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Yesterday we got a new baby, three months old. She's to be my primary xcare kid, and a good thing, too, because she's needy and I'm the one who can take that in stride. I'm the one who doesn't get insulted when the baby cries and wants to bde held more than is convenient. She's got a heightened startle reflex, which one of my other kids used to have too, and I've got it down. This kind of kid is crying and thrashing around because their little nerves are overwhelmed by small stimuli. The thrashing around and the loud noises coming from their own bodies startle them further until their in a complete tailspin. What they need is, first of all, to be swaddled: this keeps them from startling themselves further, since their mobility is lessened -- some of them hate the process of being wrapped like that, but it's not a straitjacket, it's a blanket, and it goes with the human touch they need.
Then they need just to be held like that, in arms not a swing or crib or whatever, until they are not just quiescent but calm. Quiescent is just the end of physically struggling and is not the goal. Now comes the human voice. Usually you can sing lullabies or anything -- this little kid was getting "Black is the color of my true love's hair" (the one about the dead soldier, I'm afraid, not the Donovan one) and "red rocking chair" because that's what I felt like. My big guy used to startle at the sound of singing, so we talked to him. Baby talk. Yes. The anathema of intellectuals. But it was just this: soft in volume, a little high in pitch, a little enhanced in rhythm, repetitive, very cheerful and gentle. One of my cowoerkers used to say "Are we going to have to have a little talk? Let's have a little talk. Let's talk about this crying thing. Oh no, we don't want that. None of that." Looks creepy written out like that, doesn't it? But imagine this said gently and with humor and cheer, a reassuring smile, and twinkly eye contact -- it doesn't so much matter what you say, as how you say it.
One of the things we hold as gospel is that babies today need to learn how to soothe themselves, and particularly babies in day care need to learn additional ways to achieve comfort and social contact besides being held, so they can be held for less than the whole day and you can do stuff like cleaning up the diaper table and the high chairs so you don't spread disease, and taking care of other babies in the room, and so on. I believe quite strongly that you can't do this without a modicum of holding. It is a natural drive of babies to be held. That's how they don't get left behind when the little band flees the grass fire. That's how they can get the nipple in their mouth a kajillion times a day. But it's also a fact that human beings are quite flexible and can have certain activities stand for other activities. So human beings invented cradleboards so babies can feel like they're being held when they're being slung over a shoulder or hung from a tree branch so mama can hoe corn and beans and squash: and human beings invented cradles so babies can feel like they're being walked in mam's arms when they're really in a box being kicked by mama as she sews thick clothes so they don't all freeze to death in the idiotic weather they live in.
So we can have baby swings, and cuddly pillows, to imitate holding, and pacifiers and chewy toys for sucking and gnawing, but none of this works without the application of liberal amounts of real human contact+: talking, singing, holding, rocking, touching in passing, and eye contact. It's important in group care to elevate the more attenuated forms of contact, so babies can get more out of them: so it's important to attach the more attenuated forms of contact to the more intimate ones. I mean this. You cuddle that baby, and then you put that baby down, making eye contact and talking sweetly. You give that baby little pats. You make eye contact from across the room, and respond when the baby complains.
This can be pretty intensive labor, but it's not exhausting. What's exhausting is a room full of babies who are yelling and yelling because somebody keeps telling them "You just ate, you're fine," and refusing to pick them up because "they're spoiled!"
Some other time I'll talk about what spoiling really is and how to avoid it and how to treat it.
Then they need just to be held like that, in arms not a swing or crib or whatever, until they are not just quiescent but calm. Quiescent is just the end of physically struggling and is not the goal. Now comes the human voice. Usually you can sing lullabies or anything -- this little kid was getting "Black is the color of my true love's hair" (the one about the dead soldier, I'm afraid, not the Donovan one) and "red rocking chair" because that's what I felt like. My big guy used to startle at the sound of singing, so we talked to him. Baby talk. Yes. The anathema of intellectuals. But it was just this: soft in volume, a little high in pitch, a little enhanced in rhythm, repetitive, very cheerful and gentle. One of my cowoerkers used to say "Are we going to have to have a little talk? Let's have a little talk. Let's talk about this crying thing. Oh no, we don't want that. None of that." Looks creepy written out like that, doesn't it? But imagine this said gently and with humor and cheer, a reassuring smile, and twinkly eye contact -- it doesn't so much matter what you say, as how you say it.
One of the things we hold as gospel is that babies today need to learn how to soothe themselves, and particularly babies in day care need to learn additional ways to achieve comfort and social contact besides being held, so they can be held for less than the whole day and you can do stuff like cleaning up the diaper table and the high chairs so you don't spread disease, and taking care of other babies in the room, and so on. I believe quite strongly that you can't do this without a modicum of holding. It is a natural drive of babies to be held. That's how they don't get left behind when the little band flees the grass fire. That's how they can get the nipple in their mouth a kajillion times a day. But it's also a fact that human beings are quite flexible and can have certain activities stand for other activities. So human beings invented cradleboards so babies can feel like they're being held when they're being slung over a shoulder or hung from a tree branch so mama can hoe corn and beans and squash: and human beings invented cradles so babies can feel like they're being walked in mam's arms when they're really in a box being kicked by mama as she sews thick clothes so they don't all freeze to death in the idiotic weather they live in.
So we can have baby swings, and cuddly pillows, to imitate holding, and pacifiers and chewy toys for sucking and gnawing, but none of this works without the application of liberal amounts of real human contact+: talking, singing, holding, rocking, touching in passing, and eye contact. It's important in group care to elevate the more attenuated forms of contact, so babies can get more out of them: so it's important to attach the more attenuated forms of contact to the more intimate ones. I mean this. You cuddle that baby, and then you put that baby down, making eye contact and talking sweetly. You give that baby little pats. You make eye contact from across the room, and respond when the baby complains.
This can be pretty intensive labor, but it's not exhausting. What's exhausting is a room full of babies who are yelling and yelling because somebody keeps telling them "You just ate, you're fine," and refusing to pick them up because "they're spoiled!"
Some other time I'll talk about what spoiling really is and how to avoid it and how to treat it.
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Adults aren't really all that different. One of the things I miss the most about my marriage is that lack of emotional and physical intimacy (not sex; I mean, that too, but it's way more than that). I miss someone there to be responsive, to meet my gaze, to touch me and comfort me and pet me. And what I've noticed is that there are times where the precise problem with me, with my temper or my sadness, or my feeling stressed and overwhelmed, is just that I need petted.
I very strongly believe that you do not spoil a child by responding to her.