Going airborne By Kate

Okay, so I admit I am petrified of flying. In the past, the only thing that would get me inside a jet and up in the air was a generous dose of Valium. Given the choice, I would rather travel any other way except off the ground. But sometimes it just can't be avoided. An important family wedding and work-related time-constraints meant flying between Madrid and Bristol was the only sensible way to travel on this occasion. Unfortunately, because I'm breast-feeding, Valium is out of the question. Oh, and did we mention that we would also be bringing a 16 week-old baby, somewhat prone to over-tiredness and not always inclined to feed to order? I viewed the coming expedition with something akin to terror. A shame, as that rather overshadowed the pleasant anticipation I felt about attending Hermione and Richard's nuptials, but there wasn't much I could do about it.

So I duly dosed Rosie with a little infant paracetamol to hopefully help ease any pressure-change headaches, timed her penultimate feed so she would be ready for the next as we took off, put her in the sling and joined Theo, plus bulging rucksack, backpack and baby-bed, in a taxi for Madrid Barajas. Rosie fussed a bit in the taxi, which didn't bode well. I gritted my teeth and told myself it would all be over in just a few hours time.When we arrived, the man at the check-in desk cheerfully assured us the flight was on schedule. He was wrong. With sinking hearts we watched the red strip blinking on the departures board. Damn.
With Rosie still in the sling I set off on an extremely tedious walk involving repeated circuits of the boarding area. She was disconcertingly awake. My plan involved her at least having a reasonable nap so she wouldn't go into the long dark tunnel of overtiredness on the plane and be impossible (or at least, very difficult) to calm down.

It worked - eventually. By about the fifteenth circuit, Rosie had got bored of the lack of scenery and nodded off. I kept walking.After an hour, our plane came in and we lined up to get on board.

At this point Rosie woke up and let me know she was hungry. That was a nuisance, to put it plainly. The Flight Plan had involved her feeding during our ascent (and descent) so the swallowing would protect her from the discomfort of the pressure changes. But Rosie was threatening to make A Big Noise if her hunger wasn't satisfied and soon. I hesitated for a moment, then sat on a window sill while Theo kept our place in the queue and allowed her to start to feed. As it happened, she had to curtail her eating almost immediately as we were called to board. Fortunately, the distraction that involved meant she forgot to protest too vigorously about her interrupted meal.Once ensconced in seats near the front, we fiddled with the infant seat-belting arrangement and got ready. We didn't have to wait long. With my flight-fear adrenalin shooting through me I felt the jet lift off and Rosie was able to resume her feed. Whether it was the calming hormones released by breast-feeding or my overriding concern for my daughter, I soon forgot to panic as we climbed to 38 thousand feet.

Once we were up and Rosie had finished feeding she started to fuss. "Here we go," I thought with sinking heart. As Rosie's wails started to reach a crescendo, a kindly member of the cabin crew took pity and suggested I take her into the galley area. With Rosie swaddled, dummied and hugged close into my chest I stood looking at the neat rows of aircraft snacks while rocking and shushing Rosie in my arms. Whether it was by these efforts, or the effect of the sound and motion of the plane, it worked. Within five minutes she had fallen asleep. I let out a breath and returned to our seat. Rosie then obligingly slept for the rest of the journey.
In fact, I had the devil's own job to rouse her sufficiently to get her to feed on the way back down - I joggled her and massaged her feet and ears in an effort to encouraging some sucking, feeling increasingly desperate as the pressure began to build up in my own ears. Just as I was on the point of giving up, Rosie suddenly got the idea of what was required of her and started to drink. Behind us another youngster started screaming. Rosie remained calm, sleepily sucking every few minutes as we flew over the Clifton Suspension Bridge and finally came into land.

Back in the sling, Rosie went straight off to sleep again as we collected our baggage and went out to our little welcoming committee of Theo's parents.

In fact, Rosie proceeded to calmly sleep her way through the car journey to Cirencester and after a brief awakening for a nappy change and feed, had a pretty decent night of it - as Theo and I gratefully grabbed some snoozing ourselves. Now I could look forward to the wedding.

...of which more in a later blog...

Having had one flight that was so much better than I could have hoped, I wasn't optimistic the second one would pass as tranquilly. It was bang in the middle of "evening fuss time", never an easy part of Rosie's and my day.

After an unsuccessful attempt at getting Rosie to sleep in her baby bed in the airport (we were ridiculously early - one of Theo's annoyingly over-efficient habits!!) I put her back in the sling and started doing circuits of the refreshments posts in Bristol's new terminal. The pattern at Barajas was thankfully repeated and after a while Rosie took a decent nap while I stopped off to chat to a couple of former work colleagues, who were awaiting a flight to Amsterdam and a pair of friendly middle-aged women who were about to go to Budapest.

Once again, we sat near the front. I almost blew the take-off feed when Rosie wanted to start supping ahead of schedule then, when I tried to buy a bit of time, roared her displeasure. Luckily (and this is a first) I managed to persuade her back on the breast where she obligingly stayed until we had reached our cruising altitude. So far so good.

Rosie was a bit too wakeful to be encouraged to sleep again so Theo and I distracted her with a nappy change on the spare seat in our row, then by waving a teddy at her and generally passing her back and forth between us until she started to fuss in her familiar "I'm tired now, Mother and Father" way.

Not feeling too hopeful, I swaddled her and repeated the dummy/rocking/shushing routine, this time in my seat. After ten minutes she was asleep. I felt cheered and distracted myself from my own flying anxiety by cuddling her, generally admiring her, feeling a bit pleased with myself and wishing I didn't have a streaming cold.

Once again, Rosie was very sleepy when I tried to get her to feed going down and once again she took a few swallows just at the critical moment. I wished I had someone to breast-feed me as the congestion I was experiencing with my cold meant my ears and head were feeling like a plunger was being gradually and painfully applied to them.

In an almost carbon copy of our previous landing, Rosie remained placid and dozy while we grabbed our stuff and put her back in the sling ready to head for home. I, meanwhile, had gone deaf. But given my fears - on my own account as well as Rosie's - I have to say that I passed the too least stressful flights of my life. Valium? Huh. Looking after a sixteen week-old baby is a far better way to get airborne without damp palms.

Mother's Little Helper By Kate

My name is Kate and I'm a chocoholic.

That's nothing new, I've always been partial to a slab of blended cocoa butter and solids (70% minimum for choice, but any port in a storm...) Now, it's becoming a more serious dependency. After dealing with a fractious child, chocolate becomes an absolute necessity and I even shock myself with how voraciously I can wolf it down.

Not that Rosie is an especially fractious baby - well, no more than the average, anyway. But she certainly has her moments and it can be a frazzling experience trying to work out what's wrong (if indeed there is anything properly wrong) and put it right, or at least soothe her to some degree. If it's not hunger that's producing the angst, the next most common candidate is tiredness. Over-tiredness is the worst because the obvious solution is for Rosie to get some shut-eye, but it's the last thing she's willing to do in that situation and it can take some serious persuasion on our part before she'll calm down enough to go to sleep.

Fortunately, this is not a situation that's arisen too often and generally we can feed/rock/dummy Rosie into submission without an indecent amount of time having elapsed. But it's getting tougher. Tonight we were up to two and a half hours from me first trying to get Rosie off to sleep and her finally making it into Nod Land. Thankfully, only a small proportion of that time was spent crying (her, not me - although it's tempting sometimes) - the rest was feeding or fussing. But oh, the blessed sight of a baby in peaceful repose and the sacred silence! At that point, I go and grab the chocolate. Everybody needs their drug and right now, what with the lactation and all, this is mine.

The Battle of Sleepy Corner by Kate

Well, no one can accuse me of being taken by surprise by the sleeplessness of new parenthood - I thoroughly expected a fair number of zzz's would elude me and have generally tried not to get stressed about getting a good deal less than my favoured seven hours of sleep in every 24. My stint of early shifts for the BBC had given me insight into sleep deprivation, including the useful knowledge that it's perfectly possible to function reasonably well even without sufficient snoozing. Of course, when I did the earlies I generally had weekends off and they let me have five weeks holiday per year. None of that comes with the Motherhood Contract.

Feeding a newborn baby is a round-the-clock deal and if you're breast-feeding, you can't easily let someone else step in for a shift. OK, you can milk yourself into a convenient bottle and get your husband to take an overnight shift, but there's no doubt that being physically on the breast is part of what soothes babies - well, our baby anyway - and allows me to get her back to sleep again when she's had her fill. It's also a time of precious closeness, so despite the fact that the precious closeness comes at a price and tends to take place in the hinterland between consciousness and unconsciousness, it's still a valuable thing.


No, the real killer is not the feeding - not even the amount of time it takes to feed (around 40 mins, usually), plus burping (5 to 10 mins) plus the nappy change (up to 20 mins because of the gas-releasing tummy massage and leg-cycling it includes) and then resettling (up to 30 mins usually). Yes, that means each feeding session tends to last around an hour and a half. No, the really tough part is Rosie's inability to sleep peacefully because of her insistent digestive system.

For one so tiny, she produces impressive quantities of intestinal gas and releasing it is clearly an uncomfortable experience that leads to a lot of grunting, straining, fidgeting and squeaking. Advice to avoid SIDS says that babies must sleep on their backs, but this is the worst position when it comes to letting rip the kind of farts required to take the pressure of her infant tummy. That means we might get half an hour of peace before the squirming and vocalising begins - and unfortunately, despite gentle efforts to assist (lifting her legs up etc), Rosie's wind situation has been responsible for waking her - and me - at indecently short intervals, almost since she was born.

So, a multi-pronged attack has been necessary. I acquired a baby sleeping bag for extra snuggliness and something she can keep on so the transition between cuddling with me and being in her bed is less severe. I got a specially-designed moulded baby sleeping cushion so Rosie can have her legs raised if she's on her back or can safely sleep on her side (which she seems to find much more comfortable). I also invested in a monitor/sensor for extra reassurance that her breathing is OK when she's on her side (it vibrates gently to stimulate breathing if no movement is detected after 15 seconds and an alarm sounds if there's still nothing after 20).
That's the physical weaponry. I've also got stuff from the pharmacy to help her digestion - basically, essence of chamomile, fennel and anise - and have been avoiding certain foods which may make my breast milk more flatulence-producing (brassicas, pulses etc.). And there are the tummy massage/leg bending moves at each nappy change (a most impressive amount of wind can be produced by those - far more satisfying than a piffly post-feed burping session).

The good news is, we've just had two nights where she managed to sleep for four hours at a stretch without waking - huzzah! The wind was still happening, but it seemed to be at a level she could cope with without actually waking. The other thing is that I seem to be able to tune out most of her mid-sleep symphony and only come to at a more wakeful melody. It's amazing what the difference between 2 and 4 hours' sleep can make to a person. I feel almost energised. Still, we may have won a skirmish or two, but I'm not going to declare victory in the overall battle. And I'm not even allowing myself to think about winning the war.

Cute baby - now tell me about your breasts... By Kate

Open appreciation of the tiny cuteness of our little daughter from total strangers - who even stop you in the street to marvel at her - is something we're rapidly getting used to here. It's very touching. And at times a tad embarrassing. The only time I've ever seen Theo experiencing acute discomfort at being the centre of attention was when we were in the supermarket with Rosie cuddled up to her daddy's chest in the sling. Suddenly he was surrounded by rapturous women and children all fascinated by Rosie's sleeping face peeking out at them. Momentarily, we were a phenomenon.

There are also certain questions that I am now well primed to answer. After the cries of "Que chicatita!" etc. this is how it goes:
1. How old is she?
2. What is her name?
3. Are you breast feeding?

Numbers 1. and 2. are probably fairly universal and I would expect to be asked the same thing by people I had only just met in the UK. Number 3, probably not. But here it seems to be a perfectly legit follow up to the first two. On our way back from a medical appointment the other day, Theo (with Rosie in the sling) and myself found ourselves flanked on the metro by (in his case) an old gentleman and (in my case) and genial middle-aged black woman. Both asked the breast feeding question and both then launched into a lively examination of the subject, including their own experiences relating to it and questions about how we were doing.

In fact breast feeding seems to have become the number one parenting issue when it comes to babies nowadays. This is the current trend - back in the seventies it was all about potty training. Not surprising really, seeing that in the last thirty years bottle feeding had virtually become the norm until a determined campaign that "breast is best" raised awareness of the eminent suitability of mother's milk to give an infant the best start in life. Well, I agree that it's the best thing, but there's no doubt, the zealousness of the campaign can lead to unbearable pressure on new mothers, especially those who don't find breast-feeding easy, for any one of a number of reasons.

My own experiences of breastfeeding have given me first hand realisation of how emotionally draining and exhausting it can be. I noted the ease by which my sister breastfed all four of her children and while I didn't assume breastfeeding would be problem-free for me, I didn't actually prepare myself for that possibility. So when my baby wasn't interested in taking my milk direct from me I was distraught. It felt like a personal rejection. Exhausted and hormonal, I cried my eyes out when my repeated efforts to put Rosie to the breast (without the intermediary of silicone nipple shields) were in vain.

In the end, that cheapest and most convenient of infant feeding modes proved to be anything but for us. We spent hundreds of euros on equipment, including bottles, steriliser, pumps and lactation aids. My initial feeding regime involved patient attempts to coax Rosie onto the breast (which would take more than an hour and a half sometimes) in order to get some milk from me, plus supplementation from bottles and (later) a tube feeder, then another half hour or so spent expressing to keep up my supply and to provide breast milk for the top-ups. This was part of a 24-hour two-and-a-half hourly feeding regime - so very little time for me to do anything in between. Thankfully, Theo took care of everything else we needed, so I could devote myself 100 per cent to feeding Rosie.

Well, after a few weeks of this, I am pleased to report that it worked. One by one, the various pieces of equipment have been stashed away and now Rosie breastfeeds as if she had never done anything else. I am relieved and pleased that we have got to this point, but I wonder how I would manage if I had this situation with a second child, for example. The luxury of a "babymoon" - taking to bed with the baby and doing almost nothing except feed - would no longer be possible, for example. No wonder so many women give up and start giving their babies bottles of formula. It's definitely the easier option. If I have ever passed judgement on mothers giving their babies bottles of formula, then I publically apologise. Breastfeeding - if you are unlucky - can be fraught with complications and that's the last thing you need when recovering from giving birth and doing your level best to nurture your newborn. But I am chuffed that I can answer "yes" when people in Spain I have never met before ask me the question.

improvising and investing - by Theo

When it's come to sorting out baby gear for our PFB (precious first born) we've been at two polarities - the no-cost improvisations and the expensive investments. What's weird is that areas where we'd thought we'd have to spend money, we haven't, and one key area which we weren't expecting to cost us anything has turned out to be the most expensive of all!

On the one hand bath-time and bed-time have been advertisements for ingenuity; both her bath and her bed are transparent storage boxes of different sizes which we'd purchased for about £3 back in the summer to help transport our stuff to Spain. Obviously we don't keep the lids on! Her bedding has largely been a combination of tea towels, pillow cases and shawls Kate doesn't use, while her changing mat is a towel over a bin liner - works just fine. Plus we've discovered that olive oil is the ultimate moisturizing lotion for fighting nappy rash, one less thing to buy! We're using washable nappies, so I'm doing lots of laundry but at least there's no landfill. And thanks to the generosity of so many family and friends, in England and Spain, we've yet to have to buy a single item of clothing for our darling daughter! Thanks everyone!
Total spend = about €6 on a couple of extra tea towels and some more olive oil.

However, when it comes to feeding it's been a totally different story. On instructions of the medical staff we purchased nipple guards, bottles and formula (in order to supplement Kate's breast milk). Naturally we then had to buy a microwave steriliser. These have all now been sidelined since Kate started seriously expressing breast milk for storage - the original hand pump we bought was in danger of giving Kate RSI, so I was then dispatched to buy an electric one. A breastfeeding cushion also turned out to be a decent investment and the bottles were superseded once Kate found out about lactation aids - a cunning device whereby the supplemental milk is siphoned directly into Rosie's mouth as she breastfeeds by a tiny tube from a bottle which hangs beneath Kate's chin, St Bernard-style. Kate's like a walking advert for Medela! Actually the whole contraption, with tubes taped down to Kate's nipples, is kind of kinky; I have photos, but I fear publishing them here (or anywhere!) would be grounds for divorce!
Total spend = €355! And we thought breastfeeding was the cheap option!!

Of course you can't put a price on love, and Rosie's worth this a thousand times over.

Nipple pinching, ear-tweaking and chamomile tea By Kate

I never thought I'd have my nipples squeezed and stomach prodded by so many complete strangers, but that's life in a post natal ward, I guess. After Rosie's sudden entrance into the world by emergency cesarean she and I spent four nights in room 11-14 at Hospital La Paz in Madrid, which was quite an experience.

Given the limited nature of my Spanish, my communication with the nurses and orderlies was a bit hit and miss at times, but you couldn't fault the quality of care. We weren't in a large ward, but a room we shared with one other woman and her baby (plus the inevitable legions of friends and relatives), which had its own en-suite bathroom. Our babies were with us pretty much throughout, just occasionally being taken off for baths, jabs, tests and so on. Most of our immediate needs were provided - an unending supply of nappies, cleaning materials and clean hospital gowns for both of us. And best of all, our partners were allowed to stay the night - although they had to sleep in reclining chairs.

Rosie and I were given a lot of well-meaning attention (although, when it came to establishing breastfeeding, some of it was misguided - but I didn't know that at the time) and my (and Theo's) learning curve when it came to nappy-changing, baby bathing, cord-cleaning and general care-giving was steep, but satisfying.

While we were in La Paz, we shared our room with three other families - baby Martin with his mother and English-speaking father (very helpful when I needed translations in those first couple of days!!) and their forty or so visitors; Marie, who had just had premature twins by C section, and her twenty or so visitors (but she was with me for less than one day, so I expect the number went up) and baby Arturo plus his Peruvian parents and their thirty or so visitors. What was very touching about the parade of visitors was how much fuss they made of little Rosie as she and I watched the comings and goings with great interest. "Que rica!!" they cried, "Que preciosa!" It was all very gratifying.

Daily entertainment included the doctor's round - a neat, brisk, cheerful man with a nurse acolyte who would waltz into the room and check each patient as follows:
"Have you peed?" (yes)
"Have you pooed?" (yes)
"Breasts okay?" (yes thanks)
"Any pain?" (not much)
"Baby feeding?" (yes)
"Take good care of your babies, Ladies, take care of your babies!"
And that would be it until the next day.

Another part of the hospital routine that made me smile was the relaxing hot drink before bed time. Except usually the inhabitants of the ward had already retired by the time it turned up. It would be around midnight and the lights would be out, husbands peacefully snoozing in chairs, babies dozing and snuffling in cots or their mother's arms and mothers trying to grab some precious shut-eye before the next feed... Suddenly the tranquility would be rudely interrupted by a blaze of florescent lights and the clanking of a trolley as two nurse orderlies marched in and offered us hot milk or chamomile tea, followed by another with her selection of "calmantes" (pain-killers). I would usually take the chamomile just to calm the sudden rush of adrenalin brought on by the abrupt break in our serenity.

The nurses and orderlies varied in attitude from sweet and smiley (including one who would try out a few words of English with us) to no-nonsense efficient, to borderline rude. Some were reasonably patient with my limited understanding of Spanish, others considerably less so. Thank god for our bi-lingual visitors, who helped explain a few crucial things.
One standout character was Nurse Bossy (not her real name) - a middle-aged nurse in the no-nonsense efficient bracket who oversaw our care of Rosie. She did many useful things, including show me the best ways to change a nappy, clean an umbilical cord, bath a baby and see off a touch of jaundice. She was frighteningly rough in the way she handled tiny Rosie, but my daughter didn't seem to mind - like most babies, she could sense a person's confidence and was reassured. I resolved to stop treating my baby as if she was made of porcelain.

Nurse B was also determined to get Rosie feeding and putting on weight - Rosie was far more interested in sleeping than eating and consequently lost 6 per cent of her birth weight in the first two days.

I was encouraged to breastfeed - something I was keen to do - but unfortunately, Rosie just wasn't interested. Nurse Bossy tried various techniques to encourage Rosie to sup at my breasts, including different positions, ear-tweaking and foot massage (both stimulate the suction reflex), but at best, Rosie was managing two weak sucks before dropping off to sleep - not very helpful.

Eventually, Nurse B told us to get nipple guards and like magic, Rosie began to suck. It wasn't surprising, really as she'd been given formula from bottles in the time she'd been apart from me after the C Section and hadn't had the chance to use the magic first hour of life to make skin-on-skin contact and find and latch on to the breast. She was, as the breastfeeding experts put it, "nipple confused" - latex teats on bottles were her experience of obtaining food, so my flexible, fleshy things just didn't cut the mustard. Not surprising the nipple guard found favour, it was very similar to a bottle teat. BUT at least it got her taking the colostrum I was producing and then my milk, when it came in on the third day.

We were put on a two and a half hour feeding regime consisting of unlimited breastfeeding and a regular 20ml top-up of formula from the bottle. By day three, Rosie's weight-loss had stopped and soon she was gaining her grams again. Unfortunately, the nipple-guard/bottle regime merely made the nipple confusion worse, so I had my work cut out to get Rosie to take the breast. But that's another story.

On the whole, I have to say Hospital La Paz was extremely good and looked after Rosie and me very well - even the food wasn't TOO bad, especially given Spain's general lack of experience with vegetarianism. The downsides of being in hospital were the heat - even the warm-temperatured Hispanic inmates found the ambience sultry, to say the least - and the lack of opportunity to sleep. Catnapping during the day was almost impossible with the endless comings-and-goings of nurses, cleaners, visitors, doctors, paediatricians, meals etc. etc. and night-time sleep was disturbed by the two babies; their parents (some of whom snored bloody loudly) and of course, the sweltering heat.

All in all, it was a relief to go home. I was lucky and recovered quickly from my C section, sore abdominals soon subsided and my incision seemed to be healing well. I can't help laughing in a hollow way about all that rubbing in of cream to avoid stretchmarks. Well, it worked, I don't have any stretch marks, but there's not much I can do about the 5-inch scar just below my bikini line, or the fleshy ridge of "overhang" above it. As souvenirs of the birth go, I much prefer our gorgeous little Rosie.

Suck and Awe - by Theo

I'm utterly in awe of Kate.

Despite still being in pain from the cesarian and having a daughter too small to properly breastfeed, Kate's determination and perseverance has just left me stunned and even more amazed than ever by this wonderful woman I've married. She's never given up, despite the frustrations and emotionally draining moments as she's tried to get Rosie to breastfeed. Being under-weight it's been even more important than normal for Rosie to feed well and we're on a strict regimen of feeds every 2.5 hours round the clock - breastfeeding supplemented by a bottle feed. As Rosie is such a slow drinker the whole process takes nearly an hour, leaving Kate barely anytime in between to rest, even if I do the bottle-feed and inevitable nappy change that follows. As if that wasn't enough, Kate has been determined that as many as the bottlefeeds as possible should be with breastmilk, in order to give Rosie the best possible diet and to stimulate her own milk supply. Thus Kate has been diligently expressing with a hand-pump in the little time she has to herself.

I'm making myself frantic with housework in an effort to over-compensate, but really nothing I can do can come close to the love and dedication of my wife towards our daughter.

Kitting out by Kate

Just how many of these cute, pastel-coloured, curvy-shaped, cuddly character items are really necessary for a baby? Having just been on a (most enjoyable) shopping trip for our expected offspring, I've been quite staggered at the sheer amount of stuff being dangled enticingly under the willing and susceptible noses of potential parents and grandparents - stuff which I rather suspect is largely unnecessary for the health and well-being of the new infant. Of course, some items are essential and a few expenses unavoidable, but if people living in jungle tribes, two weeks from civilisation in all directions can successfully raise their new-born children without the benefits of ergonomically-designed breast-feeding cushions, baby baths and crib-bumpers, then I reckon we could probably manage it too.

Take nightlights, for example. Now, a low-wattage light to help you carry out the night-time feeds with minimal disturbance to your partner (and your retinas) seems like a decent practical idea. The little, plug-in lights you can get from the local electrical shop cost no more than a couple of quid/euros - and the job is done. In the baby shops, the nightlights made from soothingly-coloured, moulded characters with smiley mouse faces (for example) set you back by fourteen notes and yet they do exactly the same job as the two-quid widgets. And who's going to appreciate the extra twiddly bits on the fancy nightlight? The baby? Not on your nelly. Is it going to relieve your fatigue or boredom or enhance your enjoyment of the 3 a.m. nourishment session? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seriously doubt it.

Anyway, as I said, some baby equipment is essential. Clothes, for example - although we've been donated and promised such a wealth of babywear already, that I doubt we'll have to part with much more cash to complete our newborn's layette. Nappies are unavoidable and as we're keen to try and mostly use washable ones, that will be an initial outlay of a couple of hundred euros (but should work out cheaper than disposables in the long run, even with the washing costs factored in). And there's baby transportation. By law, if you want to transport your little one in a car, it has to be in a proper, government accredited car seat. You're advised against getting them second-hand and the new ones don't come cheap. That's why we figured we might as well try and get a multi-purpose seat that would clip into a frame on wheels and therefore double as a pram and/or buggy. In fact, we've realised that the seat, as well as having its uses in our vehicle and on its own set of wheels, can also be a baby seat for general use around the house - when our little one needs to be set down somewhere safe in our vicinity while we do other things, for example - and indeed as a cot. The height of the pram set-up is about the same as our bed, so conceivably (assuming she's willing) we could have our nipper kipping in it at nights (if indeed she does kip at nights, Inshallah...) and be within easy paranoid new-mother checking distance and conveniently grabbable for breast-feeding in the wee hours. That's the theory, anyway. I guess we'll find out soon enough if our baby finds that solution as practical as we do.

For general child transportation, I'm very taken with idea of tying her to our bodies (one at a time, obviously) with a strong and stretchy length of cloth. Baby-wearing, in fact. The idea seems simple and flexible and assuming we can get it right and she takes to it okay, it seems like a good way of having your babe-in-arms snug against your body but not actually in your arms.

Still, I'm aware that babies are nothing if not adept at knocking all the best pre-parenting ideas into a cocked hat and I can only hope that our one will share at least some of our views on the best ways to make her (and us) comfortable. Unfortunately, if she takes after her parents she's bound to have some definite ideas of her own about the way she would like things done and will no doubt be unafraid to express them. Yikes.