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Mar. 2nd, 2009 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaOkay, I got through my first singlehanded day with both kids, and all three of us were alive at the end of the day. So I did my job.
The saddest moment came shortly after Michael came home. He volunteered to take Alex outside to play in the (minimal, as it turns out, but still exciting when you are three and a half and live south of the Mason-Dixon line) snow. Colin was asleep in the sling, so I had high hopes for a few moments of actual time for myself.
The instant the door closed behind Michael and Alex, Colin woke up and started to cry. I mean the very instant. The sound of the closing door was still ringing in my ears.
But the day itself didn't go too badly. We did things. We all got dressed and fed, although lunch didn't happen until 2pm. I broke out a new chapter book I had picked up at the library book sale, and we read five exciting chapters of The Enormous Egg. We got Colin to go down for a nap in the Pack-n-Play and went outside to shovel and play in the snow. Alex turned a tiered mug rack into an apartment building and populated it with characters from her creche and her Fisher-Price schoolhouse, which is how I learned that Mary and Joseph decided they couldn't take care of baby Jesus anymore, so they gave him up for adoption, and now he lives with two of the Magi.
TV: Moderate. Alex and I each watched one show. For all that I'm grateful that people gave me permission to overuse age-appropriate educational children's programming, what I really want to do right now is put on shows for me, because nursing for hours and hours is pretty boring and I'm still not that great at holding a book while keeping Colin properly positioned. Most of what we have on DVD is not even remotely preschooler-appropriate. Which leaves daytime cable. Which is why Alex can now quote pithy little bits from Stacy and Clinton on What Not to Wear. (We all prefer Ace of Cakes, but it doesn't seem to be on during the day.)
Things I completely failed at: staying hydrated. That alone is pretty much a fulltime job right now. I keep one-liter water bottles by my upstairs and downstairs nursing chairs, but I really need to make sure that they're full at the beginning of the day, or I'm not going to get around to filling or drinking them.
Other things we are failing at: keeping Colin remotely dry. Anyone who disposable-diapered boys have a recommendation? Pampers Swaddlers just aren't cutting it, and I'm tired of having to strip off and launder not just his undershirts and sleepers, but also his swaddling blankets.
How parenting the second child is different from parenting the first: I feel totally okay about Colin fussing and crying a little in the sling while I finish making myself lunch. (I then ate my lunch one-handed, while nursing.) I have learned that you have to put on your own oxygen mask first before assisting other passengers.
The saddest moment came shortly after Michael came home. He volunteered to take Alex outside to play in the (minimal, as it turns out, but still exciting when you are three and a half and live south of the Mason-Dixon line) snow. Colin was asleep in the sling, so I had high hopes for a few moments of actual time for myself.
The instant the door closed behind Michael and Alex, Colin woke up and started to cry. I mean the very instant. The sound of the closing door was still ringing in my ears.
But the day itself didn't go too badly. We did things. We all got dressed and fed, although lunch didn't happen until 2pm. I broke out a new chapter book I had picked up at the library book sale, and we read five exciting chapters of The Enormous Egg. We got Colin to go down for a nap in the Pack-n-Play and went outside to shovel and play in the snow. Alex turned a tiered mug rack into an apartment building and populated it with characters from her creche and her Fisher-Price schoolhouse, which is how I learned that Mary and Joseph decided they couldn't take care of baby Jesus anymore, so they gave him up for adoption, and now he lives with two of the Magi.
TV: Moderate. Alex and I each watched one show. For all that I'm grateful that people gave me permission to overuse age-appropriate educational children's programming, what I really want to do right now is put on shows for me, because nursing for hours and hours is pretty boring and I'm still not that great at holding a book while keeping Colin properly positioned. Most of what we have on DVD is not even remotely preschooler-appropriate. Which leaves daytime cable. Which is why Alex can now quote pithy little bits from Stacy and Clinton on What Not to Wear. (We all prefer Ace of Cakes, but it doesn't seem to be on during the day.)
Things I completely failed at: staying hydrated. That alone is pretty much a fulltime job right now. I keep one-liter water bottles by my upstairs and downstairs nursing chairs, but I really need to make sure that they're full at the beginning of the day, or I'm not going to get around to filling or drinking them.
Other things we are failing at: keeping Colin remotely dry. Anyone who disposable-diapered boys have a recommendation? Pampers Swaddlers just aren't cutting it, and I'm tired of having to strip off and launder not just his undershirts and sleepers, but also his swaddling blankets.
How parenting the second child is different from parenting the first: I feel totally okay about Colin fussing and crying a little in the sling while I finish making myself lunch. (I then ate my lunch one-handed, while nursing.) I have learned that you have to put on your own oxygen mask first before assisting other passengers.
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Date: 2009-03-03 09:00 am (UTC)Do point the penis down, it's possible even in the first days, though a bit tricky initially. Boys wet the front, girls the middle. It could be that with your Alex the wet got absorbed by the back of the nappy as well as the front, kind of had more time to spread out forwards and backwards before leaking, whereas with Colin see if the back is still dry but the front is leaking (that's what happens with my Alex) - too much wee at once to spread to the back so leaks out of the front. Some brands do a boy/girl version to allow for that.
In the meantime, consider getting a wrap for cloth nappies and putting that over the nappy with a microfibre cloth (from the cleaning aisle) in the wettest bit. That means you only have to change the nappy and cloth and not the clothes each time (two wraps and you can rinse the one that comes off and it will dry by the next change). I like Motherease Rikki wraps (which are from the US, so you ought to be able to get them). If you don't manage to find something that works now, that may change in the future as he begins to fill out and then grow.
Oh, and I've been warned, as soon as boys start sleeping on their fronts, the wet through problem gets worse as then gravity doesn't help!