a cause and effect. It works like this. If you are healthier to begin with, then you are more likely to have the time and energy for exercise. So being healthier causes you to exercise more. Being healthy early in your life causes your to be healthy later in your life. Real life is full of confusing and messy examples of spurious correlation and knowing about this phenomenon might make you think differently about the world. For example is it intelligence and hard work that leads people to succeed in life? This is the meritocracy argument. Or could there be other factors that lead people to succeed (i.e. socioeconomic status, education, cultural background, circumstances). For an interesting and easy to read analysis of this issue read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers.

So let's get back to baby sleep. Your mother-in-law/friend/cousin tells you that swaddling (B) causes her baby to sleep like an angel (C). So there is some correlation between swaddling and sleeping happily. I am arguing that in most cases it is the babies disposition (A) that is causing them to sleep like an angel (C).

At my son's 2 month doctor appointment when our doctor was explaining to us how our son fit the typical description of "colic" he told us about the latest theory of what causes colic. Colic basically occurs when a baby's brain has not developed enough to "self soothe". In other words babies are not born knowing how to calm themselves down. Just like adults babies wake up many times during the night. However as adults we do not even realize that we wake up and we generally just slip back into a deeper sleep. Most newborns will cry and rely on parents to help them get back to sleep. Like adults, babies fall on a spectrum and some are just born with less of the type of brain development that allows them to soothe themselves back to sleep once they wake up. One reason I am convinced that this theory makes sense is the fact that colicky babies seem to need the same high level of parental intervention during the day and non-sleeping hours (as opposed to what my good friend calls "plop down babies").

We may never understand exactly why some babies adjust to sleeping better or earlier than others but if you understand the logic of spurious correlation at the very least you should now know not to blame yourself if your baby is having trouble sleeping. Those mamas with the happily sleeping babies are not better parents than you. It may even be the case that some of those parents will come to you for advice when they have their second or third child and suddenly they are doing all the same things they did with the first kid, but this baby won't sleep. So when they come to you for advice and they are totally miserable from sleep deprivation you have two choices. You can tell them "All you need to do is X and your baby will sleep like an angel", or you can tell them the truth. I know what I would do :)

Ways to save $: Baby resale/consignment shops

Baby "suit" from a resale

Baby resale shops are a great way to save $ on baby clothes and other nursery items. Everything these stores sell is totally clean and sometimes it is even new and still has tags on it. I have bought clothes, bibs, pack n play sheets, and toys, at these shops and found some great deals.

For example, I found a baby "suit" from Nordstrom with the tags still on that was originally $100 and I bought it for $15. My son wore it to a friend's wedding and looked adorable.

My son wearing his penguin shirt - another resale shop find.

San Diego area stores:
Only Kidding

3619 Midway Drive #E, San Diego, CA   92110

great little store in a great location

BabyGoRound Resale
10330 Friars Rd., San Diego, CA 92120 
smaller store but good selection of clothes

Baby Trader
5282 Baltimore Dr., La Mesa, CA 91942
bigger store and lots of accessories, toys, gear



Forget Me Not
5005 Cass St., San Diego, CA 92109
have not been here yet? have any readers?

If you are shopping for bigger baby gear items (strollers, swings, high chairs) I would skip baby consignment shops, most people sell bigger items on Craigslist these days.

Why babies are like cats

Has anyone else noticed that babies are a lot like house cats?
Here are some similarities I have observed. Both my baby and my cat...

1. love playing with paper and magazines
2. love plastic bags
3. love cardboard boxes
4. sometimes give love bites
5. are fascinated by computer keyboards
6. cry/meow
7. love to sleep on mama
8. wake you up in the wee hours of the morning
9. want love on their terms: when you want to hold them they don't want to be held and when you are incredibly busy they decide they want to be on your lap
10. sleep a lot :)

Has anybody noticed any other similarities? I am currently dogless, but would be interested to hear if dog owners notice that their babies remind them of their dogs and vice versa...

Babyproofing for the lazy parent

Babyproofing the easy way

Instructions: Take all the cleaning products and possibly toxic items and put them on top of a very tall dresser.

I am hoping this will work until my son is tall enough to reach the top of the dresser; so I have about ten years. I will eventually get those cabinet lock thingamahoochies installed, but for now this is good enough.

Now if I can just find a way to prevent my son from slamming his fingers in all the drawers in the house, sticking his hands in the toilet, and trying to eat the cat's food.

The newborn sleep saga

Baby sleep involves a lot of trial and error. For the first four months of my son's life we tried absolutely everything to get him to sleep and the only things that consistently worked were:

1. walking while carrying him until he fell asleep (easiest while babywearing)
2. breastfeeding to sleep (breastfeeding lying down)

Babywearing: sleeping peacefully in a ring sling.

Even using these tactics it was pretty common for us to spend around 20-45 minutes trying to get my son to sleep, only to have him wake up bawling after a 20 minute cat nap. For the first month of his life it was actually a little bit easier to get him to sleep than it was later on when the colic/high-needs baby tendencies became really pronounced (more on the colic vs. high-needs babies concept in a later post).

Places my baby slept in the first four months:

Sleeping happily in the bouncer

1. bouncer that vibrated (swaddled and buckled in)
2. swing (swaddled and buckled in)
3. attached to mom or dad (via sling, wrap, or other carrier)
4. in bed co-sleeping with us
5. in a rocker right next to our bed

Places my baby never slept in the first four months:

1. his beautiful new crib (not once)
2. the pack n play right next to our bed
3. in his car seat (or if he did it was only after some serious screaming)

So here's what I learned about baby sleep through my epic endless sleepless nights:

1. It will get better... eventually. If it does not get better on its own by the time your baby is four or five months old try sleep training. I know every night seems like it lasts a lifetime, but in the grand scheme of things you are only going to have to deal with this for a few months.
2. Every baby is different: If you have a baby that sleeps well be thankful and try not to brag about it to the rest of us. If you have a baby who has trouble sleeping try thinking of sleep as a war, every night is a battle and sometimes you lose the battle, but you will eventually win the war, after all how many eighteen year olds still need their parents to rock them to sleep?
3. Teamwork: if you have a partner share parenting duties at night. In our household my husband took the late night shift and I took the early morning shift. This way at least you can guarantee that you each get some uninterrupted sleep.

Bottom line: Even newborns that have the most horrific sleep schedules known to man (e.g. my son) can turn into good sleepers. After some sleep training when he was four months old my son started sleeping for 7-8 hours at a time before waking up, and napping longer during the day. Although we have rough nights when he is sick or teething I have to say he is now a much better sleeper than his mama!

Flip video camera - the perfect gift for new parents

Before my son was born we bought a Flip video camera and it is by far the best purchase we made in preparation for our baby's arrival.

If you have family who live far away and really want to see how your baby grows up then this item is the best thing you can buy. Better yet put it on your baby registry and get the parents/grandparents to buy it for you since they are going to benefit from it once you post your videos online on Picasa or Vimeo.

Compared to the old video camera I remember my family using in the 1980s which weighed twenty pounds, required tapes and made videos which were really difficult to view on the TV, new video cameras are heavenly. Of course lots of phones and digital cameras come with some video functionality, but if you want a separate video camera the Flip is an obvious choice.

Reasons why I love it:

1. tiny: just a little bigger than my phone, fits in any pocket or purse without taking up space
2. easy to use: it only takes about two seconds to turn this on and start recording
3. easy uploading: the USB connection allows you to easily connect to a computer and upload
4. great video quality: we own the HD version of the camera and it the video is very high resolution
5. storage space: we own the mino HD with 4GB and 60 minutes of video time and this is plenty

Boys are everywhere in 2009/2010. Is this a statistical fluke or a conspiracy?

Many of my friends are either currently pregnant or had a baby last year. And they almost all seem to be having boys! There were a few adorable girls born among my circle of friends but it seems like the boys way outnumber the girls, so my question is... Is this a random fluke that is just occurring in my circle of friends and acquaintances, or is this a conspiracy cooked up to prevent women from taking over the world?

At my last count of people who are either currently pregnant or recently had a baby these are the stats:
Boys: 14
Girls:   4

What was even weirder was that the childbirth class I went to right before our son was born had about 20 couples, only 2 of whom were having girls. The breastfeeding support group I went to right after my son was born was also heavily skewed toward boys, with maybe 9 boys and 3 girls on most occasions that I was there.

Am I just living in a boy-bubble?
Am I just noticing boys more now that I have a son?
Or are boys really conspiring to take over the world?

Teething? grab a spatula

My baby does have a couple "teething ring" type products. But his favorite teething object is a regular rubber spatula from my kitchen. This has become his spatula and he loves to chomp on it. So before you go buy something for your baby to chew on try rummaging around the kitchen. When he was younger he also loved chewing on wash cloths or burp cloths (wet or dry). Of course before the first teeth come in it is fine and dandy and even cute to chew on mom and dad's fingers and hands, but that is a habit you want to end after the sharp teeth arrive.

We do have a couple of official teething rings, like this Nuby teether, and a Munchkin teething ring. But I think they were a waste of money.

Someone wise once told me that babies love kitchen things. Tupperware or plastic containers with soft rubber edges also work really well for teething. My baby also loves empty plastic bottles or plastic drinking cups. Of course a lot of kitchen objects are just downright dangerous for babies. What other kitchen things can double as toys?

Baby playmats - protection for baby's head and mama's bottom

During the learning to sit, crawl, stand, and walk phases there are lots of falls and banged heads. But we were able to minimize the damage by putting a big blue playmat over the area of our hardwood floor where our son usually plays. We found these play mats at ToysRUs, but we later noticed that Costco carried some similar interlocking flooring meant for garages that was even cheaper. Amazon.com also sells lots of versions of these playmats, many in prettier colors or designs.

ToyRUs play mat

As a bonus my husband and I both think that these floor pads are super comfortable for parents who spend a lot of time sitting on the floor with infants. They also work really well as exercise mats as they are more cushiony than most yoga mats. As you can see our baby likes practicing his yoga on these mats too!

Yoga baby practicing downward dog pose on his play mat

Babywearing - a lifesaver for parents with newborns

If I had to pick a single thing that made my life easier during my son's newborn phase it would be owning a good baby carrier and using it all the time: babywearing

If you have ever tried to do basic things (i.e. talk on the phone) while holding a newborn then you understand how babies can turn even the most simple tasks into juggling acts. While babywearing even relatively advanced tasks such as eating a meal, typing emails, and going to the bathroom can be performed with ease. Babywearing is often the fastest way to get newborns to fall asleep; they love being held tight against you and walked around. Once asleep you can either keep them in the carrier or very carefully take them out and lie them down somewhere else.

If you are going shopping and have a baby who hates being in the carseat or stroller then toss that baby into a carrier and shop while he peacefully sleeps. I can not tell you how many times I have been out on errands and women (generally older women) would come up to me and tell me how wonderful it was that I was wearing my baby and how they wish that they had carriers like that when they had their children.

Seven months old and still loving the ring sling

Here is a list of the baby carriers I have used:

• Moby wrap - great for newborns although it takes a day or two or practicing to figure out how to use it. One of my best friends and mommy mentors recommended this and it was a life saver!
• Sweet Pea Ring Sling - unfortunately I did not buy this until my son was around 3 months old but I think it would have been excellent for him as a newborn. However, it was not a favorite with my husband - too girlie for him to wear.
• Balboa - Dr Sears Sling - this was probably my least favorite of our carriers, but we used it a lot because we bought it before we discovered the ring sling or the Ergo. It was good for getting our baby to sleep for naps/night time.
• Ergo baby carrier - after our son was about 4 months old this became the primary carrier we used, it is very very comfortable when carrying older/heavier babies and my husband likes wearing it! In fact we have one photo of him wearing it that I think the Ergo people should include in their catalog. 

Ergo action shot, hood over sleeping baby's head.

If you have a baby that is "colicky" or "high needs" (more on this topic later) then I would make the argument that a good baby carrier is worth its weight in gold. For a long time the only way my son would nap for more than twenty minutes at a time was if he was in a baby carrier and attached to one of his parents. Even if you have your run of the mill non-colicky baby I think most babies are happier being carried especially as newborns so a baby carrier can make for a happier baby which makes for a happier mom and a happier family.

Here is the formula: happy baby = happy mom = happy family!


Websites with great information on babywearing options:

• TheBabyWearer.com
• AskDrSears.com - babywearing
• Better Babywearing blog
• BabyCenter - Babywearing group

Co-sleeping: the fears and the reality

It was apparent from our very first night in the hospital with my son that he was only really comfortable sleeping in bed with mama. For the first four months of his life we went through a whole slew of approaches to sleep (more on this in a later post), but the only way I could guarantee he would fall asleep (and stay asleep) was if he was lying in bed next to me and breastfeeding until he fell asleep.

I resisted co-sleeping for a couple weeks after he was born. The reasons why I was reluctant are mostly what I consider the common fears new mamas have about co-sleeping:

Fears

1. fear of rolling over onto baby
2. fear of baby falling off bed
3. fear of smothering baby with blankets
4. fear of SIDS

All I can say in hindsight is that these fears were basically a result of my inexperience with newborns. Here is my response to these fears after co-sleeping with my newborn for a few months:

Reality

1. As a new mother you have a heightened awareness of what your baby is doing, even when both of you are asleep. This phenomenon is hard to understand until it happens to you. There was no chance I was going to roll over onto the baby (although dads don't always have the same sense of where the baby is in bed, so sometimes this can pose a problem). If anything it was sometimes harder for me to sleep because of new mother anxiety and because every little sound or move my son made would wake me up at first.
2. Newborns do not roll. They can wriggle a little bit (what my husband and I called the B.P.S. "baby propulsion system") but this does not get them very far. Most newborns sleep swaddled and most mamas wake up as soon as baby starts making sounds or moving so there is very little chance they could launch themselves off a bed (of course with older babies this changes). Of course the obvious preventative measure is just to put baby in the middle of the bed.
3. I used to worry my baby would not be able to breathe if the blankets got pushed up against his face, this never happened. By far the bigger problem is that if the blankets get over the baby the baby might get overheated and then wake up and wake you up. Some people go so far as to remove all blankets and pillows from the bed, I took a halfway approach and just pushed the blankets down to my waist.
   
4. the fear of SIDS is harder to explain away since people really do not know what causes SIDS. All I can say is that I felt much better with my son right next to me where I knew I would wake up immediately if he was in distress than I would have felt if he were in another room. Proponents of co-sleeping like Dr. Sears suggest that the risk of SIDS actually goes down with co-sleeping, see this explanation. Check out the AskDrSears.com website for some great advice on co-sleeping and how to do it safely.

A lesson that I learned quickly: newborn babies are well equipped with alarm systems, if they are uncomfortable or in distress they let you know loudly. When I talked to nurses and my pediatrician about co-sleeping they all said that as long as I took basic safety precautions (don't put baby near edge of bed, etc.) it was fine to co-sleep and that in their experience most mothers (especially those who were breastfeeding) did co-sleep at some point.

There is so much more to say about co-sleeping, for example how it really improved both baby and mama's sleep, and when and why we decided to stop co-sleeping - the topic of future blog posts.


So that is my two cents. Any other mamas want to chime in with their perspective on co-sleeping? Please leave a comment.

Baby Apps: Baby ESP (Eat, Sleep, Poop)

So if you are going to spend $ on an app for your mobile phone to track what your baby is doing Baby ESP gives you a lot of bang for your buck at $3.99. And if you are frugal or tentative then try the trial version for free. I used it on my Android phone for about three months and if you are either generally obsessive about your baby, very forgetful, or trying to track your routine then this is the app for you.


What Baby ESP looks like on your phone.


It is easy to use and although I was really only using it to track my son's sleep and nap schedule it has a lot more features. For the truly detail oriented parent you can track nursing times (how long on each side), bottles (how many ounces, how long baby took to drink), diapers (wet and poopy), sleep (naps, night time sleep), medicine your baby is taking, etc. You can also add custom reminders or custom events. For a while I was tracking how long my baby was crying before he fell asleep and seeing the number of minutes crying go down every day was very comforting.


All of your information can be exported to spreadsheets and email and you can see weekly or monthly averages amongst other features. I am sure there are even more functions, but these are just the few that I discovered.


So if like me you were/are actually writing things down the old-fashioned way with a paper and pencil and would like to ditch that early 20th century technology, Baby ESP is for you.


As a bonus using this app consistently was one way that I was able to track just how miserable my son's sleep schedule was until he was four months old and how much his sleep improved (increase in length of time asleep and decrease in length of time before falling asleep) after we did some sleep training when he was four months old - the topic for a future post on sleep training Ferber style.


Anyone else know of other good baby apps or have some feedback on Baby ESP? If so please leave comments...

Rings Toys - Sometimes cheaper is better

Okay I admit my frugal inner-self was pleased that my son's favorite toys are the cheapest baby toys that you can buy - those dinky plastic rings. From about 2 months old to 6 months old these were my son's favorite things ever.

However my more superficial self was a little miffed that I spent money on toys that he would not deign to play with at all. Now that he is a bit older he is finally paying attention to the fancier toys, including all sorts of nice toys his grandparents and aunts gave him as gifts, but for any new parent I would suggest getting a couple sets of the rings. You can find them at Target or BabiesRUs and a lot of drug stores have them in the baby section.

You can link them together, hang other toys from them, link them to the stroller for the baby to play with while you are on a walk, or hand them to him when you put him in the car seat so that he has something to play with while you drive. They are basically indestructible, good for teething, and my son always seemed to derive a lot of pleasure from pulling a big chain of rings apart into separate pieces.

Breastfeeding Lying Down - if you are not already doing this stop reading and try it now!

Breastfeeding = Good for newborn babies
Lying down = Good for new moms
Breastfeeding + Lying down = Happy family!

If you are breastfeeding a newborn baby there is only one thing I know for certain about you - you are exhausted. So if you have not already discovered that you can breastfeed lying down stop what you are doing now and go try it. If you are tired of having to find your Boppy pillow or Brest Friend pillow or tired of arranging pillows behind your back and a footstool at your feet before you can be comfortable for the 45 minutes or more that it takes your baby to nurse then breastfeeding lying down is for you.

I figured out the breastfeeding lying down out of desperation when my son was around 2 weeks old. Like most new parents I was terrified that if I lay down and fell asleep I might roll onto my baby or something else unforeseen but catastrophic might happen. Then one night as I was literally fighting to stay awake while sitting up feeding my son it occurred to me that it was far more likely that I would fall asleep while sitting up feeding him and he might topple off my lap.

So I held him in my arms cradle style and let him nurse and slowly lay down on the bed, and lo and behold he kept eating happily while I lay down in pure bliss and soon after we were both peacefully asleep. Here is where I should insert a warning:

Warning: breastfeeding lying down may lead to co-sleeping or at the very least co-napping (see more below).

So here is what you need to do:

1. lie down on your side on your bed and pull down your bra
2. place your baby parallel to you on his side with his mouth level to your nipple and pull him close (sometimes both of your bodies end up in a bit more of a "V" position)

If your baby has figured out how to latch on the rest will be happen. No really it is that simple. Now there are some tips for newborns that might make it even easier for you.

1. I usually ended up with my lower arm perpendicular to my body above my son's head and my upper arm resting on my hips
2. a pillow behind your back makes mama even more comfortable (the body pillow I used during pregnancy worked perfectly here), a rolled receiving blanket behind your newborn's back might help keep him on his side
3. I would feed my son on one side then get up change his diaper, swaddle him, and then lay down on the other side after which we would both fall asleep

It is so easy that I was in a state of mild shock when I went to a breastfeeding support group when my son was about a month old and out of about ten moms I was the only person there who was breastfeeding lying down. Maybe it is because all the other women had those comfy rocker/gliders for breastfeeding, but what could be as comfortable as sleeping while your baby eats?

A note about breastfeeding lying down on a bed and safety. In order to keep my son in the middle of the bed instead of flipping him over me to feed on the other side I would just get up and walk around to the other side of the bed. Alternatively some mamas are able to simply lean over a little more to feed baby from both breasts while laying on the same side. As a first time mom I was always worried about my son somehow falling off the bed, but he did not roll until he was four months old and being swaddled it was pretty hard for him to move anywhere so this was a little paranoid on my part.

My baby is now ten months old and we still both enjoy breastfeeding lying down (sometimes called the "side lying position"). When he wakes up at 4am I go into his room and lie down on the twin size bed we have in there (he lies on the inside against the wall) and I feed him until he is full and sleepy again. It is also how I feed him first thing in the morning, although the rest of the day he is too rambunctious to spend very long nursing.

Advice for insomniacs - co-napping is for you!

If you were an insomniac before your baby was born chances are even the sleep deprivation of new parenthood has not made it better. I think it makes it worse. When my son was tiny every sound he made would wake me up and it would often take me thirty or forty minutes to fall asleep, by which time he was just waking up. I truly resented the people who said casually “just nap when the baby naps” as if I had overlooked this obvious idea.

However, breastfeeding lying down was my saving grace. Supposedly breastfeeding releases hormones that relax both mother and baby and make you sleepy. In my case this seemed to be true. I fell asleep easily if I just timed my naps with the breastfeeding sessions. It was heaven!

As with all blog posts, I would love to hear comments or questions from readers. I firmly believe that every baby is different and what worked for me might not work for others. The one thing my son really took to like a duck to water was breastfeeding so I would like to hear how breastfeeding lying down works for others.

Here are some good websites with resources on breastfeeding positioning and general help:

kellymom.com: latch-on and positioning help

askdrsears.com: see "side-lying" under breast feeding positions

Photos of what breastfeeding lying down looks like at mother-2-mother.com

The Yucky Bib Problem

I have heard of babies who can eat a meal without needing a bib during and a bath afterwards. Like most babies, my son is not one of these mythical creatures. When we are done with a meal the high chair and the kitchen look like the scene of a epic food fight. At his day care one of his “friends” crawls around the base of the high chair when he eats trying to catch all the food he lets fall or throws down.

He started “eating” around 6 months and we tried bib after bib in order to minimize the mess. Early on we realized we needed one with a big pocket to catch all the foppings (food + droppings). However, anything with cloth on it seemed to get grungy and mildew no matter how quickly I washed it. Even bibs that seemed to be rubber or plastic, but had a little cloth around the neckline became foul in no time.

Then we found the answer to our bib prayers at BabiesRUs: something entirely made of rubbery material. It is indestructible and easy to clean. It is a bib made by Tommee Tippee.

Now if I could only find a system for managing the food that our son hurls onto the floor. A dog would be the perfect solution! But we have agreed that 2 large humans, 1 small human, and 1 arrogant cat is quite enough for our modest sized condo. Now if we ever get a house with a yard a visit to the humane society to find a canine friend will be on our to do list.

So at least for now the bib problem is alleviated, or I should say the meal-time bib problem. We have another drool related bib dilemma still unsolved, but that is a topic for another post: the saga of the drooly baby.

Comments are always welcome, if anyone knows of a better bib please tell me about it!