The New Father. Armin A. Brott
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neighbors, clergy person, or even a parental-stress hotline. If your baby is a real crier, keep these numbers handy and see the section on anger (pages 270–73).
• Don’t take it personally. Your baby isn’t deliberately trying to antagonize you. It’s all too easy to let your frustration at this temporary situation wear away at your confidence in your abilities as a parent, and it could even permanently interfere with your relationship with your child.
Helping Older Kids Adjust to Their New Sibling
Handling your older children’s reactions to their new baby brother or sister requires an extra touch of gentleness and sensitivity. Kids often start out wildly excited at their new status as big brother or big sister, but most will have some adjustment problems later on—as soon as they realize that the new kid is going to be sticking around for a while.
Some react with anger and jealousy. They may cry, have tantrums, and even try to hit the baby. They need to know immediately and in no uncertain terms that you understand how they feel and that it’s okay to be mad and talk about how mad they are. It’s even okay to draw hateful pictures or beat up a doll. But it’s absolutely not okay to do anything to hurt the baby.
Others may react by regressing. My oldest daughter, for example, was completely potty trained before her sister was born, but began wetting her bed again a few weeks after we brought the baby home. Some kids start talking baby talk again, suck their thumbs, need more bedtime stories and cuddling, or make demands for attention that you may not be able to satisfy.
Here are some ways you can help your older children cope with the big changes in their world:
• Get them involved from the very start. My oldest daughter stayed at my parents’ house while my wife was in labor with our second daughter. But as soon as the new baby was born, we called and gave her the chance to break the news to everyone else that she was a big sister. We also had her come to the hospital right away (even though it was past her bedtime), where she got to hold her new sister “by herself.”
If your older child comes to the hospital, keep the visit short. It won’t take long for the initial excitement to wear off. And be sure to let him spend some time visiting with Mom too. He may have been worried about her, and seeing her in a hospital bed, possibly with IV tubes hanging out of her arms, can be a scary sight.
• Don’t push too hard. Letting the older sibling help diaper, bathe, feed, push the stroller, and clothe the new baby is a great idea if it helps bring him into the process by making him feel that the baby is “his.” But don’t force the older child to get too involved. It can make him feel as though you want him around only to wait on the more important new baby, which can make him resent the little interloper even more.
• Prepare them for reality. The first lesson is that infants aren’t a whole lot of fun to have around for a little while. All they do is poop and cry and eat. They can’t even play any games. It might be helpful to show your big kids their own baby pictures and talk to them about how they were when they were young and how you cared for them. Also, before going out as a family, warn your older child that everyone’s going to be oohing and aahing over the baby, and he may feel a little left out.
• Model good behavior. Show your older kids the right ways to hold and behave with a new baby. Practicing with a doll is a great, risk-free way to get the hang of it—particularly the all-important head-supporting part. If you’re bottle-feeding, show the older kids the right way to hold a bottle and how to recognize when the baby’s had enough. Never, ever leave the baby unattended with an older sibling (unless you’ve got a teenager), and make sure the older child is always sitting down when holding the baby.
• Be patient. If your older child is angry or jealous, encourage him to talk about his feelings. If he’s having trouble articulating them, you might offer a few suggestions (“Are you mad that that the baby is getting more attention than you are?”) or have him draw pictures of how he feels. If your child is regressing, resist the urge to demand that he “grow up.” Kids who adopt baby behavior are usually doing so because they figure that being helpless is a good way to get people to pay attention. So instead of snapping, point out some of the big-kid things they get to do that babies don’t, such as using a fork and knife, riding a trike, putting on their own shoes, washing their own faces, going down a slide by themselves …
• Spend some extra time with them. Your older child really needs to know that you still love him just as much as before. So make sure you get some private time together reading, going for walks, drawing, talking, seeing movies, doing things that are “for big kids only” (babies can’t eat ice cream—ha!), or just hanging out. And make sure the big kid gets to spend some private time with Mom too.
• Teach them about safety rules. Your older children are probably going to want to hold and carry their new sibling. If you’re going to allow it, they have to understand the proper way to hold a baby (supporting the head at all times), and they must go along with your rules about the whens and wheres. Children under about twelve shouldn’t be allowed to carry a baby up or down stairs. And children under nine or ten should do all their baby holding sitting down.
Safety First
It may seem strange to talk about safety at a time when your baby is practically immobile and can’t possibly get into any serious trouble. But even at this age babies can do the most surprising things. Here are a few precautions you should take now to start making your home a little safer:
• Avoid beanbags. Most beanbag chairs and baby rests have been taken off the market, but there are still plenty of them in garages all over the country. There is more than a coincidental link between beanbags and suffocation deaths.
• Never leave the baby’s car seat—with the baby in it, of course—balanced on anything. A flailing arm or leg, even a sneeze, might move the car seat enough for it to tip over.
• Put together a good first aid kit. You’ll find a list of items on page 204.
• Take an infant CPR class. Instruction is usually available fairly inexpensively at your local Red Cross or YMCA.
• Take a quick look at the safety measures described in later chapters (pages 199–205, for example). Start putting together the materials you’ll need and get into the habit of doing such things as pointing pot handles toward the rear of the stove.
First Smiles
WHAT’S GOING ON WITH THE BABY
Physically
• By the end of this month, many of your baby’s innate reflexes will have disappeared. Sad but true. Nevertheless, she still holds her arms and legs away from her body, and there’s plenty of twitching to go around.
• Lying on her tummy, she can now easily hold her head up at a 45-degree angle. And when she’s sitting (a position she probably prefers by now—even though she can’t get there or stay there by herself), she’s a lot better at keeping her head straight.
• Your baby is now beginning to reach for objects. Grasping and unfolding her hands, which were once purely reflex actions, are slowly becoming voluntary. If she manages to grab something, she may be able to hold on to it for a few seconds before dropping it.
• The neurons in your baby’s brain that govern vision are going through a major growth spurt. As a result, her vision is improving, and she’s paying a lot more attention to what’s going on in her world. And because you’re such an interesting sight, she’ll follow you with her eyes everywhere you go.
Intellectually
• As her brain develops, your baby will appreciate more complex patterns. Instead of the simple, relatively motionless outline of your face, she now prefers your eyes and mouth, which are constantly