Hug my bub

When I was pregnant I read every blog and forum I could find to help me sort out which baby products I would need and which I could go without based on the reviews of women who had purchased them – I didn't want to fall in to the trap of reading the catalogues or the bounty magazines that all told me I MUST have this and that and then never use it, especially with the $1000 challenge I had set myself. On almost every list of “I couldn't live without” products was a baby sling, and one in particular featured more heavily than the others – the Hug-a-Bub.

After reading the reviews and checking out the website I decided I had to have one NOW even though I would have been barely four months gone. Trying to keep to budget I sourced one second hand for just $50 (the RRP is $120 for the version I got – I am a bargain hunter extraordinaire!) and watched the DVD instructions for tying it like I was studying for an exam. I wondered if I would ever get the hang of it and be able to tie it as quick as the woman in the video, who pointed out she was doing it slowly for instructional purposes.

Carrying your bub around in a sling is known as baby wearing and is actually quite controversial, with people either loving or hating the idea. Since I bought a sling you can tell which category I fall in to. Some believe that carrying your baby with you all the time will spoil them and you'll end up with a monster but research shows that “babies worn in slings are less clingy and tend to initiate separation much earlier than babies less frequently held. It allows them to be AT the centre of activity not THE centre of attention, which is a wonderful environment proven to stimulate brain development and cognitive learning.” What's not to like about that? I figure that women all over the world going to work in the rice fields carry their kids while they work, and I'm pretty sure in the early days women carried their children to avoid them becoming a tasty little snack for a Sabre Tooth Tiger – and they turned out just fine.

In the past few weeks I've been wearing Tricky in the Hug-a-Bub and I have nothing but glowing praise for it. In fact, I've got it on now because he was being ultra fussy – within a few minutes of being in it, snuggled in close to me, listening to my heartbeat, he was fast asleep. It even allowed Hubby and I to go out to dinner to a restaurant so tightly packed with tables and chairs there would have been zero chance of manoeuvring our pram around – it also meant Tricky slept the whole time and we enjoyed a lovely meal without worrying we were disturbing anyone else with a crying newborn. A lot of women I have spoken to have lamented that their old life disappeared as soon as they had a baby – no more dinners, no more outings. I realise that the old days of just jumping up and going white water rafting without notice might be gone (I've never done this anyway, so for me it's no great loss), but with a sling we're able to take Tricky around with us and he is content to just observe the world, safe in the arms of Hubby or myself.

Are you for or against baby wearing? Leave a comment below with your experiences.

Sleepingless Beauty

Every night, approximately every three hours, Tricky starts to stir and ask in polite gurgles for some food - this lovely window of opportunity lasts about ten minutes until his manners fly out the window and he decides he has waited long enough, thank you. I try to take advantage of this inbuilt warning system but in my tiredness I sometimes fall back to sleep (often after taking the doona off, so it's a cold ten minutes) so instead of being slowly woken by gorgeous coos I am ripped from my slumber by a blood curdling scream (I might be slightly exaggerating).

At this point Hubby wakes up. He doesn't hear the little whimpers and I'm not sure yet if that is a blessing or a curse – perhaps a blessing for him and a curse for me? We'd decided that now he is back at work I will do the night time nappy changes so that he can get some sleep (I'm already awake for the feeding session, why not change a nappy too, right?). But for Hubby, it's not as simple as just going back to sleep... I keep the bedroom light on when I'm feeding and, I'm slightly embarrassed to say, check my email and Facebook on my phone, then read a book. Hey, it can get boring! If I don't do this then it's likely I'll fall asleep while feeding and I have visions of Tricky rolling off the bed and breaking his collar bone like his uncle did at about the same age. Am I overreacting? Probably. Will I turn the light off and get over it? Probably not.

So Hubby is trying to sleep through crying, the light being on, me getting up and down plus the afore mentioned munching of snacks, then has to get up, get ready, ride his bike to the train station in the freezing cold and go to work. I don't know how he manages to stay awake and be productive. I can't imagine having to go to work and be “on” after so little sleep. Oh and I nearly forgot, when he gets home he makes dinner while I have a soak in the bath – yes, I realise I'm a lucky gal!

The division of labour in a household can be a sore spot for many couples, but add to that a breastfeeding infant and it can get, well, tricky. Part of me thinks “If I have to be awake to feed him so often then you should do everything else” while another part realises that this just isn't possible and the poor guy will burn out very quickly if he has to do it all. But at the moment, while he's happy to do it, I'm more than happy to lay back (in the bath) and lap it up.

How did you manage to divide the tasks with your partner when you had a newborn? If you're single, how the hell did you manage to do it alone?

Melan-colic

Hubby and I have had our first taste of that part of parenthood dreaded almost as much as the birds and bees talk... colic. As a result, the lack of sleep has been bumped up a notch so this is going to be a really short post!

Yesterday, my gorgeous, cooing, smiling little Tricky turned in to a monster! He became a total fuss pot and would not settle. Jiggle him up and down = cry. Pat his back = cry. Rub his tummy = cry. Cycle his legs = cry. Put him in his little vibrating seat = cry. Put him in the sling = cry ever so slightly less while he bobbed his head around looking for the good stuff. It lasted almost twelve hours and my back is now aching from holding 4.5kg of cute for so long! On the upside, since I wasn't going anywhere I watched half a season of House on DVD - even though I couldn't hear all of it over the crying it didn't really affect my viewing pleasure because who really knows what all those long hard to pronounce diseases are anyway?

The only time he would stop crying was when he was feeding – he's so polite not to talk with his mouth full. After his meal he'd fall asleep and I would feel myself physically relax a little bit. But alas, it only lasted for about half an hour or an hour at a time and he'd be awake again, screaming. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Grumpy, irritable and only satiated by food... I think I have colic, too!

Did colic get you down? What did you do to soothe your bub? Leave a comment below.

Letter to Tricky - one month old

Dear Tricky,

My, what an adventure we've had already and you're only one month old today!

Bringing you home was amazing. Like a lot of new mums I sat in the back seat of the car next to you - even though you have a baby capsule that exceeds Australian Standards, I had to sit there... just watching you, making sure you were safe. Your Daddy thought I'd sit there next to you for the first few years of your life but I proved him wrong on our first outing (to register you on our health insurance – how exciting!) by sitting in the front and only spending half the time turned around looking at you. I would have spent the whole time looking but it kinda hurt to crane my neck around for so long.

You really enjoy bath time and you always seem so calm afterwards. Daddy and I both love bathing you because you make the funniest faces – my favourite is the one where you look like you're trying to whistle! Sometimes we'll whistle to you when you do it, and you stop and stare at us.

You've already done a wee on both your Dad and I while being changed, but that's OK because we figure it's a right of passage for a new parent... however now that we've both experienced it could you stop, please?

It's still a bit scary being in charge of looking after you. I keep expecting someone to come and pick you up and take you home with them... I can't believe you're actually ours. Some of the things you do that make us wonder what we've gotten ourselves in to all revolve around your strength. Your head seems to have a life of it's own - you throw it around every which way no matter how securely you're being held. After months of reading books and attending classes that tell us “support your baby's head” it certainly gave us a fright when from day one you could lift it up for so long.

Your “tummy time” is going great guns – you push up on your arms and hold your little head up high. Plus, for a week now, when you've had enough you roll yourself over to your back. The first time you did it we thought it was just a fluke and brushed it off... but you keep doing it now. I'm not even sure you're meant to be able to do that yet and it's freaking me out! Are you not aware you're only four weeks old? I know I forget sometimes, but you should really try to keep up, OK?

You only cry when you're hungry or need a change – and most of the time you sleep between three to four hours between feeds. The only time it seems shorter is when I sit down to eat or want to have a shower – you obviously are very gifted with a sixth sense for knowing when Mummy is trying to do something else. The other night Daddy and I went out to dinner to celebrate a friend's birthday – we were a little bit nervous that we'd order our food and not get to eat it because you were crying/fussy/spewing/pooing (or all of the above at the same time because you're so talented) but you slept the entire time, cuddled up to my chest in your sling. We only took you out of it at the very end so the people who hadn't met you yet could have some cuddle time.

Each day you grow so much (you've already grown out of some of your clothes!) and do something new – like yesterday when you started doing small smiles when we smiled at you (not to be confused with the really big smiles you do right before you fill your nappy). Getting to know you has been so much fun and if the rest of our journey together is going to be anywhere near as good as it's been so far, then it will be amazing!

Love Mummy xxx

Every dog has his day

When you introduce your baby to your dog there are few things the experts tell you to do. Things you might not think of like taking a singlet with the baby's smell on it so the dog can get used to it the day before the meeting, and also the ones that are pretty obvious, like making sure the dog is restrained and hasn't been fed any baby-shaped snacks recently to avoid confusion.

Hubby and I have a beautiful Belgian Shepherd (Malinois) cross called Sprocket, named after the dog in the '80's Jim Henson TV show, Fraggle Rock. We rescued him from the animal shelter when he was about six months old. He'd been found wandering the streets weighing next to nothing with all his ribs sticking out and a few very suspicious scars on him that look like he might have been burnt.

So we took him home, fattened him up and still to this day marvel how a dog that was so badly treated in his early days has such a beautiful nature. Nothing upsets Sprocket (other than when you stop playing fetch and he looks at you like “Why are you stopping? We were having so much fun!”

Of course, being young he is still highly excitable and prone to jumping up on people, especially if he hasn't seen them in a while. So we were unsure how such a hyperactive dog would handle an infant being around.

When I was in hospital Sprocket was a little out of sorts because he wasn't getting his nightly cuddles – you see he has an old couch out the back that he lays on until he gets his cuddles, then we say “Off to bed” and he gets up and goes in to his kennel. But without his nightly cuddle... he just stayed on the couch. And it was freezing, the poor thing! Tricky wasn't even home yet and Sprocket was a bit put out.

On introducing them to each other Hubby held on tight to Sprocket's collar and I lowered Tricky slightly so that he wouldn't jump up on us. We were braced for a lunge of excitement and energy... but what we got was some sniffing, an attempted lick and then he tried to go get his ball. Anti climax. Completely disinterested! And it has continued this way since. On the few occasions he is allowed inside (Sprocket that is, Tricky is allowed inside quite a bit) the same thing has happened – a bit of sniff, a lick of the toes and then on to something else. Whilst I know it isn't a green light to leave the two alone together, or even let my guard down when they're near each other, it is a massive weight off my shoulders.

I think as Tricky gets older he and Sprocket will be best of friends - let's just hope that Sprocket's laid back attitude continues... does anyone know what the smallest size saddle you can buy is?

My other beautiful boy, Sprocket