The Importance of Sleep

It is funny that until you have a baby, most people tend to take sleep for granted. I definitely did not think too much about the importance of sleep during my pregnancy. Then of course, it hit me like a ton of bricks following Jory's birth. Thankfully, Jory did not have colic and could generally be seen as a happy baby so the amount of time that he slept has gradually become longer. To date, he has not slept more than 6.5 hours, however, this amount of time seemed pretty good to me considering the horror stories I have heard from parents who have older children that still continue to have night wakings.

A couple of days ago, I was on Facebook and a status update from a high school acquaintance caused me to reevaluate everything regarding our sleep schedule. Her baby had slept 10 hours and he was a month younger than Jory! I had to investigate. She soon led me to a book called "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Marc Weissbluth. I was definitely intrigued. She explained to me the importance of a sleep schedule and watching for babies' sleepy cues. Essentially, the goal is to put him down during a time that the baby can naturally fall asleep without fussing or crying which is when the baby is over-tired.

I bought the book a couple of days ago and while I know that it cannot be instantaneous, I am hopeful that I will be able to implement a schedule that works. I am definitely aiming at the goal of a 10-hour sleep night.

Carter's/OshKosh B'Gosh in Canada

As seen in my previous post, I love Carter's. Making my way down to the states could basically be justified by a visit to one of its stores. To my surprise and excitement, I recently found out that they opened stores in the lower mainland. They now have stores in New Westminster, Langley, and two locations in Surrey (http://www.cartersoshkosh.ca/). I could not believe that I had missed this! Apparently, the first store opened in Langley in July. As soon as I found out, it was not long that I had to make my way down to a location, particularly since I have a baby shower to attend this weekend and I was itching to buy a cute outfit for the new baby girl.

As with all of the stores in the states, I was overwhelmed with the amount of cute clothing in the New Westminster store that I made my way to. However, they are combo stores in Canada. The Carter's brand was the front half of the store, and OshKosh brand was the back end of the store. I am partial to the Carter's brand as I think the clothing are generally cuter.

In the end (after a long time of browsing particularly since I do not usually get to pick cute girly outfits), I ended up with a cute outfit ($15) and headbands ($5) for the baby girl.

I also could not help but get an outfit ($12) for Jory along with a set of 3 bibs ($9) since it is one of my pet peeves that outfits don`t match the bibs.

In terms of price, I would have to say that the states is definitely cheaper, although not by a huge margin which would make it still worthwhile to shop at these locations. I also did notice that some items that were on sale in the states, were still regular price at this location. I guess it does not surprise me that they are a bit behind than the locations in the states though. I would also anticipate that they do not have all the new styles that I may find at a location in the states. I have not tested this theory yet though. All in all, I think I would still go down to the states to get the better deal (particularly if I get an email about a great sale or I`m heading down there anyways). It is however nice to know that it is available in Canada and it certainly saves on the gas money that would be spent heading down to the states.