New Mom Beauty and Fashion

Let's face it- as a new mommy, you are going to spend a LOT of time in your sweats, no make-up and a ponytail. Hair washed and showered IF you are lucky. Shaved legs? Even luckier! Plucked brows? Huh?
The best way to look your best while chasing after a little 19 lb. monster is 1) Cute sweats. Get a cheap velour hoodie and pant set at Old Navy, I hear they are on sale now. If you have to wear sweats, wear them with style! The velour ones at least look a little dressier than the old school fleece kind and they are comfy as well. 2) WIPES Galore! I have make-up remover ones for when I'm too tired to wash my face at night, anti-bacterial hand wipes, flushable wipes...you name it, I got a specific wipe for it! Wipes can substitute a shower any day! :) 3) Greasy hair fix? Trying to fake that you actually washed your hair that day? Got a cute blowout that you want to last longer? I use KMS Makeover spray. It's a matte, oil-absorbing spray that adds extra volume to your hair leaving it refreshed and clean-smelling on those days when a shower just wasn't possible. 4) MINT GUM- Just kidding! BRUSH your TEETH! If you don't, you've got issues! 5) An extra hour of sleep is more worthwhile than make-up any day! :) 6) A deep side part-you know, the kind all the high-fashion chicks are sporting in LA. My lil sis, also my hairstylist...ok and clothing stylist, recently made me aware of the fact that a middle part makes you look like I'm pushing 30 years old. And then, with the simple switch to a deeper, side part in my ponytail-I suddenly looked more dressed up, classier, and way YOUNGER! Yea for looking younger! Switch up your part yo! Let them think you are the college-aged NANNY, not the mama! :)

Cloth Diapering is No Messier Than Teaching Pre-School!

So the LAST thing I thought I'd do when I had a baby was cloth diapering! Cloth diapers!!??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Cleaning messy baby poop off myself,  all the extra laundry and what about traveling? And who knew what they even entailed-diaper pins and rubber pants was all that I could remember of cloth diapers back in my baby days.
But then, THEN I started researching the costs of cloth vs. disposables and found that cloth diapering is waaaay cheaper. And THEN I saw how CUTE the new cloth diapers are and how easy they looked to use, (along with the wonderful world of matching diapers to outfits!) And THEN, I noticed how my friend's baby didn't have any diaper rash using cloth while my poor little guy's bum was always red and irritated. And not to mention they haven't leaked once on me! And of course there's the Earth issue. Who can forget about the EARTH!!!???? I sure can't. I've been trying to go green ever since I saw how cute Reese Witherspoon looked in US Weekly carrying her canvas bag with the green peace sign to the supermarket. So posh. Oh and the Whole Foods bag that Sheryl Crow designed-yeah I got that one too. Most of my household cleaning products are earth-friendly...ect. you get the idea. So why not give it a whirl? I knew I'd have a better conscience knowing I wasn't one of the people contributing to the estimated 27 BILLION disposable diapers being put in our landfills here in the U.S., which by the way we have no idea how LONG they take to decompose. So instead of being drowned in a black hole by millions of diapers full of baby poop, I chose cloth.
The best website I've found so far for cloth diapers of all kinds, the "creme de la creme", is called Kellys Closet. Kelly also writes an entire blog devoted to her love of cloth diapers! An entire BLOG???? When I first came across this I think I almost choked on the carrot I was chomping, "How can you devote an entire blog to cloth diapers and WHO in their right mind would read such a thing???!!!!!" Well, aaahhh-hem, I just happened to check it out and became hooked. There's good advice for caring for your diapers, weekly giveaways, stories of closet cloth diaper freaks who choose their entire baby's outfit depending on which colors of cloth diapers are available that day....it's hilarious! I never knew there could be such a love, such a cloth diaper cult in our society. Oh but it's there. For some moms they even seem to be a status symbol. Designer patterns...oh my!
So here's a quick tutorial of MY cloth diaper pickings and how I care for them. I chose the Bum Genius One Size Cloth diaper. It fits babies from 8lbs up to 35 lbs! It adjusts through snaps and secures itself with velcro. There is a pocket where you stuff the insert liner which absorbs the moisture. These awesome diapers have never leaked once and keep Aiden's little tushie completely rash free. They also keep moisture away from baby's skin and come in a wide variety of colors. Apparently they are the best because the Cloth Diaper Whisperer said so in one of her postings so now I have confirmation from the best critic!

My laundry routine is not that much more work either. I thought I'd be doing loads and loads of extra laundry each day. As if I do not have enough as it is with a new baby! But really it works out to two extra loads a week and to me that's not bad considering all the benefits that cloth bring to the changing table :)
So as I continued my research on cloth diaper care and found out a few helpful hints:
1) First, the best soap to use is Charlie's Soap. It gently and effectively removes all the yucky stuff leaving diapers soft and fresh without all the harsh chemicals and waxy buildup that most other detergents can leave. Most other detergents are not good to use on cloth diapers because they leave a waxy buildup over time which can clog the "pores" of the diaper which prevent them from absorbing moisture over time and may cause them to leak as a result.
2) Washing-First cold cycle with a half teaspoon of Charlie's Soap, then hot cycle with another half teaspoon of the soap. Line dry the diaper and put the inserts in the dryer if you wish but the best way to dry them is on the line. The sun happens to be the best disinfectant and stain remover around!
3) Get a Planet Wise diaper pail liner which is made from the same material as the diapers so it will hold all moisture in and keep odors at bay. Use this to store the dirty diapers in until they are ready to be thrown in the wash.

There you have it! My shortened cloth diaper story! More to come as questions arise :) I am now a converted cloth diaper hippie. And my baby hippie has the happiest heiney on the block! :)

Natural or Nonsense?

There is a new infant formula on the market. It's advertisement reads: "Give your baby a restful night. ...Is specifically designed to thicken gently in your baby's tummy, and digest slowly. For a natural way to help keep your baby feeling satisfied. So you can both rest better."
To sum it up, the message is that if you feed your baby this formula, it will digest more slowly implying that baby will sleep for longer, allowing the parents to sleep for longer periods of time as well. I know how exhausting sleep deprivation can be. For Aiden's first 2 months he awoke two times a night to nurse and it was very hard to wake up after a long day of caring for him.  So I can see why this product may sell so well. For a new mama who's been awake for 24 hours straight, something that will make your baby sleep sure sounds like a sweet deal. And how nice it sounds that it is, "natural and gentle on their tummies." Who's needs are we addressing here though, really? Baby's or mama's? Sounds like mama's to  me. Babies are happy to awake in the night to have their needs met, this is not a problem for them.
Babies have a natural need to awake in the night to eat but for other reasons as well. This formula ad implies that the only reason babies awake in the night is due to hunger. They could be cold, lonely, or have a wet diaper. Babies also have different sleep cycles than adults; they need to awaken periodically to ensure they don't fall into too deep a sleep that they can't awake out of. Adults have our own set of night needs that we don't try to remedy with special chemicals or pills. We may sometimes wake up in the middle of the night to pee. Do we ourselves take special pills every night so that we don't have to pee until the morning? No, that would be un-natural and probably not very healthy. So then why is this company deciding that we should start denying the needs of small babies? This is very concerning to me.  I question the advertisement's claim that the formula helps babies sleep better. Sleeping better means sleeping safer and this is only accomplished when all of baby's needs are met with a parent close by to tend to them.
Then there's the part about the formula gently thickening in the babies stomach-yuck! This may cause other digestive problems the following day! And which chemical is it causing the formula to thicken in baby's tummy? I'm pretty sure my breastmilk does not thicken in my baby's stomach. My milk is the exact consistency that my baby's immature digestive system can handle. Then, they go on to say that this is a, "Natural way to help your baby feel satisfied..." Did they just say it was natural!!!???