She's beautiful, healthy, and never lets us sleep. Well, recently she started sleeping about 5 hours straight in the night, give or take a few.....and it's a new trend that's not quite consistent. But it's a start.
While I have so much to share from my other mom/dad friends and recent hands-on experience, let's just start with something that inspired me to hop on the computer today after my two-month hiatus from this blog called PRODUCT RECALLS.
Summer Infant is one of my favorite brands, but apparently no ironclad institution is 100% safe from product trial and error. Unfortunately, the error occurred with their Baby Bather......and babies were actually in them when these errors occurred. Whoops! According to complaints from parents, the mesh seat seems to be ripping away from the frame causing babies to fall into the tub below resulting in a handful of skull fractures and a more sizable number of minor injuries.
So don't buy the Summer Infant Baby Bather unless you secretly hate your child: http://www.babycenter.com/204_2-million-baby-bathing-seats-recalled-after-head-injuries_10372087.bc However, we really like a lot of the Summer Infant Products. Don't throw all their babies out with the bath water just yet.
For instance, we're big fans of the Swaddle Pod - http://www.amazon.com/Summer-Infant-Newborn-Swaddlepod-Ivory/dp/B0033UVJOU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346805301&sr=8-1&keywords=swaddle+pods. My good friend Alyssa introduced these to me and OMG, they have a lot to do with Little Miss Emley Marechal sleeping consecutive hours in the night. These are fabulous for many reasons, the top two being that you don't have to actually know how to swaddle a baby AND that there is an easy access zipper from the bottom that allows you to change diapers without taking them out OR freeing their arms.
In the middle of the night when you are exhausted, changing a diaper can resemble dismantling a bomb. A BIG SMELLY BOMB. These will help you do so. In fact, We rarely put her in a newborn night gown. What's the point when you have to swaddle newborns anyway? And anything allowing their arms to be free will only result in scratches to their own face and waking themselves five minutes after you've taken three hours to lull them into dreamland.
Also, we are also big fans of the Summer Infant Sleeper - http://www.amazon.com/Summer-Infant-Rest-Assured-Sleeper/dp/B004J7VHVG/ref=sr_1_2?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1346805350&sr=1-2&keywords=summer+infant+sleeper You can place this in your bed for easy middle-of-the-night-breast-feeding access. After my c-section, nothing could have been better.....unless someone had an extra pair of boobs to spare. And after you've either healed from surgery or you're simply ready to have some space back to yourselves in the big bed, you can place this sleeper into your baby's crib so that they get a feel for their new, more permanent surroundings. In fact, you can place it anywhere. The living room, the kitchen; it even collapses and travels well to grandma's.
For an up-to-date listing of recalled baby and children items, I prefer the Baby Center: http://www.babycenter.com/child-safety-recalls?scid=momsbaby_20120904%3A2
