Munchkin Mozart Magic Cube

Over Thanksgiving we were given a new toy that I am so impressed with, the Mozart Magic Cube.  I'm so impressed with it that when we were given another for Christmas we decided to keep it because it's so cool.

The idea behind it is brilliant.  5 sides of the cube have a button with a picture of an instrument, and the sixth is the full orchestra.  When you press the button for an instrument, it plays the part of the song for that instrument.  If it's already playing that instrument and you press the button again, it takes that instrument away.  It has six or eight different songs, and you press the orchestra button to cycle through them.

Here's a video I found on YouTube that gives a good demonstration of its operation:

Baby's first head cold

At the end of our Thanksgiving trip baby began to show symptoms of a head cold.  It's inevitable; eventually was going to get sick.  We visited my wife's family for Thanksgiving and not only was he exposed to lots of people, but lots of people from different areas.  We traveled to New Jersey, people came from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and any time you travel you're exposed to different germs.  A few relatives were in various stages of being sick, so it really was inevitable.

The morning before we left the in-laws he woke up earlier than usual, but during the whole trip his schedule was a little off anyway so we didn't think much of it.  Throughout the day it seemed like he was sniffling a little, but he was enjoying all the attention he got from his grandparents, aunts, and uncles so much that he was in fine humor.  Naps were a bit short, but again, he was in a strange environment so we didn't think much of it.  

The day we drove home probably messed with his schedule and wore him out even more.  Driving for four hours (perhaps more) through New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island isn't fun for anyone.  Driving four hours with a baby makes things even more complicated.  We used to stop along the way to give him a bottle and a chance to stretch, but this trip we decided to just push through and be  done with it.  On the way down we left about an hour before his bedtime so he would be awake for a while at least.  I know I get stiff when I'm sitting in the same position for too long so I'm sure the same is true for a baby.

We took his temperature that night, and there was some debate as to where to do it.  He's 8 months old now and can move himself around pretty well, flipping himself over when he's on the changing table, kicking, and pulling away when we're trying to get him dressed.  We've never had any success taking his temperature under his arm, and the pediatrician always does it rectally, so that's how we've done it.  I don't think it would have been possible to do it if my wife and I hadn't done it together.

His temperature was 99.1°, which falls well below the 101° threshold when we would give him tylenol.  A nurse from the pediatrician's office told me several symptoms to watch for in which case we would then need to bring him in.  If he develops any of these symptoms we should call again: a fever, a cough, a wheeze, loss of appetite, or if he is continuously crying and inconsolable.  She advised we use a cold mist humidifier, keep him upright as much as possible, and use the bulb syringe in his nose to remove mucus.

It's been four days now and his mood is greatly improved, although his nose is still running all the time. He had interrupted sleep the first night we were home, and more short than full length naps.  He's required almost all my attention, which was something else the nurse told me.  She said babies need lots of attention when they're sick "just like adults do," or something to that effect.  That made me laugh because it's pretty true.  

Natural cleaning products

This is a video that was posted by Seventh Generation, a company that makes all natural cleaning products.  We started purchasing their products recently because of the baby; we didn't want to expose him to the chemicals used in most commercial cleaners.  Babies learn about objects by putting them in their mouths, and when I see the TV commercials for Lysol it makes me cringe.  

This was a video that first came to my attention from a Seventh Generation ad on facebook.  There is a registration website (http://www.seventhgeneration.com/coupons) where you can sign up to receive coupons and other promotional material.  They carry a lot of products now, and I can't speak to the cost of all of them, but they seem to be competitively priced.  

Petrochemicals and the adverse affect on our Hormones

Pointing with his index finger

In the last few days baby has begun pointing with his index finger.  We don't think he's actually pointing at anything, he's just practicing using his index finger.  It's cute, except when he's using it to scratch my face or pick my nose.  But even then it's pretty cute.

Practicing with pointing helps develop his finger dexterity and fine motor skills.  When he's playing with his blocks he'll use his index finger to flip the block over or move it around.  He also grabs things between his index finger and thumb now, rather than with his whole hand.

I found this website from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research about communication and the connection between thought and language.  According to the site, pointing is a direct precursor to speaking, but my child isn't exactly pointing in a communicative way yet.  Pointing for communication is supposed to begin somewhere between 8 - 10 months old.  We're still trying to teach him sign language, so we'll see how that factors in.  

Britax car seat recall

Britax has recently recalled some of its car seats, citing the possibility that a child could bite off part of the harness and choke on it.  I hate to think about how they discovered this flaw, but the Britax website has a safety notices page where you can select a product to find out if it has been recalled.  You'll need to find the model number and manufacture date of your infant seat.

They call the harness "HUGS," short for Harness Ultra-Guard System.  The new harness was designed to be more flexible than previous models, but small pieces of the strap can come off when children bite and chew on it.  Britax will send replacement straps, made of a harder material that is more resistant to being bitten off, for registered owners of the effected car seats.  If you haven't registered yet, you can do so at http://www.britaxconvertiblerecall.com.

This is a good opportunity to pass along some advice we heard in one of the Isis classes we took in preparation for baby's arrival.  Always fill out warranty or registration cards for everything you get for your baby.  By registering you provide the company with contact information so that in a case like this the company can contact you directly with recall information.  Britax automatically mailed this notice, along with the replacement harness, to everyone who registered.

Attaching the straps

The video is also available here on the Britax website.

Teaching baby to drink water

We've started trying to teach our now 7 month old baby to drink water, and he loves it.  Drinking water seems pretty simple, but there are several things to consider.  My wife read that you should start by teaching the baby to drink from a regular glass before giving baby a sippy-cup.  This is not a neat process, but at least it's only water.  We got new waterproof bibs that serve merely to deflect the water to soak such areas as the pants, the floor, or your clothes.  Unless you employ my new "Bib Over Bib" technique, but I'll explain that in more detail later.

They say not to give a child water until they're at least 6 months old; they get all the hydration they need from the milk or formula.  It can be dangerous to give a baby water before 6 months because it can upset the balance of baby's electrolytes causing serious problems, or at the least filling baby's stomach with water when they need the nutrition of milk or formula.  Up to this point he's had both milk and formula, always from a bottle.  For a few weeks now he's been fascinated by our eating and drinking, and watches us intently when we have a glass of water.

I try to keep the glass of water out of his line of sight behind me until he's stopped eating his oatmeal and fruit or vegetable.  I'm trying to set up a one to one relationship between sips of water and bites of food, so I have to be able to switch between the spoon and the cup quickly.  If he has enough room to drink water he has room for more food, although he does protest when I switch to food.

He only drinking about half a cup of water in a sitting, if that.  At this point it's more about learning to hold the cup and tip it back rather than staying hydrated.  We use water filtered with a Brita water pitcher (that I then pour into glass bottles and store in the refrigerator).  We use water from the tap when mixing formula for the bottle, but I don't like the taste of tap water because of the fluoride and other chemicals they use to treat the water.  I'm conflicted as to the use of fluoride in water; there are dental benefits but what are the side effects?  People existed long before we had fluorinated water, and I'm nervous about all the chemicals that have worked their way into everything.  We're compromising by using a little of both.

Bib over bib technique

The bib over bib technique works pretty well, and I'm sure you have it half figured out from the title alone.  Up until now we've always used cloth bibs.  They get dirty when he eats solid food but never so bad that his clothes get food on them.  Now we have waterproof bibs for drinking water, but when used singly they only keep the area directly underneath them dry.  At first we would feed baby with the cloth bib as usual, then put the waterproof bib on over it when it was time for water.  His pants would get wet, the bottom of his shirt would get wet, and sometimes I would end up wet too.  By putting the cloth bib over the waterproof bib the water is absorbed by the cloth and the waterproof bib keeps the clothes from getting wet.  The key is that the waterproof bib is larger than the cloth bib.  It works well to keep him dry, but it's inevitable that he gets a little wet.

Media and children

I came across this video a few months ago, and it's really worth checking out.  This video featuring Dimitri Christakis gives some concrete reasons to restrict your child's TV viewing.  This video is the reason I'm strictly keeping the TV off when baby's in the room until he's at least 2 years old.  

The video is a little more than 16 minutes long and makes some good points about ADD and other theories on the effects of TV exposure in children.  I think it's important to allow your child some recreation time with the TV and technology, but not until 2 years old.  

Daylight savings time for a baby

Daylight savings time is coming up, and in the life of a 6-month old baby an hour's shift can make a big difference.  At least that's what they said at Scooters class at Isis.  I thought I should look into it to start getting baby ready for the change.  Most of what I learned came from one of the Isis sleep webinars, which are totally free through their website.  It's an audio presentation with a series of slides, similar to what I've seen used in some online college courses I've taken.  The webinars are live every Tuesday at noon EST, and very informative.  It's worth checking out.

Daylight savings time effects babies the most when they're between 4 months and two years old; under 4 months a child hasn't yet developed a solid rhythm and older toddlers can handle the change in time better.  If you have an older child you may still want to follow these steps, but the overall transition time can be shorter than a week.

Why is an extra hour of sleep a problem for babies?  The circadian rhythm is a 24 cycle that all living things follow, including plants, animals, fungi, and cyanobacteria.  I learned a lot from the circadian rhythm wikipedia page, including that the name "circadian" comes from the Latin for "around" and "day," so any cycle that follows a 24-hour pattern qualifies as a circadian rhythm.  When the circadian rhythm shifts more than 30 minutes it takes the body a few days to make the shift.  It's a lot like jet lag, but only an hour's worth.  We dealt with jet lag in my very first post, Flying and jet lag with baby, but I didn't think to do any research or try to adjust baby's schedule at all beforehand.  This time we'd like to be ready; waking up for the day at 4am was not a lot of fun.

Start preparing for the change about ten days ahead.  Daylight savings time ends on November 4th, so begin by October 25th or 26th.  You can start earlier, but try not to start later because the point is to make the shift gradually so it's best to give at least a week.  For the first three days, keep your baby in darkness and do very calm, soothing things for 30 minutes to an hour.  The morning shift takes longer for baby to adjust to, so it is important to make sure you're doing all you can to let baby know that it's still time to sleep.  When daylight savings is a week away, begin to push back baby's bedtime 15 minutes at a time.

You want to extend your baby's exposure to light at bedtime slowly to give the baby a chance to adjust.  Start by keeping baby awake 15 minutes longer than his or her regular bedtime for 2 days.  Keep bright lights on for baby during the extended time; natural sunlight helps but as we all know the fall shift makes the days seem painfully short.  Here in Boston the sun will start setting at 4:30pm after the shift, so we'll be using artificial light.

Every two days add another 15 minutes to baby's bedtime.  Try to include your daily activities in the shift; feed baby 15 minutes later, take your walk 15 minutes later, take naps 15 minutes later, take a bath 15 minutes later, do everything you can 15 minutes later right until the end of the night.  This is hard if your child is in day care, but you might ask if your day care has any plans  Expose your child to as much light as you can right up until bedtime.  It'll help baby get the hint.

It may still take up to 10 days for the shift to happen!  It seems like a long time to me for just an hour's change, but that's what the experts say.  When we changed time zones by six hours it didn't take 10 days for baby to go back to normal, but that was also when he was little more than 4 months old so his rhythm probably wasn't established yet.

Really it doesn't matter if you start 10 days before, a week before, or Sunday, November 4th.  The transition will happen on its own, but hopefully this will ease the burden on you.  Your day is going to change by an hour but your schedule is not, so you may want to adopt this technique.  Do what works for you, and remember that if it doesn't go well the clocks will change back in March.

Rody the horse

We had another Scooters Family class at Isis, and in the class they had these fun Rody horse toys.  Your baby sits on the horse facing forward and you let them try to balance.  He moves all over but I keep my hands close to his waist to keep him centered on the horse when otherwise he'd already have fallen to the floor.  It works baby's core muscles and hopefully will help him get the strength and coordination to start sitting on his own.  The toy is supposed to still be fun for a 4 year old, but our 6-month old isn't ready to balance on it by himself yet.  He loves the Rody; he tries to eat the ears and laughs and smiles when I help him bounce on it.

Our Rody is green and blue

Hobbyhorse

It was a bit expensive, and I was sad to see it's cheaper above than what we paid.  It is inflatable, and they did blow it up for us at the store, but I have a bike pump and I'm sure it's not too difficult.


When we described it to my mom she called it a hobbyhorse, an old toy that can be just a stick with a horse head on it.  I think the term applies to any horse shaped toy that a child rides, rocking horses included.  I'd like to try and make my baby a rocking horse, but I always have so many projects I might miss my chance and end up buying one.





This Morris dancer has a hobbyhorse, from the wikipedia page:

Morris dancers along the Thames at Richmond, c. 1620

I only mention it really because of Edmund Blackadder's hatred of Morris dancers.

Big Bird and PBS

Big Bird could be the only thing preventing WWIII

It would be a travesty if PBS and Sesame Street were eliminated.  There's a lot more to Sesame Street than I ever suspected, and I learned most of it from "The American School" by Joel Spring.  As the title might suggest, it is a textbook on American schools; it starts in pre-colonial times and covers through the current era.  It is massive, comprehensive, and dry.  Toward the end I learned that Sesame Street was developed to help students learn some basics for entering school.  Too many children came to kindergarden or first grade not knowing their numbers or ABCs, so by presenting it in a fun way on public television lots of kids learned what they needed from Big Bird.

I am obviously in favor of keeping Big Bird and PBS.  The public owns the airwaves, and having PBS is like having public libraries.  Our priorities are crazy; the amount of money cut would be a minuscule sliver of the entire operating budget of our government.  The next graphic says it well, and I think I've seen a similar one with Big Bird vs war spending:

Big Bird vs Fossil Fuels

Baby's flu shot

Today I took my 6 1/2-month old baby boy to get a flu shot.  He had four shots last week, so I'm not as worried about the actual shot, but there is some controversy surrounding flu shots and if they should be given to infants.  There is also a difference between the shot given to infants and that given to adults.  To top it all off, my wife noticed yesterday that baby's sniffling a little so that could have prevented his getting the flu shot.

It was all business this time, as compared to his 6-month checkup.  The nurse took his weight and his temperature, and the doctor used the stethoscope and checked his ears and throat.  He didn't cry as much as he did last time on the scale; he cried but didn't try to roll around and calmed down quickly afterwards.  The doctor checked listened to his chest with the stethoscope, then when she looked into his ears he cried a little.  She felt his glands under his jaw and looked at his throat.  The doctor was making sure he wasn't already sick before giving the shot.

The flu shot is not a guarantee that the person will not get the flu.  What we get as a flu shot has to be incubated for around a year before there's enough for the population, so each year doctors try and predict what next year's flu strain will be.  They develop a strain of the influenza virus, and kill it.  This is what's injected for an "inactivated" flu shot.  The immune system builds the antibodies to fight the virus, so if later you are exposed to it your body is ready.  There is also a "live, attenuated" way to be vaccinated involving nose spray.  Not for us.

There are several flu shots that are given depending on a person's age and health.  The elderly can get a "high-dose" inactivated vaccine, and infants get a special, no-preservative version.  I'd heard something about mercury and MSG being some of the nastier ingredients that have somehow made their way into flu shots, but I couldn't imagine that a doctor would inject a baby with mercury.  That shot that he was given did not have thimerosal, the preservative in adults' injection.  There is even a wikipedia page about the Thiomersal controversy, with a side note about the spelling.  Thiomersal is the "international nonproprietary name," different from thimerosal (its name in the U.S.).  At one point people believed thiomersal had something to do with increasing autism rates, but rates have continued to increase while infants and children are no longer given thiomersal.  It is a mercury derivative, and it's really best to stay away from mercury.  I might ask that all of his future flu shots be without thimerosal.

When I asked the doctor about thimerosal or thiomersal (I called it "the preservative"), the Doctor said she likes it when people do their homework.  She told me that they don't use thimerosal for babies, but I'm not sure if this is something their practice has decided or a blanket policy for pediatricians.  The best thing to do is ask your pediatrician; if you don't trust the answer you either need to work on your trust issues or a pediatrician that's not as sketchy.

There are people who don't believe in flu shots with or without thimerosal.  I'm sure there are lots of different reasons.  People who want their child's immune system to develop naturally, people who think the vaccine will give their baby the flu, people who believe the government puts mind-control drugs in the flu shot, alien super-virus, you name it.  Here's an interesting site with 10 Immune Boosting Flu Shot Alternatives.  I don't usually get a flu shot, probably because I think it's better to let the immune system work on its own.  But modern medicine does have some good vaccines for babies, so we're opting to have our child vaccinated.

The nurse and the doctor both asked if we thought baby was allergic to eggs; apparently that can be a problem with the flu shot.  We're supposed to watch for any bumps or redness on his leg where he got the shot, like with any injection.  We're also supposed to watch for fever, and I would guess that we give him tylenol if he does develop a fever.  The nurse asked if we had a tylenol dosing chart, I think she said tylenol rather than acetaminophen.  She told me that a fever was 100.5° for a baby, then immediately asked if I had a tylenol dosing chart.  I took that to mean give him tylenol if he goes over 100.5°.  The Colorado Children's Hospital tells all about what temperature is dangerous at what age, and I wouldn't start calling the doctor until he got to 102°.  Taking his temperature isn't fun either; when the time comes I'm sure I won't want to do it.

We don't have this exact thermometer, but it gets its reading from the same place:

He was a trooper again after the shot.  He cried hard at first but with my rocking and his pacifier he calmed down pretty quickly.  He does pretty well after shots, at least compared to the screams you hear in the halls of the pediatrician's office.  I hugged him and rocked him and before the nurse left he stopped crying.  When he turned to look at the nurse, however, he started crying again, maybe he's learning to associate her with the pain of the needle.  He's past the point of no return with the pacifier; someone told us that at around 6 months they become more attached to the pacifier if you don't take it away.  We haven't taken it away.  Now it helps him get to sleep at night, feel better after a shot, calm him down on a car ride, or buy us a few minutes if he's fussing for some reason.  I'll look into pacifiers more for a future post.

The CDC has a Q&A page about the flu shot, but it's mostly about adult flu shots.  It may still help to answer any questions you have, so check it out.

Here's another article from Forbes Magazine on a recent Congressional hearing on immunizations.  The article is very pro-immunization, and has the same air of know-it-allism that it accuses several congressional representatives of.  It's a big issue, and I'm sure it won't be resolved any time soon.

More Halloween ideas for baby

I think my first set of Halloween ideas is still the best, but I've had a few more ideas for a baby's first Halloween.  Some are more practical than others.  Our son's hair hasn't grown in yet, and this Halloween I want to capitalize on his lack of hair by doing a bald costume.  I've been saying that he could be Pinhead:

Pinhead

But it turns out it's easier to do this with a bald wig, not a bald person.  And I don't know anything about leather-working, so the rest of the costume would be difficult.  They do make it in adult and children's sizes at Spirit Halloween, Halloween Hellraiser Pinhead Adult Costume (Google Affiliate Ad).  They sell a Halloween Lifesize Hellraiser Pinhead Animatronic (Google Affiliate Ad) and a Halloween Pinhead Hellraiser Mask (Google Affiliate Ad) also.  It would be cute for our baby in a psychotic kind of way.

Dr. Evil would make a good costume, with Mini Me:

Replica of Dr. Evil's pinky ring

Dr. Evil and Mini Me

You will need Dr. Evil's pinky ring, and another for your Mini Me.  They sell a Dr. Evil accessory kit with a bald cap and ring that goes for around $20 most places.  I wouldn't give one to my child because of the choke hazard.  I would draw it on baby's finger somehow, that would be safer.


Pennywise the clown from Stephen King's IT would be scary, another inappropriate bald costume for a child:

Pennywise the Clown

I think everyone was scared of this evil magic psychotic clown.  Stephen King is a genius, and I wish I could say I've read more of his books.

How about Uncle Fester?  He's creepy and kooky but not that scary:

Christopher Lloyd as Uncle Fester

Jackie Coogan from the original TV show

Curly from the Three Stooges would be fun:

Curly

The Three Stooges would be a good group costume theme, and either siblings or adults could play Larry and Moe.  If it's just the baby dressed as Curly people might not recognize the costume, so I wouldn't do this unless we had a group.  It would also be hard for our baby to do Curly's facial expressions, which are fundamental to playing the character.  They sell Moe and Larry masks, but they're a little scary:

There were some other ideas I found like Voldemort or freakout Britney Spears, but Voldemort's nose is far too difficult and there really is no reason to do a bald freakout Britney Spears.

Bald freakout Britney Spears

No nose

I'm sticking with Captain Picard as his costume.  It's a simple, recognizable costume that would allow me to dress as Commander Riker.  It's going to require some sewing, because they don't make baby sized Starfleet uniforms, but I'm going to give it a shot.

Make it so

There's an audio clip from some radio show where the hosts ask Sir Patrick Stewart what he would say to a sewing machine repair person if he had a broken sewing machine, but it's not very satisfying.  I recently discovered that there is a Sesame Street starring Patrick Stewart.  This video is funny if not predictable, but I wonder how many children watching Sesame Street are as well versed in Star Trek as I:

I can't resist one more, Patrick Stewart doing "Soliloquy on B":

6-month doctor's appointment

Today baby had his 6-month checkup.  They measure the circumference of his head, measure his length, and weigh him.  In the past he's been well behaved at the doctor's but I think he's starting to make negative associations with the table you sit on.  He was fine while the nurse measured his length, which is probably the least accurate measurement they take.  The nurse draws a line on the medical paper at the top of his head then tries to hold him straight and measure at his feet.  The problem is, our baby likes to kick and squirm so much it can't be perfect.

To get his weight I strip him down to just his diaper and they take him to the comfort of a freezing cold, stainless steel (with a sheet of medical paper) balance scale.  He immediately starts screaming when he get put on the scale, probably because of the cold.  For the rest of the visit, any time he gets put down, he screams.  The balance requires a minute or two to find the weight, and his squirming and rolling around didn't make it any easier.  Every time he moves and puts force on the tray arm of the scale starts swinging again and the nurse has to adjust again.  If you're unfamiliar with a balance, remind me not to invite you when we need people in an emergency shelter after some apocalyptic cataclysm.  A balance is the most accurate type of scale; other scales rely on a tensioned spring or pneumatics or some other new-fangled method to measure weight, but a balance simply uses a lever to compare two items.  One side has the item to be weighed, and on the other you add weights until the two sides balance.  In the doctor's office the weights are built into the scale.  The fulcrum of the lever is very close to the little weights on the doctor's scale, so it doesn't have to have your exact weight to be in balance.  The little weights proportionally match your weight at whatever ratio the position of the fulcrum dictates.  I'm sure this is all very fascinating.

I didn't mean what I said earlier about the emergency shelter and the apocalypse.  I don't have an emergency shelter, and I'm not expecting the apocalypse.  If I did, I would indiscriminately let as many people in as supplies or the nature of the destruction permit.  Family members have dibs.

I knew at his 6-month appointment he would need some inoculations and of course would be getting a shot.  I didn't know he would need four shots and a vial of some sort.  They told me there is a shortage of the last shot he had, so they would have to give four separate shots instead.  I head from the nurse and the doctor that there was a shortage, then the nurse who gave the shot told me it was because of rationing.  My first thought was that he's not going to like getting four separate shots, and then I thought of the war in Iraq and wondered if the rationing is because of it.  It could just be because of a bad crop of vaccines this year, I have no idea.

He took them pretty well, in part because I think the nurse did a good job giving them.  She gave him two shots in each leg, and didn't give him a chance to squirm away or anything while she did it.  I got to hold him in my lab, which was good, but I had to hold his hands so he didn't hurt himself with them as he was getting the shots.  I didn't know exactly how he could hurt himself with them, maybe by poking himself in the eye or grabbing the needle somehow, but you do what the nurse tells you.

He cried really hard for a minute or two, and I comforted him by rocking and singing to him.  This helped a lot, but he was down to his diaper and falling asleep; it was almost nap time.  I still had to get him dressed and I didn't want to have to wake him up again, and when I put him down to get him dressed that started a whole new round of crying.  Lately he's been crying a little when I've been trying to get him dressed; I think he doesn't want to bother putting on pants and long-sleeve shirts.  He wants to be awake and start playing right away.

He stopped crying shortly after going in his carseat, then went to sleep almost immediately when we got in the car.  I think it's a good strategy to take baby to the doctor a little before nap time.  It might not seem like a good idea, because the baby might be cranky while getting the shots, but they're going to cry no matter what.  This way when the bad stuff goes down the baby is ready to sleep as soon as he is calm.  I'm going to try it again next time and see how it works.  He's got a flu shot next week and the appointment is at about the same time, hopefully it doesn't backfire somehow.

Arsenic in Infant Rice Cereal

On the news two days ago there was a story about elevated levels of arsenic in rice in the United States.      At first I only marginally paid attention to the story; I don't eat that much rice and when I do it's usually at a restaurant.  Also, I have a vague memory of arsenic naturally occurring in rice.  That's why cooked rice smells so bad when it's left unrefrigerated.

We've been feeding our son rice cereal mixed with formula for more than a month now, and he likes eating from a spoon.  It wasn't until the group discussion during today's Scooters Baby class at Isis that I made the connection between his rice cereal and the rice with elevated arsenic.  Actually, some other parents made the connection for me; the class had a brief discussion about the findings.

There was some confusion about which brands were effected and to what extent, and if organic versus non-organic made a difference.  I decided to do some research here on the trusty ol' internet to get to the bottom of things.  I'll provide all the links and sources I used so you can read further or want to check things for yourself.

On September 19th the FDA released a study entitled "Arsenic in Rice," looking at both organic and inorganic arsenic in rice.  Much more informative was another page on the FDA site, "Questions & Answers: FDA’s Analysis of Arsenic in Rice and Rice Products."  Inorganic arsenic is the type that can lead to increased risk of "skin, bladder, and lung cancers, as well as heart disease."  There are types of organic arsenic that can be toxic, but the inorganic types are typically the most toxic.  There is no real difference in arsenic levels between between organic and non-organic rice, according to the FDA.  Looking at the infant rice cereals in the Consumer Reports chart below, however, one can see that many of the organic infant rice cereals have less arsenic than the non-organic.  This International Agency for Research on Cancer monograph has a lot more information about arsenic and other carcinogens, for people who want to learn more and like to read very formal scientific studies.

Arsenic is absorbed into food from the soil and water, and according to the FDA rice absorbs arsenic at an increased rate.  According to Discovery News, "the way rice is cultivated in water-flooded conditions makes it more vulnerable to absorbing arsenic."  The way I understand it is that because rice has the opportunity to absorb arsenic from both the soil and the water, it does so at a higher rate than other grains.

I found the Consumer Reports article to be the most informative, and also the longest.  Consumer Reports provided some explanation as to how elevated levels of arsenic get into our food.  Much of it comes from industrial pollution, and arsenic remains in the environment longer than other substances.  States that used to produce cotton were found to have the most arsenic in the soil because arsenic was heavily used as a pesticide to fight the boll weavle beetle.  The use of arsenic insecticide was banned in the 1980's, but it is still used in animal feed and is present in agricultural soil to this day.  Part of the problem is that arsenic remains in the environment for a long time, even after its use has been discontinued.

Consumer Reports found a lot of variation even within the same brand of infant rice cereal.  We've been feeding our baby the Gerber brand rice cereal, both organic and non-organic.  Some of the samples studied had the lowest overall (organic and inorganic) levels of arsenic within the category, while others had the highest.  You could buy two boxes of the same cereal from the same shelf at the market and they could have very different levels of arsenic.

There is a difference between brown rice and white rice, and when it comes to arsenic white rice is the healthier of the two.  All rice has the husk removed, then white rice also has the outer layers (the bran and germ) removed.  This is what makes brown nice more nutritious because the bran and husk are protein and nutrient-rich.  They also absorb arsenic, so removing them from the rice leaves the rice with less arsenic overall.

The FDA does not recommend that we limit our rice consumption.  They give the standard advice that one shouldn't eat only rice but consume a variety of grains from many sources.  Consumer Reports gives different advice, however, which you can see in the graphic below:

Image from Consumer Reports' article

What can you do about arsenic in your food?  The Consumer Reports site provided a link to a Consumers Union website that allows you to send an e-mail to policymakers, urging them to set limits on arsenic levels in food and to ban the use of drugs containing arsenic in animals' feed.  Based on the logo of Consumers Union, I can safely say they're affiliated with Consumer Reports in some way.

We've switched baby to barley or oat cereal.  Rice contains more nutrients than these other grains, but we're trying to limit baby's exposure to chemicals and toxins as much as possible.  Given what I've learned about the increased absorption of arsenic by rice I think the negative effects outweigh the positive.  Arsenic may be present in barley and oats as well, but these grains should not contain as much as rice.  I have yet to find a study as extensive on the arsenic content of these other grains, but I'll keep looking.

Below find the Consumer Reports table detailing levels of arsenic found in different U.S. brands.  The FDA's tables only make reference to sample numbers and don't identify any brands in particular, probably to avoid any possible litigation that could result from singling anyone out.

Image from Consumer Reports

My late night bursts of energy

My wife and I have noticed that every night, once baby has gone to bed, we get this burst of energy and stay awake much later than we should.  Last night I didn't get into bed until almost 11:00, then I read in bed for at least another 20 minutes!  What was I thinking?  Clearly I was not thinking about getting up early to feed baby, then getting up for the day shortly after that.

Everyone knows having a baby messes up your sleep schedule, but exactly how it changes is something I was completely unprepared for.  I used to have a job where I'd get up for work at 3am one week, then work from 3pm until 1am but often 2 or 3am.  I've had crazy, inconsistent sleep schedules.  This is different.

We have a bedtime routine that begins somewhere around 6pm.  We feed baby "solid food," which at this point consists of rice cereal mixed with formula in one dish and mashed fruit in another.  We've done apple, avocado, pear, sweet potato, and nectarine, and it's lots of fun to watch baby's reactions to each.  We feed him and every second night bathe him, then read some books on our bed and feed him a bottle.

I've been having a hard time the last few nights staying awake past story time.  We take turns reading books then sing a little and feed baby a bottle, but two nights ago I fell asleep for about three hours myself.  I missed my dinner!  That of course messed with my ability to sleep that night, and I was up late again.

What I need to do is start taking a nap when baby goes down in the day.  He naps three times in the day, and usually I try to use that time to do things I can't do while he's awake.  I watch TV, clean the apartment, or work on one of my ongoing projects that litter our place and annoy my wife.  I have a lot of half finished things going on at any given moment, and I add about two projects for every one I finish or give up on.

The point is this: as tempting as it is to stay up and enjoy the freedom of a 6 month-old in bed for the night, go to sleep!  We only get up once each in the night to feed him, but once the sun is up he is ready for the day.  I need to either go to bed when he does or within an hour or two; these last morning have been really difficult and I don't want to be exhausted forever.

Scooters Family class at Isis

We enrolled baby in a class at a local store at which we'd previously taken classes for pregnant women and their significant others; the classes we took before baby was born were about what to expect and how to prepare, whereas this class is more about having fun and interacting with other babies.  The class is run at a store called Isis, which has four locations in the Boston area.  They sell high-end baby toys and supplies, run classes, and provide an environment where parents can change their babies, feed their babies, or anything else parents might need.  They allow parents to come in any time and use the facilities without spending any money, which could be helpful for a man trying to change a diaper.  Most women's bathrooms have a baby changing station, but I've run into times when I couldn't change baby because of the lack of a changing station in a men's room.  It usually works in my favor, because in the past my wife has been with me so she gets stuck changing the diaper.  If I were ever alone in Arlington, the Back Bay Boston, Hanover, or Needham and needed to change baby's diaper I would head to Isis.  We've been to all the locations but the Back Bay location and had nothing but good experiences there.

The Scooters Family class runs once a week for 10 weeks, and children start the class when they are between 5 and 8 months of age.  Baby went to the first class with his aunt (we were at a wedding), so this was our first time at the class.  It was lots of fun!  His mother and I were both exhausted from a busy week leading up to the class, and I wasn't sure I would be able to stay awake much less participate in the class.  The woman running the class was very engaging, there were lots of different activities, and watching our child and the other children was very entertaining.

Our baby was one of the only children unable to sit on his own, but the instructor told us that the children are all on different schedules and that no one should feel as if their child is behind.  She also told us that each child can participate in their own way; some children sleep, some cry, some laugh and play along, and all are welcome.  It was a very warm, supportive environment.

The class had lots of different activities.  There was a lot of singing, and each song had sign language to accompany the lyrics.  There was a ball pit that was not quite big enough for all the babies to go in at once, and I thought it important to teach our baby to allow the other children a turn, but we ended up with baby in the ball pit for almost the entire activity.  There was a parachute game, more singing, reading time, a discussion on the importance of routines, and the instructor blew bubbles while singing a bubble song.  There was a goodbye song with more sign language, and everyone leaves the class at their own pace.  Some of the children needed to be fed, some needed to be changed (there's a changing table right in the room), and the instructor came to see if we had any questions about the class we missed.

As I said, the class is 10 weeks long, which tethers us to the Boston area every weekend until November.  But it was fun, baby loved it, and I'm glad we signed up for it.

Gerber Generation Photo Search

The winners are in!  The grand prize winner is Mary Jane Montoya of Fresno California, pictured below.  I don't know if she's as cute as our baby, but she is pretty darn cute.  Here is the official Gerber site, although they make you go to facebook to see the picture.  

Mary Jane

The milestone winners are as follows:

• Birth+: Phoenix Molina, who loves to eat peaches, from Sacramento, Calif.
• Supported Sitter: Justin Ridzon, who loves to eat apples, from Lowell, Mass.
• Sitter: Jax Schuster, who loves to eat squash, from Lebanon, Ind.
• Crawler: Londyn Ridley, who loves to eat bananas, from Millsboro, Del.
• Toddler: Jaiden Davidson, who loves to eat bananas, from Petersburg, Va.
• Preschooler: Johnathon Cahill, who loves to eat apples, from Mastic Beach, N.Y.

• 
  Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/11/06/4964477/gerber-announces-2012-photo-search.html#storylink=cpy

The Gerber competition delayed announcement of the 2012 winners due to hurricane Sandy.  They will announce the winners on November 6th.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you haven't been notified by now your child probably isn't a winner.  Although delaying the announcement could mean the decision isn't made yet, the rules specify a process of contacting the winners and choosing a new winner if they cannot be reached.  I've been answering all the suspected telemarketer calls since September 25th in the hopes that it'll be Gerber to no avail; I have little hope that our baby is a winner.  Below you can read some information about the contest (and scheming of mine) from a time when hope was still alive.

We've entered baby in the Gerber Generation Photo Search competition.  There's a $50,000 cash prize for one baby, determined by Gerber.  There's also a milestone prize, a $10,000 scholarship.  This part of the contest started September 4th, and you can vote every day until September 24th.  Six babies, one from each milestone category, will win a $10,000 Gerber life college scholarship based on people's votes on facebook.  This is a contest that Gerber runs every year, and I'm sure I remember seeing friends on facebook asking for votes in years past.  It's too late to enter this year, but if you have a child that will still fall under the milestone categories I would consider entering it for next year.  The milestone categories are: Birth+, Supported Sitter, Sitter, Crawler, Toddler, and Preschooler.  Our baby fits under the category of supported sitter.  Here's the Gerber press release about the competition.

It doesn't seem possible to see how many votes a child has in the contest.  Many people are asking, how can I see how many votes my baby has?  I haven't found a real answer to this, but I've looked in so many places and as the parent who entered my child in the contest I would think I would be the first one with access to that information.  We'll just have to trust in the system and when the contest is over find out if baby won or not.

According to Gerber's rules for the contest, "the potential Grand Award recipient will be notified via phone, mail, or email on or about September 25, 2012."  The facebook page now says to check back on November 1st to see "which ones you and the judges selected," presumably that's when the milestone and grand prize winners will be announced to the public.  I could only find the official rules in a mobile format.

If you'd like to see a picture of our baby and vote for him in the contest, please sign into facebook and visit https://apps.facebook.com/gerberps/detail.do?entry_id=412952.  We'll take as many votes as we can, I appreciate your help.  College is a scarily expensive proposition, and although $10,000 probably won't get very far in 18 years I'm willing to give it a try.  I'll make a deal with you: if your child is also in the Gerber contest (and not in the supported sitter category), post a link in the comment section below and I will vote for your child.  Please vote for our baby too!

There are some pitfalls to avoid when entering your child in a contest, especially online.  This is the first time I've done it, and Gerber is a well known company so the experience has been a good one.  The prizes are real and I haven't gotten outrageous spam, junk e-mails, or crazy stuff posted to my facebook wall since entering.  This is not the case, however, for a friend who signed up for another contest after missing the Gerber submission deadline.

When you search Google for the Gerber contest several other baby photo contests also come up, and many are tricked into entering them not realizing that they painting a huge telemarketer bull's-eye on themselves in the process.  I saw my friend's post, and wanted to vote for her child.  The site required that you register in order to vote, but I'm experienced with such matters.  I keep an extra e-mail address or two for entering contests or times when I think my information is going to be sold to mailing lists.  This was absolutely one of those times, so I filled out the registration information and clicked proceed, but then screen after screen of special offers and ads came up.  Each page had a "skip offer" option, and finally after skipping about 8 offers it allowed me to vote.  They wanted my phone number, and when I gave them my house phone instead of the cell an error message told me it HAD to be a cell phone.  Red flags and alarms were going off like crazy in my head at this point, so I closed the window and stopped wherever I was.  I'm pretty sure that I voted, but they made you jump through so many hoops that I really can't be 100% certain my vote registered.

The point is this: be careful what you sign up for.  There are a lot of internet scams out there, and my friend very innocently wanted to enter her child in what looked like a legitimate contest.  I'm sure someone does win the $2,500 cash prize her contest advertised, but the number of mailing lists she ended up on as a result is anyone's guess.  She sent me a message the next day apologizing if someone from "allaboutbaby" calls me, because so far that day she'd received three calls from them.

The Gerber contest is a legitimate contest run by a well-established company.  Say what you will about sugar content and giving your baby processed foods, but at least I know my name isn't on a thousand mailing lists for the rest of my life.  If you don't know the company running the contest or there are lots of special offers and ads to skip, it's probably best to skip that contest altogether.

Games for a 5 month old

Yesterday I did some searching online for some educational games to play with our 5 month old, because my wife has gone back to work and I'm alone with baby all day long.  She's a teacher and I work and go to school at night, and we don't want to put baby in daycare yet.  For one thing it's very expensive, and for another we don't want to pay someone else to raise our baby.  This is the first week of school, so it's the first week of baby and I spending our days together.  I thought I should see what would be developmentally beneficial for him rather than just doing whatever I felt like.  It turns out some of the games I was already playing with him are good for him, funny how that works sometimes.

I went to this babycenter.com website that gives some games to play with 4 to 6 month olds.  I've been to the Baby Center website a few times before and find it pretty useful and accurate compared to what the doctor tells us.  Sometimes the way it's narrated and organized bothers me, but it's the content and not the presentation that's most important, right?  I hope so, otherwise half of you probably just stopped reading this page.

We tried the spice rack game, and I wasn't sure if I was getting close enough with the spices but I didn't want him to accidentally inhale any of the spice.  I didn't want to use pepper, but I tried it with cinnamon, tarragon, garlic powder, curry powder, and a couple more I can't remember at the moment.  Some he didn't react to at all really, but the garlic and the curry he scrunched up his face a little for.  I did this in the high chair, and I managed to spill a little curry powder on the restraint strap, which put an end to the spice rack game.  It was fun though, but I'm not sure how you are supposed to cook while playing this game.  They also suggest smelling other things around the house like shaving cream, but I don't think we should encourage baby to get into these things.  The smells might be so interesting that he eventually will want to taste them as well.  Not a good thing.

We don't have any bubbles.  I know it's not hard to make them yourself with shoelaces and dish soap but it seems like it'll be messy, and we have enough of a mess in our apartment right now to not need to add to it.

The "I'm Gonna Get You" game is good, but we don't follow the narrative from the website exactly.  In fact, we don't follow it at all.  I'll talk about what body part I'm pretending to eat between making "OM NOM NOM" noises and kissing him, and he loves it.

One of the classics they mentioned is the "This Little Piggy" game.  This one I already play with baby, and he really enjoys it.  It's fun and it gets a smile from him, but I'm not sure how to use it to distract him while changing diapers.  When changing his diaper I use one hand to hold his legs and the other to wipe.  We've got cloth wipes that are reusable, so we wet them down, ring them out, and wipe.  Even if we had pre-moistened wipes I don't know how I would play "This Little Piggy" without his getting poop all over the place.

It might work well when I'm trying to put his pants on, because that can be very frustrating sometimes.  Our baby is a kicker; he loves to kick all the time, which is cute when he's swimming or playing but not so great when you're trying to get his pants on.  I have to remind myself that he's not doing it on purpose, but trying to get the second leg in is very difficult.  Getting one leg in is no problem, but while I'm trying to get the second he kicks out of the first.  Playing "This Little Piggy" might be the trick to keep his legs in place while I put his pants on.

We didn't have a hard time giving baby tummy time; he's been flipping himself over and flipping back for weeks now.  I tried it their way once, and felt stupid because he's already proven himself proficient at flipping over.

The "Fly, Baby Fly" game is fun, and similar to a few games that we play with baby already.  His mother does a game where she moves his feet like he's riding a bike while she sings "going on a bike ride" with a made up, nondescript tune.  Then she holds his hands and moves them like he's driving a car.  When she's doing that he tries to pull himself into the sitting position, and she'll help a little by pulling on his arms.  After he drives the car she'll pick him up and fly him around over her head singing the same tuneless song, but this time he goes "zoom zoom zoom."  He loves it, and it's probably the first ever game either one of us had played with him.

I'll play a game with him when he's laying down where I'll get right up close to his face.  He'll grab at my facial features and I'll narrate what he's grabbing as he does it.  "Now you're grabbing my nose, and with your left hand you're grabbing my cheek, and oh, now you've got my eyebrow, that kinda hurts," and so on.  Then sometimes he'll grab me by the hair and kick me in the face.  It used to be a lot of fun but now his kicks are getting strong enough that it's starting to hurt, so the hair pull/face kick game doesn't last very long any more.

It is a lot of fun to play with him, and when I find myself getting frustrated or he's getting cranky I try to play a game with him.  It usually gets him smiling and that's an instant cheer-up.  If it doesn't cheer him up he needs either some food or a nap, which are easy enough to fix.

Swimming in a salt water pool

Over Labor Day weekend we were fortunate to take baby swimming in our friend's salt water pool.  Our child is a pisces, and my wife and I both love swimming and water, so we've been pleased to find that so does baby.  Up until now he's only been swimming in a small pool that's meant to be a travel bath; it's about 2 feet by 3 feet and folds up into a handy size.  It's worked so far but it can be hard on the back to be hunched over holding him up as he kicks and splashes.  Swimming in a big pool was much more fun - and easier - for me.

Over the course of the summer we've done a lot of research about swimming in the ocean, swimming in chlorine or saltwater pools, and everything concerning a 4 - 5 month old baby swimming.  Babies shouldn't be in chlorine; it can lead to asthma and respiratory problems among other things.  The major problem with taking a baby into the ocean is the temperature.  A baby younger than 6 months is still learning to regulate their body temperature, and swimming in the ocean can cause baby's temperature to fluctuate dangerously.

The pool we swam in has a retractable cover that keeps the heat in overnight; all day the pool is heated by the sun and keeps most of the heat overnight.  This is the new trend in heating pools, with covers that can be manually spread or motorized ones like this.  It keeps the pool at a comfortable temperature without wasting gas or electricity to heat it.

We got some swim diapers, and the only ones available at Buy Buy Baby (Huggies or Pampers) didn't come in a size any smaller than 16 pounds.  They were for children from 16 to around 30 lbs., and baby just made the cut weighing in at a little more than 16 pounds.  Next year we'll buy some reusable ones, but this year we went with disposables since we only needed them for this weekend.  When he's not swimming in someone else's pool he goes "au natural," but next year he'll be able to swim in the ocean and a chlorinated pool so he'll have more opportunity to use them.  I'd like to delay his swimming in a chlorine pool as long as possible but it might be hard to disappoint him when faced with one.

Baby loved swimming, and it was fun to hold him and actually move him along as he kicked.  He got his face in the water a little by mistake, and was sticking his tongue out possibly to taste the water.  He didn't fuss at all, and after a while my wife had to tell me that he had probably been in long enough.  Just like his Dad, who is usually the last one out of the pool.

My wife's brother gave us a camera similar to the one above, a 14 megapixel Panasonic Lumix camera; the camera is waterproof to 10 ft and shockproof to 5 ft, perfect for taking pictures of children.  Perfect for having around children as well, since it would take a concerted effort to destroy this camera.  The doors where the battery and data card go have slide locks so they can't accidentally be opened and rubber gaskets that keep the water out, but of course they have to be kept clean to keep the water out.  As long as you keep them closed nothing really gets in.  Only once ever have I found water around the inside of the door, shortly after taking it underwater and discovering that I must have forgot to slide the lock closed.  I dried it out without turning the camera on and it was fine.

We got some great underwater pictures, but baby can't swim underwater yet so the coolest ones were taken of his face through the distortion of the surface of the water.  The camera is pretty cool, and now that I'm over the fear of a waterproofing malfunction I can't wait to use it when he can actually swim underwater.

Baby's first time eating avocado

Today we fed avocado to baby for the first time, and it was a success!  Being from the east coast, I didn't try and avocado until I was in my 20s probably.  Our baby is about 5 1/2 months old and he's already had it.  That might account for why I was so excited for him to try it, and also because I really love avocado.  In sushi, guacamole, sandwiches, anything.  I wonder if they make avocado ice cream.

We use the Beaba baby food cooker above, which is really just a food processor mixed with a steamer. We have a lot of kitchen gadgets, so we probably could have done without it, but it was a gift from family and it does work well.

My wife read somewhere that you could measure out servings of the food in ice cube trays once it's steamed and ready, that way you'll have little servings that can be taken out of the freezer any time they're needed.  It's easy enough to do and utilizes something we already own, so there's no added expense.  We take them out of the trays once they're frozen and put them into glass leftover containers because we're trying to limit his food's exposure to plastic.  Even if the trays are BPA free (which I'm not sure they are) they'll find something else in plastic that's bad, so I'm sticking with glass as much as I can.

We went on a little mini vacation to visit my parents on Cape Cod, and met some neighbors with a new baby about the same age.  Their child is a little older, and had already tried avocado.  He did not like it. I was worried, because I had built up avocado in my mind knowing that it's full of nutrients and good fats.  I found this California Avocado Nutrition Website with lots of information about the avocado; they really are amazing.

Before we left my wife prepared apples, sweet potatoes, pears, nectarines, and avocados in the Beaba, so when we returned we had our choice of what to give him.  We went with avocado and he seemed to love it.  There were a couple of times he made funny faces, like when he ate the applesauce for the first time, but only once or twice and not on his first bites.  The applesauce we had to mix with the rice cereal to get him to eat without making faces, but the avocado he ate all by itself with no problem.

He ate the entire ice cube of avocado, and almost all of his rice cereal immediately afterward.  We'll feed him avocado for three more days then try something else, probably the sweet potato.

Men and Women and the BabyBjorn

This is really just an observation that my wife and I made a few weeks ago, but every time I put baby in the BabyBjorn I'm reminded of it.

When putting baby in, you clip one side then put baby's foot through that side before clipping the other side.  When I do it, I start with the side on my right.  When my wife does it, she starts with the side on her left.  Every time we use it the same thing happens: she starts with the left and I start with the right.  This has to be because of the difference between men's and women's garments; men's clothes button from the right and women's from the left.

This explanation I knew for this is from the Victorian era, when affluent women generally wouldn't dress themselves.  Servants would dress and button up the women, so the buttons were designed for right-handed people facing the garment.  Well-to-do men would have their clothes laid out for them by their servants, but they would actually dress themselves.

I found another explanation, that men would button their armor from the right to prevent right handed opponents from getting through the armor from that side.  Women's clothing buttons from the left so that while nursing a child they have easier access to the right side, then believed to be closer to the heart.  CLOSER TO THE HEART, YEAH bum bum bum, beeeeeeew, beeeeew beeew, buh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh bunluhla bunluhla bunluhla bunluhla buuuuuuh...

I'm not afraid to say I like Rush, although not as much as I used to, so the nonsense above are the lyrics to the guitar solo from Rush's "Closer to the Heart."

Bumbo recall and new safety strap

As you may know, the Bumbo baby seat was recently recalled.  The safety strap can be ordered (in the United States) by calling 866-898-4999 or visiting www.recall.BumboUSA.com.  There's a Bumbo site for Canada (http://bumbocanada.com), and outside the U.S. or Canada requires e-mailing this address: info@bumbo.co.za.  Instructions for those outside the U.S. can be found at the above website's FAQ page.

The Bumbo seat is meant to help children who are "supported sitters" do so without human hands doing the supporting.  It comes with a litany of safety instructions printed on the seat as well as in the instructions that tell you not to leave your child unattended, to only use the seat on the ground, not to use it as a highchair or booster seat, not to use it as a car seat, and so on.



While these safety instructions seem like common sense, some parents somewhere found out the hard way that their children could push themselves out of the Bumbo and hurt themselves as they fall out of it.  Accidents do happen, and I'm not trying to rub salt in the wounds of the parents whose children were hurt, but whenever we but baby in the Bumbo we were careful to stay within an arm's length of him.  One of the instructions on the product says to use it for a short periods of time at first and observe how your child reacts to it.  When we put baby in the seat for the first time he enjoyed it for a few minutes, then started straining to push himself up and out of it.  We immediately took him out of the seat and chalked it up to that initial period of adjustment to sitting upright on his own without room to wiggle and squirm.  It seemed like two things could have happened if we left him there: he would jump out of it and hurt himself, or he would try to jump out and flip over and hurt himself.  Either way, we knew that he would require supervision when using the seat.

One of the best pieces of advice we got from all the baby classes we took before he was born was to always fill out warranty registration cards for any baby products.  Baby products are recalled so often, and it's easy to lose track of which model of which product line you own when a recall is announced.  It also eliminates your dependence on hearing about a recall from the news or word of mouth; the company will directly contact you via mail or e-mail when a product is recalled.   There may have been a day or two between hearing about the recall and the official e-mail my wife received, but it's good to be part of the official notification system.

We had to request the seat belt upgrade; my wife provided the serial number of our Bumbo probably to prove that we still have it.  She requested it and they shipped it to our house within a week or so.

The Bumbo is made of polyurethane foam, and installing the safety belt was a new experience.  The upgrade kit came with a plastic template that fits in the seat where baby would sit.  There are three holes about 120° apart that you use to mark the points where the seat belt will be attached.  The seat belt has three anchor points with little conical arrows sticking out of it that simply push through the polyurethane.  Once the arrows are through there are little anchors that attach on the other side and the belt is installed.

Installing the seat wasn't difficult, but getting baby into the seat by myself proved to be very hard.  The straps sit in the bottom of the seat when they're not in use, and I didn't want to let out the straps all the way just to have to tighten them immediately afterwards.  It can get tiresome to be constantly fighting with all the different straps and restraints that a baby needs, and I think one of the marks of a good product is how easy it is for parents (but not for baby) to loosen the straps and tighten them again.  I could have loosened the straps all the way, or if someone else could have held them out of the way as I put him in things would have been easier.  It wasn't that difficult to do but I did have to squeeze in to pull the straps out and as baby gets bigger it will become more of an issue.

The Bumbo is an interesting product.  It makes claims about helping a baby develop the strength and balance needed to sit on their own, but I've read articles that say it does the exact opposite.  This article from the Chicago Tribune examines some of the claims and responses from a physical therapist from Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.  We'll still use the seat, but we're not tricking ourselves into thinking that it's a miracle trainer that will teach our baby to sit upright.  Today I used it to keep him in one place as I emptied the dishwasher and cleaned the kitchen; that seems to be its best use.