Burping a baby

OMG… We were first told about burping a baby in the hospital on one of the first times we fed our son.  The nurse held our son on the bed, placed one hand to support his neck and squish his cheeks while the other hand patted him on the back. I immediately asked her… “How can I/will I be able to do this”.  The nurses answer really surprised me.  She said… “Well, let your husband do it”.  It was in that moment I really realized that I needed to figure things out quickly.  When the nurse said that, it was as if I could never be alone with my child.  If my son needed to eat, I would need to burp him, or risk being thrown up on.  It was a turning point.  There is never just one way to accomplish one task,  and this was no different.  It was quite obvious to me that I was not going to be able to burp him the way the nurse showed us, but my husband and I figured it out together.  When he was really young and had minimal head control I would need to lay him on my chest and pat his back.  This worked well, but sometimes our son wanted to keep those burps to himself inside.  It was in those instances that I stretched him out lengthwise in my arms.  After doing this, I would lay him back on my chest and he would burp pretty quick for me.  Horray, I could feed and burp my baby.  Now that our son is almost 4 months old he has way more head and back control that I can sit him up, place his arm(s) over my left arm and pat his back with my right hand.

There are certain things that people take for granted that come easy and natural.  While I’m noticing this more now that I’m a new mom, this has been occurring my entire life.  Certain things like opening up a can (needing a one-handed can opener), slicing a bagel (bagel guillotine), twisting the pepper shaker to get freshly ground pepper (automatic press button pepper shaker) etc.  These tasks are not thought about in a way that might hinder someone less mobile to accomplish.  These are just some examples of everyday tasks that I have needed to overcome.  Now that I’m a new mom, I am needing to find tools and learn how to take care of my son as independently as possible. Learning how to pick him up (sounds simple, right?), was interesting because it’s not like he can support his own head as a newborn. 

Car seat and stroller

My husband and I finally decided to head into the stores and start tying out different baby items that we knew that we needed to purchase (or at least put on the baby registry).  It was the new year and while the due date was still a ways away, it can creep up on you quickly.  There are so many options for new parents to choose which one is right for them, both in terms of cost, but other factors that come into the decision as well.  A parent can pick a very simple design, or a stroller and car seat that has many different options and features.  For us, the things that mattered the most were lightweight, easy to use, and one handed friendly.  We quickly realized that most car seats and strollers are not one handed friendly at all.  They either require you to press a button on both sides of the car seat to get the child secured into the seat, or require both hands to fold and unfold the stroller.  We tried one that felt the best and was the most lightweight with the safety features we were looking for.  It is a Graco click connect.  It’s a good thing we went to the stores when we did to try out strollers, because when covid-19 shut down all the stores, we were unable to physically try out products to see what would work and what wouldn’t.  Purchasing online would’ve been a gamble and probably not the smartest one when it comes to strollers and how safe you want your child to see riding in a car and a stroller.  Now that we knew what stroller we wanted, we just had to wait for the due date to approach.

Learning how to put him in the car seat and take him out:

This was quite daunting and challenging.  It was also something that really affected my independence with a newborn.  If I couldn’t get my son in or out of the car seat, let alone attach the car seat into the car by myself, how could I go anywhere with him if I wanted to?  I never once felt trapped because I couldn’t figure this out right away because I wanted to stay home and stay safe during covid-19, but knowing that I could go if I wanted to was really what I wanted. 

After a few weeks of trial and error, I could now successfully do this!  It’s a little intimidating troubleshooting with your own kid, but I’d rather that then the looks I might get doing this with someone else’s kid – lol.

First, I need to make the arm straps as long as I can with the ‘release button’ at the bottom of the car seat.  Next, I need to make sure the straps stay on either side of the car seat, so that when I’m putting him in the seat, that the metal parts don’t hit him in the face (that might hurt a little).  I also need to press the ‘buttons’ that are on each side of the seat to release the handle.  The handle needs to go as far back as possible so that I have as much room to work with as possible.  With the nature of my ‘disability’, the weakness is on my left side, so I need to support my son’s head with my left arm and maneuver him with my right hand.  If I kneel down next to the seat with my son in my arms, it is way easier to place him in the seat – first releasing my hand that was supporting his bum, and next releasing his head with my free right hand (his head was still being supported by my left arm up to this point).  Okay – now he’s in the seat, but not strapped in.  There is the chest support strap and the two side straps/buckles that clip into the lower buckle.  The chest support strap is easy – this can be clasped together before or after the side straps are put into the bottom buckle.  I assumed that the two straps that clasp into the bottom buckle needed to be snapped in together/at once, but they actually can be snapped in one at a time, which was a relief.  It would’ve been quite difficult otherwise to do this with the limited use of my left hand.  I chose/choose to strap my son in with the bottom buckles first and then clasp the chest strap together.  Once each component is locked into place, now I can tighten the straps so he’s snug as a bug!  Success!

Picking up a new baby

I purposely never picked up anyone else’s newborn until I had my own because I knew I would have to do things differently and didn’t want my friends questioning how I would pick up their kids etc .  As much as I thought it was hard when he was first born, it’s harder yet easier now that he’s older. …. even when he was first born, he had zero head and neck strength so it always needed to be supported when he was picked up. I would need to cradle his head on my left arm (cradled near my elbow) and pick up his bum with my right hand/arm. Now that older, I still pick him up the same way, but he’s heavier because he’s growing. At first, I didn’t think the way I was picking him up was affecting my back, but I’m seeing that they way I am picking him up is affecting my back.  We’ve all heard it before… bend with your knees and not your back.  This has turned out to be a challenge because in order to get my arm low enough to cradle his head, I am bending with my back and then bending again the same way when I lift him.  I don’t know what/how I can do this task differently so that it doesn’t hurt my back.

How do I do it…?

I get asked all the time “How do you do that”. Well, I’m about to debunk it. I’ll start with the baby products and how I’ve learnt how to use them. Some only took a few tries to figure out, while others were more complicated. It’s something that I’ve had to figure out from a very young age, but posed more of a obstacle once I became a parent. Something I’d love to do in the future is to test out products to see if in fact they are ‘one-handed friendly because something I’ve learnt through navigating parenthood for the first time is that the reviews for products are not really truthful in saying that they are one handed friendly. So here it goes…