Are you ever in a restaurant in desperate need of a bib for your wee one? And you end up jamming a napkin down her shirt and hoping for the best? And, depending on the age of the kid, Junior ends up a) eating the bibnapkin, b) absolutely refusing to wear it, or c) both.
I can’t even count how many times this has happened to us.
It obviously happened to my friend and fellow mompreneur Alexandria of Clippopotamus, because she’s come up with a smart and funky solution: The Bib Clippo.
They’re made from washable poly-satin blend ribbons — in sweet designs — and are fully adjustable. Simply clip them onto a napkin, serviette, paper towel… anything, really, and you’ve got yourself an instant bib-on-the-go!
We used ours recently at a Chinese buffet in Orillia, and it worked fantastic. Lucy loved the fun print, opening and closing the clips, and that it was her special piece of equipment.
As a bonus for us breastfeeding mamas, the clips transform any blanket into a nursing cover.
Pretty sweet for $12, huh? Check out the Bib Clippo page.
We’re also loving another ingenious idea: Blanket clippos. These stretchy ribbons-with-clips attach to either side of a carseat or stroller and keep blankets (or toys) in place. Perfect for winter and always having your child’s favourite on hand. See more info and photos here.
Now that Alice is eating solids, she needed her own seat.
I know a handful of you with 3-year-olds, toddlers that sit normally in chairs and have far outgrown special seats. And Lucy can sit in a regular chair, and does so when we’re out if she has to.
But my girl will still pick a high chair or booster seat when we’re out, and most definitely wanted a new chair once Alice took up residence at the table. And we don’t complain — those seats have buckles! That keep children in one place! Lucy can do up her buckles, but not un-do them. This is no accident.
I’ve written about our love of the First Years reclining seat before (click here). I’m actually using it reclined two stages with Alice, who is still not sitting on her own. We’ve got a dish towel underneath her bum to help keep her upright. Even after 2.5 years of daily use, it’s in great shape.
Despite having more room in our new house, we never considered getting anything but another booster seat. High chairs take up so much damn space and are really expensive. We love booster seats the best.
For Lucy’s new one, we ended up with another First Years product — the swing tray. Mostly because it was the cheapest and most compact. We wanted a high back, not just a seat.
Lucy loves it.
She also likes wearing no pants or, um, undergarments when it’s hot in the afternoon and Mummy makes her pose for photos with her sister
(thank goodness for crotch straps).
Spencer in this photo: A new food source! Hurrah! Also: the chaos of my kitchen/living room at the end of the day.
In order to fit everything we needed for the show, we had to take Lucy’s car seat out of the Altima. While it was sitting inside our entrance way waiting for Eric to put it back, I noticed the emergency sticker on the side was horribly out of date.
I’d forgotten all about this ingenious piece of contact information. I got it from the Kiwanis Clubs of Durham a few years ago: It’s a bright yellow sticker that goes on the back or side of your child’s car seat, and includes child’s name, address, parents, emergency contact, doctor and phone numbers for all.
Unfortunately it’s to be used in the chaos of a car accident or other tragedy, but it’s invaluable and offers some peace of mind should you or whomever is driving be unable to communicate.
I updated Lucy’s, and added one to Alice’s car seat, too — I just wrote out the same information on a piece of bright paper and taped it on (layering the tape across to prevent it falling off when wet, or the ink running).
Thought I’d share the great tip. Have any of you done this, or have other ideas?
Speaking of car seat safety, Cindy sent in this horrifying story of a 2.5-year-old boy dragged behind a truck after his improperly-installed car seat popped out (the boy opened the truck door and fell out in his seat). The article certainly highlights how imperative it is to have car seats in properly, and to lock doors when driving (I did not know to do this, but will from now on).
There’s a wealth of car seat safety info in our resource guide — including when and where car seat safety checks are held in Durham Region — under health and safety.
We are (still) battling some sleep…issues with Miss Alice.
When what we now know was the milk allergy started, Alice started rubbing her eyes. This started to keep her awake, so Jen O. lent us her Miracle Blanket.
And lemme tell you…that thing IS a miracle. Even at 15 weeks, Alice loved being in it, and it kept her hands out of her eyes.
(Have you seen one? It’s stretchy jersey, and has a pocket for the legs and wraps for the arms, torso and belly. It like a gentle straight jacket for babies. I wish I’d had it from Alice’s birth, and will recommend it to all new moms now.)
The past few weeks, however, she’s started to resist being bound up. Actually, she’s an angry, beliggerant hornet.
And after months of rocking and walking and pacing, falling asleep standing up, frustration and tiredness, we had to do something. Waiting until six months to sleep train our feisty girl, as we all along planned, seemed like an eternity away. And we knew it’s just get harder the longer we waited.
We knew we’d have to go all out: Get rid of the swaddle, and help her learn how to soothe herself to sleep. One couldn’t be done without the other, you see.
So Monday night — after attempts on the weekend to rock her to sleep unswaddled ended with DEMON BABY — we decided to do it. No swaddle. No rocking.
And then we didn’t sleep from 1 a.m. – well, NOW, essentially.
However.
After hours of crying and anger today, she just went into her bed wide awake, futzed for 20 minutes, and is now asleep.
Sweet, glorious silence. We may actually survive this.
Special kudos to my genius husband, who found a recording of a dryer online, repeated it for an hour, and burned it onto a CD — instant white noise in the nursery! And thanks to all of you for inspiring it with your white noise suggestions.
*sigh* Like parents need one more thing to worry about:
A tragic case in Quebec has led the province’s coroner to recommend babies aren’t left to sleep in their car seats.
A two-month-old died after its mother put it to sleep in an infant seat in a crib. An autopsy showed the baby’s upright position in a car seat led to positional asphyxiation.
“When a child is placed in this type of chair, Robinson said, there is a restriction in oxygenation due to the obstruction of the upper respiratory passages. Often, the head of a child will bend far over, cutting off oxygen supply.
“During the first few months of a child’s life, a baby should not be allowed to sleep for more than an hour during car rides, and its head and neck position should be checked regularly on long trips.”
So, does this mean swings aren’t safe, either? Because they’re at the same angle. Both my girls have slept in them (and their infant seats) for hours at a time. Eric’s Mom, and his family cottage, are both hours from here, and we regularly travel to both.
We bought a head snuggler thing for the infant seat for Alice, and with Lucy we used rolled-up receiving blankets to keep her head in place.
I know many parents, in desperation, who have taken their babies for drives to get them to sleep. And then left them sleeping in there. Heck, we do that when we come home from being out, if Alice is still asleep in her infant seat.
I guess what they’re saying is to not leave them unattended and asleep for hours sitting up. The story reiterates that putting baby to sleep on her/his back is the safest position.
Alice is currently asleep on my lap in what we call the Magic Baby Bag.
It’s on loan from my sweet CP, who testified to it’s magic powers with her daughter, Pearl, who is the same age as Lucy. CP said it was the only way she was able to eat a hot meal for months. Pearl love the comfort of being all womb-like, and the gentle pressure of the velcro straps seemed to calm any gassiness she may have been experiencing.
You can see Jen with Avery strapped into one here. She loved how it gave her two hands to wrangle Eirinn. You can see Pearl snuggled into the sling on a family trip to Ottawa when she was just under four weeks old.
I have to say: Yes, yes and yes.
Know that newborn witching hour between 5-8-ish p.m.? When the baby just cries and cries for no apparent reason, and nothing will soothe them? That doesn’t exist at Chez McDougall-Foster because of this sling. Eric may have to stand up and walk and eat his dinner, and I may have to watch I don’t bash her head against the counter while making said dinner, but Alice is quiet as a mousewarthog in it.
My Mom is fascinated by it, and has said many times she wishes she had something like this when I was young.
This does put pressure on the body when wearing, particularly the back of the neck. But the straps are wide and soft, and adjustable. It’s supposed to be good up to 20 lbs., although neither CP or Jen used it past three-ish months. Newer models have mesh fabric, while ours is cotton inside and denim outside. I’m always careful to make sure Alice’s head is turned up.
While this make was recalled a while back, it looks like Infantino has fixed the clasp problem.
Highly recommended for any family with a newborn, and a great shower gift (avaible all over for around $30). It’s become indispensable for us.
Lucy’s potty training was going fantastically — hardly any messes, consistent peeing in the potty and sometimes even on the toilet — but leaving the house was a huge problem.
My loud-noise-fearing daughter refused to even discuss going pee-pee on a toilet in any restaurant or store. You know those toilets with the long silver handle that don’t have a back tank and flush right into the floor? Generally pretty loud because of the bottom suction?
Lucy’s been terrified of them since she was wee. So the thought of sitting on one was panic-inducing for my poor girl.
This resulted in a few awful public accidents: After repeated asking around potty time if she needed to go, are you sure you don’t have to go, you must have to go?, Lucy would just…pee herself. And pee? Not in a diaper? Soaks everything. So we were back to a full diaper bag, with multiple sets of clean clothes, socks, even shoes.
But one day at the zoo — after many trips to public washrooms with me showing not ALL toilets were loud, and those that were we didn’t have to flush when she was in there — she built up enough courage and trust to go. And I tell you…the celebration in the squeezed toilet stall was epic. I didn’t care who heard me or the looks I’d get, my girl went pee-pee on a big public potty, and damnit she knew how awesome that was.
After reaching that milestone, the hunt was on to find a traveling potty seat. I found it a few days later in Sprawl-Mart: The (gotta love this…) Cushie Tushie Traveller by baby U. Around $12. Folds up well, is padded, comes with a washable bag. Did I mention the damn thing is padded?! Geesh.
It works perfect, and Lucy has never complained about being pinched or fallen in or anything. An excellent investment that will easily carry into the next baby.
Our next potty training challenge: Getting her to poop in the potty, and not in her nap time diaper. Suggestions?
It’s not like we are vehemently opposed to anything overtly girly with Lucy, but we certainly have never encouraged it. She has developed her own love of the colour pink and Dora, but that’s about as feminine as she’s gotten so far.
And I doubled-checked with my Mom and Julia, and both are as stumped as we are as to where THIS has come from.
But come it has. And while I’m so not rushing out to fill our house with Disney Princess crap paraphanalia, I could not resist this Dream Dazzlers skirt at Toys R Us on sale for $5 — especially after Lucy announced she wants to be a cowboy princess for Halloween (?!).
Now the hunt is on for a plaid shirt and pink cowboy hat…
In yet another study that seems to point to carbon dioxide as a big culprit in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, running a fan may reduce the risk by improving ventilation.
In the October issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, researchers in California found that the risk of SIDS for infants in rooms with a fan was 72% lower than those who slept in rooms without a fan. Opening a window also reduced the risk by 36%.
The ventilation may help by preventing carbon dioxide from building up around a baby’s nose and mouth so they are less likely to breathe in exhaled air, the researchers speculated.
The article stresses this isn’t enough evidence to prove anything, and that putting babies to sleep on their back is still the best known prevention of SIDS.
And for goodness sake, stop using crib bumper pads for exactly the same reason. I don’t get how Health Canada can have a “policy statement” that “does not recommend the use of bumper pads in cribs because they pose an entanglement, entrapment, strangulation, and suffocation hazard to infants” yet still allows them to be manufactured and sold to parents.
Free safety booklet: Health Canada recently updated their informative pamphlet Is Your Child Safe, and it’s free for download here. It contains tips about products (cribs, gates, strollers), in-house safety and beyond (playgrounds, the car)
Priti: Lucy always notices my painted toe nails, but so far has yet to ask for the same. I can only imagine the time is near, and if had enough expendable income, I’d so pick up some of these — get this — toluene-, DBP- and formaldehyde-free nail polishes called Priti. The set also includes a soy nail polish remover that is 100% biodegradable and free of petroleum ingredients
Just a few pieces shy of a plastic bubble: Moving up the scale of germaphobia, we have “disposable sanitary hand covers” for kids. I’m not joking. “gLovies used to protect children in a variety of places and circumstances, including public restrooms, malls and supermarkets, zoos and amusement parks, medical facilities, public transportation, or wherever children may come into contact with germs.” You could save yourself $4.99 and just duct tape some plastic bags on your baby’s hands…
Printable games for the car: Free here, for any long-ish car ride
Local fair listings: Some of these have past, but this great list of Ontario Fairs is a neat weekend planning tool for summer and fall (Durham is district 4)
