Saturday, August 4, 2012
check out this awesome giveaway!
My favorite online store is offering a chance to get a set of go green diapers for free. We love these diapers so of course we have already entered, but everyone should check it out as well!!! Go here to enter http://babyhalfoff.com/blog/2012/07/31/go-green-diapers-giveaway/
Monday, May 21, 2012
MG Baby Diaper Review
Babyhalfoff.com (the cause of my online shopping addiction) recently offered a contest to win a brand new kind of diaper. Scottie was lucky enough to win one and to give it a trial run.
First thought was that it looked like a nicely made pocket diaper. It comes with 2 bamboo inserts. I was a little disappointed at first that the inserts don't snap in like the go greens but that was quickly washed away when I noticed how easily the inserts went in and seemed to stay put. After washing we decided to give it a try as a nighttime diaper. Scottie is 13 months old and sleeps through the night so I was worried about leaks. The next morning I was shocked to find her completely dry! I think I'm really going to like the bamboo inserts for nighttime. This diaper has a slim design and I found it fits nicely under jeans. I really like this diaper so I went ahead and ordered 4 more which came in today! Thanks babyhalfoff.com for giving us the chance to try this great diaper!
First thought was that it looked like a nicely made pocket diaper. It comes with 2 bamboo inserts. I was a little disappointed at first that the inserts don't snap in like the go greens but that was quickly washed away when I noticed how easily the inserts went in and seemed to stay put. After washing we decided to give it a try as a nighttime diaper. Scottie is 13 months old and sleeps through the night so I was worried about leaks. The next morning I was shocked to find her completely dry! I think I'm really going to like the bamboo inserts for nighttime. This diaper has a slim design and I found it fits nicely under jeans. I really like this diaper so I went ahead and ordered 4 more which came in today! Thanks babyhalfoff.com for giving us the chance to try this great diaper!
Monday, May 7, 2012
Bum Cheek Diaper Review
As I sit her watching my sweet Scottie jump in her bouncer, I began thinking about how much we love our cloth diapers (it just so happens that she is wearing a bum cheeks). Our cloth diapering adventure didn't exactly get off on the right foot. We tried a few different kinds but they always seemed to leak. Kiddo's with DS can have quite the little belly on them and most diapers just hit her in the wrong spot. It seemed like they either leaked out the legs or out the top since we were leaving them a little loose to try and prevent a cranky baby. Our journey changed one day when babyhalfoff.com offered Bum Cheek diapers. They were a great price and looked so adorable so I decided to give them a shot and ordered 3. A few days later and 4 cycles through the laundry we started to use them. The first diaper change went so well! There wasn't a bit of dampness on the outside of the diaper. I was so excited about this that I immediately put the next on her, and then the next... I loved them so much that I decided I just had to wash them that night so we could use them again in the morning. We have been using them for a few months now and our collection has grown to about 25 Bum Cheek diapers. I have found the only 2 downfalls are that they are a bit more bulky than some of the other brands and they take a little while to dry after washing, but honestly neither of those really matter to us. The simplicity of the diaper and insert and it's amazing absorbing power make this our favorite diaper. I recommend this to any family that has tried diaper after diaper with no success or even if they are just looking for some new fluff to add to their stash! I tried to add a picture of the cutie showing off her Bum Cheeks but this new layout has thrown me off a bit.
Monday, November 14, 2011
7 month update
In 2 days Scottie will be 7 months old! Last weeks we had our follow up with her cardiologist and she weighed a little over 15 pounds. She is getting so big! The follow up went really well and he basically told us what we already knew. The only difference was that if one of the defects hadn't cleared up on it's own that he recommends fixing it by around 18 months. We are praying that this little hole closes on it's own but if not we are pleased that it will be a pretty minor fix. Neither of the 2 defects are effecting her in anyway right now which is great news!
Last we week we had our first encounter with "the croup". Scottie was a trooper through the multiple nose sucker sessions and the bathroom saunas. This weekend she did go through a bottle strike and we ended up at one of those after hour clinics because I was worried about dehydration. They basically told us there was no infection and to just keep doing what we had been, but didn't address the bottle issue. Sunday morning we called the er because her wet diaper count had dropped significantly. Finally we got some useful advice. After a small dose of Tylenol she finally took a whole bottle. So either the drainage was causing discomfort or we might have a teething baby on our hands. For the past few weeks I have been feeling what I thought might be a tooth but it hasn't budged and it's very hard to see anything. So if it is a tooth I'm hoping it makes an appearance very soon. Luckily though it seems like the congestion is on it's way out and today we have had 3 good meals and 4 great bottles.
Before Scottie was born we had looked into cloth diapers but the initial start up cost was really high. We found some really cheap at the fall JBF sale and after waiting a few weeks for her to grow into them we are finally using them. I think it was love from the first time. We have chosen to use Gdiapers which is a hybrid meaning that they also have a disposable insert that you can use when you may bot have a washing machine around. Although we have a pack of those lying around we haven't needed to use them yet. I love this system because it also has an optional paper liner that clovers the cloth insert to catch poop (it's ok to say poop). With the paper it makes rinsing yucky diapers unnecessary. Tonight I figured out that we had spent almost $700 on diapers so far since Scottie was born. That's a ton of money! Well to start on with the cloth I spent $35 on 6 shells, $26 on plastic liners and $60 on 12 cloth inserts. I have also ordered more shells and cloth inserts making my total investment a little over $200. These will last until she is 28 pounds and after that I will only have to buy larger shells since the liners and inserts will move up to the next size. Making my total cloth investment will be around $300 and we should be able to use these with the next little
one too! They are easy to wash and since we line dry them we are saving on some energy usage too.
This blog post is also to ask for prayers for my baby cousin Liam. He was born at 32 weeks on Thursday and is in the nicu. I'm asking for prayers that he will start eating soon so he can get strong and come home by his real due date. His big sister Ella can't wait to hold her little brother starfish as she affectionately calls him. I guess when you are 3 years old and you love fish you would think your little brother is a starfish too.
Last we week we had our first encounter with "the croup". Scottie was a trooper through the multiple nose sucker sessions and the bathroom saunas. This weekend she did go through a bottle strike and we ended up at one of those after hour clinics because I was worried about dehydration. They basically told us there was no infection and to just keep doing what we had been, but didn't address the bottle issue. Sunday morning we called the er because her wet diaper count had dropped significantly. Finally we got some useful advice. After a small dose of Tylenol she finally took a whole bottle. So either the drainage was causing discomfort or we might have a teething baby on our hands. For the past few weeks I have been feeling what I thought might be a tooth but it hasn't budged and it's very hard to see anything. So if it is a tooth I'm hoping it makes an appearance very soon. Luckily though it seems like the congestion is on it's way out and today we have had 3 good meals and 4 great bottles.
Before Scottie was born we had looked into cloth diapers but the initial start up cost was really high. We found some really cheap at the fall JBF sale and after waiting a few weeks for her to grow into them we are finally using them. I think it was love from the first time. We have chosen to use Gdiapers which is a hybrid meaning that they also have a disposable insert that you can use when you may bot have a washing machine around. Although we have a pack of those lying around we haven't needed to use them yet. I love this system because it also has an optional paper liner that clovers the cloth insert to catch poop (it's ok to say poop). With the paper it makes rinsing yucky diapers unnecessary. Tonight I figured out that we had spent almost $700 on diapers so far since Scottie was born. That's a ton of money! Well to start on with the cloth I spent $35 on 6 shells, $26 on plastic liners and $60 on 12 cloth inserts. I have also ordered more shells and cloth inserts making my total investment a little over $200. These will last until she is 28 pounds and after that I will only have to buy larger shells since the liners and inserts will move up to the next size. Making my total cloth investment will be around $300 and we should be able to use these with the next little
one too! They are easy to wash and since we line dry them we are saving on some energy usage too.
This blog post is also to ask for prayers for my baby cousin Liam. He was born at 32 weeks on Thursday and is in the nicu. I'm asking for prayers that he will start eating soon so he can get strong and come home by his real due date. His big sister Ella can't wait to hold her little brother starfish as she affectionately calls him. I guess when you are 3 years old and you love fish you would think your little brother is a starfish too.
Monday, October 17, 2011
6 months and growing!
Where do I start? First off I can start by saying I can't believe how fast the past 6 months have gone by. We had our 6 month well baby check today and I was pleasantly surprised with Scottie's progress. She came in weighing 14lbs6oz and has gained 2 inches in length to put her at 25 inches total! This put her into the 25th percentile for both. This is saying a lot considering just 2 months ago she was only in the 10th for weight and not even on the charts for height! Grow baby grow! She is meeting all 6 month milestones except for the Starting the beginning phases of crawling but this is something we are working on with Sooner Start. Today her murmur was hardly noticed by the dr but we are still meeting with the cardiologist in November and then again in 4 months for another echo. We are praying and keeping our fingers crossed that the problem will fix itself. I love having a dr that is open to non prescription and non traditional methods. I have spent countless hours reading stories of other young children with ds and one thing they have in common are nutritional supplements. So today we asked our dr about them and he said sure! I was so happy about this so tonight I ordered her a 3 month supply of Nutriven-D. I am so excited to get her started on this and hopefully see it help her growth, immune system and maybe her development.
With turning 6 months also came the introduction of solids. We started last week with rice cereal and to my surprise not only did she love it, she also did really well eating from the spoon. This evening she had her first serving of sweet potatoes. She wasn't as impressed but will hopefully learn to love them as well as other veggies!
Sooner Start came out again on Monday and gave us many more helpful hints to help her sit up and start crawling. I would love to see her sitting up unassisted in a few weeks and maybe crawling by Christmas.
We recently went to our local JBF sale and bought some new cloth diapers to try out and hopefully start saving money! We had discussed cloth before she was born but it went to the back burner. We started using them 2 weeks ago but they are a bit big for tiny legs so there have been a few leaks. Hopefully in a few weeks they will fit perfectly and we will be 100% cloth. I'm excited about the savings and the enviromental aspect.
The past few weeks Scottie's personality has really began to shine. Her daddy can get her to laugh a lot while for me she still only smiles. I guess we know who her favorite is! She is such a happy baby who loves playing with her toys, and watching her puppies. I love watching her find her toys and she even has a few favorites. Her bunny, her ball and her new bug teether just to name a few.
The holiday season is coming up before we know it and we've already bought a few of her Christmas gifts. During fall break I went to the outlet mall and picked up her Halloween costume. I can't wait to see my beautiful Belle.
I guess that is all for now. It has been a long day full of her 6month check up, a shopping trip to our new Whole Foods, and a fun day at work! I love spending my afternoons with a great bunch of kids, it is almost relaxing!
With turning 6 months also came the introduction of solids. We started last week with rice cereal and to my surprise not only did she love it, she also did really well eating from the spoon. This evening she had her first serving of sweet potatoes. She wasn't as impressed but will hopefully learn to love them as well as other veggies!
Sooner Start came out again on Monday and gave us many more helpful hints to help her sit up and start crawling. I would love to see her sitting up unassisted in a few weeks and maybe crawling by Christmas.
We recently went to our local JBF sale and bought some new cloth diapers to try out and hopefully start saving money! We had discussed cloth before she was born but it went to the back burner. We started using them 2 weeks ago but they are a bit big for tiny legs so there have been a few leaks. Hopefully in a few weeks they will fit perfectly and we will be 100% cloth. I'm excited about the savings and the enviromental aspect.
The past few weeks Scottie's personality has really began to shine. Her daddy can get her to laugh a lot while for me she still only smiles. I guess we know who her favorite is! She is such a happy baby who loves playing with her toys, and watching her puppies. I love watching her find her toys and she even has a few favorites. Her bunny, her ball and her new bug teether just to name a few.
The holiday season is coming up before we know it and we've already bought a few of her Christmas gifts. During fall break I went to the outlet mall and picked up her Halloween costume. I can't wait to see my beautiful Belle.
I guess that is all for now. It has been a long day full of her 6month check up, a shopping trip to our new Whole Foods, and a fun day at work! I love spending my afternoons with a great bunch of kids, it is almost relaxing!
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Scottie's Story
Scottie is almost 6 months old now, and I cant believe its been that long since she was born. Our story starts shortly after our honeymoon when I found out we were expecting. We had already made the decision that we would have a homebirth with a midwife. It was very important to me to stay out of the hospital, as I believe that hospitals are for the sick and pregnancy is not an illness. I stick by the decision to this day and can not wait to have my next. The birth went fantastically and she was born a healthy little girl.
From the beginning she struggled with eating and after 5 exhausting weeks we switched her to formula. She slowly began to gain wait but she wasn't growing like a baby should. At her to 2 month appointment she was in the 5th percentile for weight and length. Her doctor also discovered a murmur in her heart but told us this was fairly common in babies. Scottie continued to slowly gain weight and even added some length to her tiny body. It wasn't until her 4 month checkup that the doctor mentioned the dreaded words. Scottie had some symptoms of DS. From the night she was born we noticed that Scottie had a "special ear". I had thought it was nothing serious and that it was kind of adorable. The doctor also pointed out that her eyes have a slight slant (one worse than the other), as well as a Simian line across one of her palms. Although she had climbed into the 10th percentile for weight she had fallen off of the charts in length. Her doctor decided that was enough to do some blood work. Watching your baby have blood drawn is very difficult so I made Drew stand by her while I sat in the chair, trying very hard to hold back the tears. Between her crying and the thought of Down Syndrome running through my head I couldn't fight them back. I probably cried at least 15 different times that day.
The next week dragged by. It was 8 days later when the doctor called us to give us the news. Scottie had Down Syndrome. What many people don't know is that there are 3 different types. We were praying that she had Mosaic which means the extra 21st chromosome is only on some of the cells instead of all. It was a full month later when we would get these results back. Scottie has the most common form, Trisomy 21. Her dr assured me that this meant nothing when it came to her development. There are so many degrees of Trisomy 21.
The next step was to do more blood work as well as an echocardiogram to check her heart. All of her blood work has come back fabulous. She has been diagnosed with 2 minor heart defects. We are praying that these fix themselves but more than likely she will eventually have to have surgery to fix these.
Now on the wonderful part. God has blessed us with a beautiful baby girl. Scottie is the happiest baby I have ever been around. Every time she smiles I am reminded of how blessed we truly are. She is doing great developmentally and is almost right on track with her milestones. Sooner Start comes out 2 times a month and works with her and us. It is a wonderful program that the state provides for children with various disabilities. We know that there will be challenges and delays, but we also know that God wouldn't give us more than we can handle. Who couldn't love this little girl?
It is my goal with this blog to keep everyone informed with her progress as well as to teach people the joys of having a child with down syndrome. She is my world and there isn't a single thing I would change about her.
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