BABYWEARING WEDNESDAY

The Butt Pat

The comment I hear most often from people who don't wear their babies is that they tried, but the baby hated being in a carrier. Usually, they say that baby hated facing in, and they had a sling or other carrier that didn't facilitate out-facing. So they resorted to the Baby Bjorn or gave up babywearing altogether.

I truly believe that all babies like being worn. I also believe that there are good and bad times to wear a baby. Not all babies like being worn in all situations. Some get bored, some are sensitive to certain pressure points, and others do like to face out. If you decide to only buy one baby carrier and you spend all your money on a ring sling but baby prefers to face out, you might be left with a carrier you get very little use out of. That's why being able to try out a carrier before you buy it--even rent it for a week--can make or break your babywearing situation.

I think the keys to making babywearing succeed for both you and your baby are:

• patience
• finding the right time to wear/practice wearing baby
• finding the right position in which to wear baby
• preventing boredom
• butt pats

Patience when babywearing
Both of my kids loved being worn. That's not to say that they didn't cry in the carrier sometimes, though. Baby T would sleep for hours in my Gypsy Mama Bali Baby Stretch wrap, and then wake up screaming his head off. I would pretty much have to get him out of there immediately. And Little M goes on crying sprees where the only thing that does calm him is being worn in a wrap or ring sling. Now, when I first put him in there, he may cry for five to ten minutes. But with a little bouncing and some butt pats, he completely calms down. We'll talk more about the butt pats in a little bit.

You also need to remember that babies cry and get cranky whether they are being worn or not. Sometimes it takes you 20 minutes to settle baby down no matter what you try. So if baby is screaming in the carrier, it doesn't mean she doesn't like it. She's a baby. She might cry. You can try out different timing/positions, but baby might just need to cry for a few minutes. It's not necessarily our job as mothers to stop our babies from crying--sometimes they just need a release, or to communicate--but we can hold them to our hearts and give them love while they are crying, even if we can't stop it. I know listening to baby cry can be downright maddening (and saddening), and I can see it causing a lot of people to quit babywearing. Hearing a baby sob for just one minute feels like 100 minutes. The suggestions below might help troubleshoot the process, though.

Find the right time to wear baby
Baby is not always in the mood to be worn. Getting to know your baby is the best thing you can do to ensure babywearing success. If your baby is crankiest when he's tired, trying out the carrier for the first time when he's rubbing his eyes and yawning may not be ideal. If your baby doesn't like being restricted when wide awake and alert, then don't try babywearing when you would be better off playing with baby on the floor. My babies are both cranky when they're tired, but both needed to be held and rocked to sleep. They also were calmed by swaddling. The feeling of the baby carrier pressed against their backs and their chests pressed against mine soothed them right to sleep.

In fact, Little M could not stay awake in the carrier until recently. When he was awake, he would get a little cranky in it, so I mainly used it for naps. Now he's getting a little better at relaxing in the carrier in a state of curious alertness when he's not sleeping. With Baby T, I used the carrier to get him off his feet and "force" him to relax even when he wanted to play. And by "force," I mean gently urge. Let me explain: Baby T was/is a very energetic kid. He pretty much never stops moving. When he was about a year old, he wouldn't stop moving even when he was tired. And that would make him overstimulated and cranky. So wearing him gave him a chance to get off his feet and relax but still be able to watch everything around him.

Find the right position in which to wear baby
Some babies don't like having their heads covered. Others don't like their legs constricted. Some like their legs dangling, and others love being curled up in the froggy position. Some love snuggling against mom's chest, while others prefer looking out at the world. Some babies are more hot-natured and get warm in a baby wrap or baby carrier.

It's important to try out different positions to find out what works best for your baby. This also involves really getting to know your baby. Baby may like to watch the world, but an out-facing position can be scary and overstimulating. At the same time, baby may get bored if stuck in a front wrap cross carry position on your chest, with limited view to the sides. Knowing different variations and ways to use your baby carrier, or even trying out a different type of carrier, may be all you and baby need to have a great babywearing relationship.

Prevent Boredom
My babies get cranky when they're bored. Little M can only look at the same thing for about 20 minutes before telling me he needs a different outlook. This happens whether he's on the floor, in the jumperoo, in the bouncy chair, or in a baby carrier. Sometimes, watching me clean the kitchen from the wrap bores him. It would bore me too. When we're out and about, going in and out of different stores seeing all kinds of people, or walking in the park, he's in a much better mood, whether he's in the carrier or not.

Butt Pats
When my babies are cranky, there is one thing that always calms them down: bouncing on the exercise ball with a little butt pat added in. I can jump up and down, bounce on the couch, or do calf raises, but it's not the miracle calm that bouncing on the ball is.

A lot of people suggest going out and taking a walk if baby is cranky in a carrier, because the natural swaying motion of mom's walk is soothing to the baby. I say bounce and pat instead.

And here is a little demonstration that puts together all of the above suggestions:

(Now, before anyone says anything about stomach sleeping and Little M all wrapped up while napping, please know I am keeping my eye on him. He is not unattended.)

He was hanging out in the jumperoo while I cooked and cleaned a little. He started getting cranky, and I knew it was time for a nap, so I put him in the Maya Wrap. I can't really cook with him in there, so I decided to work on this blog post--sitting on the exercise ball, bouncing, and regularly typing one-handed so I could pat his butt. Well, he passed out. Then, since the Maya Wrap is great for the easy transfer, I just slipped out of it and set him in the cosleeper. Voila. Sleeping baby and no more crank.

TWO KIDS UNDER TWO

It's harder than I thought

They say your life changes dramatically when you have a baby. They say you don't even know what you're in for until it happens to you. But when I had Baby T, things didn't change that much. I was a homebody anyway. It wasn't like I had to give up gourmet restaurant meals and late nights at the bar. Our idea of a perfect meal was grilling out in our backyard, and I hadn't stayed up past 1 AM since college (before the night I had Baby T, that is). The sleep thing was hard. I do like my sleep, so waking up every 20 minutes with Baby T and going to work the next day was miserable.

But I was happy. In the first three months, I would pack Baby T in the car with some blankets and diapers and head out--to friends' houses, the park, wherever. I remember a friend commenting on how much I was out in the early days. She said she had laid on her couch for the first eight weeks watching bad daytime TV. If I hadn't gotten out of the house, I would have gone crazy. Even though I normally love staying home, there was something about seeing my friends with kids that made me sane. And there was something about proving to the world that I wasn't afraid of living my life even though I had a kid.

Another friend who had her second baby around the same time I had Baby T would call me up, completely overwhelmed, and describe how she hadn't showered in days. She would tell me I was welcome to come over her house, even if it was just to cry. Cry? I thought. I was fine. I showered every day, exercised, and had time to make breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Have an other one? Sure. No sweat.

Flash forward 20 months. Cry all day? Check. Shower only once a week? Check.

Everyone told me how hard it was to have a baby. But no one had told me how hard it was to have two. I mean, people had joked about it. But so many people have two--and three, four, and five--kids, that I figured it couldn't be that bad. Especially if having one baby was so easy. Hell, if the Octomom could do it, I could too.

But the first few weeks at home with both kids was chaos, physically and emotionally. One one hand, all I wanted to do was sit and snuggle with my new Little M. But I felt so guilty for giving love to another baby. On top of it, Baby T was sick the first week, so he was a miserable wreck. In a way, that made it easier, because he didn't move around much. I was able to sit on the couch and nurse both kids.

I cried every day. I knew a lot of women who had had post partum depression with their second child. Now I knew why. I was afraid that I would fall into depression too, because I was so emotional. Everything was harder. When I had had Baby T, I had written down everything he did: every poop, pee, nursing, wakeup, and cry. With two kids under two, though, I could barely even feed Little M, much less record those feelings. I felt a lot of guilt. For both of my kids. I couldn't give Little M the same undivided attention I had given to his big brother, and I couldn't give Baby T the same undivided attention he had once had. Nursing sessions with Little M were cut short when Baby T threw a tantrum, and Baby T wouldn't let the poor kid sleep.

There were days that I struggled, wondering if I could really do this, wondering why people had more than one child, and feeling inadequate because women with less education, money, resources, and support did it all the time. I wish that someone had prepared me a little better. Not that it would have stopped me from having a second child, but because I would have been more prepared. But maybe it's just something you have to experience to believe. I probably would have waved away helpful advice from people telling me how overwhelmed I would be. I mean, I did fine with one baby--how hard could one more be?

You live and learn, I guess.

Luckily, the learning curve was pretty quick. I hate change, but after I fight the initial impetus, I ride the wave pretty easily. My pregnancy hormones must have regulated after two weeks, because the crying jags ended. It wasn't that having two kids got any easier, but the guilt went away. That made it easier to deal with Baby T when he threw a tantrum and Little M when he woke up crying and I couldn't get to him right away because I was bathing Baby T. Once my emotions were in check, I was able to figure it out. We have some little routines that we've established, and I wouldn't be able do it without wearing Little M in a baby carrier for the majority of the day.

And for so long, I kept saying it was so hard because they were so close in age. But then I would talk to a friend who had kids spaced four or five years apart, and she would say how hard it was because the older child now had to be driven to school and extracurricular activities, which left the baby crying in the backseat of the car while mom drove errands.

It is hard for everyone. I'm not a wuss. But I just wish someone would have sat me down and been honest with me about how difficult it was. Then I wouldn't have felt so crazy.