Merino, Mother’s Little Helper…
My first-born came into the world on a chill, blustery May night. Ours was your typical settlers cottage: quirky higgledy-piggledy charm with rubbish heating and even worse insulation.
Heat Extremes
The log burner roared heat, but arctic draughts iced our ankles. I was anxious, how should I dress my tiny and infinitely precious bundle?
Clearly, I didn’t want her to overheat. But then I couldn’t leave her cold either after the womb-warmth she had so recently left.
“Try this,” our wonderful, wise Midwife passed me a stretchy wrap and showed me how to gently wrap my baby. “It’s Merino wool, it’ll keep your little one warm when it’s cold and cool when the room is hot.”
“How so?”
“Well think about the Merino sheep, perfectly adapted to New Zealand South Island’s crazy extremes of summer heat and mountain cold.”
And so I was introduced to the wonder fabric that is Merino. And Ladies and Gents, I can genuinely say I have not looked back. My newborn, with her intensely long eyelashes and her milky smell, soon became a wriggling, duvet-kicking toddler. Zipped into her merino sleep bag I knew she would be warm, but not too warm, and covered all night.
Out and About
So I’d given birth, I was getting there with breastfeeding, I’d even made it through my first night of dream feeds: parenting was a breeze! Now I needed to leave the house. I was confronted with a long, stretchy piece of fabric which would, I hoped, transform me into one of those Zen babywearing mammas that I saw at festivals.
Babywearing
After a protracted struggle with the fabric and an old doll, Zen was not the word.
Luckily our dear neighbours, who shared our midwife and had given birth the day before us, showed me how to wrap my new baby, and that was that. All through the long first winter, our little one was snuggled up to either mum or dad, toasty cosy as we ran errands arms-free.
My one struggle was keeping her back warm, I tucked blankets around the ‘bump’ of the sling but they fell off endlessly. How I wish I’d had a babywearing jacket ! .
Mini-adventurers stay dry and warm
My once helpless babe-in-a-sling is now a feisty, fiercely independent, soon-to-be seven-year-old. She’s climbing trees and pushing boundaries. I need her to stay warm and dry; she needs to wear clothes that inspire her childlike sense of wonder.
Enter Therm Outdoor, highly waterproof kids jackets and pants that take the technical know-how of the snowboarding world and stir-in a good dose of childhood magic with patterns that appear on the jackets when wet. Choose between butterflies and dandelions or more edgy geometrics, whatever suites your mini-adventurer.
