Sleep, I love you

please come back

I detest

when I lack

enough of you

in my day

to help me run

and help me play

role of mom

in the best way

Oh, I miss you

I must say

please come back, sleep,

this I pray.

I don’t know about you guys, but raising champions is a daily exercise in patience.  I have been through the ups and the downs and the all arounds lately.  Princess had another bout of the sick last week with raging fevers and sleepless nights.  Unfortunately, that results in my body developing the bad habit of continuing the sleepless nights after she is well. This, my friend, is the hardest thing.  Having two very active and athletic children and not sleeping.  I am a zombie.  Coffee, I love you too.

I am trying to focus on God – key word – trying.  I need to stop trying and just doing.  Trying gives me a cop out – doing is just living my truth.  Lord, help me to be stronger in my faith and rely so much on you during the sleepless moments in my parenting life.  I love you, thank you for the help.

So, on to the topic of peeing the bed.  I didn’t do it, I promise!  I am trying to encourage both of my children – remember they are champions who are very active – so in typical situations (where they are not sick) they sleep very soundly – to not wet the bed.  YIKES.

It’s been almost 5 years of diapers for me and I’m just over it for so many reasons.  Far be it for us to judge anyone, right my friends?  Everyone has their own family situations and each of us carry our own unique sets of DNA which includes it’s own unique rule book.  I am trying my hardest to overcome this obstacle.

I have written in the past about my concerns with organic tampons and pads.  My body was reacting horribly to the non-organic brands I was using.  After just a couple of hours I would get a burning sensation in my lady parts – super concerning!  I made the switch to CORA brand tampons and I am SO freakin happy with them.  No burning – no pain, and awesome protection.

I just recently started using the Rael organic pads at night for protection during my heavy period nights and I am super happy with those too.  Praise!  I admit, using organic feminine products wasn’t a concern until I started getting the burning pain.  Snowball effect took over and I started thinking about the diapers my children were wearing.  OH NO.

If my body was reacting so terribly to the non-organic products, and my children were wearing them at night too, then, I needed to make a change with them as well.  I challenge you – take a powerful sniff of a freshly opened bag of pull-ups.  If you don’t gag from the disgusting chemical smell then I am afraid to tell you your nose is broken and you should see a doctor.

I did some research and I came up with NOTHING.  There are no organic pull-ups for older toddlers on the market at all.  There are organic diapers, but I don’t want my kids feeling like babies when I’m trying to teach them to NOT pee at night and they are big kids!  It’s a really counter-productive action.  With a couple of google searches under my belt, I found my solution.

I bought some packages – one for each kid – of 100% cotton washable training pants and adult sized bed pads to put on the bed to protect the mattress from accidents!  Praise!  They arrived yesterday and I put all the stuff in the wash immediately.  Right off the bat, I was super impressed with the quality of everything I bought.

Trial began last night, we suited up the beds with the new protective pads and dressed the children in their new underpants.  Haha.  They look like old fashioned bloomers, poor Lil’ Man totally resented my choice in protection.  He said,
“Mom, why am I wearing sister’s panties?”  I couldn’t help but laugh so hard, which made things worse because he thought I was laughing at him.  I told him that he looks like when he was a baby and it made my heart so happy, this made him feel better.  He’d do anything to make me happy, just like his grizzly bear dad.

I wish I could tell you we had great success, but I think a 50/50 win is progress.  Lil’ man didn’t wet the bed at all, but Princess had an accident.  I think this is great in a way cause I can report on the waterproof capabilities of the mattress pad.  I was shocked to see that there was no leak.  Let me explain.  Skepticisim creeped in my mind when I opened the mattress pad and realized how thin it was, and the waterproof side is not crinkly and loud like a diaper is.  Hummm…I wondered, will this thing actually work?

Sure enough, the pee pad worked like a champ.  The training pants were completely soaked from top to bottom with the amount of pee my daughter let out through the night, and yet still, no pee penetrated the sheet below the pad or the mattress at all!  Genius!  That pee pad was worth every single penny spent!

Another worry I had was adding this change into my toddler’s routine would mess up their sleeping habits. Perhaps an accident would wake them up through the night and thus, put a damper on solving my sleeping issues again.  I’m telling you one thing, that tiny worry would never dampen my efforts on making life and health better for my children.  Thankfully, both children slept through the whole night with no waking, another great success.

Overall, I’m feeling like I have won guys.  Gone are the chemicals, gone are the astronomical prices of pull ups – can you believe how expensive they are?  Gone are the worries about the reproductive organs of my lil babies.  They are now fully protected by washable, 100% cotton products that actually work and make me feel like I scored and I am a champion mom.  I had to share my success because it makes me feel like I can sleep better at night. Another obstacle overcome, knocked down and never have to worry about again.

I’ve added links to the training pants and the pads so that you guys can buy them too.  It’s a great solution if you are struggling with chemicals or sleep training your toddlers.  I pray it gives you the peace of mind that it gave me.  I signed up for an Amazon Affiliate Account today so I can make some money on the stuff I love, we all should be doing that, right?  If we find something we love and we want to share it, there is no shame in making money if we can on the work we put in to share the information.  I think it’s absolutely great for a stay at home mom to make some money and help other parents live better lives.

If you’re curious about how you can sign up for Amazon Affiliate program too, there are plenty of resources out there to help you make money from home too!  I encourage you to do it.

Stay healthy, stay wise, stay strong, share love and help and most importantly as a Simply My Swank motto, stay close to God and share His love, one rhyme at a time!