pi - I hope ds' fever breaks quickly. I do actually have ds in a preschool program starting in January but that is only one afternoon a week. I've been looking for others but can't seem to find anything that's not church-based which isn't really our thing.
it's terrible. He will fall asleep while nursing, but as soon as I put him down somewhere he is awake and screaming. I just can't sit and let him be on my boobs all day. I hope he starts sleeping some during the day. My days are way too long. He is generally up around 6 am and not in bed until 9/10 pm. With waking up twice to eat at night.
chelsea- most of that sleeping Vera is doing on on me in the moby or ring sling. She is not into sleeping alone either. Though starting to do more of it. Also my 2yo tends to climb all over her if she is unattended, so I really can't leave her much. Have you tried a vibrating seat or swing? A tight swaddle? not to state the obvious. But those can help some babies a lot to sleep. I was thinking about you back at work and hoping its going well. I know being the mom to two older kids along with a newborn is a lot of work, I am sure being the nanny would be too!
dd is back to her screaming thing. i'm typing 1handed listening to "Baby got colic" while she takes a little breather.
Chelsea, my baby sleeps on me.
pi, thinking of you, hope ds mends quickly.
lifeguard, so sorry
I mentioned a while back that a photographer took some pics for a coffe table bf book:
here is our pic of Faolan;)
Love the super alert eyes 
I mentioned a while back that a photographer took some pics for a coffe table bf book:
here is our pic of Faolan;)
babe in arms
Saoirse , love it - he's just precious!
Trinket: The whole sports thing would drive me bonkers...it's hard to know sometimes when we're being irrational/overreacting, isn't it. Sometimes I feel like my hormonal anger is more valid than my daily acceptance of the same behaviour
Lifeguard: major sympathy, girl! It's a TERRIBLE feeling to be so annoyed at your little one. Cue major mama guilt, I know! I really wanted to space our kids at about 2- 2.5 yrs apart....now I'm seriously thinking of having the next one a bit sooner so I don't have a newborn and 2 yr old at the same time... i'd rather deal with a little person who needed me to do more for them than the whims and moods of a 2-3yr old.
Pi: I hope the fever has disappeared. I'm on fever watch with Claire today, she's been fussy and feeling warm but I think it might just be from all the crying...
AFM: So yes, I have a very fussy girl who needs to be held today. She was screeeeeeaming last night, finally had a major poop and lots of toots after some gripe water and massage, then settled in for the night but woke up early and clingy. It's my first taste of fussy, restless baby - she's been so content until now. Nothing has changed so i'm not sure why she's having belly troubles all of a sudden.
cloth diapers So, I put all of our infant prefold somewhere, to be pulled out when the baby came....do you think I can find the damned things?? How does one lose a giant bag of diapers? I have to venture into the storage room today...hope I don't get lost too
A friend brought over her baby swing yesterday as she was done with it. I really don't like a lot of gear but thought it might come in handy...yeah...so far she's just screamed bloody murder in it. aren't they supposed to be baby crack??
Another friend had her baby yesterday after 3 days of labour and a c-section...she's my new hero, poor thing. so many babies being born in our life - including claire, there were/are 6 babies due to close friends/family from Sept-Jan. I'm a total baby pusher, too - I get SO excited when people have babies and totally encourage people to do it - I get a little giddy.... I just think it is the most amazing, blissful thing in the world and want everyone to do it (ok, not everyone ;)
I'm having trouble finding enough clothing for Claire....maybe I'm old fashioned but I kind've think babies should have warm, soft clothing without all kind of stiff, scratchy jazz attached to it....I had a hard time even finding enough long sleeve onesies (ok, finding long sleeved onesies that weren't $15 apiece, hello Gap...)And don't even get me started on skinny jeans for babies.... I like my girls to be well dressed and funky, but I just can't compromise on comfort. DD1 was easier as a spring/summer baby, she just didn't need as much clothing, I'm so glad to have girls though - at least you can always do dresses and tights/leggings and avoid uncomfortable/tight/narrow pants....must be harder with boys if you don't want to dress them in sweatpants every day
Christmas countdown starts tomorrow!!
Pi~ I hope the fever is gone soon! we have had a lot of snot, but gladly no fever here...
Katico-thanks for the baby love :) lost baby stuff - the fairies keep hiding everything here too! (common Newfoundland superstition...lol)
cloth- ds is mostly in sandy xs and prefolds- i need to repair the elastic on ds1 bum genious - I only have 3 and I started repairing them over 2 years ago for dd to use - maybe i will get it done this time!!!!!
Saorise I love it! Y'all totally inspired me to take a bfing shot.
Pi ugh. Sorry about the illness. I hope it passes quickly.
Lifeguard I feel your annoyed at older kid pain. DD is totally pushing all my buttons. I have managed to somewhat rein in my annoyance the last few days... mostly... but now DH is snapping at her every 2 seconds. Poor kid.
Katico I lost our ergo for 3 months, but I found it yesterday hiding in a bag, so there is hope!
Cloth diapers we just moved from the super-tiny size to the small size prefolds. Onesies just b-a-r-e-l-y fit over the bigger dipes. I also had my first outside-the-house poosplosion the other day. She was wearing a pocket diaper and it just came out one of the sides. I think maybe it was overstuffed.
I'm having trouble with this whole clothing-a-winter-baby thing. DD1 was a summer baby, so she lived in a zillion short-sleeved onesies. All I want to dress DD2 in is zip-up sleepers, but I only have a few. I can't stand taking pants on & off or all those snaps on snap-up sleepers. I just ordered some of these newborn legwarmers from etsy, so I'm thinking that between those & onesies we'll be covered for around the house.
Xmas we put up our tree Sunday and I finished putting on the ornaments yesterday. DD1 is SO into it. This is the first year she seems to kind of get what's going on. Halloween was awesome. My mom (an atheist) got her an advent calendar 
& DD is excited about it -- and she doesn't even realize it has chocolate in it yet! We're going to make cookies, but I'm trying to think of a crafty thing we can do together as well. Anyone have ideas or know a good website to go to to find something for me to do with a 3 year old? I need to figure out how we're going to take the yearly photo this year. The last 2 years I've stood DD on a chair in front of the xmas tree, but that won't really work with a tiny baby 
ETA sleep -- DD2 had a later-than-usual fussy period last night and then slept for 6 hours -- until DD2 woke up and came & hugged her awake. This is where crib sleeping a newborn would have advantages.
Nope. DH has sleep apnea and is a really deep sleeper so it would not be safe. DS is right next to me in this pack n play (in the newborn napper thing). He LOVES it. When he starts getting sleepy around 11pm I wrap him in his blanket, lay him down and he falls right to sleep (on his own! A HUGE change from my older ds, who needed to be nursed to sleep and then woke frequently all night long to nurse).
We had a big scare last night. I debated on writing this here, because I don't want to scare anyone else, but I think it's a good warning.
Kai has been sleeping like a little angel for the past couple weeks (except when we were traveling, then he didn't sleep so well). But Sunday night he slept 6 hours, Monday night he slept 8 hours and last night he slept 7 hours! So dh and I had been discussing how we're going to transition him from his pack n play in our room into his crib in his room (the goal is for him to eventually sleep in there). We had decided that since he was doing so great sleeping at night then we would start this week with naps being in his crib and see how he sleeps in it. As of yesterday, I hadn't done any naps in his crib though.... just couldn't bring myself to do it! Though he did take a 3 hour nap in his downstairs playpen yesterday afternoon, but that is kept right in our dining room so I was checking on his constantly.
Anyway, so last night I had to put older ds to bed, but dh was on a work call. So I laid Kai down in his crib and went to ds's bathroom to brush his teeth, then to his bedroom to tuck him in. Kai's bedroom, the bathroom and older ds's room are all right next to each other (I could stand in one spot in the hallway and touch all 3 doors). The whole time I was with older ds (less than 10 minutes) Kai was totally quiet. I peeked in on him between brushing ds's teeth and putting him to bed and he looked fine. So after I tucked in older ds I peeked in Kai's room again. He looked like he was sleeping so I decided to run downstairs and make older ds's lunch. As I got to the stairs something told me to go back and check on Kai. So I went back and looked at him. His eyes were rolled back in his head and slit open (this is how he sleeps sometimes) but there was a TON of stuff that he had vomited/spit up completely covering him, his burp cloth that I had laid next to him and his crib. WAY more that I had ever seen from him (and he's a pretty big spitter). His mouth was open slightly and I could see it was full of crap, just dribbling out. I immediately picked him up and flipped him over. He spit out a ton of crap, gasped for breath and then started screaming He was totally silent the whole time. I thought he was asleep but he was really choking and struggling to breathe. I was literally just feet away the whole time, and had no idea. I don't even want to think about what would have happened if I had gone downstairs and done lunches (which would have led into cleaning the kitchen and then the dining room and yada yada.... you know how one thing leads to another). My nerves are shot. DH and I barely slept last night, we both kept waking up to check on Kai. I don't know how I'm ever going to transition him to his crib now. It certainly won't be for a long time.
Oh my goodness Steph, what a terrifying experience!! 
Thank God for mama instinct! And a good reminder that silence doesn't always mean that all is well... I fell less paranoid now for checking on Théoden every few minutes when he is napping in the big bed by himself (he and I bed-share, DH has been banned to the spare bedroom for snoring loudly enough to wake the dead).
saoirse - beautiful!!!!
clothing - I insist on comfort for babies as well. Summer baby is definitely easier to dress. For ds to avoid sweatpants all the time I did a lot of overalls.
dollyanna - the FIRST thing ds wants in the morning is to know where dd is & then to kiss & hug her. Lovely they're so loving - sigh.
steph - so scary - I'm glad he's ok. Can you try lying him kind of on his side to sleep to give yourself a little more peace of mind? My Mom cannot be ok with the back to sleep thing for this reason.
chelsea - bless you for being back at work. I hope you find away to get naps in.
afm - last night was a touch better mainly dh & I had an agreement ahead of time that he would take ds as soon as he woke & let me sleep as long as dd would allow. I slept almost 8 hours (with bfing breaks of course)!!!!! But I woke up in the middle of peeing - not cool. Had to jump up & take a shower. But I slept!!!!
Steph, what a nightmare!!!! I have been afraid of that because Claire is a projectile spitter and if she did it while flat on her back i could imagine it pooling....especially b/c we swaddle her and she can't wiggle/move a lot.........definitely scares me enough that after your story I won't be leaving her sleeping flat without being beside her for quite awhile. I try to let her nap in her bouncer (semi-upright) as much as possible, except at night
wow steph, that is scarry!
DS sleeps on me throughout the day too. I just recently started being able to put him in the swing after he nurses. The first few times I put him in it he got pissed but my friend was telling me about her DD when she was a baby would only like the swing if it was going really fast so the next time I put him in it I cranked it up and now he falls asleep in it. The one thing I don't like about it is that when he wakes up he always cries. When he is laying on me or next to me or in his pack and play he wakes up with some wimpers I know will turn into a cry if I don't pay attention to them. I pretty much always catch him before it turns into a cry but with the swing it goes from asleep and content to full out crying right away. I just have such a content baby it kills me to not be able to prevent it.
cloth diapers: I must really have a huge baby. We are amongst the youngest in the group and we are now having to buy the next size up covers and such. The newborn prefolds were too small from the beginning. I tried to use them a few times but they just resulted in not enough room for the poop to stay in the diaper. We also hardly got any use out of the bummis newborn covers. I think from day one I struggled to get those to fit on him and contain the diaper. He has been able to wear the one size pocket diapers from the beginning which I hear most people aren't able to use until their baby is a few months old. I am now weeding out the stuff that we didn't like or got minimal use out of and putting it up for consignment because we won't use it for the next kid. If our next baby is smaller we can always just use disposables anyway. Speaking of disposables, we used them for the first little while. In the hospital and then we had 2 regular size packs once at home people gave us so we used those up. Then we switched to cloth. My dad got us 2 huge boxes of size 1 pampers so we decided to use those when we go out so we don't have tons of cloth diapers to carry around. After using the cloth and then putting a disposable back on them man do disposables stink! Even without poop in them, yuck. His butt also looks messier when he wears them and I need to use a ton of wipes. With the cloth I use pieces of flannel and I use one dry and sometimes I will have to wet it. I am so glad I am using cloth.
dollyanna we are having a hard time figuring out how to dress a tiny baby in cold weather too. I like the baby legs but I wish they had feet or something. I feel like DS feet are always cold and socks are such a pain. It is a lot easier to tuck socks into the baby legs and keep them on rather than have them tucked into pants that I have to take off for a diaper change. When he wears pants and socks I have to take everything off for a change or the socks fall off rather. We haven't had much of an issue with onsies fitting over his cloth diapers but we only have a few long sleeved ones so when we go out I feel like I always need to change him or put a sleeper on him with long sleeves and feet. I really wonder why more newborn stuff doesn't have feet on it. Even some of the super warm stuff we have obviously made for winter doesn't have feet. I just can't wait for summer already so I can stick a diaper on the kid and he's set.
Also, do babies need to wear coats and stuff outside? It doesn't get super cold around here and I haven't done any walking around with him outside, just trips from the house to the car, the car to whatever store or whatever we are going to. I usually just dress him in long sleeves and put a hat on him if it is chilly and cover him with a blanket and then take the blanket off in the car because we use the heat. Does that sound about right? I know when it gets colder I will probably dress him in a fleece suit when we go out. Right now the weather is varying between 40-50 when I concider it cold. I know I asked this question when I was pregnant and we had a discussion about it but now that he is actually here we do more carrying him in his carseat thing than I thought. I assumed I'd have him in the moby but he never sleeps in the moby like normal babies. He thinks it is awake look around for a minute time then asks to eat and fusses if he can't. Not logical for wanting to run to the grocery store where he will just sleep the whole time if he is in his seat.
Steph, how terrifying. Thank goodness you checked on him.
dollyanna, I am so with you on the zipped sleepers. Within the first week or two it was obvious to me that we didn't have enough to get us through the winter, so I got four more. DS is in them all the time.
saoirse, love the photo!!
lifeguard, at least that will be one break a week! If it's any help, I found that the 3yo and 4yo difficulties tended to have a few weeks of tearing our hair out, followed by a few months of easier times. Repeat. Hopefully your DS and you find a little equilibrium soon.
Fever: Thank you all for the good wishes -- they worked. Fever broke last night and babe is a little fussier than usual today but not terribly so. He's 2 months today so we already had an appointment this morning for a well baby visit and his first set of immunizations, but the doc suggested we wait a couple of weeks for the vaxes because of the fever. We did all the other stuff, though, and he's 14 lbs 3 oz, which explains why my shoulders are sore! Still very tall, too.
Diaper covers: We are using Thirsties and they seem to work great for us. But we've always had good experiences with every cover we've tried. I think perhaps my kids are the exact shape on which covers are designed? We've only ever had leaking with disposables.
Holidays: We got toys for a toy drive over the weekend, got our holiday cards made, and hung the advent calendar on Monday. My mom made the calendar, modeled on the one she made for me and my sister when we were small. It's a big felt calendar with pockets, one for each day. We'll fill it tonight after DS1 is in bed. Also, we are trying to convince relatives to change the location of our xmas celebration this year to our place, partly in order to make things slightly easier for the person who is having big money trouble. We'll see how that goes.
Steph- That is so scary! I'm so glad that he is ok.
Lifegaurd- Can't imagine dealing with my older DD with so little sleep.
Chelsea- Maeve pretty much only naps in the wrap on my chest. I can't put her down either. Een just being held she is often fussy but right up against my chest ina tight wrap puts her right to sleep. DH even wrapped her the other day and she loved it (he's not a baby wearer but I needed a break.) Since you are doing childcare I would try a sling or your moby again. Couldn't get through my day without it.
Clothes and Diapers- Maeve is in the yellow edge prefolds from green mountain diapers. She outgrew the oranges a few weeks ago. A few of the fitted NB diapers still fit though. She wears mostly wool longies for pants. We do t-shirts instead of onesies here. You can get cheap lap tees from Dharma Trading company and dye them if you like that. That is what I use in my etsy shop- they run small though so size up. I dye and hand paint them so she has a variety of those as well as some American Apparel t's. I also like clothes from Hanna Andersson- super soft and not too tight. They are not cheap but they are high quality and you can get good used ones on ebay and such.
Unless Maeve is in the wrap or nursing she is pretty fussy. Gripe water does help though. She will have one to two short content stints in the bouncy chair but that is it. Poor girl-i hate to see her so fussy. She also seems to always have green poop. I really don't think its a foremilk- hindmilk issue. I've been putting off going off of dairy but I think I need to do it for a few weeks and see if that helps. Her 2 month appointment is next week too so I'll see what the Dr has to say. She is gaining well though which is great.
steph - that was totally scary!! awesome mama instinct - what about side caring the crib to your bed? i would love it if any of my kids would fall asleep on their own!!
all of my kids slept on their sides as newborns - that is how they put them in the hosp where i had my first and we just stuck with it...
cloth diapers - i hate onsies!!!! too difficult to fit with cds i like plain shirts so i can check diaper easy and if there are any leaks i just need to change bottoms old navy 2 pc pjs are great!
i def prefer snap jammies to zippers so that i can keep his upper body warm and just open bottom for changing
newborn leg warmers - i looked everyehere for child kneehighs to make some - no luck ;(
ds is nursing and making some seriously stinky farts right now!
I like the snap jammies too - especially in cloth diapers - nice to be able to stick a finger in and check for wet. Also, for keeping them warmer during changes. I got a few zipper ones this time though and I find the zipper really stiff and scratchy - again, who designs these things for tiny people??
I like the look of a shirt and pants more than a onesie but then their belly flaps out in the cold...so I do a onesie under a shirt.
Socks: newborn socks...totally useless. Except! I found one kind at Walmart this time that actually stay on. Do you hear that? It's the angels singing. No more lost socks!
cloth diapers: I am totally excited/glad to be switching to the cloth, too - disposables DO stink! This wierd chemical smell everytime she pees. Ugh.
Speaking of pee... Does anyone else have a baby who fusses big time before they pee? She cries and squirms and goes on and on for several minutes, then freaks out until her diaper is changed and dry. I'm pretty sure there's not a problem (wouldn't there be other symptoms if she had a UTI?) it's just annoying. She's probably a prime candidate for EC'ing....but I'm lazy......
It's prime migraine weather here today - gray and rainy and I am suffering. Thankful for good meds, toddlers who happily play alone and babies who decide to LOVE the swing today, while mama tries to snooze it off on the sofa. Ugh.
Whenever I have a migraine I imagine our poor pioneer foremothers anytime they suffered illness or pain, in a sod house on the prairie in the middle of nowhere, with a gaggle of kids and no Caillou cartoons, baby swings or codeine to help ease their day.
wow...lots to respond to (one-handed while DD sleeps in my other arm).
Steph - OMG! That was my fear about DD and "silent reflux." Our ped said that babies won't choke if they're on their backs and I was like, "yeah, right."
The Older Child - Ok. DS has been possessed the last 3 days by a relatively non-obstinate, non-button-pushing, happy little 3 year old. It's a little freaky. It has coincided with him calling me "mama" again (he's called me mom/mommy for at least a year now). Maybe it's like Pi said and he's just in an "up cycle" right now and the little terror will return soon. I'll tell you though...it's been downright pleasant around here.
Clothing - All about the soft clothes for babies/little kids/myself. We do a lot of soft cotton pants (american apparel, zutano, old navy)...jeans and cords when they're older...but DS's favorite pants are these because they're comfy and he can easily pull on and take off: http://www.basicbrilliance.com/boys-soft-cotton-pants.html . For DD we do sleepers some days and pants/shirts other days. I don't mind pants for babies. Footed pants are good cuz falling-off-socks/booties become a non-issue. At night we've done gowns for both kids...super convenient for diaper changes.
Holidays/crafts - I was thinking of maybe trying to make some ornaments with DS out of some kind of homemade dough. Gotta do some research...
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