Baby Gear: Car seat and Stroller

In my humble opinion, one of the most important purchases you make for your baby is the car seat.  Unless you live in a total urban environment, the car seat will become one of the most used baby items in your arsenal.  And it has a super important job: protect baby in case of car accident.  I mean really... it's a super important purchase.

The next big question... what about a stroller?  For the first 8 weeks, you can't even put your newborn in a regular stroller.  You pretty much have to keep them in the carseat.  So how do you decide on a stroller that works with your car seat without spending HUNDREDS of dollars on something that will hopefully fit in the truck of your car?

I've had a couple of friends who are having their first baby's ask my opinion on how to pick a car seat.  There are a MILLION different options.  How on earth are you supposed to know which one is the right one?

Hence, the birth of this blog post.  (Get it... new baby... birth...)

Here's the short answer... any car seat will work.  After hours of research and purchasing the most obscure car seat around (apparently) I finally came to this realization.  If they are selling it in the United States, it had to pass car crash studies, weight tests, and probably countless other tests.  Any current car seat (without recalls and with all the right parts) is probably going to function properly and be safe.  With that in mind, here are my tips of choosing the right car seat.

1.  Know your brands.  Graco.  Chico.  Britax.  Peg Perero.  There are a dozen different brands out there.  But it isn't so much about which brand is better (see comment above).  I think part of it is knowing what brands are the most used.  Do you have friends that have had one of them?  Did they like them?  What didn't they like?  Do any of the brands have current recalls?

2.  Examine them.  Is the cover easy to take off to wash (because you will have to wash various body fluids out of the car seat cover at some point).  Henry liked to have blow-outs on the way daycare EVERY DAY.  We cleaned the carseat A LOT.  Are there little crevices in the buckles that will be hard to clean?  Is the handle easy to maneuver?

3.  Try them out in the store.  Car seats are heavy on their own.  They are even HEAVIER when you are still using them for your 25 lb 9 month old.  Is it easy to carry one-handed?  Does it hurt your arm?  Is it easy to get out of the car seat base?

4.  Find out if your friends have any extra accessories you can borrow.  If you are like us, you will have at least 2 cars that will require a car seat base.  If your friend has an extra base you can borrow, it might be worth it to look at purchasing the same brand car seat as that base.  The bases are somewhere around $50 a piece.

5.  Know the stats.  What is the weight and height limit on the car seat?  Does it go up to 25 lbs or 35 lbs?  How long do you want to use the car seat?  We wanted to use the carseat for at least the first year, so we found one that went up to 35 lbs.  It turns out Henry got too tall for it so we have to switch sooner than that.  But it is good to know the weight and height limitations of the car seat before you purchase it.

Let's talk stroller...  First of all, I wouldn't recommend buying the travel systems where the giant stroller and car seat go together.  The strollers are HUGE.  And heavy.  We borrowed one initially and it barely fit into the back of our car.  Not to mention they are super expensive.  I recommend getting a car seat that has a matching stroller frame you can use.  The frames are light-weight, cheaper, and easy to snap the car seat into.  We purchased one that had a removable stroller seat, so we can still use the stroller even now that Henry is too big for the carrier car seat.

Contours Bliss 4-in-1 Baby Stroller

{Apparently they don't make the one we purchased anymore, but this one very similar 

(and more expensive unfortunately)}

Once you have made your car seat purchase, the next step is making sure it gets installed properly into your car and that you know how to put the baby in it.  Our hospital and local fire department put on car seat clinic every other month.  We took our car seat and the manual to them and they showed us step by step how to make it was level and put in properly.  They also showed us how to use the different features of the car seat and how to properly put a baby (or in this case, a stuffed animal) into the seat.  If your hospital doesn't do this, most fire departments have someone that can help.  Just call ahead and ask if they can check it for you and when would be a good time to stop by.

So there you go!  More than you ever needed to know about how to pick a car seat and stroller.

Workin' Hard

When Henry was about 5 weeks old, I had to start going back to work.

My boss (my dad for those not in the know) was going to be out of town on vacation for the week.  Since I am the only other engineer in the office and this is an engineering firm, it was important for at least 1 engineer to be available to answer phone calls.

 There was NO WAY I was leaving my 5 week old with anyone.  Just thinking about it makes me want to cry.

What's a girl to do?  Bring him with me, of course!

Truthfully, being a business owner has a lot of challenges.  I wasn't exactly thrilled with having to go back to work so soon.  I didn't really get much of a maternity leave, but I suppose it is to be expected when you own a business.  You make sacrifices when you have to. But one of the benefits is that I get to be a little more flexible with work schedule and work conditions.  This has definitely been a blessing through the whole cancer/having a baby stuff.

He does a lot of this:

Working Hard from Natalie Janney on Vimeo.

And some of this:

Sleepy from Natalie Janney on Vimeo.

{I just love that he is petting his giraffe.  Tired little guy}

And a whole lot of this:

At this age, Henry isn't mobile and spends a decent amount of time napping.  Well, he can nap at the office just fine.  None of this would be possible if he weren't such a good baby.  And he really is an amazing baby.

He won't be coming with me to work every day for much longer.  He starts daycare three days a week in September.  I know it is what is best for our situation.  I have to work and at daycare he will get to interact with other babies.  He will get a TON more stimulation than he would with just me at home.  Heck, they even take field trips with the babies.  Henry will have A BLAST there.  Plus it will help me get more done at work.

What will he do the other two days?  Probably come with me to the office or my mom will watch him.  Daycare is SPENDY so we are figuring out something that will work out.  Most likely I will want for him to come with me.  I can't imagine not having my little man with me all day.  :(

Can you blame me?  I get to look at this:

Only occasionally this:

Ok I think he's cute even when he cries.  :)

Weekend Projects

I know I don't post weekly pregnancy updates like some wonderful bloggers do.  Truthfully, those posts look like a TON of work.  Plus they require weekly pictures to be taken and frankly, that feels like a form of torture for me at this point.  Turns out pregnancy + unstable thyroid = RETAINING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF WATER.

Awesome.

Anyway, if case you were keeping track, I am now 34 weeks pregnant.  And I am currently wafting back and forth between feeling like time has stopped completely, 9 months is actually FOREVER, that I will never actually have the baby and HOLY COW HE COULD BE BORN IN WEEKS, WE HAVE SO MUCH LEFT TO DO, I HAVEN'T WASHING ANY OF HIS CLOTHES YET, WHY AREN'T THERE MORE HOURS IN THE DAY!

Thankfully, that's where nesting kicks in.  And I tackled a few items off my to-do list.

Since Phil and I were both diligently working Saturday, Cotton was quite confused as to why we were both home and yet neither one of us was available for cuddling with him.  He checked in with me several times during the day:

What this picture doesn't show is his desperate attempts to crawl on my ever-shrinking lap.  Poor, neglected dog.  What was Taylor doing all day?  Lounging on the couch like a good dog.  She's not as needy as the puppy.

He also proved later that he wanted to get work done too:

I should probably pull out my big girl camera to take pictures of my finished products, but that would require actually plugging the camera into my computer and downloading pictures (which I STILL haven't done from my baby shower a month ago!), so Instagram pictures will have to suffice.

I managed to:

-  Finish the chenille blanket by sewing on the trim (not pictured).  I always forget how long that process takes and how much I absolutely detest it.

-  Make two covers for the changing table pad.  I also discovered that this fit the cradle pad, which means I don't have to make a special pattern AND the sheets are now dual purpose.  YAY!  I think I still need to make two more covers, but those should only take about 30 minutes a piece maximum now that I know what I'm doing.

-  Make the carseat cover.  I know this is a totally NOT NECESSARY baby item (which is why I certainly didn't want to purchase one).  But since I cost me about $5 in fabric (plus some fabric I already had), I figured it was a worthwhile project.  Plus I kind of love how it looks.

We also attempted to take some baby clothes back to exchange them for larger sizes Saturday morning.  Of course, by the time we got to the store we had decided that we really didn't want to exchange anything and just ended up buying him more clothes.  I'd call that a win for the baby clothes industry.

I'm slowly but surely get things checked off the to-do list.  I think I only have a few sewing projects left and then some random things I need to get done for the nursery.

Slowly but surely.  Then maybe I'll use my big girl camera for the big reveal.  :)

Baby To-Do

I guess I hadn't realized it, but getting the rocking chair finished really lifted my spirits and took a HUGE load off my back.  I feel like we are SO CLOSE to being done with the nursery now that that project is finished.  It's probably because all of the things I have left to do are so small and less time consuming than that one.

Here's a list of things I have left to do:

-  Hang Curtains

-  Put trim on chenille blanket

-  Make 2 or 3 covers for the changing pad.  I'm going to use THIS tutorial I think.  I may do a little extra tailoring to make the cover fit more snugly.

-  Make 2 fitting sheets for the cradle.  I'm going to use the same concept as the changing pad covers.

-  Make 2 Bobby covers using THIS tutorial.

-  Make a car seat cover.

-  Maybe make another chenille blanket.  This one will be VERY simple and smaller than the last one I made.

-  And I want to crochet a blanket for the little man.  I'm thinking THIS pattern looks simple enough.  I almost started it last night but decided sleep would likely be a better option.

-  Crochet some hats.

-  Put together artwork for the wall.

-  Get Phil to finish and hang bookshelves (he started them this weekend).

-  Exchange some of the clothes Phil and I bought.  After my baby shower, we discovered we had an ABUNDANCE of 0-3 month clothing.  I thought this might happen.  So when Phil and I bought a bunch of baby clothes on sale about a month ago, I saved the receipt and left all the tags on in case we would need to exchange them for larger sizes.  I think I might do that this weekend.

-  Wash all the crib bedding, diapers, wipes, clothes and blankets.  Clothe diaper inserts have to be washing several times (they recommend something like at least 3, but morel likely 10 washes) before they are, shall we say, put to use.

-  Organize all clothes and blankets.

-  Make diaper wipe solution.  This will take 10 seconds tops.  I'm thinking I will omit the tea tree oil.

-  Pack our hospital bags.


It looks like a lot of stuff still to do.  But I'm pretty sure most of these projects will only take a few hours.  And with my new goal of doing one thing a day, I think it is do-able.  Nesting has kicked in full-force which helps.  Unfortunately, I have some night meetings in the next couple of  weeks which will interfere with my
productivity.

Now I just need to decide which project to do tonight...

My Hippy is Showing: Cloth Diapers

Even though almost everyone around me thinks I'm crazy, I'm pretty resolved in my convictions to cloth diaper.

If I were to breakdown my decisions making process on this topic for you, I would say it is about 85% about cost and 15% about the environment.

It wasn't until I really started looking into cloth diapering vs. disposables that I also found out that cloth diapered babies have fewer diaper rashes and potty-train about 12 months sooner (Joanna actually pointed that one out to me).  I also learned that cloth diapers usually lead to fewer "blow-outs" and that while there seems to be this general idea that if you cloth diaper, you end up handling poop all the time.  Most of my research into cloth diapering has shown that you actually deal with less poop with clothe.

Honestly, the handling poop thing doesn't bother me too much.  Cotton has literally pooped IN MY HAND.  It was not solid.  Like 2 weeks ago I had to wash poop out of Cotton's butt hair.  And dog poop smells so much worse than baby poop in my experience.  That's enough about that.

I thought I would have a hard time convincing Phil that we should cloth diaper and was shocked that he really didn't think it was a crazy idea.  Maybe it's the toxicologist in him, but he was fine with contributing less waste to the local incinerator.  Then I thought FOR SURE we would have to use disposables on the babe at the daycare he will be going to.  Nope.  They will cloth diaper him if we want them to.

I was shocked.  And totally sold.  I think cloth diapering is coming back into fad.

I spent hours online doing research, traded research information with another mom-to-be in our Bradley Class, and was largely swayed by Ashley's experience with cloth diapering her twin girls.  After everything I have looked at, I decided we will go with Flip Diapers.

Ok... So I had my diaper choice figured out.  That was step 1.  Then I thought well what about wipes?  How did reusable wipes work?  If I used disposable wipes, would I have a diaper pale and a garbage can in the nursery?

Thanks to the previously mentioned mom-to-be in our Bradley Class, I had a general idea of what you needed to do reusable wipes.  I still figured I would do disposables.  Cue another few hours of research. I decided if I was going to do the cloth diaper thing, I might as well go all out and use reusable wipes as well.

{Reusable wipes from AsYouStitchBaby on Etsy}

So last night, I really dove into the whole cloth diapering thing and bought a couple of the essentials that we will need:  2 wet bags (one for the diaper bag and one for daycare) and the reusable wipes.  I'm hoping to get the clothe diapers at my baby shower this weekend.

A couple of built-in caveats here:
1.  I don't think we will be cloth diapering exclusively, 100% of the time.  When we travel, we will use disposables.  There's no way I am getting on a plane and staying at a hotel with a bag full of poopy diapers.  Or camping?  Yeah no.  And depending what size Baby Janney is at birth, we will most likely be using disposable until he exceeds 8 lbs (which I kind of think he might do on his own from the beginning).

2.  I reserve the right to change my mind completely at any given point.  However, the fact that I'm cheap plays a pretty big role here.  If I do decide to switch to disposables, it will be because we have suddenly come into some money and/or the convenience of disposables beats out my cheapness/environment conscious (which is entirely possible).

HOWEVER, I feel like I will stick with cloth diapering just because my family thinks I'm crazy for doing it.  I'm stubborn like that.  :)

If you have any questions about cloth diapering, shoot me an e-mail or comment.  Obviously I don't have the hands-on experience yet, but I can point you towards the information I have found.  I know I have lots of questions like How do you wash them?  Got that one figured out.