Babies
How to cope with the ‘minority rulers’
I tell you, there is nothing in the world like coming home in the evening to the embrace of a baby,’ says Steve Omwanda, an IT specialist and father of four. ‘Holding that baby close to you can cure a man of all ills!’
Babies are those little, wingless angels who, when placed in our arms, sleep or gaze with open curiosity back at you, creating in you warm feelings of the purest kind. But when their cherubic faces are wrinkled with an inconsolable wail, they can draw out of you such malevolent emotions as to make you fear causing them vicious, mortal harm.
My sense of worth as a man is so inextricably woven into what I do that almost always I take failure in outward things to the heart. So as men, when we are trying to solve a problem that seems to demand more than we have, we tend to get very desperate very quickly.
And since we have to live with ourselves, we rather avoid challenges that are likely to make a show of our inadequacies. Like babies who begin to cry when we pick them from their mothers.
But a better understanding of crying can help us separate our intrinsic nature from the situation. And remember, a woman learnt all that she knows about soothing. Now she has the advantage of being able to breastfeed, but beyond that, it is her personal decision to stay involved. Crying, it can be said, is the baby’s first language. Babies come into a world where there must be communication to have one’s needs met. As you spend time with your baby, you will even begin to distinguish different types of crying and the discomfort associated with each: being wet, hungry, needs to be burped, over-stimulated, too hot, too cold or constricted, or getting startled or waking up.
As soon as these needs are addressed, the baby will stop crying. But sometimes even after you have done everything that must be done, they will not be pacified. When this little one is placed on you, he can take chunks out of your strongest virtue. You are a slave to his needs, or as someone put it, “a perfect example of minority rule is a baby in the house.”
Extended bouts of crying in healthy infants are particularly attributed to colic, a mysterious condition affecting them at two weeks and goes away at three months or later. Incidentally, it afflicts them around early evening, just when you thought you might put your feet up and catch your Nine O’clock news.
Sounds like a malicious conspiracy, doesn’t it? Some studies suggest that the chances of having colic are lower in breastfed babies. But as far as we know, time might be the only remedy.
Whatever remedies paediatrics might offer, they are at best temporary and in the end, it is your stock of patience and soothing regimen that will get you through the screaming sound of mind.
Armin Brott, an author, advises, “Men should learn how to calm babies down… men don’t have the social support and experience with kids (that women have), so it’s easy for us to back off. You have a crying baby and the wife comes in and says, ‘Let me take care of the baby,’ and you say, ‘OK, here you go.’ You don’t realise that that is reinforcing the situation.”
A good plan is to relieve your wife by offering to take the baby after she has breastfed him. The crying starts. Gently massaging his tummy or back can help with gas pains, and sing or hum softly. Thankfully, babies are not critical about your musical key; it is the sound of your presence that is the assurance they need. If the crying persists after a while and you have held out as long as a man can, let his mother have a go for some minutes. You can calm your nerves and prepare to take over again. This partnership helps both of you not to become overwrought. Sometimes, nothing will soothe a crying infant, and the episode must simply run its course before the crying subsides. I have even heard baby experts say that sometimes babies cry for no apparent reason.
Though it may be difficult in these circumstances, it is important that parents try to remain calm, both for their own sake and the sake of their baby. Babies can sense their parents’ anxiety and nervousness and this may upset them further, leading to more intense crying. It is important to remember that your effort to remain interested in your baby’s life now, despite your shortfalls, will pay off in your future relationship with the child. If you watch as the opportunity to take up the crying child go by, it will later be both awkward and tough trying to make up for the lost time. So, spend every day reconnecting with your baby, either through play or being one of his primary pacifiers.
END: BL 42/40-41