Cotton Babies Grand Opening Celebration

GRAND OPENING CELEBRATION
PARTY ON THE COUCHES

Join us this Saturday, May 31st
10am - 6pm

Our retail store has opened in a new location

across the street from St. Anthony’s Hospital

with tons of great new product lines.

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SALES, DRAWINGS AND DOOR PRIZES ALL DAY LONG!!!

The first 50 paying customers get a free pair of BabyLegs.

Thousands of dollars worth of giveaways all day long.

Doors open at 10am, the first drawing is at 10:30am!

We'll continue giving product away every 30 minutes until 6pm!

Where are we?

The store is located at 9916 Kennerly Road, St. Louis, MO 63128.

The store phone number is 314-849-6400.

http://www.cottonbabies.com/index.php?cPath=99

Directions:
Take 270 South to Tesson Ferry Road.
Turn West onto Tesson Ferry Road.
Look for Walgreens - turn left at Kennerly Road.
You'll see Cotton Babies almost immediately. Turn right into the shopping center.

Google Map Link

What's so great about wool?

There are all kinds of diaper covers out there to keep baby's clothes dry and the diaper mess contained. Some are very inexpensive and some are not. For those just getting started, you might wonder why someone would choose to pay over $40 for one diaper cover that needs some special care. There actually is a very good reason.

Because it is wool.

There are many reasons for choosing wool. It is a natural fiber, renewable, breathable, and while the care of wool diaper covers is a little pickier than most other covers, the times it needs care and attention are few and far between.

My favorite reason for the wool, is that no other fabric breathes like it and still contains the mess.

The best cure for a diaper rash is air. Letting baby go diaperless will allow irritated skin to heal faster than anything, but with a busy life and an even busier baby, that is a sure recipe for mess around my house. Putting baby in a diaper with no cover is an option, but again that can be hard if you are on the go or if it is cold out. Putting a wool cover over a cotton diaper is very nearly as good as leaving baby diaperless or at least coverless. Diaper creams have their place in curing rashes, but much of the time air works very well. Allowing baby's bottom some time each day with this breathable cover keeps the skin healthier.

Sleep Troubleshooting part 2

This is part 3 in my series on baby sleep. (Part 1, Part 2) Here are some more ideas for troubleshooting your baby's sleep.

Short Naps: Those 15-20 minute naps are killers! Just when you think you FINALLY get a break the baby is up before you have fully formed a thought about how relieved you are. This takes a little work on your part but it can help to stretch out naptimes. Put your baby down for a nap as usual, but don't go anywhere. Sit nearby where you can hear when baby starts to stir. (This is where a good book comes in handy!) When you hear baby just begin to wake up go and do what you need to do to settle baby down again. You can pat his back, just put your hand on him, caress his head, lay down and snuggle up, breastfeed or offer a bottle. Do whatever it takes to keep your baby from fully getting to alertness. For me it worked best to lay down next to the baby and offer the breast. Once baby is back to sleep you can sneak off again, but still don't go too far. You may find that baby goes through this pattern a few times for each nap and while the naps are labor intensive for you right now, they should be lasting longer. Once your baby gets used to having these longer stretches of sleep, the nap-waking should back down a bit and may even stop. I never thought it would work, but it got my non-sleeping child to eventually take 2.5 hour naps on a regular basis.

The Non-Sleeper: Yawn. I am sorry if you have one of these. The child with the boundless energy that never seems to get tired. It is helpful to read a book that has some good solid sleep research in it like Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (although I personally disagree with the cry-it-out method that he teaches, his information is solid.) A child who is a non-sleeper may need some extra help getting to sleep. And you may have to get especially good at picking up on the first cue that they are tired because their second wind comes on fast and hard.

Teething: The advent of teething is the death knoll of many a good night's sleep. The baby who previously slept well almost all the time can suddenly become the one who wakes every half hour all. night. long. Teethers can help for calming the little one down while you prepare them for sleep. Gumomile Oil is a natural painkiller for baby's mouth. And Tylenol is always a favorite for an unhappy teething baby.

Developmental Stages - rolling, crawling, walking: Learning a new skill seems to set baby's brain on fire. They just cannot stop practicing it. Did you ever have to study for an exam in school and you just couldn't stop thinking about it long enough to sleep? That appears to be how it works for a little baby just learning a new skill. Neither their mind nor their body can stop from practicing the new skill over and over. For example, you may find your new crawler trying to crawl in his sleep and waking himself up. Your new walker may be pulling up over and over. I think these times just have to pass. After a few rough nights things seem to settle back down a bit and baby gets too tired to practice his skill while sleeping.

One-Year Sleep Deprivation: My big confession about baby sleep is that I am always much more sleep deprived when the baby hits one year old than I am during the first several months. I think it is mostly the developmental stages that are coming so fast at that age and how fast they are growing and learning, but my babies are always at their worst when it comes to sleep at this age. There is not a whole lot to do about this, sometimes you just have to realize that your own brain power may be a little diminished for a while until you can catch up on your sleep.

Becoming Verbal: Once baby starts to really become verbal, the fun returns to sleepy time. Suddenly lovely bedtime books take on new meaning. The moon become their magical companion and seems to be loved by every one year old. Your child can understand what you say better and can grasp some element of what is happening. This is a developmental stage and may set your child back a bit, but communication with your child can be more open and rewarding. You can tell your child, "Mommy needs to go feed the dog" (or some other very short chore) and leave the room. Just be sure to come back very quickly. Building the trust that your child has in what you say will allow you to leave the room for longer and longer periods.

Dreamland and Monsters: As baby gets older and more verbal, they will be more likely to have vivid dreams and imaginative thoughts that can leave them frightened at night. A snuggle toy can be comforting. Using a deodorizing spray or other nicely scented spray and give a few shots around the room to make the environment relaxing. I give an extra couple of squirts on their pillow. The deep breathing as they sniff it helps to relax them very much.

There will always be bumps along the road to good sleep for your child, but if you have a good framework in place they will keep returning to that until the next bump hits. As hard as it is on those rough nights, try to remember that these times will someday be only a memory, and a relatively sweet one at that.

Sleep Troubleshooting

In my last post I wrote about setting up good sleep habits. But while setting up good habits gives you a general framework of good sleep, there are always still problems to be had. Here are the basics of a few:

Days and Nights Mixed Up: A lot of babies start out their life like this. When you are newly postpartum and exhausted it can be hard to handle. Keeping the baby in bright rooms during the day and dark rooms at night help baby's circadian rhythm to get sorted out better. Time itself is the only other cure.

Startling/Fussy Baby: Some babies seem to scare themselves with their own limbs. After being bound up tightly in the nice warm womb, all of the space outside of mommy seems to leave them a little out of sorts. Swaddling a baby like this can do wonders. Make sure you have a couple of nice big swaddling blankets on hand to wrap baby up tight. These Soothing Blankets are 44x44 inches and come with a DVD showing you how to use them. An organic cotton thermal blanket is nice and stretchy and stays put even if baby is wiggly. I felt like I was being mean keeping my baby wrapped up all the time, but it truly helped her to be able to handle both sleeping and learning about her world. I remember one day we had just gotten home from being out, Lily was about 4 months old at the time. She fussed and cried and didn't need to sleep and didn't want to nurse. I finally wrapped her up and she was content. Swaddled up she still needed to be carried, but she was happy to survey her surroundings instead of flailing and crying.

Making a Bedtime Routine: Having a short series of things you do to settle your baby helps to cue them in that a transition is going on and helps prepare them to sleep. I try to keep our routine so that it can be done in under 15 minutes, but I can also take my time and let it stretch to an hour or more. Right now we do a bath, some lotion and quiet talking, a new diaper and clothes. We really like the California Baby products because they are phthalate free and the lavender scent is so calming.

The Early Riser: Whatever you do, DON'T try to keep baby up late to get him to sleep in later. It really just creates a more tired, cranky baby. Sleep begets sleep. If baby is getting enough sleep, then you might be able to move the waking time slowly, 10-15 minutes at t a time by moving the bedtimes up. If you think there is any chance that baby is not getting enough sleep, first try working on more nap times. If baby is a little older, make sure the room is nice and dark still in the morning and put some toys in if there is no other way to get a few moments of your own sleep.

No Longer Through The Night: People always tell you when their child first started sleeping through the night but they notoriously never tell you when they STOP sleeping through the night. When your baby is in a stage of sleeping through the night, enjoy it. It will be interrupted by another pattern before you know it.

More troubleshooting next time!

Sleep, Sweet Sleep

Almost the first thing out of anyone's mouth when they start asking questions about someone's baby is, "Are they sleeping through the night?" or "Is he a good sleeper?" No matter what the actual answer is, I usually just say yes and move on, I don't really want to give everyone the play-by-play of how things are going with regards to our nighttime routines and how they may or may not be working right now.

There are some people I know who have fabulous sleepers. Their children seem to sleep well from the day of birth and are easy to soothe. Then there are those who have anti-sleep babies who suffer from mind numbing sleep deprivation almost until their kids are grown. I believe that part of it is nature and part of it is nurture; so in a sense you get what you get with regards to sleep, but you can influence it and make the best of it too.

The first thing to do is to read up a little on baby sleep. It is very different than adult sleep and they need it much more often. My favorite resources are, in no particular order: Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, The No Cry Sleep Solution, and The Happiest Baby on the Block. I certainly don't agree with everything in those, but the information to be gained on the sleep habits of babies is so helpful.

One of the easiest ways to lead your baby towards good sleep is to put them to sleep when they are tired. It seems pretty obvious but it is harder than it sounds. When babies are very little (under two months) their awake time may only be a little over an hour at a time, and sometimes even less than that. As you start to figure out your baby's pattern, you try to stick to it. If you know that your baby pretty generally gets tired after being awake for 90 minutes, then you notice the clock when baby wakes up and as you draw close to that 90 minute mark, you help to guide your baby towards sleep - however you choose to do that. As baby gets older that awake time will slowly stretch until you have 2 naps a day, usually around a year old. If you keep your baby as close to their natural nap times and awake times as you can, you will find that (most of the time) they learn that being tired means that it is time to go to sleep.

Waiting until your child falls asleep from exhaustion leads to little ones who are overtired. It is unavoidable sometimes, but it is not something you want on a regular basis. Overtired babies have a hard time going to sleep. As Dr Weisbluth says in Healthy Sleep Habits, "Sleep begets sleep." Children who get enough sleep and don't get overtired have an easier time going to sleep and often sleep more than those who are overtired. It sounds a little counterintuitive but I have seen it in action and it works. Think about it, have you ever been so tired that you just couldn't sleep? Or when you did fall asleep, you didn't sleep well?

Find your baby's rhythm and use that as your guide for when to put them to sleep. It is as easy and as hard as that to guide your child into the best sleep habits.

In my next post I will talk about sleep disturbances and other trouble shooting.

Yo-yo Baby

You might have noticed that I have not been around to post much lately.

I place the entire blame on my now- eight month old who is going through a few new developmental stages that make using a computer fairly difficult. And even now she is trying her best to climb all over my laptop.

A couple of weeks ago she hit what we call around here the Yo-yo Stage. She had mastered crawling and sitting and was enjoying playing with toys much more. She was a much happier baby now that she could choose what to do and where to go, so you would think that it would be easier now to get something done. But you would be wrong.

I have heard it out of the mouths of many mothers: "My baby is perfectly happy playing and is completely ignoring me, so I try to go and do something and he freaks out."

This is the Yo-yo Stage. The independence of mobility combines with the start of separation anxiety. Baby will seem to be perfectly content playing on the floor, oblivious that you are around, but if you try and go do something baby lets you know that you are expected to stay right where you were.

Try this experiment. Sit on the floor while your baby plays with toys. After baby is happily playing, move about three feet further away but stay on the floor. Baby will probably come over to you for a moment or two, then go back to the toys, then come back to you and then back to the toys. He may alternate every few moments. This is where we get the yo-yo idea. Back and forth, back and forth, as he gets older he may wander farther and stay away a little longer, gradually building his independence from you and security that you will still be around when he needs reassurance.

That is all well and good for baby's development, but I still have other work to get done. There are dishes to wash, laundry to do, and I am sure you can name a dozen other things you need to get done on top of that. So how is a parent or caregiver supposed to get through this stage when baby is alternately ignoring and desperate for mommy?

A couple of things make this time easier for me. First, I place a small batch of toys in places I need to work through the house. There is a little pile in the laundry room, a little pile in my bedroom, and a little pile in the kitchen and I move the baby with me where ever I go. Second, I break out every carrier I own and make heavy use of them.

I use my baby carriers a lot when baby is tiny, but then they are mostly used for outings for a few months. All of the sudden though, they are invaluable again. I have always been a ring sling devotee. I love my Maya Wrap and it will probably always be my favorite because it is so fast and easy to get on and off. I can do it one handed while holding a baby, which makes it great for use on the run. The Moby Wrap is wonderful for new babies, but even now it is great for needing to carry her when she really needs a nap. She is snuggled in so close that she just conks right out even now at 8 months. But the one that is coming in really handy right now is my Mei Tai. (There are several options for this kind of carrier - Ellaroo Mei Tai and Maya Tie are just a few) This one holds Lily a little more securely on my front than a ring sling, but is nearly as easy to put on, although I do have to put the baby down to get it started. There are also more structured carriers that use clips instead of ties but are similar in make-up to the Mei Tai style. These include the Beco and the Ergo carrier. These and the Mei Tai can also be used as a back carrier, which I am also loving right now. I would never get to do anything but sit on the floor if it weren't for having a couple different baby carriers right now!

Kissaluvs Size Comparison

Picking a kind of diaper can be a little befuddling, and once you do that you have to figure out which size to buy. Unless you buy one size diapers like bumGenius, but then you still need to experiment with the right settings.

Well I am here to clear up a little confusion on that! Lily is a mildly chubby 15-16ish pounds right now. I tried on all the sizes of Kissaluvs, and was pleasantly surprised at how flexible the sizing options really are. I haven't used the size zero on her in a couple of months, but low and behold, she fit in them fine. They were very trim on her now and probably couldn't be used for overnight anymore, but they still fit her well. The size 1 kissaluvs, which are the ones she wears most, fit her just right and are a good deal thicker than the size zero. She has been in those since her belly button was well healed. My older son wore these from two months old until he was almost two years old. The size 2 are a bit bulky on her but are great for overnight and will fit her for a good, long time. I do need to size up the cover when I put her in one of those.

You can also see a picture of a newborn and a toddler in their Kissaluvs Diapers on the CottonBabies page.

A note about diaper sizes: Sometimes it seem like chubby babies are outgrowing all their diapers around 8-11 months. You may start to worry that you will need to buy a much bigger size soon. But most of the time babies will slim down around the belly and legs quite a bit once they start to walk and even those diapers that were well outgrown will suddenly fit again.

Laundry in a Minute

I deal with a mind boggling amount of laundry each week. Having nine people in the house will do that to a family, especially when those nine people include a spitty baby, a daddy who gets really dirty in his work, a three year old who loves to play in the sand, and a little princess who loves to wear multiple outfits each day. Adding in the multiple washes suggested for cloth diapers can make me feel like I am getting backed up even further. Here are some ways that I stay on top of things, maybe they can help you too.

1. Sort clothes. I have two hampers (light and dark) in the laundry room and the kids can sort their clothes as they bring them downstairs, and so can I. Grabbing a load of laundry to throw in is easier that way. All family clothes and towels except my husband's work clothes go in here. No special baby laundry, it all goes in the same place.

2. Throw sheets directly in the washer. They don't get sorted. Sheets always seem to back up my system more than anything, so I don't strip any beds unless the washer is already empty.

3. Start wash as soon as I am done with my morning shower. That way I feel like I am getting something done even if the rest of my day is unproductive.

4. Don't start any (normal laundry) loads after 3pm. This gives me time to make sure everything gets dry and gives me a fighting chance at getting to fold it. I usually fold a couple loads at a time while either indulging in a little television or a book on CD.

5. Now we get to how the cloth diaper washes fit in. The CottonBabies recommendation for washing cloth diapers is to do a cold wash, a hot wash, and then a second rinse. I like to start the diapers about dinnertime in the cold wash, start the hot wash before I go to bed. Then when I get up I do that final rinse when I would normally start laundry.

So maybe that has made things seem a little complicated. Let me break it down for you. Pick a time when you are not doing laundry and, well, do laundry - the diapers. It will take you less than five minutes to get them started, and less than two minutes to start them again. Starting that last rinse is just a couple minutes too. Time yourself sometime and see how long it actually takes you, you will be surprised!

And after drying I no longer fold my diapers. I toss the covers in a drawer, stuff the pocket diapers and all the rest of them go in a big hamper.

Your washing machine is like your willing servant. You only have to take a moment to give it some instructions (load it) and send it to work (start it) and then you get to go do something else. That is multi-tasking at its finest!