What happened to the Kanga Cuddles?

Lily came home with a variety of odd and cute habits from the NICU. The top three were needing to be swaddled, her dummy obsession and kanga cuddles.

Swaddling only lasted a month or two before one night, she just decided she didn't like it any more. She SCREAMED until we undid her, then promptly conked out. No fight, no weaning her off. It was bliss. Although seeing as this was in the coldest part of winter it presented us the challenge of keeping her warm. Thank God for Bonds wonder suits and their mittens.

The habit that I swore before she was born I would never allow under my roof was the dummy. But, dummies are a NICU staple, teaching children on the last leg of their sometimes extremely long journeys that sucking = full tummy, as their food heads down that wretched nasogastric tube.

And Lily LOVES hers. We don't go anywhere without our entire stash, especially since she has learned the "Oopsie" game. She plays with it like a toy, and her father has taught her the gorgeous trick, that entertains lines in shopping centres everywhere, of holding the handle end in his mouth and having her "kiss" him to take it. But it's life in our house is coming to an end. As she sprints towards being a toddler, she has learned another trick with her dummy, that has had me leaning over the cot almost crying with frustration. This trick involves her refusing sleep by clamping her jaw so tight I can't even open it by putting my pinkie in the corner of her mouth a la the unlatch technique and doing this horrible closed mouth cry. She is deliberately refusing the dummy so she can't go to sleep. And what happens if we walk away, hoping she will just exhaust herself? She lets rip with an open mouthed wail. And then we start again. Sometimes for hours. Until we give in, pick her up and put her in our bed. The dummy's life will end at Easter when both Bob and I will be home for a number of days and we can go cold turkey. It will be hard, but we will be rid of them before one, when they will begin to interfere with speech, dental and jaw development.

Which brings us to the final NICU habit.

Once Lily was out of her humdicrib, and off her KanMed, I would spend 8 - 12 hours a day at the hospital just cuddling her. Kanga cuddles are a fairly recent NICU "treatment" and involve either skin to skin or Mum's skin to bub's clothes, chest to chest cuddling. It speeds growth and makes for healthier babies. Only the very tiniest and sickest prems don't get Kanga cuddles, but it's not something they delay for too long because the benefits are overwhelming. I loved it. Bob loved it. It was really nice. And when she came home loving it, we quickly caved on our "No co-sleeping" rule. Even during the few months were we couldn't get her to sleep unless we Kanga cuddled her we rarely said anything bad about it. Sometimes I would Kanga cuddle her just because I liked it. And we used it as an alternative to normal Tummy Time, because at around the same time swaddling left our house, so did quiet, calm and productive Tummy Time. And just like swaddling, it hasn't returned.

Lily hates Tummy Time so much, that even though she can roll both ways, she doesn't. Just doesn't. We've caught her at it less than half a dozen times, which is how we know she can, but she simply WILL NOT roll. But Kanga cuddles have stayed, and we both had visions of an overtired toddler, sick five year old, still wanting that special cuddle. But now she can sit and is close to standing, the most awful thing has happened. Kanga cuddles have left our home. She screams just as though its floor Tummy Time and rolls off the offending parent.

It's sad, but we still get plenty of cuddles, Daddy even gets a cuddle that just for him that we call "The Snuggle", where she wriggles her whole body against his, burying her head in his neck or shoulder to lay it there. Lucky I still breastfeed or I might be jealous.