Parenting a Newborn, There's an App for That

Parents of babies are forgetful.  I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the sleep depravation.  When your child is crying and you can't tell which way is up, it's easy to forget a lot of things.  It's hard to remember when you last fed the baby or how much she ate.  I can't tell you how many times I've screamed at Lloyd from the other room, "When did you feed her last?"  

I have been in childcare for years, and one tool we use when we have several people caring for one child throughout the day is the daily report.  This is where you have a single sheet of paper and write down when a baby has been fed, when a diaper has been changed, and when they have napped.  This is practical when babies are fed and changed primarily in one room.  They even send you home with a similar sheet from the hospital.  I found it impractical.  I don't spend all day in one room; I have a two story house.  Can I carry a piece of paper around with me all day?  No I can't.  But there is one thing I do carry with me all day; my cell phone. 

Now I suppose I could use the notepad feature to write down every diaper change and nap, but thanks to similarly minded parents, there's an app for that, actually there are several, and I have two!  

The first one I heard about through an email from a formula company. It's called the Similac Strong Mom's Baby Journal. I loved the fact that I could keep track of how much breast milk I was pumping, but I used other features very rarely.  

I found out about another app through another email from The Honest Company. It had just started. Lloyd and I both downloaded this one and it quickly became our primary documentation tool. 

The app is linked through our account with Honest.com, so the really cool thing is we can put in an entry with one phone and it shows up on the other. We use most of the features. We can keep track of feedings, doctors visits, diaper changes, nap times, and we track her growth. We can even use this app to manage our diaper subscription. 

Now, do we write down everything? Nope. I'm a little better at it than Lloyd is because I've been doing it for years. I know at least a few parents of children I taught over the last few years are reading this, and I'm betting at least one or two remember times when I slipped up on the documentation. I'm still not perfect at it, but the app does help.

 I am aware that quite a few parents have their children in a child care situation.  In most cases, caregivers will not have the app on their phones. The app does allow you to easily change time of an entry, so if you want all of your documentation in one place, you can enter information from the given daily report to the app.  

There are more than these two apps on the market, and I'm sure they all have their pros and cons. The Honest Company's Honest Baby App is what works for us and we highly reccomend it to other new parents who can't remember if they fed the baby at two or three. 

Diapers: So Many Choices!

When it comes to diapers, moms today have more choices then ever before. We have disposable, eco friendly, cloth and hybrid. There is even a school of thought that says a baby is born potty trained and diapers are completely unnecessary. When I was pregnant, I did a lot of research as to what would be better for the environment, my baby's bottom, and our family's bottom line.
Years in early childhood education taught me a thing or two about disposable diapers. I ran across almost every type and brand. The most common types were Pampers and Huggies. When a family belonged to a werehouse club, thats where they bought their diapers. If the child wore Pampers, the family belonged to Sam's Club. Huggies or Kirklands meant they were Costco people. In short, the only difference between Huggies and Pampers is availability.
I ran across a lot of store brand diapers. I liked the Kirkland's brand from Costco and the Target brand the best. I found little difference between those two and the name brands.
I saw a few Luvs and thought they were OK. The Seventh generation diapers were the most popular environmental option, and I found that they worked about as well. And after years of working with children, I heard none of them say a word about the artwork on their diaper, unless it was to tell me I grabbed another child's diaper by mistake.
During my pre-Angela diaper research, I spent a lot of time at Babies R' Us.  I came across something called g-Diapers.  This was a hybrid diaper system with a cloth outside and a disposable liner.  There was also a cloth liner if you planned to use it as a cloth diaper system.  The problem with this system was cost.  The liners alone are more expensive than almost any disposable diaper, plus the fact that you have to pay extra for the "g-Pants" which are the cloth outsides.  I also came across another similar system called The Perfect Bum.  This system was a little cheaper, but the sets came packaged with a cloth liner, a cloth outside and a tee shirt.  Optional disposable liners are sold seprately.  I determined the hybrid system was not cost effective, but I did buy two g-Pants and three of the Perfect Bum sets.  I also bought a box of each kind of cloth liner.  I thought that I would give cloth a try.
Facebook also advertises a company started by Jessica Alba, an actress who has played, among other things, Susan Storm in the Fantastic Four movies.  The Honest Company offered a diaper subscription service.  I wasn't sure about a diaper I had never seen before, so I didn't give them much thought.
Well, as I mentioned before, Angela came a bit early.  This meant that she was small.  She was too small for the size one diapers to be effective.  Everyone who gave me diapers for baby showers gave me size one.  Even the pack the hospital sent home with me was size one.  I had one pack of newborn diapers that I would now have to use, but I knew those would be gone soon.  For a couple of weeks, I sent Lloyd after work to buy large boxes of diapers, usually Huggies.  Costco didn't sell the size we needed.
I revisited The Honest Company, this time showing Lloyd the site.  This time, we took a calculator to compare costs.  It worked out to be around the same cost per diaper as Huggies or Pampers, with a few exceptions.  FIrst, this cost included wipes, I knew we would probably need more wipes then this, but it was a good enough amount to make it worth it.  Another bonus was that these would be delivered to our door.  This was nice because when I sent Lloyd for diapers on our way home, inevitably, it would be a list of other things I didn't really need.
We decided to try.  We got the sample pack of seven diapers of various designs to try.

I fell in love with them, so we started the subscription service.  The designs are really cute, and the diapers work very well.  I have found them much less like plastic than other diapers, and they are better for the environment.  They seem to work well for us, at least for now.  If anyone who reads this wants to try them, please let me know so we can refer you and get a bonus!



Now that she's grown into them, I've used the cloth diapers sometimes when we're home alone.  I have found them pretty easy.  I have to say that I prefer gDiapers to Perfect Bum.  They are more like cloth on the outside and the liners are smaller.  Neither diaper fits well under anything with snaps, so I can only use them with the little tee shirts.  I also have to share that I would not dream of using cloth diapers if my baby was on anything but breast milk.  Poop when a child is on an exclusive diet of breast milk stinks less and is easier to deal with.

The advantage to cloth is that it gets the baby's skin to breathe easier.  This makes it easier to prevent diaper rash.
There is no right way to diaper your baby.  I can tell you that for us, I like the Honest Company and they seem to be better for my baby's bottom and her tiny little carbon footprint.