Feeding

I had my first experience the other day of feeding baby Ailsa with a bottle.  It initially felt weird for both me and my wife Liz  for her as she felt like she wasn't needed, and didn't know what to do with herself.  For me it was that I was helping I was feeding which I had only sat and watched over the past few weeks. But Ailsa took to the bottle ok and it was good practice for her as both me and Liz wanted an afternoon lunch to ourselves over the weekend (Nanny was looking after her for us)

But knowing that I can feed  helped and also means that if Liz ever needs that extra time to sleep or needs to go out then I can take over and do this feeling confident that a. she will take the bottle and b. I can hold baby lying her on my hemi arm and feed with my right arm

nappies

Well it is now a week since little Ailsa was born and still in love with her (even though i am not getting a full nights sleep).

I am still having issues with nappies after again trying to do it it is still an issue lifting her up to put a nappy underneath her but the rest I am being a lot more successful with and replacing her clothes.

I am hoping that iot will be easier with re-useable nappies as they are bigger and less scrunched up so will hopefully be able to put them on a lot better I will let you know results

Day 1

Ailsa Louisa Taylor  was born yesterday afternoon 16.08.12 weighing 6lb 7oz.  The first day has been a real mix of testing out baby products.  Failure one nappy hanging harder than expected try to hold baby up with hemi hand  so i could wipe was hard and to lift her to put nappy underneath was  near impossible due to her sliding up the mat (but am sure in time it will be easily done.

Using baby sling is brilliant baby is asleep on my chest as i am writing this tucked up in the sling it was easy to put on and put Ailsa in and i still have full movement of my non hemi arm

The pram was esy to put up and down and I was able to move around easily and place baby in and out of it with no difficulty

All in all day one officially a 75% success

arrival imminent

Well tomorrow is the due date (its gone very fast)

So time to put everything into practise and I wil give regular updates on findings when baby arrives and I look forward to telling you how I get on

Wish me luck

pram issues

4 weeks till due date

I was clearing babies roo in the week getting rid of boxes and decided to put the pram together. In doing this we found thaty the Maxi cosi car seat is not one hand proof you need two hands to secure the seat onto the buggy. And also need two hands to move the carrying bar.

The bonus is that I won't need to use it in the car on my own as I don't drive.  Still a bit of a pain though but the pram on the other hand is brilliant and can be used easily with the one hand

7 weeks left

I know it has been a while since I last updated my blog just to let you all know that everything is running smoothly at present we have got seven weeks left until the due dates  so getting closer.  in terms of how I am feeling I am excited but there is some trepidation at the same time.

We are now fully prepared in the house for our babies arrival the nursery is fully kitted out we have the hospital bag packed and ready, antenatal classes have been attended and we have learnt what is going to happen in the weeks leading up to due date and also what is going to happen post birth.

baby sling

Carrying baby and doing other jobs is hard enough with two hands let alone one.  I decided early on that I was going to look into slings to carry the baby in so that I can securely hold baby as I  walk about the house and also while I work. 

Tere are a lot of different slings out there  but most from what we looked at you needed a secomnd hand with the Close Baby carrier  we found that it looked simple to use as you slipped it on like a t shirt and also was easy to adjust.

I have started to test it out round the house in preparation for babies arrivsal in 12 weeks time and here is the evidence

Pram

This weekend me and Liz went pram shopping we visited the only two shops in Bedford that sell a wide range of prams the first being house of baby they were very helpful in advicing us on what was best to get and also were able to advice on one handed folds.  The second was mothercare again helpful  and also adviced on one handed folds.

Out of all the prams that were in both shops there was only two that were one hand fold the Bugaboo Bee and  the Mothercare Curv.

I tried out both of these and the latter I had issues with as you it was hard to get compact enough without the use of a second hand.

The Bugaboo on the other hand was really easy as long as I had some where I can  hold my balance as putting it up requires the use of one foot but  this pram was the best.






 Liz did point out that I would not really need to put the seat down much anyway due to y not driving but its always good to be able to do so just in case of emergencies

half way

Well we have reached the half way stage,  we had the second scan yesterday and it was amazing to see my son/ daughter moving about we beat temptation to not find out the sex, its a surprise left for the day of the birth. Loved seeing him or her moving about and wriggling.

Here he or she is, the last time we will see them till the big day

making headway

.  Things are starting to fall into place we now have the babies room painted and decorated very minimal sa we don't know the sex of baby yet.  Next adventure is buying everything for it (I am actualluyy looking forward to this part) I go into shops and I now look at baby things what I think will be a good book to read etc I have found a few that I really like the sound of and one  here they are in video format

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDeQT9zCvi4


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIBqd1kxoQk

the second is controversial  but I am sure every parent will be thinking the same thing at some stage.

article

Hi all

Even though this is a pretty new blog, thanks to the numbers coming to view I have been asked by HemiHelp newsletter to write an article on the exact purposes of this blog and why i felt the need to publish my thought and broadcast them to the masses which is a charity  based in the UK.

The bonuis of writing this article will be that I will be able to get more vierwers to my blog and also it will help any future  persons who have children and also suffer from hemiplegia

prams

the biggest thing that has crossed both mine and Liz's mind is prams we have been searching the internet trying to findf a pram thats light weight but also eay to use with one we have founbd a selection of travel systems thaty we are interested in buying in our price range most prams have clips you need to undo to get the seat out so that if baby is sleeping you don't have to kleave them in one room whilst you are in another . 

I am going to do some trials at a local baby shop to find out how this will work out and will update  with how I got on

this is the system that we are currently looking at









As well as testing this pram I will be getting the taga bike that I showed on an earlier post.  The reason I feel is I feel more secure on a bike than I do walking and feel more stable also