1st birthday countdown - devin's 4th month...

devin's 4th month began with his original due date! he was due on september 24th 2009. all preemie mamas have mixed emotions when their child's due date rolls around and up until that day i really had no idea how i would feel. i ended up feeling happy and excited. i didn't have bitter feelings at all. im sure i would have felt much, much differently if devin was still in the NICU. thankfully he had been home with us for 2 weeks and we were already settling into a routine. for me, the day felt like a fresh start. i could finally stop thinking devin should still be growing inside me! this thought had haunted me his whole life up until that day. i finally had a "newborn" and i felt like i could put all the scary times we had gone through together behind us. to celebrate and capture the moment, my mom came over and we had a photo shoot. she was using her old 35mm camera that used to take great pictures. key word is used to... apparently the flash battery was weak and she may have been a little rusty as well and most of the would be adorable pictures came out dark and blurry. we did manage to get a few good ones though...

i think of this month as the month of the bouncey seat. devin loved his bouncey. he spent most of his time in there and by the end of the month, had taken to sleeping during the night in there too. we had issues with him sleeping flat on his back. the NICU had the head of his bed elevated for the entire time he was there. they did this in hopes of easing reflux symptoms which he never had. he never suffered from relux but i guess because so many babies do, they were trying to help. it really didn't help anything though and we were left to suffer the consequences at home. he was much more comfortable in an elevated position so we had him in the boppy at first, then the bouncy seat. both of them made me nervous because they are not for sleeping unsupervised. we found a solution the next month that i will talk about tomorrow. but basically, this whole month devin was in the bouncey seat. i dont know what we would have done without it.

he was still an easy going lovable little nugget and we loved getting to know him and catering to his every whim! i was getting used to life as a stay at home mom, i wasnt getting much sleep of course and fabian had gotten back into the swing of things at work. he didn't have nearly as many dr. appointments as i thought he would, just about 2 a month for the first few months. not bad at all. since he still slept most of the day, i spent alot of my time on babycenter.com talking to other moms of preemies who were going through just about the same stuff i was. it was a lifesaver at the time. we were all a little over paranoid about our newly non NICUized babes and it was nice to have some people to bring you back down to reality when you needed it ;) i really cant remember anything specific happening that was out of the ordinary this month so this will be a post with a bunch of pictures. devin got chubbier and cuter by the day, what a sweet, sweet boy!

  

just because...

i got devin on my back in the mei tai!

i look like poo, but devin is just adorable! he really liked being on my back and stayed there for an hour or so.

here are some great pictures i got tonight! he still loves his jumperoo. we hate it because its huge and ridiculous looking but i cant get rid of it because hes so happy in it ;)

these next ones are borderline sad but so funny and a little strange! he really likes playing in his pack and play but has been doing this when he gets bored for the last few days. he can get himself out of this position, i promise! i know it looks bad but i think he likes it!

hello, im gretchen and im a baby wearaholic

i've been wearing devin since the day he came home from the nicu, which was 2 weeks before he was actually due to be born. i don't know how i came to find out about proper baby wearing, i just knew i wanted a baby k'tan while i was still pregnant. it looked fun and stylish. much better than a baby bjorn type carrier in my uneducated opinion. when devin was born almost 14 weeks early, i knew i would wear him as much as i could when he came home. i started kangaroo care when he was 3 days old and saw how powerful skin to skin contact was for him (and me). his oxygen saturation would instantly improve and his vitals would stabilize as soon as i held him in his first days and weeks. after his 11 week nicu stay i wanted nothing more than to hold him as much as i could, not only because i had gone without him at home for so long but also because the poor guy was bedridden for so long! so baby wearing was just what i did. i wore him in the baby k-tan for at least 3 hours a day for the first several weeks he was home and was able to relax and get a few things done while he was safe and comfy. it was great. i loved the k-tan carrier design, very easy to use and super comfortable. its a stretchy cotton material which is ideal for newborns to 12-15lb. babies. it really started sagging and became very uncomfortable when devin got to be about 12 lbs. i started doing some research on where to go from there because there was no way i was giving up baby wearing!

i joined the baby wearing group on babycenter. com and started checking out thebabywearer.com. i found out about the four main forms of baby wearing that are safe and comfortable.ring slings, mei tais, soft structured carriers and woven wraps. im very interested in woven wraps but they are some of the most expensive so im holding off for now :) i plan on getting one in the fall when its a little cooler. i did make a wrap out of cotton gauze that i used for a few weeks while i made up my mind about what carrier i would get first. cotton gauze is the best fabric to wrap with if you decide to go cheap and not buy an actual woven cotton wrap. i bought 5 yards and cut it to be 30 inches wide. i watched youtube videos to learn how to wrap and it worked out well. i look forward to using a real one in the future.

i decided to get a mei tai. there is a great introduction post on the baby wearing board with a list of reputable brands of each style carrier as well as lots of information and a description of each type of carrier available on the market. i really liked the looks of the mei tai baby brand. i also loved the fact that it could be ordered as a "zippy". this is a mei tai with 3 different panels that you can change whenever you want a different look. it doesn't actually have zippers, its velcro and its very cool! i emailed the creator of mei tai baby mei tais and asked if i could send my own fabric for the panels because i didn't love anything on the website and she said that would be fine. i just got it the other day and am in LOVE!!! it is so comfortable, well made and just beautiful. devin loves it!

the mei tai was custom made so it took about 3 weeks to arrive. in that time i was just longing for a real carrier and ended up talking fabian into letting me get a soft structured carrier as well. i had found an awesome woman named amber who lives very close who has a great website called heavenlyhold.com. she mainly sells soft structured carriers but also a few mei tais. i contacted her and she offered for me to come by and try on whatever i wanted! this was so exciting because for some reason baby wearing really isn't all that popular and i couldn't find anywhere to try stuff on. i knew i wanted something, but i didn't want to just order something without trying it on. so i went to her house with devin and tried many different carriers on. there was another mom there that day too looking at different carriers and she had a baby boy who was the same age as devin at the time and amber has a 9 month old daughter. amber is such a nice person. she knew i wasn't going to buy anything the first time and still offered to let me borrow any carrier i wanted until my mei tai came! shes just so great and wonderful to work with! that was his first playtime with other babies, i didnt have my camera but amber took some pictures and will email them to me soon. anyway... i LOVED  a carrier called the action baby, but this was before i ordered the mei tai and i really wanted that so i left without getting the action baby that day. shes just so great and wonderful to work with! i didn't take her up on her offer but while i was waiting on the mei tai i went back and got the action baby. its different than the mei tai and i use both of them everyday for different things. the action baby is good for quick trips in and out of a store, the mei tai is nice for a long walk or grocery shopping. it may seem like i wouldn't need 2, but until you become a baby wearing fiend, you wont understand ;)

this is entirely too long and shows just how obsessed i am. baby wearing is lots of fun and much easier than using a stroller all the time. i hope someone that reads this gets into wearing their baby because its just an awesome thing to do and a very fun hobby! i also hope this post was helpful. its hard to find out about all this when baby bjorns and infantino type carriers are really the only things available at most popular baby stores. ahhhh! now i have to go into that for a second... sorry! so the baby bjorn, infantino, chicco, basically all the popular baby carriers are no good at all. i know many people have these and their babies are happy while they are in them but they are called "crotch danglers" by us baby wearing snobs and they're called that for a reason, thats what they do, they dangle the baby by his or her crotch! not so comfy. they also are made to have the baby face out. this is not an ideal position for an infants hips or spine. its just not a natural position for them. babies should always be worn facing in towards the wearer of looking over a shoulder in a back carry. their legs should be in a "froggy" position instead of dangling straight down. mei tais, good soft structured carriers and wraps are the best way to achieve that. its annoying that the proper carriers are so obsolete and i hope that changes in years to come. the carriers im raving about are so much more comfortable than any of the "crotch danglers", i promise! okay, like i said, this was waaaay too long, and i kind of rambled a lot... sorry! :)

here are some great examples of crotch dangling:

this baby is being worn facing out, dangling from his crotch and is sitting very low on the mother. i guarantee that is not comfortable for either of them.

this guy looks like a creepy ken doll, he just doesn't know any better, we all know ken and barbie and their "little sisters" (a.k.a. illegitimate children) don't have real "parts" anyway.

here's devin with his "froggy legs", sitting comfortably and ergonomically correct:

 

best stroller in the world!

i usually wear devin in a wrap for trips to the dr. (which is all we do as you know), but i do use the stroller everday for a nice long afternoon walk. i HATE my current stroller (chicco cortina discovery). its big but barely big enough for devin to sit in comfortably and it wont go over the most itsy bitsy bump in the road or little lip of a curb! its so annoying! i bought it on craigslist for $40 and the folding mechanism was broken, so i kind of white lied to the company about how my newly purchased stroller was broken and they sent me a brand new one! it was awesome and we actually ended up selling the broken one again on craigslist for $30! (i made sure to eduacate the buyer on the deal waiting around the corner for him after a couple emails!) im so glad it was so cheap for us because i cant wait to get rid of it now.

i did a bunch of research and decided on the mia moda atmosferra stroller. its $209.00 at babies r us and many other online stores. i ordered it from babies r us and about a week later received an email saying the item was currently unavailable and my order had been cancelled. this was AFTER they had confirmed my order and taken my credit card information! they didnt charge me, but uggghhh, how annoying! so then i ordered it from babycatalog.com, it was $209.00 after tax. i orderd it thursday, there was free shipping and it got here today (saturday)!

this stroller is quite possibly the best thing EVER! so im kind of obsessed with it right now and feel the need to create an extensive review for anyone who cares! the first really cool thing about it is that it has a removeable seat that can be faced so the child is looking out at the world or in at you! devin loves his stroller ride but if i go over "his limit" there is a price to pay because he gets super fussy and i know being able to change his view would cure that problem. i have had to carry him and push the stroller for quite a ways a few times-that SUCKS!

it doesnt have jogging stroller wheels which i kind of wanted, but its a very smooth ride and goes over grass, curbs and bumps really easily (im so excited about that!) the handle is adjustable and slides up and down to very low and very high.  the foot rest is adjustable and looks really comfortable and the seat reclines from completley upright to completley flat. the basket is huge and theres a parent cup holder and a little pouch thing when the seat is facing forward.

and I LOVE THE FABRIC! i think its so pretty and still gender neutral. the other very nice feature (especially for preemies or newborns) is the ability to turn it into a completly enclosed bassinet like environment. there's a little pouch of fabric under the foot rest that you just bring over the tray to cover the bottom, then just put the visor down all the way and face the baby in toward you. that makes a very safe, quiet spot for your little one while you're in public! besides being able to face him towards me, this is my other favorite thing about this stroller.

well, thats all i can say i love about it so far and i cant wait to use it to actually do things in the srping!