Some new research done in the UK shows a possible relationship between bacterial infections in infants and SIDS. The bacteria in question are Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. Staphylococcus Aureus is the most common cause of staph infection. Escherichia coli (aka E. coli) is one nasty beast that I cannot imagine what it would be like for an infant to have to deal with.
While the research doesn’t show causation, it does appear to show a possible relationship between the bacteria and SIDS. Of course, as always, many more studies will have to be done before this becomes part of the common SIDS theory. In the meantime, it certainly will keep BM and I on our toes as it relates to possible sources of those bacteria for Baby G.
Today, BM had a doctors checkup with the OB that delivered G. He told us that everything looks great and that she could start working out again if she wanted. Hopefully, that will motivate me to start working out again too :)
Last night G had a 7.5 hour night. He is now waking up about 5a for his second feeding, so I usually feed him and get moving toward the office. Speaking of office… BM spent a couple days in the office this week while her mother stayed at the house and watched G. I think next week, BM will be in the office most of the week - at least part time. Both of us have worked stacked up from our many days and weeks at home with G. It is amazing how fast six weeks can zoom by as you are tending to a child’s needs.
We weighed G the other night and he is now up to 12lbs. Guess it is about time to move into the next diaper and clothing sizes.
As we feel like G is on a good solid nightime schedule, we have begun building his daytime nap schedule. This week, he has done at least one and sometime two naps a day. We are trying to get him to sleep at 9a and 3p. He is doing pretty good at that right now. But, we are told that as we get him into a routine, he will make a drop back in his progress as he is attempting to cross major milestones - crawling for example.
Below are a few pictures we took this week and thought you all might like to see them. As you can see, G is finding it much easier to see and track objects with his eyes. Also, since G’s skin is so pale, it is hard for me to take pictures with he and Dog, but the picture below shows you they are buddies.
BM and I read numerous books, blogs, and magazines in preparation for G arriving on scene. We talked with and picked the brains of our friends and family. The advice we received was great and has been very helpful. Now, having our own baby, we thought it might be helpful for the world to know what things we think are must haves for new parents.
As many of you know, BM and I are obsessed with making things run as smoothly as possible. We decided to compile what we hope will be our first of many lists to help your life be a little smoother once you and your newborn are home. We have tried to avoid the obvious things (think crib, bottles, etc), rather, we thought focusing on the things you might not have considered would be more helpful. So, here you go:
Wipes, Wipes, Wipes - We usually change our baby’s diaper about eight-ten times a day and use about two or three wipes per cleaning. If G gets busy, we sometimes use many more. Getting the baby cleaned up quickly between diaper A being removed and diaper B being attached is important (less you end up with a surprise on the changing table). Wipes are the key to keeping the baby clean and cleaning him quickly. Our favorites are the Kirkland Brand wipes from Costco.
Bouncy Seat - As with the wipes, I have no idea how our parents survived without the help of a bouncy seat. While it won’t be the most attractive piece of furniture in your home, the miracle it performs is worth the temporary damage to the Qi of the house.
Basically, the bouncy seat is a piece of cloth strung between a metal loop that balances on the floor and gives the baby a hammock type seat to kick it (as the kids these days tend to say :) The breathing of the baby causes the seat to bounce ever so slightly which encourages baby to relax and enjoy the ride. We use the Fisher Price Rainforest Bouncer which also has a battery power attachment that makes noises, flashes lights, and vibrates the seat. G doesn’t really enjoy the Las Vegas portion of the seat yet, so we just detach it and have a portable seat we can place G in whenever we need to sit him down to free up our own hands (think after a bath or after a feeding).
Changing Table - We have friends that are on both sides of the isle in the debate about a changing table. Some argue it is unnecessary and some can’t live without it. We are in the latter camp.
A changing table is a must have in our house as it provides a one stop shop for changing the baby’s diaper. It is a station that is always ready to accept the squirming baby and has all the needed items within arms reach (think diapers, butt paste, wipes, alcohol, q-tips, etc.) In fact, I would argue that having the changing table must improve the Qi of the house since it allows you to keep all the diaper changing necessities in one spot rather than scattering them around the house. Secondly, your back takes a beating with all the bending over you do with baby anyway and the height of the changing table is a big help. I don’t remember were BM bought our changing table, but I know it took about a half a day for me to put it together. In the end, it was time well spent.
Camera/Video Camera - I know this one is obvious, but we wanted to take the time to remind and encourage you to take tons of pictures of your new pride and joy. G is now six weeks old and I can see dramatic changes in his appearance from when he was born. BM and I try to take a handful of photos each week just so we have a record of his physical development.
Of course, having a digital camera makes the process even better because it allows you to share your photos or videos online with little effort. If you have a gmail account, you can share photos using Google’s Picasa service. As you might have guessed, I love flickr but I wouldn’t say it is the easiest to use to simply share photos with your family and friends. I also love Vimeo for sharing video with friends and family.
As with the other items described, we will write more in-depth reviews of online photo and video services as time permits. There are many other places online to store and share digital media - the point of this quick listing is just to remind you to have a way of capturing the growth and development of your new bundle of joy. You will love having the pics and videos years from now.
Noise Machine - If you cherish your sleep (trust us, if you don’t cherish it before you have a child, you certainly will once you have a newborn), then you need a good solid sound machine.
Last night G slept for seven and a half hours (he is six weeks old). The sound machine is one of the reasons BM and I feel G has been doing so well in the sleep department (we are knocking on wood all over the house right now :) The machine doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just something to make white noise but we find that the noise machine helps to mask our noises from the baby and it also masks his noises(the non-serious peeps and squeaks) from us. As I have mentioned in another blog entry, I am the kind of person that would be up at every little peep during the night. But, with the white noise at a sufficient volume, we only hear the significant noises that baby makes around the time of his feedings :)
We have been using a noise machine by Sharper Image, but we don’t love it and cannot recommend it. Hopefully, BM and I will find a better solution that we can share with you on OSK.
Swaddling Blanket - Again this item goes along with cherishing your sleep. The swaddle has proven to be another major factor in our limited success with G’s sleeping habits. At night, as part of his routine, he is swaddled very tightly and placed in his crib and allowed to go to sleep on his own.
We first started using a large square stretchable cloth swaddle, but found it wasn’t sufficiently tight enough during the night for G’s strong fits of squirming. He is already over 11 pounds and strong enough to escape your basic swaddle. After waking up several nights in a row to G having the swaddle blanket up over his face or loosely wrapped around his neck while the rest of his body was uncovered, we decided there must be a better way. And, if you spend five minutes on the internet looking, you will see numerous better mousetrap swaddles. We ended up going with the swaddle made by Snug and Tug, which keeps G tightly bound throughout the night (which prevents the baby from accidentally waking themselves up because they don’t have full control or understanding of their arms and hands).
ItzBeen - We think one of the keys to getting a baby into a routine is to have a routine that you live by. Maintaining that routine in a significant sleep deprived state is very difficult and that is where this little device comes in. The ItzBeen has to be one of those often overlooked items that is a must have for new parents.
Basically, it is an easy to use egg timer that allows you to mash a single button and have a timer start counting the duration since you pushed the button. The machine is a small handheld device that can track four different times at once. We use it to track how long it has been since a diaper change, feeding, and how long G has slept. The forth button comes in hand for different things, usually associated with breast feeding. But, with the ItzBeen and a small notebook, we are able to keep up with and keep our baby on a solid routine which helps keep our sanity.
And for those of you thinking, “Oh, I can keep up with how long it has been since the baby was fed or changed,” think again. BM and I used to have pretty good memories but that all changed when we had a baby. I think the baby gods give you a baby, but they take a large portion of your brain power in return - see our post “Babies Eat Brain Cells” for more insight.
Easy Access Outfits - As adults living in the world of mass marketing, it is easy to fall prey to cute clothes made for a baby. But, BM and I now believe the people designing baby clothes have never changed a squirming and somewhat fragile little baby. You see, many of the clothes we have run across are not very easy to put on or take off. As you probably guessed, a baby isn’t able to hop up and use the toilet like adults are supposed to. Instead, for some strange reason, evolution has continued to allow them to go to the bathroom on themselves which must explain the zillion dollar a year business of diapers. Unfortunately, we have seen many super cute clothes on the rack at our favorite stores that don’t take into account that the baby’s diaper has to be changed many many times a day. When changing a babies diaper, let me assure you, having to struggle to get the child’s clothes off (evolution won’t let them change their own clothes for some reason).
We love the small bodysuits that snap up the front and down both legs or in between both legs. This allows us to quickly unsnap the bottom portion of the outfit, change the diaper, and be back in business in the amount of time it might take to simply completely remove one of those other super cute outfits. You will also be changing baby due to spitting up way too many times and pulling an outfit that does not open all the way up over a baby’s head and arms is not very fun for you or baby. Think lots of fussing.
One Million Burp Cloths - We were lucky, we had some friends that helped establish our massive burp cloth collection at BM’s baby shower. We had no idea we would need so many. Turns out, we keep at least two ready for action in every room the baby lives in. We also keep a small stack in the rooms where he spends most of his time. While our baby doesn’t spit up all the time, he does seem to be average in that he spits up regularly (we talked to the doctor about it and she wasn’t worried at all). When people come over to see the baby, they get to wash their hands really well, grab a burp cloth and then hold the baby - you see, BM and I don’t want to see our friends’ clothes ruined with a good burp.
AAP Book - The American Academy of Pediatrics have a great book (Caring for Your Baby and Young Child) that we have been using as our baby bible. The book is amazingly informative and easy to ready. It is divided into sections depending on age so you aren’t stuck reading 500 pages just to find the one tidbit of information you are looking for.
If you are lucky enough to live near a Publix Supermarket, you can join (for free) the Publix Baby Club and they will send you this fantastic book for free. The book addresses birth through age five.
Help and Sense of Humor - These two kind of go hand in hand and I struggle with the sense of humor part sometimes. But, I think if you know going into having a baby that you will most likely need help and that you will be somewhat emotionally drained, you will have a better time in the early part of being a new parent.
In our case, we are very lucky to have my mother-in-law and my brother living nearby. They both love helping to take care of G which allows BM and I the opportunity to go to dinner or see a movie if we want. Or, if you are in the first weeks of newborn life, having someone around might just prevent you from going crazy due to the lack of sleep.
We have heard stories from friends of ours that didn’t have friends or family that could help out (I know, we are friends, but BM and I had no idea they could use our help - mostly because we hadn’t gone through it ourselves). We have also heard stories about friends coming over to cut grass or clean the house. And, as I think we have mentioned in the past, we had numerous friends bring us dinner when G first cam home which relieved that simple burden of having to think of and prepare dinner for the family that night.
Bottom line, don’t be afraid to ask for help. And, know that things should get better as time goes by so try to have a sense of humor when the crap hits the fan (literally :)
G is loving getting out and about. Last weekend, we took him to the grocery store and Target. Yesterday, we took him to pickup breakfast and swing by the Home Depot. Today, another trip to the grocery store is on tap.
Overall, I think he has been out about a half dozen times. In fact, if you listen closely when driving around town, you can hear him talking about what kind of car he will be driving when he turns 16 :)
He doesn’t like being placed in his car seat, but once in there, he usually falls asleep pretty quickly.
Below is a picture I took of him driving the cart around HomeDepot.
G’s little dried up umbilical cord piece has been barely hanging on for the past five days or so. This morning, it finally fell off. BM and I are very excited because it means we are almost ready to give G a real honest to goodness bath in a pool of water. I say almost because the center of the belly button still hasn’t completely dried up. We are thinking it will be another week before it will be dry enough to give him a real bath. Until then, he will have to hold off on any sweat generating activity (think cutting the grass), otherwise he might stink up the house :)
According to a warning issues by the FDA, mothers should not use Mommy’s Bliss Nipple Cream which is marketed by MOM Enterprises of San Rafael, CA. Apparently, the company has stopped selling the cream. The potentially harmful ingredients are chlorphenesin and phenoxyethanol. Believe me, we will be checking our other products around the house to see if these ingredients exist in any of them.
This follows on the heals of a September 2007 warning from the FDA against MOM Enterprises about Baby’s Bliss Gripe Water.
TED is an association that brings amazing people from all areas of education, technology, science, development, business, philanthropy, doers, and thinkers, together to talk about amazing things going on in the world today and ideas for the future. We download the various videos to our Apple TV and watch them during our numerous babyG feedings. But, this isn’t about TED, it is about music for kids.
Over the weekend, we watched MIT researcher Ted Machover give a presentation on the benefits of music in our children. During his discussion, Ted talked about several really cool ideas and products he and his team have instituted for children. Hyperscore is one of those products.
Apparently, Hyperscore is an $80 computer application (Windows only right now - they claim they hope to make a Mac version soon) that allows children to compose music without knowing music notation (you know, I guess that is what you call the various symbols for music on a sheet of paper :) The best I can tell, this is done on a timeline using colored lines, dots, and positions so it isn’t completely different from writing music, but it is sufficiently different that children easily pick it up (think video game). The software also allows the user to output traditional sheet music so they can archive and share their creations.
BM and I are big proponents of allowing children the opportunity to learn things besides Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic (I never will know why, collectively, those are called the Three R’s). Arts, language, science, philosophy, history, physical education, etc. are all important to a child’s development. Hyperscore seems to be a very cool way to interactively introduce a child to the wonderful world of music.
BM/GM (Grayson’s Mom) here. I know many have noticed that I never write posts on the blog. The truth is, I write so much for my job that I am not eager to write during my “free” time. Additionally, I write more like a scientist, so I leave the interesting and wildly entertaining blog posts to GD (Grayson’s Dad). However, after five weeks of on the job use of all the baby clothes and gadgets we now own, there are a few that are worth telling others about. I thought I would start with one of our favorite gadgets.
The Angelcare Deluxe Movement Sensor with Sound Monitor by BeBeSounds: The little gem is a must have for any parent that gets up multiple times each night to make sure baby is okay (or the parent who worries but is too tired to get up after weeks of sleep deprivation). I am very attached to my sleep but GD could not sleep at all without this great little monitor standing ready to wake us if Gman should stop breathing for any reason (SIDS or otherwise).
Basically, the system (which is big in Europe) consists of a sensor pad that goes under the crib mattress. The sensor is sensitive enough to detect breathing movement and will not alarm unless there is no movement in the crib for 20 seconds, allowing you enough time to address the situation. The system also has a sound monitoring feature so, unless you want a super fancy baby monitor, you could buy this product instead of your baby monitor and get two features in one without spending additional money or cluttering baby’s room with multiple devices. The other cool thing is that the handheld parent units have a little moving pendulum on the display that shows baby’s movement. So when GD turns over in the night he can just look at the handheld unit on his bedside table to make sure the pendulum is still swinging and then go back to sleep with peace of mind.
The only thing to watch out for is the middle of the night changing/feeding session by a sleepy parent. If you forget to turn the monitor off before removing baby from the crib you could give your partner quite a scare. This is obviously a common occurrence because the system gives off a low volume warning beep in the baby’s room which allows the sleepy parent time to dash back to the monitor before they wake the entire neighborhood with the real deal alarm. I like the Angelcare Deluxe system with the two handheld units. We got ours from Amazon. The extra sleep is worth every penny.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have continued to get more and more sleep deprived - as any new parent does. Unlike most other parents thought, the lack of sleep seems to cause me to sleepwalk. While sleepwalking is the term, it really isn’t that I am walking around or trying to drive a car. My version of sleepwalking usually involves me waking up just enough to think I am awake and that something urgent needs my attention. I usually think that G is buried under the covers of the bed or has fallen off the bed on the floor (we have a very tall bed). My anxiety is only amplified by the fact that I have just woken up so I think I accidentally fell asleep while G was in the bed.
Many years ago, while I was working at a very stressful job, I had similar experiences, but they often involved me waking up thinking that the ceiling fan or a large framed painting above our bed was falling on us. The good news is that, thanks to BM’s amazing internet searching skills, I now know one of the causes of my sleepy adventures.
Needless to say, there really isn’t a reason I should have those thoughts as G doesn’t spend time with us in the bed - perhaps because I am afraid of falling asleep when I shouldn’t. As you might expect, my little sleep walking attacks don’t help BM sleep when I am patting the covers of the bed looking for G. To be honest, she has done remarkably well with her crazy sleep deprived husband, but finally she had enough.
So, on Saturday, she had her mom spend the night to fill in for me during the late night feedings and diaper changes. Usually, BM and I are both up doing our routine at least once and sometimes twice during the night. It usually takes just under an hour to feed and burp G so you figure we loose a couple of hours a night and that loss of sleep only compounds my sleepwalking problem. BM has successfully compensated (mostly) with naps during the day, but I haven’t been able to do that. Anyway, Gmom spent the night and wouldn’t you know it, G slept for seven hours. The good news is that we all got some much needed sleep.
The bad news… last night, G slept for five hours so it was back to our old sleep routine :)
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