Category Archives: Baby Care

The Importance of Attachment

Why Bonding with Your Baby Matters So Much

By Meri Levy, MFT

Attachment to one or more caring adults is the most important developmental task your baby will complete during the first three years of life. If this attachment is not achieved, a child will likely have lifelong problems in forming relationships.

Luckily, babies are very good at teaching us how to help them become attached. Their cries, their coos and smiles, and later separation anxiety help us to see how much our children want to be attached to us. Meeting a baby’s early attachment needs is what allows him to venture forth into the world and learn to be a separate human being, secure in the knowledge that he is loved and cared for.

Our attachment to our children is what causes the anxiety and worry about being a good parent and the drive to maintain our baby’s well-being. If a couple is arguing about the best way to care for their baby, it is a sure sign that they both are firmly attached to their baby, which is a good thing.

Attachment with your baby can bring up different feelings in different people. It can feel stifling or overwhelming, or is may be blissful and heart-warming, depending upon your own feelings about attachment. It’s helpful to be aware of these feelings and to recognize that by staying connected in a responsive way to your baby, you help him or her develop the ability to love others and nurture their own children when they grow up.

Our attachments to loved ones, including family, spouses and friends, are the fuel that helps us nurture our children. Make sure you don’t neglect your own attachment needs now that you’re a parent. If you are having difficulties in your adult relationships, focus more attention on those connections. Making your relationships with loved ones strong, and getting coaching or counseling if needed, can help maintain your own mental health and well-being as well as the well-being of your children as they grow.

Helping Your Baby Sleep Better

Gentle Tips for Helping Your Baby Sleep Through the Night

By Meri Levy, MFT, CLE

It’s a very rare new mom who isn’t exhausted much of the time. Newborns don’t sleep the way adults do, and it can be a very difficult transition for new parents to adapt to their newborn’s sleeping patterns, and sometimes an even harder one to eventually adapt their baby’s sleep schedule to one that allows Mom and Dad to get a good night’s sleep.

Newborns are used to being lulled to sleep by Mom’s voice and activity during the day while in utero, and can be more active at night (remember those kicks waking you up at 3am?). So at first, it isn’t uncommon for the baby to have days and nights reversed. But don’t worry too much. Humans are diurnal creatures by nature (active during daylight hours) and there’s not much you need to do except expose your baby to daylight during the day for the baby to adapt to sleeping at night. Although it may feel like a long time coming…

Another way you can help your baby to distinguish day from night is to spend plenty of time holding your baby and interacting during the day when the baby is alert, and avoiding eye contact and being more businesslike about feeding and changing during the middle of the night. Regardless of how adorable your baby is in the wee hours, if you save your quality interaction for the daytime hours, your baby will sleep more consistently at night.

Most babies are not ready to sleep more than a few hours at a stretch until they are at least three months old and weigh 12lbs or more. Some babies will start to sleep longer intervals on their own around this time. If you have questions about whether your baby can go without feedings for longer than three to four hours, discuss your concerns with your pediatrician.

After four months or so, the decision of whether to feed and change the baby during the night is a controversial one. Ask 10 parenting experts at what age your baby could be sleeping through the night, and you’re bound to get 11 answers! So, this can be one of the hardest decisions new parents must make: at what age do I want to encourage my baby to sleep through the night, and how far am I willing to go to make that happen?

Factors to consider when making this decision include your pediatrician’s advice, your parenting philosophy, how badly you need more sleep (which depends on your sensitivity to stress), and how often your baby is waking during the night. One Mom may be content to sleep with her baby and feed continuously throughout the night for a year or so. Another may not be able to sleep well at all with her baby, have a baby that wakes every two hours to feed, and desperately needs more sleep to function well. Only you can make that decision. If you’re doing well with the way your baby sleeps at night, this article isn’t for you – yet. But if your baby’s sleep pattern changes or you decide it’s time for a change, you may want to consider some tips for encouraging your baby to sleep through the night.

If you will not want to continue feeding your baby throughout the night for many months, it’s a good idea to get into the habit early of putting your baby to bed at least partly awake. Just as you would wake up upset if you fell asleep with a pillow and woke to find it gone, your baby can be startled if he or she falls asleep at your breast or in your arms and wakes up alone. So putting the baby to bed in the same way he or she will need to fall back to sleep in the middle of the night is a good idea to encourage the baby to sleep through the night when he or she is ready. That doesn’t mean you can never nurse your baby to sleep, but at least some of the time, put the baby to bed when he or she is sleepy but partly awake. The earlier you start this, the easier it may be for the baby to transition to falling asleep out of your arms.

If you do decide to help your baby along in the process of sleeping through the night, it may be difficult to do this with the baby in your bed or even in your room. Studies show that cosleeping mothers and babies impact each other extensively during the night. Up until three months, the baby’s stirring and waking rouse the mother. But after four months, frequently the sounds or sensations of the mother stirring rouse the baby, who then wakes up to feed. So the first step is establishing the baby in a safe crib in a room where he or she can’t hear every move that Mom makes. Sometimes this, in and of itself, can cause the baby to start sleeping through the night.

The second thing that you can do, if moving the baby to his or her own room isn’t enough, is to begin consistently putting the baby down to sleep when sleepy but still awake. That means when you’re feeding during the night and the baby starts to nod off, burp him for a minute to rouse him a bit, and try to make sure you put him back to bed before he is fully asleep. Another aspect to this is feeding the baby only enough to satisfy but not fill her up. In the early days you wanted to get as much milk as possible into the baby to encourage her to sleep longer. But when you are trying to help your baby sleep through the night, it is a good idea to have smaller feedings in the middle of the night, so he eats more during the day and gets used to meeting his caloric needs then.

Once your baby is only taking small feedings at night and can fall back to sleep in his crib on his own, he is more likely to give up the nighttime feedings entirely. And if he doesn’t, you are in a better position to encourage him to give up the night feedings than if he was feeding a lot at night (and therefore hungry) and falling asleep in your arms.

Whether you allow your baby to fuss or cry for a period of time with or without you in the room is something you need to decide in consultation with your pediatrician. It is a very difficult decision for any parent to let their baby fuss along in his crib, but some babies will not learn to sleep on their own without expressing some protest. If you do let your baby cry, it is OK to soothe him or her at regular intervals, but you should not “give in” and pick the baby up. If you do, you are teaching your baby to cry for longer periods of time in expectation that you will eventually come and pick them up. So you need to be really prepared for how you want to handle what comes up and stick to your plan.

In my own case, only one of my three kids was so challenging during the night that I eventually needed to let him cry it out — he was waking every 45 minutes at night to have his pacifier put back in his mouth and I was about to totally lose it! (An aside – he was the kid who most needed limits in all areas of life). It was a tough few nights, after weaning him off the pacifier during the day first, but he did learn to get himself back to sleep after only a few days. And I loved him so much more that first morning when I had had a full night’s sleep — 7:30pm to 7am. And interestingly, he’s been the best sleeper of the three consistently since that time. He’s only one who never complains of difficulty falling asleep, even at 21 years old!

It can be very challenging making decisions of how to work with your baby around sleep. Remember, there’s no one perfect way to parent, and every baby is different.

Why Wear Your Baby?

By Meri Levy, MFT, CLE

Increasing numbers of parents are discovering the joys of “babywearing,” using slings, pouches, wraps and other carriers. How does wearing your baby benefit both baby and caregiver?

Promotes Bonding

Wearing your baby encourages attachment, which is crucial to your baby’s emotional development. Keeping baby close encourages communication between baby and caregivers, and results in a greater sense of trust and security for your baby. Keeping baby close also encourages frequent breastfeeding, which improves the chances of breastfeeding success.

Reduces Crying and Colic

Many studies have shown that babies that are carried more, cry less. Whether your baby is colicky, fussy, or just cranky sometimes, frequent carrying in arms or in a carrier ensures less crying and a more comfortable baby.

Reduces Physical Strain and Allows Freedom of Movement

Using a carrier distributes your baby’s weight better, giving your arms a rest. For parents with carpal tunnel or tendinitis, this is much easier on the arms. And the benefits increase as baby gets older and heavier.

Carriers also allow freedom of movement and the ability to use your hands for something other than carrying your baby. Having a baby may mean feeling like nothing gets done, but having a hand free can mean getting a little more done, while keeping baby happy.

For more information on babywearing, visit the following sites:

www.TheBabyWearer.com

www.mothering.com

www.WearYourBaby.com

Starting Solid Foods

By Meri Levy, MFT, CLE

Breast milk or infant formula are adequate to meet all your baby’s nutritional needs until at least four to six months of age. Sometime between four and six months, depending upon your baby’s development, you may want to start introducing solid food. This does not mean that the milk feeding is no longer important. Most of your baby’s nutritional requirements should be met by the milk feeding until he reaches at least nine months to one year.

A full term, healthy baby receiving an adequate supply of milk will start needing iron from other sources by six to nine months of age, and may begin to require calories in addition to breast milk during this timeframe as well. In addition, some babies not started on solids by nine months or later may reject solid foods when offered.

Most babies will develop an interest in food between four and six months. This is the best time to start introducing solids. This is a developmental milestone, and signals that he is ready to begin the next stage of his life, exploring the wonder that is food. By the end of the first year, your baby will be taking 3 meals a day and one or two snacks, sitting at the table, eating table food and drinking from a cup. What a concept!

Breastfed babies tend to digest solid foods better and earlier than bottle-fed babies, because breast milk contains enzymes that help digest fats, proteins and starch. In addition, breastfed babies are exposed to a wide variety of tastes, since the flavors of many foods you eat pass into her milk. So they may more readily accept a variety of food offerings.

BEGINNING SOLIDS

When you are starting solids, most parents offer a cereal (such as rice or oatmeal) first, because it can be mixed with breast milk or formula, and therefore has a familiar flavor. The order in which you introduce foods, however, is a matter of choice. It is a good idea to introduce less allergenic foods first, to determine if your baby is highly sensitive, and to introduce one food at a time in the beginning, avoiding salt and other spices. If your baby does not like cereal, try something else. If the baby reaches for the potato on your plate, and he is tolerating foods well, it is fine to give him a little taste, and you can mash some up if he likes it.

Offer your baby the foods that he is interested in, as long as they are not a choking hazard or likely to be allergenic. Common allergens that you should avoid at first are nuts and nut pastes, beans, citrus fruits, strawberries, chocolate, corn, soy (unless your baby is on soy formula), eggs, and wheat. Egg yolks can be introduced at nine months, and egg whites at a year. For the other “no no” foods, use your judgment. If you have a family history of allergy or allergy-related conditions, such as hives, eczema, or asthma, you may want to hold off on these foods until a year, and chocolate and peanuts until age two, but if your baby has tolerated other foods well, introducing small amounts of wheat (after seven to ten months) and other likely allergens can happen earlier. If your baby reacts to something new, take it off his list for a couple of months and try it again with your doctor’s permission. Many food allergies in babies are outgrown fairly quickly.

Don’t worry too much about how much your baby eats, as long as he is tolerating his food well and getting adequate milk. Babies of this age will not overeat, and they will let you know when they want more. Past six months of age, soft foods do not need to be pureed — mashing with a fork is all that is necessary. Relax, feed the baby at your mealtimes, and as he becomes a more accomplished eater of solid foods, offer a greater variety of foods at a sitting.

The easiest way to provide your baby with iron after about five or six months is from meat. Infant cereal has iron, but it may be poorly absorbed, and can cause the baby to be constipated. Using a manual or electric food grinder at this time can be helpful, because it may be a while before your baby can chew meat.

There is no reason to introduce vegetables before fruit, unless you prefer it. Breast milk is far sweeter than fruit; so don’t worry that the baby will take vegetables better if they are introduced before fruit. Your baby will develop likes and dislikes regardless of the order in which you introduce new foods.

RELAX AND LET YOUR BABY BE THE BOSS

Many babies will, as they reach eight or nine months of age, become pickier about what and how they are fed. Your baby may want to feed himself. Offering small pieces of soft finger-foods is fine at this stage. Pull up the rug or put down a tarp and do deep breathing exercises, but respect his autonomy and worry about the mess later.

Feel free to respect your baby’s likes and dislikes, and remember that avoiding power struggles and stress regarding eating is the best way to ensure your baby will be a good eater (although temperament controls in this regard). There is no one food that is essential to your babies health (except the milk feeding). If there’s a food you prepare often that you would like him to enjoy, offer it occasionally, but don’t make it a big deal.

OFFERING SOLIDS OR THE BREAST FIRST

Many parent worry about offering the milk feeding or the solid foods first. To start out, if your baby is hungry, offer the breast or bottle first. This will make him more relaxed during his initial solid food adventures. Your baby doesn’t know that this stuff is food yet! After that, if breastfeeding or bottle-feeding and the introduction of solid foods both are going well, it is not necessary that they be provided in a specific order.

As long as the baby continues to take four to six milk feedings a day (three to four feedings by nine months, about 24-32oz of formula, if bottle feeding), there is no reason that a baby needs both breast or bottle and solids every time he eats. As the baby approaches one year, the milk feedings may drop off to two to four a day. You may also offer a cup of water during solid feedings, since many babies enjoy water at this stage. Don’t bother with sugary juices if your baby is happy with water: there’s plenty of time for those later! If your baby is breastfed, tap water (filtered if necessary) will provide your baby with some fluoride, which can help prevent cavities (juice does the opposite, of course).

Most of all, enjoy your baby’s discovery of food, and make mealtime as fun and relaxing as possible. Your job is to provide your baby with healthy food offerings, and his job is to eat what and how much he likes. It’s one of those small but important steps along his long path to independence.

Sources:

Starting Solid Foods, c. 2000, Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC, www.keepkidshealthy.com.

Child of Mine: Feeding With Love and Good Sense, c. 2000, Ellyn Satter, Bull Publishing Company.

Handling Unwanted Advice

One of the biggest challenges facing new parents is the deluge of advice forthcoming from parents, friends, and everyone who’s ever had a child, or has even observed a child once or twice.

We’ve all experienced it:

  • “You really have to stop picking him up whenever he cries, or you’re going to spoil him.”
  • “She’s hungry: maybe you don’t make enough milk. Why don’t you give her a bottle and see if she takes it?”
  • “He’s not dressed warmly enough. When my babies were small, I always made sure they had on three layers of clothing.” etc., etc.

How do you these often unwanted intrusions make you feel? For many new parents, unsolicited advice makes them angry. You have no doubt made your decisions about how to care for your baby very carefully, and it is upsetting to have another person second-guessing your decisions. It can also make you feel uncertain about your own decisions, or hurt because you see another person doubting your parenting ability.

Don’t Take it Personally

It is important to recognize that most people who offer advice do not intend to hurt your feelings or make you angry. They are only trying to help. They probably truly believe that taking their advice will benefit you and/or your baby. So take a deep breath, and try not to take it personally. It’s not about you.

That being said, you do not owe it to anybody to listen too carefully to their unsolicited advice. You have many resources available to you to make parenting decisions. You most likely have already considered the point of view they are expressing, and have decided after careful consideration to do things differently. This is your baby. You are the parent, and you are the decision-maker when it comes to parenting your baby.

Distinguish Between Advice-Givers

So, how to respond? Well, it depends upon who is giving the advice.

If the advice-giver is someone you don’t have an intimate relationship with: the dry-cleaner, the clerk at Starbucks, etc., don’t feel you have to respond by justifying yourself or getting into an involved discussion. If you are rude to the person, however, you’re going to be left with a sour feeling, so keep it as positive as possible. A smile and a “thanks for your input” can end the conversion quickly. Remember, it’s not your job to educate the masses or your responsibility to justify yourself.

If you do find yourself in the midst of a debate in this situation, you can end it with “I guess I just have to figure it out by myself.”

It’s more complicated, of course, when you’re talking about your mother or mother-in-law, your best friend, etc. In these cases, it often helps to remind yourself of the good qualities of this person. They probably just want to help you out, however misguided their advice. And even if you disagree completely with the advice-giver, try to see if you can see the issue from their point of view. Many of our mothers were discouraged from breast-feeding or holding the baby all the time. Perhaps your approach makes them feel their mothering was inadequate. They believe they did the right thing, so it may be hard to see you doing it differently. They have developed opinions from other sources, without considering the information you have. So, if unwanted advice is ongoing, you may want to ask questions to understand their point of view and gain a better perspective.

Sometimes it helps to share articles or portions of books you’ve read, to help the advice-giver understand that attitudes and expert opinion has changed on many of these practices. This is one way to help them understand that you are not merely rejecting their approach out-of-hand.

Be Confident and Keep Your Boundaries Clear

Bottom line, you are the parent here. It is often hard to feel confident about your parenting abilities when this is your first baby. But you are undoubtedly doing a wonderful, thoughtful job of it. And while your opinions and attitudes may evolve over time, you must at all times do what you feel is right for you and your baby. Having full confidence in yourself and your decisions is especially important when you’re responding to advice from others.

Keep your boundaries clear. Do not feel you need to engage in debates, arguments, discussions, etc. with advice-givers. You do not have to justify your opinion, because you are the parent of your baby. If you are interested in what they have to say, ask them about it, without defending or justifying your own point of view.

If you really want the person to understand your approach, explain your perspective briefly, and acknowledge that there are many “right” ways care for a baby. Let them know that you have chosen yours for a reason. But don’t expect to be able to convince others that you are right. They are entitled to their point of view, and you will drive yourself crazy if you try to get their approval. If you want some affirmation, talk to a like-minded friend (or your mom’s group!) instead.

To end this kind of discussion, it sometimes helps to say: “I love you and really appreciate your input, but we need to make our own decisions about what is right for our baby. I’ll let you know when we need some advice.” And believe it or not, you may just want help or advice from this person when it comes to teething, baby-proofing, toilet-training, etc., so don’t knock those advice-givers completely!