Leaky Diapers

On Thursday, Palesa, Osei and I went to visit Treehouse Learning (my mom's Early Childhood Education Center in Lafayette, Colorado).  Osei and I are still figuring out the cloth diaper system, and we're learning by fire... It just occurred to us that when we overstuff the diapers (logically in order to make them MORE absorbent), they are more likely to leak.  We learned this lesson dramatically yesterday when we arrived at Treehouse Learning and I discovered that not only had Palesa's diaper leaked all over her pants and onesie, but I was also covered in baby poop from carrying her in from the car.

So, we changed her on a conference table, dressed Palesa in the spare outfit we keep in the diaper bag, and got cleaned up.  Less than an hour later, we left Treehouse to visit an old friend of mine (since Elementary school).  Julia has a 17 month old daughter, Zena, and is expecting her second daughter in the next few weeks.

We arrived at Julia's house and discovered blowout #2.  Another pair of pants and onesie too dirty to keep wearing.  Luckily, Julia has a closet full of baby clothes, and generously lent us an adorable little outfit. 

Zena is very excited to be a big sister and really enjoyed getting to meet Palesa, and we enjoyed our visit with Julia.

Elimination Communication... it is not potty training, but she goes in a "potty"

I guess I never imagined I would be one of those kind of mothers.  You know, home birthing, breastfeeding, cloth diapering, co-sleeping kind of mothers.  Well, we are all that and more.  Since Palesa was about 4 days old, we've been casually working on elimination communication.  I'm not an expert on this, but the concept is that by paying attention to the baby's cues as well as timing, you "offer" them an alternative to going to the bathroom in their diaper because no person, adult or infant, truly wants to be sitting in their own waste.

So, after nursing Palesa, we remove her diaper, and I hold her against my chest, butt dangling over some sort of tupperware container.  Every time we have "offered" her a container, she has gone to the bathroom.  I am making my best efforts to do this with her once a day, usually after her afternoon nursing session.

Babies go through a ton of diapers.  For cloth diapering, that means a lot of laundry.  Two days this week, we were out and about and missed the opportunity to do this with her, and she had two big blowouts (which means an outfit change in addition to a diaper change).  So, if we're able to catch her bathroom activities once a day and save one diaper, that really adds up. She's certainly not "potty trained" or anything, but it amazes me to think that even an itty-bitty newborn baby can go to the bathroom in a "toilet."

My girl's got a big ole' booty

Yesterday we switched to cloth diapers.  My milk came in so her poop is no longer black and tar-like meconium.  I can't believe I'm writing about baby poop.  The cloth diapers are huge.  They go down past her knees and her feet don't even touch the ground when she is on her back.  This cracks me up.  The diaper is almost twice the size of her head.

26.5 weeks

Hello all,

Here is a picture from last weekend, at 26.5 weeks. Luckily, you can't see the sweat dripping from my face here, but wow, is it hot! (Our big heat wave isn't even supposed to get here until tomorrow- gulp!).

Today we have another prenatal visit, which is our last "monthly" visit before we switch to bi-weekly visits. Time is ticking along though- we start the third trimester next week!

Major accomplishments this week (outside of the 1/3 of a full-size watermelon that I devoured lastnight, though Osei helped some) include getting cloth diapers from two mothers who have either happily reached pottytraining or decided that they are not the crunchy cloth-diaper type and wanted to pass them along. I'm amazed at how far cloth diapers have come since my middle-school babysitting days, of bulky cloth prefolds with gigantic safety pins and plastic covers!

We still have several baby name books on loan from the library, and have actually opened a few of them. The other day I dreamed we had a boy, and I told Osei, "Ok, I think we better start picking out some baby names we like!" Hopefully we'll have our list down well before October!

Much love and hugs to all,

Amy, Osei, and baby Omee (who loves watermelon and won't stay still)