One-handed parenting: a practical guide for new parents
This new guide from Disability, Pregnancy and Parenthood International (DPPI) aims to provide parents and parents-to-be who need to manage tasks using one hand with practical information about caring for a baby or child. It is also intended to be useful for health professionals who support one-handed parents.
This latest publication from DPPI has been produced in order to meet the specific information needs of this particular group of parents, and has been developed with contributions and guidance from one-handed parents, health professionals and representatives from voluntary sector organisations. It includes sections on various aspects of baby care, such as lifting and carrying, nappy changing, feeding, going out and about, bathing and bedtime, and useful resources, with each section offering suggestions for things to consider, practical tips and equipment ideas for the various baby care tasks.
For any parent, the practical tasks involved in caring for a new baby can be not just a necessity, but also a joyful and bonding experience between parent and child. For one-handed parents to be able to do these tasks safely and comfortably may require some planning and preparation. Of these, some may be new to parenting, whilst being already experienced at carrying out other daily tasks one-handed; others may have recently lost the use of one hand, for example due to a stroke either during pregnancy or shortly after childbirth, and so are coming to terms with tackling all practical tasks in a new way, not just baby care.
In its new guide DPPI aims to provide information and ideas to help parents get started in finding practical solutions that will work best for their family, and also encourages parents to seek guidance from health professionals in working out strategies for parenting one-handed and in choosing or adapting equipment.
The greatest source of information in the guide comes from one-handed parents themselves, who, through their inventiveness, research, or trial and error, have discovered practical solutions to potential problems and so have been able to play a full role in caring for their child.
One parent offers the following insights and suggestions: “I was not prepared for how inadequate and disappointed I would feel when I couldn’t bathe him as I wanted to, or lift him in the air with two hands and hear him squeal with delight, as he did with his father. … But there was sheer joy in being a mother. There were times when he needed me, even just for a cuddle, and I was glad that I could reassure him and feed him with one arm. I used to feed [him] on the bed using a V-shaped pillow. When he got bigger I put him in a car seat or pushchair and sat on the sofa with him in front of me.“
Another parent describes how she gained her baby’s co-operation in order to help with nappy changing: “Imagine the scene. It is nappy changing time. Your baby is lying on the changing mat in front of you and, with a few words of encouragement, rolls over to allow you to change their nappy. With a few more words, your baby rolls back over to allow you to do the nappy up. Sounds impossible? That is how nappy changes happened with my three children, from the ages of about four months. How? By using vocal cues.”
One-handed parenting: a practical guide for new parents is available free to disabled parents and parents-to-be, and at a cost of £6.00 including p&p to others. For further information or to order a copy of this guide please contact DPPI.
