filling up the fishy pool

[littlemomma]

Hey mamas! For those of you using a kid pool for a homebirth, how are you filling it up with warm water? This morning I took a long 20 minute shower and when I got out, there was not enough warm water left for anything or anyone else. I realized that we probably won't have enough warm water to fill it up in one shot. Is the answer to this obvious? Do you just fill it up, when the water gets cold, stop and wait for it to warm up again? Or is there some secret I don't know about, like boil water? I can just imagine that it will be HARD to wait! Any thoughts?

[mariposita]

We had the same problem of our hot water running out really quickly, so until the baby is born we've turned up the temperature on our water heater just a bit. Once the baby is born, I'm going to turn it back down, but I hate the thought of dealing with cold water while laboring. Is that an option for you?

[kynd mama]

For my last birth, DH started filling with HOT only, then as it turned cold, he was busily boiling water to add to the pool. My water was perfect by the time it filled up enough. I think he only dumped 2-3 pots of "almost boiling" water to the already warm water.

Hope that helps... and you have a baby soon! :)

[littlemomma]

Turning up the hot water heater is an option I suppose. I guess i don't know much about this kind of thing. I thought that the heater was a finite amount of space that once you use the hot water in it, that's it until it refills and heats up again. Is that not the way it is? I'll certainly turn up the heater if that's all it takes. The idea of boiling and adding to cold sounds good too.

When are you filling yours up? I guess it would be best to fill it up early in labor, before you need it, and try to insulate it with a blanket/shower curtain on top. That way, when you NEED it for pain, it will be ready? Does this really work? Any experience with this?

Thanks for your responses!

[DesireeH]

I'm curious too. Our water doesnt run out too fast (like 2 people can take showers at the same time in both bathrooms and it stays hot for both) but 106 gallons seems like alot so I dont know. We are having mega issues here with the hose adapter. We've bought 4 and none of them fit! So looks like we'll be bailing in the water with a 5 gallon bucket. LOL DH is like 'OH JOY!" HAHAHAHA I am curious as to how long it stays warm too. Another mama I know used a waterbed heater under her inflatable pool but I dont have one of those so we'll probably just bail as it gets cold and add more hot water.

[mariposita]

I'm planning on filling the tub the moment I start to feel "real" contractions. I had a quick 2 1/2 hour waterbirth last time and spent the entire time in the tub. When my contractions began they were only 4 minutes apart and quickly progressed to 2 minutes, so I know I probably don't have much time this time around.

I'm not sure about your water heater questions, as I'm pretty clueless about the whole thing too. But DH did turn it up recently and I can tell you it made a HUGE difference. I used to take a bath and want to put more hot water in, but it had run out already. Now it's super hot and I can keep refilling and refilling to my heart's content. No idea how, but it worked!

[birthjunkie27]

Desiree, about the faucet attachment, we couldn't find one that fit either....but I realized that you can actually just hold the hose right over the faucet. It doesn't screw on or anything, but the metal piece of the hose fits right over the faucet. Someone *does* have to stand there and hold it, but at least it beats hauling buckets of water.

[camprunner]

We are lucky enough that we could hook ours to our washer hookups and it worked great.

[allnaturalmama]

We turned up the heat on our hot water heater as well. A brief explanation:

let's say you have a 40-gallon HWH that is set to 120 degrees. You turn your water to hot and fill your pool -- you get 40 gallons of 120 degree water in your pool, and then once it runs out, cool water (maybe 70 degrees?) fills the tub. If you add another 40 gallons of 70 degree water while you wait for your HWH to reheat, then you've got 80 gallons of water averaging roughly 95 degrees (not accounting for heat loss). The pool is still not full, but your HWH may be ready very soon to continue adding HW.

However, if you turn your HWH up to 140 degrees, then you get 40 gallons of even hotter water before you add the cool water, so you can add more cool water before waiting for the hot to replenish and still get to 95 degrees. When the HWH replenishes, you'll have less volume in the pool to fill.

Once your HW runs out, if you do continue to fill with cool water, be sure you don't run it from your hot tap, but rather your cool tap. This gives your HWH a break while it reheats. You may want to start experimenting now to figure out just how much time your HWH takes to reheat a fresh batch of water.

Hope this makes sense!

And, for those of you having trouble getting your hose/adaptor to fit your faucet, does your faucet have an extra piece on the very tip that unscrews? We had to remove that little piece before the adaptor would screw on.

Now, anyone have any great tips on emptying the pool without spending a small fortune on a sump pump?

[DesireeH]

Desiree, about the faucet attachment, we couldn't find one that fit either....but I realized that you can actually just hold the hose right over the faucet. It doesn't screw on or anything, but the metal piece of the hose fits right over the faucet. Someone *does* have to stand there and hold it, but at least it beats hauling buckets of water.

oooh, thats a good idea!!

Jen, ya we have the peice that unscrews but they dont fit either way. We tried all the ones Home Depot had. GRRR.

[hottmama]

Here is our plan:
Put some cold water in first so the hot water doesn't hurt the plastic
Run hot water until it runs out
Run cold water until the temp is down to 100 degrees
Wait for hot water to be hot again/add water from stove and/or electric kettle
Repeat.

We are using our washing machine faucets which we can hook the hose directly on. We turned the water heater up already, too. I think it'll take two "loads" of hot water to fill the tub, and the heater only takes about 15 minutes or so to refill because it's small.
We're emptying the tub with buckets. I don't think 20 trips (5 gal. buckets, 100 gal. pool) will be that hard, the bathroom is right next to the bedroom where we're putting the pool.

[allnaturalmama]

Here is our plan:
Put some cold water in first so the hot water doesn't hurt the plastic


Oh yeah, forgot to mention that important little detail! My doula said she's had people melt a hole in the pool from the metal tip of the hose because they forgot to cushion the pool with cool water first. I think we'll also put a washcloth or something under the end of the hose, just in case.

PS Nice job succintly summing up the process, hottmama! Brevity has never been my strong point.

[JennP]

As for empting the pool why not sifen the water out...use your hose, suck some air out of the end NOT in the pool and the water should start flowing backwards out of the pool as long as the water is draining at a downward or even slope. It is worth a try as buckets could get pretty messy.

I think you can even drain it into the bathtub or something similar once the water is flowing. Make sure to double check that the pool end of the hose remains under water or the flow will stop.

Jenn

[Thursday Girl]

we always have our water heater set pretty hot, you could practiclly sterilize something with just the hot water. let me go ask DH (he's a plumber) how to turn up the temp for those who don't know how. One sec.............


electric water heater's you will need to open up the panel on the water heater and then use a little flat head screw driver to turn up the heat

gas- there should be a dial on the water heater.

hope that helps.

courtney