Swaddles and slings

Owen is still sleeping fairly well at night, thanks to his velcro swaddling blanket, but I'm afraid it won't work forever. Already, he sometimes manages to wiggle one little fist up to his mouth--you'd think sucking on his fingers would make him feel better, but in fact it just reminds him that he's really, really hungry. Always.

I have to laugh seeing him all swaddled up, though: he looks like a tiny, disgruntled middle-aged man inexplicably trapped in a cocoon.

The sling, on the other hand, is no laughing matter. I watched the DVD that came with it, complete with footage of Guatemalan women toting toddlers on their backs, and I tried to follow the instructions given by the robotic 1980s uber-mom as she popped dolls and babies in and out of various slings while throwing out terms like "shoulder strap flap."

Yet when I put on the sling and put Owen in it, he disappeared completely and started screaming bloody murder. I tried to adjust the fabric but the high-pitched screams were distracting, to say the least. The DVD suggests trying the sling for the first time when your baby is full and well-rested--this may be the problem, since Owen is either sleeping or hungry at all times.

That being said, Owen did much better than I expected yesterday, when Jim and I took him along to my first post-C-section doctor's appointment. I was on standby, so we were there for nearly an hour before I saw the doctor. I had been dreading this outing, picturing Owen screaming non-stop while I was in with the doctor, but he actually did okay. Jim walked him around and he managed to hang in there for the ten minutes or so I was actually elsewhere. Prior to that, I did have to feed him in the waiting room, something I wouldn't hesitate to do at an OBGYN's office in the US, but Bumrungrad has so many patients in burqas, it made me really nervous. I think I was being fairly discreet, but who knows.

Later, when Owen was fussing while we waited for our turn at the cashier counter, a nurse suggested I could use a vacant office to feed him if I wanted to. I thought maybe this proved no one had even noticed I'd fed him earlier, but Jim suggested maybe they had noticed and were trying to preempt me from doing it again. With its international clientele, I'm sure Bumrungrad must have American and European women feeding babies there all the time--but I've never actually seen anyone doing so in the waiting room of the Women's Center. Hmmm. Also, there was nowhere to change the baby in the women's restroom there, so Owen had to wear his stinky diaper until we got home. Luckily, home is literally a stone's throw away (I could see the balcony of our apartment from my hospital room when he was born.) On the way home, he didn't even cry in his carseat--we may have to venture out again soon!