Jonathan Spencer's Tales of Ordinary Wisdom

Every child is different, their pregnancy is different, their birth is different and their parents are different, so this is not “The Truth” is a truth as it worked for me.

The birth was luckily short and we were home with our Baby Isis isabel by the end of the day, much to the surprise of the doctors and nurses, who couldn’t understand why we wanted to get home.  The Midwifery staff at the hospital were fantastic.

The main thrust of this article is to do with the babies first 3 weeks, its very easy in those first weeks to project all kinds of things onto your baby; please remember that a baby is a survival machine and all they want to do is eat and sleep with a little, a very little activity (this can be as much as looking round) remembering that everything but everything is new to them and must be processed.

Face it babies cry…

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it is one of their only forms of communication and to this effect it is well worth reading.

“The Child, the Family and the Outside World (Penguin Psychology)” (D.W. Winnicott)

Winicott first wrote this in 1957 when Dr Spock was all the rage and he was so far ahead of his time, especially on what he says about babies crying.  Both he and tracy Hogg ask you to listen and learn the differences between all your babies crying sounds. Dont always rush to stop a babies mouth with teat or breast.  Overfeeding can create problems too.  Babies from 1-3 weeks will happily feed every 2-4 hours depending on their weight.  Very often if they are fractious and crying they just need love and reassurance.

Babies need to eat and sleep and you must teach them both these things, they are used to the noise, rush and movement of being inside their mothers, the rush and gurgle of the stomach and the beat of the heart, they may find a quiet night somewhat strange.

Isis didn’t sleep at night for a full 3 weeks, this is wearing, tiring and can led to despondency, don’t worry it will all turn right. 

“Secrets of the Baby Whisperer: How to Calm, Connect and Communicate with Your Baby” (Tracy Hogg)

Tracy Hoggs book was perfect in helping us as was a visit to the cranial osteopath (http://www.cranial.org.uk/page3.html ), a session a week over the last 2 weeks and using some of Tracy’s methods Isis now has a regular and calm sleep pattern, sleeping 3-4 hours at a time at night and putting on weight and becoming more alert.

There are hundreds of books on babies and bringing up children, you don’t have to follow the fastidiously, just take what works for you and discard what doesn’t. Whilst you are learning, whether it is breast feeding, bottle feeding, nappies, putting to bed or giving a bath, your baby is learning too.

“Baby Einstein: Lullaby Classics” (The Baby Einstein Music Box Orchestra)

It was extremely hard in those first weeks as we got to know our daughter, and to listen to and understand her, lack of sleep takes you all sorts of places, so prepare yourself before hand and get all the sleep and rest you can.  Of course some of our friends from the National Childbirth Trust classes had babies that slept well immediately, but as I say we are all different. So the last couple of nights the baby has slept and so have we, long may it continue.

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