Saturday, August 9, 2008

Dad tip #112: Do separate shirt and pant outfits result in more diaper blow-outs?

I believe that when your baby wears separate shirt and pant outfits, that he's more prone to having a diaper blow-out. And when I say shirt, I'm NOT including onesies; I'm referring to the times that your baby wears something like a t-shirt with a pair of shorts.

I'm not sure there's actually a pattern or even true logic behind my theory, but I do feel like onesies somehow provide some additional support in containing the poop in the diaper. At the very least, onesies do help prevent you from accidentally pulling the diaper down when you remove the pants for a diaper change.

When blow-outs do occur in this scenario, you should consider yourself lucky if your baby's shirt buttons all the way down the front so you don't get into a situation where you're in danger of dragging poo through his hair. As you'll recall, we've inadvertently painted poo-racing stripes down our son's legs. Imagine how much worse it would be if you were painting the poo through your kid's hair.

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Friday, August 8, 2008

Dad tip #111: Organize all your baby clothes

People love to buy clothes for your baby. People also love to give you hand-me-downs. And YOU can't resist buying your baby clothes. What does this mean?

It means that you may end up with more clothes than your baby can reasonably wear for any given age range. If you're not REALLY organized, it's entirely possible that you'll find yourself with completely new and unworn outfits that your baby's already outgrown.

Grouping clothes by size is key. And by size, I mean by physical size and NOT by listed size as every manufacturer has their own ideas of what you can squeeze a baby into and/or how big a baby should be at any age. Progressively packing away clothes that are too small also helps with the baby wardrobe de-confusification.

My wife should consider this post a monumental "Thank you" for all the hard work she puts in to keep our boy's things in order. I don't always say it enough, but I really do appreciate it. I suspect if I were in charge, we'd be finding onesies hidden away when our son is old enough to vote.

(But I'm sure they'd be really awesome Star Wars onesies.)

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Sunday, July 20, 2008

Dad tip #92: Kids Star Wars t-shirts available at The Gap

Okay, today's advice is more of a "heads-up" than it is advice, but maybe it'll still be helpful to someone. As unlikely as it sounds, kids Star Wars t-shirts are indeed available at The Gap!

Furthermore, in some kind of partnership with Junkfood, The Gap is now selling licensed merchandise bearing the trademarks of not only Star Wars, but also Indiana Jones, Speed Racer, The Beatles, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Hello Kitty, Strawberry Shortcake, Peanuts, The Smurfs, and more. Junkfood apparently has some pretty amazing deals with a lot of different brands. Forming a partnership with a mainstream entity like The Gap is a pure stroke of genius to make those licenses go as far as they can possibly go.

The t-shirts are totally kick-ass, but they're EX-PEN-SIVE! We're talking $22.50 for a shirt that will probably only fit your kid for a couple of months at most. But it may well be his favorite shirt for those few precious months. And afterall, how much is YOUR nostalgia worth to you?

I suspect that Junkfood's license has a limited lifespan so you'd better act sooner than later if you're interested. But the greater sense of urgency to decide whether or not to spend that much money on an article of children's clothing will be The Gap's clockwork seasonal changes of their clothing lines. If you were looking for an adult-sized Junkfood Star Wars t-shirt for yourself, you should checkout the official Star Wars Shop (where some of the Junkfood tees are only $18.50, go figure).

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Friday, July 4, 2008

Dad tip #76: How holiday baby outfits affect your life


You'll discover pretty early on that people love buying your baby outfits -- not just individual items of clothing, but entire outfits. This behavior becomes even more prevalent around the holidays. I suspect that you may find that holiday-themed outfits frequently end up being funny, inconvenient, frustrating, and/or impractical; but always well-intentioned.

For example, our boy received about a half dozen Christmas outfits within the first few weeks of his life. If I recall correctly, we actually changed his outfit two or three times on Christmas Eve and Christmas day to make sure that we didn't offend anyone by not having him at least appear in a photo with each outfit. Among the many outfits were an obligatory "My First Christmas" onesie and a full-fledged Santa Claus outfit (sans beard).

On Saint Patrick's Day we dressed our son briefly in a shamrock-patterned hand-me-down onesie that made him look more like a girl than a thousand pink bows would've. On Easter, our son had so much poop erupt out of his diaper that we had to dispose of his "My First Easter" onsies half way through the day. And today, he wore a very patriotic red, white, and blue striped t-shirt that he promptly spit up on after his first meal of the day.

There's always some underlying aggravation when something happens to the outfit of choice, but thanks to friends and family, you may very well have a back up (or even a back up to the back up). So, the advice here is appreciate that people are considerate and thinking of you baby and try not to get to frustrated if the outfit doesn't make it through the whole day.

Happy 4th of July!

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Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Dad tip #17: Why buy Carter's baby clothes at Macy's when you can get them at BJ's?

Carter's makes some some pretty decent baby clothes. But on the whole, I'd rather pay $5 for a pair of PJs instead of $15 -- particularly when the clothes use about as much fabric as a glorified handkerchief and are likely to be outgrown within a few weeks.

I figured I'd make this post a quick hit and warn people away from purchasing Carter's baby clothes from department stores like Sears and Macy's and instead consider places like BJ's and Carter's Outlet. You can literally buy three times as much clothes for the same price.

As a side note, Carter's Web site is just about the worst one I can remember seeing from a publicly traded company. Maybe that's why their stock price is worth about half of what it was a year ago.

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