THE UTERUS ARGUMENT

For a while now I have been watching that modern trend of carrying your infant around all day, of wrapping him in blankets and hold him onto your chest for hours and - this is not a modern trend - of bouncing and rocking him. I have never understood the parents that have been bouncing the pram with a crying baby inside like mad. Even in buses or trams that have the bouncy effect themselves. I always felt that the baby must get sick from all the bouncing. But I never had a child myself and held back. Now I fell into those discussions and I am seriously annoyed by one special argument:

"But that's what the child experienced for the past 9 months in the uterus."

Exactly. Past tense. ExperiencED. As hard as it is for the little one, this time is over.
I do agree that we should help him on his "way out" and make it as low stressful as possible. I love "Birth without violence" by Frederick Leboyer and I am grateful to have given birth in a hospital that is practicing this method. But I don't think that it is right to "pretend" a world that is not there anymore. In fact I believe that we should help the little one adjust to "our world" as much as we can. The rest is an experience everyone has to go through.

Imagine coming back from a fantastic holiday in the south, days on the beach and lots of sun. Now you are back to rainy days and work. Would you like your boss to put up a high sun and blue sky in the office while you still have to catch up with work from the past two weeks? Or would you rather face reality but take it a little slow on catching up with work and have colleagues that help you settle back in? I am not saying that this is the case most of the time, unfortunately it isn't but imagine you had the choice.

Adjusting to life outside the uterus is a process no carrying device, no bouncy chair, no tight wrapped blanket can stop, they can actually just extend that process.
So help your newborn grow into our world, talk to him, be there for him and respect that he needs time and space. Don't interfere, watch him and listen to his needs.
As hard as it sounds - this is all you can do.

ONE WEEK iNTO PARENTiNG

A week ago I sat on the sofa like I do now. I was wondering if the contractions I had were enough to get me into labor. A few hours later my water broke and only an hour after that I was holding our little son in my arm suddenly realising that I made it. And that from that minute I was a mother. The journey of parenting had started and I was more than ready to jump right into it.

The same day we left the hospital and made ourselves comfortable at home. Everything you think about and try to plan suddenly becomes a little routine. The changing table is used for the first time, those tiny little clothes are brought to life. And some cute button eyes are slowly opening to the world.
Since labor started in the middle of the night we hadn't slept at all and were really tired yet too excited to lie down. That we paid for with a few nerves the next night when the little one was trying to tell us that something was bothering him but we were just too exhausted to figure it out. So I left the bedroom, gave the father some silence to gain some sleep and took care of our son slowly trying to get to know him. To understand him. It worked. With me being more relaxed, taking some time, he relaxed too and we both got some sleep. Patience it was that was needed...

A couple of days later we tried to get the little one to sleep in his own bed. Of course it felt cosy having him right next to us the first night but it's just not right to have him squeezed between us with one of us always being scared of rolling over him. And also he's not a squeeze toy here to entertain us, to make us feel good. He is a human and needs his own space. It does not mean that we don't love him since that seems to be the modern answer to parents keeping their baby in their bed for months or even years.
A couple of nights it only worked for a while until he started crying. Until we figured out that it was just too cold for him so we changed the inside and now he happily sleeps in it while we can enjoy a more relaxed sleep in our bed.
The getting up to breastfeed him isn't a problem either. Women complain that it is too hard to get up with the baby so they rather have it in bed and just feed it lying there. I take my time, sit with him in the living room and talk to him while he gets fed. It's a special time and he deserves to get all attention needed.

A slight bigger challenge is the pacifier question. Well it's not so much a question for us since we definitely don't want to use one. But with him not being able to find his thumb on his own it is sometimes difficult for him to comfort himself. Of course that's not what we want anyway, we'd rather find out what's actually bothering him so he does not need to comfort himself for any reason. But with only one week gone this is a tough learning process. So far I think we are doing fine. Most of the time we actually do figure out what is wrong with him (wet diaper, too cold, hungry etc...). It takes time and certainly patience but it helps so much to get to know him better and it's much more satisfying than just stuffing his little mouth with a plastic thingy.

The most joyful times so far are the times when we just watch him like a TV show. In his wake moments we just put him on the sofa and watch him discover his hands or the world around him. Whatever of that he is realising. Over and over again he is slowly moving his hand into his mouth, still a little uncoordinated movement not knowing that it's his own hand that ends up in his mouth from time to time. But it's a learning process and we will not interfere but watch with excitement. Whoever thinks little babies can be bored is wrong. They only have a few wake moments a day and those they use happily to discover themselves. They don't need bright and shiny colourful noise making toys. They don't need mommy or daddy jumping up and down, making funny faces or carrying them around all day touching and cuddling them.
We are there for him when he needs us. That is important.

I don't know if I have thought it was easier or not. It certainly is a challenge to rather NOT do things than do too many. But it's important to listen to your own instinct. And your child. As a human, not as a helpless little creature.
A lot we have learned so far with patience being the most important one. I'm looking forward to see him discover the world and us the joys of parenting a respected child.

TOGETHER

There are two types of people when it comes to pregnancy literature. Some eat all the books they can find and some are proud of not having read a single page. I do admit that I had too many books which were mainly given to me by friends. So I started reading here and there and figured they all basically say the same. But NONE tells you anything about parenting. Most of them go on about pregnancy, birth and the first few weeks with the baby. They all give you the same information and half way through pregnancy I put them in the shelf cos I thought I knew enough to go through the last months.
But if I wouldn't have been given the advice of thinking about parenting before the child is born I might have forgotten about it. It's not the first thing on your mind, it is not mentioned in any of those thousands of books and you think this is something you come up with along the way. And this is the problem!

You can read about premature contractions or best ways to start labor when you get to that point. But you cannot educate a child "along the way" without having at least agreed basic thoughts with your partner. Plus for him it is much more interesting to talk about something you both have no experience in. With pregnancy he might always feel a bit behind because it's HER who's growing, who's carrying the baby, who's feeling all the changes. He is scared, he gets thrown into the whole thing when the baby is born.

One thing I really wanted to clarify with my husband were basic situations in parenting. Such as "Do we use a pacifier?" "Does the child need a certain bed time or not?" etc. His parents and mine are like day and night so I figured he must have been raised a different way than I was. So I needed to make sure that we will find a basis on how we will raise OUR own child. But this came along with the interest in Pikler and we started reading and talking and fortunately agreed in most cases. Of course there will still be situations we are not prepared for and we will have to discuss. But there is a safe basis we've laid out.

Another problem with parents who do not talk about parenting before having a child is, that they might end up making mistakes more often than others. I'm not saying we will do everything right just because we are in the safe haven of Pikler but without having any thoughts on some basic parenting questions they are more likely to do something wrong. They will discover difficult situations they haven't thought about more often and they will be nervous. And once something went wrong it will be much more difficult to adjust, to fix.

I can only speak for me - but those evenings when we sat together, looking forward to the wee ones arrival, discussing how we will raise it, teach it, watch it and enjoy it - gave me the security of us being in the right place. And after all the discussions before I got pregnant of if and when I knew we were ready for it, I knew we could do it. I knew we could do it TOGETHER.