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.

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.

Ring of Neglect

So what may you ask is a ring of neglect?  They are those nifty activity centres you can plop your child into and do some stuff assured they are safe.  They are kind of like those now illegal walkers we had as kids, but with no wheels and toys attached.

This one is a Baby Einstein Discover and Play Activity Center.  I don't have one so I have nothing to say about it, I just used it as an example.  I do think most of the Activity Centers are probably quite good, I just don't have one. 

We wanted one, but our house is very narrow and full of stuff (if we're not careful we could turn into hoarders, well no, but we too have too much stuff).  And in my mind they are a bit expensive.  So we ended up buying the Kidco Go-Pod.

I really like it.  It folds up into nothing and has a carry bag.  We took it to the cottage for the weekend and it didn't take up too much room in the car.  The other thing I like is that it is easy to move from room to room or just fold quickly out of the way.  You attach your own toys to loops on the pod which is kind of neat as you can change the toys that they get to play with.   I would recommend this to just about anyone.

We aren't using ours too much right now as our guy is a wee bit small still.  His head barely pokes up above the edge, but that will change shortly I'm sure.  I think he's in a little growth spurt.

As a note, apparently you shouldn't be leaving your child in them for super long periods of time.  It's that whole thing about overdeveloping muscles again like the Jolly Jumper.  We have been told we should only use it about 20 minutes a day.

Picnic Blanket

This is probably not a super necessary item but I really like it.  Skip Hop makes a cool blanket for taking on  picnics and the like. I've only used it once so far, but it is really cool.  It is somewhat water resistant which is really good for slightly damp ground.

I really like it.  It's a good size, can be a backpack or shoulder bag and it has a bit of a cooler  bag.  The cooler part isn't very big but useful for a thing or two and zips off.

Skip Hope Central Park Bag

Bumbo

Everyone wants a Bumbo these days.  We like ours.  We haven't used it a whole lot, so I am glad this is one of the things we got on Craigslist.  It was half the price and in good condition.

I'm sure we will be using a little bit more as we go along and start to feed the wee guy.

A few words of caution about the Bumbo.

• many babies are too big too fast to take advantage of it
• according to the nice   occupational therapists at Sick Kids they shouldn't be overused as it can make the babies back muscles overdevelop too soon. That being said, they said using one occasionally isn't a bad thing.  

So I think as long as you aren't using it for hours on end and too soon, you should be fine.  

Used Baby Stuff

I'm on a roll with that unsolicited advice again.  Used baby stuff can be super useful.  I would say 90% of my little guy's clothing has been passed along by friends.  We have also borrowed/been given a bunch of baby gear.  It saves money and keeps stuff out of landfill.  These little ones use stuff for such a short period, it just makes sense.  So below is a few good places to get used stuff.  Keep in mind I haven't been to a bunch of them yet, but I will be in the future.

Craigslist.org -  I did get a Bumbo off the site.  Craigslist can be annoying at times but it does work too!

Kiiji.ca

www.mybabystuff.ca - I haven't actually shopped there yet, but it looks cool.

Once Upon a Child -  I haven't been yet, but probably will at some point.

There are more resources and I'll probably put a page up at some point with more of them as I come across them.

Jolly Jumper

Let me start this by saying.... Babies in Jolly Jumpers are cool!  They love them.

As you can see here they really do love it.  That was my little guy doing the jumping.

But we have been warned to use it by the Occupation Therapists at Sick Kids.  Apparently it can cause the muscles in the legs to overdevelop and bowed legs I believe.  We have to be a little bit more vigilant about things because our wee guy was a preemie and they are watching him more closely.

That being said....I think almost all of us used a Jolly Jumper at some point and we seem to be ok.  I would think that a moderate use of a Jolly Jumper wouldn't do any lasting harm.

Breast Pumps

I seem to have acquired a very intimate knowledge of breast pumps.  I spent the first 2 months of Munchkin's life pumping many times a day since he was in the hospital and was fed through a tube in his nose.

These days I don't really pump except when I've been trying to get him to take a bottle which I've had very little luck with.  I will probably pump a bit for his cereal when he starts that but other than that I don't need to pump much now since he won't take a bottle.

So I have had experience with 5 (yes 5) different breast pumps as follows:

Breast Pump @ Sick Kids

Ameda Hospital Grade

Medela Consumer Pump

Medela Mini Electric

Medela Symphony (Hospital Grade)

Let me say first off, pumping is not the most fun experience on the planet.  My poor boobs were super sore and it took awhile to get used to it all.   It's probably not like that so much if you are only doing it occasionally.  And now on to my thoughts.

The best pump (go figure) was the retro looking one at Sick Kids.  But I hope that none of my readers ever have to experience that.  So that will be all I have to say on that pump.

Hospital Grade

For the hospital grade ones (which you can rent), I liked the Ameda the best.  It was the most similar to the one at Sick Kids and I felt did the best job of getting out the milk.  Also, the way their tubing system works, no milk ever gets into the tubes leading to the pump itself which can get gross in my opinion.  If you should ever have need of a pump for a few weeks because of a issue (like being in the hospital) I would recommend renting one from the hospital rather than buying one of the hospital grade ones.  If you know you are going to be doing a lot of pumping anyway, I would suggest getting one of the consumer models.  Sick Kids rents the Ameda ones and  Mount Sinai rents the Medela ones.

The Symphony was fine, I just liked the Ameda better.

Consumer Ones

The only one I've used has been this one Medela Consumer Pump.  It has done a reasonably good job.  It's not as powerful as the hospital grade ones so I always kind of felt that it hasn't done as good a job as the hospital grade ones.  That being said, it did a perfectly good job.  I do think though that if I were buying one to use at home (the Medela was very kindly loaned to us by friends), I would most likely get the Ameda consumer model based on the experience with the hospital grade.

The Medela Mini Electric.  I just got this one.  It was a steal at a Garage Sale at my cottage for $20.  I couldn't pass it up.   The person had only used it once.  She prefers the manual pumps.  I've only used it a couple of times.  But it does an ok. job.  If I was doing a lot of pumping I don't think I would want to depend on it.  It is a one boob at a time and not as powerful.  The pros though...Super portable and it can run on batteries.  I would probably get the Swing or Freestyle if i was buying one new though.  They seem just as portable and a little more powerful.

So there you go.  All I know about breast pumps.  It really is all about what suits your needs and pocketbook.  They can be very expensive.

Happiest Baby on the Block

Some of our friends gave us a DVD to watch before the baby was born.  It was called The Happiest Baby on the Block.  They said it was well worth watching and would change our lives.  

I would tend to agree.  This video gave us a number of methods to help with the screamies and get him to sleep.  I highly recommend the book or the video.  Probably the video more as it demonstrates the techniques in a good visual way.  

This DVD has in depth instructions on Swaddling among other things.  I will be posting some helpful (hopefully) information on swaddling in a future post.  

Bottles

I can't really comment on bottles myself.  My little guy has consistently refused to take a bottle since he was born.  But there are a huge amount of bottles to choose from and I think it is pretty much a case of trial and error if you are going to use a bottle.

I guess my recommendation on bottles is to only buy one bottle of the type you are going to try and then if it works out get more.  No sense in spending a lot on a set of bottles only to find out that your baby hates that particular kind.

So that's pretty much it when it comes to bottles for me.  We are going to try and teach the little guy how to drink out of a cup.