what works and what doesn't

So as you know I am a first time mom.  My little boy will be 6 weeks tomorrow.  I'm a planner.  I like to plan as far in advance as I can, though I wasn't fully able to plan the arrival of my son, since God was in charge of his exact arrival date and time, I gave way to this plan.  Though, I wanted to be prepared for him when he did arrive.  I bought a baby carrier on clearance at Sears in March I believe.  I bought the Lansinoh manual single breast pump back in January because I found it in a store vs having to buy it online and I had read rave reviews.

Well, I'm learning never buy certain items until your little one has arrived.  The breast pump had NO suction but because I broke the seal and bought it back in January I can't return it to the store I purchased it at because the receipt was more then 90 days old.  I attempted at returning it a second time without the receipt but they said because I broke the seal they couldn't return it.  I told them it hand no suction, it was defective so they couldn't put it back on their floor anyways they'd have to mark it defective and send it back, but this particular store was not a user friendly store and I knew this, so I should have waited.

The baby carrier I bought says you can use it from 8 lbs to 35 lbs.  Ah no.  My son is now 10 lbs and he hates the carrier and I also do not like the way it all comes together, its also not user friendly.  I got rid of the box because I'm the type of person who likes to wash everything and have items put away before the little one arrives so I can be as organized and prepared as possible.  So this will be going on an upcoming garage sale.  Instead i found the moby wrap via searching for a new one and watching youtube videos to be what I'm hoping superb, I ordered mine this past week, should be here this next week. 

As you may already know, I sew.  But I haven't found the happy medium for sewing and bringing my little boy downstairs to sew with me yet.  I'm hoping the wrap will come in handy with this so I will have 2 free hands I will be able to carry his bed down there in case he just wants to chilax.  My little boy falls asleep better on mommy or daddy's chest and then being put down to sleep vs just sticking him his bed and lights out.  Our doctor said you can't spoil them at this age so when grandma and grandpa want to hold him all day that's just perfectly fine.

Have you ever noticed that when you go into a store to find a hat for an infant and the size says infant, the hat is always WAY TOO big?  Well, I also realized last Saturday at our city's annual art festival that people also try to get away with selling "infant" hats that are the same size as the one's in the store which are entirely too big.  So what did I do last Saturday in about 15 min?  I sewed an appropriate sized one up for my son that is reversible.  Oh and may I mention no one ever has boy items, so I'm changing this and I'm going to be sewing only boy items so boys have some fun too.  Though because people have it stuck in their heads that infant heads are a lot bigger, I too will sew up some girly infant hats that are truly for 0-3 & 3-6 mo sizes.

I guess my lesson learned here is you can prepare for your little one by buying clothes (more on the 3mo and up though), making blankets, sheets, etc.  But everything else needs to wait.  The cloth diapers I purchased do not work well on him yet because they are so bulky on such a little person so the cloth part we are using as burp cloths and they work a lot better then the ones I made, simply because they are bigger and they catch more, but also 10x more absorbent then just two layers of flannel sewed together.

routine

My son will be 4 weeks tomorrow and I think we are finally moving into a routine!  Thought it definitely helps when my husband and I totally alternate nights to who has baby duty.  I'm pumping what I can get for breast milk and doing major supplementing with formula until my body can produce enough milk, so its easy for dad to take over for a night.  Last night I had a migraine and Excedrin didn't work so my husband took over and I didn't wake up until about 6:30 this morning, it was great to get a good nights rest.  Now I'm on baby duty while my husband catches up on sleep before he works an 8 hour shift.  Though my little boy is sleeping so that allows mom to catch up on household chores, thank goodness!

It is hard for me to pump and formula feed him when I am home by myself during the day.  Having help after a little one is born is definitely a Godsend.  So if you are to be a new mom, see if your husband/partner, friend, mom, sister, can help you out during the day.  As my husband said yesterday, boy does he tire one out.  Yes, yes he does, but he is definitely worth it!

Cloth Diapers

Today we came home from spending 2 nights at my mother's (my husband worked 32 hours in 2 days, so while he was away my mom helped me out a bit).  I decided against opening a new package of diapers to start using the cloth diapers I had purchased in my last stage of pregnancy.  Not as easy as they make it look on YouTube.  The first diaper I put on him the shell is a best bottom diaper will or should fit a new born to a child 35+ pounds, there are snaps to make it bigger or smaller.  I tried one of the snap-in inserts with a biodegradable liner for the poopy mess.  Not so easy to snap it on my son and he essentially peed and pooped right away so on to another diaper.  I like the biodegradable liners, they do catch the poopy mess so you just have to throw that.

I used a preform diaper insert this time instead of the stay dry insert.  The preform diapers don't snap in like the stay dry inserts.  I think I only had him in this diaper for about 2 hours and when I picked him up to feed him, his clothes were wet.  The best bottom diaper wasn't keeping him dry and when I changed him, the entire preform was soaked to the point that excess urine was leaking out.  Not cool.  So before bringing my son to my mother's for a few hours while I pick up our house, I put a regular diaper back on him.

Nothing in motherhood is easy except when it comes to loving your child and hence why I needed my mom to watch him for just a couple of hours while I pick up our house.  Though not getting everything done because I'm already exhausted and all I've done is cleaned out the fridge, hauled out the compost and the garbage and washed dishes.  I hope my stamina returns sooner rather then later.