A Good Baby?

One question I hear from a lot of people upon seeing or meeting Ginny is "Is she a good baby?"  I've got to be honest.  This question baffles me.  I don't understand it in the least.  Because the opposite of good is bad. So if I were to answer "No" that would mean that she was a bad baby, right?  How is it possible for an infant to be bad?

I suppose the question is asking if she is colicky or not.  My preference would be that instead of asking if the baby is good, to ask if the baby is colicky.  To me, even a colicky baby is a good baby.  Babies are inherently good, I believe.  They are just following their instincts and doing what they know best---peeing, pooping, eating, and sleeping.  Unfortunately, they can't yet talk and tell them what is wrong so they often cry to express their needs.  For some, the needs are not being met in some way (or so it seems because the baby is colicky) and the parent can't meet it because they have tried everything they know to calm their baby.

It is my opinion that I have the best baby in the world.  She is adorable, beautiful, sweet as can be, and doesn't often cry for no reason.  She is cranky on occasion and right now she is a little "piggy"--wanting to eat all the time.  But, no matter what, even when she is cranky and crying, she is a good and wonderful baby!

Eat, Poop, Pee, & Sleep

Before you become a parent, you discover that you have a lot of choices to make--from how you plan to birth your baby (with drugs or without, etc) to if you plan on finding out the baby's gender to getting a changing table or not. I know Chris and I weighed our options as we encountered each decision, but for the most part, we knew what we wanted to do long before the decision needed to be made.  We knew that we wanted to be surprised as to the gender and that I would require a c-section.

There are 4 things that a newborn does in their early life that is easy to predict--they eat, poop, pee, & sleep.  Quite simple.  But, each item requires a choice for the parents to make.  Who knew?  

As for sleeping, that seems relatively easy.  Some sort of crib, right?  Well, in addition to that, we made the decision to have Ginny sleep in our room for her first 3 months of life.  She has a nursery with a crib, but until she is older she sleeps in our room.   We have a hand-me-down pack & play given to us by my sister with a bassinet in it.  So, we place her in there.  We try to get her to sleep in it, and usually she will go to sleep in it for at least one stretch of sleep a night.  The rest of the time she ends up sleeping in her little rocker.   (http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4230352)  I hope that one day she sleeps in her bed the whole night through.  

Eating is the other decision we had to make.  Bottle feed or breast feed?  To me, that seemed like a no-brainer.  In my mind, the option I always focused on was breastfeeding.  When I was younger, I couldn't imagine ever purposely choosing to bottle feed. Bottle feeding was an option if for some reason you could not breast feed.  Over the years, I've discovered that some women choose to bottle feed.  I've heard some express that they would bottle feed because the idea of breast feeding was gross to them.  Maybe it is because I've always wanted to breast feed, but I've discovered something since having Ginny---there is nothing more natural than breastfeeding.  By that I mean that it felt natural from moment one.  Did it feel a bit odd getting situated and breastfeeding the 1st time?  Sure, but that was because I hadn't done it before.  However, the moment she started feeding nothing felt more natural to me.  So far, I'm having success with breastfeeding.  There were some questions early on because Ginny lost a lot of weight initially and took her time gaining weight.  She continues to gain though and grow and seems to be a happy and alert baby most of the time. 

Finally, the last decision is how will you diaper your child--cloth or disposable.  I never thought of this as a controversial topic.  I was quite surprised when I mentioned that I planned to use cloth diapers on Facebook at the responses I got from a few people.  Many people were quite discouraging of the idea of cloth diapers.  I heard from quite a few that they thought they would do that too, but gave up after 2 weeks and thought I was crazy to try.  The best response I got was from my mom though.  She just asked me why I wanted to use cloth.  I loved that response.  I wish others had asked.  Again, this was a decision I made long before I knew I was pregnant.  I have always planned on using cloth.  For one thing, I figured if my mom could use cloth with myself and my sister, then why couldn't I.  Also, I could not justify the use of disposable diapers on a regular basis in MY head.  My imagination always went to a landfill and just the thousands of disposable diapers I would be adding to the mix that would be there for hundreds of years.  Additionally, I couldn't imagine spending the amount of money that goes into using disposable diapers for 2-3 years.  The cost is, quite frankly, outrageous.  I know many families use disposables, including my sister and my in-laws.  That's perfectly fine.  Again, this was my issue. My problem imagining the waste and cost. 

We embarked on cloth diapering slowly.  I knew that after a c-section that it was likely that I would not be up for doing laundry that first week--much less Chris.  So, we started that first week off with one bag of disposable newborn diapers.  When those diapers were gone, then we started with the cloth.  It really worked for us in that way.  It gave us a chance to just adjust to having a baby at home.  Now, we have the cloth diapers going and it is becoming a routine.  Is it more work?  Yes, it is.  I do wash the diapers every other day.  However, I love the cloth diapers--we are saving money long term and I don't picture these diapers ending up in a landfill (in fact, when we are done with them, hopefully after having another baby, we can resell them and get some money back). The only time we plan on using disposables is when we go on an overnight trip or vacation.  

Lots of choices and this is just the beginning....