Bye bye Baby Bjorn, Baby bye bye!

Well the fateful day arrived a few weeks ago - Number 2 has grown out of his sling. No longer will I be able to stuff him, silent and unmoving, arms akimbo like some tiny Michelin Man, into the sling strapped to my chest and set off on a roll through my local village. The reason is simple - he is now so big that he can stand on my thighs and completely obscure my vision. He further increases the discomfort by gleefully throwing his head back and cracking me on the bridge of my nose with his rock-like head! So - goodbye Baby Bjorn!

Before any children arrived my wife and I spent some time trying out every conceivable sling. It was obvious to me that the only type that would work for me would be a forward slung carrier type. The backpack designs would be too dangerous - the risk of tipping the wheelchair over backwards is just too great. The side-sling designs (which my wife prefers) are impractical as I need full freedom of movement with both arms. Simply sitting the child on my lap is not safe until they learn to hold on - something that Number 2 still has not quite grasped at 16 months. Of the chest carriers that I tried, the best was by far and away the Baby Bjorn. It was comfortable to wear, easy to put on, and both children loved being in it. The only complaint is that it can get very uncomfortable in hot weather - but they introduced a lighter material version after ours was bought.

When the children were small it worked very well. As they grew, the problems grew. Once their feet could reach my legs, while in the sling, they would push against them, almost over-balancing me on occasion. However, it is such a convenient way of carrying the children that I lived with this.

Number 2 is walking now...staggering around like a drunken sailor is more accurate. So the sling has been hung up for the last time. Unless a number three is Bjorn again...

Getting pushed around...

Number 2 came out of the bedroom this evening at around dinner time. He started walking about 8 weeks ago, and still staggers with the gait of a sailor on shore-leave. With great purpose he got behind my wheelchair and started to push it. He was unable to steer (not surprising - since he can't see over the back!) so I provided some steering assistance where appropriate. But he knew where he was going. We went into the kitchen, he pushed me all the way to his feeding table, then grabbed the tray of the feeding table and started to attempt to climb in while looking at me imploringly. I think he was hungry!

I'm getting worried. It looks like I will shortly lose the freedom to park my chair wherever I want in my house - I will be subject to the whims of Number 2 and wheeled unceremoniously wherever he wants me to go. I'm, not sure if this is progress or not...

The Sticky-Pokey-Grabby-Thing

Once I lived alone in a nice apartment. I had almost no furniture - a bed, a table, and a futon. It suited me perfectly since I had plenty of free floor space, and I always had my own chair so seating was never an issue. My friends were less pleased, but they sat on the floor and, after a sufficient quantity of beer or wine, quit complaining.

Then I got married.

Gradually my idyllic place became more and more cluttered with...stuff. Feminine touches appeared. Real furniture arrived - sofa, armchairs, shelving units...lots of other stuff. I was not too perturbed. The available space for wheeling in became less, but it was still manageable. A reasonable sacrifice for the joys of marriage, I figured.

Then we had kids.

Even kid number one changed my world utterly. Now I live in a constantly churning chaos of clothes, toys, baby stuff, spilled yogurt, spoons, jigsaw pieces and unidentified items that someone dragged in from the garbage outside. The available track for my wheelchair is limited to a narrow path from the front door to the kitchen - frequently obstructed by scooters, books, crayons or other miscellaneous abandoned objects. Considering the size of a toddler, they seem to occupy a phenomenal amount of space! Apart from being a prisoner in my own home, the sea of stuff has the unfortunate side effect that I cannot access many parts of each room in my home. And, with a probability of one, that inaccessible part will contain whatever item is needed urgently - right now. Be it a toy, a bottle, an upside down yogurt gradually emptying it's contents into my wife's contact lens case, there is no doubt that I will need to reach that spot and be able to pick something up.

My only saviour in these situations is a device we fondly refer to as "the sticky-pokey-grabby-thing" (or, as Number 1 calls it: "the icky-oaky-wabby" - she is well able to use it also). This is a long handled claw-like device commonly available in adaptive device stores (try here (US) or here (UK)) and more properly called a "reacher".They come in various forms, but my favorite is a magnetic tipped one with a large jaw. You open and close it via a trigger at the handle end. This device has proved so useful that I have several all over the house, ready for instant use, and two folding ones in the car (how many times have you transferred out of your car only to realise that you left that important envelope or whatever on the passenger seat, way out of your reach from outside the car?)

It is also useful for sweeping under sofas to retrieve balls, cars and fragments of peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches. I use to for retrieving items from the high shelves and cupboards in the kitchen (where my wife stores all the chocolate in the mistaken belief that I can't get it there!).

They're cheap, incredibly useful, and an absolute must have for any wheelchair person - with or without kids to destroy their living environment.

On Changing Tables

Changing tables are another problem area for the wheelchair parent. Most are designed to have storage beneath them, which is very handy for walkies, but means that a wheelchair user must park sideways to the table to get close enough to manipulate the baby. This is a very awkward position and really not practical for regular use. Our life saver in this regard came from Ikea and is called the Gullivar Changing Table. It hangs on the wall and folds up when not in use. Since you hang it yourself, it is possible to position it at the ideal height for a wheelchair to roll under it while still giving a comfortable working height for a walkie. Indeed, having used changing tables in many places, my wife claims that the Ikea one has been much easier on her back than the usual ones you can buy. I have found it excellent, and can heave the infant from my lap onto the table. There are pockets on the back that can be used to store nappies/diapers, wipes, creams etc. I can't reach the top pockets, but with the essentials in the lower pockets I get by just fine. The table can hold up to 25kg(50lbs) and we used it for Number 1 right up until she was potty trained at 33 months. I have never seen anything else that could even come close to being usable for me.

Of Cribs and Feeding tables

I mentioned Babee Tenda in the previous post, so I thought this would be a good topic to do as the first "meat" of the blog. The fundamental problem is that most cribs are really not usable for a parent in a wheelchair. We visited umpteen stores when we were expecting Number 1, and I tried every crib I could find. Not by climbing in and sleeping in it, you understand, I was merely trying to see if I could get a baby into or out of it, over the side. Almost every design involves sliding the side wall down a few inches to permit a walkie to lean over and pick up the child, or place them in it. It seemed to me that even with the sidewall lowered, there was no way I could safely transfer the child. I would be working from a sitting position, either lined up sideways to the crib, or at a 90 degree angle, and my balance is very poor once my arms are extended to the front. Add to that the weight of the baby and it seemed I would be better off trying to pitch the child from the other side of the room. It was utterly inconceivable that my wife would have to do all the morning and bedtime and naptime routines so we had to look further afield.

What we found was the Babee Tenda crib. This crib acts like any other, for the most part, with the important exception that it has a door on the side. So you have the option of moving the side up and down (which my wife preferred) or placing the child in the crib through the door (which worked for me). Even using the door was not a trivial operation due to my problems with balance, but it was possible and, most importantly, safe. (I guess if you had a lot of children you could afford to drop a few, but we had only the one at the time and I felt that it would be improper to toss her around like a sack of potatoes as she would be very hard to replace if we broke her!) We ended up purchasing a crib on eBay. It was described as "gently used by two beautiful children" - how any child can "gently use" anything is beyond me, no matter how beautiful they are! In any case, I drove to North Carolina to collect it (a 13 hour round trip) and, to be fair, it was in very good condition. It still is, having been "gently used" by a further two beautiful children, and as I write this Number 2 is happily ensconced therein, with one leg stuck through the bars and his head stuck into a corner. How do babies find the most uncomfortable positions to sleep in? So we have no complaints about the quality and durability of this product.

The catch that operates the door is more than childproof - most adults can't manage it either, and it took us a while to get the hang of it. It requires good finger dexterity and strength so if your disability is such that you have weak or restricted fingers you may have a problem locking and unlocking the door.

The door has some other great benefits apart from wheelchair accessibility. As the children became older and more mobile we could leave the door open and give them the freedom to leave the bed when they wanted. Number 1 liked to leave the door open for her afternoon nap, but wanted it closed at night, I guess to make her feel more secure. Number 2, at thirteen and a half months, is not quite at that stage yet, but even in the mornings all I need to do to get him out of bed is open the door and he will happily wiggle over to it, turn around, and slide his legs out until they touch the ground.

While driving to NC to pick up the crib my wife called to say she had also bought a Babee Tenda Feeding Table from the same seller. I had to stop at a bank to get some extra cash to pay the folk. We did less research into this, but it turned out to be a great buy also. The problem with feeding tables (and high chairs) is the same as cribs - it's very hard to get a child into and out of it when sitting and with bad balance. Indeed, the high chair transfer is a particularly dangerous operation. The Babee Tenda has an exceptionally large table all around the seat. I found that I could lean my elbows on the table, grasp the infant firmly and lever them out without lifting my elbows with no risk of dropping them. Then it was relatively simple to "walk" to an upright position with my elbows and grasp the child to my chest. This is still not a trivial operation, especially as they get older, and even now I prefer to let my wife take Number 2 out when he is done. But the point is that I can do it if I have to.

The unexpected side benefit of this table is that the feeding tray is so large that most of the food stays on it instead of falling over the sides onto the floor as it does with other feeding tables we have tried. Don't get me wrong, the floor can still look like a biology experiment after mealtimes, but less so than it does with our travel feeding table, or the other tables we have used in restaurants or friends' homes. So the Babee Tenda products get five stars for making life for this wheelchair Dad just a little easier.