BabyCalmâ„¢: A Guide for Parents on Sleep Techniques, Feeding Schedules, and Bonding with Your New Baby

Introduction

Birth is not only about making babies. Birth is about making mothers. Strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength.

—Barbara Katz Rothman, author and professor of sociology

You may be thinking here is yet another book written by the latest expert telling parents the dos and don’ts of babycare and promising miracles (usually of the full night’s sleep variety) if you follow their routines to the letter. I don’t know you and I don’t know your baby—how could I possibly tell you what to do? As you read on, I hope you will find this book different and a refreshing contrast to others you may have already read.

My aim with this book is to take you on a journey, which I hope will help you to realize that you are already the best possible expert when it comes to parenting your baby; you don’t need routines, you just need to trust in yourself and in your baby. Why is there a need for books telling us how to raise our offspring by sticking to routines anyway? Parenting seems to come so easily, so naturally, to every other species on our planet, so why not to humans? Do such books really help us? If you have read them, did they help you? Or, perhaps, does such expert advice keep mothers disempowered?

Is it possible that these books even keep us from discovering our own maternal instincts? Granted, some moms may not feel like they have much maternal instinct and some moms I have met say they felt as though they didn’t have any at all. One thing I can categorically tell you is that your maternal instinct may be deeply buried, shy, or hesitant to appear, but I promise you it is there. If you are someone who is worried that you don’t have any maternal instinct, one of the most positive things you can do is to take time just to be with your baby, don’t worry about tomorrow or your (perceived lack of) abilities at understanding him, just enjoy today, enjoy the cuddles, and embrace the craziness of your new world. You will find, often when you’re least expecting it, that your maternal instinct arises. I have never met a mother for whom this hasn’t happened eventually. If you push yourself to be a good mother you will open yourself up to a whole world of hurt and confusion, and often the journey to awareness and trusting your instinct will take so much longer.

The BabyCalm™ Philosophy

So where did we go wrong? I believe one of the problems is the loss of female support, the great supportive feminine wisdom we once shared with mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, and friends. Prominent psychoanalyst Daniel Stern, who specializes in infant development, wrote about a new mother’s need to form a maternal matrix, which he described as a network of maternal figures to help her feel validated and supported in her new role.

This is what the BabyCalm™ philosophy is all about: through our network of female teachers, all of whom are mothers themselves, we offer a mix of weekly classes and one-off workshops for new mothers that can be taken during pregnancy up until their babies are six months old. At these classes and workshops our BabyCalm™ teachers help new mothers to understand their baby’s needs, cues, and signals. The aim is to help mothers to find ways to calm their baby’s cries, build realistic expectations of their babies, and hopefully get a little more sleep. Most importantly of all, though, we provide a safe, nonjudgmental environment for mothers to talk and a place where people really listen. We support, we listen, and we provide non-biased, evidence-based information and foster individual learning and discovery, rather than forcing opinions onto participants. Our main aim at BabyCalm™ is rebuilding that much-needed supportive maternal matrix and beginning to give back the power to mothers to trust their instincts and be their own expert. This, also, is the main aim of this book: support not prescription.

Over the course of my work with new parents I have met many mothers and babies who have taught me so much more than I could ever learn from a textbook or lecture; their experiences are all unique and equally fascinating. I have shared some of their stories with you throughout this book and thank them deeply for taking the time to write them down and agreeing to share them with you. I hope some of the things they say resonate as deeply with you as they did with me.

You Are the Expert!

How, then, do our modern-day, self-proclaimed baby experts help new mothers to feel validated and supported? How do they help her to explore the new feelings being generated within her? How do they help her to grow in confidence, to develop trust in her mothering skills? I suppose it is not good business sense for baby experts to nurture new mothers to grow in confidence; after all, the longer the mothers remain lacking in confidence, the more they continue to buy the books, join the forums, and call the help lines. The very idea that a mother needs an external expert to tell her what to do implies that she does not possess the necessary skills herself—and herein lies the problem.

I believe it is time that the mothers of the world unite and squash this global repression of maternal instinct. With nuclear families, who often live far from relations, we may not have the large female support network we once had around us, but there are other options. We need to find our own voice—that voice deep down inside—and we need to learn to trust it. We need to know that it’s OK to hold our babies when every cell in our body yearns to hold them close, calming their tears and rocking them to sleep, despite the latest expert telling us to not make a rod for our own back. It’s OK to snuggle that sweet, warm, intoxicating-smelling bundle of love into your arms at night; you won’t be spoiling them forever by not teaching them to self-settle. It’s OK to respond to your baby. It’s OK to love them unconditionally. It’s OK to be the mom you are. You are the best mom your baby could have. You are good enough.

If I could help the new mothers in the world to understand just one thing, what would it be? That YOU are the expert! You already know so much more about your baby than you think you do, even if you think you know nothing at all! In fact, you know more than anybody else in the world. You just have to learn to trust and let that knowledge out. May I suggest you start by getting rid of all of those disempowering books with their rigid routines and the techniques that instinctively feel so wrong, because all of the information you need is inside yourself. You just have to find it and that is where this book can help!

This book aims to be different to those written by the baby experts who imply that the only right way to raise your baby is to follow their instructions based on their experiences of other people’s children. Instead, I hope that this book will give you the information and confidence to trust your instincts as a parent, with your children, your way. It is full of practical tips and advice, not just from me but from lots of other parents too, as well as helpful explanations of why your baby behaves as he does.

If any of the advice doesn’t feel right to you, then don’t follow it; there is no right way when it comes to raising your baby, just the way that feels right for you. All of the information contained in this book is based on sound research rather than anecdotal evidence and I have also included lots of stories of real mothers’ experiences with their babies, giving you the reassurance that your baby’s behavior is just that—normal baby behavior. Most importantly, this book does not portray childrearing as a battle that must be won; instead, it shows you that you can raise a happy, confident family where everyone’s needs are considered and respected.

One of the main aims of BabyCalm™ and this book is to bring about a change in the way we parent and support new parents. The aim is to help mothers realize they are their own best experts and they don’t need to follow the advice or routines of baby experts. We call this the maternal revolution—the revolution of giving back power and confidence to mothers all round the world.

My Story

It might help you to understand the position I am speaking from if I introduce myself and give you a little insight into my own experience of new motherhood. Of course I can’t possibly understand how you feel, but in many ways I have walked in similar shoes—albeit a different size and style on a very different path.

It was the summer of 2002, the era of the parenting expert. You either followed Gina Ford’s Contented Little Baby routine or Tracy Hogg’s Baby Whisperer EASY routine, or a hotchpotch of both. I was on maternity leave from a high-flying career in pharmaceuticals, earning a fantastic salary complete with a large annual bonus, company car, health scheme, cushy pension, and lots of foreign travel. I was ambitious, but most importantly I was in control in a male-dominated world. I had booked a nursery place for when my son was four months old by the time I was 20 weeks pregnant. I was not maternal; in fact, I was the one who hid in the toilets whenever a colleague returned to show off her new baby as I couldn’t bear having to hold it and coo in a silly baby voice. I didn’t much care for babies beyond window shopping for cute clothing in Baby Gap. I didn’t have high expectations of motherhood. I thought babies cried, lots, and I was prepared for stressful days and sleepless nights. I think it’s fair to say, however, that I was not prepared for what was about to hit me or how much my life was about to change!

My son, Sebastian, was born on a rainy July day after a very long and traumatic birth. He was the last baby to be born out of my antenatal class and in many ways I was dreading new motherhood, in no small part due to the negative experiences I kept hearing about from others in my class who had already had their babies. Nobody could have been more surprised than me, however, at how deeply and quickly I fell in love and how calm Sebastian was. I seemed to know what he needed to keep him happy and content and it felt great, if a little surreal, that I was seemingly quite good at being a mom, despite my reservations, and actually how enjoyable the experience was. The only problem was that my way of doing things didn’t fit with the current conventions and I began feeling more and more ostracized from my antenatal group. I loved spending days at home cuddling Sebastian, whereas they all wanted to go to the latest group or class organized to entertain their babies and aid their development.

Sebastian was the last baby of the group, by a long way, to sleep through the night, the last one to have any discernible routine in the day, and definitely the only one who slept in bed with his parents. I remember several occasions where I lied about how hard I was finding the adjustment just so that I would fit in more with the rest of the group and not seem like I was boasting at coffee mornings, yet conversely I felt more and more like a failure when it came to his routines and sleep. In an attempt to fit the mold I bought books by Gina Ford and Tracy Hogg, but I failed at those too. We couldn’t achieve a routine and the one night we tried controlled crying ended with me sobbing in a heap outside the nursery door until I could bear it no more and scooped Seb up and brought him back to my bed, feeling wretched that I had inflicted tears and trauma on him in my quest for a perfect sleeping baby. Then I also felt guilty that I was creating a rod for my own back and depriving him of the ability to self-settle. I couldn’t win.

What could have been something so wonderful and rewarding led to me feeling inadequate and isolated. I cut ties with my antenatal group, retreated from friends and relatives, and spent hours on the internet seeking support from virtual friends. Sometimes that helped, but sometimes it heightened my feelings of failure. Looking back now I realize all I really wanted was somebody to say Well done, Sarah, you’re doing a great job, but nobody did. It’s so rare we compliment mothers on their mothering skills, isn’t it?

I think my feelings were compounded by undiagnosed trauma and quite possibly depression resulting from Sebastian’s difficult birth, but again nobody asked me how I was doing, particularly emotionally. I had hoped to have a natural waterbirth, yet instead ended up flat on my back wired up to numerous drips and machines and pumped full of drugs. My notes said I had failed to progress and I did indeed feel a failure—a failure at birth and a failure at motherhood. It certainly didn’t help when friends and family told me, It doesn’t matter now, at least he’s here safely, that’s all that matters. How could I say to them, Well, actually it does matter to me—don’t my feelings mean anything?, as that would seem selfish, so I kept it all inside. When this was combined with the turmoil I was feeling in trying to be a good mom by following Gina and Tracy, which went against every cell in my entire being, it made for a very unhappy first few months.

As time went by I learned to listen more to myself and to Sebastian. I learned that the experts didn’t know me or my son, so how could they possibly know what was best for us? I read some truly wonderful books, such as The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff, that affirmed what my heart was telling me: it was OK to respond to my baby; it was OK to pick him up; I wasn’t spoiling him or letting him manipulate me; in actual fact I might well be helping him. Oh, what a blessed relief it was to finally learn to trust in myself and in my baby. From there on motherhood became the most rewarding thing I have ever done; bringing up my baby was the most special job in the world. I decided not to return to my previous career and, slowly, organically, a new path began to appear ahead of me, one I never thought I would ever follow, but one that I am so very grateful for. I hope so much that this book can help you to experience motherhood as I finally saw it—enjoyable, fulfilling, and happy, because a happy mom and a calm baby go hand in hand. In the quest for a calm baby, never forget how important YOU are!

Chapter 1

Trusting Your Maternal Instinct

A mother understands what a child does not say.

Jewish proverb

Do you sometimes feel that you just don’t understand your baby? Have you ever been frustrated at not understanding what he wants from you when he cries? I’m sure that these thoughts cross the minds of most new parents—goodness knows they certainly did mine! I promise you, however, that you already know so much more than you think you know. As the American author Joseph Chilton Pearce, who has spent over fifty years researching the human mind and particularly the development of children, says, Women have millions of years of genetically-encoded intelligences, intuitions, capacities, knowledges, powers, and cellular knowings of exactly what to do with the infant.

Do What You Feel Is Right

My main aim with this book is not to tell you how to parent, rather I hope that the stories and information here will help you to realize how knowledgeable you already are and to trust that you know more about your baby than anyone else in the world. This in turn will help you to know that you don’t need to follow anybody else’s routines or techniques in order to have a calm and contented baby. Right now this might seem impossible, but hopefully one day, not so far away, you will have the confidence to ignore a piece of well-meant advice or comment concerning your baby and go with your gut instinct, your maternal instinct—the very best teacher of all. This idea is beautifully summed up by Hygeia Lee Halfmoon in her book Primal Mothering in a Modern World: Instincts of women are alive nonetheless. One layer at a time, we find ourselves again and, in doing so, we will put humanity back on track. We will once again be free to be our true selves, teachers of love to a species so easily led astray.

What happens if you don’t seem to possess this much revered maternal instinct? Is there something wrong with you? How will you ever begin to understand your baby half as much as the other mothers who appear to know what their baby needs instantly? And what if you admit to not really enjoying motherhood? That seems to be the cardinal sin to commit as a new mother, doesn’t it? Be reassured that these feelings are totally normal and really very, very common: often mothers won’t admit that they struggle sometimes, but the vast majority do, and certainly all of these negative thoughts crossed my mind as a new mother.

Skin-to-Skin Contact

Remember that I mentioned earlier how the best way to begin to learn to understand your baby and yourself as a mother is to forget the future, forget the past, ignore the advice, and just be. Enjoy the sweet moments, the warm cuddles, the wonky smiles, the milk-drunk eyes, the smell of your baby’s head, the softness of his skin, and don’t pressure yourself to do or be anything else. Enjoy your babymoon, because it is through these magic golden moments of bonding that understanding and instinct grows. The more you hold your baby skin to skin, the more oxytocin—the maternal love hormone—you will secrete, and the more you immerse yourself in the world of your baby the quicker you will begin to understand him. These new mothers found that the skin-to-skin contact provided by baby massage helped them in ways they never would have imagined:

We went to a baby massage class once a week and I loved it so much as it was one of the very few times when it was just me and my little boy: no cell phone ringing, no front doorbell ringing, no pile of washing screaming at me, and no diapers to change! Just the two of us, as it had been for so many months before. The power of simply touching my baby made me feel so connected to him and reminded me so much of when he was born—naked, relaxed, intimate, and only eyes for each other. I really believe it helped build the strong connection that we have today. It was like taking time out from life.

Touching and holding my baby skin to skin just felt the natural thing to do and it was the perfect excuse to spend even more time enjoying that contact with my little one. I loved the way she just totally relaxed and how she used to watch me all the way through—a lovely way to connect with each other. It just made the rest of the world go away for a while and really calmed and grounded me too.

Babywearing

Many mothers also find being in close physical contact with their baby by carrying them around in a sling or baby carrier helps them to connect with their baby and understand them in ways they perhaps wouldn’t without such contact. There will be much more about what is known as babywearing later in the book, but for now here’s how these moms found carrying their baby in a sling a great aid to developing their maternal instinct:

Babywearing is one of my favorite things we do with our daughter. The closeness we get from carrying her in a sling just could not be replicated in a pushchair. She is close enough to kiss, feed, communicate with, and to gauge how she’s feeling. What else is there?

Babywearing is hormone heaven! I wore my babies like a proud badge that said I AM a mother. I love it, it’s the most wondrous experience, and I’m not going to waste a moment of my baby’s life away from me.