Sling Class

Finally, we went to the Sling Class today. Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. I have always seen people/mainly women wearing their children and I always thought it was a great idea for city living. I always figure that I would be living in the city by the time we had a child. More likely Portland but I guess we jump the gun a little bit. So last year when I was watching the two greatest kids alive, I came to the realization that babywearing may not be such a terrible idea after all in the city. I was moving through the city with a double stroller that could not get into any stores and had such a hard time on the CTA. Some time last year, I sign up for the Be Bye Baby e-mailing list and for $15 dollars, I could learn about how to sling my baby.

So worth the money. Now we register and got a pretty diverse stroller that I really will like and enjoy BUT it would only work with the car seat for under 6 months. We did register for the adapter as well. BUT there are so many benefits for wearing your child in those first 6 months anyway.

Benefits:

They cry less. Babies seem to forget about all their troubles and just relax more. Granted, before you put your baby on, you should make sure all their basic needs are meet so they are not fussy over the basics.

They learn more. They are more calm and able to take the world in better by being a relax state of mind opposite to endless interaction. This would be having the baby face the caregiver more then the outside world. They are also more likely to be interacting with the parent or the carrier rather then facing outwards towards the world and the caregiver cannot hear them. Also if there is any overload of stimuli they are going to be more likely to move in towards the caregiver then shut down in the stroller.

They are more organized. Since there is a thing called the 4 trimester, the baby will feel a sense of self better by being close to mom or dad. They will sense the familiar rhythms of mom's heartbeat and feel safer. It will be able to calm them down more and give them a sense of purpose. Also, they will humanized earlier because they are closer to mom or dad and be able to interact with the world. They will become more aware of the little things in life that make people, people.

Safety:

Always make sure that there are two fingers between you and their chin so you know that they are breathing because under 6 months they are not able to move their head to adjust for themselves. Always make sure the wrap is folded and not the baby itself. The baby's bottom should always be the heaviest part of the wrap and the legs should be more up wards. When they are really little, tucking in their feet and leg towards the body is better then horizontal laying. The face will always be unobstructed. Their back should always be supported in no matter what sling. Also, there are slings that have the child always facing out towards the world and their legs are not support. That will lead to hip and joint displacement which is not recommend for baby wearing.

Our Slings:

We had order a sling HugaMonkey which is a basic Pouch Sling. The baby will be in a cradle carry position. The baby has to be at least 6 and half pounds to be able to use and under 8 lbs there needs to be receiving blankets. The baby should be diagonal NOT horizontal. You have be size to get one of these slings and you really cannot interchange them with other baby wearing peeps. So Nick and I have our own pouch sling. We got them of Babysteals.com because it was the cheap steal that day. But you can find them at BuyBuyBaby, Target, Gap and other random places. The big brand for Pouch Slings is HotSlings. This brand is great because it comes in all different sizing.

We got a wrap today. It would be great for the summer because it covers the entire body. The baby would not have to wear that much clothes at all. This one can be interchange between all different people. Well, at least the MobyWrap which we got. It comes in various shades. This sling is common when looking at other cultures when seeing how babies are being carried by mothers. This one always had the most scary set up but I feel that it was much easier then it looked. Also, youtube has video on it and you can make one from the fabric store.

There is the Mei-Tai which we will wait to get until the baby is older then 3 months and can hold her own head. We really like that it could be a back carrier and a front carrier and had solid support on the straps. We are just going to wait to get it but def get it.

We did not like the ring sling. We felt that was way to complex for us and the metal rings would hurt. Plus after the baby start gaining weight, I think I would like wraps that are more evenly supported on my back oppose to my side due to not liking messenger bags that rest on my shoulder.

Websites:

Mei-Tai
http://www.babyhawk.com/
http://www.togetherbe.com/productDescriptionFreeHandMeiTai.aspx

Moby Wraps
http://www.mobywrap.com/

Pouch Slings
http://www.hotslings.com/
http://www.hugamonkey.com/

General Product Information about the Different Brands of Slings
http://www.thebabywearer.com/cgi-bin/reviews/review.pl?product

Unemployment

Well, it has almost been two months since I have been unemployed. I had only three days of working until they laid me off on the 2nd. Thankfully, I have had some babysitting gigs to make time past but it has not been enough. So what have I been doing over the last two months? First, I enjoy the holidays which was nice. Then with the passing of Nick's grandma and myself getting laid off, I threw myself into job hunting. I had had so many rejection e-mails come my way. I failed a pretty simple test that would have made my life so much easier because the job would have been great. I have been interview for another position that would have recover all our money that we have lost over the last 8 months and would have set us up to be able to move in two years. But nothing came of that. I had a few phone interviews for nanny jobs that I most likely lost due to being pregnant. I went to a job fair on Tuesday to get some pretty okay leads and found out that my last pair of work pants really do not fit anymore.

So what to do when you are about 5 months pregnant, visibly showing and still have no way to pay for your stupid student loans? Who is going to hire you? In the meantime, I have signed up for Sittercity to get some part time work/random sitting?

So how I have filled my time with being out of work. I have learned how to make food in our 3 in 1 rice cooker/slow cooker. There is something really nice about having dinner done with my hubs gets home and he did not have to cook. thank you Rob and Mel for the rice cooker. I have been baking. I just made those chocolate peanut butter cookies that I have been obsessing about. Thank you Charles for the baking bowl. I love that thing. I have been taking yoga at random times. Not this week because I fell last Friday and hurt my knee pretty bad. But now I am functioning again so Monday Yoga here I come. I have been seeing movies, Bride Wars, He's just not that into you, and Confession of a Shopaholic. I have clean the apartment (not the bathroom yet). I have been looking for a job. I have played the sims. I have set up 3 registries. BuyBuyBaby, Land of Nod and Pottery Barn Kids. I have chilled out and relax most days. I have had e-mail talks with peeps. I am on facebook all day. So I have been busy but way bored at times as well. I really will not be using this blog for my personal life but I want to give you all an update on how I have been spending my time in my apartment with my stinker cat.

Lazy Monday Update

As one of my last post, I was talking about my acne and dry skin well upon further detail look, it would seem that I really do not have a lot of back acne, it would be more of skin cracking. My sides, shoulders, upper back and other random parts of my body have crack to make it look all red and blotchy. So if I do not put lotion on right away then my skin gets really dry and it is quite visible to people. So I have try the lush message bars and it is the only thing so far that calms down my skin. Now if anyone has any other suggestions then I would be more then happy to hear them. But here is the thing, my skin is really sensitive and the stuff I have been using has shea butter and other thick type lotions as well.

I made a baby registry at BuyBuyBaby. http://www.buybuybaby.com/default.asp?order_num=-1&
I really like that store and Babies R Us just seem not that helpful. Everytime, I walk into BRU, it would seem that nobody is around to help you and they just are really focus on clothes. BBB has a more diverse selection of products and people that really took the time to help you with your questions. They are always coming up to you and asking if you need help or trying to see if you need help. Kaysie and I really like hanging out there to get all the stuff for the baby. So i do not know what other registries I am going to be setting up. I want to set-up one that is more green friendly products like cloth diapers and slings. But the one I would really want to set one up at is in chicago so I will have to find an online solution. Also, I realize that the registry is not complete. We do not have safety stuff due to not knowing where we are going to live next summer so we do not know the measurements of the door frames and what the cabinets look like or stuff like that. But once we do figure out where we are going to be living, we will be adding those items. Also, I did not put a breast pump on the registry because I am going to rent one from the hospital first. I want to know what I like about it before someone buys it.

Childbirth Prep Class:

Without a doubt, we were the youngest age and youngest pregnancy there last night. We were the only couple due in June, almost everyone else is due in April and a few in May. It was funny, we ended up telling people that the reason why we were taking the class so early was due to moving when our kid is born. Almost everyone realize that we were being smart about taking the class so early. But only in Chicago, you can see such a diverse group of people/couples and birthing plans. There were about 8 couples and we were one of out 4 white couples. And we were about 1 out 3 couples that were seeing a doctor. It was nice to see such diversity.

So the class last night was about how the western world saw birthing and labor in the media and culture. It was fun to poke fun at the media portrayal of women because real birth does not always happen that way. We got the history of birth as well. The documentary "The Business of Being Born" does a great job of explaining the history of birth so I already knew most of the information she was talking about. But it was nice to talk in detail about when things were introduced into western medicine and how popular culture does play a big influence of the birth. As for example, the 90's celebs were doing schedule C-sections so the rest of the world started doing C-section and same goes for natural birth in the 00's. Also, we watched a water birth and discover some comfort measures that will be use for the labor. So I will give updates about the classes so you all know what we are learning about. That is all.