So many firsts!

Well, Juniper is now the ripe old age of 10 days. I know that still seems pretty young, but I'm actually a little bit flabbergasted that time has gone by so quickly. Of course, every day brings a whole host of new experiences for Juniper, but it also brings many firsts for me and Clark as well. I thought it might be fun to share some of these, before they simply become old hat, and we forget how new and exciting and sometimes bewildering they were to begin with.

1. Swaddling

Every night is a new adventure, and a new test of our ability to function in the wee hours of the morning with little to no sleep. We are slowly learning, by cues and by trial and error, what the best ways are to make sure that all three of us emerge at least semi-well rested for the day to come. Ha! (a touch of sleep-deprived sarcasm). But really, we are trying very hard!

One technique that I had been reading about while I was still pregnant was swaddling - a way of wrapping a baby up nice and tight so that they literally can't move around. Apparently, this is supposed to be incredibly soothing and calming, particularly in the first few months, as it mimics, in many ways, what it felt like to be in utero. Of course, despite diagrams and step-by-step instructions, it is a skill that must be learned and perfected before it's all that useful. And the trial and error can be very frustrating, especially at 3 am with a displeased newborn.

The first time we seemed to accomplish a semi-proficient swaddle at night and put Juniper in her basket, she was actually incredibly calm, despite being wide awake and alert. But somehow, neither Clark or I were comfortable having her all pinned down and unable to move around. All it took was one little gurgly choke/cough, and we quickly turned on the lights and promptly unwrapped her for the rest of the evening. We have since developed thicker skin, and have tried swaddling her at night multiple times since then. We have not yet perfected the technique, in part because I don't think we have quite the right blankets. Maybe tomorrow we'll buy a bunch of muslin at fabricville and see if that works any better. We basically don't swaddle her at all during the day, because there's always someone to hold her and snuggle her in their arms, and she has absolutely no problems sleeping when she's being snuggled.

2. Cloth Diapering
Heeding advice from numerous different cloth diapering friends, Clark and I decided that we would probably just plan to use disposables for the first month or so, despite the fact that we had already purchased, washed and stuffed our cloth pocket diapers before Juniper was even born (therefore making them all ready to go). Yesterday, however, we decided we were ready to try the cloth out, way earlier than we had even planned. We had feared that they were maybe still a little big for Juniper, but they seem to fit her marvelously. In fact, having now tested them out for 2 full days (and one full night), we have nothing but wonderful things to say about them.

We opted for a one-size pocket diaper variety called "Bum Genius". They are incredibly user-friendly, will fit Juniper from now until she's out of diapers, and come in a lovely range of fun colours :) Most of all, however, Juniper seems to be very comfortable in them, we have had no problems with leaking (despite some bogglingly massive poohs that would have no doubt shot out the front and back of a disposable diaper - I say this from experience), and they wick away wetness as well as, or better than the gel-filled disposables. Even the "pure and natural" and "chlorine free" disposables we had been using have this mosture-wicking gel, which is one of the reasons we were so keen to switch to cloth even earlier than we had planned. We (and by we, I mean my mom) have already washed a load of them, and then Clark hung them out to dry, which is really a very cute site to behold. Anyway, so far, the cloth diapering has been awesome.

3. Bath time!
We had not been feeling any particular need to bath Juniper for the first little while, as the one part of her that ever got really dirty was washed multiple times a day anyway. Then, however, we discovered the deep crevices of her neck folds, and realized that a thorough wash was in order. So Clark donned some swim trunks, drew a body-temperature bath in the bathtub, set up the ingenious little bath bed that we had been given as a hand-me-down, and the great bath experiment began! I was very trepidatious that Juniper was going to be displeased by the whole process, but she actually seemed to rather enjoy herself. She was very alert and content for the whole thing, and didn't even protest when we brought her out and towelled her dry. Success!

The one disconcerting thing was that her little feet and hands turned a bit blue, and in our attempts to warm her up suffciently, I think we managed to give her a bit of a heat rash. Ei yie yie. Live and learn, I suppose.


4. Out and About
From our last blog post, it was evident that we got out and about pretty early on, which actually felt incredibly liberating. We never ventured anywhere further than a 5-10 minute walk from our house, however... that is, until yesterday. Arming ourselves with diaper changes and whatever else we thought might come in handy, we plopped Juniper in her carseat, drove downtown, transferred her to a carrier, and then spent an hour or two wandering around, doing errands etc. This might not seem like a huge deal, but it felt monumental! Today we did the same thing, except that she woke up and got hungry part way through, this meant putting up with some Juniper-sized wails until we found a good place to sit, and I breast-fed for the first time outside of the house. This felt pretty huge for me. I actually found it pretty difficult without all my pillows and props and comfortable seating that I've gotten used to at home, but it at least worked well enough to quiet her down again and put her back to sleep. I'm sure this will only get easier as she gets bigger and develops head control, etc.


5. Other stuff?
I know there's more than this in terms of firsts, but I feel like I just wrote a novelette, so perhaps that is good for now. Honestly, I really didn't think that Juniper would stay sleeping for this long - she's been snuggled against my chest for the last 3 hours or so... if only she'd sleep like this in her bassinet at night! We got a surprise visit from Theresa yesterday, which meant that is the first time Juniper met her auntie - that deserves a picture! Keep checking back, as we are long overdue to post a swack of new pictures on picasa. We'll send a link when we've done that. If we (and by we I mean Clark) can figure it out, we may even post a video or two.