Handy Burpee Has Many Practical Uses

You may not have heard yet of a certain product that was developed by a mom. You know the story: she had a problem and found the solution, and realized that it might be a solution for many moms in similar situations. The product is the Handy Burpee.

You can see her story here , and what I'm going to tell you about is the actual product. I asked Sheila to send me a Handy Burpee so that I could see how useful it would be for a baby past the "burping" age. I provide day care for a baby who is now 11 months old who was a BIG spitter early on. I did not provide care for him then, and if I did I would have a closet full of Burpees! But even a couple of months ago, he would spit up during play for no reason at all. So I have been able to test the Burpee for a number of purposes, which I will get into below.

First, I have to say that the Handy Burpee arrives in the cutest little package with information and a drawstring organza bag. "This would make a great gift!" was my first thought. The print was so cute, too. The sewing of the product is impeccable (and I'm picky) and the quality of the flannel is first rate. Overall, a well-made product. But would it prove useful?

Let me start off by saying that for the past month, we have been sick. I've not seen so much snot in one house at one time. And if you have a baby, you know that every time he cries, the snot pours out. Eeewww is all I can say. The Handy Burpee really comes in "handy," pardon the pun, when runny noses abound. It is thick and absorbent enough to wipe up spit-up pools from your beautiful hardwood floors, and it is soft and pliable enough to wipe little noses all day. The pleat in the Burpee provides extra fabric so you can literally (if careful enough) use the same Burpee all day long.

While you can learn about the original use for the Burpee at Sheila's website, I would like to encourage you to purchase this product because it is useful past the point it was intended for. It's WONDERFUL for protecting your hand when burping a little one, but its use does not end there. So it would be well worth your money to invest in a few (or six) Burpees if you have a very spitty baby.

To summarize, the Handy Burpee can be used for

1. newborn babies who spit up a lot when burped
2. crawling babies who still spit up when they play (to wipe off the baby, floor, toy, etc.)
3. snotty noses.

Buy one today and you'll see what I mean!

The Colic Cure: The Mystery of the Fourth Trimester and How to Calm a Colicky Baby

….and get some sleep in the process!

New babies are such a blessing, but they can also bring with them sleepless nights, crying, and sometimes quite a bit of stress. We can help you become less frustrated with the baby (aged 0 to 3 months) in your care!

We believe every child is a precious gift and those entrusted with caring for them should be well educated and well informed! Learn an extraordinary approach to keeping your baby happy.

The Happiest Baby On The Block method formulated by Dr. Harvey Karp, addresses these issues by helping you learn how to effectively recreate the environment of the womb, outside of Mom's body. Once you have learned the steps, you will be able to alleviate some, if not all, of your baby's colic symptoms.

Dr. Karp believes that babies, especially in their first few months of life, can experience "fourth trimester" issues. Babies can have a difficult time getting used to the huge amount of stimuli present in life outside of Mom's body. Their reaction to all of this is to cry and cry.
Colic is essentially non existent in several cultures around the world.

The 5 S's:
There are 5 components to this method which, when used together, work amazingly well to calm your crying baby and in many cases help your baby go to sleep with no fuss. Using cross-cultural techniques combined with his own research, Dr. Karp has developed the "five S's system". Some babies will need all five, others just a few to help induce what he calls the "calming reflex."
Swaddling - Tight swaddling provides the continuous touching and support the fetus experienced while still in Mom's womb.
Side/stomach position - You place your baby, while holding her, either on her left side to assist in digestion, or on her stomach to provide reassuring support. Once your baby is happily asleep, you can safely put her in her crib, on her back.
Shushing Sounds - These sounds imitate the continual whooshing sound made by the blood flowing through arteries near the womb. This white noise can be in the form of a vacuum cleaner, a hair dryer, a fan and so on. The good news is that you can easily save the motors on your household appliances and get a white noise CD which can be played over and over again with no worries.
Swinging - Newborns are used to the swinging motions that were present when they were still in Mom's womb. Every step mom took, every movement caused a swinging motion for your baby. After your baby is born, this calming motion, which was so comforting and familiar, is abruptly taken away. Your baby misses the motion and has a difficult time getting used to it not being there. "It's disorienting and unnatural," says Karp. Rocking, car rides, and other swinging movements all can help.
Sucking - "Sucking has its effects deep within the nervous system," notes Karp, "and triggers the calming reflex and releases natural chemicals within the brain." This "S" can be accomplished with breast, bottle, pacifier or even a finger. These steps sound pretty easy, but seeing them done properly, in conjunction with each other, is the key to relieving your baby's colic symptoms and making Mom, Dad, and baby less stressed and much happier!

Why does it work?

Dr. Karp has uncovered 2 facts that began to put everything into focus for him. First, he learned that there are profound differences between the brain of a 3-month-old baby and that of a newborn. During the first few months of life, babies make massive developmental leaps. This accounts for the huge gap between how parents in our society expect new babies to look, and act, and their true behavior and nature. His second pivotal discovery came when he began to read about child rearing in other societies. As he explored the musty shelves of old books and journals at the UCLA Library, he was shocked to learn that the colicky screaming that haunted so many of his patients and their parents was totally absent in the babies of several cultures around the world! The more he investigated this issue the more he realized that although our culture was advanced in many ways, it was very backwards when it came to understanding the needs of babies! Somehow, somewhere we had taken a wrong turn. He began to realize our ideas about babies' crying had been built upon centuries of myth and misconception.

In many ways, the peoples living in primitive cultures seem ignorant and backward. However, in some areas their wisdom is great…and we are actually the "primitive" ones. This is particularly true when it comes to understanding infant crying. While researching information from the past and then blending them with cutting edge modern research and his own unique observations, made while caring for more than 5000 young babies over the years.

Although today’s mothers and fathers are very well educated, they are the least experienced parents in history. No wonder even loving parents sometimes feel pushed to the breaking point by their infant’s screaming.

Our guest author, Becka Marsch, is a parent educator and has worked in the preschool and child-care fields for almost 15 years. She is the mother of three children, ages 7, 4 and 2 months. You can visit her Web site at http://home.nc.rr.com/talktome baby/index.html.

Feeding Practices that Cut Down on Baby Gas

It's commonly accepted that all babies have gas at one point or another, and some babies are much more gassy than others. If you have a baby that tends to get gassy a few times a day, make sure you are following these simple tips to prevent as much of this as possible:
1. If you are breastfeeding, watch for foods that seem to irritate your baby. Usually the first culprit is dairy. But anything that you eat that your baby is allergic to can cause problems, so pay attention to what you ate when the gas symptoms appear.
2. Do not give your baby cereal before 4-6 months of age. Babies are not ready to digest cereal until at least 4 months, and while it is a common suggestion to keep formula down, it is not a good one. While you are trying to get rid of reflux, you will create another problem by giving your baby something that he or she is not ready for, including gas, intestinal upset, and even allergies.
3. Make sure you use the age appropriate feeding nipple for your baby. If you got second-hand bottles and nipples, you may not realize that they come with different age ranges. Newborn nipples have smaller holes, and nipples for older babies have larger holes. This is because newborns don't need to get overwhelmed with a large flow of milk, and also because it simulates nursing from the breast. Older babies are more agressive and require more milk at each feeding. If you feed a newborn with an older baby's nipple, your baby might gulp, swallowing air in the process. She could also eat more than she would have with a newborn nipple. Overeating and swallowing air are two factors to consider if your baby gets gassy frequently. A great bottle to try is Dr. Brown's .
4. Hold your baby at the proper angle when nursing or bottle feeding. The Pollywog nursing pillow is great for this. It works wonders for reflux babies, and helps with gas also.
5. Don't forget to burp your baby frequently if bottle feeding, and when switching breasts if you are breastfeeding. Try different positions for burping. The common position which tends to work fairly well is holding your baby's chin and leaning him forward a bit with his body resting on your forearm/hand.
6. When all else fails, use gas drops. You can get Mylicon gas drops at your local drug store. You might also want to try a natural remedy for gas and colic, such as Gripe Water.

There is nothing worse than an uncomfortable baby. Following these practices consistently and making sure to keep gas drops or Gripe Water on hand when gas becomes a problem will insure that your baby is gas-free. Now that doesn't mean she won't cry, as I'm sure you have figured out. There are still a ton of other reasons for crying, but at least you've got this one down!

Praying When Your Baby Won't Stop Crying

If you are religious, you already know what I'm going to say, and if you are not, you probably didn't make it past the title. :o) But this is important, nonetheless, and I share this because I know that God does work in our lives for our good, and He does answer prayers.

When my son was a newborn, I was a wreck. He was delivered via emergency C-section after 16 hours of labor. He spent the first day in the NICU with hypoglycemia. Although I visited him every 3 hours to nurse, it just didn't seem to be going too well and by the time we left the hospital, I felt we were doomed. Then the crying started.

You know what I mean. They are perfect angels until you pull them out of your car and they smell "home." Since he was my first baby, I didn't know what normal was, so I didn't know he was crying excessively or what to do when he did cry. I was just trying to heal myself, keep him fed, and get him to sleep. Evenings were the WORST. He hardly slept at all, and he really didn't sleep at night. Every day, something different worked, and sometimes, nothing did.

I will never forget when I was at the end of my rope one morning after a bad night. Morning wasn't much better and I found myself crying as well. I couldn't take it anymore. Finally, yes FINALLY, I prayed and asked God to either give me the patience to endure this or stop my baby's crying. Almost immediately, the crying stopped. I don't know why I was surprised, and yes, I did kick myself for waiting until I was about to lose it to pray. Isn't that what we always do? We cry out to God once we're in dire straits; we don't ask him before we get there.

I decided then that I would start each day asking for a peaceful day. I slacked (a lot) and again found myself about to lose it with my baby. Again, I prayed, and again- the crying stopped. Now I don't pretend that God always gives us what we ask for. But He certainly does bring us to Him for our needs, doesn't He?

My "baby" is 5 now. We both survived, and now we learn together about the things God does in our lives and how He works them out for our good.

Changing Station Incliner

I will never forget the nightmare of changing my son's diaper. It's not what was IN the diaper, but what would inevitably come up every time someone put him flat on his back. Of course back then, that was the only way to change a baby! But not anymore. Inventive moms with the same problem I and many other mothers have, developed products to help keep that breast milk or formula down.

The changing station incliner goes under your existing changing pad and has a non-slip surface under your changing pad as well as on the bottom. While this is a no-brainer for babies who spit up constantly, you might also consider a changing station incliner if your baby simply cries when flat on his or her back. Spitting up is a good sign of reflux, but even if nothing is coming out, it doesn't mean your baby doesn't have reflux and isn't in pain. This is one invention that I wish I had 5 years ago. At least I know if I have another spitty baby that there are lots of things available to me that weren't back then!

Wrestling with Reflux

This story was written by guest writer, Jennifer Milner.

June 28. My daughter is 2 ½ weeks old, and morphs overnight from a snuggle bundle that eats and sleeps all the time into a raging, inconsolable animal who cries for hours at a time. My friends with kids nod wisely, saying, “Wow, colic came early to your household. Get ready! But don’t worry; it peaks at 6 weeks and goes away at 3 months.” At this point I’m not sure I’ll make it to three months.

July 2. My daughter is 3 weeks old. Every fiber of my new-mommy being tells me this is not colic, despite the books and online sages. I read up on “colic” and know that this is not it; colic seems to occur for a couple hours every day, at the same time of day, usually early evening. My daughter cries throughout the day, into the wee hours of the morning. She cries five minutes into a nursing session, arching her back and stretching her tummy out. She pushes herself off of me, screams, then pulls herself hungrily back to my breast. Her eyes are outraged, anguished, and tears stream down her face. She spits up frequently, often copious amounts. I must look further for an answer to this, and am trying to hang on until her four-week appointment next week. At this point, I’m pretty certain she’ll be an only child.

July 5. My daughter is 3 ½ weeks old. A girlfriend of mine listens to my story and tells me my daughter might have reflux. Turns out her son had reflux, which was not diagnosed until he was four months old. After going on medication, he turned from angry baby to happy baby overnight. I look up reflux in The Baby Book by Dr. Sears, and almost cry with relief; the list of GERD (gastro-esophogeal reflux disease) symptoms could have been written by me to describe baby girl. He lists several non-medical solutions to bring reflux relief, which I make note of. Baby girl’s 4-week checkup is in a couple days and I’m reluctant to act without medical confirmation.

July 8. My daughter is 4 weeks old.

And she has reflux.

I am so happy!

When our pediatrician confirmed my suspicions about reflux, I almost wept with relief. Having spent almost two weeks with a distraught baby and knowing instinctively that there was something wrong with her other than “typical” baby “colic”, I felt a huge burden lifted when a name was put to my daughter’s disease. After discussing baby girl’s symptoms in depth, our pediatrician agreed that it sounded like reflux. We talked through the non-medical interventions I’d found and she approved.

That very day, we began the non-medical interventions: putting baby girl to sleep on her left side (propped with rolled swaddling blankets so she couldn’t roll onto her stomach), elevating the head of her bassinet by putting phone books under the feet, and changing the way we fed her. I had been doing a variety of nursing positions to try to efficiently drain my breasts, but switched to vertical nursing almost exclusively – holding her upright, head supported – and began keeping her vertical for 30 minutes after each feeding. This meant that nighttime feedings were much more difficult; rather than a ten-minute nursing session, I’d be up with her for forty minutes, every two or three hours. During the day, I’d nurse her and put her in a soft carrier in front so she’d remain upright while I had my hands free. And lastly, I had to do away with nursing while lying down, since it caused the reflux to flare the most.

While our pediatrician encouraged us to try the non-medical solutions, she also wanted to prescribe Zantac for our daughter. After doing some research into it, my husband and I felt comfortable giving it to our baby. We started at two doses a day, which combined with the lifestyle changes did a bit but not much. Five days after starting the reflux regimen, our pediatrician upped the dosage to three times a day, and overnight our daughter changed. She went from tired and angry and in pain to contented, able to sleep, and actually happy some of the time. We kept her on Zantac for several more months; at three months we stepped the dosage back down to twice a day, and at four months discontinued it completely. Our daughter had outgrown the reflux and was a happy, healthy baby who slept through the night and enjoyed her nursings.

As hard as it would have been to believe at the time, we were one of the lucky ones with GERD; my support system (my girlfriend) had experience with this and spotted it right away, our pediatrician listened to us, and my daughter had a relatively mild case of it that she outgrew somewhat early.

Many other people are not so fortunate; GERD often goes completely undiagnosed, with the babies and parents suffering needlessly until it’s outgrown or comes to crisis proportions. If increasing our daughter’s medication had not worked, a trip to a GI specialist was the next step for us. Baby girl’s throat and stomach would have been scoped and more drastic measures would have been discussed. My girlfriend’s son was on Prevacid for a full year before outgrowing his reflux. Because babies cry a lot in the early months anyway, people often chalk up the excessive crying to “colic”, a catch-all phrase with no actual medical ramifications. And the other signs – excessive spit-up (how’s a new mommy supposed to know what’s “excessive”?), arching the back to try to alleviate the burning acid, crying during nursing, waking up crying – can often go unnoticed by new parents. Some pediatricians don’t have a lot of experience with infant reflux and so don’t catch it either.

So how can you know if your baby’s actually got reflux, or is going through “normal” newborn crying? First, read up at reputable sources. http://www.askdrsears.com/ has much of the information available in Dr. Sears’ The Baby Book. He does a thorough job of talking through symptoms of GERD, and listing the differences between reflux actions and normal fussy baby actions, as well as discusses what options parents of a baby with GERD might have.

Second, ask around. Talk to friends and see if anyone you know has any experience with the disease, and can give you any advice.

Third, have a long conversation with your pediatrician. Keep note of your baby’s symptoms, as well as when they occur and how long, for example: “2-4 p.m. almost continuous crying. 5 p.m. nursed, spit up half-dollar sized amount. 5:30 p.m. woke up crying from nap.” Your doctor will want to rule out normal baby fussiness and a detailed list will help. Your pediatrician will also want to examine other causes of crying, such as an allergy or food intolerance the baby is experiencing via mommy’s breastmilk, so mom should keep track of her food intake for a few days as well. Some very common foods, such as cow’s milk and soy, can cause an extreme reaction in newborns that may mimic GERD symptoms. Your doctor may want to test stool samples and have you do an elimination diet to rule this out.

And finally, be persistent. If your gut tells you there’s something wrong with your baby and your pediatrician is dismissing your concerns, find a new pediatrician.

And know that there is help, and this will get better. Many babies with GERD outgrow it between 4 and 6 months as their digestive system matures; the vast majority of the rest of them by one year. My daughter is now nine months old and has been off medication and symptom-free for five months. She’s happy, healthy, and none the worse for her bout with GERD.

Good luck, and hang in there!

You can read more by Jennifer at her weblog at http://www.1mother2another.com. Part diary of a new mom's journey, part support community for mothers, and part referral site for all things mommy, 1Mother2Another is the sympathetic,sagacious, and street-savvy girlfriend you always wished you had.

Amby Baby Hammock

While the Pollywog Nursing Positioner is great for feeding, what about when baby is sleeping? There is nothing worse than laying a baby with reflux down on a flat surface to sleep. Whether you have a diagnosed reflux baby, or just a fussy baby that doesn’t like his or her flat sleeping surface, you might want to consider the Amby Baby Hammock.

Originally from Australia, the Amby Baby Hammock has been a hit with parents for over 10 years. The Amby “natural motion bed” helps soothe babies by providing a cozy nest which surrounds them, rather than a flat, unwelcome surface such as a crib mattress. The hammock hangs from a spring, and the bed can move in any direction if so desired. It has been a life saver for many parents who found themselves holding their screaming newborn all night long. Since it is slightly elevated, the baby’s head is higher than his feet, helping to reduce reflux pain and spit up.
Another nice benefit of the Amby Hammock is that it has been quite successful at preventing SIDS. Out of about 25,000 units sold, there have been no known SIDS deaths.

If the price of the Amby Hammock throws you for a loop, consider that it can replace a crib, an infant swing, and a “jumpy seat.” That’s what we called ours, anyway, but you know that seat with a spring that you attach to the top of the door frame? Amby makes those as well and you can attach it to the Amby frame instead of the door frame. Learn more about the Amby Hammock, and best wishes for a peaceful night’s sleep!