The Prep : Now and Then

I must say maternity is an undying business.

First you have the contraception, never mind  on the condom, but what if the condom doesn't work?

A hell of work. LOL

I am sort of overwhelmed to see a list of items to get for the preparation of labour.

Long time ago, when my very own mother had this six kids, she just had this hand-me-down items, throw it in the bag, and just go. Later we did know the baby safely arrived at home, and that was the beginning of a life cycle.

Frankly, this is my third time of  buying stuff.

The first one was pretty straight forward : some pair of short/long sleeve wear for babies, mitten/booties, kain barut, some clothes napkin, kain batik, etc etc. Those who have been there done that, korang tahulah apa yg dimaksudkan. 

The second time since I was not the one to raise the baby, so I bought exact amount of items like the first time, with additional clothes and some toys, coz I know I wont see my baby after that moment and you know you can splurge a bit. Even the adopted mother was shocked to see two heavy bags with me, as if I was supplying one year of clothing. For some years later, i kept buying stuff and posted to the address. Obviously, there was a big hole of emptiness by letting my own kin to someone, so I resorted to kid's stuff shopping.  The body was somewhere while I was pretending the little guy was always with me.

What a phase.

And now, the third time coming (after almost 8 years gap from the second) which you see a major trend for mothers. Breast Feeding is the very "in"  thing to do and goodbye to formulas? 

So the list will be a bit longer cause these people are promoting breast feeding with some tweaking in the method : pump and storage. Creative. The pumps can cost a fraction, it depends whether you want a popular brand or some other alternative. 

My guy, during the baby expo, looked puzzled and asked "Apa ini Medela?" LOL. Then came the lecture the importance of manual technique when I am going to start working. Hello, do you expect the baby to be with me all the time in the office? what if I go for meetings? especially outside meeting. Not practical.

On other new stuff learnt, "receiving blanket" can be funky with cute prints and colours, usually it comes from the hospital, plain and dull, with hospital code on it. I kept those clothes until now  (kaler hijau petronas light tu kan).

Then this swaddling babies methods. You can have zap on, zipped on, ikat style with ribbons, anything as long as you dont have much effort to do it nowadays. save time. I must say this creation helps a lot when you know the fact that babies would do their best to stay out of the swaddling clothes, and you do it all over again. hmmmm... I am buying this idea. Malas gaduh-gaduh.

Apart from that, from clothing, toys and gizmos,  the industry grows tremendously. I was a bit surprised to see "pilis bancuh-ready" bottles sold for confinement purpose. To compare, it was tedious to do old style but berkesan ke pilis yg dah bancuh siap tu? mcm main water colour plak.

So, we made decision not to buy any tablet for the baby like parents do these days to keep the babies distracted.  Biarlah. Anak gua in exploratory mode, menjerit bagai, gua tunjuk muka bengis jer.

Till then......