Parents often show me how concerned they are for their baby's comfort and their baby's well being. And they wanna make sure they're very very gentle with their babies and they're not too rough with their babies.
But in being so careful I think sometimes they make their babies nervous. Babies are not actually that fragile, they're pretty sturdy little creatures. And I think that if you do things with your baby like baby massage, or baby yoga, or take a Mother Goose class and learn some songs and rhymes, and clapping games, and bouncing games, that those things will help you learn to handle your baby more comfortably.
Babies experience the world, of course, through their ears and their eyes. They experience the world, through, you know, smell and taste, all those senses. But I would say none of those senses is more important than the sense of touch.
They don't see very well, very far. They are not actually interested in that many smells besides the smell of their mother and the smell of milk. There's really not a lot that they can experience or that reassures them as much as touch.
When you hold a baby snugly and create some compression, that's just the way the baby was held inside your tummy, that makes the baby feel safe. And that actually makes the baby feel safe from all over her body instead of just through her eyes or through her nose. All over her body feels better.
Holding your baby like this, nice and snug, so that the babies weight is on your knee and maybe her arms are actually centered on her body. Because actually when you gather baby's arms and hands together and bring them to midline they feel safer.
And then you make eye contact and you have a chat. And for as long as the baby is awake, and alert, you can chat, and maybe she'll look away for a bit, and you'll take a break, and then you'll come back and chat some more.
And then usually with a newborn baby within about 30 seconds, a minute, she's done, there's no more conversation happening. And she starts to get all wah wah wah and you have to bring her back up to your body and cuddle her again.
Babies learn through their skin as much as they learn through anything else. So as much as we can touch them, and cuddle them, and hold them, and squeeze, and tickle them, things that help show them that you enjoy their body.
And i felt that one of the things I was teaching them was that their body was valuable, and their body was beautiful, and their body was lovable. And if we can teach our children that, what a wonderful thing to go off into the world with.
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