Travel tips - use an overnight diaper

I just got back from a trip to Chicago with my 18 month old son and consequently have a long list of travel tips, some of which I knew in advance and some of which I learned the hard way.

Not sure where I first heard this tip about overnight diapers, but it works beautifully so I want to share it. If you are traveling with your baby/toddler instead of using a regular diaper on the airplane, put them in one of those special ultra absorbent overnight diapers right before you get on the plane.

My son sleeps in these types of diapers at night and they can hold a lot of pee without getting uncomfortable or leaking. We use the Pampers brand and they advertise that they last for 12 hours and I would say that is about right.

I will do anything to avoid changing my son in those tiny smelly airplane bathrooms!

Nusery University - warning do not watch if you live in NYC

So if anyone is in a mood to procrastinate, has a toddler, and a netflix streaming account then check out this documentary about parents trying to get their kids into "elite" preschools in NYC "Nursery University"

Either it will make you feel good about the price and options for  pre-school in your neck of the woods or if you live in New York and are a Type-A personality it might make you start to freak out about your child's chances of getting in to an Ivy League university. In fact if you live in NYC I would not advice watching this movie at all, it is a little too disturbing.

The impression I got from watching most of the parents in this documentary is that even two year olds are old enough to enter the rat race.

Some of the parents come across as pretty scary. They seem convinced that a good pre-school would feed into a good elementary school, then acceptance into an elite private high school and then a spot at an Ivy League university, a good job and then ultimately a chance to shepherd their own children through the crazy school admissions game.

However, the pre-school staff and other parents seem to realize that this much hype about pre-school is crazy and that nursery does not seal your fate! Chalk this one up as one more reason not to live in NYC.

The Fourth Trimester theory

I wholeheartedly agree with the idea that newborns really need a "fourth trimester" of pregnancy, hence their first three months of life they are essentially not ready for life on the outside. Pregnancy.org has an article written by Dr. Karp explaining his theory about the "fourth trimester" and its relationship to colic. ParentMap has a shorter explanation of this fourth trimester phenomenon.

For a while we tried to follow the advice from the book Happiest Baby on the Block, by Dr. Karp. While his theory of the "fourth trimester" makes perfect sense, his advice on getting babies to calm down only helped us sporadically and it was a lot more work than simply putting baby in a baby carrier and walking around - which had a 99% success rate. I am sure if we were more studious and serious about his methods we would have had better luck. Basically his advice calls for using five techniques to calm your newborn - the 5 S's:

1. swaddling
2. side/stomach position
3. shushing
4. swinging
5. sucking

The thing that seemed to help my son most was being held stomach down, we got the most bang for our buck out of that technique. Other things, like sucking, were pretty unhelpful. He did sometimes suck on a finger but he never was interested in pacifiers.

Any feedback from readers on this theory and whether using the 5 S's made a big difference to them?