Sarah K Tyler

Babies grow too fast. Once again I find myself behind, playing catch up. This time it’s with toys! Despite the fact that she loves to play with the remote, and we have a up purposed keyboard for her to bang on, I didn’t realize we were ready for toys with buttons and dials until we were at the baby store last month and Nicki started playing with a piano marked for “6 months +”. Woopsie. Problem rectified!

This month it’s all about the developmental toys.

Without a doubt, one of my favorite baby gear purchases to date has to be the Fisher-Price Musical Table. Nicki was an early supported stander, but we don’t have many good surfaces for her to pull herself up on or practice standing. She really only tried only practice when holding onto us or in the bathtub, (I have no idea why she thinks the tub is a ‘good’ place to stand, but she does.) Her standing skills seemed to stagnate for two months. Enter the activity table. She loves it. She wants to stand all.the.time. After two days she started bending her knees and bopping to the music. Six days latter she was cruising from corner to corner to get to the other toys. This past week she started walking with support. In under two weeks! The change has been amazing!

The down side to the huge shift in her new found abilities, however, is this means she’s already out grown the jumperoo. I don’t regret the purchase as she did enjoy it previously and I think it was helpful in strengthening her legs. I’m just surprised it didn’t last us longer. The playmat lasted us well into 7 months!

We actually have this table and the LeapFrog Musical Table. (Dada wanted to have one upstairs, it was an amazing sale – 50% off! – and she loved, loved, loved her table.) After owning both I agree with the online comments that the Fisher Price one will probably last longer. It has more play modes, and more buttons/activities. Both are excellent purchases, and were a big hit, but I predict she’ll still be playing with the fisher price one long after loosing interest in the Leap Frog. My recommendation is to go with Fisher Price, unless there is a good sale on Leap Frog.

Next up, a baby remote! We had a play date today and Nicki’s friend had a cute cell phone rattle. She had a blast pushing the buttons. Since we’re outgrowing the rattle stage, I wanted to get something similar that lights up with music. We did get the piano too, but it only has 5 very big buttons and I really wanted something to help her finger dexterity. I don’t really like the sound effects (the piano and table have much higher sound quality). Nicki doesn’t mind. She loves that thing.

We can’t forget the fill and spill toys. Nicki loves these. We still have her Easter basket with the plastic eggs out and she loves playing with them. Her friend also has a shoe box full of all plastic container lids which she was having a grand time with. (We are totally stealing the shoe box and plastic lid idea!). We previously had the Lamaze soft sorter but I wanted even more. More textures, more objects. So we went with this bug jar. Right now she’s more into the bugs than the container, but I’m hoping that will change with time.

Last, but not least, we got a ball popper. I was hoping it would encourage her to crawl, but not so much. She does love it, and she is getting really good at throwing the balls back into it! (We removed the spinner on the tail, it didn’t work.) She has been throwing all kinds of things in it, her plastic Easter eggs, binkys, rattles, stuffed animals… Even her Taggies alphabet blanket has made an appearance in the dragon. What makes this toy a major winner in my book is how much exploring she is doing with it. Everything and anything is going into the dragon, she’s even learning to throw!

Babies change so much so quickly. Six months is a whole new ball game from 3 months with a whole new set of gear! The theme this time around: toys, toys, toys!

Activity Toys

Nicki has (mostly) outgrown the Lamaze Space Symphony Motion Gym. She still enjoys kicking at the bars and bending it, but she can get the hanging toys off with ease. Her new favorite exercise toy? The Luv U Zoo Jumperoo! We got it when she was four months old, but she really got into it at five months. Now she rockets back and forth. I’m pretty sure we have a daredevil in the making.

Learning To Sit

Our house has hard wood floors. Not only are they uncomfortable to sit on, but I was worried she would hurt herself when she feel over. We needed something soft, or at least softer. Enter the Skip Hop PlaySpot Floor Mat. I kept thinking “this is way too hard, she’ll hurt herself when she falls backwards!” when I was assembling the mat. I went online and found some people had a similar complaint, while others raved about the softness. That’s when I realized there were two sides and I had it upside-down. ‘doh! (At least I wasn’t the only one?) Now that the mat is right side up it makes for a much better baby play surface. We’ve taken a tumble or two on it, and while she wasn’t happy, she wasn’t hurt.

When Nicki was just learning to sit independently we were also on the search for tall toys that she wouldn’t have to lean forward (and possibly fall over) to get. Two good ones were the Lamaze Multi Sensory Soft Sorter and the Fisher-Price Brilliant Basics Rock-a-Stack. I liked the soft sorter because it was soft, so the occasional face-plant on the toy didn’t hurt. The stacker was also good because she was able to manipulate the rings more easily than the soft sorter objects. Now she’s gotten really good at dumping the rings off the stack poll and even once put the blue ring back on (a nine month skill!).

Teething

For teething it’s a three way tie between the Manhattan Toy Winkel (which we refer to as the molecule because it looks something like the Crystalline Entity for Star Trek), Sophie and Chan Pie Gnon (which we refer to as her alien).

I love the alien because it squeaks so easily. Have it pretend to walk across the table and it’s chirping all the way. Give the body a good squeeze and it extends and bobbles its head with a loud squeal like a cartoon character. Nicki will squeak the alien by squishing it’s head when chewing its ear (antler? antenna?). It was her favorite last month, but now Sophie is giving it a run for it’s money. She’ll squeak Sophie by squeezing her neck when chewing on her ears. I have to admit, I’m kind of amazed she has the dexterity to do that. The molecule has a little rattle sound, but it’s subdued and sometimes stops which I think that frustrates her. She can get a good chomp going on the tubing that is also easy to grab and shake, which is why it’s still in our top three.

Honorable mention would also go to the Bright Starts Silly Sounds Safari Rattle. She loves it, but it is too easy to set it off. Walk near it and it sings. Sit on the other side of the couch and it sings.

If I had it to do over again…

If I could go back in time I would get a Graco Snugride instead of a Snugride 30. Nicki hasn’t outgrown the height or weight limits of the Snugride 30, but the combination of her and the seat is just a little too heavy for me to carry comfortably. I’ve been leaving the seat in the car and taking in her in and out. It would have been nicer if we could have used the bucket seat a little longer. Ah well. Hindsight is 20/20 and all.

I’m still in love with the video baby monitor and everything else I previously raved about. Now that we’re three months old, we’re using a whole new set of gear. I thought it would be fun to share what works for us.

Toys!

My favorite brand right now is bright starts. My aunt gave us this adorable bright starts blue elephant teether that makes a crinkly sound and Nicki loves it. We went out and bought the monkey and giraffe. (from Target for $7. Seriously Amazon? $20?!). We keep Mr. Giraffe as a car toy, and Mr. Elephant and Mr. Monkey stay home.

When Nicki was learning to hold and manipulate objects I wanted to get more toys for her to provide tactile stimulation. This set of links are a huge hit. She can easily grasp them and they have different textures. It took her a little while to figure out how to get them in her mouth, but once she fid she seemed to have a giant leap in fine motor control. Of course it could be correlation, not causation, but whatever the case, the links were the best $5 I’ve ever spent.

Another huge hit? these hanging birds. There made by Sassy and are elastic and attach to the car seat handle. Nicki grabs at the feet and can pull them closer to her. It’s great when I need to put her down somewhere for a quick errand (like making a bottle.) The birds keep her entertained and happy.

We’re also in love with the Lamaze Symphony Motion Gym. The motion is an absolute must. It keeps her entertained and focused on the moving parts. Also it’s purple and science themed. It’s perfect for a girl geek. Like the links, the gym can keep her entertained on her own for a little while.

We noticed Nicki had an easier time grabbing the tags of her plush toys then the corners of the toys themselves. I remembered seeing the Taggies ABC’s Blanket in the store for just $9. As predicted, the abundance of tags made it another toy that helped her learn to grab and hold. I love the concept of the taggies brand in general. A tag blanket would also make for a fun craft project! In fact, that’s probably what I’ll do for the next baby shower I go to.

Health care

Nicki has her first cold, so I’m sorry to say I have some experience with health related baby products like baby thermometers. Despite our health care providers insisting in our newborn class that the only accurate way to take a newborns temperature is with a rectal thermometer, they never used them themselves. At the hospital they took her temperature underarm, and at the pediatrician’s office they used a forehead thermometer. In reality when I have a fussy, sick baby trying to sleep on my shoulder, the last thing I want to do is put her down and take off her diaper to take her temperature.

The sad truth is it’s darn near impossible to get a good thermometer cheaply. We eventually settled on Exergen Temporal Artery Thermometer. The previous thermometer we had needed to be placed on her forehead for five seconds to get a reading. When she moved (which was all the time), the thermometer failed to get a reading and would display an error. It would then need to be rebooted before it could take another reading. But you couldn’t reboot it once the error message was showing, you had to wait another five seconds for the screen to clear. It took several attempts to get a reading. Not cool. The Exergen thermometer is much less prone to errors. It scans quickly and you can rescan without rebooting the thermometer.

Update 4/2/13. I no longer recommend the Exergen. Nicki had her first fever but the Exergen reported a a normal body temperature twice. While it could have been user error (maybe I did not put it flush enough against her head) I would rather the thermometer give an error message than an incorrect temperature!!

Sleeping

We tried a number of different sleep sacks, but the BreathableBaby Wearable Blanket was the best. The Halo sleepsack has a zipper that starts at baby’s head and ends at her toes. It’s convenient for diaper changes, but a pain to get her in and out of it. The BreathableBaby has a double zipper so you can unzip her at either end.

I knew I wouldn’t get the baby gear 100% right the first try. As a first time mom, I was bound to overlook something, and each baby is unique. What works for one may not work for another. What I didn’t expect was how much my personality would change. Domingo was sure my days of price checking and discount shopping would be over once the baby came. I didn’t believe him. Yet here I am, not only paying full price for a few baby items, but expedited shipping to get it here as quickly as possible too! I even signed up for my first (paid) subscription to Amazon Prime, something I thought I would never do. Waiting to get things on sale is just not always an option anymore.

New Stuff I can’t Live Without:

Moby Wrap

My only complaint is the Moby takes some time to get wrapped into. We’ve had a few instances were Nicole was not particularly patient with how long it was taking Mommy. The K’Tan is better in this regard (or at least so I’m told) but since it’s not a one-size-fits-all, I couldn’t send Domingo to the store to purchase one for me. I will get faster with the wrapping. Mommy promises!

Dr. Brown’s Bottle Warmer

On a happy side note, breastfeeding is getting easier!

Less Useful than I would have Predicted:

Aden + Anais Muslin Swaddle Wrap
There’s nothing inherently wrong with these blankets, they’re just much less useful for us then I was hoping. It seems like I’m the only person in the universe who doesn’t love them. We were told to skip the cheap 43′ x 43′ size ones and go straight to the 47′ x 47′. But the 47′ squares were a bit too big for swaddling Nicki initially, and she stopped liking being swaddled before she reached two weeks old! I still do like these blankets as general receiving blankets. They are great for our house which tends to be on the warm side, especially in summer. I just wish I had ordered the slightly smaller (and much cheaper) ones instead. The small blankets woulds would surely last us until winter.

Just watch, my next baby will want to be swaddled until 2 years old and I’ll wish they came in 55′ square versions!

Where my Expectations were off:

Remember how I thought 18 onesies were enough so I wouldn’t have to do laundry more than once a week? Turns out babies poop a lot, and poop stains! We also can shoot through five outfits on a given day, not just two or three. We go through our wardrobe about once every 5 days (and that’s with the new onesies Grandma brought!) but we’re doing laundry daily.

Along a similar vein, 10 burp clothes is not enough. They disappear too easily. We’re now up to 20. I originally wasn’t overly found of the Gerber Trifold Diapers since they’re a bit bland and not cute. I thought about getting some cute burp clothes for when we go out. Well I’m a total convert. They work great!

In terms of diaper bags, I thought we could get by with just a generic tote bag since we had the Skip Hop Pronto Changing Pad. I still think that would have worked, had we not been introducing the bottle. I now want something with an insulated pocket to hold the bottle. I’m still not much of a bag person, and certainty not a fashionable bag person, so I went with a nice black inexpensive bag. I ordered the Graco Optimo Duffle Bag for $36 including tax and shipping. We’ll see how I like it when it arrives.

I also want to mention that having the same brand breast pump as the hospital uses went from nice to awesome when I accidently dropped breastsheild connectors on the hard tile floor and cracked it. Luckily I got one in my accessories kit from the hospital, so I didn’t have to run out to the store!

While we installed a car seat a few weeks ago, it didn’t feel very secure to me. The instructions indicated some movement was normal, but didn’t say how much. I didn’t want to risk Zippy’s safety, so I set up an appointment at our local police station and have our seat and the installation inspected for safety.

I’m so happy we did it! Turns out the base was secure enough, but we didn’t have it in the foot in the right recline position, so it wasn’t as safe as it could be. The police officer showed us how to attach it to the middle seat, something which I thought we couldn’t do on our car. She explained all the ways new parents tend to use the seat incorrectly, and how we could double check that Zippy was secure. Best of all – it was free!

I had previously been told that car seat mirrors aren’t safe, that they could fly off and hurt the baby in the crash. But I have an (irrational?) fear of forgetting Zippy in the car, and really wanted something to help me remember she’s back there. I figured I’d just make sure the mirror was extra securely attached. The police officer explained the problem with the mirror is that most infant car seats (including the one we had) are designed to tilt upward to absorb the impact of a front end collision, which would mean into the mirror. Her recommendation was to go with an angled mirror and have installed to the side – not directly in front of baby.

Since I had completed our registry, we already had the Diono at home. I had purchased it in lieu of the flat mirror alternatives for aesthetic reasons, so I’m glad it was the type of mirror the officer recommended. It’s a bit stiff, but that means it will stay in position without needing to be readjusted. The downside to setting up the mirror on the neighboring seat’s head rest is that they make it difficult to sit in that seat, but you can always unbuckle it if you’re driving multiple people. The driver likely does not need to see the baby in that situation anyway.

I was also curious about window shades. Since we live in California where there is limitations on window tinting, I wasn’t sure window shades, or at least all types of window shades, would be legal. Turns out they are fine, but, the officer recommended pulling the car seat’s canopy down completely so that it is touching the foot of the base to keep baby protected from the sun. She said if we still wanted shades, she recommended window clings rather than shades with stiff poles, as they could fall off the window and smack the baby in the face. Since Zippy’s seat is now installed in the middle of the rear seat, and likely out of direct sunlight, we’ll try the canopy approach first.

(Standard Disclaimer: When it comes to safety don’t take my, or any other bloggers, word for it. If you get your installation inspected by someone – and I recommend it, especially if you can do it for free! – go with the professional’s recommendations!)