As a mama with hypermobility spectrum disorder, I have rubbish joints! How rubbish they are tends to vary from day to day and even hour to hour. Some days I don’t notice any problems – other days when my hands are very stiff and sore, I struggle to open jars; or I’ll find that my hip or shoulder keeps popping out of the socket, or everything will just be very achey and stiff. But how do my rubbish joints affect looking after a baby? I’ve written a little about being a hypermobile mama previously, but it seems time to do something a bit more comprehensive on parenting with a joint condition…
And so, here are my top tips, focused around looking after a baby when you have a joint condition, from the newborn stage through to when they start toddling. Hopefully this guide will be useful to other parents with hypermobility spectrum disorder, EDS, arthritis and other joint conditions. If you have any tips you think I’ve missed, let me know in the comments!
Looking After A Baby When You Have A Joint Condition
Feeding your baby comfortably
Whether you’re breastfeeding or bottle feeding, especially during the newborn days you tend to spend an awful lot of time feeding and burping baby. Spending a lot of time in the same position is often uncomfortable if you have dodgy joints, and the limited range of feeding positions – and the fact that you don’t want to disturb a baby who’s happily feeding, by having to move them – can also be an issue.
Tips: Have a comfortable chair or spot in your house for feeding, which is set up just for you. I had a cosy armchair with a couple of cushions for back support, a footrest for my feet, and a spare cushion nearby which I could put under my arm or under Little Man to get us both comfortable. Having my arms supported definitely helped me. If you’re breastfeeding, there are different positions you can try to see what’s easiest for you. If you’re bottle feeding and struggling with holding a bottle, there are devices you can use for hands-free bottle feeding which clip on to a car seat or bouncer.
Poppers or buttons on baby clothes
Okay if you have terrible hands, these are THE WORST. I know lots of people hate poppers, and I know I’ve written about how I hate buttons on baby clothes previously; but as I love to labour a point and we have moved into the colder weather – which always makes my joints get even more stiff and achey – I just have to say it again. THEY SUCK. It’s hard enough to get my wiggly Little Man to stay still long enough for a nappy change, let alone while mama struggles to undo and then do up 5,000 poppers on the legs of his suit. Poppers/buttons are no good if you’re parenting with a joint condition!
Tips: All baby clothes should be mandatorily done up with zippers or, at a push, velcro. Obviously, I have yet to succeed in getting this written into UK law. And unfortunately it turns out that for some reason baby clothes with zippers are both hard to find and often really expensive. So my tip is: before the baby arrives, tell everyone who might buy you a gift that you want ZIPPERS damnit, and let them pay for it!
Alternative tip: Ask your husband/wife/partner/friend nicely if they can help with the damn poppers.
Hanging out on the floor all day
Turns out, having a baby means a lot of time spent hanging out on the floor. For me personally, getting onto the floor is fine, but it tends to be when I try to get up that I suddenly discover that I’ve been sitting with my joints in odd positions without realising it, and everything hurts. Oops. And the older Little Man has grown, the more time we’ve ended up spending crawling around together on the floor.
Tips: There’s not really much to be done about this one, unless you can persuade your baby to learn to fly! I tried bringing a cushion on to the floor with me, but once Little Man started crawling it was too much bother to keep moving the cushion around with both of us. My best advice is to think about specific activities that can be done away from the floor. For instance, a tabletop changing table might help for nappy changes, or bathing baby in the sink rather than in a tub on the floor. You can also look at getting a raised Moses basket and/or cot, so that you’re not having to stoop to and from the floor at nap time or when baby is very small and spends most of his/her time dozing.
Lifting and moving baby
I’m fortunate that although my joints are often painful and stiff, I tend to be okay with lifting and moving Little Man, but of course there are lots of joint conditions that could make it much more difficult to lift and move your baby around the house.
Tips: Using a sling or baby carrier is great, especially for the newborn phase, as you can take baby with you around the house without having to do lots of lifting, and spreading the weight evenly across your shoulders and back. Be careful though with using these aids if your joint condition makes you more likely to trip or fall – if that is the case, it may be safer to avoid using carriers. Make sure you follow good lifting technique to support your joints and minimise the risk to you and baby.
Related tip: Have a couple of stashes of key items around the house e.g. a couple of stations with nappies, wipes, a change of clothes etc. That way you’re not constantly having to carry baby up or downstairs or around the house if you need to change his nappy, clothes etc.
Taking ages with tasks….
One of the issues when your hands are stiff and uncooperative is just that things can take a long time, which is difficult for things like nappy changes when baby may just try to wiggle away.
Tips: My top tip is baby sensory videos to distract your little one! If you go on YouTube and search “baby sensory videos”, you’ll find loads of free videos that feature simple images and jolly music which will help distract baby while you get stuff done. Little Man loves the fruit and vegetable videos!
Your tips for looking after a baby when you have a joint condition
If you have experience of looking after a baby when you have a joint condition, I’d love to hear your tips. Let me know in the comments!
I also love this article about parenting with arthritis, which has lots of great advice that is transferable to other joint conditions as well.
