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Playgroup Week #15: Awesome Baby Gear For The First Few Months
Playgroup

Playgroup Week #15: Awesome Baby Gear For The First Few Months

by Désirée
written by Désirée

We’re back with an other episode of the Baby Rabies Playgroup and this time I’m sharing some of my favorite baby gear. If you’ve been following my Instagram, you’ve seen almost everything on this list in that feed at least once or twice, because they’re all items I use ALL the time.

If you have any baby must-haves, let me know in the comments!

The list:

  • Ollie Swaddle (Wallace has already grown out of his but they are so soft and comfortable- plus amazing for taking pictures. You can also check out my swaddle roundup to see all of the types we’ve tried.)
  • B-Safe 35 carseat from Britax
  • Pacifier clip from Chompy Chic
  • A tag blanket (Great for entertaining babies in the car and larger ones can be used as a little blanket.)
  • Robeez boots
  • Nursing pillow from Bebe au Lait
  • A Milk Snob Cover (This can be used as a carseat cover, a nursing cover, a blanket- you name it. I love a piece that’s versatile.)
  • A nasal aspirator aka booger sucker (I’m 100% not in charge of this thing at our house.)
  • DockATot (A great idea for a group gift for a baby shower- I know this isn’t in everyone’s budget but I can say that we use it a LOT, so you’ll absolutely get your money’s worth.)

DockATot

Also, my favorite diaper bag combination has been my FEED bag with a Tote Savvy insert. You can use the insert to transform any bag or purse into a handy diaper bag, and it’s so easy to take the tote out when you just want to swap bags, without having to dig through it and reorganize. Super handy.

Thanks for watching this week’s episode!

 

A post shared by Jill Krause (@babyrabies) on

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Operation 3 Car Seats and a $100 Giveaway
BabiesReviewsToddlers

Operation 3 Car Seats and a $100 Giveaway

by Jill
written by Jill

3 kids can sometimes seem like A LOT of kids. Mostly when I remember I only have 2 arms, or when I recall there are only 2 grown ups in this house, or when I think about squeezing them all in one vehicle.

The bad news is there really isn’t anything I can do about the 2 arms or 2 adults thing. (I mean, unless we take on a sister wife, which… maybe?) The good news is we managed to get 3 car seats in the back of Scott’s car this week, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

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We plan to sell my Jeep Grand Cherokee before the baby is born, and upgrade to a 3 row vehicle. It will likely be the Honda Pilot. We test drove it last fall, LOVED it. LOVED the way it worked for our family (and YES, we considered a minivan so thank you in advance for not telling me how we should really consider a minivan). We are also currently test driving a Chevy Tahoe for the week, but so far the Pilot is still our front runner.

Anyway, we’re putting that off as long as possible because we like not paying for the cars we’re driving as long as possible. Not exactly thrilled at having another car payment, but hopefully we can time it so that we’re not paying on a new car until we’re done paying for Kendall’s pre-school (summer program). So the moral of that is I’m not too worried about the car seat situation for my vehicle, but I was worried about Scott’s car.

Magic Beans, a baby and kids retail store based out of Boston with a fantastic online shop- mbeans.com, hooked me up with 2 new carseats, and we managed to figure out the perfect combo to make all 3 work across the back seat of Scott’s 4 door sedan.

We wound up keeping Kendall in his Britax Frontier booster seat that’s he’s had for about 2 years now. That’s behind the driver’s side. Leyna switched out of her Britax Marathon and into a Diono Radian RXT. She’s in the middle seat. The baby will be riding in a Chicco Keyfit 30 infant car seat behind the passenger side.

IMG_3875

It was like solving a complicated puzzle, and there were a lot of safety factors to take into account. I consulted with a couple friends who are certified child passenger safety technicians. This seemed like the best combo for the 3.

The big, huge difference was moving Leyna out of the very wide Marathon and into the very narrow RXT.  I was worried it was going to be too narrow for her at first. I mean, she’s not a petite girl, but she seems comfy in it. We’re just going to have to make sure she knows not to use baby’s face as a foot rest.

(I’m really not too worried about this. If it’s a huge deal, we’ll try to switch her seat and Kendall’s, but I’m hoping she’ll be able to figure out that’s just not a thing we do when there’s an actual baby in there.)

3Carseats

I loved looking around the MBeans.com site for the best seats. They had every seat I was considering (and that most people recommended on a very insightful thread on my FB page). Sometimes it’s nice to look at an actual baby/kids store for a curated collection of the best stuff over just randomly scrolling through reviews on Amazon. I knew that whatever I ordered from MBeans.com was going to be great, because they only carry great stuff.

In fact, as I started to go through the rest of the products they sell, I found so many of my very favorite, tried and true items for baby- things we have used and loved for years. I even started a new Pinterest board called Tried & True For Baby, and pinned stuff I can personally vouch for that worked great for my family and my friends’ families.

So I’m really excited that I get to offer one of you a $100 store credit to Mbeans.com! Because I know you will find something (probably lots of things) that will be really useful for you if you’re expecting, have a baby, or a toddler.

To enter, you’ll need a Pinterest account. All you have to do is head to the MBeans.com site, check out what they have to offer, and pin something you would like to get if you won. You can pin it to whatever board you want.

Follow the directions and enter via the Rafflecopter widget below.

*Disclosure- MBeans.com provided me with the carseats at no cost to me in exchange for this post.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Pregnancy

“I’m in love, I’m in love, and I don’t care who knows it!”

by Jill
written by Jill

With just one day away from being 14 weeks pregnant, I *think* I’m in my second trimester. I certainly feel like I’m in my second trimester. The incessant hangover has faded and there are days that I can get away with not taking a nap, although just because I can doesn’t mean I want to. Naps are so glorious. Why we have to stop taking them after kindergarten is beyond me. This world would be a lot nicer, I think, if everyone would just crawl into bed for an hour and a half after lunch.

There are days, I will admit, for hours on end that I forget I’m pregnant. I’m not looking very pregnant yet. I mean, depending on the outfit and what I had to eat, I might have a tiny bump at the end of the day, but it’s gone the next morning, leaving me in a body closely resembling that of my sophomore year in college, complete with beer gut and EXCELLENT rack. The girls are back in town, yo. OH how I’ve missed them!

Unfortunately, I’ve cleaned my closet of all those clothes that fit that old body, not that they were appropriate for a pregnant mother of a toddler to begin with. Something about squeezing into faded, fitted Abercrombie shirts/Express halter tops and daisy dukes doesn’t really scream “responsible mother” for dropping Kendall off at school twice a week. I’ve purchased some maternity clothes here and there, but I’m not filling them out at all. It’s a very awkward stage for me.

Now that I’m not laying around, wallowing in my own self pity anymore something is starting to happen that I didn’t think was going to affect me this time around. (No, really. I just blogged about this on BornFreeMom.com.) I’m starting to get antsy about STUFF, baby stuff. Mainly? Strollers. Lord help me and my bank account.

I still have my Quinny Buzz, which I adored with Kendall when he was little, but honestly haven’t used it much lately. We use the Maclaren Volo when we’re out for short trips and the BOB Ironman has seen the most mileage since we take him for runs/walks in it very often.

I have no idea what to do about the double stroller situation. I am 99% sure that we will for sure need a double jogger, and that I want that to be a BOB Duallie Revolution. I’ve already told Scott to plan to put money aside from the tax return next year for one and I’m scouring Craigslist every day. If our single jogger is any indication, this will be the stroller that gets the most use.

At first I was okay with that being our only double stroller and keeping the Quinny and getting a new infant seat to snap into the frame for the baby when I take him/her out solo or Kendall’s holding daddy’s hand. We would have to get a new infant seat for it because I sold the original Maxi Cosi Mico we had. It sucked. We hated it. The shade was way too short and the straps always got tangled. Plus, the buckle was super annoying. Well, the only option for the Quinny now is the slightly re-designed Mico (with updated straps, but same shade) or the Safety 1st OnBoard 35, which I can’t find any reviews on and just not really loving. Ideally, I’d love to get a Chicco, Graco or Britax infant seat, but none of these are compatible with the Quinny frame.

Also, I wonder if I’ll want a more lightweight, easier to transport double stroller? The single BOB is hefty enough. I can’t imaging lugging the double in and out of the mall every time we go.

And yes, I plan on wearing the baby frequently, but it’s not within the realm of my reality to expect myself to baby wear enough to not need to put two kids in a stroller on many occasions.

Then the other day I had a wonderfully insightful email exchange with The Baby Guy NYC(@thebabyguynyc) and he introduced me to the soon to be released Britax B-Ready stroller (he writes about it in this Stroller Traffic article, and you can see more details here). Oh my goodness. First, I’m shocked it’s by Britax. I’ve never been a huge fan of their strollers (but love their car seats). I love it… so far. Of course, I haven’t seen it in person, but everyone who has has told me it’s as fantastic in person as it is in pictures. I love that it, like some other strollers we’ve considered, can function as a single or a double, but with far more configuration options than those others. I love that I can use the Britax Chaperone infant seat in it with the provided adapter, and that that adapter can stay on the infant seat while in use in the car (or I could purchase a separate adapter and use the Chicco infant seat). I know many don’t like strollers with one seat in front of the other, but the way I see it, by the time the youngest is old enough to protest it’s view, Kendall will hopefully be old enough to not be in the stroller anymore. Plus, I really think if that’s all the kid knows, then are they really going to complain? They can still see out the side.

I will say the one configuration that makes me go “hmmmmm??” is the one with the infant seat on the bottom, rear facing. I have to wonder if I’d kick the baby accidentally, and Scott pointed out that it would have a lovely crotch view the whole time. I guess I’d have to see it in action to understand.

Of course, there’s the cost issue. I’d definitely have to sell the Quinny (which I think I can still get a good sum of $$ for it since it’s in excellent condition). I can’t believe I’d ever even consider selling my Quinny ( I specifically got a job at Right Start while pregnant last time for the discount so I could afford it), but it’s just not super practical any more. If I keep it, I’ll probably only end up using it like a Snap & Go with an infant seat I’m less than excited about.

I realize these are such stupid, trivial things to worry about. I do. It’s just, for some reason, it’s something my brain keeps coming back to. And really, what I need to do is just get over it. I need to get back to my first trimester, miserable feeling state of mind where I didn’t care if I pushed the baby around in a hi-jacked grocery cart lined with old blankets. That was a much less expensive solution, although, admittedly not nearly as stylish.

How did you handle/ do you plan on handling the double stroller situation?

Kendall is 2 years old and still requires being strapped down in public and I’m just about 14 weeks pregnant

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BabiesPopular PostsStuffToddlers

The car seat debate and how we came back to backwards

by Jill
written by Jill

Kendall is 20 months old and, by my best guesses, at least 31 pounds. That’s 8 months and 11 pounds over the MINIMUM requirements for turning his car seat around to face the front. So why, you may wonder (as many do), do we still have him rear facing?

Well, being a digital mom, I find that I come across all the latest studies, newest concerns, and recall notices pretty quickly and easily. It’s almost like they find their way to me, my inbox, the message boards I frequent, my newsfeed, my Twitter stream. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all the things I’m supposed to be protecting my child from. It’s also easy to get caught up in a bit of the online hysteria that seems to evolve around these announcements (Hello, Maclaren recall of ’09. Is it bad I still haven’t sent in for that piece yet? All fingers are still safely attached to every one’s hands. I promise it’s on my list of things to do.).

Knowing that, I do try to take a step back, take a deep breath, and do a little bit of research before, for example, rushing out to get the H1N1 vaccine. I also talk to my pediatrician and ask for her advice since, you know, she’s a real doctor, not a Google one.  So imagine my confusion when I read about the safety benefits of keeping your child rear facing as long as possible (meaning up until they reach the MAXIMUM height and weight requirements for rear facing in their model of car seat), but didn’t hear the same bit of advice from my own pediatrician. To her credit, when I brought it up last year, she said it was my choice. That I could switch him now, or I could choose to wait. She seemed to not be passionate (or maybe even informed?) about the subject.

So I went back to the computer and looked at websites like the American Academy of Pediatrics, which states in an article released in April 2009:

New research indicates that toddlers are more than five times safer riding rear-facing in a car safety seat up to their second birthday…Toddlers should remain rear-facing in a convertible car seat until they have reached the maximum height and weight recommended for the model, or at least the age of 2.

Then I watched this crash test video and others:

By the time Kendall turned a year old, I told myself we were going to keep him rear facing as long as we could. As long as it worked for us.

As the months have passed by, I’ve been questioned by friends and family members.

“You know he’s old enough to face forward, right?”

“When are you going to make the big turnaround?”

And my answer has always been, “We’ll do it eventually. No big hurry.” Occasionally I’ll say something like, “Research shows it’s actually safer to keep them rear facing as long as possible,” but then I get looks like I’m some sort of hyper parent, one step shy of wrapping him in bubble wrap, putting too much credit in that crazy internet paranoia.

I also get a lot of, “He’s going to like the car so much better when he faces forward!”

Kendall has hated the car since day one. His colic was never cured by a drive in the car, unless it was a drive down a rocky dirt country road. To this day, he makes car rides miserable. I know my attention to driving suffers because of it. It’s become even worse as of late. Maybe it’s because of all the time we spent on the road over the holidays, or maybe it’s because he’s so attached to me that he can’t bear to be separated from me, even in the car. Whatever the reason, it’s dreadful most of the time we are driving somewhere together.

Also, as I mentioned, the boy is huge. It’s pretty difficult and painful to lift a 31 lb kid in and out of the middle seat when I have to fight to get him restrained, especially when he can lock his legs against the seat in front of him. It’s killing my back and my wrists. After a particularly nails-on-chalkboard-esque car ride two weekends ago, we made the decision to turn his carseat around, hoping that this was the change he needed to finally be happy in the car. I figured since he could now see me in the car he’d quit screaming for me.

The 4 hour drive to Austin last weekend started well. He seemed pretty happy with his new orientation, taking in the sights from the front window. It certainly was much easier to hand him things to keep him happy. Conversely, it was also much easier for him to chuck his Snack Trap at me when he discovered there were Goldfish in it and not sections of a clementine.

We left when we did that day in the hopes that his 2.5 hour nap would take up a good chunk of the drive. He napped for no more than 40 minutes, total. I think it was the combination of the stimulating new view, his legs dangling off the front of the seat, and the fact that he wasn’t as reclined as he used to be. His head kept bobbing to the front, waking him up. The drive home later that night (much later) was even worse. He was so tired, but it was obvious he couldn’t get comfortable. Plus, throughout both legs of the trip he screamed at me even more. Apparently now being able to see me meant he had even more motivation to screech until he got my attention (thank God Scott was driving).

That did it. When we got home I told Scott that if I had to listen to his screams regardless, I was at least going to do so knowing he was seated in the safest position possible. The car seat is turned back around, and will stay that way until he reaches 35 lbs (the maximum weight for rear facing in a Britax Marathon) or an inch from the top of the seat (based on this tutorial for measuring that).

Of course, I’m still faced with the giant pain in the ass that is getting him in and out of the seat, but I think that would be alleviated if his seat moved to the side of the car. However, I worry about side impacts. I didn’t know what outweighed the other in terms of risk. Was forward facing in the middle safer than rear facing on the side? And what about airbags? Is it good to have them? Should they be turned off?

I asked Christie Lasch, a friend and certified Child Passenger Safety technician through Safekids.org and this is what she said:

You can move him to the side. Side curtain airbags are safe to use with car seats in most cars. Double check in your vehicle’s manual, but it should be safe…otherwise people would never be able to have more than one child in a car seat at a time! The side curtain airbags fill much more slowly than the frontal airbags, so they aren’t as forceful, and they’re more meant to block a lot of the glass and debris than to actually absorb shock, or that’s my understanding at least.

The most common type of crash is a frontal crash, the least common is a rollover accident, but side impact is third at only approximately 11% of crashes. Frontal crashes make up 44% and rear 31%. So, while in a side impact collision, the middle would be safest, the likelihood of you being in a side impact collision is much lower than that of a rear or frontal crash. However, in a side impact collision, a forward facing child is 4 times more likely to be injured than that of a rear facing child, according to the study cited in this article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9916868/

We have yet to move the seats to the side, and may hold out a bit longer, but that does ease my concerns a bit, especially when it comes to eventually having more than one kid seated back there.

I know this information, this recommendation, is not mainstream. It’s not something my pediatrician, like many others, would have ever even suggested had I not brought it up myself. It’s obvious by the many comments I get that the vast majority of people are unaware of the safety benefits of keeping your child rear facing as long as possible, so this post is sort of my contribution to fighting the mainstream and passing on the links and information I found helpful in making this decision.

Please know that I’m not meaning to say that parents who don’t choose to keep their children rear facing are un-safe. I just think many people, who aren’t as connected to the internet community as I am, are simply not aware of the information out there and don’t get the opportunity to make an informed decision.

Here are some more links for your reference:

http://www.research.chop.edu/programs/carseat/toddler.php

http://www.childrestraintsafety.com/rear-facing.html

This is a pretty powerful YouTube video about an 18 month old who was injured in a forward facing car seat during an accident:

Please feel free to post any other links you found to help you in your decision to keep your child rear facing or to turn them around in the comments below.

Kendall is 20 and a half months old and 4 pounds shy of reaching his car seat’s maximum weight for rear facing. I’m looking into other car seats that may allow him to stay rear facing longer.

Edited to add the following about the concern of a child’s legs being too long:

I understand some people think children will become uncomfortable as their legs start to get longer. It was a concern my husband had, too. Personally,  I actually like to ride with my legs propped up on the dashboard in a similar position (obviously when I’m a passenger). That’s the way I sleep on our long car rides. I’m not concerned. Kids are also incredibly flexible, and more importantly, adaptable. What may *look* uncomfortable to us probably doesn’t even cross their mind.

As for the concern of legs being broken in the case of an accident, there have been no documented cases of this, according to CPSafety.com, and I’d rather worry about a broken leg than a broken neck.

This is another wonderful video that shows several pictures of larger, longer children rear facing. As you’ll see, they don’t look to be screaming from discomfort.

This is an online gallery with even more pictures of older kids rear facing. It can be done!

http://www.cpsafety.com/articles/RFAlbum.aspx

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