1 Is For "The Camel" (Baby Stages in general)

Member Name: jillmurphy

Product:	Baby Stages in general
Date:	04/10/01 (264 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Zillions.

Disadvantages: Occasional wee up your nose.

Babies. What is it about babies that always smells so nice? Why does their clean washing always smell nicer than yours? Ooh, what about that warm, sleeping baby smell that makes you want to nestle your head into the middle of it somehow, and fall asleep yourself? What is it about those little, hoarse, new-born cries that make you drop everything and come running? What is it about looking into those glazed little eyes that makes a baby's unfocussed gaze more special than any other? Babies. They're scrumptious. They are. They're even scrumptious when they're sick on you, or when you're changing their nappy and they wee up your nose. Don't believe me? Then pah. You're wrong, I'm right. So there.

I was one of the older grandchildren in a large, extended, close family. I was always the one who looked after the babies, I was always the one who not only liked the babies, but was also after earning some pocket money. So I was the family's chief babysitter. I loved it and spent whole days and evenings getting paid for playing with babies. Wow. So, so much better than the alternative of a Saturday job at the sweet shop, or (shudder) early mornings out in the rain doing a (shudder again) paper round, don't you think? And so, when I came to have my own babies, I was prepared. I'd done it all before you see. Yeah, right.

Of course, I thought I knew all about babies and yes, I did know quite a lot. I knew how to change nappies, how to clean and anoint sore bottoms, how to feed and wind. I'd jiggled crying little ones up and down and to and fro until they went to sleep. I had no idea what I didn't know though. I didn't realise "your own" would be different. I knew I'd love my babies, I loved all babies, but I didn't know "my own" would be different. Well, the same, but more so, but so much, much more so than I'd ever imagined. And of course, I'd looked after lots of l
ittle cousins and second cousins but no one had ever left me all alone for days and nights with a new-born, let alone a new-born that was "my own". All of a sudden there I was, doing it not because I wanted to, because it was super fun and because it earned some extra pocket money to boot but because I had my own baby, my own responsiblity. Responsibility is a fearsome thing. The buck suddenly stops with you. It's all rather frightening really.

Brand new babies seem so brittle, even great, big podgy fat ones like I had. They're so, so brand new to the world they don't have a clue what to do in it. Suddenly they're in a place where communication isn't automatic, it's a thing, a thing you have to DO. They don't know yet what you're trying to communicate to them, and they don't know how to communicate anything to you. Their cries are different to those of a baby acclimatised to the world of unsupportive, effortful air. They're fresh from the womb, from surrounding, supporting fluid where communication is a purely physical thing. And suddenly they must learn to call for food, to move for themselves, to see and to comprehend. And suddenly you realise that as a brand new mother, you don't know much more yourself. And sometimes it's rather hard not to panic, if only just a little bit. I told you: responsibility is a fearsome thing.

Ah, but you have lots on your side you know, two things most importantly. You have that thing you'd no idea really existed, although you'd been told about it so many times: you have that overpowering, overwhelming love for "your own" that'll carry you through almost all the time, and pick you back up after the days it didn't quite manage it. No one can tell you about that love before you feel it, you'll think you know what's meant by it, but really, it's indescribable. You just have to feel it to know it. Also, you have time. Babies
are so clever - they learn something new not every day, or even every hour, but every minute. You're the slow fool of the two of you! New-born babies become proper babies very quickly: they recognise you before you know it, their hoarse little cries become proper cross or upset wails, they learn to roll over, then learn to sit up. At some point they learn that a smile is a good thing, and not just something you do as a grimace when that last burp failed to come up. And within weeks, thanks to them, you're communicating. Now, how exciting is that? Eh?

I'm suddenly feeling I should be doing some dooyoo kind of useful thing here and offering advice. Argh. That all seems so dreadfully presumptuous. And rude. And patronising. And simplistic. How can I advise you about your baby? Gee whizz. You're you. You're your own, unique, individual self, and, more importantly, your baby is its own unique, individual self. Little it might be, but it's a person, not a thing. There aren't any rules and neither should there be, even the ones from the text books. Oh, of course there are things which are sensible. With a new baby around you have to be vaguely clean. You learn to love Milton (the stuff that smell of swimming pools, not the awful poet with flaming swords). You'll have to stop leaving coffee cups to gather mould on the bedside table and letting the cat walk on the kitchen worktops. But really, you don't have to rush about wearing yourself out ensuring your whole house is as sterile as a hospital theatre. No no. You need all that time for tickling baby feet and tummies and noses. That's much more important.

Anyway, as I said, I don't really believe in giving advice. Support, yes. Encouragement, yes. Ideas, yes. But not advice. You and your baby are both people. You're not the same as me. I think that you should read the books, and talk to your midwife and your health visitor, I even think you should absorb the
Health Department guidelines, inflexible and sometimes discouraging though they are. They're there to help. More importantly, I think you should listen to the rich vein of stories and anecdotes from the people around you, those with with children of their own and experiences to recount. But I don't think you should take any of these things as writ large on tablets of stone. The most important people to listen to are yourself and your child. Of all the pieces of information you're bombarded with some will strike a chord. Follow those. Try them. If it's right it will feel right. The best I can do is tell you what I did, or what I think and hope some of it will strike a chord.

Hurrah! A chance to talk about Conor and Kieran (again). Oh, so many things to talk about. I'll try and stick to the big baby issues - you know, sleeping, bathing, feeding, crying - else I'll keep you here all day. Conor was a baby who cried. For the first few months he didn't do much else really. He cried all day long. All day. Luckily for Michael and I, his frazzled parents, he slept at night, doing the waking up for feeds thing, but he slept apart from that from seven til seven almost from day one really. That was lucky. Because for the other seven til seven he cried. And cried. And cried. Conor wasn't born easily, it was a ventouse delivery (like forceps, but suction), and I wonder whether he had a dreadful headache resulting from that birth for a long time after it. I'll never know though. It's hard when your baby won't stop crying. You worry, you call the doctor, he says there's nothing wrong. You buy colic drops. You try different formula milk. You jiggle. You bounce. In desperation you try, and fail, to ignore. You go for walks in the open air where the noise doesn't seem so loud and all-pervading in the hopes it'll sound less distressing, but it doesn't.

In the end, after a good talking to from Auntie Kathleen
(big up to Auntie Kathleen), I gave up trying to stop Conor crying. "He's angry," she said. "Not much you can do about that if he can't talk yet, is there? And with the bad vibes your stress is spreading about he's just going to get angrier. Go and eat some chocolate." And she was right. She was right about everything you know, with that, not just about crying. I said it somewhere else a long time hereabouts but it's true. The best chance of a happy baby is a happy parent. They know, you know. They're clever. And as soon as I accepted that I couldn't MAKE Conor stop crying, he slowly started to stop. I cuddled and rocked him as much as I could, when I couldn't do that I carried him around in one of those sling things. Movement soothed him. But when I couldn't do that, when things just had to be done, then I left him to cry and just did them. I was sorry for it, but didn't stress over it. And slowly over a few weeks he stopped crying ALL the time.

I didn't really ever think twice about sleeping arrangements, although I know many people do. I sort of knew I'd think sleep was one precious thing I'd like to make sure I guarded for myself, even if it was going to be interrupted. So both Conor and Kieran slept in another room as soon they came home. We invested in a top of the range baby monitor thing to make sure we wouldn't miss a single wail and what a waste of money that was. We spent all night listening to the (still lovely even at 3am) little sighing breaths and gurgles and we didn't get a wink of that precious sleep! So I took a deep breath and turned it off one night, and lo and behold we didn't miss the middle of the night feed. We didn't ever miss it either. One little internal wall is as nothing to a parent's ears. I promise. Conor slept on his back, like they're supposed to with regard to the SIDS (cot death) guidelines. Phew. Kieran slept on his front. It didn
't matter how many times you moved him he simply and somehow found his way back on to his tummy. Media-fuelled agonising over the possible consequences of that didn't stop him any more than the repositioning did. So again, in the end, we just put him to sleep on his tummy.

But you know, if you're reading this and thinking, "How could she snore when her child's sleeping on its front MILES away in another room?" then you do different. You turn yours over as often as you like. You want your baby in your bed with you? Then put it in the bed with you. As long as you're both snoring then that's got to be the right thing hasn't it? Of course it has. Just one teensy thing about babies generally, and particularly sleeping and babies. It is a rule. Don't smoke. If you smoke and you can't give up then that's how it is. That's fine. Just make sure that you smoke somewhere where the baby isn't ever going to be and especially never smoke in rooms where it's going to sleep, never where it's going to sleep. [Or I'll break your forking legs.] Oops, how did that get in there?

I did used to love bathtime. It's gone off a bit now (it's a hairwash thing), but it used to be great. I was never one for baby baths though. What's with those awful big plastic glorified washing up bowls decorated with a picture of Winnie the Pooh anyway? Your baby gets all slippy, everywhere gets all messy and you're terrified you'll drop 'em. I liked running a shallow, tepid bath and getting in with a baby and putting it on my lap to wash it. That's where a baby should be - on your lap whenever possible. Can't drop 'em then, can you? Once the wash and a little splashing game was over then I'd call Michael, he'd take baby off for drying and anointing and I'd run a load of hot water for a lovely soak of my own. The 'orrible plastic washing up bowl got used for mud pie makin
g much, much later on and I think the garden was the best place for it.

I could still write for pages and pages you know, I did warn you, and I'll try not to waffle for much longer but I'll just mention that whole feeding thing and then let you off. Gosh, this is the worst one, isn't it? There's so much pressure to start "right" by breastfeeding. Hmm. Well, it's obvious that if it all works out well then breast milk is the best thing. But remember Auntie Kathleen (big up to Auntie Kathleen) and her happy parent thing? She's still right you know. Miserable, stressed parents are far more likely to have miserable, stressed babies. I do believe her. If breastfeeding is, for whatever reason, a no-no for you then don't do it. Do try, but if you can't do it because it feels right, then don't do it. It'll be a shame, but not the end of the world. Me? I mix fed. I never seemed to have enough milk for my two ten pounds at birth fatbelly babies so it was turn and turn about between breast and bottle. I think perhaps because that's what I always did I never had a problem with either. And I always made sure there was a convenient turn for the bottle during the night, so it was parental turn and turn for getting up too. Sshh.

Anyway, before you know it, it'll be time for moving on from milk. You too can share the joys of wallpaper paste giving. What is it with that baby rice stuff? And doesn't it look awful? Oh well, both mine loved it after the first few gagging attempts so I was ok. Conor ate pretty much anything you offered him really and still does. He went through all the "proper" stages: wallpaper paste aka baby rice, smooth fruit or vegetable purees, meat purees, that despicable lumpy half-pureed stage and on to finger foods. Oh, it was all so easy. Well, it was messy of course, but it was easy. Then along came Kieran. He didn't like spoons one bit, and he most certainly didn'
t eat from them, he clamped his little jaw tight shut. He was a diminutive but proverbial immovable object. And I'm not renowned for my patience. In the end he ate finger foods, beginning with things like very well cooked carrot sticks and a bowl of plain fromage frais. As long as he could do it himself, he was fine, if with a definite liking for sweet and sour (main course and dessert in the same bowl rock dontchaknow). And all by himself he chose a fairly balanced diet. Honestly, he did. To this day he still dips cheese and carrot sticks into fromage frais, but he prefers it if you've flavoured it first by liquidising with soft fruits. Ho hum.

Babies are scrumptious. That thing I said right up there at the top, about a zillion overly long paragraphs ago. That's the most important thing. Mine were scrumptious and yours are or will be too. Scrumptious. Then they get bigger and they become toddlers who are still scrumptious. And so it goes on through the stages. Mine haven't got to be teenagers yet, but I bet they'll still be scrumptious then, despite the dire, dark warnings. Love them, tickle them, cuddle them, rock them, talk to them, play music to them, and take the time to just sit and watch them Oh, and if you get a chance go and find out about that baby massage thing, because that is just super. I love babies. They smell nice.

And I hope you've got an Auntie Kathleen!

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