The Parenting Thread

[Bartrim]

Thats the stuff VS13. I nearly lost my drink when I read your Green Goblin comment.

Gok have you done the research into cloth nappies? The saving is quite phenomanal. I was all for disposables until I researched and found out the savings. It's all up to choice but when someone has a hobby such as ours any saving is a good saving because it means more money for TF's

[GoktimusPrime]

Finally got to take mum and bub home last night! We were meant to come home on Friday, but got held up an extra day due to jaundice, but it cleared up by Saturday morning - but we got held up for another 9 hours due to hospital bureaucracy.

I mentioned cloth nappies to my wife last night during a nappy change and she was like, "Do you want to wash them?" I see what you mean though - sometimes when I throw out a nappy due to just a bit of pee-pee or discharge where there's no poo it feels like a waste. I kinda wish she'd actually do a poo just to get our money's worth for each nappy!

I think right now we're kinda too tired and a bit overwhelmed as first time parents where we're just gonna go with the convenience factor, but maybe later on when things get easier with practice we'll revise cheaper options like cloth nappies.

It's all up to choice but when someone has a hobby such as ours any saving is a good saving because it means more money for TF's

^most convincing argument for me!

[Vector Sigma 13]

It's all up to choice but when someone has a hobby such as ours any saving is a good saving because it means more money for TF's

Now that is devotion!

I think we found as we had more kids there was a time factor (takes time to clean wash and dry the nappies) which led us to move to disposables. I was thinking about this topic last night and i think we stopped with the velcro tabbed cloth nappies because the little guy would get chaffed if you didnt get to him quick enough when he did a wee. If i recall they dont hold the mess in as well as disposables which can lead to soiling of the outer clothing. Its not a big deal but i guess its up to the individual. I guess if bubs grows quick too you may be left with a lot of nappys you cant use because they dont fit him. Im sure though if you do the sums you would still come out on top! Which brings me back to Bartrims quote...

Oh and dont forget there is a very good reason to go cloth nappies from an environmental perspective- to reduce this stuff from going into landfill and/or the water table

[GoktimusPrime]

I guess if bubs grows quick too you may be left with a lot of nappys you cant use because they dont fit him.

Which can be a blessing for others! On Saturday some friends came over and gave me a box load of leftover newborn size disposable nappies! My dad called this morning telling me that Babies R Us are having a sale on nappies, and my wife looked at me saying that we really don't need any new nappies. We've also been stockpiling on nappies too during the pregnancy - so yeah, we're currently up to our necks in disposables for newborn. We might have to give some excess away to the next person who has a bub.

Baby's been drinking nothing but breast milk since she was born, but now you-know-who is getting sore you-know-where. So I bought an electric pump yesterday but it pumps really slow (unless we crank up the juice, but then it's really painful and even draws blood) - so today I bought formula. We kinda feel guilty about it because we do feel that breast is best... but I think that there are just some times when you gotta use bottle. For us it's until the you-know-whats can recover. It's purely a supplement to breastmilk... we do still prefer to feed breastmilk, but we're finding that formula comes as a handy backup.

Look at me justifying this... can you tell how guilt-ridden I am over this?

[Bartrim]

Now that is devotion!

I think we found as we had more kids there was a time factor (takes time to clean wash and dry the nappies) which led us to move to disposables. I was thinking about this topic last night and i think we stopped with the velcro tabbed cloth nappies because the little guy would get chaffed if you didnt get to him quick enough when he did a wee. If i recall they dont hold the mess in as well as disposables which can lead to soiling of the outer clothing. Its not a big deal but i guess its up to the individual. I guess if bubs grows quick too you may be left with a lot of nappys you cant use because they dont fit him. Im sure though if you do the sums you would still come out on top! Which brings me back to Bartrims quote...

Oh and dont forget there is a very good reason to go cloth nappies from an environmental perspective- to reduce this stuff from going into landfill and/or the water table

Yes it's true cloth nappies aren't as good as holding the waste as they don't have gutters you can counter that by using pilchers. Of course sometimes even disposables don't hold everything in sometimes. We actually are quite fortunate as our baby got into a habit of pooping at night. This of course didn't happen every night but it happened about 95% of the time so we used disposables of a night time. It worked out really well for us

[GoktimusPrime]

Before bub was born, changing nappies was one thing I was really dreading about being a parent. But I gotta say that changing your own baby's nappies really isn't that bad, and in a way... it's kinda fun! I also started bottle-feeding for the first time. Heh, it's funny - each time I do these seemingly mundane tasks, they're kinda exciting (I guess cos it's all new and novel right now), and I can see that I'm really not good at doing it, but at the same time I can feel myself - intentionally sounding nerdy now - gaining experience points! Every time I change a nappy I feel like there's text running up saying, "You have successfully changed her nappy. You gain 3 experience points and 0 gold. There is a door to the east." Pretty soon I'll hit level 2 and I can finally stop dungeon-crawling! <nerdish.snort.laugh>

[Vector Sigma 13]

Before bub was born, changing nappies was one thing I was really dreading about being a parent. But I gotta say that changing your own baby's nappies really isn't that bad, and in a way... it's kinda fun! I also started bottle-feeding for the first time. Heh, it's funny - each time I do these seemingly mundane tasks, they're kinda exciting (I guess cos it's all new and novel right now), and I can see that I'm really not good at doing it, but at the same time I can feel myself - intentionally sounding nerdy now - gaining experience points! Every time I change a nappy I feel like there's text running up saying, "You have successfully changed her nappy. You gain 3 experience points and 0 gold. There is a door to the east." Pretty soon I'll hit level 2 and I can finally stop dungeon-crawling! <nerdish.snort.laugh>

Its all part of the fun Gok!

You think your having fun now- wait to they crawl/walk and talk and get little personalities! These are very enjoyable and satisfying milestones for you to reach with your kids. I always found the little babies a bit dull, lol- they spend most of their time sleeping or eating.

When they start talking its great... until they learn to say NO!

Question- Do your children use pacifiers (dummies)? Our kids have had mixed experiences with them. They are often reluctant to say goodbye to them when the time comes. Some of the hissy fits our current "little" guy has had over us taking it off him have been unbelievable.

[GoktimusPrime]

No dummy use yet. Have been thinking about it though, but my wife's been worried about it becoming an addiction. :/ After reading your story I'm beginning to have second thoughts about introducing dummies for mine. Eep!

I'm enjoying bottle-feeding. It allows me to have a chance at feeding my girl.



I'm a complete noob compared to my wife when she breastfeeds though - hence why I've attached a bib onto Yuki there cos there's occasional spillages. In this shot I'm feeding her breastmilk, but other times I've fed her formula too. <<guilt>>

Hey Bartrim, I vaguely recall you mentioning that your kid understands some Italian? (that was you right?) - how's that working out for you? Two friends of mine had a baby nearly a year ago, and I convinced them to raise their bub trilingually using the "une-personne, une langue" ('one person one language') method. They've stuck to it, and so far their boy who's coming up to his first birthday is able to understand his parents in English, Tagalog and Japanese. My wife and I have started doing the same thing with our bub too (we intentionally gave Yuki a trilingually compatible name for this purpose), although my mother-in-law is throwing a fourth language into the works!

[i_amtrunks]

The healthiest (or least harmful) option is iodised rock sea salt.

Time to get the kids a salt lick!

Iodine, calcium, iron, all are minerals/vitamins that kids seem to be deficient in these days, hell we'd all be fluoride deficient if it wasn't in the water...

[Bartrim]

We didn't start with the Italian until Marcus started speaking We did have a few hurdles (for instance he thought uno came after ten for a while) but (again parental brag here) doctors have told us that Marcus' vocab, comprehension and memory is way above what it should be for a 2 and a half year old so we really haven't had too much confusion with the language thing.

Oh VS13 on the whole "no" thing all I can say is QFTx10000000000000000