We took our little guy on his first real outing yesterday. He’s been out on walks with us every day for the last week, but yesterday we went to a BBQ with him. We walked to get there, with him riding in his sling, which he loves. He was a hit – new babies usually are – and he was very well behaved, sleeping most of the time. When he got hungry, I just went and sat under a tree and nursed him inside his sling. I can’t imagine how inconvenient bottle feeding would be, compared with breast feeding. Breast feeding was much more painful than I had expected it to be, for about a week. But once we got through the first week, it’s been much easier – and now we have a portable, free, always-sterile, always ready food supply for him.
The BBQ was a SIDS benefit organized by a friend of ours who lost a baby 13 years ago to SIDS. It’s an annual event, but having a baby of my own made the whole thing much more emotional for me. I think I slept with one eye open all night last night, and my hand on his chest the whole time. Since babies have to sleep on their backs now to help prevent SIDS, they don’t spend nearly as much time on their tummies as babies did in the past. So we’re supposed to get in plenty of supervised “tummy time” while the baby is awake, in order to help with motor skills like crawling and holding up his head. I read that the earlier you start tummy time, the less the baby will protest it as he gets older, so we started hanging out with him on his belly last week. An added benefit is that we have tummy time on the floor on a towel, so we take his diaper off while he’s on his belly. We’re hoping to ward off diaper rash by giving him plenty of time each day with no diaper on, letting everything dry out all the way. Our cloth diapers are great, but when they’re wet they feel wet, so we figure that getting them off him for a while each day is a good thing. He probably prefers the dry air too – although he’s not a big fan of tummy time yet.
A neighbor gave us a bike trailer today, so that we can pull our little guy behind us when we go on bike rides. That was the last thing we needed as far as baby gear, and they came over last week and offered us the one that their son had outgrown. It’s amazing how many great things people have given us for our baby. The great thing about baby stuff is that a lot of it doesn’t get used that much before the baby outgrows it, so it’s easy to pass on multiple times. We’ll be on the lookout for friends and family having babies next year, so that we can pass on our baby’s stuff.
I finally went shopping yesterday, spending money for the first time since the baby was born. I went to Costco and got some groceries, and I got my mother in law’s birthday present. I got two 8 x 10 pictures of our baby printed while I was at Costco – for $1.39 apiece. Then I went to TJ Maxx and got two frames for $8 each. They turned out so cute, and she was thrilled with her present. Of course now I want to go back and get more copies for us… We’ve taken 170 pictures on our digital camera since the baby was born. Good thing we’re not still using film. Our digital camera has definitely paid for itself in what we would have spent on film over the last few years. And now that we have a baby, the picture taking will only increase. I love being able to print and scrapbook only the best shots, and have everything else just stored on the computer (with several backups!)
MITBeta @ Don't Feed The Alligators says
You might want to check on this, but babies are supposed to wear helmets when trailered behind bikes, and most babies won’t fit into the smallest baby helmets until they are at least a year old.
This was a real bummer for me when I found out about it…
Alissa says
Hi there!
I just found your blog a couple of days ago and I’ve loved reading it so far. Congrats on your new little one, parenthood is such a wonderful journey. :) I’m especially loving your cloth diapering posts, how great that you were able to do it so cheaply!
I just wanted to share with you some info I have found on SIDS. There has been some speculation for a number of years that SIDS is caused by mattress offgassing – all of those chemicals they put in our mattresses to keep them flame retardant, etc. (The reason there has been such a dramatic decrease in SIDS since babies have started sleeping on their backs is because they aren’t directly breathing in the gasses released by their mattress when they’re on their backs). Anyway, I couldn’t find the original article I read, but this one gives good information as well:
http://www.johnleemd.com/store/art_sids.html
Also, the older a mattress is, the faster it offgasses, which is why later-born babies (or babies who are sleeping in hand-me-down mattresses) are at increased risk for SIDS.
I’ve been reading up on this quite a bit lately, and I’m thinking of purchasing a mattress wrap for all of our mattressess to prevent this offgassing. Even though my kids are a little older now, God knows what kind of effects those gasses will have on their development.
Anyway, not to frighten you or anything – but I know from experience that knowledge is power. Had I known then what I known now, I would have bought organic mattresses for our children.
Alissa