Diaper Disposal Wars

This sounds like it should be a new reality show. Maybe something on TLC or Discovery. Interested parties please contact me for more information. 

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 What it is really about....... now hold on, because you non parents will just be FASCINATED by this..... it's a post about DIAPER PAILS!!!! And you thought you couldn't  be more excited. I'm full of surprises. In my first year of motherhood I had the fortune to use three different diaper pails. They all had their pluses and they all had their drawbacks. It led me to the conclusions that, for me, there is no such thing as the perfect diaper pail. This conclusion was not life altering. It was interesting in a weird, mom-centric kind of way. Here are my personal experiences with three of the MANY pails on the market.

Exhibit A: Baby Trend Diaper Champ Deluxe

Pros: you can use regular trash bags. Regular trash bags are much cheaper than the refills designed for most diaper pails.

Cons: when you read the product description is states that you should use the specific Diaper Champ refills for "maximum odor control." Maybe that helps, but I didn't get that far. This thing does not contain smell. Also, it's not hands free. You have to lift the little handle up and down to open and close it. 

Conclusion: If you don't mind using your hands and you are breastfeeding a baby (non smelly diapers) then this could be a good pail to save some money. But when your kid starts eating solid food, this pail will keep friends and family out in the yard. That might be a good thing for you. If so, move it to the "pros" area.

Exhibit B: Diaper Genie Elite 2

I don't know what "Elite 2" has to do with anything, but this is the version of the Diaper Genie that I see most often in stores and in homes, and it's the one I currently use so we are being very brand specific.

Pros: Hands free use. This is a huge one for me. You step on the pedal, throw in the diaper and that's it. Another huge plus is the bagging system. Because the disposal bag runs on kind of a constant loop, if you have a smelly diaper, you can trim the bag and take it out without having to waste an entire bag. One last pro for tiny babies with tiny diapers, this thing holds a TON of newborn/size1/size2 diapers. 

Cons: The refills are expensive, but I can justify this with the whole tear off bag. The Diaper Genie has been great, but as the diapers get smellier (as your kid gets older), my genie does not contain the smell very well. And as easy as it is to cut the bag and toss out the smelly diaper, I don't want to do it twice a day (or even once a day for that matter). Not that I have remarked on it to them, but I have also been to friend's homes who have toddlers and use a diaper genie and the kid's room usually smells. I'm sure people have noticed the same thing here...... But I tell myself they don't. 

Conclusion: I really like the Diaper Genie. It is basically perfect when you are breastfeeding and into the first stages of solid foods. I started really noticing that it wasn't containing smells when Landon was 15 or 16 months old. So now you might judge me because she is 21 months old and I'm still using ole smelly... I just loved the hands free so much. I was willing to change it more often. 

Exhibit C: Arm & Hammer Diaper Pail by Munchkin

Full disclosure: this is the pail I am thinking about switching back to.

Pros: This diaper pail is a SMELL CONTAINING MACHINE. It was the one I registered for but I'll save why I switched it out for the cons. Here is an example of the smell this thing can take on. This pail went to my mom's house for the nursery she keeps there. Landon has two cousins who are close to her in age and both in diapers. Three toddlers (a 2 years old, and two 20 month olds) can be at the house for the weekend, all using this diaper pail and we NEVER have to change the bag unless it gets full. Truth.

Cons: I can also call this section "things I overlook to contain diaper smell". The refill bags are expensive like all others and a set size, but since it contains smell there is really no need to change them until they are full. My biggest complaint with this pail is that you have to press down to lift the top, then shove the diaper through the smelliness seal (my name for it, not theirs) and then close the top to enact the whole twisting, smell containing machine. This would be fine now, but with a moving baby, you just need two hands, in my opinion. 

Conclusion: I think this one is really good for the older stage when you can use one hand and your kid has stinky style diapers. If I can get L to start doing #2 in the potty again, I will just stick with the diaper genie since our diaper volume is dropping (and will hopefully continue to do so). 

Now let's talk about stink control... what have I missed in the world of diaper disposal? Is there some magic device I should keep on my radar for next time around? Or do you totally disagree with my assessment of something above? I do think I tend to be a mix of overly smell conscious and too lazy to change diaper bags. Interesting combo. 

We'll get back to food soon, but I couldn't talk about food and diaper stink in the same post. If you don't understand that, we should have a talk. 

-RT

The More You Know: Hip Dysplasia

I'm letting this blog take me where it takes me, while making a really admirable attempt at keeping some sort of focus most of the time. That statement says it all. What I didn't know when I put my little piece of the internet out there was the reach that it would have. Early in July I wrote a post about how I was feeling shallow about the possibility that L's teeth might turn grey after a little accident she had. You can see that post here. Part of that post contained photos of L in her pavlik harness when I talked a little bit about hip dysplasia. Just a few weeks ago I had some people in Europe reach out to me because their child had been diagnosed with hip dysplasia and they had questions. And I was like, WHOA. The internet. It is crazy. So I'm putting this out there for anyone else who is going through this diagnosis and looking for someone else's experience.

It's easy to forget how difficult something was when it's in your rear view mirror. This is why women have more children once they have forgotten about the third trimester, child birth, and colic. Hip dysplasia isn't completely in our rear view mirror, but it's hard to remember the time between diagnosis and meeting with the orthopedic surgeon. It was a long, hard time mainly spent online looking for answers. I think one of the most difficult things is having something wrong with your child that you don't fully understand. I will also say I am still not an authority on HD, but this is our story. 

Cookie cutter mom with weird high school backpack.

L was a breech baby. Just to clarify a pet peeve of mine, a baby is BREECH. There can be a BREACH of contract or a BREACH in a levee. So there is that. The main thing I thought of when I learned about her position was c-section. Then I didn't really think of anything else. We tried to turn her, she wouldn't move, so we got to pick her birthday and everything turned out perfectly. After she was born and the pediatrician came, I learned about hip dysplasia. I'm kind of embarrassed to say now that I had previously only heard of it in large breed dogs and I still didn't know what exactly it was.

Here is your crash course. HD is a condition affecting the hip socket and the top of the femur (the thighbone). Either the hip socket is too shallow and cannot hold the top of the femur in place, or the femur is in the wrong place. They check all babies for this at the hospital and you might have seen your pediatrician spread your babies hips open during a routine exam. (One in every 1,000 newborns has HD.) This is called checking for a click. When a hip is dislocated it makes a "click" when the dr moves it a certain way. If left untreated HD can lead to lifelong pain, osteoarthritis, difficulty walking (limp) or inability to walk. Untreated HD is also linked to a marked decrease in quality of life. 

Landon was a perfect storm for HD, but her hips never clicked. She was a first born female child who presented in frank breech. The reason that breech birth can lead to HD is because the femur might not be in the correct location for the hip to form properly around it. Most babies spend the better part of their 40 weeks sitting indian style, with their femur securely locked inside of their hip socket. When a baby is Frank Breech like L, the femur is extended further out of the hip socket.

Frank Breech

Also Frank Breech, Also, not Landon.

 Since L didn't have a hip click at the hospital, we went home and had plenty of other things to worry about. Like breast milk shortages and baby indigestion and projectile spit up. Ahh, fun times. At our two week check we were told we needed to schedule an ultrasound for Landy's hip. It was standard procedure for babies born breech just to take a better look at the hip socket. I still wasn't concerned though. I knew we were going to ace this. I like to shove positive thoughts in when I can't deal with a negative outcome, and also, I still had oxytocin coursing through my veins from breastfeeding. Oxytocin is my new #1 favorite reason to breastfeed that I never knew about. Back on topic...

After the scan we went back to the dr and found out Landon had HD. And I still didn't get it. My dr said "she'll probably be put in a harness for a little while." And I was like "okay" and walked out. Then I got home and started chatting with my bff Internet and I cried. And I cried and cried and cried. I think I cried for a number of reasons, some of which were shallow, others were because I was already trying to figure everything new out every day and here was one more thing I had to try and figure out. I was worried she would hate the harness and cry for weeks. I lost all of my optimism. Thank goodness for S in this situation. Because although he later told me he had no idea what to do, he just told me it was no big deal and everything would be fine. Even though he was mainly acting the part, he ended up being right.

Next we met L's surgeon at Texas Children's Hospital (you see an orthopedic surgeon whether you are having surgery or not) and she was AMAZING. She has twins just a year older than Landon. She brought out the harness and I was prepared and I was tough. She said "you did a great job. Most moms cry when I bring out the harness." And I was like "yeah, it's no big deal." (LIES). We had a treatment regiment in the pavlik harness that lasted from 12 weeks of age until around 30 weeks.

The Pavlik Harness

It was the summer time so mainly she was just in a onesie and the harness on over it. Initially she had to wear it all day except when bathing. It took 6-8 hours to wash and dry, so it stayed dirty. She got poop on it the first day, and spit up on it almost every day. It was nasty. Luckily we got a new one every appointment. Amazingly she really didn't care about the harness after the first day. It was hard to see her stretch and be so happy when we took it off during bath time, but we just tried to stick to a routine so she knew what to expect. 

We used to swaddle her before the harness, but we dropped it cold turkey because we couldn't figure out how to swaddle over the harness. I've also always wondered if I swaddled her legs to tight and that might have led to her hip angles being too steep. To read about hip healthy swaddling, click here.

 After her regiment with the pavlik harness we went in for another ultrasound and an x-ray. Her hips were still not in the normal range, but she was moving in the right direction and we graduated to a rhino brace. I loved this because we didn't have to worry about the shoulder straps and little sock boots anymore. She wore it for 16 hours a day so we had it timed to when she was sleeping (night and naps) and longer during day time if needed. It was closer to her skin and made of foam (read HOT), so we switched her pjs and added a sleep sack. The brace fit in the sleep sack perfectly.

rhino brace

Please ignore the sheep and look at the rhino brace. Nap time.

Rhino brace in sleep sack.

After another regiment with the rhino brace and another x-ray, we were cleared with hips in the normal range and told to come back in 6 - 8 months for another x-ray. Last week we went back and while L's hips are still in the normal range, one is close to the border. It was a good check up, not a great one, and we'll be back in another eight months for another x-ray and will hopefully be sent on our way for a few years. This experience, for me, is a lucky one. She didn't need surgery, and hopefully won't in the future. She crawled and walked in a normal time range even though we were told the harnesses and braces might set her back. Going to Texas Children's Hospital also helped to keep this hip issue in perspective. Pediatric orthopedics shared a waiting room with pediatric dermatology, surgery, radiology, and oncology. It was a nice reminder from God every time we went to see that HD is small potatoes and we can handle it. We have a happy healthy girl who happened to have shallow hip sockets at one time and hopefully will stay on the road to normal hips. Thankfully we live in a place where there are measures to check for those things. 

Tomorrow we'll be back to recipes and real housewives and true blood finales. Today I'm hoping that someone who might have been like me over a year ago, doing a google search for "hip dysplasia", can get something from this post.

For more information on Hip Dysplasia:

Hip Dysplasia Overview

International Hip Dsyplasia Institute

And although I usually don't send people to babycenter.com for information, they have a support group for parents who have HD children. It is really helpful and informative, especially in the beginning when you have SO many questions. 

Here's to healthy babies!

-RT

"T" is for Toddlers and Tantrums and Trying to Survive. It is.

"T": it's not just for timeout anymore. Word.

 Remember when you first found out you were pregnant and you couldn't talk about it with anyone who was a real female person so you talked about it with the Internet? (Oh, did I forget to say this is a post for people with lady parts? It is.) When you first get the double pink line, or the cross, or the digital pregnancy message, or your dr's office calls after you go in for a blood test and is like "by the way you are pregnant" (wait, what?) this might be the first step in your relationship with babycenter.com. After surviving my 1st trimester of silence, I was pretty sure that pregnant women didn't ever need to ask the internet questions. And you know how much I love to do that. When you are pregnant internet questions go something like this:

Q: I'm pregnant and I have a cold. Which medicines should I take?
Internet: Once when I was pregnant I thought I had a cold. Turns out I had herpes. Go get an STD test.

Q: I'm pregnant and feel like I might be sick. Is this just morning sickness?
Internet: Once when I was pregnant I felt sick. It turns out I had cancer. Call your doctor immediately.

Q: I'm pregnant and want to have some coffee. Is that ok?
Internet: Once when I was pregnant I had coffee and then my baby had three legs and one nipple. Drink water and only water.

Q: I'm pregnant and accidentally had some alcoholic punch. What should I do?
Internet: OMFG YOU ARE GOING TO HELL AND YOUR BABY IS COMPLETELY F&(#ED!! I'm calling social services.

The Google Devil will eat your unborn child

 Seriously. When it comes to health, the internet is not your friend. You know who is your friend? Your doctor. BUT anyway, before I went off on yet another tangent, we were talking about the center for babies, also know as BabyCenter.com. (Stay out of the chat board things. People are crazy.) They send you these fancy weekly emails when you are preggo talking about how your baby is the size of a Nordic Autumn Fruit (right) and growing fingernails inside of your stomach. Or uterus. Whatever. 

Where does this baby grow??

 What I didn't know when I signed up for these is that they keep going. You get weekly updates about your baby and now I am the lucky recipient of toddler updates. (I know, don't get too jealous.) Ever since L reached 15 months, the theme of most of these emails is tantrums. The timing is spot on. Girlfriend is all about frustrated communication and having an opinion. 

What? The cat doesn't want me to pet it? TO THE FLOOR!!!!

I'm not going to tell you how to fix toddler tantrums. I am in no way qualified to do so. But you know what is an even bigger joke than my upcoming tantrum techniques? The advice babycenter gave me today. 

"My 15 month old, week 4".....When your toddler throws a full-blown screaming fit in the middle of the grocery store, you may want to hide behind the toilet paper display – but rest assured that other parents feel your pain. The most useful response is to take your child out of the store (even if it means leaving a cart full of food behind) and sit with him until he finishes crying. Staying calm and offering lots of hugs and kisses can help. 

The first part makes sense. No toddler in the middle of a full blown tantrum is going to be able to calm down in an overstimulating environment like the grocery store or a restaurant. It's the next part that gets me. In my 6 weeks of tantrum boot camp, I have found that hugs and kisses are like gasoline on the tantrum fire of life. Here are the helpful photos provided:

Love me through it... GET AWAY FROM MEEEEEE!

"Leave me alone you stupid Mommy!"

 Actually, almost anything I try to do does not fix the tantrum. Well, unless the reason for the tantrum is because she wants to be picked up. We all know the final solution to that. Sometimes it is not available. The last two weeks I have employed a different strategy. I talk to L like she is a grown adult, and let her know that she needs to go to her room and have some emotional time to herself. It's kind of hilarious, but I don't laugh. I pick her up (while she thrashes) and bring her to her room. I find a soft and safe place on the floor (she likes to writhe around during tantrums) and put her down. Then I let her know to come find me when she is ready and I walk away. Also, I am not under any illusion that she understands a word I am saying. I just have to say SOMETHING and so I might as well say that.

The thing is, it works like a magic trick. Tantrums are SO much more fun when someone is watching. Like magic unicorn rainbow fun. When someone is not watching.. eh, not so cool. She finishes her cry, then gets up and comes to find me. Like a new little baby who had her emo time and is ready for something else.

This is a tantrum when someone is watching.

It's like a whole new two weeks. Now when a tantrum is near, I just walk away, out of sight. Change of focus, change of direction, baby follows. This has become especially effective when we have to come in from outside. It's 101 degrees outside with 90%  humidity. I can't breathe, but for Landon, we might as well live in SoCal. When we come inside I become the worst person she has ever met in her very short life. But then I walk away and you know what is cooler than being outside?? Finding mommy. 

Really, who the hell knows anything? My life with baby has been trial and error. When I figure something out, it only takes a few weeks for it to stop working or for something new to pop up. That's why "T" is also for Trying to Survive... Kids or not, isn't that what we are all doing on some days? 

The following also solve Landon's tantrums when I don't have time to be a good parent and take her to her room: Elmo, the cat, going back outside, Elmo, the wagon, Sesame Street, the ipad, and especially Elmo's world. Just a quick little 10 minute Elmo break and toddler is good as gold.

By the way, the internet and I made up after Landon was born. We agreed to never talk about SIDS, but we chatted about baby baths, sleep training, rules for breast milk, switching to formula, and our newest BFF diapers.com lives on the internet, so we've all started drinking from our matching mugs again.

You know who got this for me? The internet.

Right now, O is for the Olympics and G is for Gymnastics. Hopefully, T is really for Tantrum free Tuesday with a Toddler. Check it.

-RT

Mommy War (Ugh, Good God) What is it good for?

So picture this... you are 5 months preg, just dropped your 2.5 year old off at day school and you are going to take your 15 month old daughter for a late mommy and me breakfast at a local diner. You are having an amazing time (for once it's just the two of you) and she is being an angel. Then all of the sudden a woman walks up to you and says "you're disgusting" and walks away. So you are completely shocked. Because in real life, you are a hot mom who keeps her stuff together and you are side lined by this comment. Then her husband appears and says "I'm sorry, but my wife feels very strongly about children eating off of the table." Then he leaves. This actually happened to a friend of mine who is the complete opposite of disgusting. It made me so angry that on another of many occasions, moms are out there judging each other instead of supporting one another.

Judging is something that is easy to do. As a mom I pretty much constantly feel judged. No one ever looks at the way a child is acting and thinks "wow, that dad sure doesn't know how to parent." I mostly expect (and can easily brush off) judgement from non parents. Before I had kids, I was a parent judging machine. I had an answer for every parenting dilemma, especially when it came to toddlers and tantrums. (Those were always the parent's fault.) But here I am, older and wiser and I know that non parents have NO IDEA and I've been there, so really that doesn't bother me. What gets me is that moms are fighting all of these battles against each other when we are the ones who KNOW how hard it is to be a mom. I go out of my way when I see other moms to tell them their kids are precious, or ask them if they need a hand, or smile as big as a non crazy person can at them. I would love to give them a hug and tell them they are doing a great job, but that would just be creepy. 

This is why I don't own an ironing board.

Moms fight about breastfeeding I think more than anything else. Especially online. Breastfeeding is HARD. That is the truth for most women. I have some friends who took to it very naturally with their babies, I had others who had to work their asses off to make it natural, I have others who only supplemented with breast milk, and still others who knew when they were pregnant that breastfeeding was not something they wanted to do. My cousin still occasionally breast feeds her 2 year old. Guess what? All of our babies are healthy and happy because their moms made the best decision for them. GO MOMS! 

Both of these women are good moms.

 If someone asks me about breastfeeding, I level with them about my experience. One month of direct breastfeeding, and 6 months of exclusive pumping due to a latch issue. Was it tiring and awful and difficult? Yes. Do I regret doing it? No. I wanted to quit lots of times, but I had a three day rule. If I ever wanted to quit three days in a row, on the fourth day I would. I never made it past one day. Then I offer them a support system if they want it, because I think it is nearly impossible to breastfeed when you don't have one. You know what makes it harder to breastfeed? Judgement from other moms who think you aren't trying hard enough or aren't doing a good enough job. I have heard a lot from people who were turned off of breastfeeding in the hospital by an overly critical lactation consultant. In the end, as good as breast milk is for a baby, the most important thing for a baby is a healthy and happy mommy. On a side note, I was a formula baby and without formula, this blog would not be coming to you.

Now that I think about it, probably in a direct tie with breastfeeding is working moms vs stay at home moms. Some moms have to work, some moms choose to work, some moms have to stay at home, some moms choose to stay at home. Why do we have to be so angry with each other about it? As a mom who works part time, I will say that some days I am more than happy to skip off to work and not have to be on toddler watch all day. Other days I am stressed and don't have enough time in the morning to cook breakfast for me and my daughter and get out of the door on time. Then I come home and go right into dinner, bath, bed routine and miss any play time and S and I are both exhausted when it comes to thinking about cooking dinner. Some days I stay home are a dream. L and I are in synch and she is laughing and playing all day. We get chores and errands done, we start dinner early and the house is clean. Then other days she won't let me out of her sight. She doesn't want to eat what she normally eats, she is testing limits all day long and throwing tantrums, and I just want to close her bedroom door and lay on the floor while she plays around me. (that has happened many times.) It's hard to go to work AND it's hard to stay at home because it is hard to be a mom. And wherever you are during the day, you are still a mom and that is tough stuff. 

Back to the start of this post, moms are very judgmental about other children in restaurants. I am constantly nervous when I am eating out with L. We met S for lunch one day and L was making a mess on the floor and a woman was giving her the stink eye. A grown woman was giving a one year old baby side eye. But really, it was side eye at me. When someone figures out how to teach a 12 month old to eat neatly and not spill on the floor, please let me know so I can steal the information and become rich. It's already costing us more cash to eat out with L because I always leave some cash on the high chair for the poor schlub who has to clean the floor. And yes, sometimes your child eats off of the table, because when you put her food on a plate she wants to see what is under the plate, and when you put her food on a napkin, she wants to use the napkin to show you she can wipe her hands. Kids also eat dirt, so I'm pretty sure eating off of the table isn't that bad. 

Here is where there is a shift though. You cannot help your child throwing a fit in a restaurant, and you can't help that they aren't coordinated enough to get the food directly to their mouth and no where else. Where lots of parents get a bad rep is when they are sitting and enjoying their meal while their children are disrupting others. These are the times when you realize you will only have children this age for a little while, you take one for the team, and you pick up your screaming, thrashing child and walk outside so you can calm them down in a less overstimulating area. And if they don't calm down you get your food to go. Been there, done that. Know your kids and how much they can stand. 

Enjoying your meal?

  I've never been more relaxed at a restaurant than on Mother's Day when we had brunch at one of our favorite places Haven. It was a mother's day brunch and every single table had a baby or a toddler. Moms were happy, the champagne was flowing, and if a child cried, we all got it. Life should be like mother's day brunch.

Here's to mother's day! Let's do it once a month.

 As much as you hate to see someone get on the plane with a baby, I'm willing to bet the person with the baby feels worse. They know that everyone is looking at them thinking "please don't sit near me" and then they inevitably sit next to one of the people who was thinking that. Planes are hard. There's pressure and strange sounds and noises and strange people. Moms needs support on planes. I really want to hug moms on planes. I've been there. The first time Landon flew it was just the two of us. Shout out to the fine people at Delta and the makers of the iPad for making that flight a dream. A crying baby on a plane can sometimes just not be helped. It's not like the parent is sitting there pinching their child. What can be helped? Older kids on planes. If a child on a plane is kicking the seat in front of them and the parent is doing nothing, then yes, feel free to judge that parent. Or just be like my friend H and turn around and say "no, no, little boy. Kicking seats is not polite." I like to picture this happening in my head because I wish I was there. 

iPad airplane magic can also be had with the Kindle Fire and a portable DVD player.

Here is the long awaited conclusion... moms need other moms. It's hard to be a parent and you get pressure from everyone to have perfect angel children. But that just isn't life. What we need to realize is that we all take shortcuts so that we can stay sane. Maybe you put your kid on a leash, maybe I bought my baby an iPad so I would feel better about traveling with her. When you see a mom at the store who might be a little too harsh with her child, maybe she is having a horrible day. You never know what someone else is going through. Maybe I'm not going to race across the room when L picks a cheerio up off of the floor and eats it. It's just a cheerio and it's just the floor. 

We are all doing what we need to do and we are all doing the best that we can. We are making the decisions that we have to make for ourselves and our families. So really, next time you see a mom out with her kids, give her some support. Smile, help her out if she needs it, or be extra strange and give her a high five. At the very least, if you can't say anything nice (I'm looking at you the "you're disgusting" lady) just keep it to yourself and don't say anything at all. 

So here's to moms of all shapes and sizes, raising children who are theirs by blood or not, and awesome dads too. Let's all give each other a break and then give each other a hand and then give each other a cocktail.

-RT