Sunday, June 29, 2008

The mystery and science of sleep



Mini-Me's sleep patterns continue to improve, as we see above - she is now taking two solid naps per day, sleeping through the night (although sometimes waking up earlier than I would like), and she holds it together throughout the evening so I don't dread that fussy time between 6 and 8. That was the worst when she was transitioning from three naps to two a few months ago.

She has three crutches: she sleeps with a pacifier, she sleeps better when swaddled, and she sleeps in her Moses basket, which is set in her crib. Because she is getting rather old for swaddling, I finally broke down and got a Miracle Blanket in an attempt to contain her when she is in a Houdini mood. No way around it, though, she is getting too long for the Moses basket. I tried to get her napping and sleeping in her crib without the basket, and the first day went ok, though she napped for shorter periods of time than I had hoped. She rolls all over the crib and eventually works her way out of her swaddle, but then she is able to find the pacifier by herself. Today, though, as an experiment, I put her down for naps in her basket, and she slept three hours this morning and two more in the afternoon! I put her to bed in her crib tonight at bedtime, and she woke up twice in the first hour. I put her in the basket and haven't heard from her since. So I guess she's not yet ready to move out of the Moses basket. I'll keep watching for opportunities to steer her toward a less prop-intensive sleep routine, but I am not excited about giving up those nice long naps!

Strollers continued

I swore up and down that I would not be one of "those moms" who has three or four strollers cluttering up the house... and I am on the verge of buying my third stroller. *sigh* The Snap'n'Go I picked out for my baby registry before I did any research or even knew what I was doing, when I was too overwhelmed to make an informed decision, so that one was my practice shot. I did end up getting the Buggster earlier this month, which I love except that the latch on one side doesn't lock open properly so I have to send it back for a replacement.

It is, however, too big to fly with and barely fits in the trunk of the car. Looked smaller on the website! So it is likely that I will get a third stroller later this summer. Actually, if you count the Peg Perego that my parents in Boston scored at a garage sale, technically Mini-Me has four strollers. I am visiting my folks in a few weeks, and assuming I don't fall in love with the PP and decide to bring it back with me, I will be getting another lightweight stroller for travel and car trips, probably the Evenflo X Sport. I humbly eat my words about resisting the urge to multi-stroller!

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

The Stroller Derby

It is time to buy a stroller. The Ergo is great, but it hurts my back when I wear it too much, and Mini-Me is outgrowing her car seat bucket so the Snap'n'Go isn't going to work for us much longer.

I'm such a sucker for marketing - after researching strollers all weekend I am finally ready to test-drive and buy a stroller, maybe today. Yesterday I caught myself turning up my nose at a "common" stroller at Costco, and envying fancy European strollers of other moms at the gym... models I had already taken off my own list. I am not one of those types of people who has the tenacity to spend four weekends in a row test-driving strollers like, say, my neighbor across the street, but I am willing to spend a few hours browsing the excellent reviews at Baby Bargains and then just pick one.

In the end, I decided to spend $200-$300, with the aim of getting a stroller that was sturdy enough for errands around the neighborhood, light enough to get up our steep hill without killing me, and foldable for the airplane in case I wanted to fly with it. I had a short list:
Inglesina Zippy
Zooper Waltz
Valco Buggster

I must admit that I was drawn to models that had cool names. And cool colors. Kiwi is the new black.

I am test-driving a Buggster today, and if I don't have any problems with it, I'm going to buy one. I just got off the phone with the IRS (after 45 minutes on hold last week and 30 minutes on hold today) and they confirmed that our economic stimulus package was miscalculated because they left out the kiddo. They owe us $300. Zippety-doo-da!