Cabin Fever

This winter has been full of record lows. A non-homebody like me is finding it pretty hard to spend day after day inside because even bundled up the air stings your skin and you don't dare take a baby or toddler out into it either. Church and Warlmart have been the highlight excursions of our weeks, insert sad face. I am soooo looking forward to summer. So in the meantime we have been trying to find was to entertain ourselves. We have made great use of our little kids roller coaster. Hoden thinks its a riot, although sometimes it scares him. 

Last Saturday we busted out the cookbooks and made some Texas Sheet Cake. Yeah two sticks of butter later we found ourselves with enough cake that we were calling the neighbors to come over and share. It was so yummy but then again anything from Our Best Bites is. 

Tickle fights have also been a staple activity as Hoden and Mr. B are both incredibly ticklish :) Hopefully we can get some forty degree temperatures that at least make it possible to go out and do errands and other out of the house stuff :) 

Winter Wonderland

G.'s mom had the awesome idea to take the grandkiddos sledding. Thankfully B. and Hoden didn't object to getting in their snow gear (there has been many tears over this in recent months). In that most kiddos tire quickly and can't hike up a huge hill we simply walked around the block to the park near our house. The sun was out and shining and it was really a great time. 

Hoden found the activity pretty exhausting. I too would fall asleep quickly if I was bundled up in as much fleece as he was :)

We think the whole thing probably last a half hour, it was perfect. We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying each others company, watching Avengers and eating pizza. The perfect winter day. 

Hoden 4 month Photobomb :)

Wordless Wednesday

Imagine Brand Newborn Covers

As someone who googles everything before buying something I am always on the hunt for a good solid review. So I decided that since one of the brands of covers we used for Hoden is fairly new I should write a review of how their covers worked for us (I did not receive any products for this review).

You can buy the Imagine brand exclusively through nickiesdiapers.com, they have their own section and within it their are all types of inexpensive cloth diaper options.  The cover I have been using is the velcro newborn cover in marigold, they are a great deal at eight bucks a pop. You use about 6-8 covers to cloth diaper a newborn (and a future sibling, as the covers only get used 3 months) so you want them cheap.  

I bought one thinking I would not use the covers and prefolds system of cloth diapers but I was wrong (previous post about that). So I am sooo glad I had this on hand to use. It has gone through the wash and dryer (out of my laziness) and still looks brand new after a month and a half of use (my son was in the nicu but full term so we were delayed in using it.  Overall we were very pleased at well it is holding up and working for us. We have not had any leaks from fit issues. If our baby was a newborn still we would definitely be buying more. 

For those of you unfamiliar with using prefolds and covers I have taken pictures of the Imagine newborn cover with a prefold as we fold it. Some people use diaper fasteners on their prefolds but Hoden was too fat for that so we folded the prefolds and layed them in the covers like this. I hope it makes sense. It works super well for a little boy who loves to pee.

Then just set your baby on top and velcro or snap away!

Now for the best part, the modeling (or the baby thighs :)

Crappy phone picture front shot :)

Cloth Diapering- Baby Hoden (colostomy and cloth diapering)

In preparation for Baby Hoden I bought a set of Alva baby newborn pocket diapers (cloth diapers with inserts you stuff). I also bought some extra prefolds (old school diaper inserts people use to pin) and a cover for them thinking they would be my back up. Hoden was to be exclusively breastfed or EBF so we knew all we would need to do was toss diapers for him straight in the pail, wash and repeat.

Well 3 things happened that we didn't expect:

1) That the pocket newborn diapers suck. Even me little miss barely over 100 pounds could barely stuff the tiny insert inside. Worse yet they leak like crazy.

2) Hoden was in the NICU for a sigmoid atresia that required a colostomy so he poops out what is called a stoma (on his belly) that has a waste or colostomy bag attached to it.  Most cloth diapers are high waist-ed so  we had to find something that fit underneath. As he gets older and taller this will be less of a problem.

3) What to do with emptying Hoden's bag? It seemed silly to empty into the diaper and stain it (ebf poo stains most people sun bleach out the stains but we thought we would save the diapers looking new). So we empty the poop onto flush able wipes that we then drop in the toilet. Or we have thick flannel wipes we put it on, then wash those. EBF poo is completely water soluble.

So we started from some things we had and went from there. Here is what we do:

Diaper Stash:

20 prefolds (or however many you need to change baby every two hours during the day (times the days you want to go between washing), we use disposables at night, as most cloth overnight options we cannot get to work yet)

2-4 covers (you normally need more because poop gets on them but we don't obviously have that problem, for normal newborn you need 6-8). For more info on the covers we use check out my review. 

You will have to find covers with a really low rise to go below the stoma, we are using the Best Bottoms we already own but without the snap in inserts because they pressed the cover up into the colostomy bag (not good). Whatever you find that works for is great, each baby is different.  Another brand we have used are Imagine brand (also sold on the nickiesdiapers.com website), click here for a link to a review of those covers. 

We use a newspaper fold, as in we fold down a little in front, then trifold the prefold then set it in the cover. This puts the absorbency up from, which is good for a boy :) I show you how to this in the above mentioned review. 

Don't let your baby having a colostomy (or other special condition) wreck your dreams of cloth diapering.

Below are pictures of my son, if you are freaked out by baby poop you may want to skip it, but he is my kiddo and I love him poop bag and all!

Christmas 2012- Part 2

So since Hoden has been home we have stuck to sponge baths (easier with his colostomy bag) but thanks to a terrible bout of the stomach buggies (poor baby) he needed a heftier scrubbing. So with my mommy to help me we went to town. Hoden was not impressed, but he was super cute. 

Squeaky clean and good as new :)

Mr. B got in huge amounts of Grandparent time. Papa read him my old favorite bedtime story the Big Hungry Bear. He was in heaven. Oh man he just loved being there so much attention. 

Merry Christmas from C.G. Mr. B and Hoden :)