Birth doesn’t always go to plan. Sometimes it does go to plan and that plan involves a caesar. This can present its own babywearing challenges and Rae, who’s been there twice, lets us in on her strategies for babywearing after major surgery. 

“I’ll be back in a minute…” so said my husband, as he popped his brand new baby, all of one hour old, into our nice, clean ring sling. It was new and crispy. I was exhausted and sore, and, well , very high on the drugs from the c-section. Those first days in hospital are truly amazing - the desire to keep our babies close is so overwhelming.

But how, post C section?

In those first days after the birth, the best place for Mum and baby is in bed, snuggled up skin to skin, getting to know each other. On our way out of the hospital, I finally got a chance to use that ring sling:

For the first six weeks or so at home, I remember being just SO sore, as my body slowly healed. The best sling for this period is just a simple ring sling. There are several ring slings commonly sold through baby stores, but they are all too structured for my taste - too much padding- they severely limit the comfort possible for Mum and baby. They are designed for a very loose cradle carry, which will sit just above the stitches - way too low for comfort!

A simple, unstructured ring sling can be worn initially in a cradle hold and also in a tummy to tummy hold. Both positions keep the baby well away from the incision site, and allow the Mum to sit down and rest in a chair whilst snuggling the baby - a definite plus in that hectic time of adjustment! Instructions are available to make your own, perhaps from a sarong or some fabric from Spotlight - a wonderful thing to do prior to the birth of your first baby!

Once the scar had started to heal, it was time to get some exercise… and the next sling we found really helpful was a simple mei tai. A soft structured carrier would be equally as good for this stage, as would a wrap - they each have their advantages. I have and love each of these styles of carrier:

• A mei tai is easy on and easy off, placing the straps comfortably for a front carry post c-section is very easy, a great help with muscles that are easily tired out.
• A wrap can be worn in Front Cross Carry, which was incredibly easy and supportive of those weak tummy muscles!
• Finally, a soft structured carrier is simply wonderful - there are some really comfortable ones out there. These two shouldered carriers are characterised by a lovely fit through the waist straps, and the baby being placed close to Mum’s tummy with very supportive, comfortable shoulder straps. The more structured waist, with some padding, can be a nice help to remind you to pull the tummy muscles in.

When our second baby arrived three months ago, after another c-section, I took out that ring sling and got to wear it all over again! Only this time, I was running around after a busy toddler all too soon..

This time, I really found a wrap worn in a Front Cross Carry was invaluable. It was so handy to be able to pop the baby in and out of the wrap for feeding, whilst being able to spend some time with my daughter.

This particular wrap carry is very fast and easy to learn, and provides lovely back support for those weak muscles! I also left it on all day long - so we could drive to the park or shops, then pop the baby back in, get the toddler out of the car - and enjoy some time together. Here we are at about 3 months post c-section.

Thanks to Rae for her insight into babywearing post-caesar. Have you had a caesar? Did you babywear afterwards? What worked for you? What didn’t? Leave a comment and let us know!

Parenting in Public Ain’t For Wimps.

From the minute we have left the “safety” of closed doors, we are a walking, talking, mobile piece of artwork. We’re visible. The choices we make are on display. And if you choose to do something which is atypical in your community, you lose your anonymity. Like a goth at a Laura Ashley appreciation meeting, you stand out. I think. I’ve never been to a Laura Ashley appreciation meeting.

For us, we left the hospital with our two babies in a sling. A gorgeous sling. Orange, red, blue, green – nothing quiet about it. We got stopped every 5 metres between the door to the Special Care Nursery and the elevator. In the elevator, we were trapped with “twin tourists”. Then we got gawked at and stopped every 5 metres from the elevator to the exit. It seemed like 30 minutes before we were safely - and privately - in the car.

Parenting in public is difficult. Your decisions are sort of on display, and baby wearing is really obvious. No matter how neutral your wrap, sling, MT or other carrier is, it seems to glow neon when you’re out and about. Parents who wear their babies in public are brave. They are saying “I’ve thought about this; I’ve consciously decided to parent this way and even though you look at me and talk as I walk past, I am going to do what I believe is right by these kids.”

Taking your newborn out in public seems to have a magnetic effect – people seem compellingly drawn to you and your wee one. Wearing them somehow increases the magnetism, and wearing two children must be akin to the force of a neodymium magnet! It has taken about 7 months of wearing the babies in public for me to feel a sense of acceptance about the attention. In a way, I say “bring it on!” – because my children will only have this time once. My conscience tells me it’s important that babies be worn close to my heart. My conscience tells me not to distance my children from myself; to keep them near to me physically and emotionally. I don’t think it’s the easiest way to parent – and there are times when I really tire of having child after child all over me – but I believe it is right.

If you’re going to make it through with your sensibilities intact, you’re going to need support. It’s wonderful if you can get that support from your friends and family, but there’s every chance they won’t understand immediately. Please know you’re welcome to join the forums at BCD; we’d love to help support you on your parenting journey.

Do you find babywearing makes you conspicuous? Is it a positive or negative experience for you? Leave a comment and let us know!

When your baby has been born by caesarean after a long failed VBAC attempt, your milk isn’t coming in fast enough, and you’re tired, what do you do? Wear your baby!

Babywearing post-caesarean doesn’t have to be a difficult thing. In fact, it can solve a lot of problems. All that close contact helps with bonding after a difficult birth, and can help get the hormones working for milk production. It’s also a good way to settle a baby when mum needs her sleep too. And when mum isn’t able to lift a pram out of the car boot for six weeks post-birth, a sling makes it easier to get out of the house. For me, the best thing about babywearing post-caesarean was that it was something I could do that was good for my baby. I can’t give birth the way I want to, and breastfeeding is much harder than I’d like it to be. But putting my baby in a sling and just getting on with life keeps her happy, and that makes me feel like the best mum in the world.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind when babywearing post-caesarean. First, the stomach wound needs to be protected. I found that it helped to use a sling that didn’t cover my lower abdomen. Ring slings were ideal as I could keep baby’s weight above my belly button.

Second thing is to be aware of the side effects of pain medication. Drugs like morphine, endone, and paracetomol with codeine can make you drowsy. If you’re too drowsy to walk properly, go to bed and let someone else look after the baby til it’s time for the next feed. Pain medication can also mask your body telling you it’s time to back off on physical activity. All newborn babywearers need to start slowly and build up the period of time they carry their baby, but you should be extra cautious if you’re taking pain medication.

I began carrying Jools on day four after her caesarean birth. My milk came in on day 5. I had a 39 hour labour, ending with a ruptured uterus. There were two separate wound infections that took over 10 weeks to clear up, plus mastitis a couple of times in the first few months at home. But the babywearing was perfect - I could easily wear her for up to four hours at a time, and had to wake her up for feeds. With Billy, I started babywearing on day three post-caesarean - the first day that I could shuffle out of my room at the maternity ward. Once again, breastfeeding helped me to keep my baby happy while looking after my toddler and pre-schooler at home.

Have you worn a baby after a caesar? When did you start? What worked for you? What did you wish you had known beforehand? Leave a comment and let us know!

Welcome to the Carnival of Breastfeeding! Our theme this month is “Personal Stories” and my story of traveling to one of my favourite places, nursling and wearee in tow, is below. If you’ve arrived here for the first time, you might want to check out our series on breastfeeding hands free. If you’re a regular, make sure you check out the other carnival participants below.

He stirs beneath the mosquito net. He edges closer, still half asleep. I know it must be close to four since the monks are chanting in the grey pre-dawn and the valley is silent but for their hum. He breaks the stillness, demanding my sleepy attention. I roll closer and feed him. He drifts off to sleep and I am left listening to the Buddhist cannon chanted across the valley.

An hour and a half later, the Imam chants the call to prayer and his voice sounds across the town. The Buddhists have finished their praying before the Muslims have begun and my little one has felt the passage of time too. He edges closer, pressing himself into me. As the sun is dawning, I feed him again, listening to the Imam’s prayer, piercing and clear as the day brightens.

By the time the church bells begin to toll, I am out of patience with my nursling. His father has taken him away and I luxuriate in my loneliness beneath the mosquito net listening to the bells ring out from just down the hill.

After the Christians have finished, a new hymn begins. Staccato and impatient, a language all of its own, the car horns signal the beginning of a new phase in this valley’s daily round of devotions: commercial enterprise and the accompanying traffic chaos has begun.

This is Kandy, Sri Lanka. There is no other place like it.

These sounds are a morning ritual in Kandy, an  ancient city tucked into a valley in the mountains of central Sri Lanka. Those frequent night-time and early morning feeds were our personal experience of that cultural ritual.

My son is Sri Lankan by descent, though Australian by birth, and in the New Year holiday of 2007-2008, we traveled back to the place of his father’s birth to introduce him to his extended family and his second home.

Travelling in a foreign country with a small child can be a challenge at best. Travelling in a poverty-stricken foreign country can add a new dimension to that challenge. We were lucky enough to take our son at a stage in his life when he was still worn and breastfeeding regularly. All too regularly at night, alas, which is one of the reasons I’m so very familiar with the sounds of Kandy in the early morning!

Breastfeeding helped us negotiate the intricacies of travel in several ways. Firstly, we never had to worry about clean drinking water for him. He drank water when it was safe, but if it wasn’t convenient to find it at any given point, there was a ready-made drink on hand. As a toddler, he ate solid food and was very familiar with the local cuisine, but there were inevitably some changes and differences. Breastfeeding allowed us to make up any nutritional gap. Breastfeeding also provided an important part of our routine that helped him cope with the changes that traveling entails.

Breastfeeding was a way for me to connect with the other mothers in the family. We were vastly different people from vastly different places, but our children were all fed in the same way. In a country where extended nursing is the norm and poverty is rife, it’s obvious that breastfeeding provides an important protection for infants and small children. There was a respect for the process that we shared on both sides of the cultural divide, but at the same time it was just a normal part of mothering.

The other major part of our traveling experience was babywearing. I remember tucking him up into a wrap one tropical night in Negombo and feeding him to sleep as our relatives chatted about us. The mosquitoes were ravenous that evening (and dengue fever was rife), but the wrap mercifully protected most of him from their attention, acted as a light blanket in the tropical weather and screened him from outside distractions as he drifted off to sleep in an unfamiliar place.

 
From his vantage point on our backs, our son was able to experience the full richness of Sri Lanka for himself. Whether it was getting Kozy with the elephants, attending temple for the first time with his father or walking the beaches at sunset, our son experienced all of it.

Like breastfeeding, babywearing was certainly useful from a practical standpoint. Negotiating multiple airports with a toddler who’s not just out of his time zone, but totally out of patience is much easier when you’re not juggling a pram. At our destination, however, babywearing was essential.

As a traveling rule of thumb, any street that’s just as likely to have elephants in the traffic stream as motorbikes is probably not a place where toddlers should roam freely and prams run easily. Another important piece of information for travellers: elephants do not follow road rules. Because when you’re driving an elephant down the main (one way) street of a major city against the traffic, it’s up to the rest of the city to get out of your way.

We are returning to Sri Lanka again this year with our son and our younger child. Another nursling, another wearee. More elephants to avoid and monkeys to fend off. Poverty to attempt to explain, thousands of years of history to observe. There are more memories to be made, more experiences to share. I’m quite certain I’ll be breastfeeding and babywearing on this trip, once again. I don’t know if I’ll be doing those things in tandem, but the unknown is one of the wonderful parts of traveling.

Other Carnival of Breastfeeding participants who are sharing their stories today:

• Breastfeeding Failures and Success at GrudgeMom
• Hannah’s Weaning by Amber at Strocel.com
• Weaning a Toddler at Laura’s Blog
• Life, Death and Nourishment at Stepping off the Spaceship
• Sticking with it: Our Breastfeeding Story by So Fawned.
• How Breastfeeding Changed my Life at the MotherNews Blog
• Flying Breastmilk at All That Sazz
• Ben’s Story at Massachusetts Friends of Midwives
• The “I Told You So” at Breastfeeding 1-2-3
• “They said his latch was fine” at the Motherwear blog
• Breastfeeding is not easy, but it’s certainly best for baby at Chronicles of a Nursing Mom
• Can Early Public Breastfeeding Sightings Shape One’s Future Breastfeeding Practices? at Nursing Moms Unite
• Celebrating My Chest, in Honor of Breastfeeding at Zen Mommy
• Breastfeeding After Reduction Surgery at The Towells
• Breastfeeding in Public at Blacktating
• Breastfeeding Made my the Mother I am at Breastfeeding Mums

There’s nothing that gets an internet babywearing forum jiving like the prospect of a new silk wrap. Or a hemp wrap. Or a linen. Or a wool. Blended fibers are the wrap du jour!

We’ve talked before about how creating interest in a brand translates to clever marketing on the part of a wrap or carrier manufacturer. That’s certainly the case here, but there’s more to this than marketing. Blended fiber wraps are also about market positioning.

It’s a fact generally acknowledged that some blends are more supportive than others. It’s a fact little discussed, however, that the tag of “supportiveness” is a powerful marketing tool. Certain wrap brands are considered to be very supportive (this is an independent blog and we try not name names very often, but Hopp and Storchenwiege are two that come to mind). Didymos cotton wraps are not often considered as supportive as the previous two brands, however, their blended fiber wraps are often recommended on those terms. The introduction of blended fibers into the Didymos stable has resulted in a decisive change in attitude towards the brand. When asked to recommend a wrap on the basis of support, the answer now includes a recognition of the Didymos brand. This translates to more sales in a new (niche) corner of the (niche) wrap market.

Other wrap manufacturers, however, are following suit and weaving wraps with blends of silk, hemp and even bamboo. Some of these will be considered supportive, others will have qualities that will give them their own recognition. But by decisively leading the way on blended fibers, Didymos has the edge in the market.

Hold onto that trigger finger (and your credit card balance). There’s more fun coming our way!

How do you feel about blended fibers? Are they the wrap du jour for you? Or do you think they’re over-rated when compared to their cotton counterparts? Leave a comment, enquiring credit cards want to know!

Well, maybe not everything…. But enough to convince you that you have to try one.

Onbuhimos (onbus) are traditional Japanese baby carriers.  They look a lot like Mei Tais but have rings at the bottom instead of straps.  

Why you need an onbu…

• Cool for the baby in hot weather, because of the small body size.
• Fast and easy to put on.
• Can be used by people with shoulder mobility problems, who can’t cross mei tai or pod straps behind their back.
• Very light and compact when not being used - packs away to nothing.
• Can be pre-tied for a poppable front or back carry.

And the downside…

• Can’t be used for younger babies (they would fall out of the sides).
• Not suitable for babies who like their arms in.
• May not be supportive enough for older toddlers.
• Some people don’t like the feel of the weight distribution compared with a mei tai.

Back carry

• Toss or hip-scoot the baby and the carrier onto your back. I find tossing the baby onto my back the easiest method as it gets her nice and high, which I find to be the most comfortable position in an onbu.

• Make sure the straps are under her arms (my babies have a suicidal tendency to tuck their arms in at this point and fall out the bottom, so I am always very careful!)

• Pass the straps over your shoulders and hold them firmly between your knees - this holds the baby in place while you thread the rings.

• Tuck the bottom of the carrier between the baby’s legs and under her bottom to create a seat.

• Thread each strap through the ring on the same side.

• Give a bounce and tighten; then tie at your waist, above your breasts (if you have them) or Tibetan style. You will soon get a feel for what’s most comfortable for you.

Straps over or under the legs?

If you see pictures of onbus being used in Japan, you may notice that they usually tie the carrier with the rings over the baby’s legs rather than under.  This traditional method looks like it could be insecure, but it’s very comfortable and safe if tied correctly.  The baby sits with her knees higher, which sometimes feels better for both wearer and wearee.

Unfortunately most western onbus are not designed to be used this way.  You need to have an onbu with rings on a strap extending a few inches from the body of the carrier.  Check out these Japanese onbus and see how far out the rings are placed.  As you can see from my pic above, I can only just do it with my onbu - if the rings were closer to the carrier body they would cut into Emmy’s legs.

There’s another disadvantage to this techinique: a younger baby will sometimes sit too low in the carrier.  I don’t do it with ten-month-old Meena as I’m worried she’ll fall out!

Pre-tying for back carries

For the ultimate in convenience you can pre-tie your onbu and put it on like a structured carrier!  Check out this video to see how.  Unfortunately when I try to do it I find my onbu just slithers down into a heap on the ground.  It’s easier to do with a carrier which has loops of fabric rather than rings, as it’s grippier.  Fabric loops aren’t as easy to tighten though.

Front carry

Front carries are tied the same way, but you cross the straps over your back.  There’s an excellent photo tutorial here to show you how to do it.

But I find pre-tying is the easiest way to do a front carry with an onbu. 

• Tie the carrier on without the baby.  I find that you need to get the carrier fairly snug against your body so that you don’t need to tighten too much once the baby’s in.

• Drop the straps off your shoulders.

• Put the baby in and lift the straps up again.

• Bounce and tighten if needed.

There’s a great video here that shows you how to do it. 

Why every wrapper needs an onbu…

Onbus can be used for practicing new or tricky back wrapping techniques, especially with a wriggly baby.  Put the baby on your back in the onbu and then wrap over her.  Because it’s so compact, the onbu won’t get in the way but you don’t have to worry about a wriggly baby falling off your back. 

Converting an onbu into a mei tai

Just loop a scarf through the rings to create the waist straps. 

So now all you need is an onbu.  You could buy one, but it would be much more fun to make one out of those placemats and table runners you never have time to use.