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!

Leaving Hospital with a Premmie (or two).

When you are pregnant, you normally anticipate things will go a certain way; maybe the way previous pregnancies have gone, or maybe better! Some people expect particular hiccups because of their medical history and so on.

For me, I expected two things. Literally, I expected two babies, because I was pregnant with twins, and secondly, I expected to need to fight hospital policy. I think every IRONY light in heaven and earth was flashing, when at 34 weeks, I sent my husband and son to Adelaide for some follow up medical visits, and my daughter went to visit a girlfriend for the morning. Ah, peace… I remember I was going to rest that day; I was going to read, and I was going to spend some time at peace. Just as soon as my midwives visited and left. Except things didn’t quite work out that way. My midwives walked in, said “ooh, you don’t look very good” (which is what every 34-week-pregnant-with-twins woman wants to hear) and “go pee on this!” Having experience peeing on sticks, I did as I was told. It was more fun finding out I was pregnant than it was finding out I had protein out of the stratosphere. Blah. Add the revolting oedema that made my ankles practically slosh, and the blood pressure paralleled only by a job interview for a position you really want, and there I was, at home, my family elsewhere, being told to pack and bag and go to the hospital.

So, all the fight out of my sails, that’s how I was going to end this pregnancy. A premature Caesar at 34 weeks. Perhaps you’re pregnant as you read this. Listen, when you’re done, spend a few minutes looking into what you want to do if your baby is born early and needs to go to special care. I had done a little bit of reading, but there was so much I didn’t know until well after we all came home. I’ll say from the outset – we all make it home safely.

The birth story is pretty good, and the way my friends helped look after my two big kids was just fantastic, but this blog post is really about getting out of the special care nursery (hereafter, SCN). You may have read my earlier post about baby wearing in the nursery… if not, check out LINK. Being in the SCN was awful – fine for a day or so, but after that, really tedious. Every nurse had a different opinion on everything, from sibling visits to bathing to feeding to formula. If you are ever in the same situation, it would help to know what you think about all these things. For us, we just flew by the seat of our pants as we worked on getting the babies from 1700g and 2200g to the acceptable-but-arbitrary-weight-required-to-go-home.

Finally, our featherweight baby girl hit 2200g. We’d been in the nursery for a life time, but on day 20, we were finally able to fly the coop! We had the two car capsules installed, and like all parents of newborns, we did the strange journey from the maternity area to the car park.

However, we did it a little differently to most parents. I slipped my ring sling – just the one – over my shoulder, and settled their tiny 2700g and 2200g bodies on my chest. I settled them in tummy-to-tummy (theirs to mine) and side by side (one another) as I had so many times for cuddles, and we waited for an ice age for the doctors to officially say “go on, get out!” and then we stood up, and walked out the door.

We knew a bit about how we wanted to parent; we have two older children and had been working on refining our beliefs and practises for a while. While the babies really were small, they were also healthy and strong. We saw no reason not to use carriers, and saw a lot of good reasons why we should.

• Kangaroo care has been shown to benefit premature babies
• Keeping the newborns close allowed us to continue being involved with our older kids activities- and our own
• Wearing the newborns meant we could respond to their needs more quickly
• Wearing the newborns meant my precious, residual, often depleted energy was conserved by not having to get up and down to them constantly

If you have a premature – or even small-for-dates baby – unless you are given a solid medical reason not to, baby wearing is going to help you. Unless there’s a medical reason not to, baby wearing is going to be beneficial to your baby/babies. Whether your premmie (or preemie – both are used) is your first child or your tenth, you are going to want them to feel settled, calm, peaceful and secure. Keeping them close to your heart is going to do this. You might choose not to socialise – especially out of the home – for longer because of immunity concerns; you may be recovering from major surgery and not as mobile as you normally were; you may have had weeks in special care where you had every last drop of self-assurance and strength removed from your body, but there comes a point where you are free to make the parenting choices you believe to be right. Go for it!

A premature baby can be worn in a soft sling or a soft wrap. My own experience has been that a mei tai is too large and a soft structured carrier is too inflexible, but you may have a different experience. Do join the Baby Carriers Downunder forum if you haven’t already – people are always willing to share their experiences and help you find your way on this parenting path.

I don’t think these photos are particularly flattering to me - but here you go: Ruby leaving the hospital with the twins at 20 days.

Have you left hospital with a special care baby? A premmie (or two)? Another baby who had a special care start to the world? How did you find it? Did you wear your special care baby? Leave a comment and let us know!

The first in a series of posts during tandem wearing month at BCD, Ruby talks about how she got started on the ultimate babywearing adventure: TWO babies at once!

After having about 5 years experience carrying one kiddo at a time, it was time for a new adventure… and the arrival of our twins in August 2008 sure answered the call! As I write, the babies (Oliver is about a half kilo heavier than his “big” sister Catalina) are six months old. The thoughts below are reflections from the preemie/newborn/hospital period, and might be helpful to parents with twins on the way (or newborn twins), or anyone else with preemies or babies in Special Care Nurseries.

Before you become terrified by the thought of two tiny babies attached to you,  begin to tell yourself it is OK not to have both babies on you at all times! You can still be committed to the ideals of babywearing/attachment parenting. Parenting a newborn is tiring, stressful hard work… parenting two or more can be murder! Add to that “normal” stuff like colic, reflux, health problems etc… be gracious toward yourself.

My eldest (now 5) was only ever carried in a sling or stretchy wrap.  My second (now 3) was carried in slings, a stretchy wrap, mei tais and a structured soft carrier (SSC).  In preparing for the arrival of our babies, I just made sure I had a sling ready;  sort of.  The babies arrived early and I ‘only’ had a couple of days to make what seemed at the time to be a million decisions.  So, I went with what I felt was the most gentle, natural carrier.  I think it is valuable to have at least one carrier you feel confident in using, or at least confident to try. Have a few trial runs so you get a sense of how to put your carrier on and adjust it. Like all things, you do get better with practise!  Some people have successful trial runs with teddy bears (right size, wrong weight) or bags of flour (right sort of weight, wrong shape!)

If you can, familiarise yourself with “kangaroo care”.  There’s tons of info online, but basically, whenever and for as long as you and your babies are able, get skin-to-skin contact (that’s the bare naked-skin kind!). It is important for all babies to have skin-to-skin contact with mum, but especially important for small, early, sick and/or babies born in traumatic circumstances. It has a really positive effect on your babies stress levels, heart rate and bonding. It can also have a positive effect on mum! Try to find some privacy, get your shirt off (or open down the front, and pop you baby in while they are just in a nappy. Use a sling or a wrap over yourselves, and try not to feel pressured into limiting time/contact or feel obligated to hold both babies at once. Obviously, if your children are connected to machinery, you’re limited by how far you can move (we had our daughter hooked up for a while). You may also encounter problems with staff - my advice is to go to the head of the Nursery, get your permissions from her/him, and not enter debate with the nurses who change at every shift.

A single ring sling is great for small babies. You can use just one sling to carry either one or both babies as newborns, and you might even try breastfeeding while using a sling. It can offer great support - and a bit more privacy - while recovering from birth, either vaginal or by Caesar. I found initially that the babies’ heads would clonk together unless I was especially careful! Still, two slings was much too difficult for me in the early days. I preferred settling my larger baby in, sitting legs crossed or froggy style, and then sliding the smaller baby along side, resulting in them both being “tummy to tummy”[T2T] (actually, more like T2breast… or the other T if you prefer). Other people have had success placing the larger baby (if there’s a difference) in a cradle carry, which is essentially a lie across your body supported by the sling, and then place the other baby on top, maybe facing the first baby so they can see one another.  I tried but didn’t find this position comfy; like most things, what you find comfortable may differ.

A stretchy wrap is also great, and you can easily make your own from stretchy cotton jersey (t-shirt material) from a local fabric shop. You don’t need anything fancy. I do recommend a soft stretchy jersey or other interlock, though.  My stretchy wrap is made of a polyester mesh which is lovely and cool, but I didn’t like the ‘net’ on my preemies; I waited until they were out of hospital before I used a front wrap cross carry (FWCC), and had one baby in each side of the cross, with the wrap over both. We could all settle down in an armchair and snooze like that! Plus, if you are practising Kangaroo Care, the FWCC covers you completely and provides a lot of privacy. With a stretchy wrap, it’s also “poppable” - you can “pop” a baby in or out without having to untie or re-tie the whole wrap.

Any other carriers/styles suitable for newborns are great… after all, you don’t have to wear both babies at the same time. I just play with different things as the spirit moves, or whenever I have the energy and desire to try something different!!! Of course, you don’t need to try anything different- one carry that works for you is all you need. Leaving the hospital - and leaving the house - with twins is a whole different story… so we’ll leave that for another post!

© Ruby/ScarletRubies 2009_0202

Further resources  you may find helpful:

• Wrapping instruction links at the Babywearer (you must be logged in to access)
• Wearing more than one forum at the Babywearer
• Kangaroo care instructions with a ring sling and wrap (downloadable PDF format). Video:

Keep an eye out over March for further posts on tandem wearing. Have you worn more than one? How did you get started? Leave a comment and let us know!