ten minutes to myself

The Great Bottle-Introduction Experiment

Over the past two weeks, Chris and I have been trying to convince little Madeline that sometimes it's okay to drink her milk in a bottle, like when Mom wants to have her haircut or both Mom and Dad want to go out and celebrate our anniversary. Before she was born, we read that we should wait 4 - 6 weeks to introduce a breast-fed baby to bottlefeeding, to avoid something known as nipple confusion. So we waited six weeks, and Madeline is definitely not confused about which nourishment vehicle she prefers - me. We've tried many different nipples, too:

• Playtex Avance (VentAire) with regular silicone nipples


• Playtex Avance with the NaturalShape silicone nipple


• Playtex nursers with the big ole flat latex nipple that was popular twenty years ago ...
,

I'm not sure what's left. I'd buy an Avent or Dr. Brown's bottle/nipple combo if I though that they'd be any different, but frankly, those nipples don't look much different to me than the regular Playtex Avance ... We're obviously both new to parenting because we thought that getting our little girl to accept an occasional bottle would be a piece of cake!

August 29th

Dear Madeline

Happy two-month birthday! Your dad and I are having carrot cake tonight in celebration, and we hope that you like the new pyjamas we bought you to replace the ones that your legs are too long for!

My favourite *milestones* for month two are the social smiles and the little vocalizations. Love the way that you pay attention to the various toys that your dad and I jiggle in front of your face - it's fun to see you wiggle and smile when we do that. Looking forward to watching you learn to roll over and discover your hands - maybe next month :)

At least it's exercise ...

When Madeline's fussy, I am most successful calming her with some bundling, bouncing, and shushing - which is part of the routine recommended in The Happiest Baby on the Block. Chris, on the otherhand, flops her over his shoulder and jumps on the treadmill. After ten minutes of power-walking, Madeline's out cold. Yes, we have a very expensive infant-sleep-inducing machine in our basement ...

On the Go

I had a Baby Bargains newletter emailed this past weekend that mentioned that the Baby Bjorn Active Carrier being recalled, and thought I'd mention it here incase anyone owning one reads this blog and didn't know yet. Info is here. We aren't affected; we just have the regular model. Also Britax has recalled a their Marathon convertible carseat, which annoys me because we were going to buy one for Madeline ... at least we can wait a few months, though.

Madeline has been more agreeable to spending time in her sling lately, even when she's awake :) I was peeking at AskDrSears today and photographs of different holds. I usually carry Madeline in the snuggle hold or the cradle hold, but I think she might like the kangaroo soon enough. She still hasn't entire taken to the sling, but I think she's slowly coming around.

Another reality check ...

Two weeks ago, when I was up in Edmonton with Madeline, my friend Ada lent me a copy of The Kid by Dan Savage to read. It's the true account of Dan and his boyfriend's quest to adopt a baby, and it was hard for me to put it down. One part of the book has stayed with me in particular -the author notes that it's ironic that couples who cannot have children together via biological means must go above and beyond to prove their worthiness to be parents, while parent-worthiness is never questioned in couples who have no difficulty having children. It isn't fair, is it?

It's a bird, it's a plane ...

We've decided that Madeline has had her feet on the ground for too long, so we booked a ticket for her on a flight to Melbourne, Australia. She'll be about 4.5 months when we go, so I've been eating up posts in DotMoms, Dooce, and DaddyTypes about travels with tykes.

I've already found Hire for Babe, which we'll hopefully rent a stroller from. Not looking forward to lugging our Zooper Sport overseas, so my fingers are crossed! Madeline's allowed her own piece of luggage and a carry-on by Qantas, so last night we ordered her a giant monogrammed diaper bag for the trip because my everyday bag is for errands, not holidays. We went with the Land's End bag, on the rec. of Baby Bargains. Am now worried that the bag might be mistaken for athletic equipment because M's initials are also the abbreviation for an American pro sports league ...

Who's the dummy?

Are using pacifers (dummies, soothers, whatever) still politically-correct parenting? Neither Chris nor I want to see Madeline addicted to one, but he's more of a firm "never" and I'm a "in exceptional circumstances" person when it comes to offering one to Madeline. She made it to six weeks without her little mouth being invaded by a piece of moulded silicone, and even if my mental health hinged on her comfort-sucking on something other than my body, I still felt a little guilty about holding the pacifer up to her mouth and watching her try to figure out what to do with it. I'm not sure if I shoud feel guilty - she was so overtired that day - she'd maybe had ten hours of sleep out of the last 28, and pretty inconsolable! But it was really hard to tell Chris what I'd done. Five days later I still can't tell whether he's angry that I did that ...

Side-note: It was so amusing to watch Madeline with the pacifer. At first she's only lick it, and her little tongue would push it out (of course, because nursing is a different action that merely sucking). After ten minutes with it, she popped it out, and she gave me the biggest eyes I've seen - they seemed to say "What on EARTH was that???"

We Survived 7 Weeks!

Madeline is seven weeks old today.

• Her eyes are still blue (wonder if they'll change colour?) and she still has a head of fine brown hair.


• She's still fussy at night, but Chris and I are better at dealing with it and comforting her (usually).


• Still too small for her 0-3 Month-sized clothes from Old Navy.


• She's been giving us social smiles for at least two weeks, and it's amazing how that can improve a dark mood in me.


• She still loves being swaddled - I call her a little sushi roll when I'm bundling her up.


• She's still deciding whether she likes being carried in the sling.


• She's eating well - by that I mean that we're resolved all of the nursing problems that have popped up so far. We're starting to work on introducing an occasional bottle of expressed breast milk now.


• Her sleeping record is 5.5 hours, but 3.5 - 4 has become more normal.

It does get easier every week.

Madeline on Ice

We've returned home from Madeline's first road trip - we took her to the Edmonton Folk Music Festival, stayed in town for a week, and drove home yesterday. Looking back, she was alright on the road. We stopped in Nisku to discover that crying bout #1 was because she needed a diaper change. Crying bout #2 was solved when we pulled off of the highway nearer to Red Deer and discovered that she was freezing cold. Luckily, I had a change of clothes closeby in her diaper bag ... Usually Chris and I worry about her being too hot - this was our reality-check that infants have difficulty regulating their body temperatures in either direction!

Mostly a person does hear about the effect of babies being too hot. After a toddler died in Quebec fro heat exposure, there's some thought being given to equipping infant- and car-seats with alarms that remind parents that they do indeed have a child in the their vehicles with them. And just last Friday here in Calgary, a three-week old baby was left in a vehicle while the mom went grocery shopping. It was nearly thirty degees Celcius outside, and I don't want to know what would have happened to the little person if other shoppers in the parking lot hadn't heard it's distressed cries :(

What on earth?

I am no longer prone to the condition known as *stroller-envy*, so it was with a really puzzled expression that I read the article on a stroller by Stokke known as the Xplory in the Edmonton Journal yesterday.. The thing is, it doesn't really look like a stroller to me - but I can't quite put my finger on what it reminds me of ... Does it look a bit tippy to anyone else, though?