Every day that I am around newborns, I overhear someone say to leave them to cry so they don't become used to being held, spoiled and therefore manipulative. "Moms don't have time to always have their baby in their arms" one doctor told me when I picked up a baby in the nursery that had been crying desperately for over 10 minutes and no one had offered a tender response of consolation, "and you are spoiling the baby, making it harder for the mom when she gets home and has to do so many other things."
Amare un neonato (an excerpt from the book Abbiamo un bambino)
Falling in love with a newborn isn't something that happens all of a sudden. It's always a mixed bag, even for the tenderest new mother. She may be full of fears, feel the weight of the huge responsibility of caring for another, and be extremely tired from all that has just happened. She may be overwhelmed with the sense of loss of her former life and all that she will have to put aside for a period of time.
For as little as we talk about it beforehand, and for how ambiguous and undefined it really is, the job of being a parent is one that is taken on with the least preparation, especially today in our urban lifestyle. Rarely do people have previous experience with taking care of a newborn before they themselves become parents. The love that they feel for their new baby can offer much in this combination of factors.
For example, it must free them the prejudices that we so often hear:
- let her cry or she will always want to be in your arms
- don't spoil her
- put her in her own room from the very beginning so she gets used to it
- don't let her nurse for too long
- don't keep her close during the night
These "recommendations", offered to new parents from all directions, sets up a very difficult scenario that establishes a conflict from the very beginning, a play between opposing forces that is damaging, harmful, toxic.
When parents listen without fear and are open to understanding, they are able to find a harmonious relationship with their child and have little difficulty discovering if she needs to breastfeed some more or needs to be held close, if she is asking for a change of position or wants to hear the music of her mother or father's voices.
Interpreting her wordless language, or her various types of cries, from the first smiles, the first vocalizations, it will all become easier with time.
It is important that the two parents are "united" in searching to interpret the first communications; working to understand them and realize that you have understood what they mean offer a great sense of security to new parents.
In a way, the baby guides them along, and they, at the same time guide her along in a gradual reciprocal process of adaptation.
(page 46, RED, 2004)
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