The New Father. Armin A. Brott
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in his world. He’ll stare at a new object for much longer than a familiar one, and his favorite things to look at are high-contrast black-and-white patterns and faces. By the end of this month, he’ll probably follow an object moving slowly by in front of him.
• According to psychiatrist Peter Wolff, an object exists for a baby only as “something to suck, or something to see, or something to grasp, but not as something to grasp and to see at the same time.”
Verbally
• As his vocal chords mature, your baby will expand his collection of animal sounds to include some small, throaty, and incredibly cute cooing noises.
• He is already beginning to differentiate between language and the other kinds of noise he hears throughout the day. He may respond to voices—especially your partner’s and yours—by turning toward them. And he really enjoys being spoken to.
• Still, his main form of using his vocal chords will be to cry—something he’ll do for as much as three hours a day.
Emotionally/Socially
• Don’t expect many hints from your baby about what he’s thinking—most of the time his expression is pretty blank. However, he loves being held and rocked, and may stare intently at you (actually, he’s looking at the outside edges of your face) for 15–20 seconds or so before being distracted by an insect flying by or a light being turned on or off.
• Not quite ready for the cocktail circuit, your baby is probably sleeping 16–20 hours a day. In fact, he may use sleep as a kind of self-defense mechanism, shutting down his systems when he gets overstimulated.
• He’s starting to form an emotional attachment to and feelings of trust for the people who care for him.
• He may cry as a way of demanding more attention or in protest at being overloaded with attention.
WHAT’S GOING ON WITH YOUR PARTNER
Physically
• Reduction in lochia (the normal, bloody vaginal discharge that happens after birth). Color will change from red to pink to brown to clear.
• Reduced pain around the C-section incision or episiotomy.
• Breasts may become engorged with milk. This may make them feel (and actually be) enormous.
• Lots of sweating and frequent urination as her body continues to eliminate excess fluids any way it can. Fortunately, her bladder control is improving, and any incontinence will probably be gone within another few weeks. A few hundred daily Kegels (tightening of the muscles used to hold back urination) will help the process along.
• Some continued hair loss.
• Stretch marks, if she had them at all, will start fading, as will the darker pigmentation around her nipples and that odd dark line that starts at her belly button and goes south.
Emotionally
• Continued irritability and moodiness. Some of this is hormonal, some is brought on by sleep deprivation and/or pain.
• She may experience all sorts of conflicting emotions. Some are the same as the ones you may have been feeling (like joy, possible disappointment about the way the birth went, and worries about what kind of a mother she’s going to be). Others will be her very own (such as emptiness or sadness that the pregnancy is over, guilt if she doesn’t love the baby as much as she thought she would or thought she was supposed to).
• She may feel confused, absent minded, forgetful, and generally like she’s losing her mind.
• Depression or the blues (see pages 62–63 for more)
WHAT YOU’RE GOING THROUGH
Bonding with the Baby
In one of the earliest studies of father-infant interaction, my colleague Ross Parke made a discovery that shocked a lot of traditionalists: fathers were just as caring, interested, and involved with their infants as mothers were, and they held, touched, kissed, rocked, and cooed at their new babies with at least the same frequency as mothers did. The sooner and more frequently dads have a chance to spend time with their babies, the more quickly the bonding process will start. Generally speaking, men who attend their babies’ birth bond slightly faster than those who don’t. Same goes for men who cut the baby’s umbilical cord vs. those who don’t. But if you weren’t able to be there for the birth, don’t worry—being there doesn’t guarantee attachment, and not being there doesn’t automatically interfere with it.
Attachment and Bonding Are Not the Same Thing
While there’s no question that bonding with your baby is an important goal, it’s essentially a one-way street: you establish a relationship with the infant and don’t get much back. But attachment is more of a two-way street: you and the baby establish a relationship with each other.
This relationship isn’t even close to being equal, the way it is between adults. It is, however, balanced in some very interesting and delicate ways. Basically, it works like this: as you learn to read your baby’s signals and satisfy his needs in an appropriate way, he learns to view you as a reliable and responsive person—someone he can count on in times of trouble. And he’ll find some way (babies always do) to get you the message that you’re needed and wanted.
Meanwhile, babies who have two-way “chats” with their parents come to prefer them to any of the other adults around who might be able to satisfy a need or two. Over time, this kind of preference (based on feelings of security and the parents’ reliability) develops into self-confidence and becomes the foundation for all of the growing baby’s future relationships.
But What If I Don’t Bond Right Away?
If you haven’t established an instant bond with your baby, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. In fact, it turns out that 25–40 percent of new parents—mothers and fathers—say that their first response to the baby is “indifference.” Putting it in slightly stronger terms, researcher Katharyn May says, “This bonding business is nonsense. We’ve sold parents a bill of goods. They believe that if they don’t have skin-to-skin contact within the first fifteen minutes, they won’t bond. Science just doesn’t show that.”
This really makes more sense to me than the love-at-first-sight kind of bonding you hear so much about. And anyway, there’s no evidence whatsoever that your relationship with or feelings for your child will be any less loving than if you’d fallen head over heels in love in the first second. So, just take your time. Don’t pressure yourself, and don’t think for a second that you’ve failed as a father.
If your baby is very sick, the situation may be a little different. Some dads whose babies were born very prematurely or are in intensive care, deliberately (though subconsciously) try to keep some psychological distance between themselves and the babies. They feel that they have to be strong for their partner and that not bonding with the baby will somehow protect them from the pain they’ll experience if something bad happens. It won’t. In fact, establishing a close physical and psychological bond with your baby can actually improve his chances for survival. So jump in. The sooner you hold your baby, the sooner those feelings of love work their way to the surface.
My Baby Doesn’t Love Me
For about the first six to eight weeks of life, your baby probably won’t give you much feedback about how you’re doing as a father: you’ll tell your best jokes, make your funniest faces, but he won’t smile, laugh, or react to you in any noticeable way. In fact, just about all he will do is cry. This can easily make you feel unloved and, surprisingly often, a need to “get even” with the baby by deliberately withholding your own love from him.
As the grown-up, it’s your job to nip this destructive cycle in the bud before it gets out of hand. So if you find yourself feeling unloved or unappreciated by your newborn, here are a few things you can do:
• Change your perspective. Although your