Baby Skincare: Which Brands are Right for You?

When our little balls of joy make their exits from the womb, one of the last things you want to worry about is what products you are using on your baby's skin.  It often goes like this in real life: You enter Target. You're exhausted. You're down tot the last diaper. You baby has a ridiculous rash that you can't seem to fix. And just when you thought your baby was comfortably sleeping in the stroller, your little cherub is now screaming quite loudly at you because they've had ANOTHER BLOW OUT!!! AHHHH!!! Sweat drips from your exhausted and furrowed brow as you stare blankly at the ENDLESS amounts of infant skincare on display.

So how do you choose what's best for your baby?? We already have the incredibly daunting task of figuring out how to feed these tiny humans while also sorting out their sleep patterns - and our new lack of sleep pattern for that matter! If that isn't bad enough, we then have to sort through endless brands of diapers, wipes, butt creams, baby wash, baby lotion, and children's sun screen too.  Babies and Toddlers have the softest skin on the planet and the goal for all parents is to keep it that way. But what do we do when there are so many potentially threatening chemicals in our children's skincare products??

Check out the latest episode of Mamalogues to get all of our thoughts on Skincare products that we like and use for our babies! We will also give you a coupon code from Happy Little Camper! We also will tell you what we think about these wonderful and chemical free wipes that we are sniffing!!

Sleep!

By Kate DelPizzo

One thing every new mom is guaranteed to hear soon after her baby is born is some variation of the question, “Does he sleep?" This query can (and will) come from anyone and everyone she encounters: good friends, family, acquaintances, co-workers, other new moms; heck, I even had a total stranger at CVS ask me when I was waiting in line to buy some baby item that was designed to make my son’s gas miraculously disappear (hint: Colic Calm is magic in a little bottle).

When my son was born, I learned very quickly that he was NOT a good sleeper. His tiny eyes were always wide open, looking around the room, taking in every sight and refusing to close. He was happiest when he was surrounded by a crowd of people and fought like the dickens whenever it was time to go down for a nap or to bed at night. My reports from daycare would read as follows: "Ben napped for 20 minutes...all day."

As other new moms were exclaiming with joy that their 10 week olds were giving them 6 hour stretches at night, my little guy was waking up every 45 minutes and refusing to sleep once 4am hit unless he was being held and rocked simultaneously. It was around this time that my husband learned to excel at sleeping in motion and I got pretty good at googling "how long a person could actually go without sleep?"

By 4 months, I started doing some serious research on sleep training. I learned all about the various methods: extinction, Ferber, Sleep Lady Shuffle, Babywise, pick up put down, Pat/shush; you name it, I read about it. I joined Facebook groups about sleep training. I read about the pros and cons of sleep training. I convinced myself that I was crazy to sleep train. Five minutes later, I convinced myself that I was crazy not to sleep train. I even went so far as to get the number of a sleep consultant who touted "a good night's sleep is closer than you think."

At 5 months, when the sleep deprivation was getting real, and I was surviving on coffee and the occasional lactation smoothie, I decided to bite the bullet and call the sleep consultant. My husband and I filled out an extensive questionnaire, cleared things with the pediatrician, and booked an immediate Skype conference with the hopes of getting one step closer to that ever so coveted “good night's sleep.”

Our 60 minute consultation covered everything from temperament and nursing habits, to comfort level with different methods of sleep training and evil "sleep crutches" impacting my baby's ability to self-sooth and sleep independently. It even instilled a glimmer of hope that my restless son could (and would) eventually sleep through the night or at least for more than 45 minutes in a row.

We decided, since my son was rather persistent, to try a more extreme version of sleep training, where we would put him in his crib awake, let him cry for 45 whole minutes before entering the room to calm him down and repeat the process over again. It seemed brutal, and I was hesitant to agree, but our consultant ensured us that this method would take about 3 or 4 nights and result in his learning how to sleep independently.

On that first night, we did our typical nighttime routine (bath, lotion, pj’s, nurse), but instead of letting Ben nurse to sleep (aka evil sleep crutch), I handed him off to daddy who topped him off with a bottle and plopped him into bed... wide awake. Truth be told, I then raced out the door and immediately drove to Wendy's where I purchased a huge order of fries and a frosty. If the wine store hadn't been off limits, due to frequent breastfeeding and disinterest in pumping and dumping the liquid gold that is breast milk, it would have easily been my next stop.

I decided to call my husband and check in with him about the process. We had agreed that it would be best for me to leave the apartment after putting the baby down, because my hearing him scream would have been helpful for no one.

To my great surprise, my husband told me that the baby had "fussed" for about 10 minutes and then had fallen sleep. It was a miracle. The child who had lungs of steel, had actually fallen asleep without a major fight! 

Despite this win for our team, my husband urged me to come home to relax because "the worst was yet to come." I wish I could say that this wasn't the case, but unfortunately he was right.

That first night, Ben woke up around 1am, (an improvement from past nights). I went in to nurse him, as we had agreed to sleep train with 2 overnight feedings, fed him, and put him back down in the crib... awake. I left the bedroom and had high hopes that he would fuss for 10 minutes and return to sleep. For about 2 minutes, my delusions of grandeur were real and the baby merely "fussed".  After that, however, the lungs of steel kicked into high gear and he began to wail.

I had the immediate urge to go in and hold him, but we went through with the plan, and let him cry for 45 agonizing minutes, before my husband went in to comfort him and we began the process over again. By the end of the night Ben had cried and cried and cried and cried, my husband and I had yelled and cried and screamed and cried, but ultimately the baby had put himself to sleep.

As the process went on, each night got easier and by night 4, things were much smoother. Although Ben was still putting up a fight, he was crying less and sleeping more. My husband and I were less irritable and finally feeling slightly rested and in better spirits. Although "sleeping through the night" was still a ways away, the nights of waking up every 45 minutes were behind us for the time being (I'll save sleep regressions and nap transitions for another time).

In conclusion, I would be lying if I said this process was simple, worked immediately and made my son an amazing sleeper. It was hard, time consuming and exhausting. It made me question myself as a person and wonder if I was a horrible mom for letting my kid cry. Heck, I am sure there are several people who will read this blog and think that I am a mean mommy for sleep training my son and letting him cry at such a young age. To those people, and to all mommies in general, I say this: Being a mom is deciding on what is best for you and your child and trying your best to see it through to fruition. It isn't the same for every family and it won't always be pretty. Sometimes your kid will cry for 45 whole minutes, you will feel horrible, and end up questioning your decisions. But no matter what, as long as you love your child with all your heart and try your best, you are doing a great job.

Sleep well mommies!! ‘Til next time.

Hello and Welcome!

Hello and welcome to the Mamalogues Blog! This is the home for longer pieces about the pleasures and pitfalls of pregnancy and parenting by members of the Mamalogues community. We always aim to give you the best advice on a range of topics that we struggled to find information on during our own journeys in pregnancy and parenting. Enjoy!

Check out the Mamalogues YouTube channel for new videos every Tuesday.

For tips, tricks and articles, follow us on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/mamalogues123/ 

Exercise During Pregnancy

By Cassy Pressimone Beckowski

Whenever a friend asks me for pregnancy advice, “Exercise!” is my go-to answer. On more than one occasion, my enthusiasm has been met with a dubious smile or exhausted stare. And I completely get it. I remember how utterly wiped out I felt during my entire pregnancy.

But I can’t help myself. I’m convinced that exercise was the magic ingredient keeping me from falling apart – at times mentally, at times physically – during my pregnancies.

You may already be doing some guesswork about the kind of person I am. Let me assure you – I am not someone who grew up a natural-born athlete. As a middle schooler, I tried to be a sprinter because I thought it meant I’d have to do less running. In college, I started running to counterbalance the large quantities of cheese fries and ice cream on which I subsisted. I started running even more in grad school to manage stress and to make up for the half a pizza I could polish off in a sitting. And yes, I run even more now, and yes, I eat less pizza (because I have to share it with my kids), but I am by no means a fitness guru.

Nevertheless – I am a big fan of exercise during pregnancy. Here are a few of the reasons it made a big difference for me.

Exercise gave me some time to myself. When I was pregnant with my second son, I had a two-year-old at home clamoring for my attention. Those naps I had enjoyed during my first pregnancy? Those hours of watching TV with my feet up? Yeah, that never happened second time around. One of the best ways for me to actually hear myself think turned out to be exercising. For me, that often meant running. Sometimes it meant walking. Sometimes it meant yoga. Regardless, when I was exercising, I was doing something good for myself and the little guy in my abdomen, and it often gave me the space to mentally decompress that I needed.

Exercise alleviated some of my pregnancy aches and pains. I was lucky to have two healthy, low-risk pregnancies, but that does not mean that I felt great all of the time. For example, the larger my belly grew, the greater the pain in my low back – a dull, persistent ache that left me squirming in my office chair. But pelvic tilts – one of the simplest exercises out there – almost instantly made the pain go away. Some days, I would head into the bathroom at work and take a few minutes to merrily tilt away. Was it worth the occasional awkward run-ins with colleagues? You had better believe it.

Exercise empowered me. I happened to be in pretty good shape at the start of my second pregnancy, so with my OB’s approval, I kept running throughout the whole 42 weeks (you read that right). There was something about weaving belly-first through the throngs on the Wildwood Boardwalk that made me feel like a total badass (even though I’m glad there’s no video footage). And when I logged a few miles on a treadmill on my due date, I felt more confident about my impending labor. Whenever I was feeling anxious during my pregnancies, exercise always helped me to feel like I was in control.

Exercise helped me mentally prepare for labor, delivery, and everything that followed. Remember how I said I was in good shape at the start of my second pregnancy? My first pregnancy was a different story - when I found out in August that I was expecting, I had just gotten back from an amazing road trip that involved LOTS of eating. My first trimester was hot and uncomfortable, and my feeble attempts at running left me feeling drained. I ended up turning to prenatal yoga, which was a game-changer. I learned yogic breathwork (pranayama) and poses that strengthened parts of my body that I would need for labor. I practiced mindfulness that helped carry me through some pretty agonizing Pitocin-induced contractions and later helped me cope with sleepless nights as I attended to my crying infant. Also, I was able to practice prenatal yoga in my living room, thanks to a great selection of classes available on what continues to be one of my favorite websites – YogaDownload.com. 

Exercise during pregnancy motivated me after pregnancy. Taking care of a newborn (or a newborn and a toddler) is exhausting and time-consuming, and makes showering – let alone exercising – seem impossible. Because I was used to making time to exercise during my pregnancies, however, I was able to make it a priority to resume exercising once I had recovered from delivery. All of the benefits I had experienced when I exercised during pregnancy – getting some personal space, feeling healthy and in control – continued after I had my babies. And while it took way longer than I had hoped it would, I did eventually lose my baby weight. Exercise probably helped with that, too.

So now that I’ve made my case, I’ll dish out my usual pregnancy advice – while you’re expecting, consider making exercise a regular part of your self-care! Of course, you should talk to your doctor or midwife before you begin any new fitness program, and be sure to set reasonable goals and limits for yourself. I wish you and your baby a happy, healthy pregnancy!