Top-Down Fires for Heating

If you use a wood stove to keep your family warm in the winter – particularly if you have a small wood stove with a low ceiling – you may well have gotten used to waking up out of bed during the night to keep the fire going. It’s not as big a deal to wake up to a cold house once the children are older, but babies are less tolerant of extreme temperature changes which means, yes, another source of sleep deprivation for you.

A top-down – sometimes called front-back – fire is a new-ish (depending on who you ask) technique for building fires. The idea is to burn the fire from the top of the pile down to the bottom; rather than burning all of your wood at the same time, this method will burn a single log which will crumble away as the next starts to burn. With a large enough stove and proper home insulation, this can keep your house comfortably warm all night while you stay in bed.

The way I was shown to build fires goes something like this:

1. Place two large logs next to each other with space in the middle for newsprint
2. Crumple as much newsprint as will comfortably fit between the two logs
3. Lay 4-5 pieces of small wood strips across like a grill in order to catch the heat from the newsprint while at allowing for good airflow
4. Place 2-3 smaller logs on top of the whole apparatus to collect heat from the kindling as it warms up; again allowing lots of space all around for airflow so the fire won’t smother
5. Light the newsprint in a few places and watch the whole thing take off; as long as you’ve left a nice amount of room for air to flow around, you can’t miss. The fire will take off quickly
6. Watch everything fall into a smoldering mess – poke and position the embers and put more wood on top – fire will not die until all fuel is extinguished

I still use this method during the day because it keeps the house nice and hot. The only downside is it requires a lot of maintenance with a small wood stove such as mine, and will smoke badly if not given enough air so constant attention to the airflow and flue is needed. At night, I prefer to use the top-down method:

1. Start at the back of the stove and stack large logs in a tight cluster with as little space between as possible
2. Place 2-3 pieces of dry kindling/wood scraps on top
3. Take 3-4 pieces of newsprint, roll each tightly and tie in a knot, place on top of the kindling
4. Light the newsprint, close the door and walk away

The fire will burn steadily all night. I like to tie the newsprint as if I were tying a shoelace, because there is no kindling to hold it down and this technique will prevent it from blowing away or falling off the wood pile.

The most amazing part of top-down fires is the lack of smoke. Most people are accustomed to the idea of bottom-up fires because as the heat from the flame rises it warms up the larger wood and increases the temperature of the fire. The problem is the air around the wood is not heated as quickly, so when the wood catches it will smoke at first. Top-down flames are pure heat and do not smoke; they won’t leave as much creosote in your chimney and they burn the wood much more completely.

The best part about owning a wood stove is the sense of connectivity you experience with the heating in your home. It’s one thing to flip a switch and have a furnace come on; it’s quite another to gain some level of mastery over the ability to make fire for your own comfort. Everyone who burns wood ultimately figures out their own method for best results; with so many different approaches and models of stoves you can literally spend your whole life improving your technique.

Back to Driving School

If it weren’t for other drivers, the roads would be a pleasant place to drive. Winter conditions don’t frighten me as much as the inept motorists I seem to be sharing the road with – maybe it’s just the time of day I drive to and from work that brings out the worst in people. We’re always told we shouldn’t be afraid of air travel because we’re more likely to be injured or killed in the car on the way to the airport; it is very telling when the police refuse to use the term ‘accident’ because ‘collision’ is more apt – it implies human error and responsibility.

Over the May long weekend here in Ontario, the OPP issued 468 charges for seatbelt offenses. Maybe we could use a physics refresher to remind ourselves that taking two seconds to affix that thin strip of fabric to ourselves when we get in the car will prevent us from flying through the windshield at 40km/h when the car stops suddenly in a crash.

This is important: 7% of Canadians do not use their seatbelts; 40% of collision fatalities did not use their seatbelt.

I can’t help but wonder if more seatbelt use would have improved chances in the deadly crash that killed eight people in Bathurst this May as they returned from basketball tournament in Moncton. Six of the eight victims weren’t wearing their seatbelts when the vehicle crossed the path of a tractor-trailer on an icy road.

Accidents happen fast (I’ll call them that only because ‘collision’ sounds a bit stuffy in this context). The speed in which cars can go from 60 to 0 is incredible and devastating. With so much power beneath us, it only makes sense to stop and think about what we’re doing. Let’s be careful, courteous, and stay alive out there.

If Your Child Gets Lost, Have a Fresh Photo Ready

Today’s tip at Parent Hacks is so brilliant I had to post it here: take a digital picture of the kids before entering an amusement park in case they get lost. Not only is this a great way to generate photographic proof of your adventures, but it could literally save your child’s life. If you and your child were to get separated, the digital photograph beats a plain descripting of your child: the hair colour, eyes, height and even today’s clothes would leave no room for doubt when enlisting help to search for wandering tots.

The chances of actually losing your child are very slim – most of the time children are drawn to flashy or noisy distractions like mall fountains or those ride-on trains. As my own little one starts to take his first steps I can only look forward to the stress that is bound to be heading my way…

Nine Month Old Refuses to Drink Bottle

Our son was having a bad week. No bottle was good enough for him, and the ones he did drink ended up being decoration on his shirt when he threw up ten minutes later. Since I was taking penicillin for my strep throat, we assumed that the baby had picked up my infection and took him to see his doctor immediately.

Diagnosis: Attitude, not strep throat.

Apparently, around the end of their first year, children start wanting to assert more independence – never mind that they don’t have the skills needed to do so. Even though your child can’t yet walk (maybe they can’t even crawl yet!) you will find them trying to push themselves away from you and travel on their own. Their nutrition changes and the time is right to start weening them off the bottle and onto real milk and solid food.

This is the same time that sleeping habits start to change and originally docile babies start to become menaces. Just when you thought you were getting used to the routine of parenthood, it all changes! It’s time to start baby proofing your home, if you haven’t already, because your child will be discovering all imaginable dangers very soon.

To Nap or Not to Nap With my Child?

In the past year I noticed several articles written in newspapers, magazines and parenting books that urge mothers not to sleep with their babies. I remember the nights Dad worked and mom would gather all three of the kids into her bed and we would all fall asleep. I agree with the article in respect of not sleeping with your newborn because there has been studies that prove there are multiple deaths a year from exhausted new parents rolling onto there baby or crushing them with there arm and enabling the baby to breath.

I think that because of the availability of bassinets and co sleepers there isn’t a need to take the risk of rolling onto your child. But I like many mothers am guilty of falling asleep with the baby. The first time I fell asleep with my son he was about 2 weeks old. I was tired had a hard delivery and just needed to cuddle him it was the afternoon and instead of asking my husband to come and put him in his bassinet I held him while I slept. In my defense, I knew my husband was checking on me every 5 minutes or so, so I didn’t sleep with him long.

The next time I fell asleep with him he was about 2 months old and that is when afternoon naps became my time to cuddle and comfort the baby to sleep. My mother keeps telling me that I should break the habit now because he will get used to napping with me and I will have trouble breaking that pattern, but I think it’s important to stop and enjoy having a baby and cuddling them to sleep even if it is their afternoon nap. Some mothers rock their children to sleep and then put them in their beds but I prefer to put them to sleep in bed and watch them wake up and open their beautiful eyes so I can see the security they feel when they realize you are still there holding and cuddling them.

I am a very deep sleeper to the point of fault: when we lived in an apartment building I would sleep through the fire alarm. Knowing my sleeping pattern, I would never sleep with the baby all night and I would never sleep with him when I was extremely overtired (excepting of course that above-mentioned lapse when my husband was being mindful of us). They grow so fast that you do what you can because when they get old enough they won’t want to be held and cuddled as much.

I think napping comforts me just as much as it comforts the baby. Knowing that he needs me is wonderful and it is important for him to know that every once in a while mommy needs to be cuddled too. I appreciated all the information that the articles provided for me; but, as the old saying goes Mommy knows what’s best for her and her baby.