New Parent Support Group

We have a New Parent Support Group that meets every Friday at lunch time. About 5-10 mothers,2-4 fathers, and 1-2 grandparents come and we talk about sleep, breast-feeding with our lactation consultants, and any other items they wish to discuss. It's a small group and about half of the parents come a few times and some parents come almost all the time. The age range is one week to about 6 months. Parents with older infants support the newer parents. Last week, we discovered that many of the parents in our group had challenges such as short stays in the NICU or other challenges such as difficulty initiating breast-feeding. So it is fair to say that this not a random group of parents but it is a self-selected group of parents who were challenged in the neonatal period and now put forth the effort to come to the office. Maybe they can be described as extra motivated to learn and succeed in helping their babies sleep well and breast-feed.

I raised the subject whether mothers vary in their ability to soothe their babies when fussy or soothe their babies to a drowsy state before sleep. The group seemed to agree that slow rhythmic stroking and rocking was usually more effective than rapid bouncing or patting. But one mother described how the intensity and rapidity of her movements coincided with her baby becoming more fussy and we discussed whether this wa being "attuned" to her baby or whether the she was reacting to the increased fussiness by becoming more stressed herself. Another mother described that she felt her style of soothing was organically part of who she was and although she had tried different methods suggested by books and friends, she ultimately did what she felt comfortable with. I would appreciate comments and observations from our readers on whether you think one style of soothing is better than another. Or is their no "best" way but every mother-baby discovers what works for them?

The group also agreed that Dads sometimes seemed more effective in soothing because they had a more matter-of-fact approach and talked to the babies as if they were adults. "Here's the deal, I'm going to rock you for a while and then you're going to be put down to sleep because it's time to sleep. Got it? So don't give me any problems." Have any of you made similar observations?

Some mothers in the group started when their babies were only a week old and heard from the other moms how they wished they had done "drowsy but awake", "get dads on board", and "brief intervals of wakefulness" earlier. One mother described how she implemented these items early, felt comfortable with some successes, and decided that she would let her baby cry at night to learn some self-soothing for night sleep. Her baby cried for 20 minutes and then slept well at night and has slept well since. She did this at age 4 weeks and her baby is now 5-6 months. There was no gasping or astonished looks but simply smiles and nods. I think that more mothers and fathers should experiment with a few minutes of crying to allow self soothing at night in the newborn period if they feel comfortabledoing this.I pointed to a couple present with 38 week new-born twins and described how when attending to one twin, the other might cry and stop crying and fall asleep before you could get to the crying twin. My impression is that 10-20 minutes of low-level or quiet crying cannot be harmful. But here is a curious observation. After soothing a two-week old following an exam, I put the baby down on the examination table and the baby was whimpering and quietly crying. I said to the mother, let's watch the minute hand and leave your baby for 1-2 minutes as long as the crying does not become loud or strong, to see if your baby might fall asleep. Her immediate response was,"Isn't she crying hard?" I pointed out that hard crying occurs after an immunizations shot and this was quiet crying. So, is it possible that some mothers in the beginning are less able to make the distinction between very quiet crying or whimpering and hard, loud crying and are therefore loath to allow any crying to occur in the context of allowing a child to learn self-soothing?

Please remember that these were not a randomly selected group of parents so what you suggest or observe might not apply to all parents.

Marc

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