Second Month

Layette

Now that he drools often and spits up on occasion, hand towels under the baby are essential. Waterproof pads are also useful, but I'm sure less comfortable for him so I use towels more often.

For the parents, hearing protectors. I can reduce the ringing in my ears, and still comfort my baby. We really need the hearing protectors for bath time! Hooded towels, soft baby washclothes (which can be regular soft washclothes), and a baby tub complete the bath time essentials. We got the well-reviewed Primo EuroBath, and it seems too big for this little fellow, so we're borrowing a smaller baby tub for a while.

Nursing

Boppy is less useful now that he prefers to nurse semi-upright, but it's good for tummy time and supervised naps. I'm considering Pollywog instead. Sometimes he even wants to nurse fully upright (!), straddling my leg, which shocked my mother.

The PDA and laptop (with wireless networking, external keyboard, and padless mouse) are great! My favorite nursing bra turns out to be the cheapest one I tried, a Bestform B355. (I assume it's now discontinued, since that happens whenever I decide I have a favorite bra.) Breast pads are necessary, and I soak through occasionally.

I started using my breastpump, an Ameda Purely Yours. My mechanical engineer husband looked at it and a Medela Pump In Style, and said the Ameda design was better. And what's the point to marrying someone with these skills if I don't follow his advice? Pumping means bottles! Larger nipples allow my baby to use the same wide-open mouth for bottle feeding as for breast. Angled bottles are easier to position. I think a vented bottle to reduce air bubbles in the baby also helps since we don't have to burp him that often. We have the best luck with Playtex Natural Shape VentAire bottles, which has larger nipples, angled bottle, and vented bottom. To pump directly into these bottles, I also needed the adapter ring from the OneStep Breast Milk Storage Kit (get two kits if you want to pump both breasts at once). I really like hands-free pumping.

Sleeping

Sleeping? Even less this month! He was hungry about every three hours in the second month, and he cried a lot more. In the first month, if he cried at night, he was hungry; in the second month, who knows? Still using the SwaddleMe and the Pack n Play bassinet with changing station. He's now strong enough to shift the SwaddleMe to less helpful configurations, so we'll need to move on.

Travel

I added spare breast pads (dispo) to the diaper bag. He switched from riding in the Baby Bjorn face-in to face-out this month. He also likes to practice standing, so I'll look at exer-saucers.

Total weight loss: down 7 pounds.