32 prefolds and 83 washcloths...

So Charlie is needing to be suctioned less and less. This is great news! We don't know if she's swallowing better, but we do know that she's learning to handle her secretions in other ways. She spits them out a lot and coughs out whatever makes it into her lungs. It's so cute, she will lean her head forward just to spit, to make sure it actually clears her her mouth. LOL

So this means we suction her less (down to 2-10 times a day) but we are wiping her mouth...A LOT. I learned pretty quickly that you have to have a rag handy all the time, no matter what. She spits every few minutes and coughs every half hour or so. We use washcloths to wipe the spit and prefolds to handle the junk she coughs up. We know when she's about to cough, because the makes an "O" face, like she's going to puke, and then she coughs instead. We have about a 2 second warning and we are learning to be very, very quick, or we will get sprayed with mucous.

So today I did her laundry and in the past week or so, we've gone through 32 prefolds and 83 washcloths. YIKES. I noticed last week that we were going through a lot more washcloths, so I went to the dollar store and got another 30 pack for $5. We already had about 50 wipes (that we'd normally use for diaper changes) and 20 washcloths (from the cheapie pack I bought before she was born). I hope we're set now. And eventually I'm sure she'll got through less washcloths too.

I thought that seemed like too much...maybe we are tossing them in the hamper before we really need to. Are we folding them over enough times to get every little bit of use out of them? I hate to be wasteful. I did the calculations and that's about 1 washcloth for every waking hour and 4 prefolds a day. That means I wipe her mouth about 10 times per washcloth and catch about 4 mucous-spews per prefold. Maybe we're not being wasteful. Maybe she's just that spitty! LOL