Wednesday, June 21, 2006

If you go down in the woods today…

Childhood takes a turn for the worse thanks to the good folks at Blue Bear Wear, with the release of the Bottle Hugger Bear.



“The bottle hugger will capture your infant’s attention!” the manufacturers explain cheerfully. I dare say they are right, in much the same way that a car wreck draws every eye on the freeway. I simply doubt whether that offers sufficient justification for handing your child food in a form resembling some sort of horrible industrial accident…

13 comments:

the lorider said...

lols - how horrid! good gift for a baby you hate....

Pat said...

It has horrified me for years that parents have left babies in cots sucking on a bottle. At the very least they are going to get colicky.
In ideal cicumstances they have the breast until they can take cup and spoon for milk.
Times are different now but my first was BF for 11 months -no bottle and my second six months. The thing thst kept me going was the thought they were getting my antibodies and the minimal risk of infection. Not to mention the out of body experience of the 6pm feed. And with each suck you can literaly feel your uterus getting back in place. Apologies if this its too graphic.

Ivan the Terrible said...

Hi Lo - yes indeed. But is there any other sort?

And Pi, not at all. My wife feels the same way. Seems to have done the trick for ours so far - all happy and healthy, touch wood :)

Sam, Problem-Child-Bride said...

Pi, I breastfed too for 6 months with my twins. I wanted to hit 9 months but my body wasn't having any of it. They were born 10 weeks prematurely cos the wee one stopped growing in utero. The most amazing thing was that my body produced that extra rich and fatty colostrum milk that women produce in the first week or so, right up until the time they had been due to be born. The doctors said that it was nature's way of providing the extra nourishment they needed and missed out on with being born too early. Very cool.

Peculiar factoid: Putting cabbage leaves in one's bra will hasten the process of stopping lactation. Worked like a charm for my friend when she went back to work.

Ivan, I expect you're following Pi's and my lactation stories with some degree of horrified fascination. We ladies who have given birth no longer know any bodily taboos. When you have been routinely poked and peered at by a roomfull of strangers your inhibitions about such matters dissolve very quickly. Anyways, I too apologise if I've put anyone off their tea. Hope nobody had their heart set on cabbage tonight.

Pat said...

Sam - I take my hat off to you.I can't imagine BF twins. Well done!
Hadn't heard about the cabbage leaves but my mother was nagging me to stop and then at eleven months I got the curse and Mum said 'That means you have to stop.'
The first twelve months babies are at their most vulnerable so anything you can muster is a help.
I'm sure Ivan with his family history won;'t turn a hair but maybe we have dalighted him long enough. xoxoxo

Anonymous said...

Shouldn't there be two nipples coming out of it's chest?

Ivan the Terrible said...

There's nothing baby- or breast-related that can possibly shock me any more. After the first time you hold a new-born too close to your face and find them suddenly suckling with cross-eyed determination on your nose everything else is pure anticlimax...

Pat said...

That conjures up a delightful picture Ivan - thank you.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I thought you were going to go for the penis joke. The hole is a little too high I guess.

Pi, where does your uterus come back in place from? Was I supposed to learn about this in school?

Anonymous said...

Fucking idiots. All things for feeding children should be smooth and easily cleanable. Mmmmmm, cheesy vomit-soaked bear... My sister is expecting & has been purchasing all kind of baby-tat. Favourite is the 'bath thermometer'. What is wrong with your elbow? Or, for that matter, the baby's?

Anonymous said...

Mind you, I spilt coffe on mine once when she was crawling-about small (they will not stay where you put 'em). As I had recently seen on tv what to do if you accidentaly boiled your baby, I immediately ran her under the cold tap to counteract any scalding (it did). Fuck, she was angry after that though...

Desargues said...

That looks like a milbottle for small boys who want to start building upper-body muscle early on to me. I wonder if those teddy bears come in rubber-coated cast iron. I guess that's how Schwarzenegger got his head start in life. Vee only trink from heafy milch bottles in Ostria, verstehst?

Also, a propos of nothing: Ivan, you didn't buy anything from this guy, did you?

Ivan the Terrible said...

Luke, this is a family publication, and any such crude abuses of the suckling reflex must be relegated to less discerning publications than this one. Try 3H or The Doctor, for example. They'll print anything...

Rob - good point well made, I thought. But don't beat yourself up about it. You have to pour hot coffee on babies every now and then, you know. It's the only language they understand.

And Des, no, I don't think so. Young Smiley seems admirably entrepreneurial to me tho'. Living the American Dream, in fact.