Zero to Five. Tracy Cutchlow
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friends or lovers occasionally, but with a child you get to feel it several times a day in such a pure sense. It makes you realize that’s what’s most important in life—our connections as humans.
Maybe this is why veteran parents forget to tell us first-timers how hard parenting can be. If so, it’s a pretty good reason.
Take a moment to imagine your child as an adult.
What kind of work do you hope she is doing? What values do you hope he has? What life skills? What kind of relationship does your baby have with you, family, friends, and partners?
At first it might be difficult to imagine your baby being anything but a baby. It was for my husband and me. We did this exercise with Seattle-based parent coach Nita Talwar. Busy just keeping our heads above water, we spent more time worrying about baby’s next nap than pondering what our child would be like twenty years from now. Quickly, though, I could see the power of looking ahead.
“It’s easier to get where you want to go,” Nita pointed out, “if you have a map.”
Stating the skills and character traits that you value helps you prioritize how you want to parent. My husband and I each put “good communicator; articulate” on our lists—not surprising, given that we’re both writers and editors. I’m naturally a listener rather than a talker, but I overrode my quiet tendencies to talk to our baby a lot (see page 48). If we hadn’t stopped to think about what we value, I might have let that slide.
Which brings up another point: you might have to grow, too
Do you hope your daughter has a loving, healthy relationship with her partner? Then you’ll need to show her that kind of relationship. Do you hope she has empathy and respect for others? Then you’ll need to model that.
Do you hope your son values helping others? Then you’ll need to help others. Do you hope he knows how to solve problems in a calm way without being hurtful? Then you’ll have to do so.
What image do you want your baby to have of what a good father or mother is? Then . . . you get the idea.
This might require making some changes in your life.
No one wants to hear that, right? Some days I think: I’m just doing the best I can, based on who I am. Other days, I’m surprised by my desire to become a better person for my baby.
TRY THIS
During any given wonderful or terrible moment, you think, “I’ll remember this forever.” You won’t. That would require remembering nearly every single day of baby’s life. If you’re like me, you can barely remember what happened yesterday.
So, since pregnancy, I’ve kept a “One Line a Day” journal. One line per day is just about the right level of commitment. OK, one line every few days. Mine is a five-year journal: each page is devoted to one date, with space to write about each of the five years.
It’s neat to be reminded of what was happening on a certain date in previous years—and to wonder what my baby will glean from the journal when she’s all grown up.
Write down the values and life skills you hope your child exhibits as an adult, twenty or thirty years from now. How will you need to change in order to model those things?
The most important thing you can do with your newborn is to be sensitive to baby’s needs. Respond when baby tries to engage with you. Match those smiles, coos, and gazes. Comfort those cries. Cuddle up, skin to skin. Fall in love.
Babies’ minds are working, working, testing hypotheses, and making use of an incredible set of innate cognitive abilities.
A newborn less than one hour old can imitate. Even though he’s never seen a face before, including his own, a baby is born knowing how to stick out his tongue at you, if you stick out yours.
Babies shun the bad guy. Babies 6 and 10 months old watched a show in which one toy helps another toy up a hill. A third toy pushes it back down the hill. The researchers then brought in the helper toy and the hinderer toy for the babies to play with. Babies were much more likely to reach for the helper toy.
Babies can predict an action. When 9-month-olds reach for an object, their brain’s motor region is activated. And when 9-month-olds simply watch an adult reach for an object, that same motor region is activated. Watching the adult a second time, the babies’ motor region activates just prior to the adult reaching—in effect predicting the adult’s action.
Babies can make predictions based on probability. Infants 10 to 12 months old were tested to see whether they preferred a pink lollipop or a black one. Next, babies were shown two jars: one with more pink lollipops and one with more black. Researchers then plucked a lollipop from each jar (shielded now, so baby couldn’t tell which color lollipop was chosen) and covered each lollipop with a cup. About 80 percent of the time, the infants chose the cup most likely to contain their favorite color of lollipop.
Do something one time, and a 14-month-old can repeat it a week later in the same context. Researchers created a box that would light up when touched. As babies watched, experimenters leaned forward from the waist and touched their foreheads to the box. Brought back to the lab a week later, two-thirds of babies remembered. They leaned forward and touched their own foreheads to the box. The researchers tried longer delays, too—and some babies remembered four months later.
Babies will give you broccoli. An 18-month-old understands that your wants might differ from hers. In front of the child, an experimenter ate raw broccoli, making a happy face (“Mmm!”), and then goldfish crackers, making a disgusted face (“Yuck!”). Then the experimenter held out her hand to the child and said, “Could you give me some?” Even though they prefer crackers, 18-month-olds gave her raw broccoli—what the experimenter said she liked. The experiment also was done with 15-month-olds. Babies at that age always hand over crackers, which is what they like.
Babies are taking statistics. Babies take in everything from the environment around them—sounds, visual scenes, language—and calculate the frequency with which something occurs. In the case of language, babies use these statistics to determine which letter sounds to continue discriminating between and which to drop.
Babies are designed to learn. Babies absorb information from many sources at once, lighting up a host of neurotransmitters—many more than adult brains have—that leap into action for rapid learning. Then, like scientists, babies and young children create hypotheses and run experiments about the world and about human nature. Researcher Alison Gopnik calls young children “the research and development division of the human species.”
SEE WHAT BABY CAN DO
I’m continually impressed by the things my baby can do, say, remember, and repeat. Before babies can talk, you tend to assume they don’t understand anything you’re saying. They do. Dressing my baby in a shirt at 10 months old, I asked her to put her arm in the sleeve—and she did. When baby started talking, it was too late to take back some of the things my husband and I had said to her. “Butt balm for the butt!” she’d repeat during diaper changes.
If I give baby enough time, patiently waiting instead of jumping in to help, she’s often able to twist on a lid, snap a buckle, find a towel and wipe up a spill, or put away an item before moving on to the next thing. At 20 months old, I was surprised to learn she could finish the sentences of favorite books, if I paused. Reading