Follow Up

Everyone's been giving me such great advice and asking questions, that I thought I'd just put together a quick post that responds to some of it.

• We found a good wedge to prop up the rockers of the moses basket stand and keep it at an angle, and now I am just going to go to T@rget tomorrow to pick up some cheap doorstops because the rockers want to slide down the wedge since we have hard wood floors. But, the spitting up in her sleep is getting better (hope I didn't just jinx it by "saying" it).


• The flatfold diapers as burp cloths idea is a good one that I've heard from lots of people, but we are using prefolds instead because then I can use them as actual diapers too! :)


• Sunning the stained diapers got out most of the stains, but the dirty diapers from the batch I'm washing tomorrow are soaking in a bucket of concentrated O*xyClea*n overnight (T's idea) and hopefully that will make the sunning just a bonus instead of a necessity.


• Evie is still enjoying 1/2 formula and 1/2 breast milk at this point because until today I only had one donor's milk and we were going through it fast as it was, mixing it 50/50! Today we got to meet milk mommy #2 and brought home lots more frozen breast milk, so we might start making bottles with 2/3 breast milk and 1/3 formula for awhile. We also discussed trying all breast milk during the day and all formula at night (for convenience), but I'm afraid that might confuse poor little Evie. At this point, despite our fabulous, wonderful, generous milk donors, we aren't going to have enough to feed her breast milk exclusively, unless we decide to pay shipping costs and bring in more from other parts of the country. That's fine with me, I'm just grateful for any and all breast milk that we receive from our donors because it makes me feel great to know Evie will have the benefits of the antibodies during the upcoming cold/flu season, and all of the other benefits of breast milk. Soon we'll go pick up milk from milk mommy #3 and I'm hoping that we'll have enough to keep Evie on 50% breast milk for a long time.


• I like Safire's idea about pinning the bibs down, but I'm afraid it would drive me crazy because she pretty much goes through a new bib with every feeding (messy girl!) and I'd be constantly pinning and unpinning them, so I've just decided to stop putting a bib on her when she's asleep. Deanna, we do have a sheet saver for the crib, but because we only have one I tend to think of it being more for diaper leaks than for spit-up. I guess I need to get another one for when the first is in the laundry!


• In answer to Hilda, there are a couple of ways to find breast milk. One is to go to a milk bank, where donors are thoroughly screened and anonymous, but you have to pay for the milk. You don't need a prescription, but you probably do need to prove it is for a baby (...don't ask...). The other option is to go the private route, as we are. There is a Y@hoo! group called "MilkShare" that I joined awhile back. The group is designed to match up women with excess pumped breast milk with babies who need it for whatever reason. The primary rule of the group is that pumpers are not allowed to request money from the people they give milk to. The only reimbursement is to give them a new box of breast milk storage bags, if they need them. Donees do pay shipping, however, if the donor is not local. We found one of our local donors through MilkShare (thanks Bonnie!), another through a friend (thanks Diana and Hillary!) and another through this blog (thanks Angela!). All three have donated frozen milk to us and are going to try to keep pumping and freezing extra for us when possible. I was also contacted by a few other donors outside the local area, but we haven't decided yet whether the value of the milk is equivalent to the shipping costs to transport frozen milk overnight so that it doesn't thaw and spoil. The downside to private donations is that sometimes you have to work hard to search out donors (we were lucky to find ours easily) and you have to do your own screening process. Milkshare suggests you ask for a copy of the donor's pregnancy bloodwork, which shows whether or not they tested positive for a variety of viruses etc.

I have to stop typing now, I need to sleep, but here is a parting gift; Evie showing off her cute little cloth-diapered tush:

p.s. Hillary, come over anytime!