Along with the need to be one with their mothers for as long as is necessary, goes the inherently programmed need for love and respect which all children experience. They need to be bathed in a pervading sense of security. Security is obtained by your acceptance, as the mother of this baby, that you and your child are one. Like every other human being, they crave touch, and need tender and warm tactile contact to thrive. Take your child in your arms liberally, cuddle her often and massage her little body frequently.
The other physical-emotional need is to suckle. We are taught that this is a reflex action, and certainly it is an instinctive, ingrained response. It helps ensure Baby’s physical survival, but I believe that it does much the same for his emotional survival too. This view is a serious challenge to a number of approaches still too common in South African maternity facilities – namely, the advocating of rigid feeding on schedule, the prejudice against dummies on principle, and the idea that breastfeeding is only about breastmilk.
A final emotional need, as I see it, is that your baby needs a gentle introduction to the rigours of life and that means that you will need to ward off too much handling by others, be they excited friends and relatives or busy professionals. Ensure that an air of quiet and calmness surrounds you and your baby while you all adjust to the new circumstances. This will profit both parents and their newborn infants.
I believe that it takes the formative first seven years for a child to become a truly separate being. This is a gradual process from total dependence, physically and emotionally, to complete independence. Bearing this in mind, I believe that parents should be encouraged to adopt a gentler approach with their children, rather than forcing them to become independent too quickly. Forcing a baby to sleep in his own bed and room, leaving him to cry for hours, and schedule feeding are all very harsh measures.
It is many years of observing this most special of relationships which leads me to make such a categorical statement. When the intimacies of being the same entity are not fought against, parenting seems to sit more easily on one’s shoulders. Trying to make one’s baby ‘independent’ before the time is ripe, on the other hand, often leads to problems.
In every situation there lies a secret to making life easier and better. Parents should embrace the positive aspects this approach can bring to their lives. You and your child will have far happier memories to fall back on if you accept their baby ways in the early months and years. As far as I am concerned, when babies need to be carried by their parents, or want to snuggle up securely with them at night, or do not yet want to separate for overly long periods and we accept this with good grace, we are adding another building block to a stable, caring society, one that values emotions as one of the special human talents. The reverse is unfortunately often also true. Babies forced into precocious ‘growing up’ often relapse on skills like toilet training or the ability to let go when they need to be more independent, for example, when schooling starts.
In our individualistic society, this concept will no doubt be viewed with antagonism. I cannot, however, ignore the realities that have stared me in the face so often while working with parents and children, with birth and babies, over the years.
This gentle approach to parenting does not mean, however, that your baby must be allowed to grow up thinking he or she is more important than anyone else or that respect for adults is unnecessary – on the contrary, as is explained in the chapter on discipline and habits.
Do not think that you will always be engulfed with love for your baby from the very first moment of her life, especially if the birth has been impersonal, very arduous or complicated by other factors like depression, an unplanned pregnancy or relationship problems. If you feel that you are incapable of identifying with your unborn child, it may simply be that your love needs time to grow, and you need not worry about this unduly. Your feelings will develop in time, and if not, consider professional counselling.
Respect, however, is not negotiable and is, in fact, a very loving attribute to which to expose your baby. If you respect your child and the natural expectations with which he comes to earth, you will afford him a protected, kind welcome. You will also think twice before allowing just anything to be done to your child in the name of hospital procedure or standard medical practice.
Believe me, only you really care enough to be charged with the overall nurturing of your child. Of course you will need advice and help from professionals at times, but it is your responsibility to ensure the integrated physical and emotional well-being of your children. I am well aware that this introduces an awkward element into your life, because it might entail bucking the system and sticking your neck out to express views that are not always popular. Although I could placate far more people by supporting the current system of birthing and early postnatal practice prevalent in South Africa, I would not be honest in doing so. One has to face the truth as one sees it and I simply cannot stand by, as one privileged enough to have been intimately involved with both the start and the end of life, and not urge a rethink in our approach to these matters.
GETTING OFF TO A GOOD START
Choosing the clinic or facility you give birth in is important to ensure a good start not only a physically, but also emotionally. An international initiative, called ‘baby-friendly hospitals’ exists. Unfortunately too few facilities even attempt to put any of the internationally recognised standards required of baby-friendly hospitals into practice, although this is constantly improving. This initiative comprises quite a number of principles aimed at more gently welcoming babies, improving emotional care of hospitalised infants and children, and not sticking to rules too rigidly in the physical routines that form the basis of childcare.
Rooming-in is a cornerstone of this initiative. This concept is often not thoroughly understood by either parents or hospital staff. It is often interpreted as meaning that Baby spends the first night of his life in the nursery and sometime next day is placed in a crib with Mom in the room. Others think it means that days are with Mom, nights with other babies in the nursery. What rooming-in actually means is that babies should not be separated from their mothers at all from the moment of birth, except for brief times when mom needs to wash, or if Baby is in need of intensive medical care in a special unit. Close body contact should be encouraged and routine tasks like weighing, measuring and bathing regarded as insignificant to the moment. If Mom is struggling with overwhelming tiredness in the first few days, Baby should preferably be cared for by Dad or a close family member while Mom sleeps, and when feeding is needed, this person should help Mom and Baby.
The beauty of rooming-in is that it allows mothers to familiarise themselves with every nuance of their babies’ behaviour, so that going home is less of a shock. Babies are also more settled when not being wrenched away from the one they know best. It is also the only sure way of knowing that no procedures or feeds are occurring without your full consent. By the time you go home you already feel more skilled in handling Baby, and that is both empowering and comforting.
WHY IS MY BABY CRYING?
All mothers know that a baby’s cry signals distress of some kind or the other, and many of these cries soon become familiar and are fairly easily solved with a bit of experience and time. And if one’s baby does not cry too often or for too long, most moms survive this quite well – after all, women know that crying can also provide a welcome release of tension and emotion. It is when nothing you do seems to help and the crying persists that you feel desperate, and, understandably, begin to think that something serious must be wrong. This can erode all mothering confidence, often contributing to, or causing, postnatal depression.
You can find out more about typical reasons for crying, as well as how to interpret Baby’s body language and cries elsewhere in this book, but when Baby’s cries are particularly distressing to you, one of these tips often soothes the cries and your nerves:
•No matter the time of day, run a deep, warm bath and soak with Baby for a half hour.