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Beauty in the details
Parenting by the book
Please procure for me, if possible, an excellent dissertation on the physical education of children published by M. Ballexserd of Geneva. I am about to become a father, and am thinking of how I can best fulfill my duties.
- from a letter by Jean Ranson to Swiss publishing house Société Typographique de Neuchâtel, Nov 29, 1777; quoted in The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History by Robert Darnton.
One thing I didn’t expect to encounter so much of during parenting is self-doubt. 5pm rolls around and baby is grizzling, but the moment he’s put in his cot he begins crying and thrashing around, and nothing you do helps. You lift, you carry, you sing, you sway, you walk, you stop walking, you try the cot again, you wish you had a ‘We are not murdering the baby!’ sign pinned to the front door, until he finally drifts off after a peak of screaming that leaves your ears ringing. You spend a minute or so watching the soft curves of his dozing, angelic face and then you sneak out of the room, miserably wondering what you’re doing wrong. After all, the babies in The Books don’t have days like this!
I love books. I find them immensely helpful. I like being able to consult experts from all over the world at the drop of a hat. But The Books are not always my friend. Sometimes when I go to them with my problem (Why does he only nap two or three times a day, for fifteen minutes at a time?!), they turn around and blame me. ‘You’re picking him up too much!’ they tut. ‘He should be on a schedule!’ Except for the ones which say, ‘You’re not picking him up enough! And schedules could be making things worse!’ HEY, Books, what’s the big idea? I come to you for help and you’re all blameblameblame and bickerbickerbicker.
Jean Ranson’s request above suggests I am not the first to try getting to grips with this parenting business via the printed word. The great parenting guru of the 18th century was the philosopher and novelist Rousseau, whose belief in the essential goodness of children and the necessity of lovingly fostering their virtues ran counter to previous paedagogical theories (which, judging by other chapters of the book, made enthusiastic use of physical chastisement). My reading in the current crop of popular parenting titles gives me the impression this ebb and flow of advice was mirrored over the past hundred years when Behaviourist theories of reinforcement, reward, and punishment dominated the first half of the 20th century, only to be critiqued and largely dismissed by child psychologists in the second half.
Inevitably then one wonders if the current advice is going to go out of fashion in similarly short order (two generations?). On reflection I tentatively think not, on the grounds that at least most modern advice is based on research rather than proceeding from ideology or experience (snarky quote popular among scientists: ‘The plural of anecdote is not data’). Which is not to say that everyone is in agreement (perish the thought!). There is a spectrum of sorts with the Sears’ hard-core attachment parenting theories at one end and various cry-it-out Schedulers at the other, with each side sniping at the other via unfair generalisations (the Sears don’t tell you to ‘wear your baby 24/7′; no one is suggesting you ignore a crying baby forever) and ecstatic encomiums from converts (‘We tried everything you suggested and it WORKED! Our child is now a calm happy attached independent self-confident obedient intelligent sleeping genius!’). Extra points if an anecdote manages to subtly skewer the opposing team.
So what to do? I remember a scene from the sitcom Mad About You in which Jamie despaired of the conflicting advice she was getting from all of the parenting books she’d been reading and Paul exclaimed, “Just keep the ones you agree with and throw out the rest.” Whatever you do has to ‘work’ for you — make you happy, make your baby happy (as far as possible! We are not murdering the baby…); make your lives together more managable, not less — and you’ll only discover what that is by measuring the suggestions against your instincts, ethics and experiences. No quick fixes for 5pm it seems, but no shortage of sympathy and advice either.
Six months
The little man
Six months ago today, a midwife looked at the CTG recording of my induced labour and exclaimed sympathetically, ‘Wow, you have really shit contractions.’ The laugh was just what I needed, because the triple-peaks of pain were indeed rather trying, and they only got worse from there.
Finn’s due date had come and gone a week before without a hint of his arrival, so on the 19th my husband and I collected our bags and took the tram down to the hospital (so different from the anxious dash I’d been expecting). Labour was induced by the application of a gel, and the first dose barely got the contractions started; the second dose at 3pm did the trick however, and there followed seven and a bit hours of me trying every pain-alleviation technique known to midwifery. Sitting on a gym ball, lying down, standing up, walking around, getting into a hot bath, getting out of the hot bath, hanging on to the top of the bed and emitting a sort of primal grunting scream… All of them helped a bit; my theory is that it’s actually the change from one method to another that helps more than the method itself. Of course by the second stage of labour nothing can distract you from your body’s determination to get that baby out, and you’re just hanging on for the ride.
Earlier in the day I was told an epidural was impossible because my red blood cell count was too low. They could have said it was because the moon was in Aries for all that meant to me, but it was a relief not to have to think about having a needle inserted in my spine. I did have a dose of a painkiller called Buscopan when I was 4cm dilated on the promise it would both promote dilation and help with the pain, but I couldn’t honestly say if it succeeded on either score. If it ‘took the edge off’ I can only observe that there was plenty of edge left.
My memories of labour are strobe-like flashes: of the first hospital room, lying on the bed having CTG scans taken; getting into the bath, which was such a relief at first and then, after a few more contractions, somehow unbearable; of the second stage starting and the urge to push taking over; of leaning on the side of the bed in the birthing room, my arms shaking with the effort; the sensation of Finn’s head crowning (just when you think things can’t possibly get any more uncomfortable…); Finn being born, and his pale little body lying on the mat below me, as I desperately asked ‘Is he okay? Is he okay?’ because when I looked at him he wasn’t moving. The relief when it’s all over..! Indescribable. And as I lay down on the bed exhausted, I remember thinking, ‘People do this more than once?!’
And now he’s six months old! Callou callay! His SIDS risk is reduced. He can roll over, and giggle, and make a noise like a sound effect from Jurassic Park (‘Veloci-Finnster’ or The Pterodactyl). On almost every outing a nice lady tells him how cute he is (“So eine Süsse!” if I’m hearing correctly). And most hours of most days I think I know what I’m doing.
Strine-y
Australia, despite its predilection for baby-talk – where else do you see burly men, covered in tattoos, with shaved heads and foot-long beards, say things like ‘The muzzies are biting, let’s get some stubbies and go watch some footy on the telly’?…
- The London Review of Books, ‘Romney, the Curse of the Trochee‘
Fair suck of the sauce bottle, cobber!*
Australian English abbreviations ending in ‘ee’ (if not ‘oh’) are not a form of “baby talk”. This is readily demonstrated by the fact that no one so addressed ever feels patronised or condescended to. In fact, they are an expression of solidarity— you would only talk in such a relaxed fashion to someone with whom you were well-acquainted or who was clearly of a friendly disposition, and never with someone whom you felt no affinity towards or were intimidated by. It has something in common therefore with ‘tu’ forms in French or ‘du/dich’ in German.
Also, it’s mozzies (= mosquitos), not muzzies.
Also, I trust the burly men are wearing Akubras and Drizabones whilst scratching the ears of the cattledogs standing on the backs of their utes. Or that they’re bushrangers!
* NB: No one ever says this.
Sleep and time
Babies do funny things to your sense of time. Getting up repeatedly at night seems to make the days shorter, rather than longer – a normal period of sleep punctuates life much more definitely, and without it the days run together in a manner quite confusing to memory.
Finn’s unpredictable napping habits mean any time he drifts off I go into high gear, running through chores in order of urgency (Still sleeping? Washing up! Still sleeping? Bolt to the laundry! Still sleeping? Lunch! etc). This makes me both more efficient and more tense, and sometimes I have to consciously relax and remind myself that the world is not going to end if the next task isn’t completed right now.
Before Finn was born I imagined I was going to write for an hour or so each day during his morning nap, reserving the afternoon nap period for chores. Quelle naîf, non? In order to be both fed and dressed I’ve been forced to prioritise the more mundane tasks of life. I carve out a little time after dinner for my blogging and e-mailing, when he sleeps for his longest period. Talking to other mums reveals very few babies match the napping schedule cheerfully presented in The Books (even the kind, sympathetic, unbossy ones), and attempting to alter their internal clocks (if so irregular a mechanism deserves the name) often doesn’t even work in the short term.
Looking back over the past few months, I realise Finn is gradually having more long naps than short ones, and more mornings and afternoons with naps than without them. My theory is that he’s learning to sleep—when, and for how long; how to fall asleep and how to stay asleep—and thus every long sleep period is something to appreciate, another step on the road to more settled hours. I don’t think it’s something that can be forced—I’ve certainly never figured out how to force myself to fall asleep (if only!), so I’m not sure how you’d do that to someone else—so I hope working with his rhythms rather than against them will work out in the end.
