Article link1 : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231896/When-Daddy-goes-deaf-How-men-really-DONT-hear-babies-crying-asleep.html

Article 2 http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/143188/Sleep-patterns-Yes-dads-do-turn-a-deaf-ear

One of the conclusions they found was that men’s sleep is not as likely to be disturbed  by a baby crying as a woman.  For the most part I can believe it, but I sure do wake up fast when our baby cries in the middle of the night.  I don’t think I’m overly sensitive, but I am a light sleeper and this definitely woke me up.

I particularly liked this quote:

“These differing sensitivities may represent evolutionary differences that make women sensitive to sounds associated with a potential threat to their children while men are more finely tuned to disturbances posing a possible threat to the whole family,” said psychologist Dr David Lewis.

But then they describe what men wake up for:

1. Car alarm
2. Howling wind
3. Buzzing fly
4. Snoring
5. Noise from drains
6. Crickets…

Since when are crickets a threat to the whole family?  Not sure I get that.

Anyhow, I’m sure some of these would keep me from getting to sleep, but would I actually be awoken be a dripping tap?  I think the jury still is out on that one.

I believe that men and women would react differently to the sound of a baby crying, especially their own baby. (I don’t recall it bothering me much before we had our own.)  But I always wonder about these studies and the intent behind them.

Car alarm

Howling wind

Buzzing fly

Snoring

Noise from drains

Crickets

Emergency sirens

Clock ticking

Drilling/workmen

Dripping tap

From the US Consumer Product Safety Commission

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), in cooperation with Stork Craft Manufacturing Inc., of British Columbia, Canada, today announced the voluntary recall of more than 2.1 million Stork Craft drop-side cribs, including about 147,000 Stork Craft drop-side cribs with the Fisher-Price logo. The recall involves approximately 1,213,000 units distributed in the United States and 968,000 units distributed in Canada…

Go To The Full Announcement

We just moved to a new house and my office was situated right across from our daughter Ella’s room. It is convenient if she needs anything, but also the noise computers can generate can be a problem.

Especially the keyboard.

Ella can’t stand the sound of typing on a keyboard and I can’t blame her. The sounds of computer typing like there are two caffeinated mice running around in a cage. Unfortunately, since I write a lot, that’s pretty much all I do on my computer. Additionally, I also owned the cheapest old PC keyboard in history and setting it on a wooden desk just made it sound even more like there were squirrels trapped in the walls. So I needed a solution fast.

After a few fruitless searches (why does Best Buy keep so few keyboards on their shelves anyway?) I found the perfect winner.

The Logitech K300 which I termed the “ninja stealth” keyboard.

It satisfied all my demands:

1. It was relatively cheap.
2. It didn’t need to be wireless.
3. Had to have normal, full-sized keys.
4. The keys are quiet!

In fact, this thing is nearly silent. I was impressed.

It also had the additional benefits of:

1. Being low profile which I find easier to type on.
2. Backlit button bar on the top which just looks kind of cool.

So if you’re in the market for a quieter keyboard, I’d consider this one. It’s priced at about $30.00. Anything cheaper seemed to be the old noisy kind, and there are a lot of more expensive models for gamers and ergo-fetishists.  I chose the middle-way.

The price sure is right and now I can type and Ella can get her snoozes without interruption.

The idea behind it as that, as sad as it is, there many people who ignore their baby’s speech development while they chatter away on their cell phones.  The original article is on the New York Times website and is a good read.

I have always been a firm believer in speaking to my baby in a normal tone of voice and respecting their ability to learn and understand me.  (Of course their’s always time for goo-goo ga-ga talk on the changing table or what-not.)  But to never talk to them seems to me to disrespect their understanding and to want to relegate them to some unimportant observer as opposed to a participant in our family life.

Our baby at 11 months doesn’t have a lot of words, but the few syllables she does have we try to respond to.

It will be interesting to see how it pays off in the future, but encouraging speech is a proven way to avoid crying frustration for toddler’s who have trouble making their needs known and resorting to what “worked” as babies, namely pointing, grunting, screaming and crying.  All things that have their place as baby’s, but not as children.

Sit 'N' Stroll

The Basics

We just took a trip to Hawaii this past summer with our 9 month old daughter.  We got several recommendations from friends and family to try the Sit ‘n’ Stroll convertible stroller made by Triple Play Products.

After looking it at it online it satisfied my requirements which were:

• To have  a child safety seat on the plane. No way am I traveling for 5 hours with a baby on my lap in knee-crunching coach class.  Way too dangerous and way too uncomfortable for everyone.

• We had scheduled a lot of tours that required bus and cab travel on the islands. So we definitely needed the car seat here.
• Lots of walking on these tours so a stroller was again needed.
• We would be dining out a lot so we liked the idea of using it as a booster seat.

After deciding it would be way too hectic to carry a stroller and a car seat through 2 airports it was an obvious choice t spring the $250 or so dollars for the seat.

The hard part? Locating a seller who actually had this product in stock. I guess since it has no competitors there is a high demand for it and consequently most places seemed to be out of stock indefinitely.  I was nervous I wouldn’t get it ordered in time, but at last I was able to order it from Amazon.com. (If I did it again, I wouldn’t wait until the last minute to buy it!)

Tip: One week before you go on your trip, take it out of the box and use it at least once daily for a walk or something to break it in a bit and get used to using it.  It’s not difficult, but getting the hang of collapsing it and expanding the wheels smoothly takes a bit of getting used to especially with twenty pounds of baby in it.  You don’t want to be figuring this out as you get in the security line.

My Experience (Week 1):

Airline flight

Since it was our first flight, I felt a bit nervous wondering if this somewhat large stroller would fit through the tiny tunnel of the X-Ray machine.  I was relieved to see it emerge out the other side and we didn’t get any questions and went on our merry way.

Boarding was interesting and we did get a lot of suspicious looks from the flight attendants who wondered if a) the stroller would fit down the aisle or  b) if it would fit in the seat.

It turns out the stroller/seat was a bit too wide for the aisles (on United Airways at least) and I ended up lifting up over the seats and the targets heads of the nervous passengers already seated. The attendants seemed a bit flustered until we actually got the seat installed. The good news was that it did fit (snugly) in the passenger seat.

Note: They required we use a window seat for the baby-seat. I don’t know if it’s a regulation, but they were definite about that.

We tried it facing backward as in a car, but that didn’t work out too well and we turned it around to face forward.

Tip: The seatbelts for UAL are very short were just barely long enough to fasten the recommended way but we were able to after a bit of struggling.

Tip: The shiny buckle turns out to be an intriguing toy. A great hint my wife discovered was to put a sock with the toe cut off over the buckle keeping the germy thing from being touched and also reducing the likelihood of having to refasten it a thousand times during the flight.

1 Week Hotel Stay

The week was spent driving to a lot of destinations during the day and going to dinner. So the experience was pretty routine, but we did try what the instruction manual suggests and got a “water noodle” and cut it down to size to prop up and level the baby seat while driving. This seems like a design flaw and I would hope a newer version might address this issue.

We went to many restaurants, but we never did use it as a booster seat. It seemed like overkill.  I suppose if you have a toddler this might be more useful, but it seems a bit cumbersome to have on a chair.

Based on the feel of the thing, I would follow their recommendation and not try to lift the front wheels up by pressing down on the handle. It feels as though this would break it quickly.   I ended up just lifting the front with my hands while my wife lifted by the handle.

Week 2:

7-Day Cruise

Bus Travel

Typical of cruises, there were a lot of bus tours in Hawaii and we spent several long days traveling to destinations.  In general, most buses don’t have seat belts and we just wedged her in the seat and hoped for the best. I never did feel comfortable with this, but we lived with it.

Security

Getting back aboard a cruise ship these days seems to be almost as harrowing as air travel. We had to go through a security line and the worst one was on ????. We finally got our baby to sleep in her stroller and they would not allow us to go through security without having to remove her (waking her up) and inspecting the thing from top to bottom.  Really annoying, so be aware of it as you make your plans.

Airline Flight Home (Hawaii -SFO – Denver)

The flight home was a bit more interesting than our first one.

First, the stroller got stuck in the x-ray machine. So they had to hand-inspect it.

Then, there must be some residue on these strollers from manufacturing, but they swiped it and found some explosive material(!) This is definitely not going my way.

Okay, so they hand inspect it looking for who-knows-what and they tell me they have to search me, my wife and our baby. That’s right, they actually patted down our 9-month old baby.  I guess I could’ve gotten upset about it, but it was so ridiculous I could only laugh.  I could tell the security woman felt a bit stupid having to frisk a baby.

So, lesson learned, it might be a good idea to wipe down this stroller before you do any traveling. Just to be safe.

Summary:

I would recommend this product mainly because it’s the only one that I have ever seen like it. I think it could be better, but it got us through our 2 week trip and that was all I expected. So it didn’t disappoint.

Pros:

• Designed to be the do-it-all product, will replace your stroller, child seat, booster seat.
• Seemed to be durable enough, but doubtful it would handle any real punishment.
• Lived up to it’s functionality.

Cons:

• Sometimes can be hard to lock into the stroller position or collapse fully into a seat, especially if your child is in the seat.
• Not the most durable stroller in the world, the handles would likely be the first thing to go if you don’t follow recommended usage.
• May not fit down the aisle of all airplanes, requires heavy lifting if child is in the seat.
• May make TSA and airline attendants nervous.

Where To Get One

To buy this stroller you can find it here http://www.babyearth.com. (This is a sponsored link which means if you go there and buy it I get a small amount of money. The price is the same either way, but if you don’t feel comfortable with this, here is the non-sponsored link.)

Please leave a comment if you have any questions about this stroller or if you’ve used it and have a differing opinion, I’d be happy to hear your experiences.

Yahoo Buzz is reporting a 19.2 lb newborn baby.  I notice there’s no smiling photo of mommy on this one.  It was a cesarean thankfully for her.

http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/93042

It’s hard to tell the diff between real and fake these days, but the photos are amusing enough.

The other day I thought I’d have a pint of pilsner, how harmful could that be?  Of course the little peeper chose that night to sprout new teeth and stay up half the night. But that whole night seemed to go on forever, no matter how many hours of sleep we ended up with, it never seemed like got any rest.  And holy crap, it was the next day when it really hit me. No hangover, but a total dragged-out feeling all day long.

Jeez, who signed me up for this on-the-wagon stuff?  I thought I’d need a beer occasionally having a baby, but watch out if you do!

But now she started shrieking. Not just a little happy shriek, but a full-blown eardrum shattering squeal.
Our windows face the park and I’m waiting for the Department of Human Services to break down our door, armed and ready, after being reported on by a Concerned Citizen hearing her howls from the park and calling 911. Hopefully that won’t happen, but I guess we’ll see.

Meanwhile, I have to remember to hold her mouth clear of my already sore ears. If you are near Erie, CO and hear anything that sounds like brake-pads fighting to maintain their grip on the wheels of a runaway DC-10 that will be us.

I’m just hoping this is another “phase”.

No, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.  In fact, it may be a good thing!

It seems to be an old tradition that was abandoned and has been gaining popularity now for quite awhile.  Basically, it is just wrapping up a baby tightly enough that they can’t move their arms and legs, so they give up trying and can fall asleep.

Some perceived downsides of swaddling:

1. Barbaric, out-of-date.
2. Restricting the child’s movement will lead to issues later in life. Which issues? Who knows, but probably something to do with a fetish for handcuffs or something made of leather and chrome.

Some benefits of swaddling:

1. Baby can’t jerk themselves awake — the Moro Reflex which is cute and humorous during the day but becomes suddenly very annoying after rocking a baby to sleep for an hour at 3:00 AM.
2. Babies feel secure, like in the womb and will be able to sleep longer and more soundly.
3. So far, we have struck it big with the swaddle. I highly recommend it, but be warned — if your baby isn’t sleepy and you put them in a swaddle and a pacifier, they begin to look something like Hannibal Lecter in full straightjacket. It’s kind of sad and my guilty conscience starts nagging at me to free them until they actually are ready for bed.

My favorite products for going the swaddle route:

1. Miracle Blanket, for when they’re teenie-tiny sized babies.
2. Halo SleepSack (with swaddle) when they get a bit bigger. (After the child gets big enough to roll over, they don’t include the swaddle to avoid suffocation.) They have a lot of larger sizes up to like 2 years old, which seems maybe a bit much, but who am I.  If they made them for adults, I’d plunk down the cash.
3. Certainly if you wanted to you can avoid the products altogether and just use a blanket. But unless you add duct tape you are likely to have one free, wiggling, awake, baby.

Good luck, and happy swaddling.