Ivey Updates and Diaper Talk

Ivey is now 14 1/2 weeks old... or 3 months and a week. She is doing wonderfully, is now 12 pounds and sleeping like a log (at night, at least)!

When she first came home, she was eating every 2-3 hours during the day. At night, I would let her sleep until she woke up to eat, which usually happened every 4 hours or so. In no time at all, she stretched this to 5 hours and then by mid November she was sleeping up to 6 hours at night! Now, she still eats every 3 hours during the day (currently it's around 7:30, 10:30, 1:30, 4:30, 7:30, then one more sometime between 9 and 11 or so) and then I put her to bed for the night. She sleeps all the way until 7:30 and then we start all over again. This morning, she scared the blazes out of me because I fed her and put her to bed by 10:00 and at 8:00am I woke up and realized I had not heard a single peep from her all night. Usually, she whines a little at about 2am and needs to have her back patted a little until she goes back to sleep. Last night, NOTHING. I turned on the video monitor and she wasn't moving one bit so I flew up the stairs. That little girl was so sound asleep... at 8:15 I had to wake her up!

This time around is so much different than last time. Having only one gives me the ability to be flexible. She usually starts the day off eating at about 7:30, but sometimes it's 6:30 and sometimes (like today) it was 8:30. We just play things by ear and ease things back on track... no need to fret about how long we'll be gone to run errands because we don't use bottles at all. It's very nice.

The cloth diapering is going very well. I actually enjoy it, believe it or not. There is a certain satisfaction at having a itty bit in tow through the grocery store and not even needing to go down the "baby needs" isle. She makes it all night long with a FuzziBunz, stuffed with its FuzziBunz insert along with either a LoopyDoo Insert or a Kissaluvs Booster Doubler. The combo works very well. I have also used a DryBee diaper at night, which is a all-in-one hybrid. I just stuff it with either the LoopyDoo or Kissaluvs doubler and we haven't had a single leak. During the day, we alternate between various brands. At first, when she was tiny, I didn't like the FuzziBunz very much. They went up to her nipples! But, now they are one of my favorites. The BumGenius are great, but the One Size style are still a bit bulky. They will be excellent when she gets bigger, though. The only ones I haven't been all that thrilled with are the Happy Heinys. They work fine, but compared to the Drybees, BumGenius and FuzziBunz, they leak more often. Man, do I sound silly.

Asa and Addison both have frequent night time accidents. I can't really get mad- I mean, how on earth do you teach kids to wake up when they have to go? They do strip their sheets on their own and put the wet clothes and such in the utility room to be washed. It finally hit me that it was ridiculous to be washing cloth diapers for Ivey but buying pullups for Asa and Addison. Now, I have big cloth pull-ups that I can stuff with a big BumGenius One Size insert for them. They're like underwear, but can hold it all in if there is an accident. I was hoping it would wake them up better than the pullups (or underwear in Addison's case, that boy will sleep all night in a wet bed, undies and clothes), but it doesn't seem to. So far, I've been pleased with the StarBunz SuperUndies.

Back to Miss Ivey. Honestly, the girl cracks me up. First of all, she is a total momma's girl. She is just completely smitten with me, and although it is tiring... I do love it. She is laughing now, which is hi-lar-ious. Even though she sleeps great at night, her napping needs some work. She hasn't fallen into the two-nap-schedule, so about an hour after each feeding she gets fussy and takes a cat nap. Her cat naps are usually only 20-45 minutes. That doesn't leave momma much time to get things done! She absolutely lvoes taking a bath, and screams like crazy when she gets out and we dry her off. Diaper changes are fun to her. As soon as that diaper comes off the legs start kicking and she gives big ol' grins! She started drooling a few weeks ago. She's not quite as drooly as Addison was, but she's working on it. I guess she is gearing up to teath. One thing that she has started doing this week is pulling her abs like she is doing a crunch when she's reclined. It is completely obvious that she wants to sit up all by herself. Under that soft belly must be some serious ab muscles because she's gotten pretty good at it. I may have myself an eary crawler/walker on my hands!