by Patty Wipfler, Hand in Hand Parenting
There are many things our babies and toddlers cry about that can be and should be fixed right away. A diaper is taped too tight; a toy pinches a child’s finger; she is hungry; she has awakened and can’t see where you are. We feel powerful as parents when our child’s cry alerts us to a situation we can remedy. And our quick response is part of how an infant knows that she is important in our lives. It always makes sense to respond to a crying child. It always makes sense to run through your checklist of possible causes, and to fix what needs to be fixed. And, of course, consult your physician if your child does not look like she is thriving, or if you notice some unusual condition, whether she is crying or not.
Sometimes, there’s nothing you can fix
But there are things our babies and toddlers cry about that we cannot fix. Babies cry about their gas pains, about having their diapers changed, and when they teethe. Annoyances like these come with being a baby. Our caring and attention is important while a child is going through this kind of minor trial, but, as we’ll explain below, full force fixing mode is not really required. And then there are the things a baby objects to that pose no threat to her at all. For instance, sometimes babies cry when we disappear into the shower, when a friendly stranger approaches, or when we put them down to crawl or walk. Many babies develop a hatred of their car seat. Some parents decide to go for days without a shower, or to carry their baby all the time, in an effort to remedy this kind of crying. Life gets harder, and parenting less enjoyable. But when a baby cries about something that’s not actually threatening, or something that is an unavoidable annoyance, she’s engaged in a natural and important endeavor. She’s having some feelings, and telling you about them. She’s communicating that she doesn’t feel OK, at a time when things actually are as good as they can be. This is the kind of time you can safely relax and listen. Your child needs you close, relaxed, and unworried while she gives voice to her accumulated feelings of upset. She just needs to tell you about the downside of life as a very young child.
Like you, your baby has feelings
However sunny your child’s life may be, she has had some experiences that have been painful, confusing, frightening, or sad. Many times, your baby has good feelings and accurate perceptions: “I’m warm and safe next to Mommy.” “There’s my Daddy’s gentle voice. I’m loved!” And at times, your child has had negative feelings or inaccurate perceptions: “I’m alone in my bed. I can’t stand it.” “Daddy left the room—I’m abandoned!” “There is no safe person in the world except for Mommy.” When babies and toddlers don’t feel good, they cry in order to clear the tension they feel. We try to get them “settled down” with patting, bouncing, walking, pacifiers, and sometimes, the breast. We’ve been trained to believe that a baby will do better as soon as she is able to stop expressing her upset.
In your arms, crying heals the hurt
However, you’ll see that when you stop a baby from expressing feelings, she doesn’t actually feel better. She will look distant and glazed. She won’t be able to make eye contact. When you try to engage her, she will begin to cry again. This is a sign that her feelings are still on her mind. She needs to tell you how she feels and soak in your loving attention before she can be in full contact with you again.
A child cries when he/she needs to release emotional stress. When someone offers love and listens, crying heals the hurt. While bad feelings are being cried away, your love and support get through. Your caring fills cracks in your child’s confidence. Learning how to support your child while she tells you her troubles can be one of the most empowering lessons of parenthood.
It’s a lesson about the power you have to help your child overcome hardship. When she’s fed, clean and close, yet she’s upset, then there’s some emotional thorn in her side. Her system knows how to dislodge it. All she needs is the safety of your arms, and the sweetness in your face and your voice to carry her through. Once she has finished with her tears or tantrums, frightened trembling or yawning (which may occur in the middle of a good cry), she will relax. She’ll gaze at you, untroubled, because you have filled a deep need. You have connected with her. You’ve listened and let her tell you, in her powerful nonverbal way, what was on her mind. There’s nothing like being heard fully to settle a child’s mind, and help her feel loved.
Her mind clears
After a good cry, your baby will connect with you. And she will thrive. I have known children to be loved through a long, passionate cry, and then to come forth with a flurry of new words, or with their first attempts to crawl, or with a new friendliness toward strangers. Listening to feelings helps babies sleep more soundly, too. These are the kinds of significant improvements in your child’s confidence and ability that your listening can foster.
Parents need a listener, too
This kind of listening is difficult for a parent to do. It’s important not to try to take on the job alone. Pair up with another parent, perhaps your spouse or a friend so that you get listening time for yourself. For listening to the feelings of someone of any age opens the door for us to the most vulnerable side of a unique and important person. We are inevitably moved, and our own feelings beg to be heard, and released. A good laugh or a good cry with a friend refreshes our energy, and helps us feel less alone with the sacred trust and the hard work of loving our children well.
by Gina Hassan, Ph.D.
One of the most common complaints following the arrival of a new baby is, “I had no idea how much having a baby would impact my relationship.” Even couples with a solid relationship can experience mounting conflict, along with a sense of drifting apart, following the arrival of a new baby. In fact, Drs. John and Julie Gottman, renowned for their research on couples relationships, report in their 2007 book And Baby Makes Three: The Six Step Plan for Preserving Marital Intimacy and Rekindling Romance After Baby Arrives, a 65% decline in marital/partner satisfaction after the birth of a new baby. Why should this be so, and what can partners do to strengthen their bond during this joyful and yet challenging time?
When a baby is born, a parent is also “born.” But the job of parenting, unlike most other jobs that involve sudden, exponential increases in level of responsibility, is one for which we receive no prior training. In fact, with less sleep and probably more stress than we’ve ever known, we are expected to move into our new role with grace and ease, and yet the transition can leave us feeling both overwhelmed and under-supported. While we may be accustomed to turning to our partner for support during stressful times, our partner may be suddenly less available and more needy than ever before, leaving us feeling progressively more isolated.
During the early period of parenting, partners often feel depleted, left out, isolated from one another, misunderstood, underappreciated, disinterested, and neglected. While our relationship may have felt like a source of comfort and support prior to having a baby, the stress of a newborn can leave us feeling like we have nothing left to give, and yet needing more from our partners than we have previously. Arriving in this place can be particularly difficult for partners who have prided themselves on being independent. Negotiating new roles and coming up against unrealized expectations and disappointments can put stress on a couple’s relationship, especially when they are simultaneously dealing with sleep deprivation, loss of alone time, diminished sexual intimacy, stress of conflicting wishes, expectations from extended family, and more.
So how can we smooth out this transition and make the ride less bumpy, while strengthening what is best in our relationships, so as to feel both more supported and more gratified in the transition from being partners to parents? Three key strategies that may seem obvious when we think about them, but are not always accessible to us when we are sleep deprived and desperate are the following:
- Improving communication
- Tending to our relationship
- Thinking about parenting as a collaborative versus a competitive endeavor
As stress can cause us to regress towards our most primitive ways of being, we may find ourselves behaving, without awareness, in ways that are destructive to both our relationship and ourselves. Increasing our awareness of these potential pitfalls can improve our overall sense of well-being, as well as the quality of our partner relationship. In an effort to work towards our best ways of being it may be helpful to make use of the following practices:
Be Aware of How You are Communicating
- Make time to communicate clearly with one another.
- Speak about what you need in positive terms, as opposed to letting things fester and blaming one another.
- Be clear about what you want/need and don’t assume that your partner can read your mind.
- Don’t bring things up in the heat of the moment: your partner may be unable to receive what you have to say when you are angry and agitated. Find a time when you are both calm and capable of listening to one another.
Tend to Your Relationship
- Speak words of appreciation.
- Make time to be intimate even if this just involves holding hands or cuddling, without necessarily being sexual.
- Make time to do things together that you can both enjoy, like taking the baby for a walk in the evening as a way to connect and to talk.
- Check in with your partner on a regular basis.
- Support one another in getting some time alone. (It is hard to give to a partner when you have no time to give to yourself. This is a gift to your partner and your baby and a necessity for everyone’s well-being.)
Parenting as a Collaborative Rather than Competitive Endeavor:
- Remember that you are in this together. Try to figure out how to make things work, as best you can, taking every one’s needs into account, and making sure that everyone gets some of what they most need, some of the time.
- Take pleasure in your baby together and avoid getting into a competitive stance regarding who is doing more. You are both doing more than you ever imagined possible.
- Keep in mind that you and your partner are each having “different” experiences: This is not a battle over who has it “harder” and/or who is “right.”
- Respect your partner’s different style of coping, and try to find ways to meet in the middle.
If we can remember to make use of these three practices – minding our communication, tending to our relationship, and thinking in terms of collaborative rather than competitive parenting – our relationships are bound to improve. Relationships are rather like gardens; without tending to them, weeds take over. No one benefits from an overgrown garden choked with weeds and lacking in the nourishment that makes gardens thrive. We may have gotten into a comfortable groove before baby arrived, but to preserve a healthy relationship after baby arrives takes some effort. While it can be hard to put the effort in when you are feeling depleted, a little effort can go along way. If you put something in, there will be more to go around. Try it and see!
By Sabrina Easterling, MPH, IBCLC, ICCE
Throughout human existence, the art and skill of breastfeeding has best been learned by watching and learning from other breastfeeding mothers and then practicing “on the job.” Similar to learning to cook cherished family recipes, women have historically spent many years observing their elders, and then their peers, nurse their babies. By the time a woman had her first child, she was already quite familiar with breastfeeding – and she could turn to a whole community of women as a resource if she needed help. When it comes to breastfeeding now, however, our babies may be the only ones who know what to do. While babies are born “pre-wired” with nursing instincts, many moms feel they learn by “reading the operating manual while driving the bus.” Understandably it can feel initially overwhelming and may require dedication and time to establish confidence in, and patience with, oneself. However, as with learning to drive a car or to ride a bike, once learned, it all comes naturally. So, the trick is in figuring out how to get there.
You Aren’t Alone — Support and Solutions are Available to You
It has been said that “it takes a village to raise a child.” Here are some things to think about at each step along the way to prepare yourself and to take advantage of the resources in your
village.
Prenatally: Gather Your Intel
Learn the Keys to Breastfeeding & Debunk Myths
Optimally, you will be able to learn about the basics of breastfeeding while you are still pregnant by attending a class, a La Leche League meeting, a MilkSupport Get Your Milk for Free event, or another moms’ group (like BirthWays Breastfeeding Café and Clinic).
Consider taking two classes: one focused on establishing breastfeeding in the early weeks, and one focused on continuing to breastfeed beyond the first month, which should include topics such as introducing bottles, pumping and storing milk, and going back to work or school. Many institutions try to pack this all into one class, which can cause parents to experience Information Overload and can result in valuable topics being “spread thin” due to time constraints. Don’t forget to bring your partner or a support person along – breastfeeding is a team sport and it’s good when everyone knows how to play the game.
If You Think You Will Not Be Able to Breastfeed
If you have a special concern about your ability to breastfeed — for instance, if you are expecting more than one baby, if you have a history of breast surgery, or if you have had a hard time breastfeeding in the past, you may consider a prenatal one-on-one consultation with an IBCLC (internationally board-certified lactation consultant). You may be surprised by
what you learn; many women who never imagined they could breastfeed find they are able to do it with ease and enjoyment.
Choose Care Providers Who Are Up to Date with Breastfeeding
Knowledge and Who Can Provide Critical Support
If you are planning a hospital birth, ask what kind of support will be available once you are admitted. Key players to help you along the way include labor & delivery nurses, postpartum
nurses, and hospital lactation consultants. When you are choosing your pediatrician, ask about what kind of breastfeeding support he or she offers. Despite the fact that formula feeding and breastfeeding challenges (which are preventable with good support) are linked to some of the top reasons that babies need to visit their pediatricians in their first several months, most medical schools do not teach lactation sciences and some pediatricians are not up to date with breastfeeding knowledge. In the Bay Area, however, many pediatricians have teamed up with IBCLCs or can provide a referral list.
Testing Out the Training Wheels – Your Baby’s First Few Days
If you are planning on having your baby at a hospital, you will most likely have access to the hospital’s lactation consultants whose role is to help you and your baby get a good start in the first few days. While a valuable resource, they may be able to visit only once or twice during your stay. You will need to consider whether this amount of support is sufficient for you
or if you’d like to arrange for additional support from a private Lactation Consultant.
The Training Wheels Are Off – You Are Home,
But You Don’t Have to be On Your Own
There are many benefits to living here in the Bay Area and now you can add ample community breastfeeding and postpartum support to the list. There are plenty of options: one-on-one breastfeeding support (even home visits), La Leche League and other support groups, and the happy medium of the two – the new BirthWays Breastfeeding Café and Clinic. The BirthWays Breastfeeding Café and Clinic offers a mellow environment for moms to have a little down time, enjoy a cup of tea, connect with other moms and learn more about various breastfeeding and newborn parenting issues. It’s a low-cost resource for breastfeeding moms to get empathetic advice, up-to-date and accurate information and direct, hands-on breastfeeding support from a Lactation Consultant with a trained eye, while enjoying the company and support of other moms.
The first two weeks of breastfeeding are an important time to establish breastfeeding and to ensure plentiful milk production, so seek support early and as often as needed. A trusted breastfeeding “advisor” can reassure you and help you take a proactive approach to nursing your baby. Getting things off to as smooth a start as possible can save you a lot of heartache (and nipple aches). And, closer to home, know that your partner, family and friends will play a critical role, whether by helping with practical things, being enthusiastic “cheerleaders,” or offering caring encouragement along the way. As your baby gains weight and reaches early milestones, you might all be surprised by how exciting poop can be!
Each New Parent Does the Best They Can
Providing breast milk or breastfeeding your baby doesn’t have to be all or nothing. There isn’t one “perfect” way to nurse your baby and you don’t need to do everything by the book or remember every detail you heard in class. When it comes to taking care of our children, we do the best we can given our circumstances, the information we have to make informed decisions, and the support we have to help us get there. Breastfeeding isn’t always as easy as it looks…but with good resources and support it doesn’t have to be hard on us, either.
If you would like to learn more, these local resources are a great place to start:
BirthWays: www.birthways.org
La Leche League: www.llli.org
