Food Storage Cubes

So food.  Munchkin is just starting to eat food.  Well, more tasting it.  It's kind of fun and very messy.  I'm one of those Mom's that decided to go with making Munchkin's food.  There will be more posts about that in the near future.....about recipies, books equipment and the like.  But for now.......cubes!

Rather than make food every day at the moment.  It seems silly for the amount he's eating I've been making up one thing and freezing it in "cubes".

I have a few "Baby Food" storage keepers.  I'm going to say you don't need to bother.  Ice cube trays work just as well.  I have the one from Kidco as well and it works well, but it's just a fancy ice cube tray.  So if you have ice cube trays I would just go with that, then empty them into ziploc freezer bags and go from there.  I have another bunch that have individual lids, but I don't think given the opportunity i would buy them again as the ice cube trays  and small tupperware containers are just fine.

You don't need anything special.

So there you go.  The post for the day.

Baby Bumpers & Sleep Positioners

So Houston we have a problem.  We're in the process of teaching Munchkin how to sleep in his crib.  It's a bit of a slog.  Well actually a lot of a slog, but that's all for another post.  I will share the "wisdom" we have learned then.  This is more about a specific issue with the crib.

Our little guy has learned to roll over in one direction so far.  He can get from his back to his tummy but not back again.  The problem with that is that he's not super fond of his tummy time and it wakes him up when he does it.  The rolling will improve with time, however, when he does this he often ends up with a limb sticking out of the crib which makes things worse for him.  

So I looked into what we can do about both issues.  For the rolling I thought about a sleep positioner.  You can find lots of them on the internets, but with a little bit of research it looks like they can actually be quite harmful to baby.  So don't get one.  Which is too bad as it would be so lovely to temporarily keep him from rolling onto his tummy.  At least until he learns to roll back.

Now I did get a better option for the Baby Bumper.  Baby Bumpers are in fact not recommended for cribs.  They can contribute to SIDS and suffocation, strangulation and all that unfun stuff.  But they do a really good job of keeping the limbs in the crib.  With a bit of piking around I did find an alternative.  A mesh baby bumper with no ties and the like.  Keeps the limbs in and breathing feasible.

We're hopefully going to be grabbing one today from Toysrus and we shall see how it works.  

Loveys

In our Quest with a capital Q, to get our Munchkin to sleep all by himself, we decided to get him a "lovey".  It's basically a little blankie that you snuggle with him and put him to sleep with all the time in order to get him to attach to it and feel secure with it.

I will warn you, some kids latch onto one, others don't.  Munchkin seems to be somewhere in the middle.  Who knows where it will go.  But he does like it.

The one we got is the giraffe from Angel Dear.  And the neat thing is that they will sell them in sets of three!  This is a good thing, trust me.  Especially if this becomes the toy they will not do without.  That way one can be in use, one in the wash and a spare in case of loss.

I was a little skeptical, but though....well why not get the three pack.  I figured perhaps if it got lost eventually I wouldn't be able to get another one.  Within a week I had used all three due to spit up on them.

We still aren't there with sleep yet, but that's a post for another 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

Swimming Floats

I started Munchkin swimming as soon as I could as I believe you can't start that too early.  Especially as we will be spending time at my parents cottage in the summers and well, that lake will just call out to him I'm sure. 

The swimming we've been doing has been really mostly play, but he's learning to be comfortable in the water.  The classes we are going to are we go to are run by Diaper Fit in Toronto.  The classes are kind of neat.  The first half hour is a fitness for Mom/Dad and the last half is for the babies with songs and getting used to the water.  He seems to like them.  I probably should have waited until he was a wee bit older (just a month or two I started him at just 5 months).  He was getting a bit cold by the end.  But he's pretty good now.


Anyway, for the first part the babies get to float in these floats

I really like them and Robbie seems to as well.  You can get them for $22 at Toysrus in the summer season.  I've already bought one for the cottage.  They are by a company called Swimways.

Swim Diapers

There are a couple of things about swimwear to talk about I guess.  The first is the Swim Diaper and then the actual swimsuit.  I think I will save the swimsuits for another post.  So shall we go right in?

I will be captain obvious here and say...well normal diapers won't work so well in a pool or lake.  So yeah, don't do it.   You do have 2 options with special swim diapers.  One is the disposable route and the other are reusable swim diapers.  I have nothing to say so far about the disposable ones.  I haven't used them yet. Both Pampers and Huggies make them.  I haven't used them for a couple of reasons.  The first being that Munchkin has been too small so far for them to fit properly and the second being that the pools I've been taking him to don't allow disposable swim diapers.  I might get a package for the summer at the cottage, but I'm not really sure if I will.  I think perhaps the reusable ones will work just as well.

I have two kinds right now....The Kushies and the Bummis.  The Kushies one seems to work quite well. No complaints there.  The Bummis I haven't used yet because it is the next size up, but I think that perhaps at next week's swimming class they will be in use as the current swim diaper is getting a wee bit small.  

Most public pools seem to want you to use the reusable ones these days so it's always best to check before you go.

I will warn you though, the swim diapers are pretty much designed to keep the poop in.  they don't do much to keep the wee in.

I'll do a post once I've tried out the Bummis swim diapers on how they compare with the Kushies.

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.