We have been busy as usual but it was a productive and fun weekend. We weighed and measured G for his 5 month and 1 week birthday. He is 18lbs 3oz and is 27 1/2 inches long. That keeps him in the 90th percentile for length and moves him to the 80th for weight. G is now working every day to strengthen his core so he can sit up like his daddy. He lays on his belly and lifts his arms and legs, holding them as long as he can. He does this over and over, reminding me that I should be working out too.
Some times when I am playing with G I find myself wondering what color eyes he will have when he is older. Well last night I did like I always do when I have a question, I asked Mr. Google. He is so handy.
I found out that the reason all babies are born with blue eyes is that they have not yet started to produce the dark brown eye pigment melanin when they are born. As a result, their eyes will remain blue until they start to produce melanin some time between 6 months and a year.At that time, the more permanent color of their eyes will set in.I also found a cool eye color predictor. Just plug in some information about the color of your relatives’ eyes and presto…out comes a prediction about your baby’s eye color.
G has a 75% chance of having green eyes and a 25% chance of having blue eyes.
Here is the link if you want to try it out.The predictor program is very simple and the page also has some good basic information about the whole eye color thing I alluded to above.
One of my favorite tips for the baby’s room involves purchasing a stack of inexpensive hand towels. We did this kind of by accident, but they have proven to be one of our most often used and flexible items. We primairaly use them on the changing table on top of the full changing pad cover as shown in the picture below.
I purchased several changing table pad covers before G arrived, but I had no idea how often they would get dirty during the day. A squiriming baby (think feet kicking everywhere including into the diaper) can manage to get poo on a changing pad cover very quickly. Add to that the fire hose peeing you get with a boy and the changing pad cover can get dirty just about every time you change their diaper. Well, if you don’t want to do a load of laundry every couple of hours to wash your only two or three changing pad covers, enter the hand towels. They cost just a few bucks, versus $10-$20 for a changing pad cover, so you can keep a stack of them by the changing table for the price of one cover. They can be quickly removed when they get dirty and they are far easier to pull off and put back in place then the entire cover. This is very important when the baby has just dirtied the changing surface and you still need to get him cleaned up and put a clean diaper on him. It would be impossible for me to hold the dirty baby while simultaneously pulling off the changing pad cover, replacing it and doing it all before he pees again. With the towel, I just slip it out from under G and go about the business of changing him on the changing pad cover already underneath. Then I replace the towel after the diaper is on and the table is ready for the next time you need it.
The towels are compact and a stack of 5-10 will give you some breathing room on laundry since you have more of them to use before you run out and need to wash them. We found ours at Target and you can get any color to coordinate with your nursery (they have tons of colors). We also use them for especially big spit up incidents and for tummy time (cause spit up happens on the activity mat too), and I’m sure the list of uses will continue to grow as G gets more mobile.
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.
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