TUMMY TIME

Since the “back to sleep’ movement was introduced babies have been spending more time on their backs. Think about the day, sleeping on back, moving to car seat, on back, then to bouncer chair, back against chair, then in the carrier, again on back. This means that baby is spending much of the day and night on the back. One consequence of this has been an increase in positional plagiocephaly which is a fancy word for a flat or misshapen head. This condition does not affect brain function and can be corrected by using a specially designed helmet during the first year of life but prevention is the best option. Prevention involves being sure that baby experiences various different positions during the day. First, instead of using the bouncer chair or the carrier, you can use a wearable baby carrier to move around with your baby. Secondly, tummy time needs to be included in your routines. Tummy time is important for baby’s physical development as well. Tummy time helps baby strengthen back muscles and control head and neck muscles needed for later crawling, sitting and walking. Tummy time is just what it says, spending time on the tummy. This time should be while baby is awake (see above regarding “back to ‘sleep”) and alert. It should be at least 30 minutes a day but the more the better.

Here are activities to encourage tummy time.

Activity  1. In the very first month, you can start tummy time by placing the baby on the tummy over your lap or on your chest as you lie back (comfortably on the couch with your head on the pillows so your back is at about a 45 degree angle). This should be for a few seconds or minutes depending on the baby. Some babies can hold their head up right away, others do not.  That is all normal but do not give up if your baby does not seem to enjoy it. Repeat the activity throughout the day for a short time each time.  Increase the time as baby gets stronger. Even when baby is bigger, they enjoy lying on your chest as you lay back because they have the contact with you. Talk to and look at your baby and he/she will try to hold his/her head up to look at your face.

Activity 2. As baby grows, place him/her on a clean surface such as a play mat or a blanket. A small blanket roll can be placed at about the baby’s nipple level to help keep the head up. The arms need to be over the roll towards the head.  You need to stay down on the floor too. When baby gets tired can no longer hold the head up, it is time to pick him/her up.

Activity 3.  Place baby on a blanket or mat on the floor on the tummy and lie down on your tummy so you are face to face with baby. Talk or sing to baby. There is nothing baby wants to look at more than your face. This is a good activity to do with older children. Have the child lie across from baby on their own tummy. Ask the child to sing a song or tell a short story to baby or just call him/her by name.

Activity 4. Again on the mat or blanket, place a standing mirror in front of baby and lie beside him/her on the mat. Point to baby in the mirror.

Activity 5.  Place baby on tummy on mat clean blanket on floor.  Gently roll baby toward side and then back to tummy. This activity should be started when baby can hold his own head up for a few minutes. It helps to sing a little song with this activity.

                       http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/glennon-melton/dont-carpe-diem_b_1206346.html                                                                                                                        

        Here is an article by a mother of young children. She is pointing out that it is not easy to raise young children and that she gets irritated by older women who come up and say “Enjoy them now. It goes by so fast”. She wonders if they remember what it was like raising children. I need to be the first to apologize for this. I do that all the time. It is a little like labor. It hurts but you don’t think about the pain when it is over and you are holding the baby in your arms (and true I have never heard of a labor nurse telling someone to enjoy it because it will be over soon). It is not a case of bad memory. I remember standing in line in the supermarket with a screaming baby , gum in the hair, bed time struggles and days when nothing went right and all that. It is more a matter of perspective. Now that my children are grown, I only think of the good memories. There is no point in dwelling on the hard stuff and it all turned out all right in the end. Raising young children is hard and raising teenagers even harder (though this author has not gone there yet) but it is also rewarding. You can only to do the best you can and not take it personally when your child is not behaving like you planned they would behave. They seem to start out with minds of their own… and that is a good thing.  One should not want Stepford  Children. When your children are grown, maybe with children of their own, you fondly remember the time when they were small and it seems like it passed in no time. Well it did. It was only 2 decades of your life (out of the 5 or 6 that you have lived (she specifically mentions older women).  Yes, they are still your children, but they no longer fight to cuddle with you or look to find you first in a crowd.  They don’t beg you to play with them or push them on the swing. They no longer live in your house and you may not even see them every day. You miss the opportunity to play with them and wonder where the time went. You wonder why you did not spend more time with them when they were younger (no matter how much time you did spend with them.)  So forgive us for trying to remind you to find the joy now, yes even at the supermarket when one is running off and the other is taking all the gum out of the rack in front of the cash register and you are already late for an appointment. We remember how hard it was but we are happy that we had that little time with them and want you to know that you will be too.  You are right. Maybe we should be more sympathetic. I will try in the future. What should I say?  “I know it is hard now, but just think, in 10 years, you will wish you were back here.”???

What I am trying

So, I am getting the hang of this blogging. I have decided to put milestones and activities on pages based on the age of the baby. The page for the newborn is already up and I am working on what you can see and do with a one month old. I am going to post new information and comments on articles and some articles of my own in the blog part. Things related to the care of your baby.I am working getting the links right so I apologize if the links do not send you where we are trying to go.

I also need to note here about the use of pronouns. Our pronouns in English are the only things that note gender, thankfully, but that presents the problem of using he or she or it or they or some combination like his/her when speaking generally. I have decided to just use the pronouns randomly for different paragraphs. Of course, if I am relating a story about a specific baby, the pronoun will be correct, otherwise, you can adjust the "he" or "she" to be appropriate for your own baby and I will not use "it".

THE FIRST MEETING, LABOR ROOM AND THEN HOME!

Ok, You have just gone through labor and delivery, always an interesting experience, and now you are handed your new baby. He probably does not look like you imagined because and he probably does not act like you expected. He is himself. Then, you go home with the baby. Now, what? One thing that surprised me was that I did not feel instantly “in love” with my little bundles of joy. I was tired and nervous and dealing with a stranger, who did look a little like me. I thought maybe something was wrong with me. Talking to other recent mothers taught me that it is not uncommon to feel  that way. It often takes a while to get to know this new little person, not to mention that you need to adjust to your new role, which can be scary. In truth, it was not long before I could not remember ever not loving this baby more than anything else in the world, but it was a process to get there. I was more comfortable with my younger child because I did not have the fear that something was wrong with me added to all the other stresses (not to mention odd sleeping hours), but still it was a process. I wish someone had told me this was normal before I had my baby. The problem is that you forget this feeling soon afterwards (like labor pains,) and forget to tell other mothers that it is ok.  Fathers probably go through a similar experience but are even less likely to talk about it.

Your baby responds to you from the first and interacting with the baby is the best way to learn what she is like. Studies have been done that show that a newborn may recognize her parent’s voices, possibly even before birth. Researchers measured babies’ responses to their mother’s voice and to the voice of another  woman reading the same thing by measuring their heart rate. There was a difference in response indicating that the baby recognized the mother’s voice.   Another study showed that a baby recognizes her mother’s smell. When presented with a pad with breast milk from her mother and one from another woman the baby reacts more strongly to her mother’s. Your baby knows you and wants to interact with you and that is the best thing you can do in the first week. Look at her face as you feed her and as you talk to her, talk to her in a gentle voice about anything you want to, hold her in your arms, carry her as you walk around the house and soon you will know this little person better than anyone else.

References:

Mizuno, K. and others, 2004, Mother-Infant contact after delivery resulting in early recognition of own mother’s milk. Acta Paediatrics 93 (12): 1640-45