Baby Monitors

Today's post is not about the actual baby monitors we tend to use in the house.  I'll do that one another day.  Today's is about an iPhone app.  I'm pretty excited about it, I just haven't tested it out yet.  I forget where I saw it on the intarweebs, but it seems pretty cool for when you are at someone's house and are putting the small person to bed for awhile.

Basically, you set the thing up, put your iPhone with the baby wherever you are stashing the baby and it calls the phone number you set when the baby stirs.  Kind of nifty I think.

babymonitoralarm.info/

I'll post again once I've tried it out and we'll see how snifty it is.

Bibs!!!

Let me just say that bibs are useful.  Very very useful.  Some more than others.  I was a terrible mother and didn't/doesn't really use the drool bibs.  I really should, but it's been just kind of easier to put him in a new shirt/sleeper.  Mind you my Munchkin has so many clothes it's insane.  One day the hand me downs will dry up and I'll be in trouble.

Anyway, today's bit is about the food bibs.  They are super important.  Especially if your little one is as messy as mine.  I think my favorite bibs so far are the almost fully body bibs with sleeves.  I have some super cool other bibs, but they don't provide the coverage needed.  My Munchkin likes the ones made out of terry cloth, but there isn't much protection as he stuffs it in his mouth.  All the plastic bibs seem to end up as capes which is no good because I'll just have to teach him later that super heros don't wear capes.

I currently have the Kladd Prickar bibs from Ikea and they are working pretty well.  I'm also going to see about grabbing some other ones too.  I think I need a couple more bibs.  2 isn't enough.    I think Kushies makes them too even thought they aren't on the websites.  I've seen them at baby stores.  I'm sure there are other ones out there too.

But the protection is essential.  They can get super awesome coverage with the food.

Wriggle Wrapper

So this is something really neat we just got.  It's called a Wriggle Wrapper by Phil and Teds.  It is a portable high chair.  I really like it.  I wasn't so sure I would, but I used it for a lunch outing today and it was fantastic.  My hubby used it on Saturday night when we were out for dinner for a friend's birthday.  The little man isn't quite able to use the restaurant ones yet.  He's a bit small.

I wasn't sure about it and actually hunted around and got it on Ebay.  But I really really like it.  You can secure them to a chair or in your lap and still have both hands free.   You just have to watch to make sure they don't steal your food/plate.

Now I realize most restaurants do have high chairs, but we do go to friends and family houses quite frequently and they don't have highchairs (and I don't expect them to either).

So I'm giving this 2 thumbs up!

Food!!

So I'm not quite motivated enough to make my own baby cereal.  Call me crazy but....  Since I would tend to prefer giving my wee man whole grains, I figured I should feed him brown rice cereal.  It's a bit hard to find, but I did find some.  There is a company that makes organic baby cereals, teething biscuits etc...  

Healthy Times

So far I'm quite impressed with them.  I've tried the Brown Rice Cereal, the Barley, and the Oatmeal and the teething biscuits.  We're sticking to the rice cereal for now.  He finds the barley a bit too bitter and the oatmeal gives him a bit of gas.  We'll try them again later.

One of the things I really like about this company's food is that there is no crap in it.  If you read the label on most baby cereals, there are a bunch of chemicals and crap like potato Malodextrin, Palm olein, powdered milk etc....  In the Healthy times, there is brown rice, an iron supplement, and a calcium supplement thing.  

So yeah, I think this is the way to go.  I'm not a rabid organic only, but I do think we should do as much as possible.  The less crap the better.  

It's a bit hard to find in stores, but lots of health food stores carry it, the Great Canadian Superstore tends to have it and the SickKids food store also carries it.

Skip Hop Diaper Pad

So I really like the Skip Hop Pronto diaper changing station.  It holds a couple of diapers and some wipes.  It is great for if you're going out for a bit and don't want to take the whole diaper bag with all the stuff.

I find it awesome for going for a walk or at the cottage heading over to the neighbours for a little bit.  No need to take the bag of everything.

Too Much Cute

This weekend my sister and her husband had a little friend join their family.  He's 6 weeks old and his name is Scrappy!  He's a pretty cute little kitten.  Robbie got to meet him yesterday.  At one point he was crashed out on the floor for a nap and a certain little kitten decided to come and have a look followed by a nap.  We almost died of the cute.

Baby Sign Language

Now I'll be the first to admit that I haven't been doing super duper amounts of this, but it's kind of a nifty idea to teach your baby sign language.  It can actually help improve their vocabulary and speaking skills etc...  I'm just going to mention here an iPhone app that helps when you can't remember the sign and you aren't beside your reference book.  It's pretty cool and not very expensive.  I would recommend it.


My Smart Hands

Baby Wipes

Yup a whole post about what to use when wiping your baby’s butt.  There are many different brands and I’m sure there are many different opinions.  I’ve tried a few different ones and I think at the moment my favorite for price and usefulness together is the Kirkland Brand from Costco.  But on to my reviews:

Kirkland Wipes

The Kirkland (Costco) wipes are my favorite I think.  The price is awesome and the wipes work well without too much perfume.  I’m not as fond of the package they come in as other brands, but that can be solved by taking them out of the package and putting them in an existing container (I like the Huggies containers and have saved them for that exact purpose).  Basically the little lid on the Kirkland packages doesn’t really stay shut very well. 

I would say the Kirkland ones are my favorite by far. 

Baby Life

I kind of like the Baby Life brand from Shoppers Drug Mart.  I’ve only really used them for their travel packs (a bit o the expensive side but they fit so well into my diaper bag).  The wipes are big enough, do the job and don’t smell too perfumy.

Pampers

The Pampers wipes are good.  Some of them can be on the perfumy side and they tend to be on the more expensive side too.  But I would probably  buy the Pampers one when they are on sale. 

President’s Choice Baby Wipes 

I must say, I’m a little on the disappointed side here.  Usually I’m quite happy with any of the PC products.  They are one of the reasons I shop at No Frills, Loblaws and the Great Canadian Superstore. 

Sadly in this case I’m on the disappointed side.  I find that the wipes are on the small side and therefore take more to so the job.  And there is more danger in getting poop on you too.  Other than the small size though they are ok. 

Rexall No Name Brand

I wasn’t fond of these ones.  They seemed a little thin and scratchy to me.  But if there is nothing else they will work.

Huggies Wipes

The Huggies wipes containers are fantastic.   I’m not quite as fond of the Huggies wipes.  They tend to be more expensive and on the perfumy side.  I’m not a huge fan of scents in my wipes.  I tend to refill the

Baby Swings

Well, I was going to do a review of the baby swing we have for the little guy, but it looks like they don't make it anymore.  I'm not terribly surprised.  It was a hand me down, hand me down.......  It's too bad they don't make it anymore as it's fantastic.  It is an old school crank model.  No batteries to replace or motors to make a weird noise.  Munchkin loves it.  He hated the other swing we borrowed.

That being said, there are a bunch of baby swings out there now that run on batteries etc... that I'm sure are quite good  I can't remember the model that was lent to my parents for the cottage when Munchkin is visiting, but it seems fine.  Not quite as awesome as the crank one, but pretty good.

So I'm sure all of you out there aren't going to find this terribly useful.  But babies do tend to like swings and especially if you can get a hand me down or something and have the room it is probably worthwhile.

Baby Connect iPhone App

I find this little app pretty useful when I need to track my wee Munchkin's sleeping, eating and pooping habits.  It's pretty cheap and super useful.  You can also have it on Multiple phones and it has a web interface.  So I recommend it.  And now Munchkin needs my attention so off I go!

http://www.baby-connect.com/

Soothers

I'm not going to get into the soother debate (the good v evil).  I'll let you all decide that on your own.  

Our little Munchkin isn't much on soothers.  Most of the time he doesn't want one, but then every once in awhile does.  We kind of wish he wanted one more.  He did seem to like them at the beginning (only the one kind) and then for some reason all of a sudden decided "NO I DO NOT WANT ONE".  Now he's wishy washy about it.

We've been using the Soothie brand by Phillips as that's what he had when he was in the hospital.  He has consistently refused all other kinds.  

We have gotten him some Wubbanubs so he can try and hold onto them a bit himself when he is in the mood for a soother.  He quite likes them even if he hasn't quite figured out how to really pop it back in properly.  He enjoys chewing on their hands and the sides of the soothers.  

Joe Fresh

Just sayin.....Joe Fresh has some pretty nifty inexpensive baby clothes.  You do have to check frequently as the stock changes, but it can be worth it.  Especially if you luck into clearance day.

Not that my little man needs any more clothes at the moment.  But ti is cool to keep an eye out for anything super nifty.

Carters Baby Clothes

I must say, I really like the Carters baby clothing.  It's generally very well priced, super cute and fits well.  I've had several people give me some and it's been some of my favorites for dressing my little Munchkin.  That's pretty much all I have to say about them.  Cute, good price, fits well!

Baby Food Storage

Just thought I would share a couple of things about baby food storage.

Freezing is awesome for storing baby food.  I basically make a batch of something (say sweet potato) and then put it into an ice cube tray an freeze it.  Then I put the cubes into a ziploc bag.  This way I don't have to make a million special things a day and I can take a couple of cubes out at a time and defrost them depending on how much I need.  Now it doesn't work with everything, but it does work for a lot of veggies and fruit.

They do sell special "baby food" trays and I was loaned a couple.  They're good, but you can use an ice cube tray too.  You probably already have a couple and they are cheaper than buying the special ones.

That being said, I did get one of these.  They been kind of useful when making a batch of something and I want to use the next day.  I don't find the tray part terribly useful, but the little containers yes.

Teething Rings

Teething Rings are awesome for the little ones.  Their poor teeth hurt so much when they are growing them.

I've tried a couple of different teething rings and so far he's really only liked two of them, but I'm going to try again with the others.  The first one is Sophie who will get her own post.  So I won't say much here, except you should get one.

The other is the Ringley Teething Ring.  Munchkin seems to like chewing on Fabric so is is a great one for him to have.  I had originally thought it was jus super gimmicky on the "organic" bandwagon type thing, but he really does seem to like chewing on the maple ring and the fabric bits.  I got the Ringley Straight and he's quite happy with it.

The ones that haven't worked so well yet are the ones that are filled with fluid and put in the fridge to be cold.  I think he's going to change his mind about that sometime soon when the teething gets really super sore.  I get the feeling he's just not so sure about the cold feeling yet.

My husband's and my fingers are also great teething rings according to Munchkin.  Just thought you might want to know that.

Tracking your Baby

Hmmm, Tracking your baby. That kind of sounds like you're going to be putting a microchip in them and following them with a GPS tracking device.

So when you're a brand new parent, you are expected to track everything your baby does. Even though you are a sleep deprived goomba. So you need to know exactly when and how often he/she pees, poops, eats etc.....

Now I'm not so good with all of this type of thing on a piece of paper. I'm just too too tech oriented. And of course you tend to leave the piece of paper at home and decide you're going to remember to do it later, etc... and so on. Then you forget. But the one thing you always have with you (well most of us anyway) is your phone. I have a iPhone personally so this all for this. There is an App in the ITunes store called Baby Connect I think it's $3.99 or something like that. Not sure expensive.

In it you can fairly quickly put all those nifty bits of info. You can even have multiple people do it. There is a web interface that goes with it so you can have the grandparents be able to put the info in. It's all account based. So you can have multiple accounts and the info will go across.

It's not a perfect software, but it's on the neat side and has done well for us in tracking feeding and the other end. It's also handy because you tend not to forget it when you go to the doctor and they ask you questions about it.

Sophie the Giraffe

So this Sophie....a little rubber giraffe.  How special can it be.  It seems like she's the toy du jour and in ever baby's hands.  But really?  A little rubber giraffe?  And it seems a little expensive for a teething toy.  Munchkin's was a gift but I think they are $20 or something like that.  But all the Mom's were saying you can't live without them and the babies love them to death (some giraffe's are nekkid from having their spots chewed off)

I was on the skeptical side about this.  And I was actually going to write this post from the point of view of "Every Child but mine loves Sophie".  He just didn't seem to interested in Sophie.  Then of course as soon as I was contemplating writing a post from that point of view, he just grabbed Sophie one day and started chomping down on her nose for all he was worth.  So now there is a daily chew on Sophie's limbs/head session.

So yeah, I would recommend getting one and even if your little one doesn't seem interested at first, keep offering the Sophie and see what happens.

Amaze

So you may find that babies are on the messy side.  From both ends at times.  This can all lead to some laundry stains that are hard to get out.  My Mom told me I should get this laundry booster called Amaze.  It's a little hard to find, but I can get it at the Loblaws at Queen's Quay.  I'm sure it's available in other placed but that's where I get it.

So basically you can pre soak all your poopy, puked on or messy food covered clothes, blankets, bibs etc... and the majority of the time the stains come out.  I haven't tried it on blueberry or beets type stuff.

So you should get some.

Red Food Dye

Well this is probably a Captain Obivous thing, but stay the heck away from anything with Red Food dye in it for your little one.  A good percentage of children/babies react to it in some form or another.  And yet for some unknown reason, we still get a large percentage of things like medicine with red food dye in it.  I mean really.....an infant doesn't care what colour their Tylenol is.  Trust me.....get the dye free stuff.

I used to get migraines from red food dye, so I've been avoiding it for my little Munchkin.  But I've been having a hard time with the grape flavoured tylenol and was told that all infants love the cherry.  So I bought some cherry and took the chance with the red dye (I later found out that apparently the dye free cherry does exist, I just can't find it as of yet).  He loved it but........   I gave it to him about 1/2 an hour before bedtime.  By the time we put him in bed he was a little choo choo train.  His arms and legs were going a mile or two a minute and he showed no signs of slowing down.  I brought him back down to his Dad to entertain for 1/2 an hour so I could get a little nap in.  He put Munchkin in the Jolly Jumper where he went to town for a 1/2 hour and still wanted to keep going.

So yeah......your child can either be hyper or get a nasty headache.....so stay away from the red food dye.

Food Making Equipment

Since I'm giving this making my own food a try I had to get a couple of things.  A steamer and a food pureeing device.  I ended up buying the Hamilton Beach one specifically for babies.  But pretty much any one of the small ones will do I'm sure.  I find the one I got a bit noisy, but I don't know if it's any louder than the others or not.   For the steamer I just got a low end Black and Decker.  It works just fine.

Now if you want to make large batches of something, I would suggest using your larger food processor if you have one.  For instance, the other day I pureed 4 mangos at once.  It would have been a pain in the small Hamilton Beach one.

I also bought a metal steamer basket that you can put over a pot.  The reason I got that one is because I get the feeling that when I steam beets and blueberries I will end up with a stained steamer machine.  Not that the steamer will work any less well, but.......