There’s nothing like an ear-splitting midnight tantrum to keep you on your toes.

I’m not sure what it is, but Baby Champuru hates it when I change her diapers. Cloth or disposable, it doesn’t matter. She’s equally infuriated. Come to think of it, most often, changing her clothes provokes the same response. Perhaps it’s the state of being bare that annoys her.

Tonight, she was particularly bothered and made the entire neighborhood aware of it. I swear, sometimes I think she’s going to render me stone deaf with her wailing. It’s the kind of cry that makes you think that the world is ending.

Apparently, in addition to being wet, she was hungry, too, but after only ten minutes of nursing, she’s knocked out right here on my nursing pillow. Feeding has a sedative effect on her, it seems.

She usually sleeps for 3-4 hour stretches at night, but we’ll see. With only ten minutes’ worth of food in her tummy, it is likely that she’ll be up in 2 hours, ravenous and grouchy.

Wish me luck while I attempt to put her down and get some sleep before the next feeding.

It’s been a week since we’ve started using cloth diapers on Baby Champuru. Although I was gung-ho about using cloth diapers prior to baby’s arrival, we were using disposable diapers for the first month or so because her skinny little bum was too small to fit in the cloth diapers initially. People also gave packages of Huggies and Pampers as baby gifts, in addition to the wonderful diaper cakes that my friend Pam and sis-in-law Rene made for our baby showers, we had quite a stash of disposables. I thought our supply would last forever, but I was amazed to find how quickly a package of 40 diapers goes. We’re talking 4 days if you’re lucky. That’s right, a newborn goes through about 10-12 diapers a day!

After our supply of disposables were exhausted, we bought 4 packages of diapers ourselves at $13/each before I decided to take the plunge and actually put the cloth diapers we purchased to use. I was spoiled by the convenience of changing and tossing dirty disposable diapers. Handling and laundering dirty cloth diapers was a little daunting to me.

Once I actually started using the cloth diapers, and laundered my first few loads of diapers, I realized how easy it really was — and I didn’t even get poop on my hands! By far, the pocket diapers are my favorites: Bum Genius and Happy Heinys. I have a few Swaddlebees (all-in-ones) that fit really well and are super absorbent, but they take a long time to dry. I also tend to like the velcro closure of the Bum Genius over the snaps of the Swaddlebees. My least favorite, but most cost-efficient, are the prefold diapers with the Thirsties diaper covers. The prefolds are a little less convenient, especially with a squirmy newborn kicking and screaming on the changing table. Folding it, getting it under baby’s bottom, then fastening it with a Snappi diaper fastener are not always an easy task, depending on baby’s mood at the time. The Thirsties diaper covers are excellent, though!

They all seem to be equally effective in containing the pee/poop. I haven’t experienced a leak (yet), even in spite of some pretty explosive poops.

We have saved about $26 after a week of cloth diapering. That’s over $100 a month! Sure, there’s the initial investment to be made when buying the cloth diapers, but you recoup that after the first few months. If you’re thinking of going with cloth diapers, I would encourage you to do so. If a germophobic newbie mom like me can do it, so can you.

If you’re looking for convenience, the pocket diapers are the most like disposables. One-size pocket diapers like the Bum Genius seem to be the best value since they are adjustable to fit your baby from 8-35 pounds.

The only down side of the cloth diapers is that they are quite a bit bulkier than disposables. As a result, I’ve started putting her in the 3-month size onesies, since the newborn ones tend to be pretty tight. That’s sad because about 80% of her newborn onesies have never been worn.

As Baby Champuru is fast outgrowing her newborn wardrobe, I’m wondering if there’s a way to sell those items that no longer fit? It’s all about reduce-reuse-recycle! Of course, it would be nice if we can actually get a little something back at the same time.

My parents’ car is in the shop undergoing a major repair, so I’ve been their primary mode of transportation for the past week. Luckily, they’re both retired and don’t go out very much and their transit needs are minimal. This morning, however, mom had a doctor’s appointment, so we coupled that with a trip to Costco.

Hubby was off today, so he stayed home with Baby Champuru. Being that he doesn’t possess the proper equipment to breastfeed her, we decided to introduce her to the bottle. We had been putting it off for as long as possible, but knew that we’d have to do it eventually if we ever hoped to have someone other than me care for Baby Champuru for longer than an hour or two. She’s just over six weeks old now and firmly established with the breastfeeding, so we figured that the risk of nipple confusion at this point is pretty low.

When I got home, Hubby reported that Baby Champuru LOVED the bottle — perhaps a little too much, in fact. As we’ve heard, babies tend to overeat when bottlefed, since it’s so much easier to draw the milk from the bottle than by the breast. The good news is that she took to it well and when I nursed her later on, she didn’t have any problems latching on and feeding like normal. The bottle will be used sparingly, only when I am not available to feed her, which shouldn’t be very often.

Now that we’ve introduced Baby Champuru to the bottle, we are one step closer to planning that elusive date night.

The disposable diaper stash is running low and I figured that Baby Champuru must be pushing 8 lbs. by now, so I thought I’d try out the all-in-one cloth diapers on for size. The cloth diapers look bulky if you’re used to seeing baby in a disposable, but thanks to the wonders of elastic and velcro, it fits nice and snug around the waist and thighs.

The first diaper I put on Baby Champuru was a cute pink Bum Genius one-size diaper. Not even a minute later, while she was still lying on the changing table in fact, I heard a productive fart which could only mean one thing: poop. I gave her a couple of minutes to finish up, then changed her diaper. Of course, everything was contained and there were no leaks, but that wasn’t a good test since she hadn’t moved from the position she was in when I put on the diaper.

Luckily, I had a another all-in-one diaper prepped with an insert ready to go. (It’s the one you see in the photos.) I’m not sure what brand this all-in-one is, but I bought it at Baby aWEARness because it was so cute. It’s pink and has little fairies on it! An hour went by, another poop, and no leakage. So far, so good!

She’s on her third cloth diaper today: a butternut Bum Genius one-size cloth diaper. I’m wondering how well they will fare with a pee.

Thanks to the innovations of cloth diapering that makes it so easy for parents, there are a few less disposable diapers in the landfills today.

Sweater set handmade by the talented LuckyKat.
(Thanks, LK!)

First of all, check out the knit sweater and hat that LuckyKat sent to Baby Champuru. Isn’t that just the cutest thing you ever saw? Some people are so talented!

You’ll notice in the photo that Baby Champuru is sucking on a pacifier. I received mixed reviews about pacifier use. As with most things, we figured the “everything in moderation” tenet would apply here. We’ll use the pacifier sparingly and in the following circumstances:

The first time I introduced her to a pacifier, she took to it quickly and I was amazed how it settled her immediately. Her little arms and legs stopped flailing and her face, flushed red from screaming, had taken on such a peaceful expression that was just priceless. However, there are times when I try to offer her the pacifier and she spits it out and refuses to take it.

For the past couple of days, it seems like sometimes only the boob will do and even if it’s only been an hour since her last feeding, I’ll nurse her to settle her. And of course, it works every time. Maybe she’s getting ready for a growth spurt — or she’s just discovering the voracious appetite that she inherited from her mommy and daddy, veteran gastronomes.

Just under six weeks and already this girl has a mind of her own.

We have an Arm’s Reach Co-Sleeper that was received as a baby shower gift and it is the single most useful thing we own for baby.

Having baby right next to me without having her in our bed is imporant to me.  I am a heavy sleeper (yes, still) and if she were in the other room where her crib is, she’d likely be crying for an hour and work herself into a red-faced tantrum before I am roused from my slumber.  With her no more than a few feet from my eardrums, the smallest stirring or whimpering will awaken me from a dead sleep.  It’s also convenient to have her literally at “arm’s reach” for those 3 am feedings.

The co-sleeper attaches securely to our bed, but can also be converted to a free-standing bassinet or a playard.  It’s portable (breaks down to 10″ x 10″ x 32″ and weighs 32 lbs.) and comes with a travel bag. Our family is going to Turtle Bay Resort for the weekend to celebrate our niece’s birthday, and while we were considering attending, the co-sleeper was definitely on the packing list. However, after speaking with our pediatrician, he recommended against going out in public while baby is still less than two months old, especially during flu season (October through mid-May), so that’s a no-go.

Her crib is used mainly for daytime naps, but we will transition her to the crib once she outgrows the co-sleeper.  I can tell that the transition will likely be harder on me than on the baby.