Being Sara

Parker at the beach

Here is my upfront warning, this post is about poop.  All about poop and pretty much nothing else.  If you don’t want to read about baby poop misadventures, check out some other posts, but you’ll probably want to skip this one.

Last week was incredibly hot and unbearably humid.  We have a pretty full schedule after work with baths, dinner, and bedtime routines, but last week we blew all of those off to swim.  It’s August, and the hot weather won’t last forever, and our kids are only little once, so we decided it was more important to swim than to grocery shop or cook dinner.

On Monday night I couldn’t wait to get into the water.  We got home after work, and threw on our swim suits.  Xander wears a suit that has a life preserver built into the shirt.  Parker is still in little swimmers and swim trunks.  After we were all dressed, I threw some towels into a tote bag and we were out the door.  We drove to the next town over where the town beach is open and free after 5pm.  We pulled into the dirt driveway and got Xander out of his seat.  As soon as I picked Parker up, I could smell that he needed a diaper change, stat.

I turned to Zach and told him that Parker had pooped, but we only had 1 wipe in the car…  I think we both had a bit of a deer-in-the-headlights look on our faces at that point.  I had never been so glad that Xander spilled an entire cup of juice in the car before – because we had forgotten a roll of paper towels in the back seat.

So while Xander is practically bouncing out of his skin with excitement about swimming, I set a fussy Parker down in the back of our SUV to attempt to change his diaper.  As I pull of his swim trunks, I discover that his little swimmer indeed isn’t designed for the massive amount of poo that he has produced.  How so I discover this?  That’s right folks, by diving in and getting a hand full of poo.  By now, Parker is completely unimpressed with me.  He starts to wiggle and complain, and in the process, tosses is pacifier into a pile of poo.  Great, now we can’t even attempt to soothe him with a pacifier…

I finally get the poop-filled swim trunks off, and then go to work on the little swimmer.  If you’ve ever used a little swimmer, you’ll recall that they don’t come on and off like regular diapers.  They are built more like underwear – meant to slide up and down.  I don’t know who designed these diapers, but they clearly have never tried to pull a soggy diaper of wet, wiggly baby legs before.  Of course, in the process of pulling this poorly designed diaper off, I dropped a large pile of poo onto the diaper changing pad.

By this time, we are rapidly running out of paper towels.  Xander has be-bopped all over the parking lot, and I think it’s a miracle that no one has run him over yet.  Parker is red-faced and screaming at the top of his lungs.  He and I are covered in poop, and Zach is trying to manage the growing mound of poop filled paper towels, and clothing.  We are looking like awesome parents right now.

I finally get a majority of the poo contained, and break out my one wipe for a little detail work.  We eventually get another little swimmer onto the poor kid, and all four of us trudge to the beach and then promptly into the water.

If you haven’t met me before, then you wouldn’t know that I am usually the over-prepared one.  I’m the one with 3 changes of clothes for everyone, 6 extra diapers and an entire container of wipes.  I’m known to pack 2 or 3 bags if we’re going to be gone for a whole day.  I’m never without supplies.  I think the heat must have gotten to me, but I most definitely learned my lesson – we will never travel without a diaper bag again…

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A few weeks ago a representative from RocketXL contacted me, asking me to try the new LUVS Bear Hug diapers. Since we haven’t used LUVS since Xander was in Size 1′s, I said sure I’d give them a shot. A few weeks later, a free package of LUVS showed up on our doorstep (hooray for free diapers!) I was eager to try out these new diapers, and the following night, we began our second attempt with LUVS.

One of the biggest tests for us is whether or not Xander will pee through the diaper and thus onto bedding in the night. Often we will try to change Xander’s diaper around 9:30 pm to prevent a leak in the middle of the night. The first LUVS diaper we put on Xander leaked around 3:00 am. It was Zach‘s turn to get up and change Xander, and though I was half asleep, it seemed to take longer than it should have.

Zach and Xander finally returned, and Zach was not pleased. He first attempted to figure out where the leak had occurred in the diaper, as he knew I was preparing to write a review. He then changed Xander into a fresh LUVS diaper, at which point Xander promptly peed out of the top – the absorbent material didn’t even slow down the stream. Zach immediately removed, that diaper, chucked the LUVS diapers across the room, put a fresh Huggies diaper on Xander, and proceeded to clean up the floor for 10 feet where Xander had managed to spray. Needless to say, Zach refuses to use LUVS diapers again.

The new “hug” technology does seem nice – it’s very similar to the stretchy material around the Huggie tabs. Maybe for girls the blue strip of absorbent material does actually stop leaks, but Xander has proved very effective at getting around this material in the LUVS diapers. It was nice to see Blue’s Clues instead of Winnie the Pooh for a while, as the pictures get old on the same diapers after a while, but Xander doesn’t ever notice.

So, I know LUVS is trying to drum up renewed interest in their new diaper technology, and there do seem to be some slight improvements, and the price is of course better than Huggies or Pampers, but the cost savings does not outweigh the added irritation. If anyone else has had any experience with these diapers, I’d love to hear about it!

baby, babies, infant, infants, parent, parenting, parents, mother, motherhood, diapers, LUVS, bear hug, Huggies

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My friend Chloe recently asked me about my diaper review, and in my Diaper Bag Review, I promised to comment on diapers when I had finally decided on a brand. Xander has now grown from the newborn swaddler diapers in size 2 diapers! In poundage, this is almost double birth weight – from diapers that hold an 8 lb newborn to diapers that contain a 15 lb baby. Throughout the four months, Zach and I have sampled a number of diaper brands. We kept going back to the Huggies diapers.

There are a few features that Huggies has that the other brands don’t. My favorite feature is the elasticity of Huggies. The tabs that attach the back of the diaper to the front of the diaper are stretchy, so they fasten near the middle of the diaper, about at the belly button. It feels like there is a tighter, more secure closure this way, instead of the tabs on diapers such as Luvs or Pampers, which fasten closer to a baby’s hips.

Next is the “leak lock” feature that Huggies loves to advertise. Around the legs of the diaper, there are two layers, one inner blue layer (the “leak lock”) and an outer white layer, the actual outside of the diaper. When you put a diaper on, you just have to make sure that the legs of the diaper are pulled out, ensuring that the inner “leak lock” layer can hold everything inside.

The Luvs diaper has a blue leak lock strip on it, but you have to make sure that you’ve got the strip higher than the leaky baby parts, or else the baby will leak right out of the top of the diaper (I’m assuming this isn’t as much of an issue for little girls. Pampers doesn’t seem to have any blue leak stuff on the insides of their diapers…

Finally, the quality of the material used is generally nicer. The Huggies diapers are soft, and feel almost like cloth, where the other brands tend to be more stiff and plastic feeling. Huggies has been put to the test, and we have had far fewer leaks with Xander in Huggies diaper. This diaper has shown that it can handle 8+ hours worth of containment without leaks. The other diapers can sometimes meet that mark, but not as consistently. So, as Xander grows into bigger and bigger diapers, we will be buying Huggies, and not any other brand.

It should be noted that different diapers work better on some kids than on others. For example, we have a friend who has 2 children – with one baby they were able to use the generic WalMart brand diapers without any problems. The other baby needed name brand diapers to survive without leaks. So, I cannot say that Huggies would work great with any kid, but with our kid, it is definitely the diaper that won our contest.

On a side note, we have found that we start to experience more leakage as Xander starts to outgrow the diaper. It’s sort of a subtle change, and it’s not like you get a notice that it’s time to buy the next size diaper. It took us about a week of frustration and lots of leaks and outfit changes before we realized that we needed to upgrade from Newborn to size 1. We’ve recently started putting Xander in size 2′s, and that transition was much smoother, since we were aware of the signs. None of the other mothers I know (my mother, my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law) and talk with frequently warned me about this, so I wanted to pass on this little tidbit of information. Since my mother and mother-in-law used cloth diapers, I’m guessing they didn’t have as much experience with the disposable kinds. Don’t expect a review on cloth diapers anytime soon – I definitely don’t have the energy or dedication to use cloth diapers!

babies, baby, diaper, diapers, Huggies, infant, infants, Luvs, Pampers

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I don’t know if it was the busy party, or recovery from a cold, but Xander finally slept through the night! We know it is possible! Zach and I went to an office Christmas party Monday night. Xander was of course Mr. Popularity. Everyone wanted to hold him. Once the first lady scooped him up, Zach and I didn’t hold him for the rest of the party – he got passed from one person to the next and everyone was eager to cuddle with this adorable, snuggly little baby. By the time we left around 9pm, Xander was asleep in his car seat. When we got home, Zach and I watched television for about an hour, and we didn’t move Xander – didn’t even unbuckle him because he was still fast asleep. At 10pm, we went to bed, and Xander didn’t even begin to twitch until about 5am. Even then, he dozed until almost 6am when I got up to feed him! It was amazing and incredibly exciting for us sleepy parents, and now I’m afraid he won’t do that again until he’s 6 years old (hehe).

On a side note, I changed Xander’s diaper just before we left for the party around 6pm, and didn’t change it again until 12 hours later at 6am. 12 hours and that one diaper absorbed an amazing amount of urine – Xander’s onesie has just barely started to get wet which I thought was quite impressive! That was a Huggie’s brand diaper. We’ve now sampled Luvs, Huggies and Pampers. After a little more sampling I plan to write a diaper review, but right now, I’m pretty impressed with Huggie’s absorption rate!

baby sleep, diapers, huggies, infant sleep, sleep challenges, sleep problems, sleeping through the night

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I’ve had a few months to use and form opinions on a large number baby products. One of the most important items in a new baby’s home is a diaper bag. There are a zillion and one different diaper bags to choose from, so how do new parents find the right bag? And, what do you put into that bag once you’ve found the one for you?

First, the bag. Like I said, there are tons out there to choose from, and a lot of the decision has to do with personal style. I ended up with the “deluxe tote” from Little Company. I found this bag at Target for $50.00. This bag has a lot of excellent features – a removable changing pad, a thermal bottle carrier that attaches to the side of the bag, cell phone and pacifier pockets on the outside of the bag, and a zippered clear pocket on the inside where you can store wet clothes. If I were to purchase a bag now though, I think I would look for something a little larger, as we are always stuffing that bag full – when you need to pack diapers, wipes, 2 extra sets of clothes, pacifiers, bottles, water, formula, burp cloths and maybe a toy or two. Target has an excellent selection of diaper bags online. The local store I went to didn’t have as many, but that might have been specific to that store.

So, the things inside the diaper bag. I have found the small travel cases for wipes to be very handy. We’ve used one from Pampers and one from Huggies. I like that the Pampers one had a push and release top. I like that the Huggies one can fit a few more wipes inside. These are small plastic cases that hold about 20 wipes or so – perfect for day trips. As for the wipes themselves, I like the thickness of the Huggies wipe – it doesn’t feel like the pee is going to soak all the way through the wipe and onto you. The Huggies wipes are also quilted which is nice. However, the travel wipes are folded in a way that is almost impossible to get them out of the container. They aren’t folded together so that one pops up following the one that you pull out. Instead you have to feel around for the seam somewhere in the middle of the container, and I find that I often nearly rip the wipe trying to get it out. The Pampers wipes are not at thick or nice feeling, but they do come out much more easily.

Clothing doesn’t need much of a review – there’s just too much. I will say though, that I love the Carter’s tag-less outfits. One suggestion we got before Xander arrived was to cut the tags out of his outfits so they wouldn’t irritate the back of his sensitive little neck. This sounded logical, so when I washed all of his outfits I got at my baby shower, I started to cut out the tags, until I realized that I didn’t know what size the outfits were without the tags (oops) so the tag-less became my new favorites.

I think that babies pretty much choose their favorite bottles and pacifiers. We had decided pre-baby that we wanted to use silicone nipples and pacifiers versus the latex, as the latex seems to break down faster. Our baby let us know around 1 month the kind of pacifiers he preferred. He likes the ones that have a flat bottom instead of the oval shape all around. Nuk from Gerber makes a nice one. Our favorites though are the Evenflo Vizion Pacifiers. They have the shape that Xander likes, and a soft foam backing so that he doesn’t get that red mark around his mouth after using a pacifier. They come in a little container and have covers for the nipples, which I like quite a bit (keeps them cleaner).

As for bottles, Xander didn’t really seem to have a preference exactly, but he seems to suck better with Avent bottles. There are lots of bottles who advertise that they reduce colic, etc., but since Xander has never had a problem with that, I can’t speak to which bottles might actually do that. We initially purchased a few 4 ounce bottles, and then realized that it made a lot more sense to buy the larger bottles since we can use them when Xander starts drinking more than 4 ounces in a feeding, and they are actually more comfortable to hold. So, I would recommend buying the larger bottles, and then you just have to purchase replacement nipples as the baby gets older and better at sucking.

For a while we had a tiny bottle of Purell hand sanitizer in the bag as well – quite handy for those diaper changes on the go.  Recently I discovered some hand sanitizer I like much better.  It’s moisturizing and scented, and my new favorite diaper bag product.  It’s from Caren.  I found it in a hotel gift shop, but they’ve got a good online store.  I think that Purell has become sort of the kleenex of the hand-sanitizing world.  It’s the one product that you see everywhere, and we sometimes forget that other companies make hand sanitizers as well.  At any rate, if you ever get a chance you should pick up some of this – I think it’s far superior to the Purell brand.
We are still sampling diapers, so I’m not quite ready to write a review of them yet. However, I am impressed that a Huggies diaper (size 1) was able to hold almost 12 hours worth of urine when Xander slept through the night, so at this point, they are a pretty exciting diaper in our house

Avent, baby supplies, baby wipes, bottles, diaper bags, diapers, Evenflo, Huggies, pacifiers, Pampers, Purell, Caren, hand sanitizer

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