Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Basic Baby care and a slight change in plans

Class last night was quite good (as we have come to expect from this instructor). When we arrived, Jeff joked that we were taking this class for him, not for me. Although that was much of why we took the class, I learned a lot of information and got some "hands on" experience with certain things. We were walked through swaddling (something new for me), umbilical stump care, circumcision care, diapering with both cloth and disposable diapers, a variety of options for baby wipes, sponge baths, regular baths and dressing the baby. Apparently the next class, Preparing to be a Parent is much more vital and has lots of important information in it.

One of the topics discussed was diapering and cloth diapers. Susan (the instructor) went over some of the things she would be concerned about with washing your own cloth diapers, including a build up of bacteria in a dry pail. Although I have been able to find nothing to support this, it did get Jeff and I talking again about whether a diaper service is more feasible than washing our own diapers. I came home and began rereading everything I could find about washing cloth diapers and noticed one thing I had somewhat overlooked. Most sites suggest at least a double rinse and a presoak. Seeing as we do not have our own washer and there is no control allowing for either of these things in our apartment laundry room, we have decided that using a diaper service is our best option. In addition to the lack of our own washer, if my Fibromyalgia comes back, having less laundry to haul back and forth from the laundry room is definitely a good option.

So, I have gone through our gift lists and updated them, removing several items we won't need (cloth diapers, large wet bags), leaving ones we will (small wet bags, diaper covers) and adding information about giving a gift certificate for the diaper service we will be using.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think that is the smartest move. Glad to see you are looking at all of your options. :) - Erin