3rd times the fail?

Potty trained Emma with the 3 day potty training method and she finished on the 3rd day. By day 4 she was good to go, even at night she didn't have any accidents. She was 20 months old when her training was complete.

Annabella's training using the 3 day method went ok, but on day 3 she refused to go at all in the bathroom. She was 21 months and she liked her undies, but didn't want to use the restroom at all. She later finished her training a week later by herself because she wanted to wear big girl undies like her sister.

Today, we tried number 3. Zach is almost 23 months and he fought me to put his undies on. We had 1 success and 4 failures within 30 minutes. I decided that I could do the training during the week without my wife's help this time, and I was mistaken.  Emma is being clingy, Bella has an ear infection, and she has also regressed and has had 4 accidents today, she turns 3 on the 14th of December. I chose a bad day to start, and I should have never tried alone.

This is definitely one of those moments I would ask someone else, "So, what have we learned?" It's been a, self-inflicted, rough day.

A true loss

I often have a bad habit of thinking the worse when events don't go like they are supposed to. Not like, 'my wife is cheating on me,' or 'she doesn't love me anymore,' but more like, "is she still alive?' 'What'll it be like without her, and what will I tell the kids to end their crying.' It's a macabre image I conjure up, and regardless of the family combination - Mama and Emma, Emma, Bella, and Mama, or Bella and Mama - it is never pleasant.

I have a friend that has just lived my worse thoughts; she lost her 12 year old to a stroke, that followed a coma, then ended with her death, and I am at a loss of words. I can't conceive any word of comfort that'll help bring her mind to a simmer rather than a boil. What can be said?

I think rather than wasting my time with hollow words I'll just embrace her in her biggest hug I can give, and pray my actions convey the words my brain can't say. Then, offer a prayer to her.

What do y'all think? Is there something I can do or say to give her any comfort? Maybe a verse from the Bible, or a quote you know?

Quiet... A little too quiet...

When Emma was a smaller baby, she had to have dead silence. I could not leave the room after putting her down until the heat kicked on or a.c. just to make sure I had a noise covering my sound. It was rough and I even wrote an article about how the house was "against" me because if I took a step it creaked every step.

Annabella, however,  is completely different!  Its crazy to see how different the 2 are. If it gets too silent Annabella is stiring. If she hears noise then she goes back to relaxing. It is fun to see how different they are and makes me wonder what the next will be like.

My mother-in-law talks about her oldest. She said that if any light in the house were on at all, he knew and was yelling for someone to come and get him. What have been your experience with these types of habits?

Diaper cover review: Flip

Hello everyone! Sorry it has been a while since an actual review, but here it is. We jump back into things with Flip diaper covers.

We have been using them for our oldest, up until she was potty trained, for about 4 months or so. There have been a lot of pros and cons to them and lets get started! Don't forget to join me on Facebook by hitting the link on the right and to subscribe to the feed for updates!

Price:
They are certainly not the cheapest way to go when it comes to covers. From the sites we purchase from they start at $14.95 and go from there. With that price you can buy 3 Bububibi, not including inserts, covers and be set for a while. Or are you?

Quality:
One of the first things you'll notice, unlike the bububibi brand, is that the area the legs come out of are all the same material as the rest of the diaper as well as the similar coating. It doesnt sound like much because the area is only a couple cm wide, but when your child has a huge wet diaper it makes a difference. We went 3 days before we had to switch to a different cover and the only reason was because her BM was runny and got the cover all nasty, but there was no leak.

Maintenance:
I would recommend this with all cloth diaper covers. Hand wash them. It keeps you from having to worry about the protective coat being washed out or jeopardize. They do stain easily, but that has been my experience with other covers as well, but they clean up nicely. If you don't get the poo off the covers shortly after the accident, the stains can become permanent.

Colors/patterns:
The Flip covers come with some gorgeous patterns and the earth toned colors are bright and look good. The lovelace is my favorite and we have gotten many compliments on them. Most don't realize they are cloth diapers.

Conclusion:
The Flip brand covers are our favorite diaper covers webhave used so far. The price isn't insanely out of reach and if you get a few with some prefolds, you can get to free shipping quite quickly. My wife and I started with 3 and after a week of using them decided to get three more. We have not run out of the covers yet and most of them still look brand new. I highly recommend the Flip brand covers and hope that this post has helped you in your purchase!

Here is a link to a trusted sight I have used in the past with great reviews and quick delivery.
https://www.nickisdiapers.com/mobile/flip-diaper-covers.html#

Please let me know your experience with Flip or any other cover you have used in the past!

Baby Rule of 3

Ive come to the conclusion that there is a baby rules of three.  Like with all things, so says Murphy "anything that can go wrong will go wrong", but not just once for use but thrice.

Annabella was having a rough night and couldn't fall to sleep and Emma woke up, not cause she heard her sister,  but because she just woke up (you cant hear baby crying from the other side of the house). Then after a long time putting Annabella to sleep I finally got Emma down. Then Emma woke back up an hour later waking Annabella back up...

I know this sounds like 4, but I actually only count that as 2, one for each wake-up. The third came in a form of me not having to work on Monday and then finding out that I did. Doesnt sound like a big deal until you know that we had a doctor appointment early in the morning and I had planned on going to help my wife with the girls. So now she had to drive 1hr and 30mins to get there wait an hour for the doc cause he was behind, then drive back the hour and a half.

Have any of you noticed there is a baby rule of 3? If so what brought it to your attention?

The Strongend

 you follow me on fb youll know that I have been having great success with Emma and her potty training!  I've stopped asking herto tell me when she needs to go and have just trusted her to tell me. I'm impressed!

She has had 2 accidents. 1 diarrhea and the other just a little tinkle. Im very happy with the way things turned out. The book talked about how you need to persist. I think we may have relinquished a bit and caused out own issues. Idk if this is normal for kids or not, but we went to the store and had no accidents and church and she went twice there! (She loved the toddler potty). Zig ziglar talks about the way you use your words can effect the outcome of your attitude.

For instance: "go lights" instead of stop lights. Or "opportunity alarm" instead of alarm clock.  We used strongend instead of weekend! Do you use any words that would normally be identified as negatives and if so, hownlong didnit take you to get to that point where it was natural?  I still have issues using positive words over negative!

Accidents happen

Yesterday was far better than the day before! Emma was able to go to the bathroom a few times, but she only went 4 or 5 times rather than her normal 8 or so. These are total trips to the bathroom, not just successful trips. She just keeps holding it and waiting until she can't hold it anymore. With the success of only 2 trips I'm going to more on to something else...

Annabella. She is almost 3 weeks old and is small. It's crazy to think that Emma was just 1 inch longer than her when she was first born. I've tried cloth diapers, Flips and Bububibi, and both covers leak. Her legs are too small? Perhaps. For sure the Bububibi are much tighter and get far smaller than the Flips, but they still leaked and got on blankets and clothes and etc. I don't remember having this issues with Emma, but then again, we had a whole different issue with her (not eating well).

Have you ever used cloth diapers on a newborn? If so, what did you use for your diaper covers and what worked?