Babycalming: Simple Solutions for a Happy Baby. Caroline Deacon

time as you are returning to work! It is worth pre-empting this by ensuring that your baby gets used to your child carer long before you return; perhaps, if possible, before the fear of strangers really takes hold.

      Your baby at this stage is amenable, sociable and usually content if her three needs are met. These needs are perhaps easiest to meet at this stage. Her higher brain is maturing, so she is beginning to learn self-control, as well as making more sense of what is going on around her. She might cry briefly to attract your attention, but then she will stop and wait for your response.

       DID YOU KNOW?

      Paediatrician Donald Winnicott (1896–1971) recognized these attachment objects as mother-substitutes. Your baby chooses them to represent you, so that she can cope with your absences. Children who bed-share with their parents for extended periods seem to have less need for a comforter; at the other end of the spectrum, children who were raised in orphanages and were severely deprived of love and affection also did not develop transitional objects or comforters, perhaps because they didn’t become attached to a mother in the first place. French obstetrician Michel Odent suggests that attachment objects are the ‘healthy reaction of a normal child to a special situation’. ²

      Step One: Feeding

      Feeds are becoming far more regular, and you will be introducing solids, so her intake of food is beginning to tune in with your own. You will now start to work towards three main meals of milk plus some solids, as well as between-meal milk feeds, and a late-night feed. She might need the occasional feed for comfort in an emergency, but comfort, on the whole, will mostly come from a cuddle with a favourite person.

      This is one of the most adventurous times of your baby’s gastronomic life, so make the most of it! By the time she is mobile, she may become fussy about what she eats, so it is worth introducing a variety of tastes into her diet at this stage.

      Step Two: Comfort

       ATTACHMENT OBJECTS OR ‘CUDDLIES’

      Many new parents dislike the idea of a bit of cloth or a soft toy as an attachment object, but children may choose one themselves if you don’t find one for them. My first baby never chose a cuddly, my second, fortunately, became attached to a particular pillowcase cover (one of three), but my third baby selected a toy squirrel – a gift from Finland. We went through hell trying to find a replacement when ‘Bobby’ went missing!

      If you are keen to chose an appropriate attachment object for your baby, make sure it has no buttons for eyes or nose, that there are no removable pieces of fabric, and that it is small and easy to hold and manipulate.

       DID YOU KNOW? – carrying your child may make her brainier!

      Don’t worry if you seem to spend time carrying and jiggling your baby – you are helping her vestibular system develop, which is important, not only for balance, walking and general movement, but for general intelligence. Children with learning difficulties often have vestibular deficits – their sense of balance and co-ordination is often under-par.⁴ In one study, researchers compared babies who had regular sessions being swung in different positions at regular intervals to stimulate their balance system, with babies who did not receive this extra treatment, and found that the babies with the extra stimulation were more advanced in their motor skills like sitting, crawling, standing and walking.⁵

      The soothing strategies you used in the first six months are less effective now, but also less necessary. Now she may well be content to know you are near; she may need less holding and carrying for comforting; carrying becomes instead a more efficient way of getting around the world – it gives her a better view!

      It’s fine to hold and carry your baby if you want to and can manage it; research seems to suggest that the more you meet your baby’s needs at this age, the more independent she will be when she’s older.³ Often a quick cuddle, though, will soothe her. Her reasons for crying might be more obvious at this age, although of course this is the time when teeth erupt, which most babies seem to find pretty uncomfortable, and many want to increase milk feeds when teeth are bothering them.

      Step Three: Sleep

      Your baby should by now have a settled sleep pattern, day and night. Her sleep cycle is now similar to yours, she is capable of sleeping deeply, and most sleep positions are safe now, although she should still not have a duvet or pillows. Now is a good time, therefore, to move her into her own room if that is what you want to do. She should have a good bedtime and night-time routine, as well as a good routine of daytime naps.

      • The three steps are really only a way of thinking about your day at this stage, in that she should have regular daytime naps, a good bedtime routine, and should be able to sleep through the night without disturbing you. You can move her into her own room if you want. Comforting at this stage should be relatively easy, and feeding will start to tune in to your own meal times, although of course there will still be lots of between-meal milk feeds.

       Samuel seemed to be a very ‘suckly’ baby, so the first few weeks were extremely taxing and challenging, trying to work out if the cry was for feed or comfort. After about four weeks I decided to try a dummy, despite being so opposed to them pre-baby. The result was amazing and I was able to eat a meal without constantly having to pick him up. Fantastic! I only used it when I felt sure the cry was for comfort, and I didn’t use it at night to begin with, but after a couple of months I decided to use it after his bath and feed just to get him off to sleep. It worked, as he would spit it out once off to sleep.

       At six months I decided to dispose of the dummy, as I was paranoid that he would come to rely on it and had visions of him walking around at the age of four with it stuck in his mouth – my worst nightmare. I wanted to lose it while he wasn’t too aware of it. Not a problem. A few crying instances, which at the worst lasted 15 minutes, and after that he had no trouble falling off to sleep.

      – Andrea, mother to Samuel

       ~ Times Change ~ Answer – 1954 ~

      From Babies and Young Children by Ronald and Cynthia Illingworth, as quoted in Christina Hardyment, Dream Babies: Child-care from Locke to Spock (Jonathan Cape, 1983)

       5 The Need for Boundaries: You and Your Toddler

       ~ Times change – does the advice stay the same? ~

      Western civilizations are unique in the amount of physical separateness which they impose on infants, inventing innumerable gadgets – prams, cots, babychairs and bouncers … In other times and other parts of the world it would be dangerous to put them down for more than a moment.

      It comes as a bit of a shock when that deliciously amenable baby, who smiles whenever he sees you, turns into a raging, bad-tempered toddler, who throws tantrums, refuses to go to bed and turns his nose up at everything you offer him to eat, or refuses to sit still long enough to get any food inside him! Unfortunately, none of the experts agrees about how to handle a toddler; as with all childcare, you need to pick and choose your own solution, depending on the situation and your child.

      Times Change – Opinions Change

      As you might have noticed from the quotes at the beginning of each chapter, opinions about raising children change from generation to generation. At the turn of the last century, it was very clear