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 A breastfeeding cushion also turned out to be a decent investment and the bottles were superseded once Kate found out about lactation aids - a cunning device whereby the supplemental milk is siphoned directly into Rosie's mouth as she breastfeeds by a tiny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.

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.