First Two Weeks of the Harness

Now that we are out of the initial phase of the harness adjustment, I can say that it has been much harder on the parents than it has been on baby girl. In reality, it took maybe 2-3 days and she was fully adjusted and sleeping as usual again.

When she first came home with the harness, she kind of just laid there like a potato. To be fair, at nearly 10 weeks old, she did still mostly resemble a potato. With both legs in the harness (even if one hip is good, both need to be in the harness), they were held up in the frog position. She didn't move either of her legs much and did seem a tad uncomfortable/unsure in the beginning.

Since her harness was under her clothes, we had to size up in onesies to fit and we could no longer use footie pjs or pants. Baby girl slept in the Snoo and when she was younger, the Snoo sleep sacks could still zip up without any issue of bringing her knees in. As she grew, we moved up to the medium and large sized sleep sacks sooner, so that she had ample space to keep her knees open while sleeping. At the end of her time in the SNOO, we would put her in, zip it all the way, and then use the bottom zipper (the one for easy diaper changes) to open up the bottom of the sacks so that there wasn't any fabric pulling at her hips. Temperature wasn't really a concern for us, as SoCal doesn't get cold and our thermostat works well, so we controlled the temp.

I was also really nervous about breastfeeding with the harness, as I had finally felt like I was in a good place with breastfeeding right before her diagnosis. For her daytime feeds, I switched to the koala hold, where she straddles one leg, sitting up, and faces me to eat. Initially, I had to lean back a bit and support her head, so that she could eat. As she got bigger, she could fully hold her head up. At night, she would be too tired or it would be a dream feed, so I did lay her across my lap and feed normally. This kept her legs open and I never pushed them in. I did have to hunch a bit when she was smaller, but as she got older I didn't have to as much.

Diaper changes took a bit to get used to, but now it is just second nature. Since you can't lift baby from the feet/hips, it does take a bit of practice. First, I would lay her down and get the clean diaper. With the used diaper still on, I used one hand to lift her whole bottom (no pressure on either hip), I slid the clean diaper underneath, and then set her bottom down. I would undo the diaper straps and pull them out from under the harness so that they didn't get stuck in her hip creases. Use the top of the used diaper as the first wipe and pull the dirty diaper out. Clean as normal. Fold the clean diaper up and pull each strap UNDER the harness straps. I sometimes have to slightly roll/shift her body to get the tabs out. I would not pull on any hip specifically. Other than the diaper tabs going under the harness straps and not lifting from feet/hips, it is pretty much the same.

Because of the hip/leg position, we did start to get more blowouts. Sizing up early pretty much took care of this problem. We have also discovered that Pampers fit our baby girl the best. We tried Huggies, Amazon, and Kirkland, but Pampers just fits her better.

The no baths rule was hard, because the harness got gross fast. Specifically, behind the knees was the absolute worst. We tried our best to wipe it out, but it got funky. We were able to wash her hair fairly easily, as we set up fluffy towels next to the sink and used the handheld faucet to wash her hair. We were battling extreme cradle cap, so this helped.

Overall, the adjustment is more on the parents' end. The babies won't remember and they adjust within just a few days.