Resources we recommend
We love chatting to new mums and dads, often a lot of the same discussions come up, talking about books or clothing or anything baby, so we made this page, to link to our favourite things, or things we’ve found very helpful for those tricky first days and weeks, when it seems like you need all the help you can get.
Have a read below, if you want us to add any, email them through. We know how it is to be a new mum or dad, everything is new and peculiar – we are pleased to share these valuable resources.
The Baby Bjorn Bouncy Chair
There are hundreds of these ‘bouncy chairs’ on the market, and 99.9% of them are utterly hideous. If you have never filled your house with neon/primary coloured plastic before, why should you when you have a child? The only choice for us was a Baby Bjorn. These are beautiful, carefully designed chairs that also LOOK GOOD. On the practical front,it also folds completely flat, so you can store it out of the way. Putting away the Baby Bjorn actually became a ritual in the evenings. After bath and bedtime, the chair is put away, signifying the end of all things baby and the start of grown-up chat and reconnecting time. Our baby was so small that she couldn’t actually sit in it for the first few months (they need to be a certain weight so that they don’t crumple up in it/slide off, bless) but the average newborn will be fine from day one. They are brutally expensive in Dubai – double the price of Amazon in the UK, but they are worth every single dirham. If you are lucky you might pick one up on Dubizzle or on a Facebook selling group.
Good luck! Press here and here to see.
The White Noise App
Babies like monotonous sounds… the vacuum cleaner, the washing machine, the hairdryer. Apparently in the womb, it is like sleeping next to a vacuum cleaner! As it isn’t massively practical to carry any of these things round with you, we heartily recommend you invest in a white noise app. This amazing thing CHANGED OUR LIFE. It was $0.99 from the App Store – we are not exaggerating when we say we would have spent thousands on it. It has a good selection of sounds to choose from – we compromised on the ‘Conch Shell’ – a lovely sound of breaking waves, as we couldn’t stand the hairdryer – it also has a timer that you can switch on for the first hour of baby going down in their cot. Once they are asleep it switches off. And the amazing thing is: it then ‘listens’ to your baby. If they rouse, IT SWITCHES BACK ON. There are no words to describe the genius of this. We only discovered this when our baby was about 6 weeks old. We so wish we’d known sooner. It has helped to crack the non-napping in the daytime and she is so used to the routine of it after bath time that her eyes literally close as soon as it is switched on. We now watch the ipad like a hawk – our worst nightmare would be if the battery died! Press here.
The Swaddle Me Wrap
If you’d been tucked up in a cosy, warm, very tight bed for 8 months or more, you might protest at being dragged kicking and screaming from it without warning. This is what happens to babies when they’re born. And it’s even more of a shock to them if they’re born prematurely, like our baby was. Babies also have a very strong ‘startle’ reflex which means that their little arms twitch without warning, giving them a huge shock. If this happens as they are drifting off to sleep it wakes them up completely. So to make them feel cozy and snuggly, and to stop them startling like crazed ferrets, you swaddle them. We did this from day one, using swaddling blankets. It was the only thing that soothed our baby, but there was one major problem – she could fight her way out of any blanket, and did so frequently. Then we discovered the Swaddle Me pod. It is basically a teeny tiny baby straightjacket – it allows you to wrap the baby up AND velcro them in! The one caveat is that they have to be a minimum weight – 3.2 kilos, which meant that the our baby couldn’t go in it for a few months. Once she could, it was a DREAM. They’re here in Dubai at Babyshop, or order them online from Amazon. Honestly, it will change your life. Press here.
Remember My Baby
“I went through the loss of our new born exactly 24 years ago almost to the day. We were devastated! They say time is a healer and a doctor… and to some extent of course it is, but such a service as yours, did not exist then. To this day that experience still leaves an indescribable gaping hole in my life to which I know will never be filled. Back then there were social stigmas attached to open grieving and the suggestion of picture taking was abhorrent. From a very personal perspective your initiative is great, it touches a very sensitive nerve, but whilst it is widely used in the USA and Europe, it is a service badly needed here in Dubai.”
Stephen
Our thoughts and my personal experience of nearly losing Aya have lead us to – Remember My Baby. Remember My Baby is a UK based organisation that have professional photographers volunteering their professional services for the benefit of parents losing their baby, before, during, or very shortly after giving birth. Their goal (and ours) is to offer a service of baby remembrance photography at no cost to any parents suffering the loss of their baby. Whilst losing a baby, is often not talked about, if you have spent any time in the hospital neonatal intensive care unit, as I did, it is a special place, where staff are saving lives (and occasionally failing) every single day. Barefoot Dubai now offers this very much needed service – baby remembrance photography in Dubai, we will come to your hospital and spend a few special moments with you and create some memories for you to keep forever, no payment is needed. Contact us here to discuss.
