- 2 Bumkins OS contour diapers
- 1 Bumkins diaper cover
- 1 Bumkins Dirty Duds bag
Details and ways to enter can be found here.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Feed Your Stash Fridays!
The Cloth Diaper Blog, managed by Diaper Junction, does a "Feed Your Stash Fridays" giveaway each week. Check it out! This week's giveaway:
Monday, February 1, 2010
Sleep, Baby, Sleep
One of the biggest struggles we've had so far in our parenting life is helping Matthew to sleep. From the beginning, he has resisted any and all forms of sleep. Our birth was long, arduous, and a little scary towards the end, and resulted in me not getting any sleep for roughly three days, so I began life as a mother already in a majorly depleted state--licking my wounds and hoping it would be better from now on. And while of course life is better with a baby in a lot of ways, with Matthew, it was not better from a sleep standpoint. And now, five months later, I wish I could boast of major improvements, but really the improvements have been slow and hard-won.
Let's just say that for the first three weeks of his life, Matthew did not sleep willingly. I remember everyone saying, "Oh, you'll be fine. Newborns sleep as much as sixteen hours a day. Just sleep when he sleeps." They obviously hadn't spent a lot of time around my son. He was nursing about every two hours or so, and in between we would do everything we could to convince him to sleep. We'd swaddle. We'd rock. We'd jiggle and bounce. We'd sing. We'd cuddle. We'd lay down with him. We'd put him in a sling. We'd take him for a drive. We'd offer him a pacifier. We'd play womb sounds. We watched The Happiest Baby on the Block and tried those techniques. We read what Dr. Sears had to say on the matter. All was to no avail. By the time we could convince him to close his eyes and stop crying, two hours would have passed and it was time to eat again. And did I mention he would usually cry for those two hours? So even if I managed to pass him off to my husband (or anyone else), I still wouldn't get to sleep because of the ruckus.
He was not at all interested in a pacifier at the time, although he'd suck on someone's finger (or me, obviously). It was never something that would help him to sleep, though. We did find some relief in giving him gripewater, so we thought perhaps he was having some colic issues. However, even now he struggles to get to sleep, and we know him well enough to know it's not usually pain that's keeping him awake. Honestly, we never know from day to day what is keeping him up.
By three months old, we thought we'd gotten the knack of things; we had a regular bedtime routine that seemed to do the trick and didn't take all night to accomplish. Around that age, he also started to get better at taking daytime naps. We noticed a direct correlation between his nap success and how well he did that night....more naps equalled better nighttime sleep, which seemed counterintuitive, but who were we to judge? Whatever works, right?
But then four months hit, and so did the notorious (as I learned) four-month-old wakefulness. Kellymom.com has some great articles about this. I learned it's just something you have to endure. Now my son is five months old, and things are normalizing again--at least until his next growth spurt.
The one thing we can't bring ourselves to do--even in spite of other mothers, friends, and family members who swear that it works for them--is to allow our son to "cry it out." Not only have I read enough material for a lifetime that shows the possibly damaging effects of this technique, it just doesn't feel right to me. There have been times when he's inconsolable and I can't stop him from crying, but I just sit with him and hold him close. He's allowed to be sad and frustrated, but I always want him to know he doesn't have to be those things by himself.
We also haven't really adopted co-sleeping into our repetoire, except for naps. In the beginning, I was worried about him sleeping on our bed because it's a very squishy pillowtop. He would roll easily into the divots made by our bodies. Now he's old enough where that's not really a problem, but because he still doesn't go to sleep easily, it's really not an option if any of the rest of us want to get sleep. I envy those for whom this style of sleep works well, but it's just not for us. If we have any other children, I'm going to consider getting a little sidecar to put right next to our bed.
He's now five months old, and we are just now getting to the point where we can lay him down in his crib awake and he can fall asleep without too much coaxing. This is definitely improvement, but like I said, it's hard-won. It's been months of trying all kinds of things to see what works, and re-trying them later on the off chance that, even if they didn't work before, they might work now.
Anyone reading this is welcome to post comments and questions about infant sleep. I'd like to hear any and all stories, suggestions, and insights!
Let's just say that for the first three weeks of his life, Matthew did not sleep willingly. I remember everyone saying, "Oh, you'll be fine. Newborns sleep as much as sixteen hours a day. Just sleep when he sleeps." They obviously hadn't spent a lot of time around my son. He was nursing about every two hours or so, and in between we would do everything we could to convince him to sleep. We'd swaddle. We'd rock. We'd jiggle and bounce. We'd sing. We'd cuddle. We'd lay down with him. We'd put him in a sling. We'd take him for a drive. We'd offer him a pacifier. We'd play womb sounds. We watched The Happiest Baby on the Block and tried those techniques. We read what Dr. Sears had to say on the matter. All was to no avail. By the time we could convince him to close his eyes and stop crying, two hours would have passed and it was time to eat again. And did I mention he would usually cry for those two hours? So even if I managed to pass him off to my husband (or anyone else), I still wouldn't get to sleep because of the ruckus.
He was not at all interested in a pacifier at the time, although he'd suck on someone's finger (or me, obviously). It was never something that would help him to sleep, though. We did find some relief in giving him gripewater, so we thought perhaps he was having some colic issues. However, even now he struggles to get to sleep, and we know him well enough to know it's not usually pain that's keeping him awake. Honestly, we never know from day to day what is keeping him up.
By three months old, we thought we'd gotten the knack of things; we had a regular bedtime routine that seemed to do the trick and didn't take all night to accomplish. Around that age, he also started to get better at taking daytime naps. We noticed a direct correlation between his nap success and how well he did that night....more naps equalled better nighttime sleep, which seemed counterintuitive, but who were we to judge? Whatever works, right?
But then four months hit, and so did the notorious (as I learned) four-month-old wakefulness. Kellymom.com has some great articles about this. I learned it's just something you have to endure. Now my son is five months old, and things are normalizing again--at least until his next growth spurt.
The one thing we can't bring ourselves to do--even in spite of other mothers, friends, and family members who swear that it works for them--is to allow our son to "cry it out." Not only have I read enough material for a lifetime that shows the possibly damaging effects of this technique, it just doesn't feel right to me. There have been times when he's inconsolable and I can't stop him from crying, but I just sit with him and hold him close. He's allowed to be sad and frustrated, but I always want him to know he doesn't have to be those things by himself.
We also haven't really adopted co-sleeping into our repetoire, except for naps. In the beginning, I was worried about him sleeping on our bed because it's a very squishy pillowtop. He would roll easily into the divots made by our bodies. Now he's old enough where that's not really a problem, but because he still doesn't go to sleep easily, it's really not an option if any of the rest of us want to get sleep. I envy those for whom this style of sleep works well, but it's just not for us. If we have any other children, I'm going to consider getting a little sidecar to put right next to our bed.
He's now five months old, and we are just now getting to the point where we can lay him down in his crib awake and he can fall asleep without too much coaxing. This is definitely improvement, but like I said, it's hard-won. It's been months of trying all kinds of things to see what works, and re-trying them later on the off chance that, even if they didn't work before, they might work now.
Anyone reading this is welcome to post comments and questions about infant sleep. I'd like to hear any and all stories, suggestions, and insights!
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