Thursday, August 26, 2010

questions

couple quick questions:

what do you all do with food stained clothing? arden is really enjoying feeding herself. the problem is when she puts her little hands down at her sides. any food in wiped all over her pants. i can't be stripping her down anytime we are feeding her. well, i could but there will be times where it's an inconvenience.

what i've been doing is rinsing the clothes right afterwards. i try to get the food out as much as possible. then, before they go in the wash, i use a spot remover. sometimes this doesn't work. i would really like to be able to use arden's clothes more than once. also, i don't like to use harsh chemicals. the more natural suggestions, the better.

next question is regarding naps. arden is a great night-time sleeper. not so easy with naps. we have gotten to the point where we are CIO. i didn't want to do this, but arden was resisting everything. she was working us over like a pro. now, we've only been doing this for 4 days, but man is it rough. i just wanted to see if anyone else has gone through this, or is right now. i've got questions like: how long should i let her cry, what if she doesn't nap after an hour, do i keep her up until the next sleep time, how do i keep her awake, how do i not pull all my hair out?

phew, i hate nap time. and stains. :)

6 comments:

  1. i have no answers for either - we have tons of stained clothes and havent even attempted lying her down for naps yet (she naps in our arms or in the stroller). im no help! looking forward to hearing what others say tho...

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  2. Try washing the clothes and then drying them in bright, direct sunlight. It usually bleaches the stains out.

    Not napping is awful, but I don't really have any suggestions for you since we didn't personally deal with not wanting to nap past 6 months. With CIO though, it's all about what you're comfortable with. Try giving yourself an interval...like going in after 10 minutes of crying, calming her down, leaving again for another 10 min. I hope you can figure it out!

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  3. If you want super-duper-hippie-natural, my mother swears by peeing on fruit stains. I'm not endorsing it myself, just passing it on.

    We highly endorse those smock-like bibs that have the fully-arm-containing sleeves and the apron with the pocket. That usually restricts the mess to the pants, and it's not nearly so bad to clean up (especially with darker pants as most of J's seem to be).

    As for naps - nighttime sleep is more seamless and calm than naptime transition, but there's usually less than 10 minutes of protesting involved during the naps. I think my attitude is that if no nap has happened within half an hour, then I'm willing to get up and give it another try when signs of tiredness manifest themselves again... but that really doesn't happen anymore.

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  4. Honestly Kat, everyone is going to give you a different suggestion. I was at the same crossroads you are, but you know what? In the end, I realized that it didn't matter how many blogs I read, or questions I read the answers to- in the end I realized that I just needed to trust myself, and do what you feel is the best combo for both of you. I know that sounds vague and cop-out-ish, but I think that you should sit down with yourself at a quiet moment, and think about how you feel about letting her CIO. I felt H needed to learn a little lesson, some people feel it is unnecesarily cruel. Evaluate your own feelings and you will know what to do. I PROMISE. Then make a plan, and stick to it. I swear, this phase will not last forever. And, in regards to the food stained clothing dilemma? I don't care if you don't ;). Besides, they grow out of those clothes so fast, that when baby 2.0 or higher comes along, you can always use the nasty shirts as jammies.

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  5. J is a super messy eater, so he exclusively wears ikea smock-type bibs when eating (cover arms and entire torso, if only they would cover his pants too!) If he's eating something really juice-producing like a ripe peach, we have to layer with a thicker cloth bib so it doesn't soak through. I don't wash things right away, but use stain remover (the nasty chemical kind) and we resign ourselves to a certain amount of staining as inevitable, and not an impediment to continued wearing of the clothing. Sometimes stains fade with repeated washing if I don't put the clothes in the dryer. I've noticed that the enzyme cleaner we got for cat messes claims to remove any organic stain, so that might work if you want to avoid harsher chemicals.

    We periodically go through load naptime resistance (sometimes he quiets down quickly, sometimes, not so much). It was rough when we first started the CIO, but it got a lot better with time. Still, sometimes there are relapses. If he's been crying for >1/2 hour and is so worked up I don't think there's much chance he'll go to sleep, I'll get him up and try again an hour later. We don't have a rigorous schedule for naps, but put him down when he seems tired.

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  6. Baking soda and white vinegar are wonderful laundry tools. For tough stains, you can make a paste with baking soda and water, apply directly to the stain and then allow to dry. Add 1/2 of white vinegar to the wash and you'll notice that everything comes out cleaner.

    If I recall, for naps and CIO, you are supposed to keep to a very strict schedule. Down for a nap at the same time everyday. Leave them alone for at least 1 hour, sleeping or not, then get them up after that set amount of time. And then don't put them down again until the next scheduled naptime.

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