Halloween night can be a carnival of chaos for babies and young children.

It’s no surprise that the odd sights, and sounds, a first encounter with a (possibly) itchy costume, along with the new tastes and aromas, can quickly overload each of your little one’s five senses.

To change Halloween from a potentially stressful experience, into a fun, familar one — try this:

• Create costumes from cast-off or outgrown clothing.  Ankle-high, threadbare blue jeans are exactly what the scarecrow ordered. Use pink felt and non-toxic glue to transform a comfy, familiar sweatsuit into a mouse costume.  When you use materials that your toddler recognizes, you make the costume more approachable.
• Don’t set aside costumes for trick-or-treating only.  Your young child might back out of the whole overwhelming event at the last minute. If she has had time to wear and enjoy her costume, at least you will have gotten your money’s worth out of it.  Extend the life of your child’s costume by expecting her to want to wear it long before the big day — and long afterwards.  Dressing up in new outfits (and new personalities!) will stimulate the development of pretend-play skills.
• Use non-toxic face paint instead of masks.  Your young child will feel more in control if she can breath freely and see well.  Okay…. that’s a physical safety issue, as well.
• Involve everyone.  If your bulldog borrows big sister’s tutu for the evening, little sister sees yet another example of how much fun it can be to play along.

For more tips on protecting your child’s emotional safety at Halloween time, see these previous articles: Emotional Safety At Halloween Time, Part I & Emotional Safety, Part 2.

For more tips on how to encourage your child’s natural love for pretend play, read: Stage Mother.

Here’s how to make the experience less intimidating, and help your child enjoy Halloween on her own terms:

• Allow only non-threatening imagery for your family’s costumes.  Vampires are popular among teens, not toddlers.  Help older children to develop their empathy for a smaller sibling’s point of view.  Younger children sometimes just don’t understand that everything will be back to normal by morning — the here-and-now looms too large.
• Always accompany your children as they trick-or-treat.  Older siblings are too distracted to be entrusted with (burdened by) the care of an unpredictable novice on free candy night.  Ironically, the closer you are, the more independent the younger ones will feel.
• Provide authentic choices.  Some children participate by observing.  Some prefer to take small risks before fully trying out a new activity.  If that means she wants to wear the cat costume, sans tail — or the tail without the rest of the costume — so be it.  If the little lady wants to man the candy bowl, encourage that level of participation — she’ll have a front row seat to the show outside her door.

Yesterday’s blog post:  Emotional Safety At Halloween Time, Part I

Autumn brings families lovely weather, festivals, and other exciting activities.  But at times, Halloween can be a little too exciting for your baby or young child.

An infant who has just discovered the joys of stranger anxiety is in no mood to put up with a bunch of folks who look even stranger than usual for a few days in October.

Keep reading to see what you can do to help your child weather this season.

1.  Talk.

Prepare your child for potentially frightening events in advance by sitting down to read Halloween-themed books together, or watching high-quality television programs that show examples of safe, fun, Halloween activities.  Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang always have some problem-solving skills to share.  Clifford (the big, red, dog of literary fame) has an adventure on Halloween night that your own family pet might aspire to (check out Norman Bridwell’s classic book, Clifford’s Halloween).

2.  Then, listen.

If your child expresses fear or apprehension, respect his boundaries.  Stern warning, parents:  if you downplay his concerns, or nudge him to overcome his reluctance, he loses a valuable opportunity to learn how to protect himself from harm — real or imagined. He needs to build up self-care muscle for that someday when he chooses his teenage friends, dares to be different, or has to break the news to you that he’s going to clown college, not Cornell (see? This Halloween stuff can go too far!)

More tomorrow on how to treat this tricky time of year…..

Emotional Safety, Part 2

Some babies need constant hugs.

And sometimes Mommy just needs baby to sleep.  For a little longer then she did yesterday.  Please?

You and your baby want the same thing: contentment.  For baby, the ultimate contentment, the ultimate hug, was what she experienced when she lived in her own apartment, (aka “the womb”).  Since your newborn can’t go “home” again, her new neighbors (aka “family”) will just have to find ways to help her settle in until she learns how to comfort herself.

Swaddling a baby in a lightweight, preferably 100% natural-fiber blanket or sheet will help you both achieve your goals. Baby will feel safer and self-contained again.  Mom will be able to relax and trust the longer nap that baby drifts into.

As your baby adjusts to daily rhythms, relationships, and your cues (she’ll begin to react to the signals of meal time), she will also learn to associate comfort, then security, then a good sleep, with the very process of having you wrap her snugly.

Babies show up equipped with strategies and tools to help them survive.  Everything from way extra brain cells, to a willingness to suck the milk out a knuckle, to the Moro reflex, a mechanism that causes a new baby to flail her limbs (in search of balance? in an attempt to cling to a big person?) when startled by a feeling of falling or other sudden events.

Like I said, it’s a reflex — therefore, not entirely under your newborn’s control.  Babies have been known to wake themselves from an otherwise successful nap with twitches and involuntary movements.  Parents need to find that delicate balance between a snug swaddle and baby’s personal needs.  Some infants will find it tragically disruptive not to be able to access a hand or thumb for sucking (which is self-soothing, and should be encouraged).

The words “swaddle” and “swath” have the same Old English linguistic roots.  In agriculture, a swath is a strip of land that has been demarcated or cleared.  The ancients used strips of fabric to wrap around newborns, thereby binding babies’ arms to their torsos.  Modern updates of the swaddling method are obviously much safer than the possibilities of loosened fabrics strips and the potential dangers.

For an important list of how-to’s (AND how not-to’s) on swaddling, see the MommyGarten.com blogroll for a link to a site that is all about the swaddle.

to be continued…..

Even our baby’s blankets have to multitask these days.

In addition to providing warmth or comfort for baby, and a pink-blue gender clue for admiring strangers, a baby’s blanket ought to earn its keep.  It should make Mommy’s job easier, and baby’s life a little more interesting.

Like a good toy or book or nanny, a good blankie will meet more than just one of your baby’s developmental needs.

Job 1:  Transitional object

The first year of your child’s life brings rapid, sometimes startling changes.  First there’s that whole relocation thing. She liked her original home just fine, although things were getting a little cramped.  So, she moved out — got evicted, really.

Once unpacked, your newborn worked very hard to get accustomed to her new digs, and all those new faces peering at her.  Much to her dismay, baby discovered that big people like schedules, bright lights, sudden sounds, and removing diapers right after she gets ‘em get nice and warm.  Life-altering events awaited her — milestones like  finding her feet, finding out she could walk on them,  hearing the word “no” a lot, then realizing she could say it too, by golly.

Every transition takes your baby farther from … well, farther from you, Mommy.  A blanket or stuffed friend (or ritual, even) that she can hold onto, when she can’t be held by you, will help her to do some of her own consoling for herself.  An important life skill to learn.

The stability of the transitional object (I really mean “exclusivity” I suppose) is important.  Baby is no longer a part of Mommy, but her blankie or doll can be a part of her life that nobody else controls.  That is why you’ll see the sweetest of babies become lionesses when an unauthorized person (by that I mean anyone in the whole universe — you too, granny) touches, looks at too long, or threatens to wash her blankie.

A blankie with a good work ethic will be employed by your household for a long time, perhaps even longer than you think.  When my teenager recently had wisdom tooth surgery, her conscientious doctor sent her home with antibiotics.  I was particularly relieved to have germ-killers — not for the surgery or the stitches, but for the 16 year-old, too frail to machine-wash, see-through blankie waiting at home to companion her through a difficult day, just as it always had.

to be continued……

Your baby is in cahoots with Mother Nature.

Together, they lure you (and any other helpless adult) into feeding, touching, talking to, listening to, and bonding with the newborn members of our species. About twelve inches from target is the best distance for a newborn’s built-in binoculars to see most clearly.

You play into their hands every time you position the highly-favored roundness of your face and your eyes’ rounded irises approximately that distance from your baby’s face — an inevitable consequence of breastfeeding.

Your new infant also appreciates the easy-to-see contrast between light and dark.  That’s why you’ll notice his gaze fixed on your hairline, your eyebrows, and even your moving mouth — you are talking to him during feedings, right?

Your Baby’s Physical Tools

Within the first moments of life outside the womb, your baby has reflexes that help ensure survival.  Some reflexes are strongest in the hours following birth, but subside, then disappear, within days or weeks.  Just in time for mother to bounce back from the labor of … well, labor.  And delivery.  One of the most powerful of these survival tools is the rooting reflex.  When a nipple (or even a finger) brushes by his cheek is touched baby’s mouth opens, and his head turns toward the stimulus, as he searches for the breast.  What comes next, a strong sucking action, is another survival strategy.  Your baby’s perfectly engineered taste bud system and mouth are ready to receive whatever nutrition he manages to extract with all that rooting, hoping, searching, and sucking.

Your Baby’s Psychological Tools

Just as day-to-day Mommy rebounds from the postpartum period, layer by later of Mother Nature’s innate physical protections for the newborn melt away — to be replaced by parenting skills.  Different states of consciousness can be observed (think “hints-on-how-to-handle-me”).  No longer living in a climate-controlled, sound-insulated womb, baby learns to rely on strategies (like falling asleep in a roomful of noisy voices) to ward off sensory overload. Learning to ask to have his needs met is another valiant attempt to communicate.  My work with babies and their parents has shown me that the seemingly complex relationships between new baby and nervous parent could be much simpler, with the addition of a few tools to the parenting kit.  The moms, dads, and caregivers who learn how to observe and recognize the distinct states of consciousness will soon learn how to respond to cues, and therefore, needs.  In the school of life, displeased babies issue loud progress reports.

States of Consciousness

It might seem like there are only two states of mind for a newborn:  crying or not.   Your child is much more interesting than that!

Here are some notes for your upcoming pop quizzes:  To assess what state of consciousness your baby is experiencing, observe the level of physical activity, facial expressions and activity, breathing rhythms, responsiveness to people and things in the environment.  There are six-count-em six distinct states of consciousness that your little one will experience during the day:

• Deep sleep — my mother used to call this “sound asleep.”  That makes sense.  During this state, the baby seems oblivious to sounds, or siblings, and most other stimulation for that matter.  This is what people mean when they say “slept like a baby.”  It’s not a great time for attempting a feeding; it is a great time for caregivers to rest.
• Light sleep — there’s a lot of activity during this kind of sleep.  Fluttering eyes, sucking motions, and body movements in this state can be confusing to new parents.  It’s actually a very normal state that accounts for a lot of newborn sleeping time.
• Drowsy, but awake — I call this “to be determined.”  It really could go either way.  Your baby might sleep more, or wake on up.  He will  respond to stimulation but then again, he might have a good cry.
• Quiet, but alert — Great time for feedings, conversations, hugs, or tapping on the pages of a cardboard book.  An infant’s bright eyes, fully open, signal that he is receptive to paying attention and receiving attention.  If you shake a rattle, and he’ll look at it.  Speak his favorite language (parentese), and he might move his mouth, too.
• Active and alert — Some parents call this fussy.  Baby might be getting hungry, he might want some space, or he might want to be soothed by you.  Observant parents will note that this isn’t the best time for playing, or chatting, but it’s a great time to make sure baby is comfy, and that the environment isn’t overwhelming his senses.
• Crying — Okay, so you’re new at this, and you didn’t quite handle the “fussy” window of opportunity to his liking.  No worries, you’ll get more chances.  And you’ll get better at it.  Just so you’ll know, most babies under 3 months old have crying periods, especially toward the end of the day.  It’s important to respond immediately, knowing that it is impossible to “spoil” a baby under six months of age.  If he can soothe himself, let him.  If he needs your help, give it calmly.  Just be glad he still tells you what’s on his mind.  That will change in about 12 years.

When you respond to your crying baby, your crying baby learns that:

1. It works to use his words (yes, for now, those are his words),
2. His needs are valid (worth speaking up about),
3. You can be trusted, and
4. You are source of comfort in the midst of overwhelm.

Be careful with this process, parents.  You would not want baby to get the wrong impression.  If you don’t pick him up because you think that a young baby can be spoiled, you’re mistaken.  Spoiling and manipulation require a level of brain development and multitasking that your new baby simply does not possess.  Yet.

In the process of attachment, life’s first assignment, the only good outcome is for baby to understand that you are capable of keeping up your end of this bargain he finds himself in.

Simply put:  if he has a problem (hunger, pain, boredom, fatigue, an itchy tag in his onesie), you have a solution.  Like a pendulous, generous breast, or a soothing, rocking motion, or a smiling game, or safety scissors to kill the itchy onesie tag.  If your baby had bigger words, he might quote James Taylor: “you supply the satisfy, I’ll supply the need.”

Think about the future of this infancy and this attachment process:  What would you want your child to believe, understand, know about you when  he becomes a teenager?  A teenager at a party where underage drinking is happening.  A teenager who finds himself in need of a reliable ride home.

In the future, you would want your child to:

1. Use his words to call you and say, “Mom, can you come get me?  Uh … park down the street, though.”
2. Value his safety almost as much as you do (that worth-speaking-up-about thing),
3. Trust that you will not add to the stress of the difficult correct choice he’s in the midst of by showing up yelling, braless, and in your plaid jammies.  Well, in my opinion, it’s a valid choice to show up braless and in your plaid jammies….. just remember the “park down the street” piece of the negotiation.
4. And yes, he needs you to comfort him on the way home, mostly by NOT teachable-ing this moment.

Simply put, you want your lifelong bond with him to supersede his temporary, developmentally-driven bond with his peers.  The foundation for what he believes about himself, you, and this world begins now.  So does the two-way loyalty that will someday insulate against peer pressure.

One year-old attention spans are not still waters, nor do they run deep.  That is why the simplest of imitative and repetitive actions, like pretending to nod and talk along while mother is on the phone, often emerge around the age of 12 or 13 months.

Evolving from the simple to the complex, pretend play unfolds in a succession of events.  The older infant (second half of first year) has sufficient memory and brain development to keep track of objects and current events.  Emphasis on “current.”

The information (actions of other household members like folding towels, or stirring) is readily available, and tools are, as well.  At first, the accuracy of the prop matters — she thinks the best way to imitate your telephone conversation is by taking your real phone out of your real purse, and dialing!  

Later, the brain shifts from copying your behavior to creating her own, substitutes become acceptable —  a toy telephone will do, just as a Popsicle stick will easily stand in for a conductor’s baton.

Soon after, adults can observe play that includes someone or something else, such as using a bottle to feed a favorite doll.  As the toddler’s collection of events and experiences grows larger, there is a parallel expansion of the brain’s ability to grasp and keep information from those events.  The greater array of material (memories, sights, sounds) converts into much more complex scenarios of play.

Your child’s powers of observation minimally grasp and re-iterate an basic interpretation of feeding a baby:  putting a bottle to lips.  Once that imitative act is repeated, enjoyed, improved —  mastered, the child becomes able to orchestrate several factors (including tone of voice, gestures, and actions  – all of which will be repeated, enjoyed, improved, mastered) until a simple feeding becomes a longer sequence of doting on baby — complete with imaginary meal, bath, nap, and storybook.  You’ll observe play schemes that used to consist of the simple, repetitive act of placing a doll in a stroller, for example,  expand into a pretend journeys to the park or the store.