Bodmacity

I have been using my own home brewed baby wipe solution combined with cut up pieces of muslin. This has been great although limited to use at home. So I wondered if there was a kit out there that could be used at home and out and about.To this end we have invested in a reusable baby wipe kit. It was fairly expensive at around £35 but is very comprehensive and well thought out.

What you get:

• 1 fresh wipes container 15cm x 15cm x 9cm depth
• 1 mucky wipes container 18cm x 18cm x 10cm depth
• mesh bag insert
• 25 x terry towelling wipes, 15cm x 15cm
• 1 bottle of lavender & chamomile ‘fresh wipes’ oil
• 1 bottle of tea tree & tea tree lemon ‘mucky wipes’ oil blend
• 1 fresh wipes out and about bag
• 1 mucky wipes waterproof bag with mesh insert

Directions

• Fill the fresh wipes container with 2cm of water and 4 drops of ‘fresh wipes’ oil
• Put the towels in the container and seal
• Fill the mucky wipes container with 3cm water and 3 drops of ‘mucky wipes’ oil
• Once a wipe is used place the dirty wipe in the mucky wipes container

To start with I stretched the mesh bag around the mucky wipes container before adding the lid. The instructions didn’t say to do this but it seemed a little odd to just plonk the mesh bag in the liquid. You would have to fish around for it every time you needed to add a dirty wipe. This turned out to be wrong as the liquid soon was sucked up into the bag and over the sides of the container. What I have done now is carefully lay the bag into the liquid so that the open end is on the top. This will have to do.

When the mucky wipes container is full the idea is that you simply take out the bag, pull the draw string and stick it straight in the wachine machine at 40 degrees. No need for a 60 degree wash because the tea tree oil will have killed off any nasties :-).

Making you own reusable baby wipe kit
Looking at the contents you could quite easily make your own kit. The containers are just snap-tight containers like those used for sandwiches although they do have funky ‘mucky’ and ‘fresh’ logos printed on them. What may be more difficult to source would be the waterproof out and about bags.

Back home after dropping Jake off at school. Last night was okay. The usual three feeds. One at 12am, one at 3am and one at 5am. Jake decided to wake at 6am this morning which was less than ideal. He got dressed(well I dressed him) but he still earned his star.

After breakfast he had a go on the DS and then we set off on the journey to Catford. Oh lovely Catford. I have just brewed up another fine cup of joe and Amy has just walked into the lounge. Mia is fast asleep. I think I will head of to bed for some zeds. Bye!

It has been great spending time with the new addition to the family. Today we took a trip to Bluewater. Mia was a delight and slept the whole way and all the time we were then and all the way back home! This evening she has been a little restless with a bubbly tummy. I put her in one of our reusable nappies and we thought that this was making her uncomfortable because she could not bring her legs up to her tummy.

Now she is back in a disposable nappy. Not eco I know but she seems happy now and is no longer crying and writhing in her sleep. We will try again with the reusables when her digestive tract is a little less sensitive.

Jake is still addicted to Lego Star Wars on the ‘GPS’ a.k.a Nintendo DS. We now have a reward chart in place to limit the amount he plays on it. If he gets dressed nicely in the morning then he can play it before and after school. This evening he went into a little melt down when I told him his time was up…

Baby Mia is now officially one week old. She has been feeding well and sleeping like a dream. Her cord stump came off a few days ago an has been bleeding slightly. The midwife advised washing with cool boiled water which I must do tomorrow during her nappy change. Continue reading “1 week old”

I have to say, Mia is an absolute PERFECT baby. She feeds until full then sleeps. She does not need to be rocked or cajoled into the latter. She simply drifts off. A few minutes ago I was holding her and she was looking at me. Suddenly she gave me a big smile. Okay, I know this doesn’t mean that she actually is smiling but the next thing she did was give a little giggle and then smiled again! What a poppet :-). Continue reading “Mia 6 days old”

Jake met Mia yesterday for the first time! He was so excited and immediately climbed onto the bed to give her a big cuddle. He then very gently stroked her head and gave her a little kiss on top of her head. It was the sweetest thing to watch.Later Mia had her first bath and Jake joined her. He washed her little body with his special blue baby sponge.

In the evening when Jake was asleep we took turns cuddling Mia and tried putting her in her moses basket. She is very mellow and falls asleep when cuddled. She doesn’t seem to be a sucky baby like little Jake was. When she has had enough food she comes away and snuggles in for a cuddle.

In the evening after her last feed, we went to bed. It was around 11pm. Mia settled pretty well and awoke around 1am. I gave her a formula feed so that Amy could recharge her batteries. An hour later she had another little feed. She also had a little vomit which was worrying. This happened while changing a particularly pooey nappy.

During the night my sleep was fitful. I kept hearing her making lip-smacking noises which means either is trying to pass wind or she is going to be sick. In the end she was brilliant and slept through until 7am. She had been a little sick in the night which we have consequently been told is to do with mucus residue.

Upon waking, while I got Jake ready for school, she fed for England and has not been sick all day so far. Later on in the afternoon the midwife came and took a look at mother and baby and declared them fit and well.

Amy started contractions at around 10pm while being monitored at the hospital. We had gone in to talk about inducing but the friendly mid-wives set about getting her ready for inducing. Had to wait an age before a less than sympathetic consultant told us off for suggesting that the hospital had got the dates wrong(they had).

Now it is 4am and we have been monitoring the contractions for 6 hours. Continue reading “It is time”

Back again to have baby monitored. We arrived at 12pm at had to wait an hour before the whole monitoring farce began. First the sensor would not work properly and kept cutting out, then the paper got jammed in the machine. The sensor that was supposed to be monitoring the uterus simply wasn’t working. The midwife on duty didn’t seem to worry too much and declared after 30 minutes and activity that all was well.
Continue reading “Back at the hospital, 12 days overdue”

We took a trip to the hospital yesterday to have baby monitored. Halfway through said monitoring process Amy actually started to have contractions every 3-5 minutes apart. After the monitoring had finished the midwife came in and looked at Amy’s face. She then said “I can see that your labour has started”. Continue reading “11 days overdue”

5 days overdue and counting. Not much in the way of twinges last night. Something has to give now. Amy is huge! Thankfully we have not had any snow for a couple of days. The roads are nicely gritted. Also Sally and Roy have decided to make the most of the good weather and come up early.

The fear was that they would not have been able to get here given that the roads were pretty bad in West Sussex.

It has been pretty slow today at home while trying to work. This week really has gone by so slowly. Well at least the weekend is almost upon us.

Jake has been a poppet. We have just enjoyed some chocolate muffins. Jake also was learning to write his name on the aquadraw poster. He can write J and A pretty well now :-).