biter baby

Juliet's always been a biter. Born a biter, always a biter? I hope not. She chewed/bit before she had teeth, but now that there's 7 teeth in there it's more of a problem ... sure it was kind of cute the first time she bit me and left little teethmarks, but sweet biter baby has left bruises on my arm - NOT CUTE!

I knew the crib would be an eventual target, but hadn't made it to Babies R Us to get a crib guard. And I was too late! Juliet chewed on the side rail, making some decent marks. Sigh. At least it was the side rail so that when it's eventually converted to a full bed, it won't have any marks ... pending any other incidents. Charlie chewed up some woodwork in the laundry room when he was a puppy ... apparently our "children" have this in common ;)

So, the next day we took a trip to BRU to get a rail guard. Kind of funny - the packaging for the crib guards say that it "protects baby's gums" ... I'm reading this thinking "I'm more concerned about the bed, not Juliet!" Is this bad? Due to the fact that Juliet has a convertible crib, we couldn't buy the cheap crib guard and since both the side and front rails are perfect height for chomping on, I was going to have to spend $50.

Ummmm, no thank you. So we moved on to plan B - google "DIY crib rail guard" and see what we can rig up! I found a couple sites of people that had created fabric ones and one lady that had made one out of fleece - genius! This past winter I made a stroller blanket and a car seat blanket for Juliet using some leftover fleece and was a big fan of these money saving solutions and fleece came to my rescue once again! If you've made one of those knotted blankets, you can totally master this project. If not, this lady sells a 10 page tutorial on how to do it. I don't see how that could actually be necessary, but that's just me. I won't make fun of you if you buy her guide :)

No sewing required and it only cost me $10 in fleece. Here it is!



So the moral of this story is:

Before purchasing any baby product, ask yourself "Could I make this out of fleece and save myself some money?"