Down the Rabbit Hole

Two months into motherhood, I have learned a few things about the challenges of being a parent. One of which is the importance of sleep . See, before becoming a mom, I had always thought that the late nights would be manageable because I only need four hours of sleep to function properly, based on my hectic lifestyle back in grad school, when I started working as a postdoc fellow and then a scientist, and then as a data science student. But the first weeks of motherhood proved me wrong QUICKLY. I learned how important sleep actually is. Sleep. Ever elusive but a necessity for good brain and body development for babies and a requirement to keep parents level-headed and able to take care of babies. During my baby's first weeks, he slept like a champ but for 30 minutes at a time... lulling him to sleep took a much longer time! I thought that I had to find a way to encourage him to sleep longer... and this search led me down the rabbit hole of the baby sleep industry. And my impression

With the wee one's arrival imminent, I started asking around what the best diaper options are for newborns. Biboy and Barbara swear by Pampers but since there are so many diaper product lines now (even within Pampers), I'm kind of overwhelmed. So, I thought I should buy a few of different brands and test them when the baby is here. The scientist in me jumped on the opportunity to conduct an experiment to assess which one is best for the baby and which one I'd continue to purchase. I considered both disposable and reusable diapers with their pros and cons (including carbon footprints of throwing out disposables, and of washing and disinfecting reusable ones), I ended up stocking up on disposable diapers with eco-friendly claims. I figured I should buy the diapers in size 1 because the wee one, I expect, will outgrow the newborn size rapidly. So, the diapers I got were Pampers Pure , The Honest Company , Seventh Generation , and Dyper . At Buy Buy Baby , where I bought mos