Rainforest Play Gym

My Friend Joan's Mother in Law gave me an Ocean play gym, but I think it got packed away in my other friend's attic, so my sister bought this gym for Alex. It matches his mobile, and he likes it a lot. Well, he hates his tummy time, but he played with the toucan on the palm tree for quite a while. Hopefully he will learn to like tummy time more, and can play with the toys on the other end of his mat.

Baby Straightjacket.... uh, I mean, Miracle Blanket

When Justin and I were in the hospital, they had a bunch of videos we could watch. One of them was "Happiest baby on the block," which said that swaddling is a good way to help calm your baby down.


Well, we tried, and tried, and tried, and no matter how we swaddled Alex, he would bust out and startle himself awake. After two weeks, I ordered a Miracle Blanket, and let me tell you, the results were AMAZING. I was able to get 3 hours of sleep! For the past 3 weeks, he has been sleeping through the night, and I attribute most of it to swaddling him in the Miracle Blanket. No matter how hard he struggles, he cannot break out of it.


Yeah, he might look like he's in a baby straightjacket, but he will grow out of the Moro reflex sometime in the next two months or so, and he won't need to be swaddled any more. In the meantime, he will be my little burrito.

(sorry for the poor picture quality - I took this last night with my phone and was trying really hard NOT to wake him up)

Sony 900mhz Babycall Monitor

I'm going to start doing reviews of baby items as well. As first time parents, we've had to do a lot of research, and maybe these reviews will help someone else out.

Justin first picked up a Graco iVibe Monitor, but it got terrible reviews regarding the batteries. I had already done some research from the BabyBargains book, and had settled on the Sony 900mhz Babycall Monitor - the only bad thing is that is only available on target.com (at least, it wasn't in our local Target - YMMV). This monitor has 27 channels that it could be set to, but so far we have not had any problems with the default (yellow yellow yellow) setting. The receiver can be set to off, always on, or voice activation. Since we have an aquarium set up in Alex's room with constant white noise, I like to use the voice feature. Even when his mobile is playing, it will cut that noise out and only pick up when he starts to cry. I have heard him sneeze, fart, and grunt all on the voice feature.

The monitor also has a sound meter with 5 red lights that light up depending on how high the noise is. This is helpful if you are drying your hair, cooking, or yelling at barking dogs.

I can't really go outside from the living room with it, but I think part of the problem is I placed the transmitter near a bunch of other electronics (tv, wireless router, etc).

All in all, I'm happy with this monitor.