And so it begins (Night weaning pt 1)

We are beginning the process of night weaning. I've done so much reading and discussing with The Hubs, with other moms, with the internet. There are so MANY ways to do it. We plan to eliminate one feed each month till she's a year old. I feel like this will give her the oppertune amount of time to adjust and get used to it. And still give her the needed nourishment at night till solids become more important. 

So Goals for now. Nurse right before Sweetness's bed time (7:30-ish), Wake the baby to feed her again before we go to bed (usually around 10pm) to basically "tank her up". 

Then wake her just enough to nurse before she becomes fully awake herself. So I'm getting her "up" to nurse at 10, 1am, and 4am. 
She wakes on habit at around 8-8:30, so The Hubs goes in and soothes her till she figures out "OH my tummy is full, I can go back to sleep.". This takes about 15 minutes at most, Yesterday was day two an it took about 5. 

After a few days we'll see if she can resettle herself. If she gets worked up or whatnot, The Hubs will go in to resettle.

We'll do this process for a few days. Then we'll begin slowly backing up the first feed to eliminate (4 am) closer to the feed before it. Hopefully by doing this slowly she will adjust and won't wake to nurse. (though she will probably still wake a bit and resettle as she does this on her own a few times a night. Usually I hear her cry out once and before I can get my whits about me and out from under the covers she's back to sleep.
I'm thinking backing it slowly by 10-15 minute increments. Hopefully this can be done with no crying or tears and will be gentle for Sweetness.

To sum up here's what our nights will look like for a bit in short:
7:00-ish: Nurse, bedtime routine
7:30-ish: To bed
8:00-ish: Habit waking, Hubs goes in and soothes back to sleep
10:00-ish Wake just enough to nurse
1:00am: Wake just enough to nurse
4:00am: Wake just enough to nurse
7:00am: Wake up for the day.We're basically using the "wake to sleep" method, where by waking the baby up just a little to nurse she'll be back asleep by the time her natural sleep cycle is telling her to wake to eat. I think I saw this as an option in HSHHC but not sure?

 

I will still continue to nurse throughout the day and just before bed as needed till she's two. (at least)Just wanted to share my plan of action somewhere as I feel like it will work well for us. And might work for others too. I'll continue to update as we progress but we will be going slow so won't be much to tell for awhile. :)

Musing about my Hubby

I like to think I have the best, most wonderful man in the world at my side. Most days I'm sure of it. When I read about other hubby's who don't show thier wives love, respect, or treat them like dirt, it makes me sad and I want to tell them they deserve more. To demand more. To make them want more.
But I can't change the world's menfolk. Some are just not bright, some are jerks, some are rude, some are obstinate, some are not funny.

Thankfully my man in none of those. My hubs was supportive of  me from the begining. Through our dating, our early marriage, my many interests,(some of which he finds icky), and even now with our child.

He Does funny things like this:

I can't find the other photo's right now. But It always makes me smile when he adds things to my lists, or turns them into strange recipes. 

Or tells me he loves me in a note:

 Which he wrote on my small dry erase board the week Norrie was born.


Yeah my hubs is awesome like that.

Keurig Refill Experiments

I was given a keurig Mini for my birthday this year by my in laws. It was a joint gift and I love it! However what I don't love is the lack of decaff coffee options, and the pricetag on the coffee. 

 I love the idea of refill-able filters for it but had heard and seen horrible reviews for them. I also loved the idea of refilling my old plastic K-cups. I saw some tips on pinterest on doing this and decided to experiment. 

First I started with refilling the old K-cups. I removed the foil top, dumped out the coffee and rinsed thoroughly. Then I let them dry overnight. The next day I added my own coffee to the dry k-cups. I filled to about 1/4 of an inch from the top of the kcup. Then I sealed the top with Glad brand Press n' Seal.

 This was my first one and I didn't seal the edges very well. I cut the press n seal to short on one side. This resulted in a few grounds in my coffee. But not even 1/2 a tsp worth. My old coffee pot was worse than that. 

BUT! I knew I could do better. So the next one I want more careful and it looks like this:

I smoothed the plastic out before I used them. Here's what they looked like used:

One on the right was the one that leaked grounds. The one on the left didn't leak anything. Worked perfectly.

However I found one of those refillable filters for 12.00 at Publix and really wanted to try it. I'd heard the same thing about them getting grounds in your coffee and producing a weak cup. Well I figured it couldn't get any worse. So I splurged and honestly it took some tweeking but I got a decent cup of coffee and no grounds in my coffee. :)

I didn't rinse the lid when I took it out. :P Anywho, It has these 3 parts. You are supposed to put a filter just inside the dark peice and then screw the cap on. Well First time around I got strong coffee with a LOT of grounds. But I rechecked my directions and I came up with a plan.
First I put a filter inside the tan piece:

then snapped the dark piece inside like it is supposed to go and added a filter in there too.  

   
NExt The directions indicated that one should make sure the edges get laid flat on the plastic edge. I think this is so once you add the grounds, the lid can hold it in place and prevent the grounds from getting in the coffee. So I did that:

And Wha-La! My yummy cup of mostly cream cause that's how I like it coffee with no grounds in it!


I have a new way to enjoy all my yummy decaff coffee and can still use my keurig with the little K cups if I want to.

Hope this info helps someone else! 

Cloth Diapering pt 1

I don't know how many have been following my blog since Sweetness was born but we decided to cloth diaper after much thought and prayer. It took some time to convince the hubs, but once we started he was on board.
We waited till Sweetness was 1 month before we started. Just long enough for her to outgrow the newborn diapers.
We started with prefolds and covers and at first She flipped out every time she pee'd. Just like she did with her sposies. We took it slow and the first week we only did cloth during the day. And we didn't do cloth out and about much at all.


Now we use Cloth all the time. Unless we are traveling out of town for longer than a day or two. I tried Flip diapers and liked them at first. But sometime between the newborn 8lb size and the 12-ish lb range Norrie stopped fitting into them well. They started leaking around the legs. I tried stripping the inserts, drying the covers on high, nothing worked. Then they started fitting again till last month. All of a sudden though now they don't seem to fit right again. Hubby has decided he likes our pocket diapers better so we're selling the Flip's and going to be using the money to buy pockets.


Anyways in this time I've had lots of chances to play with a few different kinds of diapers. Right now the prefolds are my favorites. They are a great workhorse diaper and I'd recommend anyone have at least 10 prefolds and 2 covers in their cloth diaper stash.

And it's also true that it's good to buy used several kinds of diapers to know what you like. I wouldn't have know my feelings towards the Flips had I not bought them in the first place. When I heard about them I originally wanted my whole stash to be flip diapers. They sound great. And they work great for other babies.
Just not my little one.

I will say the covers (flip) work great over a snappi'd prefold. And don't usually leak. Unless the prefold needed changed and then she poops. Then well all bets are off. lol

I've heard many say they are a lot of work. And say "Oh are you STILL using cloth?" Why yes. I love my cloth. I love that my baby smells like a baby. She's cleaner and her skin is so healthy.
I cringe when I have to put her in a sposie. (Still haven't found a good way to use cloth while traveling more than a day or two. or while flying on a plane, etc)


Anywho I thought I'd talk about some common problems and ways to solve them.

First stains. 

Stains, Nothing works better than sunshine. I think a lot of mom's expect that they will wash with CD safe detergent and every spot will come out magically in the wash. Does this happen to our normal clothes? NO. Why would diapers be any different?
With our regular clothes WE use stain removers to get the stain out. But with diapers you can't really do that without fear that it will build up on the diapers and mess with their absorbency.
So what CAN you do. Easy. It's free and you have it nearly all the time. SUNSHINE.
Yes sunshine. I hear mom's saying it's too cloudy for them to sunthier diapers. I will say that a cloudy day takes longer but it is possible.
I put some diapers out on my porch rail to show how they looked before and after:

Here are all the diapers I have laid out to sun. I use pockets too but on this day the prefolds and inserts where what needed sunned.

This was the worst stain. These diapers are clean. They've been sprayed, washed on hot with soap, washed twice on cold with no soap. They are wet still as I find damp diapers sun better than dry.

Light staining on these and the inserts. Some I folded to make the most of the small space I have to lay them out.

Closeups...

Ok you get the idea. I did my diapers earlier in the morning and had these out by about 12 pm ish. I leave my diapers out all day since my back deck gets sun till about 5-ish pm in the winter. In the summer the sun is there almost till it goes down.

So the after:

All the diapers. Can you see the difference all ready?

The larger prefold on the far left still had light staining but it went away after I sprayed it with water and let it sun a bit longer. It dried out to fast to get out all on the first try.

No staining here.

Now lets say you've sunned your diapers and the stain doesn't come out what can you do? 

First try spraying with water again and leaving out longer.
Second, try dribbling some lemon juice on the diaper and leave on the sun.
Third leave out in the rain. I know that seems crazy but it works! I've gotten some stains out I never thought would come out with this method.

Lastly after sunning since my diapers drape on the rail I rewash them after I bring them inside. If they where on a line (hopefully soon) I wouldn't do this. Just toss in the dryer to kill anything that might have gotten on them outside. 

Any questions about cloth? Things you've always wondered? Feel free to ask and I'll try to answer!