rocket city digs

keeping the galaxy safe for small-space living

The Hallway Nursery, Part Two

Posted by rocketgirlsf on February 7, 2010

So last week I showed you the functional half of our 47-SF converted-from-a-hallway nursery. Here’s the rest of it (sans the rest of the artwork, which RocketMan has neglected to make a priority.).

As you can see, it gets a remarkable amount of sunlight when the curtains are open; we keep them open all day to keep the air flowing, because it’s actually the warmest room in the apartment—the only one that does not share a wall with the great outdoors. With the curtains drawn, it’s nearly as dark as a closet, which comes in handy for naps. And oh, how we love our white noise machine.

Just to put things in perspective, here’s the map of our apartment again.

 

Apartment Layout

 

These views are from the entry hallway, right after entering the apartment. The mobile is the Twitterling by Haba; the crib is the DaVinci Emily Mini Crib in walnut. Mini, indeed—she already is longer than it is wide—but it fits so nicely in the space. It converts to a toddler bed, eventually. The doormat, from Pier One, hides a seam from the carpet remnants. We tried rugs and the foam floor tiles ($10 at a Goodwill!), but nothing’s better than wall-to-wall when it comes to sound dampening, so that was our ultimate choice. $30 for the whole floor.

    

Here’s the view from the living room. (Blackout curtains from Bed, Bath and Beyond. “Blackout” is used loosely here; in the living room, we’ve been hanging a comforter to increase the sound and light barrier.

The guy you see peeking from the behind the corner is none other than Huckleberry Hound, in the form of a game called a HuckleChuck. His neck bobs back and forth, and I assume at one point, the goal was to chuck ping pong balls into his bobbing head. Alas, his neck’s been broken for some time and there’s no sign of a ping pong ball, so we’re glad he’s finally found a home.

 

You might be asking: with that big ol’ sunroom, why put the baby in the hallway? Excellent question! The truth is, we like having the extra space for us. The sunroom houses our office, RocketMan’s workspace, all of our books, and closing off the room would cut off the airflow and light in the apartment by half. So we opted to keep it open and use the cozy space for the cozy baby.

At the moment, of course, she doesn’t hang out in her room; she plays in the living room or sunroom, which is tiled with the aforementioned foam letters. Her nursery serves two purposes: sleeping and storing her stuff. So take heart, apartment dwellers:If you have a space that fits a crib and a few shelves, you have enough room for a baby. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.

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When Your Nursery is Smaller Than a Walk-In Closet

Posted by rocketgirlsf on January 30, 2010

So I’ve been saying for months that I’d be posting nursery pics, and as RocketMan still hasn’t gotten around to hanging the rest of the artwork, I figured I’d at least show you the changing station. Which, incidentally, is roughly half of the full square footage in the room (I believe the total is about 47 SF.).

Being that we’re Container Store addicts, and reorganized our bedroom to great success with the Elfa shelving system, we figured we’d use the same idea for the changing station. Open, adjustable shelves, clean lines; what more could a small-space dweller want? The shelves, of course, don’t stop at the changing table; they go all the way to ceiling. But those shelves are just your basic spine-and-bracket. We decided to go with the sturdier tried-and-true Elfa for the unit on which we’d be placing our offspring.

So here, I present: The RocketNursery. Big improvement over the last one we posted, I think.

100130_shelves
100130_toptable

A few items of note:

  • We keep her lined, prepped gDiapers on the second shelf, above the gDiaper inserts; I’m not crazy about the visibility of the system, but when you’re changing Le Squirmy Butt, it’s good to have everything ready to go. 
  • The changing pad is not a full-sized pad. It’s a DexBaby Folding Changing Pad, which is to say, it’s supposed to come apart and fold up neatly for traveling. It doesn’t, at least not easily.  That said, it’s small (16” x 32”), which is really the key here. The cover is terrycloth—not much to worry about, laundry-wise—and it has the ever-vital safety belt for when the RocketBaby in your life starts rockin’ and rollin’.

    (For portable changing pads, go with the $10 First Years Fold and Go Diapering Kit. We’ve stopped carrying the diaper bag because it’s just that awesome.)

  • The flowered boxes are a new item offered at—where else?—The Container Store. They’re drawer organizers, but they’re so darned cheerful and cute that we use them to store moisturizer, fingernail clippers, and the nose-sucky thing. They even have bins, which is tempting as heck. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find them on their website, but I believe the small square ones were $7.99, and the larger one was $9.99. The box on the top shelf is where we keep her overnight diapers.
  • The Cavallini & Co. Vintage Flash Cards along the wall were an impulse buy at a local museum about four years ago. Little did we know we’d be using them as decoration, and, indeed, as the basis for a minor new obsession of mine: Dick-and-Jane-styled illustrations. It’s a natural progression: I love a vintage look, I love primary colors, I love reading, and I’m the progeny of two schoolteachers.
  • The print on the wall above the crib is called Waiting, by a divine Etsy seller named Sarah Jane. I’m so jealous—my friends (proprietors of the dangerously addictive ModernKiddo.com) met her at a conference recently.
100130_undertable

Beneath the changing table, you can see the structure of the Elfa shelves a bit better, along with a few other yummy bits.

  • The collapsible storage bins are from Target. They come in great colors and sturdy enough to hold blankets, sleepers, onesies, and on the bottom, serve as a hamper. (We have a fifth in the living room acting as a toybox.)
  • Next to the hamper is a basic recycling bin from The Container Store; it didn’t work for us in that capacity, so it was another toybox until this morning. Not sure what we’re doing with it now.
  • I also love the Small Tint Stacking Drawers, which contain her socks, legwarmers, and other random goodies.
100130_light

One last detail… The room gets no natural light when the curtains are closed, so we’ve installed a small under-shelf light for the changing table. Any ideas on how to hide the ugly black electrical cord would be appreciated.

 

So that’s half of the nursery. The other half is mostly clear so we can stumble in at night without fear of shin-banging. Someday the curtains may grow up to be doors, so look out for that  blog. 

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Sleep Training Update: Night Weaning!

Posted by rocketgirlsf on January 14, 2010

I am the Agent of Chaos. I eat breastmilk for dinner, a Thanksgiving dinner at midnight, and mommies for breakfast.

So we did things a bit ass-backwards (at least as far as the authors of The Sleepeasy Solution are concerned). We were supposed to wean her, and THEN work on the night sleep training, and then work on the naps. Instead, we did the night sleep, then started working on naps, and we’re just getting around to night weaning. It’s been a long three weeks.

Quick summary: over New Year’s we did the full-on controlled crying method of sleep training, and within three nights, she was falling asleep on her own. We still fed her through the night, answering when she called, and then, of course, the little bugger started getting a tooth. (How rude!) The Sleepeasy Solution says to suspend sleep training during tooth-cutting, but after two semi-sleepless nights and some analysis of her cries, we realized she wasn’t in any pain; she just wanted to say hello and maybe grab a snack. So we moved onto the night weaning and hopped back on the Sleep Train.

Basic idea behind night weaning is this: after thoroughly documenting your child’s wakeup schedule, you’ll see  a bit of a pattern emerging; usually it’s one or two big feeds, and several more small pacifying feeds during the night. Keep notes. Seriously, KEEP NOTES.

  1. Step One: do away with the pacifying feeds. She wants only an ounce, she gets nothin’. That was probably the only point in the book that was not clear to me, as the authors said “Don’t worry about those,” and I thought that meant “Keep doing it.” Turns out it means “She gets nothing.”
  2. Step Two: Schedule several “dream feeds” throughout the night, about an hour before she usually wakes up to eat her big feedings. If she eats 5 oz. at 3, schedule the dream feed for 2. Agent of Chaos’ current schedule is 5-6 oz at bedtime (7:30ish), 5-6 oz at 10:30 PM, 2 oz. at 3:30 AM, wakes up at 6:30 AM and lies in bed until I come get her at 7 AM.

    NOTE: If she wakes up before her scheduled feeding, don’t feed her. Giving a we’ll-feed-you-when-you-cry message is NOT the lesson she needs to learn. Do your scheduled check-ins until she falls back asleep. Even though we did this out of order–the authors recommend weaning first–doing the training first actually worked well, because she knows how to soothe herself back to sleep. Let her fall back asleep, then wake her up at her scheduled time (or ten minutes after she falls asleep).
  3. Step Three: Stick to the schedule religiously, reducing the amount of food (especially for the middle-of-the-night feeding) by an ounce–or a few minutes, if you’re breastfeeding–each night. Theoretically, after a few nights, she’ll be down to zero and won’t be eating anything in the middle of the night.

And presto! Your baby sleeps for twelve hours.

Except not.

We’re still weaning. We haven’t started reducing her intake at the 10:30 feeding. And tonight, she’s down to 1 oz. But I can tell you that the progress is steady: turns out that she won’t wake up starving in the morning just because we only fed her 2 oz at 3:30 AM. Because we did the controlled crying training, she only wakes up once or twice in the night, and she fusses herself back to sleep within fifteen minutes (or stays awake and talks to herself for an hour, depending on her mood).

A note before I go on: do not, do NOT, take my word on all of this. But here are my tips for success, both for night weaning and sleep training.

  1. If you feel like you want to sleep train, buy the book.
  2. Read it thoroughly.
  3. Have your partner read it thoroughly.
  4. Before embarking on a plan, discuss the whole system in minute detail so both of you understand it.
  5. Every evening–say, around 6 pm, before bedtime, discuss and write down exactly what your plan for the night is. Write down, in large letters, in a visible, lighted place, answers to these questions:
    • When are her night feedings?
    • If she’s bottle-fed, who will feed her at each feeding?
    • How much does she get at each feeding/how long does she eat?
    • Who will commence check-ins if she wakes up at a non-scheduled time?
    • What do we do if she seems to be in pain?
  6. Don’t have last-minute discussions at bedtime, or in the middle of the night, asking what the next step is (or doubting the plan). Just consult your written plan. Unless the baby is visibly bleeding or shrieking in pain, just stick to the plan and save your suggestions for the next night. Exhausted arguments are no way to solve problems. Not that, of course, we had any arguments at 11 PM or 2 AM or 3:30 AM. Just imagining that it could happen, and that it could ruin your night, and that it could result in some very unproductive pouting.
  7. Use overnight diapers. We use gDiapers during the day, and they’re great, but we just switched to Huggies Overnights, and lemme tell you—they’re worth it. We were changing diapers during night feedings, and all it did was wake her up and satisfy us that she wasn’t crying because she was wet. With the overnight diapers, I’m confident that if she’s wet, she doesn’t feel it, and it won’t leak. Some books also suggest slathering on the zinc oxide at bedtime to prevent diaper rash.
  8. Mickey the Monkey. Short for McFarland.

    Get the lovey. Everyone–EVERYONE!–who has asked about sleep training has asked if we have a lovey. I mentioned the Comfort Silkie in the last post, and since then, we’ve added a Wubbanub, the cutest damn animal ever. She loves that monkey more than either of us, I can tell you that. (Her name is Mickey, short for McFarland.) A word of advice from the RocketSister: when the baby bonds with something, buy five more of the same thing so when Mickey #1 falls apart, Mickey #2 can take her place.

  9. Help your partner. Prepare the bottle for the next feeding—or better yet, prepare the bottle in the exact amount to be fed. Say goodnight. Wait until they’ve had a cup of coffee to ask how the night went (not, say, at 7 AM when he’s still fuzzy with sleep. Not that I’ve done that.).
  10. Treasure your victories. Even when she wakes up at 2 AM and fusses for 45 minutes, keeping the household awake with intermittent crying and check-ins, think about the fact that at 7 PM, you put her down and she went to sleep within two minutes. That’s no small thing.

Most important, be consistent. Babies are like dogs. They like consistency, training, they like sleeping and eating and knowing when and how that’ll happen. They also like you. Love you, in fact. And they can smell fear.

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Remote Control Light Switch, Savior of the Pre-War Apartment!

Posted by rocketgirlsf on January 10, 2010

When Christmas rolls around, most dads and husbands can expect a tie or a World’s Greatest Dad mug, or maybe a cloisonne tie clip in the logo of the favorite sports team. (OK, my dad can expect that.) My husband? I figured he has a few years before the dad gifts roll in, so we’ll go with gadgets for now. He got the Li’l Guppie, a supercharged carabiner, and the Instant Switch.

(The Guppie, by the by, is an amazing invention, a kind of fish-shaped Swiss Army carabiner with a blade sharp enough to gut a rhino. Highly recommended for the RocketMan in your life.)

What’s the Magic Instant Switch? A remote control light switch, of course! Why do you need an Instant Switch? Because you have a pre-war apartment with only two outlets per room and a deep loathing of unflattering overhead lighting, of course! The little wireless unit—slightly thicker, but roughly the same size as, your garden-variety switchplate—controls a lamp on the other side of the room. For new-house-dwellers, this might not be such a big deal. For us, it’s The Clapper 3.0.

We’ve always been big fans of the outlet light switch so we can control power without needing to unplug anything, but the problem is, that means extension cords. A lot of extension cords. Some are unavoidable (like the one needed to power the white noise machine and nightlight in the nursery, where there are a grand total of zero outlets), but with the Amazingly Magic Instant Switch, the bureau lamp in our bedroom? Extension cord no more! Plug it into the switch receiver, install the switchplate by the door, and the Incredible Amazingly Magic Instant Switch does the work of three extension cords and a walk across the room.

I’m interested in getting more for other rooms in the apartment, but since it works from sixty feet away and we don’t have sixty feet of distance anywhere in the RocketDigs, I’m worried we’d have lights flipping on and off all over.

Speaking of which, wouldn’t The Clapper go into overdrive during the State of the Union address?

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Dr. Ferber, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love the CIO

Posted by rocketgirlsf on January 3, 2010

The Sleepeasy Solution

OK, not Dr. Ferber. Jennifer Waldburger and Jill Spivack. And not cry-it-out so much as what folks call “controlled crying.” But oh, how I love them all.

One week ago today, we had a baby–the cutest baby pretty much ever, incidentally–who liked a 30-minute session of rocking, singing, feeding, and occasionally for me to lay across her bodily in the crib before falling asleep. Then she’d sleep for 30 minutes, wake up, and I’d rush in to do a little rocking and laying-across to bridge her to her real sleep time. (The first 30 minutes were merely a sleep appetizer, you see.) If I didn’t get in there soon enough, she’d be fully awake and fussing, so I’d send another 20 minutes getting her to go down. Two or three hours later, she’d wake up for food or a wet diaper or some cuddles, and we’d oblige. 2 1/2 hours after that, she’d wake up for real, talking to herself, and fuss and cry unless one of us was in the room with her while she had her 2 AM playtime. After an hour, back to sleep, then back up again at around 5 for one last diaper change/bottle suck/cuddle.

Every three hours, she’d be up, which really, in the grand scheme of babydom, ain’t so bad. I’ve learned how to cram a full sleep cycle into 2 1/2 hours, so three hours was great. The whole “sleeping through the night” thing eluded us–five hours in a row was a two-time fluke, not an actual condition–and after a few half-hearted attempts at winging Ferberization, we figured we’d just gradually get her off her sleep dependencies (the swaddle and the bottle) and she’d figure it out on her own.

After Night #2 sans swaddle, when we were up every 45 to 60 minutes, and both RocketMan and I slept on the floor of the nursery, RocketMan made an executive decision: the sleep training starts now. Fortunately, the previous weekend I’d done a little browsing in Borders and found The Sleepeasy Solution, a straightforward manual that covers naps, weaning, swaddles, bedtime, night wakings, and even has a chapter for cosleepers (which we’re not). Best part? No long-ass chapters espousing sleep theory and telling me why my baby needs to sleep. I know why my baby needed to sleep. I just didn’t know how to get her there.

Sleepeasy Solution is a modified Ferber method, which some folks call “controlled crying”; others call it CIO, or “cry it out.” It’s not for everyone. Some people can’t stand to hear their baby cry for any length of time; some think it results in adult anxiety issues; others think it’s just plain cruel. Personally, I think that three nights of crying will not have any more impact on my baby’s future mental health than would, say, a week spent in the NICU. All that said, it’s no picnic.

The Comfort Silkie

Here’s the basic plan.

  1. Create a good sleep space. In our case, that meant blackout curtains for the doorways (remember, our nursery is a converted hallway); a white noise machine; and a red light nightlight. We like the red bulbs at night because the short wavelengths don’t make your pupils shrink. You can go from a bright to dark room, and vice versa, without night blindness.
  2. Create a sleep routine and begin it so that it ends at bedtime. For us, that means changing into the sleeper; reading a book quietly; diaper check; then turning out the lamp and doing an out-of-crib feeding. (I say “out-of-crib” because we’d long been using the never-recommended shortcut of feeding her in the crib so as not to rouse her too much.) Top it off with a verse of “Blackbird” whilst cuddling, then into the crib she goes, with her blankie, pacifier, and a kiss on the head. A word about the lovey blanket: my sister bought me the Comfort Silkie, which I stuffed in my bra and slept with for two nights so it smells like me. She wasn’t into it until we started sleep training, and now she clutches it like a lifeline. Write down the exact minute you left the room.
  3. Commence the graduated check-ins. This is the hard part.
    1. Start the clock when she starts crying. We used my iPod’s Stopwatch feature; the great thing is, it has a “lap” feature, so you can see the length of time since the previous check-in as well as the full length of time she’s been in there.
    2. At five minutes, if she’s crying, check in. The authors recommend standing a few feet from the crib and talking softly for no more than 30 seconds. If you want to give her a pat, that’s fine, but be warned that it might make her cry harder. For us, RocketMan talked sweetly and softly; for me, I discovered one full round of “Blackbird” is exactly 30 seconds long, and that’s what I did. Exit.
    3. Start the next lap. Next check-in is ten minutes later, same thing.
    4. Third lap: 15 minutes. And it’s 15 minutes for every subsequent lap.
  4. And presto! She’s asleep.

Except not.  A quick clarification: The first night of sleep training was December 30, and we’d decided I’d go to say farewell to Annie’s Social Club a night early (mostly because I am loathe to go out on New Year’s Eve), and he’d go out New Year’s Eve. The plan seems counterintuitive–starting sleep training when one partner is absent–but it worked brilliantly for us. Why? Because we weren’t sniping at each other and second-guessing during the hardest nights. We each had a plan, and we stuck to it. And the best part was that I got a night off of baby duty, and then he did, and on the third night–when conditions greatly improved–we were able to trade off as usual.

I texted RM from Annie’s at 8:30, and his response was gratifying: “Asleep @ 10 minute!” When I got home at 11:30, though, he leapt on me at the door with a “Shhh!” Turns out that after her sleep appetizer–her 30-minute pre-sleep nap–the fun began. She cried from 9:30 to 10:40, when she finally zonked out. At 11:30, she woke up and ate half a bottle. And at 12:45 AM. And 3:20 AM. And 5:55, 6:40, and 7:10. By the 6:40 wakeup, she began crying in earnest again, and RM began the check-ins. A word about night wakings: if your baby’s weaned from night feedings, you can probably go without feeding her at all, but the Agent of Chaos still eats at night, so we’re working on weaning her as we sleep train. And there’s always the wet diaper possibility.

Lesson #1: During night wakings, check the diaper and change it if necessary. Feed her outside the crib, and put her back in while still awake. UPDATE 2/8/2010: ONLY do this if you haven’t done night weaning.

New Year’s Eve, she went down at 6:50 PM; fell asleep at 7, and woke promptly at 7:30. Here are my notes from that night:

5/10/Q@15/Q@15/Q@15/WD @ 1:25

Translation: Checked in at 5 and 10 minutes; quiet at 15 minutes. That meant that at the 15-minute mark, she was quiet or just complaining. This, to me, is the most important part of the sleep training.

Lesson #2: Don’t check in just because the clock tells you to; listen to your baby.

Has she been crying only intermittently? Is she just fussing? Was she crying two minutes ago, but is quiet now? If so, don’t check in. Restart the clock and wait another interval. The last thing you want to do is remind her that you’re around and upset her all over again.

So on Night #2, after the 5 and 10 minute check-ins, she cried off and on for 50 minutes, getting gradually quieter, so I didn’t check in at all. I did, however, notice that after that 50 minutes–around 9 PM, she began crying again, harder. I suspected something had changed. This is the other hard part: how do I check her diaper if I’m not supposed to pick her up? Nothing to lose, I figured–worse comes to worst, I’ll have to start all over again, and it can’t be any harder than it already has been. So at the next check-in time, I crept up to the crib, felt her diaper, and yep! Wet. So I picked her up, changed her diaper, singing the whole time, put her back down, gave her the blankie and paci, and left. By 9:30, she was sound asleep.

Lesson #3: If she’s on her way to sleeping, and she sets off again, check the diaper and change it.

Poke this kid with a stick, and she ain't waking up.

The rest of the night tracked like the night before. Un-fun. After two hours of 20-minute naps interspersed with crying, I got her up at 7:15 AM, figuring it was morning, so treat it that way. That day, we began the nap training, which was similar to night training, except that we leave her in the crib for an hour; if she’s asleep at the 60-minute mark, let her keep sleeping; if not, get her up. Start the check-ins if she’s really wailing. The first day of nap training, she only took three 30-minute naps, not nearly close to the 2-3 hours recommended, so after her third nap, we popped her in the sling and she conked out for two hours–slept hard enough that even when we took her out of the sling, watched a movie, spoke in regular voices and had all the lights on, she still slept. You’re not supposed to let them nap in the evening, but she was tired, and the last thing we wanted was starting the night routine with an overtired baby.

Lesson #4: If, by 4:30 PM, she hasn’t slept enough, stage an “emergency nap”–go back to the surefire nap technique so she gets the sleep when she needs it.

Night #3, she was asleep within 20 minutes, and required only the 5-minute check-in. By 9:51–her scheduled post-appetizer wakeup–we hovered at the clock. But she slept on. And kept sleeping until 10:20, a full hour after falling asleep, when she required only two check-ins. At 11:20, she woke again, this time for a wet diaper and small snack… and then she slept from 11:35 to 4:35.

Five hours. That’s officially sleeping through the night. After a half a bottle and a diaper change, she slept from 4:45 to 9 AM. Four hours. Insane.

Her first nap the next morning? 90 minutes long. 90. MINUTES. LONG.

And last night, Night #4? Down at 7:20 PM. Asleep at 7:22. I kid you not. At 10 PM, I woke her for a “dreamfeed”–gently waking the baby so she doesn’t need as much to eat in the middle of the night. She guzzled 6 oz., thanked me for the diaper change, and was asleep within two minutes of putting her back down. Woke up at 3 PM–without crying, by the by, just chatting to herself–and RM changed her, fed her, and after a long bout of talking to herself, she woke up at 8 AM, cheerful and bright-eyed.

That’s five hours and four hours again, for those of you keeping score. And a full night with not one tear.

Of course, napping this morning had her crying for 30 minutes. But they say naps are always harder.

Great job! But didn’t you feel horrible hearing her cry?

Actually, no. I didn’t cheer, but I didn’t feel horrible. I felt pretty awful when I’d go in for the check-in and she’d look at me, face crumpled up like Mr. StayPuft’s “Why did you shoot me?” look. But in I’d go, and out I’d go, and plug into the stereo with RocketMan’s headphones. Keep in mind that we can’t go into another room and turn up the TV–her nursery is just behind a curtain off our living room. So we had to keep the sound down and the headphones up.
What really made me feel like Mommie Dearest was hearing her the next morning. She sounded like me after a long night of singing Pat Benatar–in everything I’d read online, I hadn’t seen much about the baby crying herself hoarse, and that’s what mine did. She’s still hoarse this morning (and her nap crying didn’t help), but I’m hoping in a few more days she’ll sound more Julie Andrews and less Lindsay Lohan.

Do you worry about the long-term effects of letting her cry?

No. If I do the math, in the last 96 hours, she’s cried for roughly six hours, or 6% of the time. And she cried consistently, and hard (what we call “Fifth Gear”) for maybe 90 minutes, all told. Is that fun? No. Did she like it? Hells, no. But if the little Agent of Chaos is doomed to grow up feeling unloved and anxious because of six hours of crying spread out over 96 hours, then we’re doing a lot more wrong as parents than just sleep training.

What if she goes back to her old habits?

If, by the end of two weeks, she’s consistently gone back to crying for sleep and waking every three hours, then we’ll call the last two nights a fluke, and try something else. But I don’t think that’ll happen.

If you managed to stick with me this far, thanks. I know it’s been a long blog, but I often can’t find the real downlow on stuff like this, and I appreciate reading other people’s experiences. And, as always, I only have five months’ worth of parenting experience, so scrap everything I just said and head over to Regretsy for some fun New Year’s reading.

And also, go Steelers.

SEE OUR UPDATE HERE!

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2009: Year in Review

Posted by rocketgirlsf on December 28, 2009

Forget about decade in review—2009 is definitely the year to remember in Oughts, at least for me. Plenty happened. Plenty of it was not good, not even a little bit.

This is the Rocket Christmas tree. It was the table centerpiece for my company’s Christmas party a few years back, so true to our apartment theme of “get free stuff,” I adopted it as our tree. We don’t have much in the way of ornaments, but I’m working on it.

This is Audrey, known to my family as Aunt Audrey. She died unexpectedly in late July due to heart surgery complications; she was my mother’s best friend, and, I think, the only person who truly knew my mother. She was certainly the only person I ever knew around whom my mother acted completely relaxed; she was an artist, a horticulturist, and someone for whom I felt a deep admiration. I can’t count how many times I heard my mother tell me, “That sounds like something Audrey would say.” She was 61.

Audrey Greenberg

This is Billy, the adorable platypus. I won’t bother explaining that, other than to say he was a college friend whose death was not unexpected; his fight with colon cancer had gone on too long. He died in early July. He was 40.

Billy Dall

This is Marcie. She died of breast cancer. I can’t even write about her without beginning to lose my grip on my emotions, so I’ll leave it there. She died in early October, at 34 years old.

Marcie Williams

This is the reason why 2009 was not a complete write-off for me: without these two the whole year would’ve gone into “Man, growing up sucks” category. Instead, it’s turned out to be both the best and worst year of my life, when I was given the most, and the most was taken away. I have one resolution in 2010: when it occurs to me that maybe I’d like to call a friend or send a card, I’m not going to wait. I’m going to do it. Farewell, 2009, and welcome 2010.

The Rockets

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Breastmilk, Straight From the Pump

Posted by rocketgirlsf on December 5, 2009

As the Agent of Chaos passed her fourth-month birthday, we found ourselves turning to a new chapter in the baby books (literally). She’s moved out of the 0-3 demographic and into the 4-7 months, where parenting actually gets kind of fun. No longer are we Momaton and Dadaton tending to the needs of Newbornaton; we are Mom and Dad, tending to the needs of a pretty darn cute baby. She’s babbling and laughing and playing with toys, rolling over, and able to entertain herself for up to 30 minutes at a time. She is also, as of this early morning, waking up every hour on the hour just to say hi, which leads me to believe that you’ll be reading a blog about sleep training in the near future.

While the content of the development chapters change, one thing hasn’t: the lingo regarding feeding. There’s breastfeeding, and there’s bottle-feeding. Online, there’s EBF: exclusive breastfeeding. I assume there’s an acronym for formula-feeding—FF?—but I haven’t seen it yet. (There’s also NIP, LO and FB; I’ll let you do the research on those.) What isn’t clear, in any of these names, is whether the breastfeeding involves bottles, or whether the bottle-feeding involves breastmilk.

In my experience, bottle-feeding, in most books, articles and online references, actually refers to formula feeding. Breastfeeding, for the most part, refers to feeding from the breast. You can find loads of resources online regarding the problems and benefits of both methods. Problem is, in my own peer group, some exclusively feed from the breast; some exclusively feed formula; some feed from the breast and formula in a bottle; some feed only breastmilk, some from the breast and some from the bottle. And a few, like me, feed breastmilk exclusively from the bottle.

So here’s my two cents’ worth on bottle-feeding breastmilk, which I know can’t be as rare as the internet would lead me to believe—there are far too many working mothers out there. Disclaimer: I have no idea how much of my experience is similar to parents who formula-feed, or parents who exclusively nurse. I don’t have a basis for comparison; I just want to share some thoughts in hopes that another frustrated breastmilk-bottle-feeder might not feel as adrift as I did at first.

Pumping on the go!

How often should I pump?

As often as your boobs tell you to. For me, it’s been as short as 2.5 hours and as long as 6 hours (although I wouldn’t recommend that!). Generally it’s every 3 – 4 hours, 15-20 minutes per session, and lately I’ve been trying to extend that to closer to the four-hour mark. My milk production is strong, so we won’t run out of milk, and with any luck I’ll get an extra hour of consecutive sleep.

One concern: when I’m pumping, I’m pretty well locked in. If she starts crying, I’d have to detach myself from a few tubes and wires, mop up dripping milk, etc., so RocketMan knows that when I say the magic words (“Gotta go pump!”) I’m out of commission for at least 15 minutes. Make that clear to your partner—along with the fact that if you wait too long, your breasts actually ache and harden.

How do I juggle pumping and feeding with my partner?

Our solution: Work in shifts. Some parents trade off nights, some days vs. nights, but shifts worked brilliantly for us. He’s a night person, and according to my grandmother, I wake up with the chickens, so we divvied up the night from 10 – 4 and 4 – 10. Because I was pumping so frequently, we had plenty of milk for his share of the feedings. The downside for me, of course, was that I still woke up every three hours to pump, while he managed to get a blissful six-hour stretch of sleep after 4 AM. There’s a part of me that thinks about that six-hour stretch of sleep with the kind of wistful resentment that a man feels watching the train go by Folsom Prison. In any case, we began to see our shifts as true work shifts, down to the side work of changing the diaper, prepping a new bottle, cleaning the old.

What kind of pump?

Most books recommend that if you’re pumping a lot, spend the cash on a high-quality pump like the Medela Pump in Style. The backpack makes toting it around easy, it’s a powerful pump, and it’s the one most likely to drain your breasts properly. (It’s a GREAT registry item.) In addition, I’d recommend getting a hand pump for outings. The electric pump is convenient for home and work, but the hand pump fits in the diaper bag, and it’s great for relieving pressure on the go. I also use a nursing cover by Bebe au Lait to cover up—it works just as well for pumping as it does for nursing in public.

What kind of bottles?

I went with my favorite research method: I asked a friend. She recommended Dr. Brown’s bottles, and after some quickie internet research, we registered for the 3.5-oz glass Dr. Brown bottles. Supposedly they’re the closest that bottles come to mimicking the action of a real breast, and they also reduce colic. I can’t speak to either of those claims, as we’ve only used Dr. Brown’s bottles and can’t compare them to any other brands. That said, she seems to like them just fine. My only complaint is that they have five parts to clean, which can be kind of a bitch, but when it’s all you’ve ever worked with, you get used to it. I do recommend, though, that you get the 7-oz. bottles right out of the gate. She grew out of the 3.5 oz within the first month, and we could’ve easily just filled the bigger bottles halfway and saved the money on the smaller bottles. To protect the glass when we’re going out, we wrap it in your basic thermal water bottle cover—it’s padded, insulated and much less of a pain to deal with than the glass bottle covers. Bonus: it has a carabiner to hang from the diaper bag or backpack.

How many bottles should we own?

For my shower, I inherited at least two dozen bottles, and despite assurances from my friends that we’d need them—”Nothing worse than needing to wash a bottle in the middle of the night!”—I couldn’t imagine how anyone would go through all of them, no less where we’d put them. After a week or so of mulling that over I realized: Oh, right. Dishwashers. When you have a dishwasher, I assume you use the bottle, stick in the rack, and keep doing that for seven or eight bottles. We, on the other hand, have four bottles, kept in constant rotation, and our method’s pretty efficient; we’ve never needed to wash any bottles immediately before a feeding.

Use a water bottle cover for travelling with glass bottles.

What we do is this: We have two sets of bottles in the refrigerator. One, her filled Dr. Brown bottles; the second is the backup of breastmilk in the pump bottles. I pump about 10 oz. per session, which fills about 1 1/2 Medela pump bottles; those go to the back of the rotation. When a drinking bottle is done, it’s washed, filled with the first pump bottle in line, and put to the back of the rotation. The pump bottle is either washed or tossed in a bowl of warm soapy water that’s always waiting in the sink (we don’t want to spend ALL day washing bottles!). She’s always drinking the oldest bottle of milk first—not more than two days old—and the freshest milk goes to the back of the line, grocery-store style. We usually have at least two drinking bottles in the hopper, waiting to be warmed, and one active bottle that she’s working on. Thus far, the only time I’ve had to wash a bottle in the middle of the night was when we were visiting family and only brought three Dr. Brown’s bottles and three Medela pump bottles. Four bottles, for us, is the magic number—but that’s in addition to about eight Medela pump bottles.

(A word about spoilage: Breastmilk begins to spoil after about six hours, so I usually give the bottle a sniff if the contents are in doubt. When she has slurped some bad milk, the worst that happens is throwing up. No biggie. Usually she just won’t drink it.)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but what about the bonding?

No doubt, nursing from the breast fosters a wonderful bond between mother and child. In the last few weeks, I’ve gone from nursing once a day to almost not at all—where she used to nurse reasonably well, now she lies there, grinning at me, and plays chase-the-nipple until Mommy finally gives up—and I’ll be the first to admit that I miss the full-on nursing. I don’t miss extra lost sleep. Bottom line, nursing is wonderful for bonding, but you can bond in other ways to make up for it. (As I read in one article, if every nursing sessions ends with both of you in tears and one of you hungry, that’s not bonding.)

But the obese babies! THINK OF THE FATTIES!

Many studies seem to show that bottle-fed babies are more likely to grow up with an obesity problem. I’ve seen post after post on message board saying just this… even when the bottle in question is filled with breastmilk, not formula. In reality, the studies are formula vs. breastmilk, not breast vs. bottle. Of course, none of those studies show definitively if it’s the bottle or the breast that does it, or the formula or the breastmilk, or just the eating and exercising habits of women who formula-feed vs. women who breastfeed. Bottom line, teach your kid good eating and fitness habits, and even if the formula or bottle puts her at slightly higher risk for obesity, she’ll make the right choices.

But isn’t nursing the best thing you can do for your baby?

According to just about everyone, yes. But it’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is that she eats and gets the necessary nutrition. You could be breastfeeding her midichlorian-spiked breastmilk through a Jedi wet nurse, but if she’s not gaining weight and getting what she needs to grow, she’s not going to thrive. In an ideal world we’d all have the time and ability to nurse successfully around the clock. But in the world we live in, babies are born with cleft palates and can’t breastfeed, moms have severe anemia for months after childbirth, and women work for eight hours a day. Breast is best, but food is required.

With that, I’ll climb off my soapbox. I hope I offered some help to folks. Whether you’re exclusively pumping, breastfeeding, or bottle-feeding, just remember that happy parents make happy babies. And with all of four months of experience behind me, I’m in no way qualified to offer any kind of parenting advice, so forget everything you just read and head on over to Regretsy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I promised I’d get back around to posting about the RocketDigs soon. but this was my first week back at work, and RocketMan’s first week as a stay-at-home dad (SAHD to the internet folk), so tweaking the apartment has not been at the top of the priority pile.

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Holiday Gift Ideas for Newborns; or It’s Adorable, and So Were the Other 10 We Received

Posted by rocketgirlsf on November 27, 2009

Disclaimer: Despite my nagging sense that this blog could come back to haunt me in a Miss Manners column, it’s a story that needs to be told. So rest assured: if you think one of the Don’ts below apply to you, it doesn’t. We loved your gift and treasure it deeply.

As the holiday shopping season approaches and the Agent of Chaos’ fourth month has past, I feel I’ve become something of an expert on baby gifts. Between the baby shower, visits from friends and family, and our first big trip back to the home planet (complete with a lovely party that felt like a second baby shower) we’ve received a plethora of presents, an embarrassment of kindnesses, several shopping bagsful of goodies… all of which lead me to the conclusion that it’s really, really hard to shop for babies. Why? Because every last item is so damned adorable. It’s all small, it’s all cute, it’s all got woodland and sea animals and little bells and big-eyed creatures, and it’s all designed to make both giver and receiver spontaneously burst into a chorus of “AWWW!” I said “Awwww!” to nearly everything we’ve gotten, and I meant every single outburst. But then, upon returning home, I must wonder: How long must I keep the latest batch of cuteness before passing it on to another lucky soul?

NOTE: If the baby registry’s still going, buy from it!

Do NOT Buy…

  • Resist the temptation to buy stuffed animals!

    Stuffed animals. They’re cute; they’re easy; they sit on a shelf for years and collect dust. Immediate family—grandparents, especially— will take care of all the baby’s stuffed animal needs. Instead: Buy a cute toy that has edges that crinkle, parts that move, or little mirrors, like Jacques the Peacock.
  • Goodnight, Moon and/or The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The new parents already own it. Trust me. I’ve had four copies of GM and three of TVHC come through the door, and I got another just last week. They’re terrific books, but they’re on everyone’s list. Instead: Check a list of Caldecott Medal books and buy the titles you remember from your childhood. My favorite gift book is Hug, by Jez Alborough. It’s sweet, funny, and has been known to make grown men cry.
  • Clothing in gender-specific colors. I like pink. Love it, in fact. My wedding dress was pink. If I get one more pink anything, though, I won’t be held responsible for my actions. Instead: Buy green, yellow, orange, anything but pink or blue.
  • Legwarmers for the tiny dancer

    Baby pants. A personal pet peeve of mine. Pulling up pants over squirmy legs is a pain in the diaper. Instead: Baby Legwarmers, which keep her little chubby thighs warm AND stay on during diaper changes. Even better: one pair can fit a newborn from hip to toe, and a toddler from thigh to ankle, so she’ll wear them for a long time.

DO buy…

  • Something practical, but boring. If you’re parent, think about what you overlooked after childbirth; if not, use common sense. When in doubt as to the brand of items below, I always err on the side of anything labeled “natural,” “organic,” or “something-free.” Some useful gift suggestions:
    • Newborn-sized diapers
    • Gift card to Diapers.com (or Walgreens)
    • Washcloths
    • Baby-sized fingernail clippers
    • If Mom is nursing and you’re close to enough to get a personal item, nursing pads will be MUCH needed. In addition, eyedrops, chapstick and a big water bottle will be invaluable—breastfeeding dehydrates like you wouldn’t believe.
    • If the birth was vaginal and you’re close enough to buy a personal item, maxi pads, ibuprofen and witch hazel pads will be worth their weight in gold for the first month.
    • Baby wipes
    • Food: bring a prepared dinner in a reusable container. Just make sure to call first.
  • Itzbeen one week since you cried for milk...

    Baby gadgets. The Baby Industrial Complex is awash in safety devices, gewgaws and other bright flashy things, and they’re a great way to exercise your creative gift-buying freedom. Websites like www.thinkgeek.com have loads of baby gadgets that, at first blush, seem silly, but in reality are terrific… and more than likely, new parents will not have considered them as registry-necessary. Just be sure to include the gift receipt if the parents aren’t into it.
    • Itzbeen: This handy device times the baby’s day-to-day tune-ups: sleep, diaper, feeding, the last breast fed (right or left) and a few wildcard timers. I used it in the hospital to time when I’d last taken a Vicodin, and we’ve used it since to time the baby’s naps, as well as when we last made a bottle (Is this bottle an hour or three hours old?). Thanks to Tony and Randi for that!
    • Bottle Warmer: Better than the microwave, and more convenient than the stovetop.
    • Grobag Egg Thermometer: We received this from my mother-in-law’s cousin, and while the packaging is ludicrous—implying that the cute little glowing egg will save your baby from crib death—it actually is kind of nice to have at her bedside. Sometimes it’s hard to know how cold or warm a room really is (especially when you’re overheated from breastfeeding dehydration) so seeing the egg glow blue is a good indicator that she needs an extra blanket.
    • Yellow Alert: Baby is snug like the rug bug.

      Sleep Sheep or other white noise machine. Or if you’re super-techie, the Voice-Activated Crib Light w/ Womb Sounds. I don’t own it, but I want it. When your baby begins to cry, it switches on a colored light and plays womb noises. How cool is that?
    • Easy Expression Hands-Free Pumping Bra: Allows a breastfeeding mom to let go of the bottles while double-pumping. It even zips up the front for easy wearability. Fricking BRILLIANT. Thanks to the friend of the NICU mom who bought it as a gift, or I’d never have known it existed.
    • Alternative Diaper Starter Set: While this could seem like an unwelcome hint that the parent shouldn’t use disposables, if they’ve expressed interest in it, it’s a good gift. Many parents might not realize how far technology has brought the non-disposable diaper world, or maybe they just don’t want the upfront cost of trying them out. GDiapers are great for partially disposable diapers, and I’ve also heard great things about Bummis cloth diapers.

And really, we do love all the gifts we’ve received. Honestly!

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Blog Quickie: This is Why We Have Landfills

Posted by rocketgirlsf on November 11, 2009

I recently ordered a case of gDiaper refills from diapers.com (yes, we’re still using them, and only use disposables when traveling), and they arrived, as promised, two days later, shipping for free. Diapers.com’s a great service, especially for items like the refills, which aren’t readily available at the corner store. They also arrived, however, like this:

It's a box in a box.

Really, Diapers.com? It’s necessary to put the smaller box in the bigger box in order to ship it?

In other news, Halloween was low-key in the RocketHouse, and the Agent of Chaos showed her true supervillain colors.

RomulanSuperVillain

Here she is, looking less villainous.

091111_facepic_sm

Someday, when RocketMan gets around to framing and hanging artwork, I’ll show her nursery. Why don’t I do it? Because he insists on doing it. Except he’s not doing it. So if you know him, nag him.

Lastly, I’ve been busy lately with directing the comedy sketches for The Devil-Ettes’ Go Go Spectacular. GO SEE THIS SHOW. It’s going to be—you guessed it—spectacular!

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Newparent Milestones: A Guide to The First Three Months

Posted by rocketgirlsf on October 27, 2009

Congratulations! You’re a newparent. As with any newparent, you’re probably wondering how your development should progress. Here’s a general guide to week-and-month milestones through your first three months. Note: all newparents develop at their own rate, so you may not reach these milestones within the approximate timespan. If more than one or two days were spent in the hospital, these developmental milestones may be delayed by that number of days/weeks. If you’re concerned about delayed newparent development, please call a friend with a newborn baby and compare notes.

The First Week
By the end of the first week, you should:

  • Know your baby’s name;
  • Recognize you are no longer pregnant*;
  • Be certain that leaving the baby unattended will result in its instant suffocation;
  • Fall into an extended fit of crying over something seemingly trivial, such as losing a blanket*;
  • Have eaten breakfast at least twice;
  • Thank your lucky stars for Vicodin*;
  • Realize you have too many of one baby item and not enough of another;
  • Get annoyed with someone who laughs at your lack of sleep;
  • Wonder what you got yourself into.

The Second Week
By the end of the second week, you should:

  • Understand how to button and unbutton a sleeper effectively;
  • Have a babycare pattern set up with your newparent partner;
  • Have eaten lunch at least twice;
  • Bathed the baby;
  • Cried over something not-so-trivial, such as Nonspecific Infant Fussiness (NSIF);
  • Purchased baby items online that were not bought for the shower*;
  • Reconsidered 15% of the advice received whilst in the hospital/from baby books/from relatives;
  • Reorganized the changing table so it’s sensible for 3 AM diaper changing;
  • Been peed and/or pooed on at least once;
  • Realized your family now has three people, not two, and that you may never have another uninterrupted meal with your newparent partner;
  • Send a birth announcement by email and Facebook;
  • Heard “Welcome to parenthood” at least once;
  • Wonder what you got yourself into.

The Third Week
By the end of the third week, you should:

  • Have argued with a grandparent over the proper grooming/feeding/holding/changing of the newborn;
  • Reconsidered 30% of the advice received whilst in the hospital/from baby books/from relatives;
  • Welcomed at least one visitor to your home who stands no nearer than five feet to the baby;
  • Thrust the baby into the arms of said visitor for a photograph;
  • Uploaded photos to a website;
  • Thought of your baby as its name, instead of as “the baby” or another nonspecific nickname (Tadpole, Peanut, Little One);
  • Leave the house without the baby at least once;
  • Be able to nap at will.

The Fourth Week
By the end of the fourth week, you should:

  • Begin to recognize your baby’s various cries;
  • Suspect that leaving the newborn unattended in a safe place will not result in instant suffocation, and possibly even leave the baby unattended for up to ten minutes at a time, broken up by one check for breathing (this includes sleeping);
  • Reconsidered 45% of the advice received whilst in the hospital/from baby books/from relatives;
  • Begin surfing online for miracle baby solutions, and buy at least one;
  • Realize that not only do you not own a baby sunhat, but that it’s autumn and they are nowhere to be found;
  • Be able to feed the baby whilst half-asleep
  • Make dinner at least once;
  • Cleaned up a major diaper blowout at least once;
  • Wonder when you’ll have time to/feel like having sex again;
  • Leave the house with the baby at least once.

The Sixth Week
By the end of the sixth week, you should:

  • Realize rationally that leaving the newborn unattended in a safe place will not result in instant suffocation
  • Be able to leave the baby unattended for up to forty minutes at a time, and only check for breathing twice (this includes sleeping);
  • Have reconsidered 60% of the advice received whilst in the hospital/from baby books/from relatives;
  • Try out miracle baby solutions, and reject at least one;
  • Have bathing the baby down to a science;
  • Be able to feed the baby whilst asleep.

Two Months
By the end of the second month, you should:

  • Realize emotionally that leaving the newborn unattended in a safe place will not result in instant suffocation
  • Be able to leave the baby unattended for up to 90 minutes at a time, and only check for breathing twice (this includes sleeping);
  • Have reconsidered 75% of the advice received whilst in the hospital/from baby books/from relatives;
  • Taken the baby to a childfree home and been embarrassed when the baby cried/threw up/pooped its diaper;
  • Called the baby by its name;
  • Paid the first of many hospital bills;
  • Gotten around to picking up your baby’s birth certificate;
  • Cried through your newborn’s first vaccination.

Three Months
By the end of the third month, you should:

  • Realize that not only will leaving the newborn unattended in a safe place not result in instant suffocation, but that the last eight weeks were spent freaking out for no good reason, except that doctors and nurses enjoy hazing new parents;
  • Not only be able to leave the baby unattended for up to 180 minutes at a time, with no breath checks, but hope for those 180 minutes all day, every day;
  • Performed at least one panicked breath-check when the baby slept from 4 AM to 8:30 AM, and you didn’t wake up once;
  • Have reconsidered 95% of the advice received whilst in the hospital/from baby books/from relatives;
  • Taken the baby on an overnight trip and realized the sheer amount of luggage and small creature requires;
  • Begun realizing how many clothes you’re really going to go through in the first year, as you’ve already filled up two bagsful of clothes the newborn has outgrown;
  • Begun swaying back and forth, whether or not you’re holding the baby;
  • Paid the fourth, eighth, and tenth of many hospital bills;
  • Know exactly how to make your baby smile and laugh, thus guaranteeing that you are willing to hold, burp, feed, change, and clean her up on an hourly basis.

*Female and/or formerly pregnant newparents only

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