Let’s Talk About Poop!
If you haven’t found out already, constipation is a major topic when having a new child. This becomes more apparent when you start giving your child solids (i.e. oatmeal / rice cereal). You should be able to tell if your child is having poopy issues when they are grunting, crying, fussing, face turns red, and have “the potty face.”
What can you do?
Well you can try some foods that begin with P like pear juice and call your Pediatrician. But there are other things like gravity that will be more effective, if you can tolerate some fussing and crying.
When our son was younger ~ 4 months, we often had him in the Bumbo chair. The Bumbo chair is great, it helps your child sit up and also helps them poop!
When our son started thrusting himself out of the Bumbo, we moved to the Baby Einstein Musical Motion Activity Jumper. I’ll tell you how much I like this product in another post.
I don’t recommend any baby walkers in this article. Yes, they also use gravity … but they are increasingly dangerous according the the American Academy of Pediatrics.
In my experience gravity has worked the best. Why is getting the poop out fast a good thing?
The fater the poop comes out, the faster your child can take a nap. We need our kids to take naps! 
Diapers: Pampers vs Huggies vs Kirkland vs Parents Choice
Kirkland Diapers
Let’s talk diapers for a moment. Diapers are one of the biggest expenses you will have for a new child. Let’s not kid ourselves either, not all diapers are made equal and not all are worth the cost. We’ve tried 4 brands of diapers in our family Huggies, Pampers, Parents Choice, and Kirkland.
Here’s what we found:
- Huggies – They leak, don’t waste your money.
- Pampers – Work great but expensive. Since diapers puff up when filled, do you really need an indicator strip?
- Parents Choice – Are too stretchy and they leak too much of the absorbent stuff. I didn’t feel conformable with them.
- Kirkland Brand Diapers (From Costco) – Just as good as Pampers and the lowest priced diaper out of the three. Even compared to Amazon.com purchases. The only bad thing is that they are only available after newborn sizes and start at size 1-2, size 3 and up is good too!
So …. Save some money and go to Costco.
Nipples!!
Bad baby bottle nipple
Good baby bottle nipple
Selecting the correct baby bottle nipple is important. A slow flow nipple provides the baby feeding similar to how they would be for breast feeding which is important if “Mom” is still nursing your child. The problem is that not all baby bottle nipples called “slow flow” are created equal.
My nipple choice should be apparent above. I really like this nipple because it doesn’t leak! I find this important because my son (6 months old) is now learning to hold the bottle on his own. He doesn’t have perfect aim every time, and I’m sure most babies fall into this category.
Hence, no leak = no mess.
Heating A Bottle
Heating a Refrigerated Bottle
There are plenty of times where time is critical and saving time reduces your stress as your baby cries for food. Depending if your feeding your baby formula, breast milk, or a combination of both …I’m listing the methods I’ve tried and the time comparison between them.
Refrigerated Bottles
Unless you’re feeding your child breast milk only, I would recommend staying away from pre-made bottles that you keep in the refrigerator. I know it sounds a little counter productive, but there is a lot of time wasted heating these bottles.
Boiling water on the stove takes a few minutes. I recommend using a small amount of water in a plastic container and heating only the water in the microwave (on high for about 1 min 20 seconds). The bottle doesn’t need to be submerged in the hot water (see above), and you’ll find that the bottle will be warm enough in about a minute or so. When compared with traditional methods this saves you about 1-2 minutes.
Formula Bottles
If you’re using formula or a combination of breast milk and formula you don’t need to waste time boiling water. What i find most effective is using the hot tap water coming out of the faucet in the following order:
- Turn on the faucet to hot water and fully on.
- Insert the milk / powdered formula mixture to the bottle (as specified on your package).
- Turn the faucet to partially on (slow the flow of water down).
- Add the water to the bottle mixture.
What you should get hot + cold = warm. It takes me about 45 seconds to prepare bottles this way.
