There's a baby on my head! Why you need a good night-time #clothdiaper

Since my last post I am back to sleeping upstairs alone. It is so weird sleeping without my baby OR my husband for nights on end. Since the Bug was born, the longest trip I have taken without him is 1 night. I've gone on longer trips for business, but I took him and left daddy at home.

I've had all kinds of crazy dreams. I guess that is what happens when you resume a full nights sleep after 18 months ++ of interrupted sleep. And really, 18 months implies that I was able to sleep pregnant...

So now it us Daddy's turn. As usual, I am torn about this. There was a bunch if buzz on Twitter earlier this week that said something like "you can never wean a baby from it's mother", and there is a part of me that feels like I am doing something bad or wrong by leaving my boys to fend for themselves at night. It's the same part of me that sometimes feels guilty about my son spending so much time at daycare.

I believe in attachment parenting. And, I don't remember seeing anywhere in my Dr Sears book where it said that the roles of the attached caregivers were set in stone. When the Bug was 4 months old and I had to go to work, I found a daycare provider who would carry him around all day or even wear him. Now he is in a Montessori where they practice child lead learning and discipline with Love & Logic. I guess what I am saying is that it takes a village, and I am comfortable calling on my community to share in roles that might *traditionally* fall on mom.

All this is to rationalize leaving my husband with a week + now of less than fully rested nights. He seems to just now be discovering that the baby wiggled around a lot, and whimpers, and tosses and turns, and sometimes struggles to get comfortable. And sometimes you end up with a diaper in your face.

We really struggled for a while to find a night time cloth diaper solution. Our end formula is a fitted hemp diaper (Happy Hempy at the moment but I am looking to try something new) with a cover. It is bulky and Bug looks like he has a bowling ball in his pants. And it requires a cover. And it's not easy to do all if this with a squirmy fussy over tired tot. For months now, I have complained and obsessed about making sure the diaper is 100% contained in the cover, knowing that halfway through the night I might find myself snuggled with the wrong end of the baby.

Now that the baby is sleeping on
my husbands head instead of mine, he finally understands.

I think soon they will figure out how to get a good nights rest without a boob, and hopefully soon I will be able to come back to bed. In the mean time I feel like I'm in a hotel or something.


- Blogging from my iPhone

Location:my upstairs suite