day 24 - diaper success leads to crib success!

With the miracle of the hair drier and heating pad serendipitously found to pacify you during a changing (you now love love love having a good ole diaper change), we realized the same solution may be applied to help you sleep.

Up until today you were a good sleeper, until the moment you hit the crib. The confinement of the sleeping cell makes you wake like nothing else. We realized today that it may just be that your crib gets cold in the absence of your warm body. Solution? Pre heat the crib with the heating pad. Result? Warm crib and sleeping baby.

day 10 - the hot air effect

You hate having your diaper changed. It is one of the few times you cry, but oh do your little baby lungs perform. We were guessing its the cold air, maybe the cold changing pad, or just the overall inexperience of going, um, potty. Maybe its the diaper rash you've developed from our rushed, end-the-crying diaper changes.

Only time will fix the inexperience part, so we tackled the heat factor, or lack thereof and slapped some butt paste on your rear side. And for the heat factor we added in the most efficient heat AND white noise producing diaper changing agent there is, the hair drier.

The hair drier truly is the miracle tool. You instantly calm down from the noise and it works perfectly to expedite the recommended air drying of babies bottom. Nappy rash and crying solved in one fell swoop! Success!

Lesson Learned:
Hair driers do much more than dry hair! Word of caution: We use the cool setting (which is really more like a warm setting) on the hair drier most of the time. We will interject a few seconds of warmer air and constantly have a hand where the air is blowing - to make sure the temperature is okay.

Alternative Lesson Learned:
Pre-heating your changing pad with a heating pad (remove heating pad before changing baby) also seemed to make the diaper change more enjoyable. While it helped with the crying though, the pre-heat time is a bit frustrating and it does assist in tush drying.

day 7 - why does he cry all the time?

I did not know what type of mom I would be. I don't love kids. Maybe I do now. I think I just love you. I had my fears that I wouldn't love you, that you would be some stranger, some slimy, red, puffy baby they lay down on my belly in the hospital. I read about this phenomenon. I was prepared for the chance that would be me.

It didn't happen like that at all. I loved you from the first moment I saw you. There is an unquestionable bond between a mother and a child. From the instant your head pushed it's way into this world that was the way it was to be. Here was my baby, my love. On April 22, a girl grew up, experiencing a love she never new existed.

I understand postpartum depression and I can sympathize with feeling as though your child was a stranger. Here I am in one of the most demanding and important phases of my life and I am surprising myself in the way that I feel truly blessed. It helps that I think you are the cutest baby in the world. It helps that I have countless opportunities to gaze down at your assembly of faces to make while you sleep. It helps that sleepless nights are meaningless as long as I am on maternity leave. It helps that you are such a wonderful being.

Despite my inexperience as a mother, I don't think you cry much at all. We hear some cries when you are hungry. Of course, then we feed you. You cry when we change you diaper, sometimes. Then, some nights, you cry as if you are colicky, kicking out and screaming is it seems the gas or poo works it's way down. This is a bit more alarming, but again I read it is normal. So, in these three ways that you truly cry we only hear 10 or so minutes of crying a day. Nevertheless, in your first week home there's definitely been some 3rd party concern as to the extent of your cries.

I consulted THE source, the internet. Expect up to two hours of crying, more for a colicky baby. Again, I think we are blessed with you.

May the critics be silenced, we have an angel on our hands.