Speedy baby.

My son gets ever bigger and ever stronger. He is tall for his age, although is one year and 5 months old he is  fitting nearly two year old clothes.

He is active, happy, crawling, babbling, loves to read, loves to be read to, can do without television, finds it a bit dull really. He has the throwing ability of a an Olympian and Daddy and I have to watch various flying objects and avoid them at all costs as our rather rubbish joints could do without the pleasure of a building block or a Tomliboo flying at us!

The hardest thing for me these days, is that I just can no longer pick him up to cuddle any more. I can sit with him, read to him, pull silly faces at him, sing to him but I no longer have the strength to pick him up,facing me for a big old cuddle. I always tell him I love him though. If our son hurts himself and is playing on the floor I can not get to him to comfort like a mother should, he is slowly learning the only way I can drag him to my lap is if he tries to stand up so I can put my forearms under his shoulders and slide him up. It is difficult to watch your child, who has bopped his head, cry and look at you as if to say can I have a cuddle and you have to look back and just pat his head and say oh dear.

Still nothing stops us,life does not cease because I am sore and creaky. I suspect no parent with disability stops their life but certainly do not stop their child's life and frankly if so, then stop it! In this day no child should be a parents carer, no parent should have a child without actually trying to be a parent and responsible for their child. I can not abide seeing clips on those sob story charity tv runs with a child of 8 years old being a carer, this is purely bad parenting! It offends me that these type of parents think it is ok and have the disgrace to sit on "Children in Need" saying their 8 year old cooks for them, irons for them and as a result has no life, no friends and rarely gets to go out, meanwhile poor journalism getting it so wrong by suggesting this is sad, this parent needs help,this parent needs more giving to them. No the child needs pulling out of that parents home!  There is no excuse for child labour in Britain, carers can be accessed by any adult with a genuine disability through Social Services Adult Social care team. There are also Direct Payment schemes so you can even advertise and select your own carer.

My son may not be able to understand that I can not bend down to pick him up from the floor when he has hurt himself but he can be rest assured that despite both my husband and I being wonky people we will never, ever expect him to play any part in our illnesses. Like any parent our plans are centred around the best outcome for him, not us, our difficulties are not made into a show in front of him, he thinks it is normal for a dog to pick up the mail and open doors for people. He eats well and does not need to know daddy and I can not open jars of baby food so end up spending a fortune on plastic tub baby food with nice easy plastic lids to pull of using our teeth!

We will take our son to normal children activities such as Cubs and Scouts, we won't be taking him to football because we can not stand for more than one minuet and won't feel it is fair on him not having parental support but if he insists on it we will quietly have a chat with his very sporty Aunt and cousin and ask them to go support him rather than another, mummy and daddy are so different speech so we are going to prevent you doing that. We will throw happy childhood parties, boy do we throw great parties.We will make sure no matter how ill we feel we drive our son to meet friends, to socialise, to attend others parties, to go swimming with other friends etc. Basically this is all going to be an extension on how my husband and I live now, no matter how ill we are we always drive to see friends, laugh with friends, throw parties, organise theatre trips etc.

This will be the first blog that I have written where I air my true opinions of some disabled people. I don't care if it offends, I feel really passionate about child carers both as a disabled parent but also as a Psychologist interested in childhood development.People who use their children as carers should be being watched by Social Services, it is disgusting, it is a form of neglect and should be made illegal in the UK where Child Labour was banned many centuries ago!

So yes my blog is going through transition, I have talked about popper free clothing, car seats endlessly, buggies that fold up easily etc but actually here comes another side of this author mwah ha ha ha haaaaa :oD

The Car seat saga and the Carkoon.

Sunday the 15th of April 2012 I awoke thinking the biggest contraception to disabled parents is the newborn car seat saga, the difficulties of people with poor reach, or poor dexterity has a huge social impact on both parent and child as frankly there are no accessible seats on the market at time of writing for new born babies. By nine months we can all use the fantastic Maxi Cosi Axiss (see previous blogs) and this seat has changed my life since having my son, but could I really say to new disabled parents, that the first eight months of your child's life are likely to involve you and baby in lock down at home? 

Why should I say this to new parents, I want to promote the concept that there are solutions to all aspects of life that do not require an entourage of carers or NHS aids. 

Last year I maxed out on research desperately trying to find a seat I could take my new son out in on my own. I went to the Baby show and tried every seat on each stall. I brought the Maxi Cosi Pebble from one of the patient reps,the pebble was the best out of the 100 I tried. But even this was a ridiculous design with a roll bar that goes across the seat with buttons to press either side of the chair to fold the bar back down which one has to do to get baby out. My mother with patience,quiet middle class lady, always keeping impressions impeccable, tried to put my son in the seat after our visit and she nearly chucked the thing in the bin. My retired father came out despairing at yet another baby equipment item needing his attention to adapt which he refused to do for safety reasons. All done rather publicly and embarrassingly. I decided I just couldn't use any new born seat easily and for 8 months I spent a lonely time with my little boy.  I must have spent in total £1000 just trying to find something to no avail. 

 

I keep abreast of latest developments and Sundays huffing and puffing led me to yet more research on the matter. I bring good news indeed. It would appear someone has had a brain waive! 

The Carkoon is the new car seat on the block. It is not yet in the shops as the seat is still being tested in labs. It is sounding good on paper. 

                                                                     

The Carkoon

The seat boasts amazing life saving kit. After having been in a crash with a lorry at 12 weeks pregnant I know how scared I was at the prospect of  loosing my son then, I always pay the most for the safest seat now as I have no desire to appreciate safety when it is all too late!

The Carkoon has a shield, like an air bag that doesn't go near the babies face, instead it goes over the front of the seat making the child cocooned safely. The shield not only fends of flying debris in a crash but is also fire proof for up to twenty minuets adding further protection to the child. There is a chip installed that activates when the shield is deployed and will call the emergency services giving them a GPS reading of your cars whereabouts. 

That sounds all great but past experience is any massively safe seat always comes with no accessibility. I was excited to read that this is not the case!!!

The Carkoon swivels on its base to face the car door allowing easy access to baby, just like the Maxi Axiss but with the added safety of being on an Isofix base. 

I am yet to see this new seat in action and the bar looming over the seat slightly concerns me as this looks similar in picture to the Pebble bar system. Only time will tell how accessible it is when I have had a play.My son has become a seat connoisseur as we have worked our way through A LOT! 

I am hopeful that isolation for new parents and their new baby will become a thing of the past as finally designers are understanding what makes a good car seat to all parents.