3/19/2007

leah milestones

Four months is one of my favorites places in the first year of a baby's life. Leah is stealing my heart everyday. I'm feeling more at ease about her weight for two reasons... she started taking bottles again!! After about a month of rejecting the bottle, she's willing to drink from it again. I've been giving her 3 or 4 ounces of formula each evening. After only 4 days of supplementing, she's gained 4 ounces!!! She is now 11 pounds!!! I'm so happy.

We've also begun the adventure of cloth diapers. My friend, Crystal, lent us her newborn stash (thank you, Crys!) and we're trying them out. My initial reason for wanting to try cloth was to save money. As I'm using them, many other reasons are developing. I like putting something so soft on my baby. I didn't realize how harsh and abrasive disposable diapers feel until I began using these wonderfully soft cotten diapers. Another reaon I feel good about it is the environment. I don't tend to be a "green" person, but I am mindful of how much gasoline I use and how much diaper trash we've been making. It's a huge amount with two in diapers!

We're still very new at this cloth diaper thing. I've only done one load of wash so far. (Actually three... to wash them well I'm told to do three cycles of washing. One cold, one hot, another cold.) I plan to hang them on a line in the sun to dry them. We've pretty much stopped using our dryer to save on the electric bill. The days are warm and sunny enough to hang dry clothes. Mel is my helper by handing me clothes pins while I hang the clothes.

One of the things I love about the 4 month stage is smiles. Leah is full of smiles for us. Little shy smiles. Open mouth grins of glee. Giggly, jittery, excited smiles. Slow, sleepy, goofy grins. Each one melts my heart. It is good to be past the three month mark. Some people refer to the first three months as the fourth trimester. It is a hard time for all, but especially for the mama. Nursing every hour and a half is tedious and night time wears one down quickly. I was super lucky to have outtles of help from family, friends, and my stay-at-home husband. Almost everyday I ask myself how single moms do this mothering thing.

I'm happy to be blogging again. I decided to just dive back in. All along I knew I didn't want to stop blogging, but I was not able to give it the time or energy I used to. I love to make my posts into stories. I like writing, reading, and rereading the posts before I am finished. But right now all that is not possible. I will be more free with my thoughts and less picky about my subject matter. It feels good to be back.

3 comments:

Kelli said...

Hey, we're planning to cloth diaper too! We went to a free cloth diapering 101 class and were sold! Mostly, because we learned we can save up to $1500 per kid by cloth diapering. We expect we'll get some disposables at our showers and we'll use those with thankfulness during the first 3 mos. (diaper changes every 2 hrs!) But soon their after, we'll dive in to purchasing all the pre-folds, covers, etc.

A couple tips I heard at our class
1. Drop a couple of Tea Tree Oil drops in the washer to naturally disinfect and help with smell.
2. Hang drying is the best for diapers as the sun is the best way to get out stains. However, that's difficult to do in Wisconsin. :)

Here's a link to the class notes in case you're interested in reading it. http://www.happybambino.com/page.asp?redir=aspx&pgid=150176

Anonymous said...

Bekah, I am so glad you are back and it is great to hear updates on Leah. I will write a more personal email soon about my life's happenings.

Anonymous said...

You guys have me intrigued with the cloth diapers...but I did some quick calculations. And Maybe my calculations are a bit wrong...they probably are.

My diaper cost for Abbie is about $1 a day - using the cheapo Target brand.

Now calculating the energy and water usage for washing cloth diapers every three days, three times each, and drying in the sun, the cost comes out to around .75 a day.

If I were to switch to cloth diapers, I'd only save $91 bucks a year. I don't see how that translates to $1500 per kid.