Natural parenting: my first experience

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The author examines the difficulties faced by young parents using a personal example. In most cases, information not from relatives is very useful, because newly-made grandmothers do not always realize what they did consciously at one time, and what was influenced by social attitudes.

Part 1

My son, snoring sweetly at my side, not so long ago turned a year old. During this year I have learned a lot, learned a lot, often by trial and error. And I would like to share my experience with expectant mothers, or with those who have recently become parents. Perhaps my advice and recommendations will come in handy and make their life easier.

I want to warn you right away: all of the following is not a set of some ironclad rules that must be followed, be guided, first of all, by your child, by his needs …

Bathing, temperature control

A lot of useful things in terms of caring for a child can be gleaned from Komarovsky's book "The health of the child and the common sense of his relatives." Very often, they tend to wrap up a newborn baby in 33 diapers ("it will freeze a little"). We ourselves also arranged the tropics for our son at first: after all, babies, barely born, seem completely helpless. However, this is not quite true. They have one very important skill - to adapt to environmental conditions. In other words, what temperature mode you set your child, in this he will be comfortable. The optimum temperature is 18-22 degrees and 50-70% humidity in the room where the child will spend most of his time. Such a temperature regime is a guarantee that the child will not overheat, sleep better, hurt less, and not be afraid of drafts. If your child is atopic, he just needs such a climate, especially during the heating season. In this case, it is not at all necessary to wrap up the child. At a temperature of 21-22 degrees, he can be completely naked. A cap on your head, like socks, does not need to be worn. These accessories are more likely to be needed by a grandmother than a baby.

From the same book, it is worth highlighting the chapter on bathing. A few basic rules:

· You can bathe in a shared bath right from birth. (No need to splurge on a separate baby bath)

· It is not necessary to add potassium permanganate.

· It is enough to wash the bath with baking soda before bathing.

· The baby can be immersed in water without harm to itself at a temperature of 26-36 degrees. Moreover, the cooler the water, the better (then it will sleep more soundly). You need to lower the temperature gradually, first 34, then after a few days 33, etc.

In general, I highly recommend reading this book to all young parents. The only thing you don't need to read there is the section on breastfeeding and vaccinations. I'll explain why a little later.

Organization of daytime dreams for an infant

Newborns sleep most of the time. If your child was born in the cold season, it is best to put him to bed during the day on … the balcony (unless, of course, your windows do not overlook the freeway). Thus, you solve the issue of walking in the fresh air. In addition, in the cold, children usually sleep soundly. Yes, in the first months of babies hearing is not very developed, so do not walk on tiptoe and be afraid to make unnecessary noise.

Shared sleep or separate bed?

A very controversial, or, as they say on the Internet, a holivar topic. Personally, I am a supporter of sleeping together. Although I know that there are children who sleep much better in the crib than with their mother. That is why you should always focus on the child in this matter.

Sleeping together is natural. In nature, female animals always sleep with their young. Babies are born with imperfect thermoregulation, their breathing can be lost during sleep … The mother's body stimulates or triggers mechanisms to regulate the body temperature of a month-old baby, his breathing, awakening cycles, cortisol levels and sleep architecture.

Sharing sleep is convenient. Young children often wake up in their sleep to eat. When the baby sleeps next to you, you can feed him lying down, not getting up anywhere. True, in the first month it was not very convenient for me to feed while lying down, and we slept almost all night dreams in a feeding chair (my son could hang on his chest for hours, even at night, and I just fell asleep waiting for him to finish eating).

Sleeping together is safe. The fear of suffocating or falling asleep on an infant is rooted in Western cultural history. Over the past 500 years, many poor women in Paris, Brussels, Munich and London (and many other cities) confessed in confession to Catholic priests that they strangled their babies in their sleep in order to somehow control the size of the family. Never a mother, unless, of course, she is in a state of alcoholic or other drug intoxication, will not accidentally crush her child in a dream. She sleeps too lightly for that. And the baby also wakes up from any discomfort - it is so laid down by nature, it is necessary for his survival:

“In the first months of life, a child has many needs, but his ability to communicate these needs is limited. Suppose that the child's sleep structure would be the same as that of an adult, and the children would spend more time not in active sleep, but in deep sleep. Then, if they were hungry and needed food, they simply might not wake up. If they were cold and needed warmth, they would also continue to sleep. If they had a stuffy nose, and this would prevent them from breathing, then here too, perhaps, they would not wake up. I feel very strongly that thanks to this "infant" sleep pattern, the infant can communicate his needs, which are necessary for his survival. "(W. & M. Sears" How to put a child to bed ").

You can read more about sleeping together here:

But then again, if your baby sleeps better in his crib from birth, then let him sleep there. Children are different.

Feeding

I fully support breastfeeding (hereinafter GW) of the infant on demand, not on a regimen. It is for this reason that I do not recommend listening to the opinion of Dr. Komarovsky in this matter (and to the opinion of any male doctor, since when a man teaches a woman to breastfeed, it’s ridiculous to say the least). I believe that an infant up to six months (or you can not bother with complementary foods until eight months) does not need to be given anything other than breast milk. Mother's milk satisfies not only hunger, but also thirst, therefore, with HS, on demand, it is not necessary to add water to the child even in the heat. If the newborn hangs on the chest around the clock - this is the norm. The baby's stomach is designed for a constant supply of breast milk; there is no need to take the breast from him and replace it with a nipple. If he stops sucking after 5 minutes, this is also the norm, since all children are different. Night and afternoon feeds are very important - they stimulate milk production.

Milk usually comes in the first three days after birth. How to feed your baby before arrival? Do not be afraid, he will not die of hunger. First, the child is already born with a supply of nutrients for a day or two. As a rule, on the first day after birth, babies are asleep, and they are not at all up to the breast. Secondly, before the arrival of milk, the mother's breast contains the most valuable nutrient fluid that appears even during pregnancy - colostrum. There is not much of it, but enough to satisfy the hunger of a newborn. If you give birth in a maternity hospital, do not allow your child to be supplemented with formula before milk arrives - this spoils the seizure, and then it can be very difficult to establish hepatitis B. A nipple is also not needed for HB on demand. By the way, her grip on the chest can also deteriorate from her. There is absolutely no need to express after each feeding (and then bother with where to put the expressed milk), no matter what the doctors and the newly-made grandmothers, wise with experience, say. Here you can read more about it.

If you have any problems with establishing GW (as a rule, they can be solved in 95% of cases, and I am in favor of solving them, trying all known methods), I highly recommend contacting GW consultants (they are available in almost every city), and also study materials on the following sites:

- Association of Natural Feeding Consultants

- Community of nursing mothers. I especially recommend this section for reading.

- a bilingual (English, Spanish) site for testing medicinal products for compatibility with HS (few doctors know about this resource, and it is very necessary and important - in case of incompatibility of the drug with HS, you can choose a compatible analog).

- a very good article on the nutrition of a nursing mother, if you do not take into account the point about alcohol and its compatibility with HS, since in principle it is not compatible with anything.

- LJ community dedicated to GW

Complementary feeding and the end of GW

I introduced a full-fledged complementary food at about eight months. By this time, the child had a pronounced interest in food, he very willingly tried different types of food. There are two main types of complementary foods: pediatric and educational. The essence of pediatric complementary foods is that you gradually, starting with half a teaspoon, according to a certain scheme, introduce different types of products, replacing breastfeeding. I didn’t want to understand all these schemes, and I didn’t have time to cook separately for the child in order to give him half a spoonful of food. Therefore, I chose pedagogical complementary foods - when the child tries food from the common table. At the same time, complementary feeding itself is not a substitute for breastfeeding - it goes, as it were, in parallel with HB for up to a year, and breast milk remains the main source of food for the child. We follow a healthy diet, so I calmly give my child what I eat myself, and I do not need to cook for him separately. I also tried to give the child food both in pureed form and in small pieces, so that he learns to chew: if you give the child only pureed food, then there will be problems with learning to chew, I know cases when a child with a full set of milk teeth in his mouth does not know how chew food.

As for the end of hepatitis B, we are still far from it: I plan to feed at least two years (by the way, these are the recommendations of the WHO), and then how will it turn out.

And finally: dear nursing mothers, do not be afraid and do not hesitate to feed in public places in public, if you cannot retire! People pay money to admire nursing women in museums. In addition, there are special nursing clothes on sale with feeding secrets that allow you to breastfeed your baby almost unnoticed.

Colic and gas, newborn stool

It is important to understand that colic and gas are not the same thing. Colic is a condition of healthy children in which they cry for a long time and for no apparent reason, and it is very difficult to calm them down. The cause of infant colic is probably not established, there is no remedy for them, you just need to survive.

Massage, a warm diaper on the stomach, laying out a tummy, and pressing the legs to the tummy helps a lot from gaziks. Only the gas outlet tube made life easier for our son. I personally consider grandma's methods, such as dill water and fennel tea, useless, but when a baby cries bitterly in your arms, you are ready to try even deliberately stupid remedies. Try it: what if it helps.

The only thing that you shouldn't do is to put your mother on a strict diet. There is no connection between what the mother eats and the baby's gas formation.

Also, make sure that the baby belches air after feeding. To do this, after he has eaten, he needs to be worn in a column for several minutes.

Now about the fun part. So, baby's chair: what it should be.

If the child is on HB, then the stool can be of any color and consistency, as well as with any frequency. The absence of a chair in infants up to seven days is considered the norm. But with a small amendment: if it does not bother the child. Otherwise, he needs help. And pumping (stimulating the process with various means such as a gas outlet or an enema), and improving the color and consistency (serving a probiotic for several days - there will definitely be no harm from it).

Our son had certain problems with the chair, he had to help him first with microclysters, then with a gas pipe, despite the fact that I was categorically against it. But this was the only thing that helped the son to empty his bowels, so he had to use it. We tried and wait until he goes off in a big way, but after two days the child began to have wild tantrums due to the fact that he was bothered by his stomach, so we tortured the child and performed the procedure at the first sign of anxiety, without waiting for tantrums. Over time (about five months), the child learned to poop himself …

Marya Myslivets