Sometimes my baby just wants to be held.
At times, this is difficult for me because my baby is HEAVY. He was 15 lbs by six weeks. But he has all the same needs for closeness and cuddles and comfort as a teeny little baby.
A fierceness I didn't know I had sprang up inside me sometime during pregnancy. One of the places I was surprised to find myself directing this fierceness was at protecting his littleness.
"What a man child!" an acquaintance exclaimed upon seeing him when he was just a few weeks old. "No." I heard myself say. "He is a baby, a newborn baby. Please do not call him a man child." A larger than average baby, yes, but still, relatively speaking, a very tiny human being.
People often call their baby boys "little man". This phrase has always bugged me. Babies are not little men. They are little boys or little girls. No need to make them adults before their time. I think this is especially true for babies who are on the larger end of the growth charts. A friend who has a 3 year old who is big for his age shared with me a particular challenge - he looks older, so people expect him to behave like an older child. But he is still very young. It is important to me that he gets to be young, gets to be a baby. He is little! He is growing and looking bigger every day, but when I step back, I see that he is still very small. (Though I am sure there will be a time when he lets me know that he is no longer a little baby, but a BIG boy. And that will be lovely too!)
In general, I tend to place a lot of importance on word choice. Words have power. I am careful to not refer to my baby as "naughty" or "bad". Partly this is because an infant can't really be naughty or bad. (Though of course they can be fussy, wake often, and be very needy!)
I am careful about what words I use when I soothe him. I try not to say, "Don't cry." It's important to me that as he comes into consciousness memory as a child, that he knows that we value his emotions and he knows that crying is a healthy emotional expression. I try to say instead, "I am so sorry you are upset, but I am glad you are letting me know how you feel. I am going to keep trying to help you work through this and together we will figure out what you need." (Yes, it did feel a little funny to say that initially to a newborn.)
More than anything, I want to hold space for my child to be himself at each stage, and language is a part of that. I want to stretch out space for my child in the midst of rushing and hurrying. I want to be mindful of his pace.
I imagine my day as a series of scatter points across a graph. I am a line going from A to B to C to D, etc. What I want to do is take a metaphorical tent post and stretch the line from the ground up, creating a little more room. I try to do this by slowing down, with my actions and my words, and hoping we'll both linger here a little longer.
At times, this is difficult for me because my baby is HEAVY. He was 15 lbs by six weeks. But he has all the same needs for closeness and cuddles and comfort as a teeny little baby.
A fierceness I didn't know I had sprang up inside me sometime during pregnancy. One of the places I was surprised to find myself directing this fierceness was at protecting his littleness.
"What a man child!" an acquaintance exclaimed upon seeing him when he was just a few weeks old. "No." I heard myself say. "He is a baby, a newborn baby. Please do not call him a man child." A larger than average baby, yes, but still, relatively speaking, a very tiny human being.
People often call their baby boys "little man". This phrase has always bugged me. Babies are not little men. They are little boys or little girls. No need to make them adults before their time. I think this is especially true for babies who are on the larger end of the growth charts. A friend who has a 3 year old who is big for his age shared with me a particular challenge - he looks older, so people expect him to behave like an older child. But he is still very young. It is important to me that he gets to be young, gets to be a baby. He is little! He is growing and looking bigger every day, but when I step back, I see that he is still very small. (Though I am sure there will be a time when he lets me know that he is no longer a little baby, but a BIG boy. And that will be lovely too!)
In general, I tend to place a lot of importance on word choice. Words have power. I am careful to not refer to my baby as "naughty" or "bad". Partly this is because an infant can't really be naughty or bad. (Though of course they can be fussy, wake often, and be very needy!)
I am careful about what words I use when I soothe him. I try not to say, "Don't cry." It's important to me that as he comes into consciousness memory as a child, that he knows that we value his emotions and he knows that crying is a healthy emotional expression. I try to say instead, "I am so sorry you are upset, but I am glad you are letting me know how you feel. I am going to keep trying to help you work through this and together we will figure out what you need." (Yes, it did feel a little funny to say that initially to a newborn.)
More than anything, I want to hold space for my child to be himself at each stage, and language is a part of that. I want to stretch out space for my child in the midst of rushing and hurrying. I want to be mindful of his pace.
I imagine my day as a series of scatter points across a graph. I am a line going from A to B to C to D, etc. What I want to do is take a metaphorical tent post and stretch the line from the ground up, creating a little more room. I try to do this by slowing down, with my actions and my words, and hoping we'll both linger here a little longer.
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